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Detailed record for Royal 15 D II
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| Author |
Peter of Peckham |
| Title |
La lumiere as lais; Apocalypse (the 'Welles Apocalypse') |
| Origin |
England |
| Date |
First quarter of 14th century |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
17 large historiated initials (ff. 1, 5v, 6, 8, 24, 34v, 49, 52, 65v, 88), or miniatures (ff. 1v, 2, 3, 58v, 64v) in colours and gold with marginal extensions forming partial bar borders, in the Lumiere as lais. 68 large miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 106, 107, 108v, 109v, 117v, 122, 122v, 124, 126, 127-128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133v, 134v, 135v, 136v, 137v, 138, 139, 139v, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145v, 146v, 147v, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154v, 156, 157v, 158, 160, 162v, 164, , 165, 166v, 167v, 169, 170v, 172, 174v, 176, 177v, 179v, 183, 184, 187v, 188v, 191, 192v, 193, 194, 194v, 197v, 198v, 199, 202v, 208, 212v, 213v) and historiated initials (ff. 104, 155), with marginal extensions forming partial borders, in the Apocalypse. Small historiated initials containing human heads or foliate initials, some containing hybrids, in colours and gold with marginal extensions. Initials in gold on blue and rose grounds with penwork decoration in white. Cadels. |
| Dimensions in mm |
450 x 300 (320 x 200), in one column |
| Official foliation |
ff. 215 (+ 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end and 2 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaves at the beginning; f. 215 and a blank leaf after f. 214 are medieval parchment flyleaves; 6 blank leaves after f. 103, and 1 after a blank leaf, f. 211) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Royal Library brown-leather binding with the royal arms of England and gilded and gauffered edges, 1757. |
| Provenance |
Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles, (b. 1406, d. 29 March 1461), by 1430: his inventory with an 'Item I liber vocatus apocalipiz gallice scriptus' and 'Item I lucidarium in french' (see M. Hamel, 1990 and Sandler 2012 p. 92).
John, viscount Welles (d. 1499), soldier and administrator, and his wife, Cecilia Welles (d. 1507), daughter of Edward IV, king of England: a list of woods sales mentioning John's property in Well (now Welle Park, Lincolnshire) and other places in the proximity of his properties in Well and Belleau, including a reference to a personal property 'a nacur in my nawn manour in modurwode [Motherwood, near Alferd]', (f. 215v) (see Egbert 1936, pp. 446-48); and a list of books in English, written probably in the same hand, including the present manuscript: inscribed, 'In primus a boke in France clakld pokelypse / A boke of knghte hode / A boke of Caunturbere tlase / A boke of Charlman / A boke þe lyfe of our ladys lyfe / A boke the sheys of Thebes / A boke cald vita mixta / A boke cald þe vii poyntes of true love / A boke cald þe sheys of Jherusalem / A boke cald mort Arthro / A boke cald dyuys et paupar / A boke cald cronackols / A boke cald legend aure / A boke cald facekelus temporum [perhaps a text by the Carthusian Rolevink, printed in 1475]', end of the 15th century (f. 211); inscribed 'Ciecyl Welles' (under erasure), (f. 1).
Henry VIII (b. 1491, d. 1547), king of England and Ireland (the brother-in-law of Cecily Welles): the monogram 'HR' [for Henricus Rex] (f. 1).
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): Westminster inventory number 'no. 468' (f. 1), included in the inventory of books in the Upper Library at Westminster of 1542’, and in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 13.
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.
Includes La lumiere as lais of Peter of Peckham (or Peter of Fetcham) in Anglo-French (ff. 1-103v), and the Apocalypse with a commentary in the Anglo-French prose version (ff. 104-214v).
According to Sandler, stylistically related to the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum 242. See also Egbert 1940.
Catchwords.
One of two of the eleven complete surviving copies of the Lumere that includes an epilogue: Que ceste livre escrit e escrivera, De tuz mauz li fende Deu ke purra. Dieu omnipotent tut pussaunt, Ore doin a li sa grace e pus avaunt Touz iceuz ke lisent e bien entent. De tuz lur pecchez face il amendement. (May God protect from all evils he who writes and will write this book. Now may all-powerful God almighty give him his grace and power. May He grant remission of all their sins to those who read it and understand it well.) See Sandler (2012) p. 79 citing Hesketh p. 25. |
| Select bibliography |
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 8.
W. R. Tymms and M. D. Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times (London: Day and Sons, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pl. XIV.8.
Samuel Berger, La bible française au moyen âge (Paris: Champion, 1884), pp. 87, 386-87.
