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Royal MS 2 B I
- Record Id:
- 040-002105812
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x000399
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 2 B I
- Title:
- Selection of Psalms, with Prayers and Litanies
- Scope & Content:
-
A Selection of Psalms, Litanies and Prayers in Latin, commissioned by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fourth son of Henry IV (1391-1447). The contents are:
ff. 1r-6v, Calendar, of Sarum use, with red-letter feasts of SS. Wulstan, David, Chad, Edward king and martyr., Cuthbert (and transl.), Richard (and transl.), Erkenwald (and transl.), Dunstan, Aldhelni, Augustine, Edmund archbishop (and transl.), Alban, Edith, Edward king and confessor(transl.), Wulfran, Hugh, Edmund king and martyr, and Thomas martyr (and transl., both erased). John of Beverley (May 7, added to the Sarum Calendar in 1416) and John of Bridlington (Oct. 10, can. 1401) are included; and S. Frideswide is noted as 'non Sarum'.
ff. 7r-76r, 66 Psalms, with rubrics, preceded (f. 7r) by the prayer 'Suscipere dignare' and another, and followed by the Litany (with ferial divisions) and a number of prayers. The Psalms are: 1-2, 5-7, 12, 15, 17, 21, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 42, 50, 53-57, 60, 63, 68-71, 76, 84, 85, 87, 91, 101, 108, 118-133, 138-141.
ff. 76v-87r: Litanies. Incipit: 'Hic incipiunt septem psalmi cum letania in honorem beate genitricis semper virginis gloriose Marie.' The Psalms are 18, 44, 45, 86, 131, and with the 'Magnificat' and 'Nunc Dimittis'; the Litany of the Virgin is followed by prayers.
At the end (f. 87v) is the inscription 'Ceste livre est a moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre des seaulmes les quelx jay esleus du saultier'. As far as the word 'gloucestre' it has been partially erased.
The manuscript contains the arms, a half-page miniature and 115 historiated initials. The illuminations are as follows:
f. 7r, The arms of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester: arms of France and England quarterly within a bordure, argent, as borne by the Duke, within the initial and also at the foot of the page. In the latter case the shield is supported by two white antelopes sejant, gorged with ducal coronets or, and surmounted by a helmet and crest, on a chapeau gules turned up with ermine a crowned lion statant gardant or.
f. 8r, Half-page miniature within a full border of foliage on a blue and gold grounf. The miniature depicts a crowned figure, with a smooth face, kneeling before Christ as the Man of Sorrows and supported by a grey-bearded saint, who has golden leg-armour and a high red and gold cap turned up with ermine, and bears in his left hand a tau-cross. Over his surcoat is a stole worn and anointing him, saltire-wise, which suggests imperial dignity. It is probable that the figure kneeling in Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, and that the saint presenting him is Alban. It has also been suggested that the devotee is Henry VI and that the figure presenting him is St Henry the Emperor (Scott 1996; Alexander 1983).
f. 8r, Historiated initial depicting David playing a harp supported by an angel, and with another angel behind.
f. 8v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 9r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f, 9v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 10v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 12v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 13r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 13v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 16r, Historiated initial with a half-figure of the Man of Sorrows
f, 17v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 18v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 19v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 20r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 21v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 22v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 23v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 25r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 26r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 26v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 27r, Two Historiated initials, each with the head of David.
f. 28v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 29v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 30r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 30v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 31v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 32r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 32v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 34v, Historiated initial with the heads of David and Goliath.
f. 35r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 36r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 37r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 38r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 38v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 39v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 40v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 43v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
ff. 44v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 45v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 47r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 47v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 48r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 48v, Two historiated initials, each with the head of David.
f. 49r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 49v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 50r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 50v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 51r, Two historiated initials, each with the head of David.
f. 51v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 52r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f, 52v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 56r, Historiated initial with a man at an altar.
f. 57v, Two historiated initials, each with the head of David.
f. 58r, Historiated initial with a church.
f. 58v, Historiated initial with a church.
f. 59r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 59v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 60r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 60r, Historiated initial with a corpse in a winding sheet.
f. 60v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 61v, Two historiated initials, each with the head of David.
f. 62r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 62v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 63v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 64r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 65r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 65v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 66r, Historiated initial with the triune head of God.
f. 68r, Historiated initial with the bust of a bishop.
f. 69r, Historiated initial with the bust of a tonsured cleric.
f. 70r, Historiated initial with the head of a bishop.
f. 70v, Historiated initial with the head of a tonsured cleric.
f. 71v, Historiated initial with the head of a bishop.
f. 72v, Historiated initial with a Death's head.
f. 73r, Historiated initial with a Tau-cross.
f. 74v, Historiated initial with a duke in a cornet and robes.
f. 74v, Historiated initial with a haloed bishop.
f. 74v, Historiated initial with the Holy Spirit as a dove.
f. 74v, Historiated initial with a tonsured, haloed cleric.
f. 74v, Historiated initial with a bearded king.
