Add MS 10044

This manuscript features an illustrated copy of the biblical history in Dutch, the so-called Rijmbijbel, that the Dutch poet Jacob van Maerlant (c. 1220 - c. 1300) made in 1271 at the request of an anonymous friend. Despite its name, the Rijmbijbel is not directly based on the Bible, but on the Historia Scholastica by the French theologian Peter Comestor (d. 1178) and the Bellum Judaicum by the Roman historian Flavius josephus (c. 37 - c. 100) that Van Maerlant translated into Dutch; the work's other title Scolastica is therefore more appropriate. This manuscript contains a nearly complete copy of the text: due to the loss of several folio at the end about a thousand verses are missing. The Rijmbijbel survives in many complete copies and fragments, which indicates that the work was highly popular in the Low Countries. However, this manuscript, although it features only one miniature, belongs to a smaller group of nine illustrated versions of the Rijmbijbel, two of which are in The British Library (the other manuscript is Add MS 10045).

Contents:

ff. 1r-210v: Jacob van Maerlant, Rijmbijbel (inmperfect).

Decoration:

1 two-compartment miniature with colours and in a golden frame (f. 1r): God creating heaven and earth, birds, land animals, and fish (above); God with Adam and Eve at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (below).

1 large initial in red with foliate decoration in green blue and red against a golden background with three three-quarter borders in blue and red with foliate decoration in gold (f. 1r); a marginal decoration of a (faded) anthropomorphic figure, playing bagpipes, with a bird (in colours) fills the empty space of the three three-quarter borders.

14 large initial in gold with red background (f. 21r, 30v, 33r, 34v, 40r, 40v, 94r, 100v, 108v, 114v [features a lion rampant], 125v, 127v, 130r, 169r).

Numerous small initials in blue and red.