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Detailed record for Royal 2 A XXII
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| Part 1 |
ff. 1-218 |
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| Title |
Psalter, with litany, prayers and Easter tables (The 'Westminster Psalter') |
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| Origin |
England, S. (Westminster or St Albans) |
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| Date |
c. 1200 |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Gothic |
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| Decoration |
5 full-page prefatory miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 12v, 13, 13v, 14, 14v). Roundels of the Signs of the Zodiac in colours and gold, in the calendar (ff. 5-10v). 4 historiated initials in colours and gold (ff. 15, 80v, 116, 132), and 6 foliate or inhabited initials in colours and gold (ff. 38v, 53, 66, 66, 98, 114), at the beginning of major Psalm divisions. Initials in red or blue with penwork decoration in red, blue and/or green, some with pen-flourished extensions into the margin. Initials in red or blue. Line-fillers in red and/or blue, some with animal heads. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
230 x 155 (160 x 95) |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 219v-221v |
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| Title |
Psalter ('The Westminster Psalter') |
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| Origin |
England, S. E. (Westminster) |
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| Date |
2nd quarter of the 13th century |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Gothic |
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| Decoration |
5 full-page tinted drawings (ff. 219v-221v). 1 initial in blue with red pen-flourishing (f. 221v). |
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| Dimensions in mm |
230 x 155 |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 224 (+ 5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1932. |
| Provenance |
The Benedictine abbey of Westminster: the calendar and litany for Westminster use, with Edward the Confessor in gold in the calendar (f. 5) and at the beginning of the Confessors in the litany (f. 182), special prayers to Edward the Confessor and Peter (f. 186); included in the inventories of books in the Westminster Abbey of 1388 and 1540 (see Ker 1964).
Added drawing of a naked man, late 14th-15th century (f. 219).
Added prayer before the mass, 14th century (ff. 222-224).
Added litany beginning 'Iesu Christe fili dei vivi miserere nobis', 15th century (f. 12).
Added five hexameters, beginning 'Angele sancte dei mihi custos', 15th century (f. 187v).
Added prayer beginning 'Omnipotens clementissime deus qui super muros', 15th century (f.187v).
Added antiphons for the little hours of the Benedictine breviary, 15th century (ff. 224v).
John Theyer (bap. 1598, d. 1673), antiquary: notes in his hand (ff. 4, 166v-168, 169, 170, 171v, 173); probably in the catalogue of his library left to his grandson Charles Theyer (b. 1651): see E. Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 3 vols. (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), II, no. 6600.
Robert Scott (b. c. 1632, d. 1709/10), London bookseller: probably included in the catalogue of John Theyer’s manuscripts in his possession, made in 1678 by William Beveridge and William Jane, Royal Appendix, 70, no. 126.
Charles II (b. 1630, d.1685), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland: purchased from Scott together with other 311 manuscripts from Theyer's library.
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.
According to Morgan 1982, painted in three distinct styles (Part I): 1. the style of prefatory miniatures (ff. 12v-14v) is related to the work of the Master of the Gothic Majesty in the Winchester Bible, now in Cathedral Library, Winchester; 2. the calendar roundels and initials (ff. 15, 80v, 132); and 3. the initial on f. 116.
According to Morgan 1988, the style of the added drawings (Part II, ff. 219v-221v) is close to a fragmentary head of a king in the cloister at Windsor, and to the mid 13th-century sculpture in the Westminster Abbey. |
| Select bibliography |
J. Strutt, A Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England (London, 1796, reprinted London: Tabard Press, 1970), pls. LVIII, LXVI, LXVIII.
H. Shaw, Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages (London: W. Pickering, 1843), I, pls. 16-17.
G. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols (London: John Murray, 1854, reprinted London: Cornmarket Press, 1970), I, pp. 159-60.
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. XII.9.
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. 6, xi, pl. 3.
E. Maunde Thompson, English Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Kegan Paul, 1895), pp. 34-35, pl. 10.
J. W. Legg, Missale Westmonasteriensis, 3, Henry Bradshaw Society, 12 (1896), pp. xiv-xv, nos. 1385-1398.
G. Warner, Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1899-1903), pl. 14.
C. Wordsworth and H. Littlehales, The Old Service Books of the English Church (London: Methuen, 1904), p. 111.
A. Haseloff, 'La miniature dans les pays cisalpins depuis le commencement du XIIe jusqu'au milieu du XIVe siècle', in Histoire de l'Art, ed. by A. Michel, (Paris: Colin, 1906), II, 1, p. 317, fig. 241.
[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1907-08), I, pls. ix-x.
H. M. Bannister, 'Signs in Calendarial Tables', in Mélanges offerts à M. Emile Chatelain (Paris, 1910), p. 148.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), pp. 141-42.
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), II: English 12th and 13th Centuries (1915), pl. 4.
