Ps.-Basil, Ps.-Bernard of Clairvaux — 15th century, first half; English

Title

Ps.-Basil, Ps.-Bernard of Clairvaux — 15th century, first half; English

Shelfmark

MS. Lyell 19

Place of origin

English

Date

15th century, first half

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

v + 130 leaves (fol. i-v, 129-30 are flyleaves, etc.) Edges cropped

Hands

Written in textura in England in the first half of the 15th cent.

Decoration

Fol. 1 initial in blue and red on gold ground, infilled with interlacing foliage, and joined to border framing the text formed of panels in the same colours, decorated in white, and divided by foliage or interlace on gold grounds and with sprays of leaves extending into outer margins; fols. 57r, 67r, 92r, similar initals with bar borders, similarly decorated, framing the text; smaller initials gold on decorated red and blue grounds with small sprays of leaves. ( Pächt and Alexanderiii. 856, pl. LXXXI)

Borders: see above.

Binding

Modern binding in brown morocco with blind-tooled pattern, by Riviere and Son.

Acquisition

Chosen as one of the hundred manuscripts bequeathed to the Bodleian by Lyell in 1948.

Provenance

Canterbury, Kent. Benedictine cathedral priory of Holy Trinity or Christ Church: fol. v (original flyleaf): 'Liber fratris Ioh' sall ecclesie Christi Cant.', followed by a list of contents (15th cent.).

There are two further erased ex-libris (15th-16th cent.?) In the second the names of 'Sellyng' and 'Robertus L' are legible. On fol. v verso is 'W. (? or N.) P.' (17th cent., partly cut off), and at the top of fol. v is: '18'.

Quaritch, Catalogue of Illuminated and other MSS., 1931, no. 91 with plate of fol. 67.

James P. R. Lyell, 1871–1948: bought by Lyell in October 1936.