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Detailed record for Royal 6 E VII


Part 1	volume 1 (ff.1-224)
	Author		James le Palmer
	Title		Omne Bonum (Ebrietas-Humanus)
	Origin		England, S. E. (London)
	Date		c. 1360- c. 1375
	Language		Latin
	Script		Gothic cursive (Anglicana)
	Scribe		James le Palmer
	Decoration		Numerous large and small historiated initials in colours and gold (approx. 119), with marginal extensions with vine leaves. Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Running titles and titles in the margins in red frames. Numerous human heads, hands, or busts in brown ink (e.g. ff. 59v, 60, 109, etc). Paraphs in red.
	Dimensions in mm		445 x 305 (330 x 190), in two columns

Part 2	volume 2: ff. 225-532
	Author		James le Palmer
	Title		Omne Bonum (Jacob-Zacharias)
	Origin		England, S. E. (London)
	Date		c. 1360- c. 1375
	Language		Latin
	Script		Gothic cursive (Anglicana)
	Scribe		James le Palmer
	Decoration		Numerous large and small historiated initials in colours and gold (approx. 74), with marginal extensions with vine leaves. Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing. Running titles, commentaries and titles in the margins in red frames. Numerous human heads, hands, or busts in brown ink (e.g. ff. 230-235v). Paraphs in red.
	Dimensions in mm		445 x 308 (335 x 190), in two columns

Official foliation		ff. 224 (+ 1 unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end, and 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the beginning; 1 blank leaf after ff. 105, 197, and 2 after f. 175); ff. 307 (+ 1 unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end and 4 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaves at the end; 1 blank leaf after f. 478, 2 after f. 488, 1 after f. 489, 3 after f. 493, 2 after f. 501, 1 after f. 502, 3 after ff. 413, 2 after 515, 2 after 518, 3 after 530, and 1 after f. 531)
Form		Parchment codex
Binding		BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1963.
Provenance		James le Palmer (b. before 1327, d. c. 1375), probably composed and written by him between c. 1360-1375: his name 'Jacobus' quoted in the preface, 'Ego Jacobus ... Cuius cognomen alios volo ex causa latere, presens opus cum magno labore ac iugi mentis desiderio compilavi' (Royal 6 E VI, f. 18v); his hand identified with the scribe of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 165 containing a colophon, 'Iste liber est liber jacobi le palmere quem scripsit manu sua propria deo gratias' (f. 585) (see Sandler 1996, pp. 16-19); to be identified with James le Palmer, clerk of the Exchequer mentioned in numerous documents between 1357 and 1375, when he was granted a pension of £20 a year by Edward III (see Sandler 1996, pp. 20-21). Thomas Wolsey (b. 1470/71, d. 1530), royal minister, archbishop of York, and cardinal: 'TC' monogram, perhaps for Thomas Cardinalis (see Carley 2000, p. xxxiii), 16th century (f. 1). The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): Westminster inventory number 'no. 1326' (f. 1), acquired by the Upper Library at Westminster after the inventory of 1542; in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 13v; and in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James’s Palace (see [Edward Bernard], Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), no. 8275). 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. The only known, and probably autograph copy of the Omne Bonum of James le Palmer, being a general encyclopaedia arranged in alphabetical order. Bound in four volumes: Royal 6 E VI, vols 1 and 2, and Royal 6 E VII, vols 1 and 2. The text was left unfinished: includes only one article under each letter from 'N' to 'Z' (Royal 6 E VII, vol. 2). Illuminated by four artists: Artist A1 and Artist A (Royal 6 E VI, and Royal 6 E VII, ff. 1-240v, 503-506v, 518-523v), the later identified with the illuminator of Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 165, the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham, written and owned by James le Palmer; completed c. 1380, by two different artists, Artist B (Royal 6 E VII, ff. 243v-417, 443-447v) and Artist C (Royal 6 E VII, 434v-348, 452v-532), the former had also completed the illuminations of Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 165 (see Sandler 1996, pp. 76-82 and Appendix 3). Catchwords, bifolium signatures; guide letters for initials; instructions for illuminators (Artist C, for the transcription see Sandler 1989, pp. 561-64).
Select bibliography		Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum. By Augustus Hughes-Hughes, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1965, a facsimile of the edition of 1906-09), III, p. 260. H. P. Cholmeley, John of Gaddesden and the Rosa Medicinae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), p. 125. 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), I, pp. 157-59. Rossell Hope Robbins, 'The Arma Christi Rolls', Modern Language Review, 34 (1939), 415-21 (pp. 415, n. 2, 417, n. 2). Francis Wormald, 'More Matthew Paris Drawings', Walpole Society, 31 (1942-43), 109-12 (p. 111). C. Roth, 'Portraits and Caricatures of medieval English Jews', The Jewish Monthly, April (1950), i-viii (p. vii). Lucy Sandler Freeman, 'The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent', The Art Bulletin 66 (1984), pp. 488-91 (pp. 489-90). Lucy Sandler Freeman, ‘Face to Face with God: A Pictorial Image of the Beatific Vision’, in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by W.M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1986), pp. 224-35 (pp. 228-34). Lucy Sandler Freeman, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 5 (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), no. 124. Lucy Sandler Freeman, 'Notes for the Illuminator: the Case of the Omne Bonum', The Art Bulletin, 71 (1989), 551-64. Lynda Dennison, 'Oxford, Exeter College MS 47: The Importance of Stylistic and Codicological Analysis in its Dating and Localization', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 41-59 (pp. 55, 56). Lucy Sandler Freeman, 'Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century', in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. by Linda l. Brownrigg, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1998 (Los Altos Hills, California: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), pp. 183-200. Lucy Sandler Freeman, 'The Image of the Book-owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-definition', in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1991 Harlaxton Symposium, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 3 (Stamford, 1993), ed. by N. Rogers, pp. 58-80 (pp. 74-79). Lucy Sandler Freeman, Omne Bonum: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, 2 vols (London: Harvey Miller, 1996). The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000 ), H2.1326, p. xxxi, n. 33. Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 10, fig. 6. Sophie Page, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2004), p. 27, pl. 27. Lucy Freeman Sandler, The Lichtenthal Psalter and the Manuscript Patronage of the Bohun Family (London: Harvey Miller, 2004), p. 157 n. 54. Greg Buzwell, Saints in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2005), p. 28. Michelle Brown, The Holkham Bible: A Facsimile (London: British Library, 2007), p. 16. Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 92 [exhibition catalogue]. Kathryn A. Smith, ‘Found in Translation: Images Visionary and Visceral in the Welles-Ros Bible’, Gesta 59: 2 (2020), 91-130 (p. 107). Lucy Freeman Sandler, 'Religious Instruction and Devotional Study: The Pictorial and the Textual in Gothic Diagrams', in The Visualisation of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. by Marcia Ann Kupfer, Jeffrey Howard Chajes, and Adam S. Cohen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), pp. 429-48 (pp. 436-38).
Last revised: 09 May 2011