P. Meyer, 'Les manuscrits français de Cambridge', Romania, 8 (1879), 325-32 (p. 325).
L. Delisle and P. Meyer, L'Apocalypse en français au XIIIe siècle (Bibl. Nat. Fr. 403) (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1901), no. 24.
Montague Rhodes James, The Trinity Apocalypse (Roxburghe Club, 1909), pp. 9, 26.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 217.
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), III: English A.D. 1300 to 1350 (1921), pl. 9.
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, pp. 171-72.
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library: Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no 108.
[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 2, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. 13.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), pp. 19, 82.
Elfrida O. Saunders, English Illumination, 2 vols (Paris: Pegasus Press, 1928, repr. New York, 1969), I, pp. 84, 90, 91.
Montague Rhodes James, The Apocalypse in Art, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1927 (London: British Academy, 1931), no. 24.
Guide to an Exhibition of English Art gathered from Various Departments and held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934), no. 126.
Donald Drew Egbert, A Sister to the Tickhill Psalter: The Psalter of Queen Isabella of England, an English Gothic Manuscript of the Early Fourteenth Century now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at Munich, cod. gall. 16 (New York: New York Public Library, 1935), p. 6.
Donald Drew Egbert, 'The So-called 'Greenfield' La lumiere as lais and Apocalypse, British Museum, Royal MS. 15 d II', Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 11 (1936) 446-52 (pp. 446 passim).
Donald Drew Egbert, The Tickhill Psalter and Related Manuscripts: A School of Manuscript Illumination in England during the Early Fourteenth Century (New York: New York Public Library, 1940), pp. 95-100, 182-88.
R. Freyhan, 'Joachism and the English Apocalypse', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 18 (1955), pp. 211-44 (p. 288, n. 2).
Peter Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, Oxford History of English Art, 4 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 217.
M. Dominica Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 214-16, 237.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 367 [Greenfield rejected].
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 162, n. 28.
R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England (London: Methuen, 1970), p. 148.
Richard Kenneth Emmerson and Suzanne Lewis, 'Census and Bibliography of Medieval Manuscripts containing Apocalypse Illustrations, ca. 800-1500 II', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 41 (1985), 367-409, no. 74.
Lucy Sandler, Freeman, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385 (Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles), (Harvey Miller: London, 1986), no. 34.
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), II: 1250-1285, pp. 40 nn. 75, 74, 176.
Mary Hamel, 'Arthurian Romance in Fifteenth-Century Lindsey: The Books of the Lords Welles', Modern Language Quarterly, 51 (1990) 341-61 (pp. 341, 346-47, 350, 352, n. 44).
Nigel Morgan, 'Textes of Devotion and Religious Instruction Associated with Margaret of York', in Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and the Visions of Tondal, ed. by Thomas Kren (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992), pp. 63-76 (p. 73, n. 40).
Suzanne Lewis, Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 379, n. 40.
Janet Backhouse, 'Illuminated Manuscripts Associated with Henry VII and Members of his Immediate Family', in The Reign of Henry VII: Proceedings of the 1993 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Benjamin Thompson (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1995), pp. 175-87 (p. 180, n. 19).
J. P. Carley, 'Marks in Books and the Libraries of Henry VIII', Papers-Bibliographical Society of America, 91 (1997), 583-606 (p. 603).
Ruth Dean and Maureen Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature, A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), nos. 475, 630.
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library in association with The British Academy, 2000), H2.291.
Nigel Morgan, 'French Interpretations of English Apocalpyses', in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale, Proceedings of the 1996 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by John Mitchell and Matthew Moran, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 8 (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), pp. 137-56 (p. 144 n. 24).
Ian Short, 'Introduction, The Texts', in The Trinity Apocalypse (Trinity College Cambridge, MS R.16.2) (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 123-36 (p. 135).
The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at the New York Public Library, ed. by Jonathan J. G. Alexander, James H. Marrow, and Lucy Freeman Sandler (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 207 n. 7 [exhibition catalogue].
Nancy L. Ross, 'Forgotten Revelation: The Iconic Development of the Anglo-Norman Verse and Early Prose Apocalypse Manuscripts' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006), pp. 16, passim.
Kathleen L. Scott, Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), p. 159, n. 173.
Aden Kumler, Translating Truth: Ambitious Images and Religious Knowledge in Late Medieval France and England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 96-100, figs. (24-26).
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, Kathleen Doyle, and al., Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 87 [exhibition catalogue].
Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘The Lumere as lais and its Readers: Pictorial Evidence from British Library Ms Royal 15 D ii’, in Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces, ed. by Elina Gertsman and Jill Stevenson (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012), pp. 73-94.
