Sermons

Title

Sermons

Shelfmark

MS. Lyell 55

Associated place

Lambach

Place of origin

Austrian (?)

Date

12th century, middle

12th century

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

115 leaves,

Decoration

Titles in red capitals.

There are a number of early marginal scribbles, many of them done with a stylus.

The MS. has a series of fifty-one fine initials, mostly of the vinescroll type, akin in style to those of the 12th-cent. Salzburg school. They are outlined in mauve ink, except for the last four, which are in brown ink, and occasionally shaded in green, with solid backgrounds of blue, green, and pink.

The following have figures: fol. 29v, a naked boy, bird and monster heads; fol. 55v, a man, bird and dog; fol. 67, naked boy and monster; fol. 77v, man and monster; fol. 79, man and monster; fol. 88v, naked man and bear; fol. 91, naked man; fol. 93v, man and monster; fol. 97v, man; fol. 99v, young man standing holding two monsters; fol. 102v, bearded man seated between two monsters; fol. 103v, man and monster; fol. 106v, naked green man. Others have animals only: birds (fol. 22, 43, 70), monsters or monster heads (fol. 13, 27, 36, 44, 46, 54v, 74v, 92), a bear (fol. 105r). Pächt and Alexander i. 73, pl. VI, (fol. 77v).

Binding

Monastic binding of original wooden boards covered in rough white leather; original sewing; two clasps on modern straps (1 missing); parchment title (15th cent.?) on front cover: Sermones dominicales post Penthecosten b. Augustini et aliorum sanctorum doctorum; remains of a later title on spine.

Acquisition

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

Provenance

Formerly in the library of the Benedictine abbey of Lambach in Austria, where it was MS. xxiv: the shelfmark M. memb. xxiv (early 19th cent.) is on the spine, where there is also an earlier label: MS. 21. On the front cover is the number D. 6 in red (parchment label, 15th cent.?) and on fol. 1 24 (18th–19th cent.). Not in the library catalogue of c. 1210 but listed in later inventories; see K. Holter, Zwei Bibliotheksverzeichnisse des 13. Jh., M.I.Ö.G. 64 (1956), 275, no. 141; idem, Stift Lambach. Die Hss. und Inkunabeln, Österreichische Kunsttopographie xxxiv, ii (1959), 236, Hg. 283.

Bought by Lyell in May 1940 from Maggs Bros.: see their Cat. 542 (1930), no. 37, and pl. (fol. 43r) and Cat. 687 (1940), no. 216, pl. 22 (fol. 103v) and cover (fol. 106v). Exh., Gladbacher Handschriften-Ausstellung, Mönchengladbach, April–May 1964, no. 32.

James P. R. Lyell, 1871–1948