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Detailed record for Stowe 956
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| Author |
John Croke (translator) |
| Title |
Psalms in English verse (girdle book) |
| Origin |
England, S. E. (London) |
| Date |
c. 1540 |
| Language |
English |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Decoration |
1 miniature of Henry VIII, in colours and gold (f. 1v). Small initials plain in silver on red grounds or in gold on blue grounds. |
| Dimensions in mm |
40 x 30 (30 x 20) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 104 (+ 1 original parchment double-leaf, glued together, at the beginning, and 1 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Pre-1600. Original gold openwork covers with clasp and girdle loops. |
| Provenance |
Provenance: John Croke (b. 1489, d. 1554), legal official: translated by him and apparently written in his own hand. The only other manuscript of the text, also apparently written in Croke's own hand, includes a dedication by Croke to his wife Prudence, and an inscription by Croke's son stating that his father did the translation when he was one of the six clerks in chancery (Add MS 30981, f. 2r).
Robert Triphook (b. 1782, d. 1868), London bookseller, publisher and editor: probably the anonymous editor of George Wyatt's Extracts from the Life of Queen Anne Boleigne (1817), who states that the manuscript is in his possession (see Wyat, Extracts (1817), p. 29); his sales catalogue, June 1818, no. 196.
Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (b. 1776, d. 1839), 1st duke of Buckingham and Chandos, of Stowe House, near Buckingham: inscribed with the press-mark 'Appendix in vol. 1 ... no. 27' (f. [i] recto), corresponding to his catalogue (O'Conor, Bibliotheca Ms. Stowensis (1818-1819), II, p. 58).
Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (b. 1797, d. 1861), 2nd duke of Buckingham and Chandos; sold in 1849 to Lord Ashburnham.
Bertram Ashburnham (b. 1797, d. 1878), 4th earl of Ashburnham, of Ashburnham Place, Sussex. Bertram Ashburnham (b. 1840, d. 1913), 5th earl of Ashburnham: purchased by the British Museum from him together with 1084 other Stowe manuscripts in 1883. |
| Notes |
A very small girdle book, bound in gold.
John Croke was one of the clerks in Chancery.
Contents: ff. 2-5: Veni Creator; ff. 6-68v: seven Penitential Psalms followed by the Gloria Patri; ff. 69-104: five additional Psalms (Psalms 19, 13, 43, 91, 139) |
| Select bibliography |
Miscellaneous Antiquities; or, a collection of curious papers: either republished from scarce tracts, or now first printed from original MSS. Number II, ed. by Horace Walpole (Strawberry-Hill: Thomas Kirgate, 1772).
George Wyat, Extracts from the Life of Queen Anne Boleigne: written at the close of the XVIth century, and now first printed (London: [privately printed], 1817), pp. 28-29.
Bibliotheca Ms. Stowensis: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Stowe Library, ed. by Charles O'Conor, 2 vols (Buckingham: Seeley, 1818-1819), II, p. 58.
Thirteen Psalms and the First Chapter of Ecclesiastes, translated into English verse by John Croke, in the reign of Henry VIII, ed. by Alexander Croke (London: Printed for the Percy Society, 1844).
Robert Marsham, ‘On a Manuscript Book of Prayers in a Binding of Gold Enamelled, said to have been given by Queen Anne Boleyn to a lady of the Wyatt Family’, Archæologia, 44 (1873), 259-72.
Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1895-1896), vol. 1, no. 956.
Michelle P. Brown, Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms (London: British Library, 1994), p. 59.
James P. Carley, The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives, preface by David Starkey (London: British Library, 2004), plate 10.
Margit J. Smith, The Medieval Girdle Book (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2017), pp. 8, 31 n. 11. |
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Binding
Binding |
ff. 1v-2
King Henry VIII |
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