Vulgate Bible; s. xiiimed or xiii2; ? France (perhaps England)

Title

Vulgate Bible; s. xiiimed or xiii2; ? France (perhaps England)

Shelfmark

Christ Church MS. 109

Place of origin

France (?) (perhaps England)

Date

s. xiiimed or xiii2

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment (FSOS)

Physical extent

Fols: ii + 457 + i (numbered fol. 458). All flyleaves parchment, that at the rear (fol. 458) pasted to a paper leaf conjoint with the back pastedown. (the bottom outer corner of fol. 381 was folded in before the last cropping and gives measurements of 200 × 135 mm)

Hands

Written in gothic textura quadrata (although there are changes of pen and ink, and of format, a single hand for the Bible); and in gothic textura rotunda (texts 2 and 3).

Punctuation by point only.

Decoration

Headings in red. At the openings of the books, champes, blue and violet with gold leaf, eight lines or so, with painted extensions, often the length of the page, usually with geometrical patterns and vinework dragons. At the openings of the prologues, smaller champes, gold leaf with blue and violet, without extensions (occasionally only red and blue lombards with flourishing of the same); the same champes appear at the Nocturns of the Psalter. Chapters marked by alternate red and blue lombards in the margin and red and blue paraphs next to the text, the latter with flourished extensions often to the length of the page and sometimes sprouting human heads (eg fol. 169 and 380). Running titles in alternate red and blue lombards identify the books. Textual corrections frequently in red boxes, most usually as an extra line below the text-block but also placed in shields or triangles in the outer margin and sometimes (eg fol. 37) written vertically next to the text.

At the openings of some books, the initials are historiated (usually six or seven lines high): Fol. 1ra (the prologue): Jerome tonsured writing Fol. 35vb (Numbers): God addressing the horned Moses Fol. 47va (Deuteronomy): the horned Moses addressing the Hebrews Fol. 74ra (I Kings): the death of Saul Fol. 152ra (Judith): smiling Judith beheading the sleeping Holofernes Fol. 161rb (Job): Job on the dunghill with his wife and a comforter Fol. 169rb (Psalms): Jesus blessing with a book in left hand, with David harping below Fol. 185va (Ps. 109): Dixit dominus domino meo, the Lord seated blessing the seated lord Fol. 190va (Proverbs): Solomon, crowned, chastising a tonsured and bare-chested figure Fol. 201va (Wisdom): Solomon enthroned with sceptre Fol. 220va (Isaiah): Isaiah being sawed in two Fol. 236va (Jeremiah): Jeremiah, God’s hand pointing at him, as he sees the rod watching and the boiling cauldron (1:11 and 13) Fol. 257va (Ezechiel): the prophet’s vision of the four beasts Fol. 275vb (Daniel): Daniel in the lions’ den Fol. 287rb (Amos): Amos prophesying Fol. 314vb (Matthew): Matthew on a cushion writing

See AT no. 210 (22) and plate xi (fol. 236va), describing the manuscript as ‘British’ but early modern provenance would suggest that the initials might be French work.

Binding

Yellowish brown speckled leather over millboards, s. xvii, a gold-stamped armorial at the centre of both boards – a lion rampant dexter within a plaque surmounted by a crown, those of Nicolas-Joseph Foucault (as identified by AT). Sewn on five thongs. In the upper spine compartment, on a red leather tab in gilt ‘Biblia sacra MS’. Pastedowns are modern paper, a ChCh bookplate on the front pastedown.

Provenance

The back pastedown has a large ‘A’ (?s. xvii), perhaps a shelfmark in an earlier collection. The earliest definite ascription to an owner is ‘Pour monsieur foucaut Cete Bibble de sept cents ans secundum Lucam ie la done Au ilus zele des intandans qui serue auiourduy la Corone’ (s. xviiex), with an added note ‘In the Year 1728 I bought this Book, and the Note above was then in it’ (presumably an owner preceding the donor to the College; fol. iiv). For the intendant, archaeologist and book-collector Nicolas-Joseph Foucault (1643–1721), see Leopold Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Imperiale, 3 vols (Paris, 1868–81), 1:270–74. On the dispersal of his rich and large collection among English collectors, see Paul Quarrie, ‘The Scientific Library of the Earls of Macclesfield’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 60 (2006), pp. 5–24 at pp. 17–18; there are also wise words in Keith Busby et al. ed., Les Manuscritss de / The Manuscripts of Chrétien de Troyes, 2 vols (Amsterdam, 1993), ii, pp. 204 -205. It appears that the dispersal began before Foucault’s death and its English diaspora centred on the auction by Thomas Ballard of 20th February 1721, with volumes entering the collections of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, and Thomas Parker, earl of Macclesfield, among others.

Part of another French inscription in different ink but probably the same hand, the top line mostly cut away, appears on fol. 396v: ‘... po sene a monseur au vivolle curé de st ?sardos de dome ordre au Fetablieme des bieas de Sie [.......] Bon hei monsieur’ (a further note in this script and ink appears cropped at upper left of fol. 362v; another hand on the pasted-over portion of fol. 458).

There is a bookseller’s price ‘2..2..–’ (fol. 1). The inscription of donation reads: ‘Donum Samuelis Rogers, M. A. Ædis Christi Alum. et Bibliothecarii 1784’ (fol. 1). Rogers (1732/3–1806), a Gloucestershire man, matriculated at Christ Church on 27th June 1753; he received degrees of BA, MA, and BD in 1757, 1760, and 1786 respectively, and was a Student until 1797. He was ordained deacon in 1757 and priest the following year; he was vicar of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford from 1763, and rector of Batsford (Glos.) following Edward Smallwell’s death in 1799; he ended his life as a prebendary of St Davids, dying in December 1806 (AOmod, 1221; CCEd). At ChCh, he was elected Librarian on 17th June 1779 and resigned on 1st December 1784: ChCh Archives, D&C i. b. 7, pp. 408 and 491. Perhaps, then, this manuscript was his gift to the Library on his retirement from that office. It is not recorded in the Donors’ Book, but appears in the catalogue of the New Library as B.16, with the entry added by Rogers himself (see Appendix IV). The partial shelfmark ‘16’ at the front pastedown of the manuscript accords with this entry.