Images

Part 1 volume 1 (ff.1-224)

James le Palmer Omne Bonum (Ebrietas-Humanus)

f. 1
Ebrietas (Drunkenness)

f. 2v
Ecclesia (The Church)

f. 19
Electio (Episcopal election)

f. 54v
Emptio (Buying)

f. 66v
Esau

f. 67v
Etas (Age)

f. 70
Eucharistia (Eucharist)

f. 75v
Excommunicatio (Excommunication)

f. 104v
Expositus (Abandoned child)

f. 106
Fabula (Talk, gossip)

f. 108v
Fama (Reputation)

f. 129v
Ficus (Fig-tree)

f. 134v
Fideiussor (Guarantor)

f. 142
Filius (son)

f. 145v
Fletus sive Flere (Crying, or to Mourn)

f. 150
Fornicacio (Fornication)

f. 151
Fortitudo (Fortitude)

f. 153v
Text page

f. 154
Fratres mendicantes (Mendicant friars)

f. 176
Gabriel

f. 178v
Text page

f. 179
Gaudium (Joy)

f. 195
Gula (Gluttony)

f. 197
Habitus (Clerical clothing)

f. 200
Hereticus (Heretic)

f. 216
Honores (Honours)

f. 341
Iudei (Jews)

f. 345
Iudex (judge)

Part 2 volume 2: ff. 225-532

James le Palmer Omne Bonum (Jacob-Zacharias)



f. 225 Iacob (Jacob)	f. 232v Iesus (Jesus)	f. 243v Imperator (Emperor)

f. 296 Instrumentum sive Carta (Written instrument, or charter)	f. 356v Iudicium (Judgement)	f. 359v Iudicium (Judgement)

f. 367v Iuramentum (Oath)	f. 387v Ius (Law)	f. 394v Kalende (Kalends)

f. 394v Text page	f. 395v Katerina (Catherine)	f. 404 Lac (Milk)

f. 434v Lex (legis)	f. 434v Lex (Law)	f. 443 Machometus (Machomet)

f. 452v Maioritas (Superiority)	f. 462v Mandata Dei (Commandements of the Lord)	f. 479 Maria Mater Dei Virgo (Virgin Mary Mother of God)

f. 484v Maria Mater Dei Virgo (Virgin Mary Mother of God)	f. 487v Maria Mater Dei Virgo (Virgin Mary Mother of God)	f. 489 Nebuchadnezzar

f. 493 Papa (Pope)	f. 500 Quadragesima (Lent)	f. 506v Sacerdotes (Priests)

f. 514 Tabelliones (Notaries)	f. 516 Vana gloria (Vain glory)	f. 518 Xpc (Christ)

f. 523 Xpc (Christ)	f. 523v Xpc (Christ)	f. 526v Xpc (Christ)

f. 531 Ymagines (Images)

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