Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 020: Apocalypse. Visio Sancti Pauli

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Title:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 020: Apocalypse. Visio Sancti Pauli
Alternate Title:
Apocalypsis. Visio Pauli etc.
Language:
Latin and French, Middle (ca. 1400-1600)
Extent:
ff. 72 + 5
Dimensions:
371 Height (mm) and 255 Width (mm)
Approximate Date:
[ca. 1300 - 1325]
Provenance:
On f. iiiv at top: Apocalipsis cum pictura de dono domine Juliane de leybourn comitisse de Huntyngdun. De librario S. Augustini Cantuarie Distinctione I Gradu III. See Ancient Libraries, p. 210, no. 224. The giver died in 1367 and was buried in the Abbey Church.
Table of contents:
  • Apocalypse
  • Visio Sancti Pauli
  • Order of Coronation of a King
Description:
This richly illustrated Apocalypse, CCCC MS 20, was made for Sir Henry de Cobham in the decade before his death in 1339. He kneels in the historiated initial at the beginning of the book. It subsequently passed to Juliana de Leybourne, Countess of Huntingdon (d. 1367) who bequeathed it to St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury. With no less than 106 pictures, it is one of the finest fourteenth-century illustrated copies of the Apocalypse in Anglo-Norman verse, although the commentary text is in Anglo-Norman prose. It is closely related in both iconography and text to another Anglo-Norman Apocalypse, Toulouse, Bibliothèque municipale MS 815, which is by a different artist. Both manuscripts also contain the Vision of St Paul (the Journey of St Paul to Hell), in Anglo-Norman verse, accompanied by illustrations. In addition, the Corpus manuscript contains the English Coronation Ordo in Anglo-Norman, preceded by a frontispiece showing the crowned king in his coronation vestments, flanked by the bishops. The text mentions a Prince Edward, and may be a version of that used for the coronation of Edward III in 1327. The style of the illustrations suggests the 1330s.
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