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Arundel MS 91
- Record Id:
- 040-002039372
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002039280
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000395.0x00025a
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056010383.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Arundel MS 91
- Title:
- Passionale, 21 September-9 November; Lections on St Nicholas extracted from the Vita Sancti Nicholai translated by John the Deacon of Naples
- Scope & Content:
-
The main part of this manuscript consists of a Passionale, a collection of lives of saints for liturgical reading throughout the year. The lections on St Nicolas (ff. 227r-229v) have been added at an early period. The manuscript was originally a companion volume to Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fell 2. These two manuscripts were part of a set of seven volumes copied at the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury (see Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (1964), p. 42).
Contents:
f. 1v: A table of contents.
ff. 2r-6v: Passio Sancti Matthei apostoli (Passion of St Matthew the apostle).
ff. 6v-9v: Passio Sancti Alexandri episcopi et martiris (Passion of St Alexander).
ff. 9v-11v: Passio Sancti Mauricii sociorumque (Passion of St Maurice and his Companions).
ff. 11v-13v: Miracula eorundem martyrum (Miracles of St Maurice and his Companions).
ff. 13v-16r: Passio Sancti Avitrani (sic) (Passion of St Emmeran of Regensburg).
ff. 16v-20v: Passio Sancti Firmini (Passion of St Fermin).
ff. 20v-23r: Vita Sancte Iustine virginis (Life of St Justina of Antioch).
ff. 23r-26v: Passio Sanctorum Cosme et Damiani (Lives of St Cosmas and St Damian).
ff. 26v-28v: De apparitione Sancti Michaelis (On the Apparition of St Michael), beginning: 'Incipit Sermo in dedicatione Basilice Beati Archangeli Michaelis .iii. kalendas octobris. Memoriam Beati Archangeli Michaelis toto orbe venerandam'.
ff. 28v-31v: Vita Sancti Ieronimi (Life of St Jerome).
ff. 31v-33r: Miracula Sancti Ieronimi (Miracles of St Jerome).
ff. 33r-36r: Passio Sancti Piatonis (Passion of St Piatus of Tournai).
ff. 36r-40r: Vita Sancti Bavonis Confessoris (Life of St Bavo of Ghent).
ff. 40v-47v: Miracula Sancti Bavonis Confessoris (Miracles of St Bavo of Ghent).
ff. 47v-54v: Passio Sancti Leodegari (Passion of St Leodegar of Poitiers).
ff. 54v-57r: Passio of Sancti Caprasii et Sancte Fidis (Passion of St Caprasius of Agen and St Faith).
ff. 57r-78r: Bernard of Angers (fl. 1010-1020), Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis (Miracles of St Faith), beginning with the Epistula ad Fulbertum (Epistle to Fulbert of Chartes) (ff. 57r-58r).
ff. 78r-81v: Passio Sancte Benedicte (Passion of St Benedicta of Laon).
ff. 81v-85r: Passio Sancte Pelagie (Passion of St Pelagia of Jerusalem).
ff. 85r-86r: Passio Sancte Reparate (Passion of St Reparata).
ff. 86r-99r: Passio Sanctorum Dionisii, Rustici et Eleutherii (Passion of St Denis, Rusticus and Eleutherius).
ff. 99r-102r: Passio Sancti Gereonis sociorumque eius (Passion of St Gereon and his Companions).
ff. 102r-107r: Passio Sanctorum Sergii et Bacchi (Passion of St Sergius et St Bacchus).
ff. 107r-108r: Passio Sancti Demetrii (Passion of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki).
ff. 108v-112r: Miracula Sancti Demetrii (Miracles of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki).
ff. 112r-116r: Vita Sancti Ricarii (Life of Saint Richarius).
ff. 116r-119v: Passio Sancti Nicasii (Passion of St Nicaise of Rheims).
ff. 119v-126v: Passio Sanctorum Tharaci, Probi et Andronici (Passion of St Tharacus, St Probus, and St Andronicus).
ff. 126v-145r: Vita Sancti Wilfredi preceded by a prologue (ff. 126v-127r).
ff. 145r-146r: Vita Sancti Venantii (Life of St Venant of Tours).
ff. 146r-148v: Passio Sancti Calixti (Passion of Pope St Calixtus I).
