Manuscripts from St-Jacques, Liège [Part II]

St-Jacques, Liège, c.1735 [Source]

Online searches locate several fully or partially digitised manuscripts from St-Jacques, including Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Riant 35 (description here; digitisation here), which has an ownership inscription and title on the front flyleaf:

"Liber monasterij s(an)c(t)i Jacobi leodie(n)s(is)"
Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Riant 35, f. i verso [Source]

and shelfmarks "G.91" and "E.30", comparable to those in the Peter Lombard manuscript (discussed in the previous post), on the first page of text:

[Source]

It also has a note at the back, recording that it was bought in 1426:

"Liber m(ona)sterij s(an)c(t)i Jacobi in i(n)sula leodien(sis)
que(m) acquisivit e[?] p(ri)or de (commun)i bursa ecc(les)ie
in a(n)no d(omi)ni M° cccc xxvj° p(ro) tribus griffonib(us)"
Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Riant 35, f.124r [Source]

Manuscripts from St-Jacques, Liège [Part I]

At the recent TEFAF art fair at Maastricht, one of the items that piqued my curiosity was a very handsome copy of Peter Lombard on the Psalms, offered by Dr Jörn Günther Rare Books. It has an impressive provenance from the early 19th century onwards, but it also had some unsolved clues to its earlier history.

In particular, there are shelfmarks in the upper right corner, and an inscription in the lower margin of the first page:

The Lost Library of Richard Smythe (d.1563)

In connection with some work I am doing for Corpus Christi College, Oxford, I have had reason to look at a number of printed books, including a copy of The Contemplaycion of Synners, printed by Wynkyn de Worde at Westminster in July 1499:

Oxford, Corpus Christi College, Phi.C.1.6, fols.Aiv-Aiir
[By permission of the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford]

The start of the text faces a woodcut depicting the work being presented to Richard Fox, as Bishop of Durham (1494-1501), who would later found Corpus Christi in 1517. The same woodcut appears on the recto of the first leaf and, as can be seen from the inscription in the lower margin, this copy was given to the College by Nathaniel Ellison in 1708.

Oxford, Corpus Christi College, Phi.C.1.6, fols.Ai r

[By permission of the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford]

More interesting is the crossed-through inscription in the upper margin, however:

Oxford, Corpus Christi College, Phi.C.1.6, fols.Ai r

[By permission of the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford]

A Loose Flyleaf in Canberra

Sometimes the most unassuming fragments turn out to be among the most informative. Looking at images of recently-digitised manuscript fragments at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, my eye was caught by a flyleaf with the stencilled crest of Thomas Phillipps on the verso:

[Source]

and on the recto various late-medieval inscriptions:

[Source] 

The Hours of Philip Ringstone

Looking through old photos taken on a visit to Bristol Reference Library I came across my pictures of their MS 11.

Donato and Ercole de Silva

When cataloguing the pre-1500 manuscripts of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia recently, I needed to identify the owner of an Italian ink-stamp, in a copy of Macer, De virtutibus herbarum, in the form of a seal with the legend "COMES DONATUS SILUA":

and so I was pleased to discover that two of the standard reference books are available online:

William Ablard and the Shaftesbury Psalter

[Source]

In October 2012, when complete digitisation of the Shaftesbury Psalter (BL, Lansdowne MS 383) had been put online, the provenance included this:

"William Ablard, 1612: inscription 'Wm Ablardi De Scendlebi [or Skendleby (?), Lincolnshire] ? 1612' (f. 2r)."

I suspect that this was taken directly from the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts:

Here is the inscription:

Source

[enhanced]

An Unrecognised Book of Hours Made for Philip the Good [II] - An Addendum

Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 751, back pastedown (detail)

Anne Korteweg kindly emailed me about my most recent post, and with her permission I am sharing her observations (slightly edited):

An Unrecognised Book of Hours Made for Philip the Good [II]

In the previous post I suggested that a Book of Hours now at Smith College was written for Philip the Good. If he did indeed own it, it did not remain in the ducal collection for very long. There is an inscription that suggests another owner before the end of the 15th century.

On the back pastedown in a fine formal bâtarde script (also, significantly in the present context, known as lettre bourguignon) is an inscription that reads "C'est a moy Vaillant":

Northampton, MA, Smith College, MS. 288, back pastedown 
[All images of this manuscript are from Digital Scriptorium]

Looking for a person of this name with a connection to the Dukes of Burgundy, I find that Léon le Vaillant (d. 1520) was knighted by Charles the Bold (son of Philip the Good).

Ormesby Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral

The name "Ormesby" immediately suggests to any manuscripts specialist the Bodleian Library's wonderful Ormesby Psalter (MS. Douce 366), apparently given to Norwich cathedral by Robert de Ormesby in the first half of the 14th century. But there were at least two other men named Ormesby, and there are at least two other manuscripts inscribed with that name, that belonged to Norwich cathedral in the same century.

