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Add MS 15603
- Record Id:
- 032-002087390
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002087390
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000052.0x00031a
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056124247.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 15603
- Title:
- Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-v: A fragment of a Missal, written in the 2nd quarter of the 12th century.
ff. 2r-184r: Isidore of Seville (d. 636), bishop of Seville, Etymologiae (Etymologies), followed by a versified colophon of four lines, beginning: 'Laudetur christus nostros qui perficit actus / Et sumat grates quia nobis contulit artes / Non quas debemus sed quas offerre valemus / Auxilio cuius finem capit iste meatus'.
ff. 184r-v: Anonymous verses entitled 'Versus amici missi ad amicum', beginning: 'Tristis et obtusa quid adhuc torpes mea musa? / Vultum commuta, precingere, curre, salute / Fratrem G nunc ut quondam tibi fidum'.
f. 184v: Two tables entitled 'Manus dextera obediencie' and 'Manus sinistra obedencie', beginning: 'Brevitas laboris: possibile, facile, necessarium/ Remedium fatigationis: idoneum, gratum, salubre'.
f. 184v: A fragment of a letter from Pope Clement IV (b. c 1195, d. 1268), to the King of Sicily, Charles d'Anjou, concerning the exemption of Cistercian monasteries from taxes collected in 'regno Francie tuo' (your Kingdom of France), beginning: 'Clemens episcopus servus servorum Dei, dilectissimo filio regi Sicilie illustrissimo', copied in an early 14th-century chancery script.
Copied by the same scribe as Add MS 10943, also from the abbey of Notre-Dame de La Charité (according to Turcan-Verkerk, Les manuscrits de la Charité (2000))
Decoration:
A historiated initial of a bishop (Isidore of Seville) writing (f. 1r). A full-page framed ink diagram of the degree of consanguinity, including geometrical features, human figures in a medallion and animal figures (f. 93r). A geometrical diagram of the generations in red and green (f. 94r). A diagram of a labyrinth in red and green (f. 142v). Decorated initials with penwork and pen flourished decoration throughout in red, blue and green (e.g., ff. 8v, 29r). Pen-flourishing in black with red highlights added later (e. g., 99v, 111r). The same illuminator has added marginal decorations in black with red highlights, some with zoomorphic features (e. g., ff. 111r, 114r, 121v, 123r, 138r, 144r). A lion and a leopard (lower margin, f. 113v). Initials highlighted in red. Paraphs in red and blue. Rubric in red. Running titles in brown.
The historiated initial on f. 1r is probably by the artist who painted the initial in Yates Thompson MS 17 (f. 42v) and illuminated Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense MS 1077 (see Turcan-Verkerk, Les manuscrits de la Charité (2000), p. 123).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002087390", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 15603: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002087390
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002087390
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056124247.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1175
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 245 x 350mm (text space: 170 x 255 mm).
Foliation: ff. 184 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 at the end); f. 1 is a medieval parchment flyleaf.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Pre-1600. Probably original, parchment over oak boards, clasp and bosses missing; 'Vélin' written on the spine in a 17th-century hand.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Neuvelle-lès-la-Charité, Eastern France.
Provenance:
The Cistercian abbey of Notre-Dame de La Charité, Neuvelle-lès-la-Charité, founded in 1133: the abbey's ownership inscription: 'Liber Sancte Marie Caritate' on f. 184v, an added parchment bookmark (f. 142, lower margin) and the shelfmark '116'; cited in its catalogue of 1717 as 'Un manuscrit latin, en vélin, in-folio, qui est l'ouvrage des Origines ou Ethymologies, divisé en vingt livres, de saint Isidore, évêque de Séville en Espagne, mort en 636' (see Turcan-Verkerk, Les manuscrits de la Charité (2000), p. 122).
Charles Motteley (b. 1778, d. 1850), bibliophile and Paris bookseller: purchased from him by Rodd (inscription, f. 1r).
Bought by the British Museum from Charles Motteley on 8 November 1845.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years 1841-1845 (London: British Museum, 1850), p. 31.
Jules Gauthier, 'Catalogue des manuscrits de l'abbaye cistercienne de La Charité au diocèse de Besançon', in Bibliothèque de l'école des Chartes, 42 (1881), 19-29 (pp. 20-21).
W. H. James Weale, Montague Rhodes James, S. C. Cockerell, and others, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts (Nos. 51 to 100) in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (Cambridge: University Press, 1902), p. 132.
John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner, 1984), no. 119.
W. Cahn, 'A. Bondéelle-Souchier, Bibliothèques cisterciennes dans la France médiévale: répertoire des abbayes d'hommes', Cîteaux, 43 (1992), 473-74 (p. 474) [review].
Anne-Marie Turcan-Verkerk, Les manuscrits de La Charité, Cheminon et Montier-en-Argonne. Collections cisterciennes et voies de transmission des textes (IXe-XIXe siècles), Documents, études et répertoires, 59, Histoire des bibliothèques médiévales, 10 (Paris: CNRS, 2000), pp. 122-24.
Anne-Marie Turcan-Verkerk, 'Inventaire-Charité (La), Notre-Dame, O. Cist. (H)-1757', in Libraria: Pour l'histoire des bibliothèques anciennes (Paris: Institut de Recherches et d'Histoire des Textes, 2012) [accessed 13 February 2017].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.