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Royal MS 1 C VII
- Record Id:
- 040-002105764
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x00036b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 C VII
- Title:
- The Rochester Bible
- Scope & Content:
-
Part of a Bible containing the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Kings, according to the Vulgate of Jerome. The New Testament section of this manuscript is now Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W. 18; the remainder of the Old Testament section has not survived.
Contents:
ff. i-vi: added leaves from 13th-century service books, some with music including the 'Gloria patri' (f. ii), and the antiphon 'Pastor cecus in gregis medio pacem', under the rubric, 'in natali sancti Thome martyris' (f. vi).
f. 1r: Jerome's prologue to Joshua; incipit: 'Tandem finito'.
f. 2r: capitula to Joshua (32); incipit: 'Promittit Dominus Iosue dicens sicut fui cum Moyse'. Explicit: 'alloquitur cos Iosue'.
f. 2v: Joshua, divided into 32 sections corresponding to the capitula by coloured initial letters.
f. 27r: capitula to Judges (17); incipit: 'Iudas eligitur dux belli.' Explicit: 'vir levites cui contigerit nefas'.
f. 27v: Judges, divided into 20 sections corresponding to the capitula by coloured initial letters, except for the section on Sampson, which is divided in the text into four sections.
f. 52v: Ruth.
f. 55v: Jerome's prologue to the books of Kings; incipit: 'Viginti et duas litteras'.
f. 58r: 1 Kings [1 Samuel], divided into 54 sections by coloured initial letters.
f. 92r: 2 Kings [2 Samuel], divided into 46 sections by coloured initial letters.
f. 120r: 3 Kings [1 Kings], divided into 50 sections by coloured initial letters.
f. 154v: 4 Kings [1 Kings], divided into 34 sections by coloured initial letters.
ff. 184r-189v: added leaves from 14th-century treatises on physical sciences.
Decoration:
f. 1r: inhabited initial 'T'(andem), at the beginning of the prologue to Joshua.
f. 2v: historiated initial 'E'(t factum est) of two men with a book, perhaps Moses giving the book of the law to Joshua, at the beginning of Joshua.
f. 27v: inhabited initial 'P'(ost), of white lions or dogs, at the beginning of Judges.
f. 52v: inhabited initial 'I'(n diebus), of white dragons, at the beginning of Ruth.
f. 55v: zoomorphic initial 'V'(iginti) formed of a dragon, at the beginning of Jerome's prologue to the books of Kings.
f. 58r: historiated initial 'F'(uit) of Elkanah and his two wives, Hannah and Penninah, with inscriptions over their heads: 'Anna', 'Helcana', and 'Fenenna', at the beginning of 1 Kings [1 Samuel].
f. 92r: historiated initial 'F'(actum est) of David playing the harp with two musicians, one on each side, one playing the violin and another playing the horn, at the beginning of 2 Kings [2 Samuel].
f. 120v: inhabited initial 'E'(t rex), with animal heads, at the beginning of 3 Kings [1 Kings].
f. 154v: historiated initial 'P'(raevaricatus est) of the Ascension of Elijah, at the beginning of 4 Kings [1 Kings].
Smaller initials in red, blue, and green, some with penwork decoration (e.g., ff. 14v, 42r, 60v, 70v, 116v, etc.).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002105764 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 C VII : The Rochester Bible - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0038]/040-002105764
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_1_C_VII (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1125
- End Date:
- 1149
- Date Range:
- 2nd quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 395 x 265 mm (text space: 290 x 180 mm)
Foliation: ff. vi + 189 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves; ff. i-vi and 184-189 are medieval parchment flyleaves)
Collation: Gatherings of 8 leaves, numbered at the end of each quire.
Layout: Written in two columns of 31 lines.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England [the cathedral priory of St Andrew, Rochester (?); perhaps to be identified with a Bible in five volumes in the 1202 catalogue of the cathedral library (Royal 5 B XII, f. 2r) described as 'Item Josue. Judicum. Regum. .iiii. In alio Novo' (see Cahn 1982 and Richards 1981)].
