Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 004: The Dover Bible, Volume II

purl.stanford.edu/fn354xs7634

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 004: The Dover Bible, Volume II

Alternate Title:

Bibliorum Pars II

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 283

Dimensions:

532 Height (mm) and 360 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1400 - 1499]; [ca. 1100 - 1199]

Provenance:

The Dover press-mark has disappeared but there is no doubt of the provenance. and I think the artist who illuminated no. 4 was not the illuminator of MS 3. It also seems to me that the illuminator of no. 4 and Eadwine, the artist of the Canterbury Psalter at Trinity College, have a good deal in common. It is antecedently probable that this Bible was made at Christ Church Canterbury, of which Dover Priory was a dependency.

Table of contents:

The Dover Bible, Volume II

Description:

This second volume of the Dover Bible contains the latter part of the Old Testament from the Book of Psalms, and the whole of the New Testament, and these books have historiated or ornamental initials. The artists of this volume are different from the first volume, and their work is best parallelled in North French or Flemish manuscripts of the second quarter of the twelfth century - it is possible that they may indeed have come from the border region of France and Flanders, and this is suggested by characteristic iconography from those parts. Some of their work shows Italo-Byzantine influence, but quite different in appearance to that of the first volume, and characterised by patterned linear folds in the form of 'nested V's'. Figures have large faces with staring eyes and heavy dark eyebrows. The two volumes of the Bible found their way into Matthew Parker's collection after the dissolution of the priory at the Reformation.