Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

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

Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.4.26

Contents

Introduction: The Cambridge University Library bestiary is among the best known of English bestiaries, largely due to it being the subject of M.R. James's 1928 facsimile, whose commentary laid the groundwork in listing and grouping many other bestiary texts. Also, the 1954 book by T.H. White provided an English translation of its texts, accompanied by its illustrations, so knowledge of this manuscript reached a wide popular audience. Some pages have been excised, and these perhaps contained illustrations of the antelope, unicorn, the first scene of the story of the dog and the murder of his master, 'Adam Naming the Animals', and three birds (perhaps the raven, crow and dove). The iconography of the creatures and birds in several cases is quite close to the Worksop bestiary (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.81) and the St Petersburg bestiary (St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS Q.v.V.1), although there are difference in their order of the texts. The Cambridge bestiary more closely compares with the order of texts and iconography of the Aberdeen and Ashmole bestiaries (Aberdeen, University Library, MS 24 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1511), although unlike them it does not contain either the Creation scenes from Genesis at the beginning or Hugh of Fouilloy's aviary with its accompanying pictures. This explains why the maximum number of pictures it contained, 107, is much less than the 131 in the Ashmole bestiary. Otherwise, the text is relatively close to that of the Ashmole bestiary, both similar to a bestiary of c. 1170 (London, British Library, Add. MS 11283), which seems to be the earliest manuscript to have more or less the same order of texts. A notable difference from Ashmole is the placing of 'Adam Naming the Animals' between the scenes concerning dogs and the account of the sheep, whereas Ashmole places the Adam scene at the beginning before the account of the lion. The leaf with the Adam scene has been excised from the Cambridge manuscript, but the missing leaf is between the scenes of the habits of dogs and that of the sheep. This placing of the Adam scene also occurs in two bestiaries of the second quarter of the thirteenth century: London, British Library, Royal MS 12 F.xiii and Harley MS 3244. The Cambridge bestiary is unusual in that its first few pictures - the two full pages of the lion and the tiger, the pard, the panther, and the lynx - are fully painted, whereas from then on, starting with the griffin, penwork drawings are used. These seem to be deliberately and carefully finished in ink, presumably over preliminary outlines in plummet. A few have pale colour washes that do not suppress the ink drawing lines, but the majority are without such washes. It is indeed fortunate that an artist did not paint over these drawings because they are by a draughtsman of outstanding ability, superior to the less able painter who worked on the first six illustrations, who would probably have ruined these splendid drawings if he had painted over them. The style of these drawings is linked to those in the Guthlac Roll (London, British Library, Harley Roll Y.6), probably made for the Benedictine Abbey of Crowland, Lincolnshire, c. 1210-20. Both the Cambridge bestiary and the Guthlac Roll are stylistically related to some of the stained glass in Lincoln Cathedral of the first quarter of the thirteenth century. These connections of the style of drawings with places in Lincolnshire and the possible ownership of the bestiary by Revesby Abbey, albeit rather speculative, make it likely that the book was made in that region, or possibly in Yorkshire, the county to the north of Lincolnshire. Also, the closeness of the iconography to some of the bestiary images in the Worksop bestiary supports location in this region. Worksop is in Nottinghamshire, the county adjacent Lincolnshire, which was part of the archdiocese of York. A possible centre of production is the city of Lincoln, and some have suggested that the scholar William de Montibus (d. 1213), master of the cathedral school from the late 1180s and from 1194 chancellor of the cathedral, may have had a role in establishing or influencing the text content of the Worksop, Cambridge, and other bestiaries. The Distinctiones theologicae ('Theological distinctions') and Numerale (Numeral) of William de Montibus influenced the texts of some manuscripts of a defined group of bestiaries, including Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 254. Perhaps the Latin bestiaries were primarily read by priests and men in the religious orders. Several belonged to religious houses or to individual Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinian canons, Dominicans or Franciscans. The bestiary may have been more widely read by them than by members of the laity, for whose ownership, particularly of Latin bestiaries, there is less evidence. Bestiaries in the vernacular languages of Anglo-Norman, those of Philippe de Thaon and Guillaume le Clerc, and in Middle English were probably intended mainly for reading by lay men and women. However, it should be pointed out that many fewer English manuscripts survive of the vernacular versions than do those of the Latin texts. Professor Nigel Morgan, Emeritus Honorary Professor of the History of Art, University of Cambridge

Language(s): Latin

Bestiary
Incipit: 2r: Leo fortissimus besitarum ad nullius pauebit occursum
Explicit: 74v: minus significata positiuo . Ergo senior||
Filiation: For full discussion of the iconographic and textual relationship between this and other bestiaries and other manuscripts, see the introductory summary.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 3r: nisi lesi nequeant irasci
Form: codex
Support: Parchment (HFFH).
Extent: Codex: 4 leaves of parchment have been inserted in place of missing leaves, when the volume was rebound (for further information on which, see Foliation and Binding). These inserted leaves have been digitised but have not been counted here as part of the manuscript's extent. For the sake of clarity, it has been decided not to enumerate them separately either. iv + 74 + iii leaves. 280 × 190 mm.
Foliation:

20th-century foliation:

i-iv + 1-74 + v-vii

Written in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos, partly by an unidentified hand of the 20th century (probably first half) (21, 31, 41, etc only), with the leaves in between being numbered later by H.L. Pink .