Renana Bartal, Gender, piety, and production in fourteenth-century English Apocalypse manuscripts (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), p. 172.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Medieval World (London: Thames and Hudson and British Library, 2016), no. 31. |
| Last revised: 20 June 2022 |
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f. 1
Creator |
f. 1v
Creation of Eve |
f. 2
Fall of Adam and Eve |
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f. 3
Annunciation |
f. 5v
Head of a man |
f. 5v
Head of a man |
| |
f. 6
Disciple and master |
f. 6
Disciple and master |
f. 6v
Historiated initial |
| |
f. 7
Head of a woman |
f. 7
Head of a man |
f. 7v
Historiated initial |
| |
f. 8
Disciple and master |
f. 8
Disciple and master |
f. 11v
Illuminated initial |
| |
f. 17v
Illuminated initial |
f. 49
John |
f. 49
John |
| |
f. 52
Man playing the harp |
f. 58v
Moses and the Tablets of the Law |
f. 64v
Christ and the Apostles |
| |
f. 64v
Christ and the Apostles |
f. 64v
Christ and the Apostles |
f. 65v
Cleric and a master |
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f. 104
Paul |
f. 104
Paul |
f. 106v
John and representatives of the churches |
| |
f. 107
John and Son of Man |
f. 108v
Christ and John |
f. 109v
Christ and John |
| |
f. 109v
Christ and John |
f. 117v
Door opened in Heaven |
f. 118
Heads of a man and a woman |
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f. 118
Woman's head |
f. 118
Man's head |
f. 122
God enthroned, with elders |
| |
f. 122v
God enthroned, an angel, and an elder |
f. 122v
Woman's head |
f. 122v
God enthroned, an angel, and an elder |
| |
f. 124
Christ with the Lamb |
f. 124
Christ with the Lamb |
f. 126
Christ and the Lamb |
| |
f. 127
Rider on a white horse |
f. 127v
Rider on a red horse |
f. 128
Rider on a black horse |
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f. 129
Rider on a pale horse |
f. 130
Souls of martyrs |
f. 131
Earthquake and hiding kings |
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f. 132
Four angels and four winds |
f. 133v
God enthroned, the Lamb, and the multitudes |
f. 134v
John and an Elder |
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f. 135v
God enthroned with angels |
f. 136v
Seven angels with trumpets |
f. 137v
Second angel sounding his trumpet |
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f. 138
Third angel sounding his trumpet |
f. 139
Fourth angel sounding his trumpet |
f. 139v
Fifth angel sounding his trumpet |
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f. 141
John, the angel, and the locusts |
f. 142
Sixth angel sounding his trumpet |
f. 143
John, the horses, and riders |
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f. 144
John, the angel, a rainbow and seven thunders |
f. 145v
Angel giving John the book |
f. 146v
The angel, John with a reed, and the altar |
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f. 147v
Witnesses, candlesticks, and the false prophet |
f. 149
The beast and the bodies of witnesses |
f. 151
Seventh angel sounding his trumpet |
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f. 152
The woman and rainbow |
f. 153
The woman and dragon |
f. 154v
War in heaven |
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f. 156
The woman with wings, and the dragon |
f. 157v
John, the beast and the dragon |
f. 158
The beast and worshippers; Christ and worshippers |
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f. 160
John and the beast from the earth |
f. 162v
The Lamb and worshippers |
f. 163
Historiated initial |
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f. 163
Historiated initial |
f. 164
John, worshippers and an angel |
f. 165
Fall of Babylon |
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f. 165v
Historiated initial |
f. 165v
Historiated initial |
f. 166v
Christ on a white cloud |
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f. 167v
Angels, vine and wine press |
f. 169
John and seven angels |
f. 170v
Seven angels with golden vials |
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f. 172
John and angels |
f. 174v
John, the false prophet, dragon and beast |
f. 176
John and the seventh angel |
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f. 177v
John, an angel and the Scarlet Woman |
f. 179v
John, the Scarlet Woman, and an angel |
f. 183
John, the angel and the Fall of Babylon |
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f. 184
John, the angel and Babylon |
f. 187v
John, an angel, and the millstone |
f. 188v
Nine trumpets |
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f. 191
White Horseman |
f. 192v
Angel on the sun |
f. 193
False prophet and beast |
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f. 194
Angel and the serpent |
f. 194v
Judges and souls |
f. 197v
Christ enthroned |
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f. 198v
New Heaven and Earth |
f. 199
Christ enthroned and the New Jerusalem |
f. 199
New Jerusalem |
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f. 202v
Angel with a vial |
f. 208
John, an angel, and God enthroned |
f. 211
List of books |
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f. 212v
Christ enthroned with an angel |
f. 213v
Christ enthroned |
f. 215
Inscription |
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