ff. 148v-151r: Anonymous, Revelatio ecclesiae Sancti Michaelis archangeli in Monte qui dicitur Tumba (Revelation of the Church of St Michael the Archangel on the Mountain Called Tuba) beginning: 'Postquam gens Francorum'.
ff. 151r-152v: Passio Sancti Iusti (Passion of St Justus of Canterbury).
ff. 152v-156v: Passio Sanctarum virginum undecim milium (Passion of the eleven thousand virgins).
ff. 156v-158v: Passio Sancti Theodoriti (Passion of St Theodoret of Antioch).
ff. 158v-161v: Vita Sancti Severini (Life of St Severin of Cologne).
ff. 161v-163v: Vita Sanctorum Crispini and Crispiniani (Life of St Crispin and St Crispinian).
ff. 163v-165r: Passio Sanctorum Luciani et Martiniani (Passion of St Lucianus and Martinianus).
ff. 165r-170v: Passio Sanctorum apostolorum Symonis et Iude (Passion of the apostles St Simon and St Judas Thaddaeus).
ff. 170v-171r: Passio Sancti Fidelis (Passio of St Fidelis).
ff. 171r-173v: Vita Sancti Salvi (Life of St Salvius).
ff. 173v-174r: Passio Sancti Marcelli (Passion of St Marcellus of Tangier).
ff. 174r-177r: Passio Sancti Quintini (Passion of St Quentin).
ff. 177r-179r: Miracula Sancti Quintini (Miracles of St Quentin).
ff. 179r-181v: Passio Sancti Foillani (Passion of St Foillan).
ff. 181v-186v: Sermo in festivitate omnium Sanctorum (Sermo for the feast of All Saints).
ff. 186v-188r: Passio Sancti Benigni (Passion of St Benignus of Dijon).
ff. 188r-190r: Passio Sancti Cesarii (Passion of St Caesarius of Terracina).
ff. 190r-195v: Passio Sancti Eustachi sociorumque eius (Passion of St Eustace and his Companions).
ff. 195v-198r: Vita Sancti Rumwoldi (Life of Rumwold of Buckingham).
ff. 198r-206v: Vita Sancti Huberti (Life of St Hubertus).
ff. 206v-210r: Vita Sancti Leonardi (Life of Leonard of Noblac).
ff. 210r-213r: Miracle Sancti Leonardi (Miracles of Leonard of Noblac).
ff. 213r-216v: Vita Sancti Willibrordi (Life of St Willibrord of Utrecht).
ff. 216v-218v: Vita Sancti Winnoci (Life of St Winnocus).
ff. 218v-222v: Passio Sanctorum Claudii, Nicostrati, Simphoriani, Castoris et Simplicii (Passion of St Claudius, Nicostratus, Symphorian, Castorus and Simplicius).
ff. 222v-225r: Passio Sancti Theodori (Passion of St Theodore of Amasea).
ff. 225r-226v: Sermo Athanasii de imagine Dei (Sermon of Athanasius on the Image of God), sermon attributed to St Athanasius of Alexandria (b. c 296, d. 373).
ff. 226v-227r: Sermo de eadem ymagine (Sermon on the Same Image),attributed to St Athanasius of Alexandria.
ff. 227r-229v: Lections extracted from the Vita Sancti Nicholai (Life of St Nicholas)translated by John the Deacon of Naples (fl. late 9th century).
Decoration:
Large historiated, anthropomorphic, or decorated initials at the beginning of each life or passion, mostly in green, blue, purple, and sometimes red or yellow, usually with geometric or foliate decoration, and some also with men, hybrid creatures, animals, and/or animal head terminations; a few simpler in only one or two colours and in simpler patterns. Large and small initials in red, blue, purple, or green, some with penwork decoration. Small simple initials in brown. Rubrics in red or green letters. Later marginal drawings of the bust of a bishop, an animal, and heads (ff. 14r, 86r, 199v).
