DPL Reed MS4b

1. Bible, Latin. Northern France, late thirteenth century, MS4b spine with gilt-stamped title and date.
2. Bible, Latin; St. Jerome’s Prologue with historiated initial 'P' showing St. Jerome at his writing desk. Northern France, late thirteenth century, f.1r
3. Bible, Latin; Genesis 1:1–1:17, with historiated initial 'I' showing the Creation ending with the Crucifixion. Northern France, late thirteenth century, f.5v

336 leaves. 131 by 80mm. Double column, 41 lines, ruled in leadpoint, written space 85 by 54mm; gothic bookhand.

Note: One volume of two only (see Provenance).
Decoration: Two-line red and blue chapter initials throughout, with contrasting penwork extending into the margins. Decorated initials (3- to 9-line) introduce the prologues, biblical books and the seven liturgical divisions of the Psalms except on folios 1r and 5v, where the initials are historiated.
Binding: Eighteenth-century green gilt-stamped morocco, red morocco doublures with gilt dentelles; red morocco spine label gilt, orange silk marker, gilt edges.
Provenance: The first half of Bodleian MS. Lat. Bib. f1. Erased but still legible inscriptions in the Bodleian portion record its purchase for 16 florins in 1361 and its presentation to the Carthusian abbey of Marienthron at Gaming, Austria, diocese of Passau (suppressed in 1782). The rectangles cut from the margins of the Reed volume on folios 1 and 335 mark the removal of the Marienthron library stamp. The two volumes were apparently together in England in the nineteenth century, and a price '2 voll., 1-7' is recorded in the Reed half. Purchased from Sotheby's, 9 December 1974, lot 61a.
References: Manion, Vines, de Hamel no. 60; Reed Early Bibles no. 4.
Shelfmark: RMM MS 4b.

Description reproduced from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (London, 1989) by permission of the authors (Christopher de Hamel, Margaret Manion, and the family of Vera F. Vines).