Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 079: Pontifical

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Title:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 079: Pontifical
Alternate Title:
Pontificale (London)
Language:
Latin and English, Middle (1100-1500)
Extent:
ff. 24 + cclix
Dimensions:
400 Height (mm) and 255 Width (mm)
Approximate Date:
[ca. 1300 - 1499]
Provenance:
Begun for Bishop Mona of St David's, the book must have been completed after 1407 when Mona died and Clifford was translated to London, and, in 1421, on Clifford's death passed to Morgan, who prefixed the first leaves. A Bishop in Henry VII's time must have added the Office for the reception of a Nuncio.
Table of contents:
  • Reception of a papal nuncio offering the cap and sword to Henry VII
  • Blessing of a crosier, ring and mitre of an abbot
  • Marriage service
  • Penitential psalms, Benedictions for various occasions and Blessing of a hermit
  • Table of contents and prayer before mass
  • Conditions for validity of ordinands
  • De sacramentis christianae fidei, book 2, part 3, De ecclesiasticis ordinibus (paraphrased and excerpted)
  • Standards of conduct of a bishop
  • Edict on the office of a bishop
  • Confirmation
  • First tonsure
  • Vesting of a bishop for mass
  • Colour of vestments for services of the year
  • Psalms and prayers at vesting and divesting of a bishop
  • Conditions for validity of ordinands
  • Ordinations of doorkeepers
  • Ordination of readers
  • Ordination of exorcists
  • Ordination of acolytes
  • Ordination of subdeacons
  • Litany for ordination of deacons
  • Ordination and blessing of deacons
  • Ordination of priests
  • Ordinations in Lent
  • Confirmation of election and examination of a bishop (Roman form)
  • Consecration of a bishop (Roman form)
  • Presentation of bishop elect
  • Confirmation of election and examination of a bishop (English form)
  • Consecration of a bishop (English form)
  • Pontifical mass at consecration of a bishop
  • Enthronement of a bishop
  • Blessing of an abbot
  • Installation of an abbot or abbess
  • Blessing of an abbess
  • Consecration of a virgin
  • Profession of a nun
  • Blessing of a widow
  • Enclosing of an anchoress
  • Expulsion of the penitents on Ash Wednesday
  • Reconciliation of the penitents, Consecration of holy oils and mass on Maundy Thursday
  • Reconciliation of an apostate
  • Ordo for a synod
  • Coronation service of a king
  • Coronation service of a queen
  • Consecration of a church
  • Consecration of a cemetery
  • Consecration of an altar
  • Consecration of a portable altar
  • Blessing of salt, water, ashes and wine, and consecration of altar slab
  • Blessing of a portable altar slab
  • Reconciliation of a church or cemetery
  • Blessing of the crosier, mitre, gloves and shoes of a bishop
  • Blessing of the seal of the bishop
  • Blessing of altar cloths
  • Blessing for various ornaments
  • Blessing of albs
  • Blessing of girdles
  • Blessing of stoles
  • Blessing of stoles and maniples
  • Blessing of chasubles
  • Blessing of albs (alternative)
  • General blessing for church ornaments
  • Blessing of corporals
  • Blessing of patens
  • Blessing of chalices
  • Blessing of censers
  • Blessing of bells
  • Blessing of a crucifix
  • Blessing of an image of the virgin Mary
  • Blessing of an image of St John Evangelist
  • Blessing of pyxes or ciboria
  • Blessing of the offertory cloth
  • Consecration of a baptistery
  • Blessing of service books
  • Blessing of gifts to the church
  • Blessing of processional and military banners
  • Blessing of reliquary caskets
  • Blessing of reliquary shrines
  • Profession of canons regular
  • Profession of monks
  • Blessing of oil for the sick
  • Blessing of a new well
  • Blessing of new fruit
  • Blessing of bread
  • Blessing of a new house
  • Liturgy for Excommunication
  • Absolution at confession
  • Episcopal benedictions at mass
  • Baptism service
  • Marriage service
  • Visitation and anointing of the sickBurial service
  • Enthronement of an archbishop and benedictions
Description:
CCCC MS 79, dating from c. 1400 and c. 1410, is the most elaborate decorated Pontifical to survive from medieval England. The text contains the church services particular to bishops, and is a specifically English version rather than the Durandus edition of the Pontifical widely used throughout Europe at this time. Its ownership can be determined from the heraldry on some of its pages, and it seems to have passed through the hands of three bishops who made additions to the text and illumination. The original patron of the book seems to have been Guy de Mohun, bishop of St Davids (1397-1407), and it then passes first to Richard Clifford, bishop of Worcester (1401-1407) and bishop of London (1407-1421) who had further illumination done, and finally to Philip Morgan, bishop of Worcester (1419-1426) and bishop of Ely (1426-1435) who added a section of text. By 1489 the Pontifical was at St Paul's Cathedral because on ff. 1v-2 are added the texts for the ceremony held there in that year of the presentation of the papal sword and cap to Henry VII by Pope Innocent VIII's nuncio. Small framed miniatures and historiated initials illustrate the various pontifical offices, and many pages have elaborate gilded borders and ornamental initials. The book was probably made in London because its artists in their ornament and figure style derive from the illuminators who made the Litlyngton Missal (Westminster Abbey MS 37) in 1383-1384.
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