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Add MS 20787
- Record Id:
- 040-002091131
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002091128
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001555.0x000015
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165145677.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 20787
- Title:
- The Law Code of King Alfonso X
- Scope & Content:
-
This volume contains the Primera Partida (First Part) of the Siete Partidas of King Alfonso X of Castile, Leon and Galicia (r. 1252-1284), a law code in seven parts, each divided into titles and then into laws. It is the most comprehensive of three major law codes compiled by him.
This manuscript contains the earliest known copy of the text and it is also the only surviving illuminated copy.
Contents:
ff. 1r-119v: Siete Partidas of King Alfonso X of Castile, Primera Partida, entitled in the manuscript, 'Sancti spiritus assit nobis gracia', with a prologue (f. 1r), the rubric, 'Este es el prologo del Libro del fuero de las leyes que fizo el noble don alffonso Rey de Castiella de Toledo de Leon de hallizia de Sevilla de Cordova de Murcia de Jaen et del Algarve...'.
f. 120r-v: Added pen-trials and inscriptions.
Decoration:
20 miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 1r, 1v, 54r, 60v, 62v, 75r, 79v, 80v, 82v, 86v, 89r, 92v, 96v, 101v, 104v, 105v, 106v, 112v, 114r, 117v).
7 historiated initials in colours and gold, some with pen-flourishing in red and blue, some with blue and rose frames (ff. 1r, 1v, 3r, 3v, 4r, 16v, 37r).
Large initials in red or blue with red and blue pen-flourishing. Rubrics in red. Maniculae.
The subjects of the miniatures are:
f.1r: King Alfonso enthroned, surrounded by his court and his subjects.
f. 1v: (miniature) King Alfonso in a curtained room dictates to three seated figures, one of whom, a scribe, is writing in a book; outside is a city; God blesses them from above; (initial) King Alfonso kneels and presents the book to God.
f. 3r: God holding Christ on the cross with a dove flying down in a composition known as the Throne of Grace.
f. 3v: A bishop addressing a group of seated figures, teaching them the Articles of Faith.
f. 4r: A bishop baptising a child.
f. 16v: The Pope, seated, holding a key, with bishops.
f. 37r: A bishop performing an exorcism, with a devil emerging from the mouth of a writhing figure, while others pray and assist.
f. 54r: The Pope blessing kneeling monks, who raise their hands in prayer.
f. 60v: A group of clerics, one in a hair shirt, one with a staff and bag ready to go on pilgrimage, making vows to God and the angels above.
f. 62v: An excommunication ceremony, with a bishop and two priests putting out their candles, a man holding a bucket of water, and a bell above.
f. 75r: The king instructing men who are building a church, at the beginning of the section on how churches should be made.
f. 79v: The king instructing a group of bishops on the privileges and freedoms of the Church.
f. 80v: The king instructing members of religious orders on their duties.
f. 82v: A burial, with a bishop and clergy blessing a coffin.
f. 86v: The king gestures to a stack of money chests, illustrating things of the Church that should not be alienated.
f. 89r: The king takes a layman by the hand and gestures to the bishops, bestowing the right of patronage.
f. 92v: A bishop instruct clergy on receiving gifts.
f. 96v: Christ above, and a bishop watch as priests commit the offence of simony or selling of church offices, signified by pointing to heaven and holding gold chalices.
f. 101v: Sacrilegious knights desecrating a church and attacking priests with swords.
f. 104v: People bringing their first fruits of livestock and crops to church as an offering to God.
f. 105v: Priests receiving offerings from men and women before an altar.
f. 106v: People tithing grain, livestock and other produce to a priest who is holding up his hand counting.
f. 112v: Clergy receiving the people's gifts of sheep, grain and chests of money.
f. 114r: Clergy giving gifts and contributions to a prelate.
f. 117v: A bishop and priests in full regalia celebrating mass on a feast day.
