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Royal MS 12 C XIX
- Record Id:
- 040-002106732
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000277.0x0002d8
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 12 C XIX
- Title:
- Bestiary with theological texts
- Scope & Content:
-
The manuscript is a direct copy of the Worksop Bestiary, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M. 81 (see Two East Anglian Picture Books: A Facsimile of the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary and Bodleian Ms. Ashmole 1504, ed. by Nicholas Barker (London: The Roxburgh Club, 1988), p. 5, who characterises them as 'paired manuscripts'. See also Baxter 1998, p. 110.
Contents:
ff. 1r-1v: Honorius Augustinensis, Imago mundi (excerpts), chapters De forma, and De creatione; incipit: 'Mundus dicitur', and (anonymous) De etatibus mundi, incipit: 'Prima etas in exordio sui'.
ff. 2r-2v: Bible, Genesis 2, 1-17, incipit: 'Igitur perfecti sunt celi et terra'; imperfect at the end.
ff. 3r-4r: Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 12, chapters 1 and 7, De pecoribus et iumentis and De avibus (extracts); imperfect at the beginning.
ff. 4-5v: 'Sermo qualiter peccator deo placere valeat'; incipit: 'Quocienscumque peccator uult factori suo placere'.
ff. 6r-94v: Bestiary; rubric: 'Incipit liber de naturis bestiarum et earum significationibus'; incipit: 'Bestiarum uocabulum proprie conuenit'. The first four articles in this text are Leo, Autalops, Monocentaurus, Herina. Explicit: 'buxum uero de ligno composito'. At ff. 22v, 24r are interspersed a few verses, incipit: 'Ossibus extruitur elephas dorsoque camelus' and 'Grandior in tauro virtus sed paruula vulpes'.
ff. 94v-100r: Geographical notes, excerpts from Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 14, chapters 1 and 2, with part of chapters 3-5; incipit. 'Terra est in media mundi regione'.
ff. 100r-102v: Sermon on allegory; incipit: 'Quociens, fratres karissimi, lectiones de testamento'.
ff. l02v-108r: Medical recipes in French; incipit: 'Jute a sain e a emferm pur estre soluble'.
ff. 108v-112r: Medical recipes in Latin; incipit: 'Ad conficiendum diaperetrum ista conuentunt'.
Decoration:
According to Morgan 1982, the manuscript is stylistically related to the manuscripts of the Life of St Cuthbert, Cambridge, Trinity College o. I. 64, and Yates Thompson 26 (formerly Additional 39943), produced in Durham. Illustrations are classed as transitional between First and Second Families of Bestiaries by James (1928).
80 miniatures in colours and gold, some with punchwork, depicting animals: Lions (f. 6r); Antelope (f. 7v); Tiger (f. 8r); Centaur (f. 8v); Hedgehogs (f. 8v); Unicorn (f. 9v); Beaver (f. 10v); Hyena (f. 11v); Hydrus (f. 12v); Hydra (f. 13r); Goats (f. 14r); Satyr (f. 15v); Panther (f. 16r); Wolf (f. 19r); Dog: the story of King Garamantes (f. 21r); Stag (f. 23r); Weasel (f. 23v); Ants (f. 24v); Ibex (f. 26r); Fire-stones (f. 26v); Ostrich (f. 27r); Tiger (f. 28r); Leopard (f. 29v); Manticore (f. 29v); Parandrus (f. 30r); Yale (f. 30r); Sheep (f. 30v); Ram, Lamb (f. 31r); He-Goat (f. 31v); Bull (bullock) (f. 32r); Ox (f. 32v); Camel (f. 33r); Horse (f. 34r); Cats (f. 36v); Mouse (f. 37r); Mole (f. 37r); Leucrota (f. 37v); Eagles (f. 38r); Vultures (f. 38v); Swan (f. 39v); Cranes (f. 40r); Parrot (f. 40v); Storks (f. 41r); Halcyon (f. 41v); Partridge (f. 42r); Hawk (f. 42v); Magpies (f. 42v); Ravens (f. 43r); Crow (f. 43r); Swallow (f. 44r); Quail (f. 44v); Bees (f. 45r); Caladrius (f. 47v); Pelicans (f. 48v); Nycticorax (f. 49r); Phoenix (f. 49v); Hoopoe (f. 50v); Ibis (f. 51r); Coot (f. 52r); Partridge (f. 52v); Turtledoves (f. 53r); Doves (f. 54r); Elephant and dragon (f. 62r); Basilisk (f. 63r); Regulus (f. 63r); Anguis (f. 63v); Vipers (f. 64r); Asp (f. 65v); Emorroris (f. 67r); Hydrus (f. 67v); Lizard (f. 68v); Salamander (f. 68v); Boas (f. 69r); Jaculus (f. 69r); Siren serpent (f. 69r); Seps (f. 69v); Lizard (f. 69v); Saura (f. 70r); Stellio (f. 70r); Snake shedding its skin (f. 70v). Space was left for a picture on f. 95v.
