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Royal MS 10 E IV
- Record Id:
- 040-002106544
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000277.0x000141
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 10 E IV
- Title:
-
Decretals of Gregory IX with gloss of Bernard of Parma (the 'Smithfield Decretals')
- Scope & Content:
-
The Decretals of Gregory IX, edited by Raymund of Penyafort (or Peñafort); with the glossa ordinaria of Bernard of Parma in the margin. The text is dedicated to the University of Paris (f. 4r), but both the text and gloss were written in Southern France, probably in Toulouse, and include a characteristic southern feature of lemmata underlined in yellow. The Calendarium or table of contents at the beginning (ff. 1v-3v) was added on a separate quire in England.
Decoration:
The manuscript's decoration was executed in two phases. Phase 1 (Toulouse) includes 5 historiated initials in colours and gold at the beginning of rubrics to each book. Initials in red with pen-flourished decoration in purple, or in blue with pen-flourished decoration in red. the subjects of Initials are:
f. 4r, Gregory IX receiving the Decretals (Book 1);
f. 91v, A bishop and his adversary pleading in front of the pope (Book 2);
f. 167r, A layman being expelled from the choir of the church where mass is being celebrated (Book 3);
f. 229v, Marriage (Book 4);
f. 251r, A man and his lawyer pleading in fron of a bishop (Book 5).
Phase 2 includes historiated borders in colours and gold in the Calendarium (ff. 1v-3v); more than 600 bas-de-page narrative scenes in colours added in London, probably on the request of John Batayle, a canon of St Bartholomew's at Smithfield (his arms: see Provenance) (see Bovey 2000 and 2002). Human figures, flowers, monsters, animals, and hybrids in upper margins and between columns, decorative frames around the text, partial borders around the gloss.
The marginal scenes include:
1. Promulgation, production and use of the Decretals (ff. 3v-5v);
2. Biblical stories, including (a) the story of Joseph and his brethren (ff. 6v-28v); (b) the story of Samson (ff. 29r-38r).
3. Animal fables, e. g. the cycle of Renard the Fox (ff. 48v-49v, 53v-56r; Lion as judge (f. 55v); a cycle about rabbits (ff. 60r-64r, 70r); Lion and bear (f. 65r); monkey and bear (f. 66v), monkeys and other animals (ff. 149r-158v)etc.;
4. Hunting scenes (ff. 40r, 41r, 44r, 46r, 48r, 53r, 59r-59v, 159v, 160, 162v, etc.)
5. Miracles of the Virgin, including: (a) the story of Theophilus (ff. 161r-172v); (b) ); (c) The Sacristan and the Knight's Lady and the tale Two Devils in Prison (ff. 185r-191v); (d) A drowning nun rescued by the Virgin (ff. 192r, 192v); (e) Pope Leo (Caesarius) and the Lady (from the Golden Legend) (ff. 193r-195v); (f) The Lost Foot restored (ff. 196r, 196v); (g) St Dunstan's vision (ff. 197v-198v) and some miracles of St Dunstan (ff. 199r-209r); (h) The Painter and the Devil (ff. 209r-201r); (i) The Jew of Bourges (ff. 210v-213v); (k) A story of a monk who robbed a church and was rescued from the stocks by the Virgin (ff. 218r-225v); (I) The Virgin rescuing a drowned monk (ff. 225r-227r); (m and n) the story of the Virgin's Syrup (f. 227v); The story of the Clerk of Chartres (ff. 228r, 228v).
6. Miracles or scenes from the lives of other saints, including: (a) Thais (ff, 177r-184v); (b) St Hubert (ff. 229r-230v); (c) St Eustace (ff. 231r-240v); (d) St Dunstan (ff. 241r-250v); (e) St Mary of Egypt (ff. 263v-290r).
7. Miscellaneous tales and connected scenes, including th following: (a) An uncivil miller punished by having the mill set on fire (?) (f. 70v);(b) A wild man abducting a woman (ff. 72r-75v); (c) story of a lion and a kinght based on the Chevalier an Lion by Chrétien de Troyes (ff. 80v-88r); (d) A knight slaying a wild man and rescuing a lady, who goes off with another knight. The second knight is slain by a third and the woman attacked by bears. (ff. 101r-106v); (e) A clerk with a holy water vessel kisses the cook and robs the pot (ff. 108r-109v); (f) story of the hermit (ff. 113v-118v); (g) Children suckled by a lioness, rescued in a boat, and baptized (ff. 119r-125r); (h) Another story of a hermit (ff. 125v-136v); (i) A housewife sets tasks for her husband or lover; possibly a variant of the Wright's Chaste Wife (ff. 137r-148r); (k) Tricks of a blind man's boy (ff. 217v-220v); (l) The Three Live and Three Dead Kings (ff. 251r-263r); (m) A long series of chivalrous adventures (ff. 290v-314r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002106544 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 10 E IV : Decretals of Gregory IX with gloss of Bernard of Parma (the 'Smithfield Decretals') - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0777]/040-002106544
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
314 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_10_E_IV (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1295
- End Date:
- 1345
- Date Range:
- c 1300-c 1340
- 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:
-
Materials: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 450 x 285 mm (text space: dimensions variable).
Foliation: ff. A + 314 (+ 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end; f. A is a medieval parchment flyleaf).
Collation: Gatherings of 12 leaves, except for: i3, ii13, xx8, xxii10, xxviii4; Catchwords and bifolium signatures.
Layout: Written in two colums of a variable number of lines, with marginal glosses.
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Royal Library binding of brown leather with the arms of George II and a date of 1757.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Southern France (probably Toulouse); ff. 1v-3v, and marginal scenes added in England (London).