A. Lindblom, La Peinture Gothique en Suède et en Norvège (Stockholm: [no pub.], 1916), p. 239.
M. R. James, La Estoire de Saint Aedward le Rei: The Life of St. Edward the Confessor (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1920), pp. 33-34.
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. 36-38.
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library: Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923) no. 18.
M. R. James, The Drawings of Matthew Paris, Walpole Society, 14 (1926), 1-26 (pp. 1-3, 24-26, figs. XXVII-XXIX, CXXXVI-CXLI).
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), pp. 42-43, 60, 90-91, 100, pls. 62-63, 90a, 90b.
M. R. James, The Apocalypse in Latin, MS 10 in the Collection of C.W. Dyson Perrins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927), p. 29.
O. E. Saunders, English Illumination, 2 vols (Paris: Pegasus Press, 1928, reprinted New York: Hacker Art Books, 1970), I, pp. 41, 52, 77, 79, II, pls. 56-57, 85.
W. R. Lethaby, 'English Primitives: The Ascoli Cope and London Artists', Burlington Magazine, 54 (1929), 304-08 (p. 307).
Albert Boeckler, Abendländische Miniaturen bis zum Ausgang der romanischen Zeit (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1930), pp. 93-94.
Paul Clemen, Die gotischen Monumentalmalereien der Rheinlande (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1930), pp. 108, 163, fig. 188.
A. Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen age latin (Paris, 1932), pp. 333 n. 3, 487, 572, 579 n. 5, 582 n. 1.
Guide to an Exhibition of English Art Gathered from Various Departments and Held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934.), no. 101.
E. W. Tristram, 'A Recent Discovery of Wall-Paintings in Westminster Abbey', Burlington Magazine, 70 (1937), 229-33 (p. 230).
G. Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert. Studien zur Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederländen (Kiel: [n. pub.], 1938), pp. 8-12, Tab. 1.
Victor Lasareff, 'Studies in the Iconography of the Virgin', Art Bulletin, 20 (1938), 26-65 (p. 62, fig. 47).
Mary Ann Farley and Francis Wormald, ‘Three Related English Romanesque Manuscripts’ Art Bulletin, 22 (1940), 157-61 (p. 158).
Ernst Kitzinger, Early Medieval Art with Illustrations from the British Museum Collection (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1940), pl. 45.
The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester: MSS. Rawlinson Liturg. e. 1*, and Gough Liturg. 8, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, ed. by J. B. L. Tolhurst, Henry Bradshaw Society, LXV-LXXX, 6 vols (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1932-1942), 6, p. 241.
S. Morison, 'Black Letter' Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942), pp. 19, 33.
Albert Hollaender, 'The Sarum Illuminator and his School', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 50 (1943), 230-62 (p. 238, pl. XI).
Albert Hollaender, 'The Pictorial Work in the Flores Historiarum of the so-called Matthew of Westminster', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 28 (1944), pp. 377, 380.
Francis Wormald, English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, 2 vols, Henry Bradshaw Society, 77, 81 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1939, 1946), II (1946), p. 57.
Francis Wormald, 'Paintings in Westminster Abbey and Contemporary Paintings', Proceedings of the British Academy, 35 (1949), 161-76 (pp. 162-64).
E. W. Tristram, English Medieval Wall Painting: The Thirteenth Century 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), I, pp. 82, 84, 155-156, 322, 360, II, pls. 11, 17.
T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 284-87, 291, pl. 85b.
Peter Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, Oxford History of English Art, 4 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 172.
Otto Homburger, 'Zur Stilbestimmung der figurlichen Kunst Deutschlands und des westlichen Europas im Zeitraum zwischen 1190 und 1250', in Formositas Romanica: Beiträge zur Erforschung der romanischen Kunst (Frauenfeld: Huber, 1958), p. 33, figs. 4-5.
R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge: University Press, 1958), p. 222.
Meyer Schapiro, 'An Illuminated English Psalter of the Early Thirteenth Century', in Late Antique, Early Christian and Mediaeval Art: Selected Papers (New York: George Braziller, 1979, first publ. 1960), 329-54 (pp. 347-48, fig. 17).
L. Gjerløw, Adoratio Crucis: The Regularis concordia and the Decreta Lanfranci: Manuscript Studies in the Early Medieval Church of Norway (Oslo: Norwegian Universities Press, 1961), pp. 20, 22, 137, 142.
Otto Pächt, 'A Cycle of English Frescoes in Spain', Burlington Magazine, 103 (1961), 166-72 (p. 172).
Otto Pächt, 'The Avignon Diptych and its Eastern Ancestry', De artibus opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. by Millar Meiss (New York: New York University Press, 1961), pp. 402-21 (p. 405).
H. Barré, Prières anciennes de l'Occident à la Mère du Sauveur (Paris, 1963), pp. 129 n. 10, 180 n. 3.
G. Zarnecki, 'The Transition from Romanesque to Gothic in English Sculpture', Acts of the XX International Congress of the History of Art, ed. by Ida E, Rubin (Priceton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 152-58 (p. 157).