One is reasonably well known: Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.4.3, is a 13th-century volume containing several glossed Old Testament books. It has a Norwich Cathedral press-mark "G.xxxiij" and an inscription recording its gift by W. de Ormesby, rector of St Mary in the Marsh, Norwich:

"Liber comunitatis monachor[um] Ecc[lesi]e s[an]c[t]e Trinitatis Nor-
wyci. de dono d[omi]ni .W. de Ormesby Recoris s[an]c[t]e Marie
de Marisco.
In hoc uolumine contine[n]tur. Josue. Iudicum. Ruht [sic].
Regum. Paralipomenon. Esdras. Neemias. glosati."

Robert de Ormesby, sub-prior of Norwich?

The Bishop of Norwich and Robert de Ormesby (?)
(Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 366, fol.9v (Beatus page, detail).

The Ormesby Psalter, one of the greatest treasures of English manuscript illumination, is so-called because of its flyleaf inscription stating that it was the Psalter of brother Robert de Ormesby, monk of Norwich, assigned by him to the choir of the church of the Holy Trinity, Norwich [i.e. the cathedral] to lie before the sub-prior in perpetuity:

"[P]salterium fratris Roberti de Or-
mesby monachi Norwyc[ensis] per eunde[m]
assignatu[m] choro eccl[es]ie s[an]c[t]e Trinitatis
Norwici ad iacendu[m] coram Supp[ri]ore
qui pro tempore fuerit in p[er]petuum"

It has always been a puzzle why Robert gave the manuscript to the sub-prior: if he gave the magnificent manuscript to the cathedral in order to gain favour and recognition, why not give it instead to the bishop or prior?

The 13th-Century Bibles from Norwich

Almost exactly four years ago I posted a reference to an unidentified Bible from Norwich Cathedral, which I found in an 1899 auction catalogue:

In the process of making additions to the new edition of N.R. Ker's Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (about which there will be a future blogpost) I realised that "Clingham" (which I had not been able to identify, and does not appear to be a place-name), must be a mis-reading of "Elingham". Ellingham is about 15 miles south-east of Norwich:

"What Counts as Provenance Evidence?"

There is a detailed analysis of a variety of marks found in a single book here:
https://msuprovenance.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/problems-in-provenance-research/
under the title "What Counts as Provenance Evidence?", on the blog of the Special Collections Department of Michigan State University. It's worth a read. The following is an extract:

[...]

Some markings are relatively straightforward and easy to understand, while others are more mysterious. How many different marks do you see?  Let’s be literal at this stage and refrain from judgment about which particular inscriptions are important for determining provenance.  I count at least 15 different potential provenance markers on these two pages alone.  I’ll highlight those below:

Click to enlarge

[...]

The Post-Medieval Owners of "The Bohun Bible"

The literature on the "Bohun" Bible suggests that the parent volume was written perhaps for a nunnery, perhaps in East Anglia, and was perhaps volume III of a four-volume set of which volume I is now British Library, Royal MS. 1 E.iv.

The last leaf of the parent volume of the dispersed leaves, now Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. bib. b. 4, f. 46v (formerly f. 413v in the parent volume), is inscribed “Richardus Legh me possidet Anno Domini 1613” (the first four words are repeated below this, but are crossed through in both cases); this is presumably Richard Legh, b. 1549(?), of East Hall, High Legh, Cheshire, or Richard Legh, b. 1554, of West Hall, High Legh. Extensive genealogies of these families can be found here.

Relative locations of Lymme, High Legh, and Nether Tabley

Below the Legh inscription on the Bodleian leaf is:

"Ex libris Petri Leicester de Nether-Tabley: qui liber mihi Dono datur a Richardo Maria Dumvill de Limme Armigero, 27 die Martii, Anno Domini 1665.”

John Batayle and the Smithfield Decretals

The Smithfield Decretals (British Library, Royal MS. 10 E.iv) is an exceptionally large (c.450 x 285mm.) and lavish (including more than 600 narrative bas-de-page scenes) copy of the Decretals of Gregory IX with the gloss of Bernard of Parma, thought to have been written in southern France c.1300, with decoration and an extra prefatory quire added in England some decades later.

The BL website has an online description with partial digitization and a description with full digitization.

Source

The main reason I found fault with a recent monograph on the Taymouth Hours is that it tends to treat hypotheses as facts. One of several such hypotheses is the proposal that the Smithfield Decretals was made for man called John Batayle who was a canon of St Bartolomew's, Smithfield, in the last quarter of the 14th century. This may be true, or it may not.

An Unknown MS from Nostell Priory

While in Los Angeles this summer I enquired of several local institutions about their holdings, and got a very helpful response from Emma Roberts at the Los Angeles Public Library, who sent me pictures and other information about their only medieval manuscript. Before I left LA I was able to spend an hour examining and photographing it.

The volume consists of a front flyleaf and a back pastedown; one quire of 8 leaves; one partial quire of 6 leaves; and 12 more individual leaves, some of them consecutive, others isolated, in the remains of its medieval oak binding:

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."

Unrecorded printed book from Oseney

A query on the very useful "can you help?" section of the CERL provenance website reveals a book from Oseney Abbey not recorded in MLGB:

An unrecorded Bible from Norwich

In the Catalogue de la bibliothèque et des collections de feu Crosse, directeur du Journal de conchyliologie dont la vente aux enchères publiques ... du 20 au 30 novembre 1899 ... Paris, lot 27 on p. 32 is the following: