BREVIARY (SARUM)

MRJ number
215
College classmark
H.13

Vellum, 10.25 x 7.25, ff. 264, double columns of 30 lines.  Late 15th cent., finely written and ornamented probably in Flanders.

Ex dono Thomae Gardiner Armigeri.

Collation : 18 – 58 (wants 4, 5) 68 78 8 (two) 98 – 118 (wants 5) 128 138? (wants 3 – 6 : two of these follow quire 14) 148 (wants 8) 14* (one misplaced) B* (2) 15 (1) | 168 – 238 (wants 5) 248 – 268 (wants 3) 278  (wants 2-7) 288 – 318 (wants 1) 328 (wants 1) 338 (wants 6, 7) 348 (wants 3, 7) 358 (wants 3, 7) 362 (2 torn out) 376 388 39 (two).

Contents :

Sarum Breviary.

Begins imperfectly in the Proper of Time in the Office for Ash

    Wednesday.

At Easter is a gap of two leaves : from Eve of Pentecost to Trinity

    Sunday of six leaves.  In the Historia of Tobit 1 leaf gone : in

    office for 15-18 Sun. after Trinity 1 leaf.

Termini paschales                .               .               .               .               .         f.    97

Benedictiones       .               .               .               .               .               .               97b

98a blank : 99b one page of the Advent office.

100, 101 are misplaced leaves out of quire 13.

102 the end of the Litanies, presumably the only relic of the Psalter.

Proper of Saints    .               .               .               .               .               103

In Office of SS. Peter and Paul and Transl. of S. Thomas 1 leaf gone.

At the Assumption 1 leaf.

S. Bartholomew to Nativity of the Virgin 6 leaves.

In S. Quintin 1 leaf.  In All Souls 1 : in S. Martin 2 : Cecilia

    to Katherine 2 leaves.

Common of Saints : 2nd leaf gone : and three or four others        .               236b

Ends f. 262.

Benedictiones dominicales                 .               .               .               .               263

Almost every page is partially bordered with line and leaf-work, having insertions of gold and colour and of flowers, fruit and grotesques : the ground is plain save on the pictured pages, where fluid gold is employed.

The motto Bien en auiengne, sometimes with C M following, occurs very often.  The initials and motto occur in MS. Fitzwilliam 187, in conjunction with the motto of Charles the Bold, and the device of the Golden Fleece.

The remaining pictures (but a large majority have been removed) are :

1.  Ascension.  f. 51b.  The Virgin and Apostles kneel round the mount in a landscape.  The robe of Christ seen in a gold break in the clouds.

2.  Corpus Christi.  57b.  Christ seated at the near end of a table seen in perspective turns to L. and gives the sop to Judas, who kneels to him, in red.  The other Apostles seated at table.  On L. a servant at a buttery-hatch.  Fireplace on R., buffet at further end.

Plain ground to the border.

3.  Proper of Saints.  f. 103.  Andrew bound to saltire cross in landscape.  Christ seen in the sky.  On R. the ruler Egeas and two soldiers.

Fine border with fluid gold ground.

4.  Purification.  f. 122.  Interior of temple with apse and yellow curtains : altar on R.  Symeon kneeling on step before altar.  The Virgin in white over blue, with the Child, in C.  Attendant (woman) and Joseph with candle and dove on L.

Fine border, white foliage, and flowers and birds on gold.

5.  Annunciation.  f. 134.  Virgin in white over blue kneels on L., a small table and book in front.  Dove above her head.  Gabriel in gold and green cope over white, with sceptre on R.

A massive band of burnished gold, with pattern, on two sides of page : the border has plain ground.

6.  Nativity of John Baptist.  f. 151b. In a room.  Zacharias in blue hood with long tail, and pink mantle, sits with paper on knee and looks up at an angel in air.  On R. of a fireplace at the further end a bed.  Elizabeth and the child on it : two women attend.  Border with gold ground.

 

In the Sanctoral are David, Chad, Translation of John of Beverley, and Wenefred.

Slips showing the lacunae have been inserted by Mr Weale (?).

Manuscript extra information

 

Negative microfilm in St John's College Library.
The border and miniature style are close to the Ghent register of St Anne's Guild, dated 1477, in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Therefore this manuscript is most likely to have been illuminated in Ghent.
The motto 'Bien en aviengne' (May good come of it) is that of Margaret of York, and the initials C. M. are those of her husband, Charles the Bold, and herself.
Fol. 63v has a fine full border without a miniature but with an extra large initial D.

 

The Master of Mary of Burgundy: a book of hours for Engelbert of Nassau, the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Introduction and legends by J. J. G. Alexander (London, 1970).
M.P. Brown and S. McKendrick (eds), Illuminating the Book: makers and interpreters; essays in honour of Janet Backhouse (London, 1998), p.218.
G.I. Lieftinck, Boekverluchters vit de omgeving van Maria van Bourgondie c. 1475 - c. 1485 (Brussels, 1969).
G.I. Lieftinck, 'De Meester van Maria van Bourgondie en Rooclooster Bij Brussel', Bulletin van de Koninklijke Nederlandsche oudheidkundige Bond zesde serie 17:4 (1964).
Otto Pächt, 'The Master of Mary of Burgundy', Burlington Magazine (December, 1944).
Otto Pächt, The Master of Mary of Burgundy (London, 1948), plate 23 (fol. 57v).
C.G.C. Tite, '"Lost or stolen or strayed": a survey of manuscripts formerly in the Cotton Library', British Library Journal 18:2 (Autumn 1992), 107-47.

 

Exhibited at the Royal Society of Arts, London, 1953-4, in the exhibition Flemish Art 1300 - 1700. See the catalogue, item 594.
Exhibited at La Miniature Flamande in Brussels (April - June 1959), Amsterdam (June - Sept. 1959), and Paris (Sept. - Nov. 1959).
Exhibited (f.103r) at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from 13 July to 19 September 1993. See the catalogue: A. Arnould and J.M. Massing, Splendours of Flanders (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1993) no. 49.
Exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum (June - Sept. 2003) and the Royal Academy of Arts (Nov. 2003 - Feb. 2004). See the catalogue: Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, The Renaissance: the triumph of Flemish manuscript painting in Europe (Los Angeles, 2003) no. 22, pp. 4, 124, 127, 145, 148-50, 199. Fol. 122 and the miniature of St Andrew on fol. 103 are reproduced on pp. 148-9.
Exhibited (f.57v) at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, from 26 July to 11 December 2005. See the catalogue: P. Binski and S. Panayotova (eds.), The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West (London: Harvey Miller, 2005) no. 50, fig. 22.

 

OTHER IMAGES

 

  • f.48r - Rabbit in border