The manuscript was decorated in the same workshop as the 'Cantigas de Santa María': El Escorial, Biblioteca del Monasterio,ms escurialense T-I-1, 'Codice Rico', according to Bonet, Primera Partida (1975), pp. XX-XXI.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002091128
040-002091131 - Is part of:
- Add MS 20785-21005 : Charles, Lord Stuart de Rothesay, G.C.B.
Add MS 20787 : The Law Code of King Alfonso X - Hierarchy:
- 032-002091128[0003]/040-002091131
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 20785-21005
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_20787 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Spanish
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1250
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 360 x 240 mm (150 x 220 mm) written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 120 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Collation: i-xii10 (ff. 1-120). Catchwords.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. French 19th-century red morocco with gold tooling and Rothesay heraldic stamp in the centre.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Spain (Castille or Leon).
Provenance:
Alfonso X, King of Castile and Leon, (reigned 1252-1284), probably produced in his royal scriptorium, according to Herriott, 'A Thirteenth Century Manuscript' (1938).
'Juan Hapo': his name inscribed in a hand, possibly of the 15th century, with notes and pen-trials in Spanish and Latin (f. 120v).
The Bishop of Cuenca, perhaps owned by him: inscribed, 'episcopus Con[c]hen[sis] D. R.' and 'Vester D. conchen[sis]' in a ?16th-century hand (f. 120v).
Charles Stuart, Baron Stuart de Rothesay (b. 1779, d. 1845), diplomat and collector, his heraldic stamp on the binding and in his sale, Sotheby's, May 1855, lot 241 (a note on f. [ii] recto); bought by the British Museum.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1854-1860 (London: British Museum, 1875), p. 261.
Pascual de Gayangos, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1875-1893, repr. 1976), II, p. 36.
J. Homer Herriott, 'A Thirteenth Century Manuscript of the Primera partida', Speculum, 13 (1938), 278-94 (pp. 286-94).
Juan Antonio Arias Bonet, Alfonso X el Sabio: Primera Partida según el manuscrito Add. 20.787 del British Museum (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1975), [an edition of this manuscript].
Antonio Garcia y Garcia, 'Tradicion manuscrita de las Siete Partida', in Espana y Europa, un pasado juridico comun, ed by Antonio Perez Martin, Actas del I Simposio Interncional del Derecho Comun, Murcia, 26-28 March 1985 (Murcia: Publicaciones del Instituo de Derecho Comun, Universidad de Murcia, 1986), 655-99 (no. 60, p. 686).
M Sánchez Mariana, 'El Libro en la Baja Edad Media. Reino de Castilla', Biblioteca del Libro, 54 (1993), p. 195.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 73.
Jerry R. Craddock, The Legislative Works of Alfonso X, el Sabio: a critical bibliography (London: Grant & Cutler, 1986), p. 47, Ah41.
Las Siete Partidas, trans. by Samuel Parsons Scott, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), [a translation of the text].
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), pls 38, 39.
'Bibliografía Española de Textos Antiguos' (Philobiblon bibliographical database), MS 1112, online at http://pb.lib.berkeley.edu/xtf/servlet/org.cdlib.xtf.dynaXML.DynaXML?source=/BETA/Display/1112BETA.MsEd.xml&style=MsEd.xsl&gobk=http%3A%2F%2Fpb.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fxtf%2Fservlet%2Forg.cdlib.xtf.crossQuery.CrossQuery%3Frmode%3Dphilo%26everyone%3D20787%26city%3D%20%26library%3D%26shelfmark%3D%26subject%3D%26text-join%3Dor%26browseout%3Dlibrary%26sort%3Dcity [accessed 11.11.2021].
Alberto J. Canto Garcia and others, Alfonso el Sabio (Murcia: Novograf, 2009), pp. 222, 502-04 [exhibition catalogue].
Joseph O'Callaghan, Alfonso X, the Justinian of his Age: Law and Justice in Thirteenth-century Castile (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2019), pp. ii, iv, 4, 13.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)