Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 164: Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon. Biblia pauperum etc

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Title:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 164: Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon. Biblia pauperum etc
Alternate Title:
R. Higden Polychronicon. Biblia Pauperum etc.
Language:
Latin
Extent:
ff. 1+ 42 + 18 + 34 + 2
Dimensions:
299 Height (mm) and 202 Width (mm)
Approximate Date:
[ca. 1300 - 1399]; [ca. 1200 - 1299]
Provenance:
At the bottom of f. ir is: liber m. Johannis Gunthorp decani Wellensis emptus a dauid lyenel 13a Julii ao vijo h(enrici) vijmi pro iiijs iiijd. Gunthorp was a considerable collector of books. He was Dean of Wells and died in 1498.
Table of contents:
  • Polychronicon (incomplete)
  • Auicularius (De auibus)
  • De dominica oratione
  • De rota praelationis
  • Sermons
  • Biblia pauperum
  • Moralia siue Liber de uirtutibus (excerpt)
Description:
CCCC MS 164 contains several distinct elements, an incomplete copy of Ranulf Higden OSB (d. 1364) Polychronicon, dating to the late fourteenth century, a number of works of Hugh of Fouilloy OSA (d. c. 1172/3) (including De columba, De rota praelationis and Auicularius) and a number of sermons all in various thirteenth-century hands, and an early fifteenth-century Biblia pauperum, the illustrated version of the Life of Christ parallelled by their Old Testament types. This Biblia pauperum is illustrated by drawings and was probably made in the Netherlands. It is an unusual version very iconographically close to a fully painted version, London, BL MS King's 5, made in the North Netherlands c. 1400-1410. The later provenance of this manuscript is partially attested by a record of the purchase of the book in 1492 by John Gunthorpe (d. 1498), dean of Wells cathedral and Richard III's Keeper of the Privy Seal, from 'David Lyenel' for 4s 4d. Gunthorpe donated some of his manuscripts to Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1496 and much of the rest of his library was left to Wells cathedral, but exactly how this manuscript came into Parker's collection is unknown.
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