Folios [5a], [19a], [21a] and [40a] are post-medieval parchment leaves inserted in place of missing leaves in order to ensure the stability of the remaining half of the bifolia.

Collation

  • Quire 18-1 (ff. 1-7: 6th leaf, after f. 5, missing)
  • Quire 28 (ff. 8-15)
  • Quire 38-2 (ff. 16-21: 5th leaf, after f. 19, and 8th leaf, after f. 21, missing)
  • Quire 4-58 (ff. 22-37)
  • Quire 68-1 (ff. 38-44: 4th leaf, after f. 40, missing)
  • Quire 7-98 (ff. 45-68)
  • Quire 108-2 (ff. 69-74: 7th and 8th leaves, after f. 74, missing)

Quire signatures, in Roman numerals, written in plummet in the lower margin of the recto side of the first leaf of the quire.

Leaf signatures has been written in plummet in the lower margin of the recto sides of the leaves in the first half of the quire, after the first leaf (from Quire 2 onwards). These continue the numerical sequence begun by the quire number: so, in Quire 4 for example, the first leaf is 'iv', the second 'v', the third 'vi' and the fourth 'vii'; in Quire 5, the first is 'v', the second 'vi', the third 'vii' and the fourth 'viii'; etc.

No catchwords.

Layout

205 × 130 mm. Pricked in the outer margins; usually mostly trimmed. Ruled in plummet. Pattern variable: generally, single vertical bounding lines extending the full length of the page; first and second horizontal lines extending the full width of the page; penultimate and last horizontal lines extending into the margin and occasionally the full width of the page.

Hand(s)

Written by a single hand in Caroline minuscule.

Decoration

  • 1r-1v: two full-page miniatures, in colours, containing three horizontal registers and illustrating aspects of a lion's nature
  • 3v: 1/3-page miniature, illustrating in two vertical registers, showing a tiger on the left and a man on horseback holding a sword and whelp on the right

Drawings of various sizes in circular or rectangular frames, very few partly or fully tinted:

  • 4r: leopard (fully tinted)
  • 4v: panther attracting animals with its sweet breath (fully tinted)
  • 4v: panther attracting animals with its sweet breath (fully tinted)
  • 6r: lynx (fully tinted)
  • 6v: griffin snatching a pig
  • 7r: elephant carrying four armed men and led by a man with a scourge
  • 8v: beaver and three hunters
  • 9r: ibex falling downhill; hyena devouring corpse
  • 10r: bonnacon and three hunters
  • 10v: six apes
  • 11r: satyr; stag
  • 12r: goat
  • 13r: two wild goats
  • 13v: monoceros; bear
  • 14v: leucrota
  • 15r: crocodile devouring a man
  • 15v: manticore
  • 16r: parandrus; fox tricking birds by pretending to be dead (partly tinted)
  • 16v: yale
  • 17r: wolf approaching domestic animals in a stable
  • 18v: three dogs
  • 19r: in two horizontal registers: King Garamantes in capitivity, and being saved by his dogs
  • 20r: in three horizontal registers: dogs
  • 22r: sheep; ram
  • 22v: lamb; he-goat
  • 23r: two wild boars; bullock
  • 23v: ox
  • 24r: camel
  • 24v: dromedary
  • 25r: donkey; wild ass
  • 25v: horse
  • 28r: three cats, one with a mouse in its paws; mouse; weasel
  • 28v: mole; six headgehogs underneath stylised (?fruit-)bush of interlaced foliage
  • 29r: ants, represented by ant-hills
  • 31r: three eagles: one ascending, carrying a fish; a second approaching the sun; a third, falling down
  • 32r: two vultures, perched on a stylised bush of interlacing foliage
  • 32v: five cranes, one holding aloft an egg in its claw
  • 33r: parrot
  • 33v: caladrius perched on bedsheets, a man in bed asleep (partly tinted)
  • 34r: stork eating a frog
  • 34v: swan eating a fish; ibis snatching a snake and feeding its three young in a nest
  • 35r: two ostriches: one looking up at the sun, the other holding in its beak an egg on the ground
  • 35v: coot
  • 36r: halcyon; phoenix pecking at the leaves of a bush
  • 36v: phoenix in nest surrounded by fire
  • 37v: cinnamolgus with young in nest atop a tree, two men below hunting with slings; ercinea
  • 38r: hoopoe with young pecking at its beak and plumage; pelicans
  • 38v: owl
  • 39r: siren holding a fish
  • 39v: two patridges preening one another's feathers; patridge with a nest of eggs
  • 40r: magpie; hawk
  • 40v: nightingale nesting; bat
  • 41r: two turtledoves perched on a bush
  • 41v: swallow
  • 42v: quail; peacock; hoopoe; cockerel
  • 43r: three ducks
  • 43v: beehive (bees added with caption 'apes', s. xv)
  • 45v: perindeus tree with doves in its branches and below two dragons, mouths open, doves feeding from between their teeth
  • 46v: dragon attacking an elephant
  • 47r: basilisk
  • 47v: viper
  • 48v: asp being struck with a stick by a man holding a shield
  • 49v: scitalis; amphisbaena; hydrus
  • 50r: three boas
  • 50v: jaculus; siren-serpent; lizard
  • 51r: six salamanders entwined in the branches of a tree with a man asleep on the ground beneath
  • 51v: saura; stellio
  • 52r: snake shedding its skin in the form of a dragon squeezing through a tower
  • 54r: fish and various sea creatures
  • 54v: whale attacking men in a boat
  • 63v: Isidore of Seville seated and writing at a desk

