Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??

Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...

Add MS 74754

Record Id:

032-000200124

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-000200124

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000035.0x00004c

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 74754

Title:

Psalter and Book of Hours, Use of Sarum 'The Small Bedford Hours'

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 4r-72r: Mixed hours of the Virgin, of the Cross and of the Compassion, with suffrages after lauds, including St George, St Thomas Beckett (scratched out) and St Catherine;

ff. 74r-81v: Seven Penitential Psalms;

ff. 81v-88v: Gradual Psalms (Psalms 119-133);

ff. 88v-127v: Office of the Dead;

ff. 129r-156v: Various prayers;

ff. 158r-338r: Psalter;

ff. 338r-355r: Canticles, incipit, 'Confitebor tibi domine quoniam iratus es';

ff. 355r-368v: Litanies and prayers;

ff. 369r-385r: Psalms and prayers, incipit 'Domine quid multiplicati sunt' (Psalm 3:2), explicit 'quoniam ego servus tuus sum' (Psalm 142);

ff. 385v-391v: ‘Omnipotens et clementissime Deus inmensa potestas’;

ff. 391v-395v: Prayer attributed to St Augustine, ‘Si quis habuerit tribulacionem paupertatem vel infirmitatem’, incipit, ‘Dulcissime domine Ihesu Christe vere Deus’;

f. 396r: ‘Benedictio carnis in Pascha’; ‘Benedictio carnium, caser, butari, ovorum sive pastillarum in Pascha’, added in a 15th- century cursive hand.

Decoration:

Five historiated initials with three-sided foliate borders in colours with gold, initials in black with gold pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. Partial borders, rubrics and line-fillers in blue and gold.

The subjects of the historiated initials are:

f. 51r: The circumcision of Christ, ‘D'(eus in adiutorium);

f. 201r: King David praying, ‘D'(ixi custodiam vias meas)’, border with Bedford's tree-stock badge;

f. 369r: Quartered blue and red, probably the erased arms of France and England, ‘D'(omine quid multiplicati sunt);

f. 385v. Quartered blue and red, probably the erased arms of France and England, 'O'(mnipotens);

f. 392r: Man of Sorrows, ‘D(ulcissime Domine)’, border with Bedford's tree-stock badge.

19 folios have been excised, some with historiated initials, and they have been replaced with paper folios, on which has been written a short description of the subject of the initial or the missing text in pencil, probably by Bosquet.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-000200124", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 74754: Psalter and Book of Hours, Use of Sarum 'The Small Bedford Hours'" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-000200124

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-000200124

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

A parchment codex, 396 folios

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1423

End Date:

1435

Date Range:

1423-1435

Era:

Access:

Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.

Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.

Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.

If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.

This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.

User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Material: parchment.

Dimensions: 135 x 90 mm (text space 45 x 80 mm);

Foliation: ff. 396 (ff. A.i-A.x are a modern paper booklet, pasted in at the beginning and ff. 1-3 are modern paper flyleaves + 10 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 9 at the end).

Layout: 18 lines, written in one column.

Script: Gothic.

Scribe: Perhaps two scribes: script and colour of ink and ruling and quality of parchment change on f. 361.

Binding: Early 20th-century binding by Stoakley, of Cambridge. Brown morocco, with five raised bands. Gold tooled title and gold tooling on the inside covers.

Custodial History:

Origin: France (Paris).

Probably made for John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford (b. 1389, d.1435): the tree-stock, which appears on ff. 201 and 392 was one of his badges, and the two partially erased initials on ff. 369 and 385v probably contained the arms of England and France. The special prayers include words that indicate that the owner was of royal blood and that the owner had a consort named Anne. Bedford was married to Anne of Burgundy in 1423, and she died in 1432.

Morgan Williams: fifteenth-century ownership inscription on f. 396v.

Eustace Fulcrand Bosanquet (b. 1871, d. 1940), historian and author, his notes and initials on ff. i recto and [ii]; he had it examined and rearranged by Christopher Wordsworth (b. 1848, d. 1938), librarian and canon of Salisbury Cathedral, then rebound (probably by Stoakley, of Cambridge, whose name is printed on a flyleaf, f. [i] verso); his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 24 January 1944, lot 177, bought by Foyle.

William A. Foyle (b.1885, d. 1963), bibliophile of Beeleigh Abbey, his notes on ff. i verso-x verso (also numbered (1) to (20)) and his armorial bookplate is pasted inside the front cover.

Purchased by the British Library from Christie’s in 2000.

Former Internal References:

Deposit 9911*

Publications:

Eustace Fulcrand Bosanquet, ‘The personal prayer-book of John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford’, Reprint from theTransactions of the Bibliographical Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), 148-54.

Catherine Reynolds, 'The Workshop of the Master of the Duke of Bedford: Definitions and Identities', in Patrons, Authors and Workshops: Books and Book Production in Paris around 1400, ed. by Peter Ainsworth and Godofred Croenen (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), pp. 437-72 (p. 437).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)