Old French New Testament, ‘version du xiiiᵉ siècle’

Title

Old French New Testament, ‘version du xiiiᵉ siècle’

Shelfmark

MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1

Place of origin

France

Date

13th century, third quarter

Language

Latin

Old French (842-ca. 1400)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Thin parchment, suede-like on both sides, disposition regular (hair-side outermost). Opening recto and final verso both worn; a single restitched blemish (fol. 38, in lower margin, stitching lost), and a slip of parchment repairing at hole at fol. 22 (top right, made before writing). Significant water and wax damage at fols 41r–42r (John 6–8), perhaps a reflection of chapel use; further wax marks at fol. 75v (lower margin) and fol. 76 (outer margin), and cf. fols 89v–92r (at fol. 90, I Peter 3–5 also an ?ink smudge at bottom right corner); it also seems that a round ?hot object was placed on the lower inner margin of fol. 68 or 69, causing a crinkled circle to surrounding pages.

Physical extent

ii + 98 + ii leaves. All flyleaves are paper added with binding (watermarks: fleur-de-lys, ‘IV’). lors fu (fol. 2); honore (fol. 3)

Hands

Written in a single large ‘pearl script’ (4 mm between lines, minims 2mm, ascenders 3mm), with final s oscillating between tall and angular double bowled; there is a propensity to hairline approach strokes at the heads of ascenders. The script is close in style but independent from that found in Oxford, Christ Church, MS. 178.

Decoration

Fol. 1 opens with a tree of Jesse from which grows four roundels, on a gold base, with green leaves, but with the roundels having figures in red and white on a blue background, hashed with white and red. Each book opens with an eleven-line historiated initial, with a thin border often running the height of the written space. The palette is dominated by pink and blue, with a little use of gold, red and green. In each case, the depiction is of the author, with each evangelist having his symbol. There are occasional marginal grotesques and lions (e.g. fol. 68v); other grotesques float in the margin near chapter openings. Scot McKendrick attributed the decoration to the Cholet Master. Each chapter has a three-line initial in the same palette. Running headers in majuscules, alternating red and blue, as do chapter numbers. On the artist, see M. A. Stones, ‘Les manuscrits du cardinal Jean Cholet et l'enluminure beauvaisienne vers la fin du XIIIème siècle’ in L'Art gothique dans l'Oise et ses environs: Architecture civile et religieuse, peinture murale, sculpture et arts précieux, etc. …; Colloque international organisé à Beauvais les 10 et 11 octobre 1998 par le G.E.M.O.B. (Groupe d’Etude des Monuments et Oeuvres d'Art de l'Oise et du Beauvais) (Beauvais, 2001), pp. 239-66. See also her discussion of Padua, Biblioteca Capitolare, MSS D 34 and C 47 in Gothic Manuscripts, i/2, pp. 54-57 and ii/2, fig. 110–115.

Binding

Plain brown leather over pasteboards (s. xvii ex.). Only decoration is gold-stamped patterns in each compartment on the spine, interrupted in the first compartment with the words ‘Novum Testame MSS.’ The second tool from the foot has three ostrich feathers with a bend on which there are three roundels. This is identifiable as stamp 3 found on the books of Joseph Gulston (with thanks to David Pearson in making this identification). Edges of the folios gilded. No sign of previous binding except for worm-holes in the last seven pages of the book (and just one in the first).

Acquisition

Purchased by private treaty sale via Christie’s, London, 2024, with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund (with a contribution from The Wolfson Foundation), Friends of the Nations’ Libraries, Mr Julian Blackwell, Mr Antonio Bonchristiano and Mrs Patricia Bonchristiano, and the Friends of the Bodleian.

Provenance

There is no evidence to identify with any certainty the first owner of this book. It may be that the lost two opening quires provided some provenance information, and they may have been removed for that reason.

The earliest ownership note is that of Jean ‘le Bon’, future king of France, who wrote his ex libris below the explicit: Ceste Bible est le Duc de Normendie et Guiene Jehan. The inscription is presumably datable to between 1345, when he received those duchies, and 1350, when he became king as Jean II. It has been assumed that the manuscript was lost to the English at Poitiers, as was another of Jean’s (London, British Library, Royal MS 19 D. ii). The manuscript certainly does not appear in the inventories of the French royal library drawn up under his successors, but those lists are not a full record of what belonged to the French kings. There is a gap in the sequence of inscriptions which allows the possibility that it travelled with Jean to England and remained after his death, or that it crossed the Channel either before his capture or later.

The next ownership note sits directly below John II’s: Thomas de Lancastre regine. If this implies that it was given it to him by a queen, it could plausibly be his stepmother, Joan of Navarre (1368-1437), whom Henry IV married in 1403; perhaps, then, this manuscript arrived in England with her.

The volume presumably reached Thomas of Lancaster before 1412, since he does not mention the title he received that year of duke of Clarence.

Margaret Holland (1385–1439) married Thomas of Lancaster in 1412. Scot McKendrick notes that she was the mother of Edmund Beaufort.

Edmund Beaufort (c. 1406–1455) received the title of count of Mortain after the death of John, duke of Bedford in 1435, giving a terminus ante quem non for his gift of the book to Humfrey, as inscribed on fol. 98v.

Humfrey, duke of Gloucester (1390–1447): inscription between the last line of text and the explicit, fol. 98v: Cest livre est de moy Homfrey duc de Gloucestre du don mon treschier et tresame cousin le conte de Mortaing Edmund. Humfrey also added his ‘Loyale et belle’ motto at the top of fol. 98v (he leaves no markings earlier in the manuscript: it would have been characteristic of him to add some words at the start of the volume, so perhaps when he owned it, it had its first two quires).

Humfrey’s inscriptions and all others have been erased in the same style of light scratching, leaving only that of Jean le Bon. It appears that one hand wrote at top left and bottom left of the folio in a large cursive secretary script: might these predate Humfrey’s ownership? If so, all inscriptions might have been removed soon after his death. It would, then, be one of those manuscripts which were dispersed by the commissioners put in charge of his goods, with John Somerseth being crucial among them. There is no definite evidence of the book’s whereabouts until the eighteenth century. The addition of a spurious date of 1304 to the explicit may hint that someone in the early modern world was attempting to increase its value.

Joseph Gulston (1745–1786) provided the present binding. It does not appear in the sale of his books by Compton of Conduit Street (8 May 1783).

The book may have passed during Gulston’s lifetime to Thomas Martin of Palgrave (1696/7–1771) whose signature is at upper left of the left pastedown and monogram (‘TMS’) on right pastedown (with thanks to Matthew Holford for identifying the latter). Similarly to Gulston, this manuscript is not mentioned in the auction catalogue drawn up after Martin’s death so was presumably sold in his lifetime. At the head of the left pastedown is also, to the left, ‘96’; to right, ‘S.Biblia’. Below that, a round label with the number ‘187’ (s. xix?). At the head of fol. i recto, right: Novum Testamentum MSS (?s. xviii²); top right corner torn away. Top right of fol. ii recto: /-/-.

Sir George Augustus William Shuckburgh Evelyn (1751–1804): armorial bookplate, left pastedown, with added number ‘M 2’; below that in pencil, ‘3D’. The book subsequently remained in his family’s ownership.