Green, red or blue initials (2-7 lines) with blue or red penwork infill and flourishing, occasionally elaborate, at the beginning of each description.

Similar, but smaller, initials also occur, the same colours, but without flourishing

Binding

Quarter tawed pigskin with oak boards, two clasps. On the outside, skin tooled with interlaced foliage pattern, inhabited by pairs of birds, arising from the raised bands. Douglas Cockerell and Son , Letchworth, 1928 (stamp on skin on inside of right-hand board).

Formerly bound in paper boards (according to unpublished description of the manuscript by M.R. James; see Source for further details).

History

Origin: England, perhaps London. ; Early 13th century.

Provenance and Acquisition

73r: 'Iacobus Thomas Herison Thys ys ye Abbaye of Rev-', cropped inscription, suggesting the manuscript was perhaps at the Cistercian abbey of Revesby, Lincolnshire , by the 16th century. However, this ownership was rejected by N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn. (1964), p. 158.

Given to the University Library on 16 July 1655 by Osbert Fowler, registrar of King's College, Cambridge 1641-58 (inscription on f. ii verso, by the hand of Jonathan Pindar (fl. 1652-1664) , Under Library-Keeper).

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry draws on:
  • the description provided by Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, with the collaboration of Stella Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University Library (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) (used here by kind permission of Cambridge University Press)
  • an unpublished description of the manuscript composed between 1926 and 1930 by M.R. James , now held in the University Archives (UA ULIB 7/3/74)
The introductory summary is taken from the catalogue entry for the 2019 exhibition Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World, ed. by Elizabeth Morrison with Larisa Grollemond.

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library). For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.