f. 75r, Historiated initial with a bishop-saint.
f. 75r, Historiated initial with a monk-saint.
f. 75r, Historiated initial with a king-saint.
f. 75v, Histoiated initial with a bishop-saint.
f. 76r, Historiated initial with God the Father.
f. 76r, Historiated initial with a bishop-saint.
f. 76v, Historiated initial with the Virgin and Child.
f. 77r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 78r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 78v, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 79r, Historiated initial with the head of David.
f. 80r, Historiated initial with the Virgin and Child.
f. 80v, Historiated initial with Simeon in a high priest's mitre.
f. 80v, Historiated initial with triune head of God.
f. 84v, Historiated initial with the Annunciation.
f. 84v, Historiated initial with the Virgin and the Holy Dove.
f. 84v, Historiated initial with the Virgin crowned.
f. 84v, Historiated initial with the Virgin and Child.
f. 85r, Historiated initial with the Virgin.
f. 85r, Historiated initial with David and penitential angel.
f. 85v, Historiated initial with Christopher and the Christ Child.
f. 86v, Historiated initial with St George.
f. 87r, Historiated initial with St Ursula.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002105812 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 2 B I : Selection of Psalms, with Prayers and Litanies - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0078]/040-002105812
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 item
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_2_B_I (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1430
- End Date:
- 1440
- Date Range:
- c 1430-c1440
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 245 x 165 mm (text space: 140 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 87 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Binding: BM/BL in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Humfrey [or Humphrey of Lancaster], duke of Gloucester (b. 1390, d. 1447), prince, soldier, and literary patron, duke of Gloucester from 1414, probably commissioned by him: his arms (the royal arms of England with a bordure argent) (f. 7r), and his half-erased ownership inscription, 'Ceste livre est a moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre des seaulmes les quelx jay esleus du saultier' (f. 87v).
Possibly Henry VI, who had Humfrey's books impounded after the duke's death in 1447. Henry VI kept some of these books for himself (Stratford 1999).
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
The Palaeographic Society: Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions, Second series, ed. by Edward Augustus Bond, Edward Maunde Thompson, and George Frederic Warner, (London: Cloves and Sons, 1884-1894), II, pl. 201.
[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 17.
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, p. 38.
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), IV: English A.D. 1350 to 1400 (1922), pl. 12.
[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 1, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. xvii.
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 35.
Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), p. 90.
Joan Evans, English Art 1307-1461, Oxford History of English Art, 5 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 99, n. 6.
B. L. Ullman, ‘Manuscripts of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester’, in Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Storia e Letteratura, 51 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1955), pp. 345-55 (first publ. in English Historical Review, 52 (1937), 670-72), (p. 353, no. 11).
Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century: Catalogue of an Exhibition held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1970), no. 8A.
J. J. G. Alexander, 'William Abell 'lymnour' and 15th -Century English Illumination', in Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinen 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Artur Rosenauer and Gerold Weber (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1972), pp. 166-72 (p. 169).
Richard Marks and Nigel Morgan, The Golden Age of English Manuscript Painting 1200-1500 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1981), p. 30, fig. XX.
J. J. G. Alexander, 'Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages', in English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 141-62 (p. 150).
J. E. Krochalis, 'The Books and Reading of Henry V and his Circle', The Chaucer Review, 23 (1988), 49-77 (p. 56).
Kathleen Scott, ‘Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts’, in English Manuscript Studies, 1, ed. by Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths (London: British Library, 1989), 19-63 (pp. 28-29, pl. 1).
C. Paul Christianson. 'Evidence for the Study of London's Late Medieval Manuscript-Book Trade', in Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375-1475, ed. by J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 87-108 (p. 98).
Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), no. 83.
David Rundle, 'Two Unnoticed Manuscripts from the Collection of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester: Part I', Bodleian Library Record, 16 (1998), pp. 211-24 (p. 223, n. 14)
Allesandra Petrina, Cultural Politics in Fifteenth-century England: The Case of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp 195-96.
Jenny Stratford, ‘The Early Royal Collections and the Royal Library to 1461,’ in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. III ed. Lotte Hellinga and J.B. Trapp (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1999), six volumes, pp. 255-266 (p. 266).
Nigel Morgan, 'Patrons and Devotional Images in English Art of the International Gothic c.1350-1450', in Reading Texts and Images: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Art and Patronage in Honour of Margaret M. Manion, ed. by Bernard J. Muir (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002), pp. 93-121 (p. 100, fig. 35).
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 146, fig. 132.
St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, ed. by B. C. Barker-Benfield, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 13, 3 vols (London: British Library, 2008), p. 403.
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 32.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- Other manuscripts associated with the Master of Duke Humfrey's Psalms are: Guildhall, Corporation of London Records Office, 'Statuta Antiqua Angliae', f. 137, London, Drapers' Company, Patent of Arms, 10 March 1439, Capetown, South African Public Library, Grey 4 c 5, and Harley 2909 (see Scott 1996).