Add MS 40619-40620

The version is that which S. Berger (La Bible francaise au Moyen Age, 1884) styles "La Bible du xiii siècle," although, as P. Meyer pointed out (Romania, xvii, p. 135), the name should not be taken to imply a necessary unity among all its component books. Originally perhaps the most sumptuous of all extant copies in which this translation of the earlier books is preserved, this MS., like MS. francais 899 at the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, has been ruthlessly mutilated by abstraction of miniatures and initials. Other MSS. which contain the earlier books are, at Paris, Arsenal 5056 and Bibl. Nat. fr. 6, 7, at Cambridge, Univ. Lib. Ee. iii. 52, and in the British Museum, Harley MS. 616 (of which the second volume is Add. MS. 41751). The translation of the prophetic books, etc., in the second volume occurs in many more MSS., being used to complete the Bible Historiale of Guyart des Moulins. In the present MS. the text is purely biblical throughout, without the gloss interpolated in the other MSS. in the translation of Genesis, Joshua- Ruth, Job, etc. There are no chapter-summaries nor, except for a brief rubric to Baruch, any prefaces or arguments to books. The numeration of six books of Esdras is unusual, but not unparalleled (see Burney MS. 6), and a virtually identical arrangement in five books, where Ezra and Nehemiah are counted as one, occurs in a fairly large class of Latin MSS., and is perhaps recognised by the ancient stichometry; see Berger, Hist. de la Vulgate (1893), pp. 21, 22, 94, 326, and R. L. Bensly, The Missing Fragment of the Latin Translation of the Fourth Book of Ezra, 1875, pp. 82-86. Cf. also Royal MSS. 1 B. viii, 1 E. i, I E. ix; Burney MS. 4; Harley MSS. 1793, 2814; Add. MS. 32124; but all these MSS., except 1 E. ix, give for 3 Esdras the version printed as "versio altera" in Sabatiers Bibliorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae. In the French the text is conflate, taken partly from the "versio vulgata," partly from the "versio altera" of Sabatier. Vol. I has lost two whole quires (i and xv) and about 48 other leaves, and the majority of the historiated and illuminated initials have been cut out (a few are replaced). Vol. 11 -has lost quires iii, xiii, xiv, xviii, xxiii, xxiv, xxxi and about 19 other leaves, but retains more of the illuminated chapter-initials. Contents:-