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Detailed record for Royal 14 E I
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| Part 1 |
ff. 1-208v |
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| Author |
Vincent of Beauvais, French translation by Jean de Vignay |
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| Title |
Le miroir historial (a French translation of the Speculum historiale) books 1-5 |
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| Origin |
Netherlands, S. (Bruges) |
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| Date |
c. 1479- c. 1480 |
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| Language |
French |
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| Script |
Gothic cursive |
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| Artists |
Master of Edward IV, Master of the White Inscriptions (f. 3) |
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| Decoration |
4 miniatures in colours and gold with full (f. 3), or partial (ff. 77, 133, 177v) borders, and initials in colours with penwork decoration in gold, or foliate initials in gold and colours, at the beginning of books. Small initials in colours with penwork decoration in gold. Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing, or in gold with black pen-flourishing. Line-fillers in gold and blue. First letters of sentences highlighted in yellow. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
470 x 340 (295 x 225), in two columns |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 1-243 |
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| Author |
Vincent of Beauvais, French translation by Jean de Vignay |
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| Title |
Le miroir historial (a French translation of the Speculum historiale), books 6-9 |
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| Origin |
Netherlands, S. (Bruges) |
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| Date |
c. 1478- c. 1480 |
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| Language |
French |
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| Script |
Gothic cursive |
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| Artists |
Master of Edward IV |
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| Decoration |
4 miniatures in colours and gold with partial borders, and foliate initials in gold and colours, at the beginning of books (ff. 1, 50, 109, 180). Small initials in colours with penwork decoration in gold. Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing, or in gold with black pen-flourishing. Line-fillers in gold and/or blue. First letters of sentences highlighted in yellow. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
470 x 340 (295 x 225), in two columns |
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| Official foliation |
vol. 1: ff. 208 (+ 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf attached to a modern paper flyleaf at the beginning, 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the beginning and at the end, and 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the end; 2 unfoliated blank parchment leaves after f. 2), vol. 2: ff. 243 (+ 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf attached to a modern paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end, and 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the beginning) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. The Royal Library binding of brown leather. |
| Provenance |
Edward IV (b. 1442, d. 1483), king of England and lord of Ireland: the royal arms of England surmounted by a crowned helm with mantling in Edward's colours of red and blue, with two escutcheons bearing the royal arms differenced by labels of three or five points for his sons, and a Yorkist badge, 'Dieu et mon droit', with a lozenge bearing a white rose of the York family (f. 3, vol. 1); made for him in the southern Netherlands, probably c. 1479- c. 1480: record of payment to the foreign merchant Philip Maisertuell for books and record of books in the Great Wardrobe Accounts of 1480 (see McKendrick 1994).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): included in the list of books at Richmond Palace of 1535, no. 26.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library. |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
This manuscript contains the first volume (books 1-9) of the Speculum historiale and is now bound in two parts, foliated separately: part 1 contains books 1-5 with a table of contents of book 6, and part 2 contains books 6-9. Three manuscripts containing the following books, now The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek MS 128 C I (1-3), were probably conceived originally as part of the same set (Chavannes-Mazel 1988).
The first miniature is attributed to the Master of the White Inscriptions (f. 3) and the remaining illuminations are by the Master of Edward IV, named after two volumes of a Bible historiale produced for Edward IV in 1479 (see McKendrick, Kren 2003; for other manuscripts attributed to him, see Bodo Brinkmann, Die flämische Buchmalerei am Ende des Burgunderreichs: Der Meister des Dresdner Gebetbuchs und die Miniaturisten seiner Zeit, Turnhout: Brepols, 1997, pp. 397-98). The illuminated borders are in a style associated with the Master of the Harley Froissart.
Fewer than 40 volumes of the text are now extant; most were produced in Paris in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries. This copy is one of only six volumes of the text to have been produced in the southern Netherlands.
Catchwords and bifolium signatures. |
| Select bibliography |
H. Omont, 'Les manuscrits français des rois d'Angleterre au château de Richmond', in Etudes romanes dédiés à Gaston Paris (Paris: É. Bouillon, 1891), pp. 1-13 (p. 6).
G. C. Keidel, 'The History of French Fable Manuscripts', Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 24 (1909) 207-19 (p. 215).
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 139.
Margaret Kekewich, 'Edward IV, William Caxton, and Literary Patronage in Yorkist England', The Modern Language Review, 66 (1971) 481-87 (p. 483).
Janet Backhouse, 'Founders of the Royal Library: Edward IV and Henry VII as Collectors of Illuminated Manuscripts', in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by David Williams (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987), pp. 23-42 (pp. 25, 39).
Claudine A. Chavannes-Mazel, ‘The Miroir historial of Jean le Bon: The Leiden Manuscript and its Related Copies’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Leiden University, 1988), pp. 106-10.
McKendrick, Scot, ‘La Grande Histoire Cesar and the Manuscripts of Edward IV’, in English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, 2, ed. by Peter Beal and Jeremy Griffiths, (London: British Library, 1990), pp. 109-38, (p. 110).
Claudine A. Chavannes, 'Expanding Rubrics for the Sake of a Layout: Mise-en-Page as Evidence for a Particular Scribe?', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 117-31 (p. 130, n. 9).
Scot McKendrick, 'Lodewijk von Gruuthuse en de Liberije van Edward IV', in Lodewijk von Gruuthuse: Mecenas en europeen Diplomaat, ca.1427-1492, ed. by M.P.J. Martens (Bruges, 1992), pp. 153-59 (p. 159, n. 89).
Scot McKendrick, 'The Romuléon and the Manuscripts of Edward IV', in England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. by Nicholas Rogers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 4 (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1994), pp. 149-69 (pp. 161, n. 72, 162, nn. 74, 75, 163, 165, n. 101).
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H1.26.
Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 58, pl. 48.
Scot McKendrick, Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 1400-1550 (London, 2003), p. 61, pl. 46.
Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), p. 296, n. 6. [exhibition catalogue].
James P. Carley, The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives, preface by David Starkey (London: British Library, 2004), pl. 35.
Ewan Clayton, 'Workplaces for Writing', in Pen in Hand: Medieval Scribal Portraits, Colophons and Tools, ed. by Michael Gullick (Walkern, Herts: Red Gull Press, 2006), pp. 1-18 (p. 5, fig. 7).
Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), pl. 2-2.
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 57 [exhibition catalogue].
Scot McKendrick, ‘The Manuscripts of Edward IV: The Documentary Evidence’, in 1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts, ed. by Kathleen Doyle and Scot McKendrick (London: The British Library, 2013), pp. 149-77 (p. 153). |
| Last revised: 10 May 2011 |
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Part 1
ff. 1-208v |
| Vincent of Beauvais, French translation by Jean de Vignay Le miroir historial (a French translation of the Speculum historiale) books 1-5 |
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f. 2v
Text page |
f. 3
Vincent of Beauvais |
f. 3
White rose of the York family |
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f. 3
Vincent of Beauvais |
f. 3
Vincent of Beauvais |
f. 3
Arms of England |
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f. 3
Edward IV's colours |
f. 77
Amram's Dream |
f. 133
Birth of Cyrus |
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f. 177v
Birth of Alexander |
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Part 2
ff. 1-243 |
| Vincent of Beauvais, French translation by Jean de Vignay Le miroir historial (a French translation of the Speculum historiale), books 6-9 |
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f. 1
Death of Alexander |
f. 1
Death of Alexander |
f. 50
Caesar |
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f. 50
Caesar |
f. 109
Tiberius |
f. 180
Claudius and Herod Agrippa |
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f. 180
Claudius and Herod Agrippa |
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