Honorius Augustodunensis

Title

Honorius Augustodunensis

Shelfmark

MS. Lyell 56

Place of origin

Austrian, Lambach, Benedictine abbey (?)

Date

12th century, third quarter

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment (rather rough)

Physical extent

273 leaves

Hands

Written in several hands in Austria (probably at Lambach) in the third quarter of the 12th cent.

There are many contemporary corrections and insertions. Some of the insertions and marginal captions by the scribes, describing the contents of the text, are enclosed in frames of red. There are also marginalia in 12th–15th-cent. hands.

Decoration

The MS. has a series of fine initials, mostly of the vinescroll type, drawn mainly in red but with further details in lilac or light-brown ink, sometimes with parts washed in yellow or green.

Some of the initials have zoomorphic features: birds (fols. 1, 1v, 6v, 44v, 75, 192, 209v), monsters (fols. 34, 44v, 55, 97v) and a hare (fol. 108v); others have figures: the risen Christ (fol. 58v), St. John the Baptist (fols. 78v, 95: freestanding figures); heads: fol. 70r, 73r, 86r (Christ and St. Mary Magdalene), 87v (St. James), in (St. Cecilia), 113v (St. Andrew), 117 (St. Thomas), 135v (a monk). On fol. 168 is a figure of a monk, possibly intended to be Honorius himself. The style of the initials is close to the Salzburg school of the second half of the 12th cent., and the style of drawing of the figures and faces is similar to that in the Williram codex from Lambach, now MS. Berlin theol. lat. qu. 140 (see Swarzenski, Salzburger Malerei, 1913, pp. 154–5 and Abb. 413–21) and that in the St. Augustine from Lambach (Sotheby sale, 12 Nov. 1929, lot 389, with plates) and the copy of Honorius on the Song of Songs, now Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery MS. W. 29 (ex-Lambach xciv, identified by H. Menhaxdt, Der Nachlass des H. A., in Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und Literatur 89 (1958–9), 60), illustrated in J. Rosenthal, Bibi. Med. Aevi MSS. H Kat. 90), 1928, Taf. viii (no. 144), and Walters Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, Illuminated Books of the M. Ages and Renaissance, Baltimore 1949, pl. xviil (no. 27). According to Swarzenski, the use of red and violet together in the pen drawing, with occasional use of brown ink, and of yellow wash, are characteristics of MSS. from Lambach (op. cit., p. 155). Pächt–Alexander 1, no. 80, pl. vii (fol. 58v).

Binding

Monastic binding: original thick wooden boards, covered in 15th cent, in white leather with traces of tooling (15th cent.?), plaited head and tail bands. Remains of two clasps (15th cent.?, modern straps), traces of bosses; two labels removed from upper cover. On the early bindings of Lambach see K. Holter in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1954, p. 280.

Acquisition

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

Provenance

Formerly MS. xliii in the library of the Benedictine abbey of Lambach in Austria – the shelfmark M. Memb. xliii (early 19th cent.) is on the spine, where there are also two earlier labels, now illegible. Mentioned in a list of books from the Lambach library made c. 1210, pr. by K. Holter, Zwei Bibliotheksverzeichnisse des 13 Jh., M.I.Ö.G. 64 (1956), 273; see also K. Holter Stift Lambach. Die Hss. und Inkunabeln, Österreichische Kunsttopographie xxxiv, ii (1959), 239.

Bought by Lyell in March 1942 from A. Rosenthal; see J. Rosenthal, Kat. 90 cit., no. 145 and Taf. lii (fol. 44v).

James P. R. Lyell, 1871–1948