A Italian Cistercian Breviary, in Newark, NJ

While in New York recently, I not only crossed the East River to go to Brooklyn, but also crossed the Hudson to go to Newark, New Jersey, because I had been in touch with Nadine Sergejeff at the Public Library, and she had kindly agreed to show me their medieval manuscripts. The one I was most interested to see is a Breviary, briefly described by Bond & Faye as being Cistercian, and perhaps from Lombardy:

The Litany of the Psalter and Passion Sequences Written by Pietro Ursuleo

I have written a few times before about an interesting manuscript written by the scribe Pietro Ursuleo. Today I found a reproduction of a leaf that I had not seen before, from its litany of saints [1]:

A French 13th-Century Psalter at Smith College

Smith College, Northampton, MA, MS. 291, p.13
[All images from Digital Scriptorium]

Smith College, Massachusetts, is the most recent institution to join the Digital Scriptorium consortium. It has digitized 10 medieval manuscripts in their entirety and added them to the site.

I visited Smith for the first time last November, and wrote one post as a result, but have always intended to do more. Here I return to my notes on MS 291, a mid 13th-century Psalter.

A Manuale from the Augustinian Convent of Sts James and Christopher, Steterburg (Lower Saxony)

Having discussed one of Occidental College's two medieval codices in a previous post, we can turn to the other: a fascinating German nuns' book – a manuale – whose origin can be deduced from its textual contents.

But before turning to its origin, what can we tell about its more recent provenance?

Bodleian, MS. Auct. D. 4. 6, revisited

Exactly three years ago I wrote a blog post questioning the often-asserted link between Bodleian, MS. Auct. D. 4. 6 and Roger, abbot of Reading Abbey from 1156 to 1165.

My skepticism has now received support in a recent publication by Nigel Morgan:

"The litany not only contradicts the destination claimed for the book, but also its date. ... In the litany ... there is an erasure of the fourth saint following the three English martyrs Alban, Oswald, and Edmund. There is little doubt that the erasure is of ... Thomas of Canterbury. The litany text ... must therefore be after 1173, and the connection of the book at the time of its making with Abbot Roger and Reading must inevitably be completely abandoned. ... neither Abbot Roger nor his institution was its original destinee"

Nigel J. Morgan, English Monastic Litanies of the Saints after 1000, II: Pontefract–York, Henry Bradshaw Society, 120 (London, 2013), p.33.

The old image-link seems to be broken, but a large version of the image is available here.

A Reims Book of Hours written by Raulinus de Sorcy

A full set of digital images have recently been made available of a Book of Hours of the Use of Reims, now in Houston. It was alluded to at the end of a list of Reims Horae by Jean-Luc Deuffic in 2007, on his Pecia blog, and has recently been blogged about at Houston.

Following the gospel extracts (fol.15r) is the scribal colophon:

"Raulinus de Sorcy scrip-
toris hunc librum scripsit. et
in omnibus complevit. Misereatur sibi deus."