Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, St John's College, MS D.6

Contents

Introduction: The manuscript begins with a Kalendar, in red blue and black. This is followed by the Prologue to the Psalms, which is glossed, then the Hours of the Virgin, according to Sarum use. Full-page paintings and a frontispiece precede a Psalter with interlinear glosses, which forms the largest part of the manuscript. The text concludes with Cantica, Litany, and the Office of the Dead.
Horae, Psalter, etc.
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Vellum
Extent: 180 + 6 folios.
Dimensions (leaf): 280 × 190 mm.

Collation

a4, 16 28 36 (wants 4-6) 48 58 (wants 2, 7) 68 78 810 98 - 158 1610 178 - 228 2310 (wants 10), b2.

Layout

Single column, 23 lines to a page

Hand(s)

13th century, finely written

Decoration

The Kalendar is illustrated with a roundel containing the Signs of the Zodiac for each month. The Hours of the Virgin begin with a large historiated initial with gold ground. Minor initials to the sections of the Hours are in gold, green, and brown. Four full page paintings with two scenes to a page follow on the versos of folios 27-30. Folio 31v is occupied by the frontispiece to the Psalter, which consists of a magnificent B of interlaced work on gold ground framed in pink, gold and other colours, and edged with green. In the initial is a small David with harp. At the angles are medallions. At the top are two men playing fiddles of varying forms. At the bottom are two men seated speaking. The Psalter contains ten historiated initials. Each psalm and prayer has a gold initial with coloured fill. Line fillings are flourishes in blue or red.

Additions

College bookplate and printed donation label on front pastedown. Pasted paper spine label.

Binding

Rebacked. Old brown leather over boards, decorated with double blind fillets on front and back. Spine with three raised bands, decorated between the bands with single blind fillets in double cross pattern. Clasps gone.

History

Origin: c.1210-20 ; England, possibly London

Provenance and Acquisition

Given to the Library by Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton Wriothesley, Thomas in 1635, from the library of William Crashaw . The name Tomas Maksey occurs on fi.a along with some writing of the fifteenth century. On fii.a, erased ‘Psalterium Abbatis Roberti de l..d..ye glosatum’. Robert de Lindsey, Abbot of Peterborough (1214-1222) owned a Psalterium glossatum (this book) and a Psalterium non glossatum (now at the Society of Antiquaries). On flyleaf at end in red ‘a.d mccccxxxiii ffrater Rogerus Birde monarchus’.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This record draws on M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Bibliography

    G. Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13 Jarhundert: Studien zur Geschichte der Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederlanden (Kiel, 1938), pp. 14 and 16, states that there is a Psalter 'from the same workshop' at Berlin, Kupperstichkabinett 78 A 8.
    For a comparison of D.6 and 78 A 8, P. Block, 'Bemerkungen zu zwei Psalterien in Berlin und Cambridge', Berliner Museen, new series 9:1 (1959), 6-12.
    P. Brieger, English Art, 1216-1307 (Oxford, 1957), relates D.6 to the Berlin MS.
    J. S. Golob, The glossed Psalter of Robert de Lindsey and related manuscripts (PhD thesis in Cambridge University Library).
    Fol. 27b, O. E. Saunders, English Illumination (Florence and Paris, 1928), p. 66 and pl. 69.
    Fol. 31b, the Beatus page, is reproduced in the illustrated catalogue of the Burlington Fine Art Club, Exhibition of illuminated manuscripts (London, 1908), no. 34, plate 33, and the Society of Antiquaries version in M. Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (London, 1954), pp. 100-1.
    W. M. Milliken, 'A manuscript page of the thirteenth century', Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33:7 (1946), 139-41.
    N. J. Morgan, Early Gothic manuscripts, vol. 1, 1190-1250 (London, 1982).

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