Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 002III: The Bury Bible

purl.stanford.edu/dt053nh0820

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 002III: The Bury Bible

Alternate Title:

Bibliorum Pars I

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 357

Dimensions:

522 Height (mm) and 360 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1100 - 1199]

Provenance:

The book comes from Bury St Edmunds Abbey. On the upper corner of f. 2r (first leaf of text) is a mark rather smaller than in most Bury books, but of the same kind: B. 1. The press-mark shows that this was the first book in class B. The B here stands for Biblia. Further, at f. 322r the edge of the leaf has been mended with a patch of vellum in cent. xv on which is sketched a crowned head (cut off at the neck) and a scroll inscribed hic, hic, hic. This represents St Edmund's head, which called out Here, here, to those who were searching for it after the martyrdom. It fixes the provenance in a very satisfactory way. In the old catalogue (cent. xii, xiii) of the Abbey books preserved in a MS. at Pembroke College and printed in my Essays on the Abbey of Bury, 1895, p. 23, the second item is Bibliotheca in duo uolumina (!): and in the Gesta Sacristarum, Arnold, Memorials of Bury St Edmunds Abbey (Rolls Series II, p. 290) in the account of Hervey (sacrist under Anselm in 1121-1148) this passage occurs: Iste Herveus frater Taleboti prioris omnes expensas inuenit fratri suo priori in scribenda magna bibliotheca et manu magistri Hugonis incomparabiliter fecit depingi. Qui cum non inueniret in partibus nostris pelles uitulinas sibi accommodas, in Scotiae partibus parchamenas comparauit. This passage seems to refer specially to the illuminating of the Bible in question. I interpret it thus: that Hervey found the money for his brother the prior to have a great Bible written, and had it painted after a matchless sort by the hand of Master Hugo. The latter not finding vellum to suit him in our district procured parchment from Ireland. Clearly there cannot have been any difficulty in getting good vellum to write upon in England. But the special vellum required by the painter was a superior and rarer article. Now it will be found that in this Bible all or almost all of the paintings are done upon separate pieces of vellum which have been pasted down on the leaves of the book. I have no hesitation therefore in identifying the volume before us with a portion of the Bible of Magister Hugo. It is most interesting to have a work of this artist preserved. Like many workers of his time, he exercised more than one craft. He is recorded to have made the bronze doors of St Edmund's Church, to have carved a fine rood for it, and to have cast a great bell.

Table of contents:

The Bury Bible

Description:

This great Bible, CCCC MS 2, one of the most famous of the books in the Parker Library, is now bound in three volumes (2I, 2II, 2III), although once was a single volume. 2I contains ff. 1r-121v with Jerome’s Prologue and the books from Genesis to Joshua; 2II contains ff. 122r-241v with the books from Judges to Isaiah; 2III contains ff. 242r-357v with the books from Jeremiah to Job. The single volume thus contained the books of the Old Testament from Genesis to Job, and the second volume with the remainder of the Bible has not survived. It can be identified with a Bible commissioned by Hervey, the sacrist, for his brother, Talbot, prior of Bury St Edmunds Abbey, c. 1135-8, which was illuminated by Master Hugo. The miniatures and some of the illuminated initials are painted on separate pieces of vellum stuck to the page, and the description of the Bible in the Gesta Sacristarum attests that master Hugo 'was unable to find any suitable calf-hide in these parts' and had to purchase parchment from Ireland. Six large full-page or half-page miniatures preface some of the books, whereas the others have historiated or ornamental initials. Six of the large pictures have been removed from the book and are lost. It is a prime example of the very large luxury Bibles made in the twelfth century for monastic houses. The artist, Master Hugo, was influenced by Byzantine painting, and may have seen either illuminated manuscripts opr wall-paintings, such as those of Asinou in Cyprus which most closely resemble his style. The faces are modelled with shading in green and grey, and the folds are divided into sections reflecting the position of the limbs. This has been called the 'damp-fold' style and influenced many other artists working in England in the period c. 1140-70 at Canterbury, Winchester and elsewhere. After the dissolution of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds at the Reformation the Bible eventually came into the hands of Matthew Parker.