The subjects of the historiated initials are:
f. 2r: The martyrdom of St Matthew; he kneels before an altar with the hand of God above, and king Eoglippus looking on from the left.
f. 26v: St Michael stands on a dragon and spears it in the mouth.
f. 28v: A naked man climbs the frame of the initial; an archer shoots at a dog-like animal.
f. 31v: St Jerome holds a closed book and gestures to a lion which holds up its paw, with a dragon making up part of the initial.
f. 36r: A monk gives instructions to a boy carrying a bag, and carries a large bundle at a building below: perhaps St Bavo giving away his possessions to build an abbey; dragons or serpents entwined.
f. 40v: Three men, one reclining, and another standing on the shoulders of a third and holding a large shield or circular object decorated with a flower.
f. 47v: A man beating a donkey with a whip and a man beating a bear with a stick.
f. 56v: A crucifixion: the figure on the cross holds a serpent in each hand and his feet are grasped by a monster.
f. 86r: St Denis seated holding a staff and a book, with a naked man and a hybrid creature with a human body, horns, and goat's feet, and dragons or serpents and an animal head entwined in the form of the letter.
f. 107r: The passion of St Demetrius showing his martyrdom, ordered by the Emperor Maximianus, who raises his hand in a speaking gesture. Above him, Demetrius is arrested, while in the centre Lyaeus the gladiator is being killed by Nestor, a volunteer from the stands. Below, Demetrius, lying captive, is killed by a spear, his death ordered by Maximianus as a result of the gladiator's loss.
f. 119v: Tharacus, Probus and Andronicus, three early Christian martyrs who died in the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian.
f. 161v: The passion of Crispin and Crispinian, with one brother already beheaded, the executioner holding the head of the other in his left hand and an upraised sword in his right, and the hand of God above.
f. 179r: The passion of St Folian, a seventh-century Irish missionary to the Franks and founder of a monastery at Fosses; the upper part of the initial shows him travelling on horseback with a companion, and the lower, his martyrdom by a swordsman.
f. 186v: The passion of Benignus, a priest in the time of the Emperor Aurelian; he is seated, holding a closed book in his left hand.
f. 188r: The passion of Caesarius; he watches Lucian (or Julian), shown as a knight, who rides to the top of a mountain and throws himself from its summit as a human sacrifice in honour of Apollo (here only the horse is shown falling). To the left is a roundel of a Lucian offering a sacrifice of an animal, and to the right, spectators watching the suicide. In the panel below, Caesarius is before a seated priest of Apollo being judged for sorcery, and in the lower roundel Caesarius has been sewn into a sack and is being thrown into the sea from a boat.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Arundel Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002039280
040-002039372 - Is part of:
- Arundel MS 1-550 : Arundel Manuscripts
Arundel MS 91 : Passionale, 21 September-9 November; Lections on St Nicholas extracted from the Vita Sancti Nicholai translated by John the Deacon… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002039280[0092]/040-002039372
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Arundel MS 1-550
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056010383.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 325 x 230 mm (text space: 255/65 x 160, in two columns).
Foliation: ff. 229 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Collation: i-xxviii8 (ff. 2-225), xxix4 (ff. 226-229).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum/British Library in-house. Marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Canterbury, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, founded in 598: decoration and script in the Canterbury style (see Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (1954); and Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, (1964), p. 42); perhaps added the near contemporary list of contents on f. 1v; medieval pencil-sketches and faces (e. g., ff. 180v-181r; 127r; 199v); and late 15th-century rubrics in margins (e. g., f. 198r).
? Thomas Howard (b. 1585, d. 1646), 2nd earl of Arundel, 4th earl of Surrey, and 1st earl of Norfolk, art collector and politician.
Henry Howard (b. 1628, d. 1684), 6th duke of Norfolk, presented to the Royal Society in 1667.
The Royal Society, London (its ink stamp: 'Soc. Reg. Lond / ex dono HENR. HOWARD / Norfolciensis.', f. 2; its book-plate with the pencil inscription: 'XIV.6.15', inside upper cover).
Purchased by the British Museum from the Royal Society of London together with 549 other Arundel manuscripts in 1831.
- 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 Manuscripts in The British Museum, New Series, 1 vol. in 2 parts (London: British Museum, 1834-1840), I, part I: The Arundel Manuscripts, pp. 24-26.
The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. by J. Raine, 3 vols, Rolls Series, 71 (London: Rolls Commission, 1887-1894), I, pp. xlix, 161.
F. Wormald, ‘Decorated Initials in English MSS. From A.D. 900 to 1100’, Archaeologia, 91 (1945), 107-35 (pp. 110-11, pls 2b, 8c).
D. Talbot Rice, English Art 871-1100 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 198, 221.
E. B. Garrison, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Italian Painting, 3 vols (Florence: L’impronta, 1953-58), I (1954), fig. 19.
