Bible

Accession number: 
MS M.791
Title: 
Bible
Created: 
Oxford, England, ca. 1220.
Binding: 
Previously in blue cloth over boards; rebound by Maguerite Duprez Lahey in one quarter brown morocco on 6 raised bands over oak boards; inscribed on spine: Bible, England, XIII century.
Credit: 
Gift of Philip Hofer, May 1935.
Description: 
395 leaves (2 columns, 56 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 476 x 320 mm
Provenance: 
Owned by St. Albans Abbey in the 14th century; John Dee, 1578 (date and delta sign of ownership on fol. 4v, incised into the gold on the right side of the central quatrefoil); Magister Saunders (written in a 17th-century hand on fol. 228v); possibly Brian Twyre (ca. 1579-1644) the Oxford antiquary (one of possible names read in an offset on fol. a); acquired by the Marquesses of Lothian by 1819 when the Duke of Wellington signed his name on fol. 1 on a visit to Blickling Hall; the Marquis of Lothian; his sale (New York, American Art Association, Jan. 27, 1932, lot 3) to Rosenbach; Philip Hofer.
Notes: 

Ms. Bible; written and illuminated in Oxford, England, ca. 1220.
Decoration: 1 full-page frontispiece miniature; 8 very large, 45 large, and 13 small historiated or figure initials. Some initials were painted on separate pieces of parchment. On fols. 5r, 18r, 102v, 182v, 267v, 271r, 262v, and 274r these pieces have been removed, either partially or entirely. The initials were cut out of fols. 28v and 386v.
Non-Vulgate order. Old Testament: Genesis-Esther, I & II Maccabees, double Psalter (Gallican and Hebraic), Major and Minor Prophets, Job, Proverbs-Ecclesiasticus. New Testament: four Gospels, Acts, James-Apocalypse, Romans-Philippians, I & II Thessalonians, Colossians, I & II Timothy-Hebrews, Laodiceans.

Script: 
minuscule
Language: 
Latin
Century: 
Classification: