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Harley MS 2798
- Record Id:
- 041-002899106
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002899105
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100024240825.0x000001
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2798
- Title:
- Bible ('The Arnstein Bible') (Genesis to Malachi)
- Scope & Content:
-
First volume of a Bible, known as 'The Arnstein Bible', including books from Genesis to Malachi. The second volume of this Bible is Harley MS 2799.
Contents:
f. 1r: Fragment of the annals of Arnstein Abbey, with 5 entries added in the 17th century, 3 relating to Swedish wars and including dates 1634 and 1631 (f. 1r); an obit of the abbot Johannes Bingen; and a note on the coronation of Leopold I as the Holy Roman emperor in Frankfurt (1658).
Part of the annals were removed at some point from this manuscript. They are now in Darmstadt, Hessisches Landes- und Hochschlbibliothek, MS 4128.
The annals in the Arnstein Bible were copied from the Floreffe Bible (now in two volumes, Add MS 17737 and Add MS 17738). They occupy ff. 2v-23v in Add MS 17737. The Arnstein annals were copied in 1172 or 1173, at which point a new hand takes over with the entry: 'Hoc anno scriptus est liber iste a quodam fratre nostro nomine Lunandus...'. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts in the British Library (1979), p. 128 (no. 704), states: 'This reference cannot be to the annals, of only a few leaves even when complete, but to the Bible to which they belonged, MSS Harley 2798-9, written at least in part in the same hand as the chronological tables into which the annals were written.' For further details, see Watson's catalogue and Köllner, 'Ein Annalen Fragment', Scriptorium, 26 (1972), 34-50.
ff. 1v-236v: Bible (Genesis to Malachi) with three prefaces: a preface in verse, rubric: 'Prefacio bibliotece exametris versibus composita', incipit: 'Quicquid ad hebreo stilus atticus atque latinus' (ff. 1v-2r); the Epistle of Jerome to Paulinus, rubric: 'Epistula sancti Jheronimi ad Paulinum de omnibus divisione divine hystorie libris', incipit: 'Frater Ambrosius' (ff. 2r-4v). Jerome's Prologue, rubric: 'Incipit prologus beati Jheronimi presbiteri in Pentatheuso Moysi', incipit: 'Desiderii mei' (ff. 5r-5v). Each book of the Bible is preceded by a list of chapters.
Decoration:
2 large historiated initials in colours: f. 102v, 'F'(uit) of a standing figure of a saint (?), at the beginning of Kings 1; f. 210, 'D'(anielem) of a standing figure holding a flowering staff and foliage and hybrid creatures, at the beginning of the prologue to Daniel.
Large initials in red and sometimes also black on coloured grounds usually of blue, yellow, and green with foliate decoration and sometimes intertwined creatures (ff. 2r, 24r, 40r, 51r, 67v, 81r, 81v, 90v, 100v, 101v, 116r, 126v, 139r, 150v, 151r, 168r, 169r, 190v, 193r, 194r, 211r, 218v (x3), 221r, 221v, 222r, 222v, 224v (x2), 225r (x2), 225v (x2), 227r, 227v, 228r, 228v, 229r, 229v, 230r, 231r, 234r (x2)).
Large initial in colours with foliate decoration, clasps, and figures in a rectangular border (f. 5r).
Zoomorphic initial in red, green, and blue of a bird (f. 230v).
Large unfinished drawing in pencil and ink of a seated man writing (f. 4v).
Small initials in red, some with penwork decoration.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002899105
041-002899106 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2798-2799 : Bible ('The Arnstein Bible')
Harley MS 2798 : Bible ('The Arnstein Bible') (Genesis to Malachi) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2799]/040-002899105[0001]/041-002899106
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- Item
- Extent:
- Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_2798 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1167
- End Date:
- 1177
- Date Range:
- c 1172
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 545 x 375 mm (text space: 400 x 260 mm).
Foliation: ff. 235 (+ 6 unfoliated paper flyleaves: 3 at the beginning and 3 at the end). Folio 235 is a stub of the former pastedown.
Collation: isix (ff. 1-6), iieight (ff. 7-14), ii-xxvi8 (ff. 15-206), xvii8-2 (ff. 207-212; 1st and 2nd leaves before f. 207 missing), xxviii-xxix8 (ff. 213-228), xxx8-1 (ff. 229-235; 8th leaf excised, 7th leaf partial but no text missing).
Quire numbers ii-xxx in the lower margin of the verso of the last leaf of each quire, beginning on f. 14v. The collation of the first two quires is uncertain: owing to damage, the leaves have been mounted. Several leaves before f. 1 have been removed and are now part of Darmstadt, Hessiches Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, MS 4128. There is no number for the first quire.
Script: Protogothic; written by Lunandus, a monk of Arnstein Abbey.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding. Former Harleian covers of brown leather with gold tooling pasted on the inside covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Germany, North-West (Arnstein).
