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Burney MS 3

Record Id:

040-002236308

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002236305

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001311.0x00003a

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Burney MS 3

Title:

Bible with prologues, without Psalms ('The Bible of Robert de Bello')

Scope & Content:

Bible with prologues, without Psalms ('The Bible of Robert de Bello').

Proverbs, Maccabees, and the New Testament each start on a new quire. The Psalms and the Interpretations of Hebrew names are absent. Morgan 1982 dates the manuscript to between 1230 and 1240, but it is likely to be later because the chapters start on new lines with the chapter numbers inset into the text area: this feature was not common in English Bibles before c.1240. Marginalia indicate that the text of this Bible has been compared to that of another. The large decorative extensions in the lower margins are of a type which are found in English manuscripts from about the 1230s.

Decoration:

Numerous large historiated initials, in colours and gold, at the beginning of biblical books, and some prologues (ff. 3r, 5v, 27v, 45v, etc.), executed by at least two artists. Large and small inhabited/foliate initials, in colours and gold, at the start of prologues. Small initials alternately in red or blue, with predominantly blue or red flourishing and marginal extensions, respectively. Line-fillers in red and blue, sometimes in the form of fish. Chapter numbers and running titles in alternate red and blue characters, with flourishes. Guide-letters and guide-numerals.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Burney Manuscripts

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002236305
040-002236308

Is part of:

Burney MS : Burney Manuscripts

Burney MS 3 : Bible with prologues, without Psalms ('The Bible of Robert de Bello')

Hierarchy:

032-002236305[0003]/040-002236308

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Burney MS

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

Parchment codex

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1235

End Date:

1258

Date Range:

between c. 1240 and 1253

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 273 x 205 mm (text space 170 x 117 mm in two columns).

Foliation: ff. v + 517 + iv (foliated i-ii, ii*-ii***, 1-513, iii-x; ff. i and vi are former pastedowns; the whole preceded by 3, and followed by 3, modern unfoliated paper flyleaves).

Collation: i-ii¹⁴ (ff. 2-29), iii-xix¹² (ff. 30-233), xx-xxxiii¹² (ff. 234-401), xxxiv-xliii¹² (ff. 402-509), xliv ^six (a quire of 12, of which the last six leaves are missing, probably blank?).

Script: Gothic, written 'below top line'.

Binding: BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1983; gilt edges. The former covers, each with a gilt centrepiece, are kept separately.

Custodial History:

Origin: England, S. E. (Canterbury?).

Provenance:

Made for Robert of Battle (de Bello), abbot of St Augustine's, Canterbury (between 1225 and 1253): his name is in the first and last historiated initials: 'Abbe. bono. / Robe. Aug'i (?)' (f. 2r) and 'bono robe. abb.' (f. 506v); many quires are marked 'em(en)dat(us)' (e.g. ff. 42r, 54r, 78r, 282r).

The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, second half of the 15th century: initialled 'C C' by Clement Canterbury, librarian of the abbey (f. 2r), who was perhaps also responsible for the inscription: 'Biblia Roberti Abb(at)is de librario s(an)c(t)i Augustini Cantuarie' (f. 1v, cf. ff. i verso, 1v, 2r); see Ker 1964, p. 43.

Sir Anthony St Leger (b. 1496?, d. 1559), lord deputy of Ireland: 'This boke perteynethe to the right wurshipfull sir Anthonye Seintleger knight of […?]' (f. iii recto), 'God save the [sic] Anthonie St Leger. for ever and ever q(uo)d J G' (f. 180v).

Edward Drayner: 'Sum Edwardi Drayner ex dono / Mag.stri. Anthonij Seintlegerj' (f. iii recto).

John Buckeridge (d. 1631), bishop of Ely: to the preceding inscription is added: 'qui / dedit eum Johanni Buckridg episcopo Roffensi' (f. iii recto).

Lawrence Sadler, bookseller of Little Britain, London, middle of the 16th century: 'At the returne of this booke I am to repay 1l. 6s. / Lawrence Sadler' (f. v verso).

