Portable Psalter, Augustinian Use; French Flanders, Diocese of Cambrai, 15th century, third quarter (?)

Title

Portable Psalter, Augustinian Use; French Flanders, Diocese of Cambrai, 15th century, third quarter (?)

Shelfmark

MS. Rawl. liturg. f. 37

Place of origin

Flemish, French Flanders , diocese of Cambrai

Date

15th century, third quarter (?)

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

157 leaves

Hands

Formal Gothic book hand, brown ink.

Decoration

The Beatus-initial is cut out, but there is a full border on fol. 1r, made of gold, blue and pink bars, filigree scrolls, flowers, foliage and gold discs. There is a similar border and a 5-line blue initial on gold background, infilled with flowers, at the beginning of psalm 109 (fol. 106r).

5-line gold initials on blue or pink background, decorated with white floral designs, and borders in the outer margins, made of filigree scrolls, flowers, foliage and gold discs at liturgical divisions, at the beginnings of psalms 26 (fol. 21r), 38 (fol. 33v), 51 (fol. 45v), 52 (fol. 46r), 68 (fol. 58v), 80 (fol. 74v) and 97 (fol. 89r).

2-line gold initials on blue or pink background, decorated with white geometric and arabesque designs, at the beginnings of psalms, canticles, litany and prayers.

1-line plain alternating red and blue initials at the beginnings of verses.

Rubrics in red ink.

Binding

Contemporary, perhaps Flemish, binding, brown leather over wood boards. Blindstamped fleur-de-lis and floral designs, framed by crossing blind fillet lines on the covers. Holes left by the fittings of a clasp. Sewn on four double thongs; four raised bands on spine. Bodleian numbers ‘15[.]’ (?) and ‘152’ painted white on spine. Black paper label on spine with gilt lettering ‘MS. || RAWL. || LITURG. || f. 37’. Gilt edges of textblock with gauffering in a criss-cross pattern, with a point inside the rhombus shapes. Parchment pastedowns and fly-leaves.

Provenance

Made for the use of the diocese of Cambrai, for an Augustinian patron. The litany has many saints venerated in Cambrai; St Augustine is the first among the confessors and St Victor is second among the martyrs. Many Augustinian houses in France were daughter-houses of the Augustinian Abbey of St Victor in Paris. Cambrai, Bibliothèque municipale MS. 193, a psalter, hymnal, ritual and martyrology (Leroquais, 1940–41, vol. 1, pp. 125–7), has a similar litany, but St Aubert precedes St Augustine. It was probably made for the Augustinian Abbey of St Aubert in Cambrai, while MS. Rawl. liturg. f. 37 may have been made for a patron connected with the Abbey of the Virgin Mary of Cantimpré, the second of the two Augustinian abbeys in Cambrai (see Cottineau, 1935–70).

Owned by William, Viscount Beaumont (1438–1507)and given by him to his wife Elizabeth née Scrope (d. 1537) , later Countess of Oxford married to John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, on 5 March 1498/9. Note, imperfect at the end, on fol. 105v: ‘Memorandum that I willyam viscount Beaumount the vth daye of Marche the yere of our Lorde god MlCCCClxxxxviij geve unto Elisabeth my wief this psalter boke / She toccupie the same / during her lief / And if it happen me the said viscount to over live my said wief than this boke to remayne unto me to dispose it after my myende and wille / And if it fortune me the said viscount to deceas be fore my said wief than she after’.

Roland Hund: ‘Ora pro Rowlando Hund quarto die septembris 1636’ (fol. 105r); note marking the end of psalms (fol. 136r).

Erased and cut-out inscriptions on fols. i recto and ii recto.

Richard Rawlinson (1690–1755), see ODNB.

Bodleian Library: bequeathed by Rawlinson; accessioned in 1756. Earlier shelfmarks: ‘Rawl. 815’ (fol. i recto), ‘E Codd. Bodl. Miscell. Liturg. 152’, spine, upper pastedown and fol. ii verso.

Missing from the Rawlinson collection for many years; probably lot 172 in E. Mussell’s sale of 1766 (Doyle, 1958, p. 237, n. 6); restored by Dr Richard Lawrence in 1812. Note on fol. i recto in Dr Philip Bliss’s hand: ‘Stolen from the Library, and restored by Dr. Lawrence June 20. 1812, who purchased it at an auction in London’.