Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 003: The Dover Bible, Volume I

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Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 003: The Dover Bible, Volume I

Alternate Title:

Bibliorum Pars I

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 273

Dimensions:

547 Height (mm) and 372 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1100 - 1199]

Provenance:

From St Martin's Priory, Dover. On the lower margin of f. 4r is the press-mark of that house: : : I : Prima pars Biblie ... es inter omnia animancia ... 273. It is entered in the old catalogue of 1389. See my Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, pp. 413, 522

Table of contents:

The Dover Bible, Volume I

Description:

CCCC MSS 3-4 are a two-volume Bible made for Dover Priory, a dependency of Christ Church cathedral priory, Canterbury. Like the Bury Bible, CCCC MS 2, it is of very large size and typical of twelfth-century luxury monastic Bibles. This first volume contains the Old Testament from Genesis to the Minor Prophets. There is no firm evidence for dating, although a date c. 1150 is generally accepted. The script is close to the Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.17.1) and dated charters produced at Canterbury in the 1150s. It seems fairly certain that the mother house provided its dependency, Dover Priory, with the book, although at what date it came to Dover is not known. It appears first in the 1389 catalogue of their books. There are historiated or decorated initials at the beginning of the biblical books, illuminated by several artists working in different styles. The artists of this first volume work in a Byzantinising style, but different from that of Master Hugo in the Bury Bible, CCCC MS 2. Although it is also a version of the 'damp-fold' style, the folds are patterned in a way closer to that of Byzantine artists. This artist of the Dover Bible may have travelled to Sicily and was influenced by the style of mosaics such as those of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo.