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Detailed record for Additional 18633
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| Title |
Apocalypse with a verse translation and prose commentary in French, imperfect |
| Origin |
England |
| Date |
2nd half of the 13th century |
| Language |
Latin, French (Anglo-Norman) and English |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
1 full-page framed miniature in colours with gold. 105 framed two-column width miniatures in colours with gold. Numerous initials in blue with penwork decoration and pen-flourishing in red. |
| Dimensions in mm |
320/5 x 180/90 (250 x 140) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 50 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. BM/BL in-house. |
| Provenance |
Added marginal translation in English in a hand of the second half of the 15th century.
Perhaps the Benedictine abbey of St Mary, Reading: an anathema on f. 1, partially erased, ' Est liber...quem qui celaverit, alienaverit vel fraudem inde fecerit, anathema fiat. Amen'; the name of the owner is no longer legible, but the form of the anathema suggests possible Reading abbey ownership.
Basil Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, his armorial bookplate, dated 1703.
Bought by the British Museum from the Earl of Denbigh, 10 May 1851 (a note on f. [iv]). |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
1 folio is missing between ff. 13 and 14.
One of twelve Apocalypses in medieval French, and one of nine in the 'illustrated' version of the text, according to Pitts (1983). The Middle English commentary has been added in the outer margins of ff. 10v–39. It is an English paraphrase of the French prose commentary, according to Pitts and Furnish, 'Middle English Apocalypse Gloss' (2006). |
| Select bibliography |
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Ilustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 8.
Paul Meyer, 'Version Anglo-Normande en vers de l'Apocalypse', Romania, 25 (1896), 174-257 (p. 178-79).
Montague Rhodes James, The Apocalypse in Art, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1927 (London: British Academy, 1931), no. 37.
Brent A. Pitts, 'Versions of the Apocalypse in Medieval French Verse', Speculum, 58 (1983), as 'A'.
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. 65.
Ruth Dean and Maureen Bolton, Anglo-Norman Literature, A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), no. 478.
Nigel J. Morgan, 'The Torments of the Damned in Hell in Texts and Images in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries', in Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom, Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Nigel Morgan (Donington: Shaun tyas, 2004), pp. 250-60 (p. 256).
Brent Pitts and Shearle Furnish, 'The Middle English Apocalypse Gloss in British Library MS Additional 18633', Notes and Queries, 53.3 (2006), 293-95.
Nancy Ross, 'Forgotten Revelation: The Iconographic Development of the Anglo-Norman Verse and Early Prose Apocalypse Manuscripts' (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006), pp. 149-50, figs, online at https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxuYW5jeXJvc3N8Z3g6NThmNDJmNmRiYzA0YzZlOA.
Nigel J. Morgan, ‘The Bohun Apocalypse’, in Tributes to Lucy Freeman Sandler: Studies in Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. by Kathryn A. Smith and Carol H. Krinsky (London: Harvey Miller, 2007), pp. 91-110 (p. 94).
Renana Bartal, Gender, piety, and production in fourteenth-century English Apocalypse manuscripts (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), p. 172. |
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f. 1
John on Patmos |
f. 2
Christ in Majesty |
f. 9
Christ in Majesty and the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes |
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f. 9v
The Lamb and the book of Seven Seals |
f. 10
Christ, the Lamb and the book |
f. 11v
The seven seals and the fourth horseman |
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f. 12
John, the Lamb and Christ |
f. 15v
The fifth angel |
f. 16
Abaddon and the locusts |
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f. 20
The death of the witnesses |
f. 22v
The dragon attacks the mother and child |
f. 30
The harvest of the wheat |
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f. 45v
The Heavenly City |
f. 47
God the Father enthroned |
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