Religious miscellany: MS McClean 102

Titles

Religious miscellany

Entities

• Miscellany

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, i paper flyleaf + 102 fols., 250 x 170 (182 – 188 x 130) mm, 31 long lines, ruled in hard point and plummet, written above top line, quire marks, fine contemporary stitching of parchment defects.

BINDING: c.1500, Weissenau, by a binder active 1478 – 1514 (Kyriß 1951 – 1956, pls. 79 – 80), blind-stamped alum tawed pigskin over wooden boards, sewn on three double supports, central panel including stamps with Angel holding scroll, two pigskin straps with clasps on lower cover, two catchplates on upper cover, trace of chain attachment at top centre of lower cover, paper labels on upper cover and spine (illegible), parchment strips from thirteenth-century manuscript used to strengthen sewing supports and spine; repaired, blue and white endbands laced in (replacements).

CONTENTS: fols. 1r – 48r Passions of the Apostles: Sts Peter and Paul, Tempore illo cum uenisset paulus romam; St Andrew, Passionem S. Apostoli Andree quam oculis nostris uidimus; St John, Secundam post neronem persecutionem; St James the Great, Apostolus domini nostri Iesu Christi Iacobus; St Thomas, Cum apostolus Thomas qui et didmus esset apud cesarem; St Bartholomew, In die tres esse; St Matthew, Quoniam deo cura est; Sts Simon and Jude, Tempore illo symon chananeus; St Philip, Tempore illo sanctus Philippus; St James the Less, Igitur iudei postea quam paulus (Stegmüller 1940 – 1980, nos. 251.3, 199.6, 221, 213.10, 260.3, 207.1, 225.18, 255.17, 254.7, 215.4); fols. 48r – 60v Suplicius Severus, Vita sancti Martini Turonensis; fols. 60v – 65v Suplicius Severus, Epistulae iii; fols. 65v – 96r Suplicius Severus, Dialogorum libri II (in 3 Books); fols. 96r – 97r Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, Book I, chapter 48, Incipit de obitu sanctissimi confessoris Christi martini atque pontificis. Archadio vero et honorio regnantibus
fols. 97r – 99v Gregory of Tours, De miraculis Sancti Martini Episcopi, Book I, chapters 4 – 6; fols. 99v – 100v Venimus en istuc hic nec personat (Walther 1959 – 1986, I, no. 20098, this manuscript not recorded; Schaller 1977, no. 17053); fols. 100v – 100r Clemens trinitas est una diuinitas (PL 18, cols. 11 – 12); fols. 101r – 102v Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, Book II, chapter 1, Incipit vita sancti ac beatissimi brictii episcope et confessoris. Igitur post excessum beati Martini Turonice.

DECORATION: Two historiated initials in red ink, first one with white scrollwork on green and red ground: fol. 1r Passion of Sts Peter and Paul, [T, 13 ll.] Simon Magus rising to the call of the devil, Sts Peter and Paul below, discussing and pointing up; fol. 48v Prologue to Life of St Martin, [P, 3 ll.] St Martin as bishop holding empty scroll.

ORNAMENTATION: Red penwork initials [1 – 6 ll.] with minor decoration in red or brown, or with yellow washes.

Notes

History note: Premonstratensian abbey of St Peter at Augia minor, Weissenau, diocese of Konstanz, founded in 1145; manuscript recorded in early thirteenth-century library catalogue as Passiones apostolorum et vita sancti Martini in I volumine (Lehmann 1918, 410 – 12) and probably in library catalogue of second half of the twelfth century as Passiones Sanctorum Apostolorum (Lehmann 1959 – 1962, III, 118 – 20); re-bound in Weissenau c.1500; ex-libris Bibliothecae Weissenaviensis in seventeenth-century hand below printed label on fol. 1r; Bonaventura Brem, last abbot of Weissenau (d.1818), printed label Bonaventura Abbas Minoraug. pasted over seventeenth-century Weissenau ex-libris on fol. 1r and armorial bookplate containing mitre and initials B.A.Z.W. (Bonaventura Abt zu Weissenau) inside upper cover (cf. Berlin, SBPK, MS Lat. Qu. 761-765; Fingernagel 1991, I, 99); Thomas Bateman (1821 – 1861), Middleton Hall, by Youlgrave, Derbyshire (armorial bookplate inside lower cover); to his son, William Bateman; his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 25 – 31 May 1893, lot 1479; purchased by Frank McClean (1837 – 1904); his bequest, 1904.