1 unfinished diagram of a 'T-O' map of the Earth (f. 95v).
1 foliate initial in gold and colours (f. 6r).
Initials in coloured ink with pen-flourishing in a contrasting colour.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002106732 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 12 C XIX : Bestiary with theological texts - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0952]/040-002106732
- 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_12_C_XIX (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- French, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1195
- End Date:
- 1215
- Date Range:
- c 1200-c 1210
- 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: 220 x 160 mm (text space: 145 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. iii + 112 + iii (all unfoliated flyleaves are modern parchment leaves; 18 leaves missing).
Collation: i2 (ff. 1-2); ii8-2 (ff. 3-8; 1 folio missing after ff. 2 and 8); iii8-2 (ff. 9-14; folios missing after ff. 13 and 14); iv8-2 (ff. 15-20; folios missing after ff. 17 and 20); v8 (ff. 21-28); vi 8-3 (ff. 29-33; 2 folios missing after f. 28 and 1 after f. 33); vii8 (ff. 34-41); viii8-3 (ff. 42-46; folios missing after ff. 41, 42 and 44); ix8 (ff. 47-54); x8-2? (ff. 55-60; 1 folio missing after f. 54 and ?60); xi4-2 (ff. 61-62); xii 8-2 (ff. 63-68; folios missing after ?62 and f. 68); xiii-xvii8 (69-108); xviii4 (ff. 109-112); catchwords.
Layout: Written in one column.
Script: Gothic. Crossed tironian ets; ampersands.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding. Gilt edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Central or Northern England.
Provenance:
John Theyer (bap. 1598, d. 1673), antiquary: a note in his hand (f. 28r); included in the catalogue of his library left to his grandson Charles Theyer (b. 1651): see E. Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), II, no. 6557.
Robert Scott (b. c. 1632, d. 1709/10), London bookseller: included in the catalogue of John Theyer’s manuscripts in his possession, made in 1678 by William Beveridge and William Jane, Royal Appendix, 70, no. 167.
Charles II (b. 1630, d. 1685), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland: purchased from Scott together with other 311 manuscripts from Theyer's library.
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 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
G. C. Druce, 'The Symbolism of the Crocodile in the Middle Ages', Archaeological Journal, 64 (1909), 311-38 (pp. 316, 323).
G. C. Druce, 'Notes on the History of the Heraldic Jall or Yale', Archaeological Journal, 68 (1911), 173-99 (pp. 177, 191, 195, pl. IV).
G. C. Druce, 'The Caladrius and its Legend', Archaeological Journal, 69 (1912), 381-416 (pp. 385, 407, pl. III).
G. C. Druce, 'Some Abnormal and Composite Human Forms in English Church Architecture', Archaeological Journal, 72 (1915), 135-86 (p. 169).
G. C. Druce, 'The Medieval Bestiaries and their Influence on Ecclesiastical Decorative Art', Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 25 (1919), 41-82 (p. 74).
G. C. Druce, 'The Medieval Bestiaries and their Influence on Ecclesiastical Decorative Art', Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 26 (1920), 35-79 (p. 40).
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), II, pp. 33-34.
Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth century (Paris: G. Van Oest, 1926), p. 116.
M. R. James, The Bestiary: Being a Reproduction in full of the Manuscript Ii.4.26 in the University Library, Cambridge (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1928), pp. 11-12, 25, 52, suppl. pls 4, 5.
[Eric G. Millar], British Museum Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 4 (London: British Museum, 1928), pl. 13.
Elfrida O. Saunders, English Illumination, 2 vols (Paris: Pegasus Press, 1928, repr. New York, 1969), I, p. 48, II, pl. 52.
J. P. Gilson, Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, 4 (London, 1928), p. 9, pl. xiii.
Guide to an Exhibition of English Art gathered from Various Departments and held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934), no. 103.
F. Saxl and R. Wittkower, British Art and the Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948), pl. 29. 1.
F. Saxl and H. Meier, Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages, vol. 3, Manuscripts in English Libraries, Parts 1 and 2, (London: Warburg Institute, 1953), p. 197.
Eric G. Millar, A Thirteenth Century Bestiary in the Library of Alnwick Castle (Oxford: Roxburgh Club, 1958), pp. 2, 11 n. 1, 13-15, 17-44, pls. LXXXII-XCII.
Hubert Silvestre, 'Enfin un manuscrit anglais du De vita et moribus philosophorum de Walter Burley?', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 13 (1959), 255-59 (p. 256, n. 5).
Florence McCulloch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries, University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 33 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962), pp. 34, 162.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (London: Penguin Books, 2nd edn. 1965), p. 88.
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), p. 126.
J. W. Einhorn, Spiritualis Unicornis: Das Einhorn als Bedeutungsträger in Literatur und Kunst des Mittelalters (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1976), pp. 80-81, 336.
P. L. Armitage and J. A. Goodall, 'Medieval Horned and Polled Sheep: The Archaeological and Iconographic Evidence', Antiquaries Journal, 57 (1977), 73-89 (pp. 76-78).
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 53.
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), I: 1190-1250, no. 13.
Dora Faraci, Il bestiario medio inglese (Ms Arundel 292 della British Library) (Rome: Japadre, 1990), p. 258, pl. 13.
Xenia Muratova 'Les manuscrit-frères: un aspect particulier de la production de Bestiaires enluminés en Angleterre à la fin du XIIe siècle', in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen Age: Colloque international, ed. by Xavier Barral i Altet, 3 vols (Paris: Picard, 1986-90), III: Fabrication et consommation de l'oeuvre, pp. 67-92 (pp. 72, n. 14, 81, 82).
Ann Payne, Medieval Beasts (London: British Library, 1990), pp. 13, 17, 20, 34, 40, 46, 54, 60, 64, 70, 77-79, 81-82, 84, 89, 91.
Ann Payne, 'The Northumberland Bestiary and its Group', Sotheby's Art at Auction 1990-1991, ed. by Sally Prideaux (London: Sotheby's, 1991), pp. 159-65 (p. 159, figs 2, 4, 5).
Debra Hassig, Medieval Bestiaries: Text, Image, Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 186.
Ron Baxter, Bestiaries and Their Users in the Middle Ages (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1998), pp. 100, 110, 117-24, 147, 170.
Xenia Muratova, 'Le bestiare medieval et la culture normande', in Manuscrits et enluminures dans le monde normand (Xe-XVe siècles), ed. by Pierre Bouet and Monique Dosdat (Caen: Presses Universitaires, 1999), pp. 151-68 (p. 154).
Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), pl. 53.
Sophie Page, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2004), pp. 3 (title page), 20, 64, pl. 20.
Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, ‘La sirène et l’o(ono)centaure dans le Physiologus grec et latin et dans quelques bestiaries: Le texte et l’image’, in Bestiarires médiévaux: Nouvelles perspectives sur les manuscrits de les traditions textuelles, ed. by Baudouin Van den Abelle, Publications de l’Institut d’études médiévales, Collection Textes, études, congres, 21 (Louvain: Brepols, 2005), pp. 169-82 (p. 178 n. 43).
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 80 [exhibition catalogue].
Maria Careri, Christine Ruby and Ian Short, Livres et écritures en français et en occitan au XIIe siècle: Catalogue illustré (Rome: Viella, 2011), no. 44.
Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World, ed. by Elizabeth Morrison (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019), no. 5.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)