Description: A wonderful English historical item from an ancient monastery and a Cumbrian castle. This sale is for four English, medieval, illuminated, manuscript leaves, used as book-binding paste-downs at either end of a set of two, very large, 16th century volumes. After the monasteries were dissolved, their old, redundant, manuscripts were often used for this purpose, but it is rare to find them in this state now - most were removed from the books a long time ago. The books themselves are a two-book set, containing four individual volumes with title pages, two volumes to each book, of the works of Cicero, published in 1577-78 by Petrum Santandreanum in Lyon. The volumes have a wonderful English provenance. They were originally in the Library of Muncaster Castle in Cumbria, in which they were volumes with library numbers 15 and 16 - those numbers are written on the edge of the outer pages on the opposite side from the spine. Muncaster has been owned by the Pennington family for the last 800 years. Pennington signatures and Muncaster Castle book plates are in the books. Muncaster Castle is on the west coast of Cumberland, near Ravenglass, just west of the Lake District, north England. Later, possibly in the early 19th century, the books entered the Lindesiana Library of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, who lived at Haigh Hall in Wigan, Lancashire, which is not too far from Muncaster. Balcarres Lindesiana Library bookplates are in the books. Crawford married a lady of the Pennington family in 1811, so perhaps she brought the books from Muncaster to Balcarres? The John Rylands Library in Manchester reported on the sale of the Balcarres private library, in their 1946 Journal. The books then appear to have then been in the collection of an academic, who owned them until I obtained them last year. I enlisted some help from a scholar who is conversant with medieval religious texts, in Latin. She was able to provide me with the following information: The writing on the leaf at the start of the first volume, seen in my photographs, is from the Sarum Sequence of the fourth Sunday of Advent.The leaf at the back of that first volume is from the New Testament, Ephesians 4:8.The manuscript at the back of the second volume is from Psalm 72:8 and the text is referenced in the MMMO database as being from a Mass, possibly a Saturday in Advent.I have no information on the leaf at the start of the second volume. There is work to do here, identifying the whole texts and perhaps, with a lot of research on manuscript databases and expert assistance, identifying the monastery where the manuscripts were made. There were some monasteries in the area of Muncaster Castle, in medieval times. EXPORT LICENCE: If these are to be posted out-with the United Kingdom, then I must, by law, obtain an export licence from the British Government. I will submit the application for the licence, the process is free and it takes around two weeks. Free UK postage. Discounted international postage.
Price: 1500 GBP
Location: Castle Douglas
End Time: 2024-11-04T14:19:55.000Z
Shipping Cost: 188.21 GBP
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return postage will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
After receiving the item, your buyer should cancel the purchase within: 30 days
Type: Illuminated Manuscript
Language: Latin
Region: Europe
Material: Vellum
Subject: Religion, Bibles
Original/Facsimile: Original