C. R. Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), pp. 26-28, 31-32, 34, 62, 74, 79, 123, pls 15a, 15c, 153, 16e, 19b, 21a, 35c.
T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 40, 53, 157, pl. 6b.
Hugo Buchthal and Francis Wormald, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 15 n. 6.
Otto Pächt, C. R. Dodwell, and Francis Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), p. 170 n. 7.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd ed., Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 42.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 50-51, pls 46a, 46b.
J. J. G. Alexander, Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel 966-1100 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 98 n. 4.
Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the end of the Middle Ages, ed. by Evelyn Antal and John Harthan (London: Routledge and Paul, 1971), pp. 399-400, pl. 233.
Hanns Swarzenski, Monuments of Romanesque Art: The Art of Church Treasures in North-Western Europe, 2nd ed., (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), no. 86, fig. 199.
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Miller, 1975), no. 17, pls 40-41, 43, 44 [with additional bibliography].
J. J. G. Alexander, ‘Scribes as Artists: The Arabesque Initial in Twelfth-Century English Manuscripts’, in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays Presented to N. R. Ker, ed. by M. B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson (London: Scolar Press, 1978), pp. 87-116 (p. 101).
Anne Lawrence, ‘The Influence of Canterbury on the Collection and Production of Manuscripts at Durham in the Anglo-Norman Period’, in The Vanishing Past: Studies of Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology presented to Christopher Hohler, ed. by Alan Borg and Andrew Martindale, BAR International Series, 111 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1981), pp. 95-103 (p. 100).
Anne Lawrence, ‘Manuscripts of Early Anglo-Norman Canterbury’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Canterbury before 1220, ed. by Nicola Coldstream and Peter Draper, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 5, 1979 (Leeds: Maney and Son, 1982), pp. 101-11 (pp. 105, 109).
English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, Hayward Gallery, London 5 April-8 July 1984 (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1984), no. 14.
The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, ed. by Janet Backhouse, D. H. Turner, and Leslie Webster (London: British Museum, 1984), no. 264. [exhibition catalogue].
Francis Wormald, Collected Writings, ed. by J. J. G. Alexander, T. J. Brown, and Joan Gibbs, 2 vols (London: Miller, 1984), I: Studies in Medieval Art from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, pp. 50, 66, 143, 147, 161, 173 n. 12, pls 55, 63, 182, 188 [with additional bibliography].
Francis Wormald, Collected Writings, ed. by J. J. G. Alexander, T. J. Brown, and Joan Gibbs, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1984-1988), II: Studies in English and Continental Art of the Later Middle Ages, pp. 24-25, pl. 13.
Francis Wormald, ‘The Survival of Anglo-Saxon Illumination after the Norman Conquest’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 30 (1944), pp. 127-45, reprinted in British Academy Papers on Anglo-Saxon England, selected by E. G. Stanley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 91-109 (p. 101, pl. 6b).
Deborah Kahn, Canterbury Cathedral and its Romanesque Sculpture (London: Harvey Miller, 1991), pp. 75, 191 n. 66, pls 75, 96-97.
Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, ed. by Luca Robertini, Biblioteca di medioevo latino, 10 (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di studi sull' alto medioevo, 1994), p. 7.
The Book of Sainte Foy, ed. and trans. by Pamela Sheingorn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), p. 28.
Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives: Vita S. Birini, Vita et miracula S. Kenelmi and Vita S. Rumwoldi, ed. and trans. by Rosalind C. Love (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. xxv.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 26.
Richard Gameson, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) p. 95 no. 357.
Richard Gameson, The Earliest Books of Cantebury Cathedral: Manuscripts and Fragments to c. 1200 (London: Bibliographical Society, 2008), p. 27.
Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: University Press, 2009), p. 117 (mistakenly referred to as Arundel 92).
Richard Sharpe and James Willoughby, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (Oxford: The Bodleian Libraries, 2015) «http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mlgb/book/1466/?search_term=Arundel%2091&page_size=500» [accessed 20 September 2016].
Kathleen Doyle and Charlotte Denoël, Medieval Illumination: Manuscript Art in England and France 700-1200 (London: British Library, 2018), also published as Enluminures Médiévales: Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et de la British Library, 700-1200 (Paris : BnF Éditions, 2018), pp. 24, 25, 163. - 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.