Provenance:
The Premonstratensian abbey of St Mary and St Nicholas, Arnstein: inscription 'Liber sancte Marie sanctique Nycolai in Arrinstein' (f. 235v). The manuscript is also included in a late 12th-century list of the books of Arnstein Abbey, Harley MS 3045, ff. 47v-49r: 'Sunt etiam alia duo vetus et novum testamentum continentia et insuper tripartitum psalterium et annalia'. The manuscript was written by Lunandus, a monk of Arnstein Abbey, in 1172 or 1173: his name is recorded in the annals that were formerly part of this manuscript and are now in Darmstadt, Hessisches Landes- und Hochschlbibliothek, MS 4128: 'Hoc anno scriptus est liber iste a quodam fratre nostro nomine Lunandus' (see Watson, Dated and Datable Manuscripts (1997), p. 128, no. 704).
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 253-255, 322): sold to Robert Harley on 16 January 1720/21. For other manuscripts formerly owned by Arnstein Abbey in the Harley collection, and for a list of those among them acquired by or through Noel, see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 53.
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘16 January 1720/21' (f. 1r).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Complete digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts, http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-1812), II (1808), nos 2798 and 2799.
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.
A. Kohl, 'Arnsteiner Handschriften im Britischen Museum zu London', Nassovia: Zeitschrift für nassauische Geschichte und Heimatkunde, 4 (1903), 106-08, 120-21, 133-34 (p. 107).
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), pp. 154-55.
[Eric G. Millar], British Museum Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 4 (London: British Museum, 1928), pl. 12.
R. Schilling, 'Studien zur deutschen Goldschmiedekunst des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts' in Form und Inhalt: Kunstgeschichtliche Studien, Otto Schmitt zum 60. Geburtstag am 13. Dezember 1950 dargebracht von seinen Freunden, ed. by Hans Wentzel (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, [1950]), pp. 73-88 (pp. 74, 76-80; figs 2, 8).
Jacques Stiennon, ‘Du lectionnaire de Saint-Trond aux Evangiles d’Averbode: Contribution à l’étude de la miniature mosane du XIIe siècle’, Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 7 (1953), 37-50 (pp. 45 n. 4, 48, 50).
Jacques Stiennon, ‘La miniature dans le diocese de Liège aux XIe et XIIe siècles’, in L’art Mosan, Bibliothèque Générale de L’École Pratique des Hautes Études, 6 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953), 90-101 (pp. 98-100).
André Grabar and Carl Nordenfalk, Romanesque Painting from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century, trans. by Stuart Gilbert (Lausanne: SKIRA, 1958), pp. 143, 195.
François Masai, ‘Les manuscrits à peintures de Sambre et Meuse aux XI et XII siècles: Pour une critique plus méthodique’, Cahiers de civilisation medievale, 3 (1960), 168-89.
D. H. Turner, Romanesque Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Library (London: British Museum, 1966), pls IV, 9.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xlix, 81 n. 6.
C. R. Dodwell, Painting in Europe: 800 to 1200 (London : Penguin Books, 1971), p. 163.
Rhein und Maas: Kunst und Kultur 800-1400 (Cologne: Rudolf Müller, 1972), no. J48 [exhibition catalogue].
Herbert Köllner, ‘Ein Annalenfragment und die Datierung der Arnsteiner Bibel in London’, Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 26 (1972), 34-50.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 53, 254, 322.
Die Zeit der Staufer (Stuttgart: Württembergisches Landesmuseum, 1977), pp. 533-35, no. 716 [exhibition catalogue].
Jonathon J. G. Alexander, The Decorated Letter (London: Braziller, 1978), p. 91, pl. 26.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), p. 128, no. 704.
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 26, 230, 253 no. 8, pls 157, 162 [with additional bibliography].
François Avril, 'Les arts de la couleur', in François Avril, Xavier Barral I Altet, and Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, Le Monde Roman 1060-1200, 2 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1983), I: Le Temps des Croisades, pp. 131-225 (p. 207, pl. 194).
John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1984), no. 207.
Bonifatius Fischer, Lateinische Bibelhandschriften im frühen Mittelalter, Vetus Latina, 11 (Freiburg: Herder, 1985), p. 56.
Sigrid Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz: Ergänzungsband 1, 3 vols (Munich, 1989-90), I (1989), p. 25.
Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, A Medieval Scriptorium: Sancta Maria Magdalena de Frankendal, Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien, 3, 2 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990), I, 105.
Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, 'The Twelfth-Century Scriptorium at Frankenthal', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda L. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 85-101 (pp. 97, 101 n. 37).
Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 39, fig. 58.
Peter Lasko, Ars Sacra 800-1200, 2nd edn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 229.
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts: The Twelfth Century, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), II, 179.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 41.
Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), pl. 16.
Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 12, 15, pl. 9.
Jeffrey F. Hamburger, St. John the Divine: The Deified Evangelist in Medieval Art and Theology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), pp. 104-05.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), pp. 10 and 95, fig. 82.
Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, ‘Les avatars d’un mythe antique au moyen age thésée et le minotaure aux époques préromane et romane’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 39 (2008), 193-207 (p. 201, pl. 11).
Jeffrey M. Hamburger, 'The Hand of God and the Hand of the Scribe: Craft and Collaboration at Arnstein', in Die Bibliothek des Mittelalters als dynamischer Prozess, ed. by Michael Embach, Claudine Moulin and Andrea Rapp, Trierer Beiträge zu den Historischen Kulturwissenschaften, 3 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2012), pp. 53-78, colour plates 19-24, 27, 32-35, 39, black and white plates 5-9.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)