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Egerton MS 2658
- Record Id:
- 032-001983633
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001983633
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000053.0x0002db
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165163149.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 2658
- Title:
-
The Middle English Liber Aureus and Gospel of Nicodemus
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains one of four surviving copies of the Middle English Liber Aureus and Gospel Nicodemus (the others are Manchester, John Rylands Library MS Eng. 895, Stonyhurst College MS xliii, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 207). The text is a narrative of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, drawn from sources that include the Meditationes Vitae Christi (Meditations on the Life of Christ) attributed to St Bonaventure (b. 1221, d. 1274), the apocryphal Evangelium Nicodemi (Gospel of Nicodemus) and the Four Gospels.
The scribe was also responsible for the main hand of Manchester, John Rylands Library MS Eng. 895 and for Dublin, Trinity College, MS 71, a copy of Richard Rolle's English Psalter Commentary (Marx, 2013, xii-xvi).
Contents:
ff. 1r-15v: The Middle English Liber Aureus, based primarily on chapters 69-106 of the Latin Meditationes Vitae Christi attributed to St Bonaventure, ending 'Explicit Liber Aureus de passione et resurreccione Domini per dominum Bonaventuram cardinalem cuius anime propicietur Deus' (Here ends the Golden Book on the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord by Cardinal Bonaventure, on whose soul may God have mercy).
ff. 15v-18r: The Middle English Gospel of Nicodemus, based on chapters 12-27 of the Latin Evangelium Nicodemi, ending 'Now God [for] his muche myght geue vs grace such beleue to haue wherthurg we mowe come to endelees blysse. Amen'.
Decoration:
Large and smaller initials in gold on red and blue grounds with foliate extensions into the margins. Paraph marks in gold with purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. Line-fillers decorated in gold and blue with red pen-flourishing.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001983633", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 2658: The Middle English Liber Aureus and Gospel of Nicodemus" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001983633
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001983633
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165163149.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1430
- End Date:
- 1470
- Date Range:
- Middle of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 335 x 225 mm (text space: 275 x 190 mm).
Foliation: ff. 18 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and + 26 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house (black leather covers).
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
'George Theaker', early 16th century: inscribed 'The History of the Blessed Scriptures. George Theaker' at the end of the text (f. 18r).
Bonamargy Friary, Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, c. 1821: an account by the Revd George Hill (b. 1810, d. 1900) states that it was one of four manuscripts discovered in a wooden chest in the ruins of the friary (Hill, 'The ruins of Bun-na-Mairge', (1860)).
The Boyd Family, 1847: an account by the Revd William Reeves (b. 1815, d. 1892) states that the manuscript had been in the possession of the widow of Ezekiel Davis Boyd (b. 1768, d. 1835) since his death (Reeves, Ecclesiastical antiquities (1847), 282). Bought from Mrs Frances Boyd (b. 1829, d. 1914), widow of General Hugh Boyd (b. 1801, d. 1876), by the British Museum on 21 April 1887 for £5, using the Farnborough Fund (£3,000 bequeathed in 1838 by Charles Long, Baron Farnborough (b. 1761, d. 1838), a cousin of Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829), founder of the collection).
- Publications:
-
Revd William Reeves, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1847), 282-3.
Joseph Huband Smith, 'On an Ancient MS. Said to Have Belonged to the Abbey of Bonamargy', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1836-1869),4 (1847-50), 499-502.
George Hill, ‘The ruins of Bun-na-Mairge in the County of Antrim: gleanings of their history’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 8 (1860), 14–26
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1882-1887 (London: British Museum, 1889), p. 378.
Frank Taylor, 'A Recently Acquired Middle English Manuscript', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 21 (1937), 18-19.
N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 4 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969-92), III, p. 426, n. 1.
A. I. Doyle, 'English Books In and Out of Court from Edward III to Henry VII', in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), 163-82 (p. 173 n. 25).
Robert McCahan, Cahal Dalat, and Glens of Antrim Historical Society, M'Cahan's Local Histories: A Series of Pamphlets on North Antrim and the Glens (1923) (Cushendall, County Antrim, Northern Ireland: The Glens of Antrim Historical Society, 1988), 8-10.
Ralph Hanna, The English manuscripts of Richard Rolle: a descriptive catalogue (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010), pp. 45-6.
William Marx, ed. The Middle English Liber Aureus and Gospel of Nicodemus (Heidelberg: Winter, 2013).
William Marx, ‘The Liber Aureus and Gospel of Nicodemus: a Middle English reading of the Meditationes Vitae Christi’, in The Pseudo-Bonaventuran Lives of Christ: exploring the Middle English tradition, ed. Ian Johnson and Allan F. Westphall, Medieval Church Studies, 24 (Turnholt: Brepols, 2013), 283-310.
Richard Sharpe, ‘Medieval manuscripts found at Bonamargy friary and other hidden manuscripts’, Studia Hibernica 41 (2015), 49–85.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)