Provenance:
John Batayle, a canon of St Bartholomew's at Smithfield, mentioned among other canons in a clerical subsidy roll of 1379 and named in a will of 1382, made by John Chyshull, another canon of St Bartholomew's (see Bovey 2002), probably illuminated for him: the Batayle arms (ff. 3v, 4r, 43v, 47v, 65v, 66r, 75v, 90v, 178v, 179v, 180r).
The Augustinian priory of St Bartholomew's at Smithfield: inscribed, 'Liber domus sancti barthomomei in smyth fylde', 15th century (f. 1v).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): Henrician title 'Decretales' and Westminster inventory number 'no. 1059' (f. 1r), included in the Upper Library at Westminster after the inventory of 1542; in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 9v; and in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James's Palace (see [Edward Bernard], Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), no. 8377, 8378, 8380, or 8388).
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Source of Acquisition:
-
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Administrative Context:
- Southern France (probably Toulouse); ff. 1v-3v, and marginal scenes added in England (London).
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Digitised Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
J. R. Green, Short History of the English People (London, 1893), passim.
J. J. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (London, 1899), passim.
J. A. Herbert, lluminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 230.
R. S. Loomis, 'A Phantom Tale of Female Ingratitude', Modern Philology, 14 (1916/1917), 751-55.
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. 334.
Otto Pächt, 'A Giottesque Episode in English Illumination', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 6 (1943), 51-70 (p. 55).
Joan Evans, English Art 1307-1461, Oxford History of English Art, 5 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949), pp. 33, 41 n. 3.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (London: Penguin, 1954), pp. 118, 124.
K. Varty, ‘Reynard the Fox and the Smithfield Decretals’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institues, 26 (1963), 347-54.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 123.
Virginia Wylie Egbert, The Mediaeval Artist at Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 66, 68, pls 23, 24.
Janet Backhouse, 'Manuscript Sources for the History of Mediaeval Costume', Costume: Journal of the Costume Society, 1 (1968), 9-14 (p. 12).
W. B. Yapp, 'The Birds of English Medieval Manuscripts', Journal of Medieval History, 5 (1979) 315-48 (p. 335).
Peter Murray Jones, Medieval Medical Miniatures (London: British Library, 1984), pp. 62-63, figs 23-24.
Gerhard Schmidt, ''Belehrender' und 'befreinder' Humor: Ein Versuch über die Funktionen des Komischen in der bildenden Kinst des Mittelalters', in Worüber Lacht das Publikum im Theater? Spass und betroffenheit Einst und Heute: Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag von Heinz Kindermann, ed. by M. Dietrich (Vienna: Herman Böhlaus, 1984), pp. 9-39 (p. 25, n. 47, il. 21).
Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 5 (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), I, no. 101.
The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagent England 1200-1400, ed. by Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), p. 382, fig. 130 [exhibition catalogue].
Ewa Śnieżyńska-Stolot, 'Christian Interpretation of the Zodiac in Medieval Psalters', Uměni, 37 (1989), 97-111 (pp. 107, n. 33, 109).
L. L. Brownrigg, 'The Taymouth Hours and the Romance of Beves of Hampton', English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700, 1 (London: British Library, 1989), 222-41 (p. 223).
Michelle P. Brown, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (London: British Library, 1990), pl. 48.
Alison Stones, review of 'Sandler, Lucy Freeman, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, 1: Text and Illustrations, 2: Catalogue', Speculum, 66 (1991) 691-94 (p. 693).
Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion, 1992), pl. 83.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 98.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, 'Pictorial and Verbal Play in the Margins: The Case of British Library, Stowe MS 49', in Illuminating the Book: Makers and Interpreters, ed. by Michelle P. Brown and Scot McKendrick (London: British Library, 1998), pp. 52-68 (fig. 20).
Alixe Bovey, 'Didactic Distractions Framing the Law: British Library Royal MS 10 E IV' (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, Courtauld Institute, 2000).
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H2.1059.
Susan L’Engle and Robert Gibbs, Illuminating the Law: Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge Collections (London: Harvey Miller, 2001), p. 94.
A. Taylor, Textual Situations: Three Medieval Manuscripts and their Readers (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp.137-96.
Alixe Bovey, 'A Pictorial ExLibris in the Smithfield Decretals: John Batayle, Canon of St Bartholomew's, and his Illuminated Law Book', in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 67-91.
Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 56-57, pls 48-49.
Jessica Brantley, 'Images of the Vernacular in the Taymouth Hours', in Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 83-113 (p. 85).
Hilary M. Carey, 'What is the Folded Almanac? The Form and Function of a Key Manuscript Source for Astro-medical Practice in Later Medieval England', Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003), 481-509 (p. 493).
Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 53, pl. 44.
Peter Kidd, Review of 'Decoration and Illustration in Medieval English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 10 (London: British Library, 2002)' in The Library, 7th series, 4 (2003), pp. 304-06.
Pamela Porter, Courtly Love in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), pp. 9, 44.
The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 138.
Peter Murray Jones, 'Image, Word, and Medicine in the Middle Ages', in Visualising Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, ed. by Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds, and Alain Touwaide, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art, 5 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 1-24 (p. 9 n. 13).
Michelle P. Brown, The Holkham Bible: A Facsimile (London, British Library, 2007), p. 16, pl. 16.
Deirdre Jackson, Marvellous to Behold: Miracles in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), pls 39, 40.
Elizabeth Morrison, Beasts: Factual & Fantastic (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 61.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pl. 72.
Scot MacKendrick, John Lowdem, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 108 [exhibition catalogue].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)