Leaf from the gargantuan 'Bohun Bible', with an illuminated initial, manuscript in Latin on parchment [England (East Anglia, perhaps Cambridge), c. 1340]

Single leaf, with double column of 22 lines in a rounded English gothic bookhand (with text from Eccesiasticus 24:43-25:28), with significant lateral compression of lines, capitals touched in hairline penwork, running titles and versal numbers in blue and red, 2 one-line initials in burnished gold on blue and rose pink grounds, one very large illuminated initial 'I' (opening In tribus placitum ..., opening Eccesiasticus 25:1) on bi-coloured blue and rose pink grounds with white penwork and fleshy foliate terminals emerging from head and foot, early folio no. '91' in faded pen at upper outer corner of the recto, original flaws to parchment causing losses to upper and outermost margins, small spots, else excellent condition, 450 by 310mm.

The parent volume of this leaf was most probably part of a four volume set, with the first volume perhaps now British Library MS. Royal I.E.IV. On a stylistic basis links have been made between the surviving parts of these volumes and other manuscripts made for the Bohun family, earls of Hereford, whose main estates were in East Anglia (L. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285-1385, 1986, no. 132). Other single leaves and collections of leaves in the Bodleian (MS. Bib. Lat.b.4) include ex libris marks of three Early Modern Cheshire families, and these have led to connections being made to the Benedictine Priory of St. Radegund's, Cambridge (suppressed in 1496 to establish Jesus College), and most recently the Carmelite Friary in Chester. The surviving leaves are listed by C. de Hamel in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections, 1989, pp. 93-95 (but not including the present leaf), and in an updated form extensively discussing their provenance by the same author in 'The Bohun Bible Leaves', in Script & Print, Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia & New Zealand, 32 (2008), pp. 49-63.