Sir Roger Twysden, (b. 1597, d. 1672), 2nd baronet, antiquary, bought in 1631: 'Sum Rogeri Twysden qui emit ex libris … Johannis Buckridge … 29 Novembris An.o. Dom.i 1631.' (f. iii recto). (Twysden also acquired Additional MS 53710 and Stowe MS 378--both also from St Augustine's--from Sadler).

Unidentified owner: with his number '61.' (f. ii recto, upper right corner).

Sir John Saunders Sebright, (b. 1767, d. 1846), 7th baronet, politician and agriculturist: his sale 6 April 1807, lot 1186, bought by Burney for £6 6s.

Charles Burney (b. 1757, d. 1817), D.D., classical scholar.

Acquired by the British Museum as part of Burney’s library from his son Charles Parr Burney in 1818.

Administrative Context:

England, S. E. (Canterbury?).

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8789&CollID=18&NStart=3].

Publications:

Catalogue of Manuscripts in The British Museum, New Series, 1 vol. in 2 parts (London: British Museum, 1834-1840), I, part II: The Burney Manuscripts (1840), p. 1.

E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson, eds, The Palaeographical Society: Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, 3 vols (London, 1873-83), I, pls. 73-4.

Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 5.

[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I, (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 11.

J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 182.

John Bradley, Illuminated Manuscripts, 2nd edn (London: Bracken Books, 1920), p. 254 no. 6.

[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 1, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. XI.

[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 21.

Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), pl. 76.

Arthur Watson, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 48 n. 1c.Guide to an Exhibition of English Art (London: British Museum, 1934), no. 110.

Peter Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, Oxford History of English Art, 4 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 81-2, 177, pls 21a, 21c.

N. R. Ker, ed., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 43.

Loren MacKinney, Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 5, 2 parts bound together (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1965), with Thomas Herndon, Part II, Medical Miniatures in Extant Manuscripts: A Checklist, no. 28.

Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 103, 235 n. 45, pl. 100.

Florens Deuchler, Der Ingeborgpsalter (Berlin: de Gruyter & Co., 1967), p. 172.

A. B. Emden, Donors of Books to S. Augustine’s Abbey Canterbury, Occasional Publication, 4 (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1968), p. 3 n. 17.

Lucy Freeman Sandler, 'Christian Hebraism and the Ramsey Abbey Psalter', The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 35 (1971), 123-34 (p. 127, n. 14).

Brunsdon Yapp, Birds in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British LIbrary, 1981), pl. 9.

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. 63, pls 219-222 [with extensive further bibliography]; II: 1250-1285, pp. 103, 128.

François Avril and Patricia Danz Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine insulaire VII^e-XX^e siècle (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1987), p. 98.

Judith H. Oliver, Gothic Manuscript Illumination in the Diocese of Liège (c. 1250 - c. 1330), Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts from the Low Countries, 2-3, 2 vols (Leuven: Uitgverij Peeters, 1988), I, 76 n. 68.

Suzanne Lewis, Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-century Illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 30, 313, 349 n. 36, fig. 239.

John Lowden, The Making of the Bibles Moralisées, 2 vols (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), II: The Book of Ruth, p. 257 n. 4.

Kathryn A. Smith, Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and their Books of Hours, (London: British Library, 2003), p. 148 n. 125.

Deirdre Jackson, Marvellous to Behold: Miracles in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), pl. 1.

Elizabeth Morrison, Beasts: Factual & Fantastic (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 43.

Kathryn A. Smith, ‘Found in Translation: Images Visionary and Visceral in the Welles-Ros Bible’, Gesta 59: 2 (2020), 91-130 (pp. 98 n. 34, 122, fig. 19).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Bello, Robert, abbot of St Augustine's, Canterbury, fl 1225-1253
Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, Kent, 598-1538
Buckeridge, John, Bishop of Ely, d. 1631,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000062993221
Drayner, Edward, former owner of The Bible of Robert de Bello, fl Early 16th century-Early 17th century
Sadler, Lawrence
Sebright, John Saunders, 7th Baronet, politician and agriculturalist, 1767-1846
St Leger, Anthony, Lord-Deputy of Ireland
Twysden, Roger, Antiquary, d 1672