Bibliography

    A catalogue of the manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge, (Cambridge, 3: Gg-Kk, Cambridge University Press, 1858) English illuminated manuscripts: from the Xth to the XIIIth century, Millar, Eric George (Paris; Bruxelles, G. van Oest, 1926) The Bestiary: being a reproduction in full of the manuscript Ii. 4. 26 in the University Library, Cambridge, with supplementary plates from other manuscripts of English origin, and a preliminary study of the Latin Bestiary as current in England Roxburghe Club, (Oxford, [s.n.], 1928) A Lost Painting in Henry III's Palace at Westminster Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Ross, D.J.A. (16, 1/2, 160, 1953, http://www.jstor.org/stable/750234) The book of beasts: being a translation from a Latin Bestiary of the twelfth century [i.e. Cambridge University Library Ms. Ii.4.26], White, T.H. (London, Cape, 1954) Les peintures de la Bible de Morimondo Scriptorium. Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits, Leclercq, Jean (10, 22-26, 1956) Mediaeval Latin and French bestiaries University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance languages and literatures, McCulloch, Florence (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1962) Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books Royal Historical Society guides and handbooks, Ker, N.R. (London, Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1964) Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages Pelican history of art, Rickert, Margaret (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1965) The Yale Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, George, Wilma (31, 423-428, 1968, http://www.jstor.org/stable/750650) English illuminated manuscripts 700-1500, (Bruxelles, Bibliotheque Royale Albert Ier, 1973) Bibliotheca Phillippica: catalogue of the celebrated collection...formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps.--New series Bibliotheca Phillippica, , (London, 10, Sotheby, 1975) In the wake of the Bury Bible: followers of Master Hugo at Bury St. Edmunds Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, McLachlan, Elizabeth Parker (42, 216-224, 1979) The birds of English medieval manuscripts Journal of Medieval History, Yapp, W.B. (5, 4, 315-349, 1979) Sacred calligraphy: the <hi rend="italics">chi rho</hi> page in the Book of Kells. Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, Lewis, Suzanne (36, 139-159, 1980) The bestiary: a handbook of the local fauna Archives of natural history, George, Wilma (10, 2, 187-203, 1981, http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/anh.1981.10.2.187) Birds in medieval manuscripts, Yapp, W.B. (London, British Library, 1981) Early Gothic manuscripts A survey of manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, Morgan, N. J. (London, 1: 1190-1250, Harvey Miller, 1982) The 'Physiologus', the bestiaries and medieval animal lore Neophilologus, Diekstra, F.N.M. (69, 1, 142-155, 1985, http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF00556871) I manoscritti miniati del bestiario medievale: origine, formazione e sviluppo dei cicli di illustrazione. I bestiari miniati in Inghilterra nei secoli XII-XIV L'uomo di fronte al mondo animale nell'alto Medioevo, 7-13 aprile 1983 Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto Medioevo, Muratova, Xénia (Spoleto, 1319-1362, 1363-1372, Presso la Sede del Centro, 1985) A New Look at English Bestiaries Medium Aevum, Yapp, W.B. (54, 1–19, 1985, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1293323884/citation/612EA84B6E474AF7PQ/2) Cambridge University Library: a history, Oates, J.C.T. (Cambridge, 1: From the beginnings to the Copyright Act of Queen Anne, Cambridge University Press, 1986) Age of chivalry: art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, (London, Royal Academy of Arts in association with Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987) Medieval knowledge of birds as shown in bestiaries Archives of natural history, Yapp, W.B. (14, 2, 175-210, 1987, http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/anh.1987.14.2.175) Early Gothic manuscripts A survey of manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, Morgan, N. J. (London, 2: 1250-1285, Harvey Miller, 1988) Il bestiario medio inglese, Faraci, Dora (L'Aquila, Japadre, 1990) Medieval thought: the Western intellectual tradition from antiquity to the thirteenth century New studies in medieval history, Haren, Michael (London, Macmillan, 1992) Medieval bestiaries: text, image, ideology RES monographs on anthropology and aesthetics, Hassig, Debra (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995) 'All nature speaks of God - all nature teaches man': the iconography of the twelfth-century capitals in the westwork gallery of the church of St. Servatius in Maastricht Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, den Hartog, Elizabeth (59, 1, 29-62, 1996) Bestiaries and their users in the Middle Ages, Baxter, Ron (Stroud, Sutton, 1998) The Earliest Branches of the Roman of Renart Synthema, Lodge, AnthonyVarty, Kenneth (Louvain/Paris, Peeters, 2001) Bestie e bestiari: la rappresentazione degli animali dalla preistoria al Rinascimento, Mezzalira, Francesco (Turin, U. Allemandi, 2001) Marvels of the West: Giraldus Cambrensis and the role of the author in the development of marginal illustration English Manuscript Studies: 1100-1700, Brown, Michelle P. (10, 34-59, 2002) Le bestiaire médiéval: dictionnaire historique et bibliographique, Duchet-Suchaux, GastonPastoureau, Michel (Paris, Léopard d'or, 2002) A descriptive catalogue of the western medieval manuscripts of St John's College, Oxford, Hanna, Ralph (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) Inventaire et écriture du monde aquatique dans les bestiaires Dans l'eau, sous l'eau: Le monde aquatique au Moyen Age Cultures et civilisations médiévales, James-Raoul, Danièle (Paris, 175-226, Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2002) The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, (London, Harvey Miller, 2005) A medieval book of beasts: the second-family bestiary : commentary, art, text and translation, Clark, Willene B. (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2006) Constructing the medieval sermon SERMO : studies on patristic, medieval, and Reformation sermons and preaching, Andersson, Roger (Turnhout, Brepols, 2007) Introduction: on making medieval illuminated manuscripts accessible The Cambridge illuminations: the conference papers, Henderson, George (London, 13-19, Harvey Miller, 2007) Déduits d'oiseaux au Moyen Âge Senefiance, Connochie-Bourgne, Chantal (Aix-en-Provence, Publications de l'Université de Provence, 2009) The problem of the 'transitional family' of bestiaries Reinardus, Dines, Ilya (24, 29-52, 2011) Le immagini degli animali tra scienza, arte e simbolismo: fondamenti di zooiconologia, Mezzalira, Francesco (Costabissara, A. Colla, 2013) Seeing a pink elephant: creating meaning through colour in the medieval bestiary Manuscripts in the making: art & science, Morrison, Elizabeth (London, 2, 32-42, Harvey Miller, 2018) Book of beasts: the bestiary in the medieval world, (Yale University Press, 2019)

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