Add MS 54180

Extract from the Catalogue of Additions (1998):

'MILLAR BEQUEST. Vol. II. 'La Somme le Roy', a series of moral treatises, written and illuminated in France; end of the 13th cent. French. The text was compiled in 1279 by the Dominican Friar Laurent for King Philippe III of France. Illuminated by the Parisian artist, Maître Honoré (d. bef. 1318). This volume contains eleven of the fifteen original minatures, and two further of its illuminated folios are Cambridge Fitzwilliam Museum MSS. 192 and 368. By the 1290s, when this copy was probably made, a picture cycle of fifteen miniatures was in existence, see L. Delisle, Recherches sur la Librairie de Charles V (1907), pt. i, p. 238. The miniatures served as frontispieces to the fifteen sections of the text. Other early illuminated copies (all French) are Add. 28162 and 39843, Paris B.N. fr. 938 (which belonged to Charles V), and Paris Bibl. Mazarine MS. 870. See E. G. Millar, An Illuminated Manuscript of La Somme le Roy (Roxburghe Club, 1953) and The Parisian Miniaturist Honoré (1959). D. H. Turner, 'The Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts', BMQ, xxxiii, pp. 17-18, frontispiece and pl. III. Incomplete (f. 13v) or illegible ('..n.. et S()ok..16..?', f. 5) ownership inscriptions. Owned by the Prideaux family of Cornwall since at least 1720 (ownership inscription of Edmond Prideaux, 1720, f. 3). Lettered on spine 'MSS. 1275'. On deposit at the British Museum, 1938-1947. Purchased by Millar from Lieutenant-Colonel D. E. Prideaux-Brune, 19 May 1947 (for correspondence relating to the transaction, see Add. 54323, ff. 52-75). Millar's bookplate inside upper board.

Vellum; ff. 208. 183 x 124mm. Sec. fol.: 'commandement aco(m)plist'. ff. 1-4 and 202-208 are early vellum flyleaves, ff. 1, 2 and 208 having acted as pastedowns. Marbled end-papers and modern fly-leaves, that at front bearing a vellum label inscribed 'Edith Mary Millar Memorial MS.'. Gatherings (19) i4, ii18, iii6, iv18, v6, vi18, vii8, viii18, ix10, x16, xi6, xii-xv12, xvi10, xvii16, xviii4, xix2 (modern repairs hamper collation; the leaves bearing the miniatures were, per Millar, supernumerary to the gatherings but are included in the collation). Pricked and ruled (single bounding lines) in lead-point for double columns of 26 lines. Written space 128 x 90mm. Script is a Gothic textualis quadrata. Catchwords and quire signatures (one of each remaining, f. 140v). Paginated, 17th cent. English binding, black morocco, gilt-tooled. Possibly bound for Edmond Prideaux in 1720. Rebacked by W. H. Smith & Son in 1938.

The decoration consists of eleven (originally fifteen) miniatures. The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:

1. f. 5v. Upper compartment: Moses receives and breaks the tablets of the Law (inscribed above 'Comment diex donne ses commandemens a moyses'). Lower compartment: worship of the golden calf (inscribed below 'Comment lypocrite aourent le ueel').

2. f. 10v. The seated Apostles compose the Creed (inscribed below 'Comment li apostre font la credo').

3. f. 14v. The beast of the Apocalypse, trampling a saint and adored by a kneeling man (inscribed above 'Ceste beste senefie le deable' and below 'Ceste beste uaint les sainz et lyopcrite laorent').

4. f. 69v. The Seven Virgins watering the trees of the mystic garden, with small hunting scene below (inscribed below 'Cest li iardins des uertuz. li vii arbre senefient les vii vertuz dont cist liures parle. Li arbre du melieu senefie ihesucrist souz qui croissent les uertuz. Les vii fontaines de cest iardin sont les vii dons du saint esperit qui arousent le iardin. Les vii puceles qui puisent en ces vii fontaines sont les vii peticions de la paternostre qui empetrent les vii dons du saint esperit').

5. f. 86v. Pentecost, the seated Apostles with the dove of the Holy Spirit above (inscribed below 'Comment nostre sires enuoie le saint esperit entre ses apostres').

6. f. 91v. Top left compartment: Prudence, a crowned female figure seated at a lectern and discoursing with 3 seated maidens, 2 of whom hold books (inscribed above 'Prudence'). Top right compartment: Temperance, a crowned female figure standing behind a table and exhorting a maiden to decline a golden cup offered by a kneeling youth (inscribed above 'attrempance'). Bottom left compartment: Fortitude, a crowned female figure standing on the river Tigris and holding a red medallion carrying a lion passant (inscribed below 'force'). Bottom right compartment: Justice,

a crowned female figure enthroned, holding scales and sword (inscribed below 'Justice').

