ÆŸ The Bishop Carr Bible, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [most probably England, mid-thirteenth century]

471 leaves (including one medieval endleaf at front and two medieval endleaves at back; last leaf of final gathering once blank, but filled with medieval annotations; the whole volume foliated in modern pencil including all medieval endleaves and two modern parchment at front and three at back, but this foliation followed here), occasional contemporary quire signatures, collation now impractical (but collated by Oliver in 1985) but text collated and wanting a leaf from beginning with the opening prologues and a single leaf from Psalms, a leaf cancelled between fols. 138-139 but text continuous, else complete, double column of 47-50 lines of a series of accomplished university hands, capitals touched in yellow or red, rubrics in red, versal numbers and running titles in alternate red and blue, small initials in same with contrasting penwork (these mostly scrolling and filling borders, but later in volume some of these looping penstrokes with crosses and circles overlaid in cruder style), larger initials in colour with white penwork enclosing tightly wound sprays of acanthus leaves, the larger of these with foliage ending in animal masks or human faces and terminating in occasional drolleries (including one with a crowned animal mask on 353r, a human-headed dragon on fol. 80v, and a drollery musician playing a pipe and tabor on fol. 311v), one full-page initial 'I' (fol. 4r, In prinicipio creatavit ...) containing nine roundels separated by acanthus leaf sprays and enclosing drolleries, four big-cat faces facing each other, another big-cat, birds (one wearing a pointed hat) and a basilisk, all on coloured grounds, some leaves faded with text hard to read and at one point overwritten for a few lines, leaves at each end with slight damage to upper margins and some signs of old water damage there, small burn hole in fol. 54 removing a few characters from 8 lines of text, many of larger initials slightly scuffed or washed out, trimmed at head (but outer vertical edge with some leaves with original prick marks surviving), overall in good and robust condition, 173 by 120mm.; modern brown leather tooled with simple fillet and crosses at corners over thin bevelled wooden boards (perhaps early), sewn on five large double thongs, marbled endleaves (a paper endleaf from an earlier binding now pasted to second paper endleaf at front), red edges, front board loosening and split at head of spine, else robust in binding, in fitted cloth-covered box (made for Society for Biblical Research)

A charming bible, most probably of English origin, and with a long and noble history of ownership, unseen on the open market since the mid-nineteenth century

Provenance:
1. A number of the hands here, the simple decoration (avoiding gold and with penwork in dull red and blue penwork) and the gaps left before the beginning of Mark's Gospel and the Interpretation of Hebrew Names all indicate that this volume was copied and decorated in a university setting in England, almost certainly Oxford, for use by a student or master there. It remained in use in England through to the close of the Middle Ages, and perhaps beyond, with hands of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century (some certainly English) adding notes for its liturgical use on endleaves and a list of Hebrew names with short descriptions added before the Interpretation of Hebrew names.

2. Anthony Tomyson: his late sixteenth-century inscription beginning this is my hand upside-down on fol. 472v. He may be identifiable as the namesake who is recorded at Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1555, or less likely another who was as St John's, Cambridge c. 1596, and was a fellow there in 1603 (J. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, 1927, I: 222). The short notes in English added by a sixteenth-century hand to a few margins are perhaps his (fol. 22v her mother, 102v Be yt ... unto and similar).

3. Bishop Robert Carr of Chicester (1774-1841; bishop of Worcester from 1831): inscription in hand of Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (see below) at head of paper endleaf from earlier binding, recording it as his and its gift to its next owner on 24 December 1830, presumably as a Christmas present.

4. Prince Augustus Frederick (1773-1843), Duke of Sussex, the sixth son of King George III, who built a large library of theological books from 1819 onwards in Kensington Palace. By 1827 his library had reached approximately 50,000 volumes, all shelved together along one wall of a vast corridor joining the older and more modern parts of the building. This volume with his smaller bookplate annotated by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, the duke's librarian and surgeon, noting its contents and an erroneous date of 1400; additions at the foot of the same bookplate recording the shelfmark VI H l. 10 (i.e. Latin 10), and it is recorded under the same in his Bibliotheca Sussexiana, A Descriptive Catalogue, 1827, I,1, p. lxxiii (that written by Pettigrew). The duke died leaving substantial debts and his library was sold by Evans in a series of sales, with this volume in part II, 31 July 1844, lot 12 (the pencilled measurements at the foot of the bookplate matching those of the Evans catalogue).

5. Thomas Thorpe, London bookdealer: his catalogue for August 1844, no. 33: with a clipping apparently from this rare sale catalogue pasted to the front pasteboard here.

6. John A. Murphy (d. 1900), a medical doctor of Ohio (on him see Gwara, p. 54), who also owned the Leonardo Bruni codex now Beinecke, Marston MS. 90: his bookplate.

7. The Society for Biblical Research, Boston, MA., acquired by them from Otto Ege in April 1949 (see Gwara, pp. 54 and 161 where this book is HL 129), then MS. 2 of their endowment collection: with their marks Zion MS. 2 on front modern paper endleaf.

8. Acquired by the present owner in the London trade in the 1990s.

Text:
The volume here comprises a Vulgate Bible, with the standard prologues of Jerome as in Lambeth Palace MS. 1364 (see N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 1969, I:96-97), but with Multorum nobis et ... used as a prologue to Ecclesiasticus. The Interpretation to the Hebrew Names is in the common form Aaz apprehendans ....

English thirteenth-century Bibles are far rarer than their French cousins, and come to the open market much less frequently. Another with only penwork decoration was sold in our rooms, 9 December 2015, lot 111 realising £62,000 hammer. The last offered by Sotheby's was the William Ketyl Bible with very simple penwork decoration, on 4 December 2018, lot 14, and before that the finely decorated Northumberland Bible on 8 July 2014, lot 49, and another example from the Bergendal collection: 5 July 2011, lot 50. The last ones offered by Christie's were those once owned by J. Paul Getty, offered 20 November 2013, lot 42, another sold 2 July 2010, lot 203, and another two once in the Cornelius J. Hauck collection, sold in New York, 27 June 2006, lots 91 and 94.

Published:
J. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular from the Collections of the Endowment for Biblical Research and Boston University (1985), pp. 17-19.

S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, HL 129.

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