Provenance:
Added leaves from service books, 13th century (ff. i-vi); f. vi includes the antiphon 'Pastor cecus in gregis medio pacem', under the rubric, 'in natali sancti Thome martyris', 1st half of the 13th century.
Added leaves from treatises in physical science, 14th century (ff. 184r-189r).
Inscribed 'Thomas' and 'Thomas Greyburn' (?), 15th century (ff. 112v, 184v).
William Barrow, (d. 1429) bishop of Bangor (1418) and of Carlisle (1423); inscribed: 'Willelm[us] p[er]missio[n]e divina Bangorens[is] eps et Milladensis' (f. 184v).
Thomas a Woode [Wodde]: inscribed with his name, 16th century (f. 186v).
The Old Royal Library (English Royal Library): Westminster inventory number 'no. 507' (f. 1r); included in the inventory of the Upper Library at Westminster of 1542 as 'Libri Iosue, Iudicum, et Regnorum scripti' [probably entered the Royal Library at time of the Dissolution of the monasteries].
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Publications:
-
W. R. Tymms and M. D. Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times (London: Day and Sons, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pl. XII.2.
Georg Swarzenski, Die Salzburger Malerei, 2 vols (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1913), I, 75 n. 5.
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), I, pp. 14-15.
Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Walters Art Gallery [exhibition catalogue], ed. by Dorothy Miner (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1949), no. 19, pl. XIII.
C. R. Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 77, pls. 18a, 19a.
T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 63-65, 160-161, 164, 169, pls 18a, 19a.
Otto Pächt, C. R. Dodwell, and Francis Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), p. 170 n. 7.
C. M. Kauffmann, 'The Bury Bible', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 29 (1966), 60-81 (p. 69, pl. 29e).
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), no. 45.
C. M. Kauffmann, The Bible in British Art: 10th to 20th Centuries, Victoria & Albert Museum, exhibition September 1977-January 1978 ([n.p.]: Cowell, 1978), no. 4.
The Benedictines in Britain, British Library Series, 3 (London: British Library, 1980), no. 101, pl. 41 [exhibition catalogue].
Katharine M. Waller, 'The Library, Scriptorium and Community of Rochester Cathedral Priory c. 1080-1150' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Liverpool, 1980), pp. 127, 128, n. 4, 129, nn. 1, 4, 5, 270, 360.
Mary Richards, 'A Decorated Vulgate set from 12th-Century Rochester, England', The Journal of the Walter Art Gallery, 39 (1981), 59-67 (pp. 59, 62-66, fig. 3, 4, 5).
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), no. 33.
English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, Hayward Gallery, London 5 April-8 July 1984 (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1984), no. 24.
Otto Pächt, Buchmalerei des Mittelalters (Munich: Prestel, 1984), p. 28, pl. 138.
Mary Richards, Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 78, part 3 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1988), pp. 19, 62, 79-83.
Henry Shaw, Alphabets and Numbers of the Middle Ages, intro. by Rowan Watson (London: Bracken Books, 1994; originally published as Alphabets, Numerals and Devices of the Middle Ages, London, William Pickering, 1845), pp. 16-17.
English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. by R. Sharpe and others, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London: British Library, 1996), B79.114.
Maylis Baylé, ‘Architecture et enluminure dans le monde normand’, in Manuscrits et enluminures dans le monde normand (Xe-XVe siècles), ed. by Pierre Bouet and Monique Dosdat (Caen: Presses Universitaires, 1999), pp. 51-68 (p. 63).
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 7 (London: British Library, 2000), H2. 755.
Diane J. Reilly, 'French Romanesque Giant Bibles and their English Relatives: Blood Relatives or adopted Children', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 56 (2002), 294-311 (p. 310, pl. 23a).
C. M. Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), pp. 62, 87, 94, pl. 62.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), no. 69.
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 102 [exhibition catalogue].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)