7. f. 97v. Top left compartment: Humility, a crowned female figure standing on a unicorn, holding a white wand and a red medallion carrying a similar figure with a wand (inscribed above 'humilite'). Top right compartment: Ahaziah falls from a tower, typifying Pride (inscribed above 'orgueil' and 'occozias'). Bottom left compartment: the sinner kneels before the draped and furnished altar (inscibed below 'le pecheeur'). Bottom right compartment: the hypocrite kneels before a bare altar and points derisively back at the sinner (inscribed below 'lypocrite').

8. f. 107. Top left compartment: Friendship, a crowned female figure standing on a dragon, holding a red medallion carrying a dove (inscribed above 'Amistie'). Top right compartment: Hatred, a standing hooded man recoils, a hanging lamp to the left (inscribed above 'hely' with an abbreviation bar or an accent above the 'y', unexplained but also found in related volumes; should perhaps read 'haine', see Millar, La Somme le Roy, p. 34). Bottom left compartment: David and Jonathan embrace, typifying friendship, David crowned and youthful, Jonathan elderly and bearded (inscribed below 'Dauid et Jonathas'). Bottom right compartment: Saul threatens David's life, typifying hatred, Saul enthroned and raising an arrow towards a seated harping David (inscribed below 'saul et dauid').

9. f. 121v. Top left compartment: Prowess, a crowned female figure standing on a bull, holding a pink medallion carrying a lion passant (inscribed above 'prouesce'). Top right compartment: Idleness, a ploughman sleeps beside his neglected plough and team (inscribed above 'peresce'). Bottom left compartment: David and Goliath, typifying Prowess (inscribed below 'Dauid' and 'goulie'). Bottom right compartment: Work, a sower (inscribed below 'labeur').

10. f. 136v. Top left compartment: Mercy, a crowned female figure standing on a wolf, holding a pink medallion carrying a hen and chicks. She throws a garment over a semi-naked male figure. The wolf seizes a lamb between the man's legs (inscribed above 'misericorde'). Top right compartment: Avarice, a seated bearded miser in rags transfers gold coins from a small chest to a larger one, on which reclines a devil (inscribed above 'auarice'). Bottom left compartment: Lot, standing outside a battlemented building, receives two winged angels dressed as pilgrims (inscribed below 'Loth qui recoit les angels'). Bottom right compartment: the widow's oil, a standing female figure set before a church-like building pours oil into a vessel (inscribed below 'la bonne fame qui depart luile').

11. f. 188v. Top left compartment: Sobriety, a crowned female figure standing on a bear, to which she points with her right hand, holding a pink medallion carrying a green parrot (inscribed above 'sobriete'). Top right compartment: Gluttony, a youth seated at a full table vomits (inscribed above 'gloutonnie'). Bottom left compartment: A seated man cuts a loaf, whilst a dog waits expectantly, typifying sobriety. An architectural setting links this to the bottom right compartment: Dives and a female companion dine at table. He gestures to his steward who bars the way to Lazarus, dressed as a pilgrim, who enters from the right, two dogs licking the sores on his legs. Beneath the miniature is a compartment containing a depiction of Dives in Hell, in a couldron fanned by two devils with bellows (flanked by the inscription 'le riche homme auer').

The miniature depicting the Last Judgement is missing after f. 51 and that depicting Christ teaching the Apostles the Lord's Prayer is missing after f. 71. These were already gone when the volume was paginated in the 17th cent. A leaf following f. 111, depicting Equity, Cain and Abel (felony), the Ark, and Moses separating fighting men, is now Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS. 192. Another leaf following f. 156, depicting Chastity, Luxury, Judith and Holofernes (typifying chastity) and Joseph and Potiphar's wife (typifying luxury), is now Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS. 368. These leaves were excised after the 17th-cent. pagination (see Millar, ibid., pp. 35-37, 40-41). The figures are in an elegant, courtly style and are set against gilded (often tooled or diapered) grounds. Inscriptions in red and black accompany the miniatures. Decoration consists of a 6-line historiated initial L (f. 6) depicting a seated horned Moses with scroll (inscribed 'Le premier'), and a 7-line historiated initial M (f. 15) depicting St John writing the Apocalypse. These, and the 3-4 line major initials and 2 line minor initials, are in combinations of blue and pink, overworked with white foliate decoration, for the grounds and bodies of the letters, with gilded infills and foliate and zoomorphic decoration, extending into cusped foliate partial borders, some with grotesque or zoomorphic terminals. Litterae notabilores touched in red. Paragraph marks in alternating red and blue, some with decorative flourishes.

Virtues and Vices: Morals: Laurent, Dominican Friar: Honoré, Maître; Parisian artist: Art. Illuminations and Drawings FRENCH: 'La Somme le Roy' by Friar Laurent, illuminated by Maître Honoré: late 13th cent.: Fr.'