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.196.
D. H. Turner, 'The Evesham Psalter', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 27 (1964), 23-41 (p. 39).
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (London: Penguin, 2nd edn. 1965), pp. 92-93, 109-110, 112, pl. 91.
D. H. Turner, Early Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts in England (London: British Museum, 1965), pp. 17-18, pl. 7
E. Kitzinger, 'The Byzantine Contribution to Western Art of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 20 (1966), pp. 25-47 (p. 41).
P. H. Brieger, The Trinity Apocalypse (London: Eugrammia Press, 1967), p. 11.
[Derek Howard Turner], Illuminated Manuscripts exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967), no. 12.
M. W. Evans, Medieval Drawings (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1969), pl. 56.
G. Henderson, 'Studies in English Manuscript Illumination: Part I: Stylistic Sequence and Stylistic Overlap in Thirteenth-Century English Manuscripts, I', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 30 (1967), 71-104 (pp. 85, 93-94, pls. 5b, 7a).
G. Henderson, 'Studies in English Manuscript Illumination: Part II: The English Apocalypse: I', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 30 (1967), 104-37 (pp. 123, 127).
Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967), no. 12, pl. 1.
A. Martindale, Gothic Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 1967), p. 72, pl. 50.
F. Deuchler, Der Ingeborgpsalter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967), p. 164.
P. H. Brieger, English Art 1216-1307, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), pp. 104, 136 n. 3, 170, 172, 214, pls. 37b, 53.
G. Henderson, 'Studies in English Manuscript Illumination, III: The English Apocalypse: II', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 31 (1968), 103-147 (p. 136).
M. W. Evans, Medieval Drawings (London, New York, Sydney and Toronto: Hamlyn, 1969), no. 56.
D. H. Turner, 'Manuscript Illumination', in The Year 1200, ed. by Konrad Hoffmann (New York: New York Graphic. Society, 1970), pp. 133-68 (pp. 135-36, figs. 177-79) [Exhibition catalogue].
Walter Oakeshott, Sigena: Romanesque Paintings in Spain and the Winchester Bible Artists (London: Miller & Medcalf, 1972), p. 98, fig. 168.
Madeline H. Caviness, 'The Canterbury Jesse Window', The Year 1200: A Symposium, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), pp. 373-98 (p. 378, fig. 15).
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), p. 114.
British Heraldry from its Origins to c. 1800, ed. by Richard Marks and Anne Payne (London: British Museum, 1978), no. 44, with pl [exhibition catalogue].
Karen Gould, The Psalter and Hours of Yolande of Soissons (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1978), p. 86 n. 53.
W. H. Monroe, 'A Roll-Manuscript of Peter of Poitiers Compendium', The Bulletin of Cleveland Museum of Art (1978), 92-107 (p. 107, n. 35).
François Avril, L'enluminure à l'époque gothique 1200-1420 (Genève: Editions Famot, 1979), pp. 30-31.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), p. 40, pl. 30.
J. Dupont and C. Gnudi, Gothic Painting (Geneva: Skira, 1979), p. 22.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), I, no. 860.
R. W. Pfaff, Montague Rhodes James (London: Scolar Press, 1980), p. 297.
M. Nitz, Enstehung und Bedeutung der englischen Messinggrabplatten (Munich, 1980), pp. 86, 88, 104.
Penelope Hunting, Royal Westminster: A History of Westminster through its Royal Connections (London: Institution of Chartered Surveyors, 1981), no. 117, p. 66.
W. Oakeshott, The Two Winchester Bibles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), p. 70.
M. Evans, 'An Illustrated Fragment of Peraldus's Summa of Vice: Harleian MS 3244', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 45 (1982), 14-68 (p. 28, pl. 7a).
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), I: 1190-1250, no. 2.
Rodney M. Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066-1235, 2 vols (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1982), p. 61.
English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, Hayward Gallery, London 5 April-8 July 1984 (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1984), no. 82 [exhibition catalogue].
J. Mayo, A History of Ecclesiatical Dress (London: Batsford, 1984), p. 44, fig. 16.
F. Lewis, 'The Veronica: Image, Legend and Viewer', England in the Thirteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by W.M. Ormond (Harlaxton, 1985), p. 102 n. 12.
Paul Binski, The Painted Chamber at Westminster (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1986), p. 108.
Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, ed. by Jonathan J. G. Alexander and Paul Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), no. 9 [exhibition catalogue].
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1988), II: 1250-1285, no. 95.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 50.
Janet Backhouse, '‘Very Old Book’: The Burdett Psalter-Hours, Made for a Thirteenth-Century Hospitaller', in Studies in the Illustration of the Psalter, ed. by Brendan Cassidy and Rosemary Muir Wright (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), pp. 55-66 (p. 58 n. 9).
Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2003), p. 15, fig. 11.
Michaela Braesel, ‘The Influence of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts on the Pre-Raphaelites and the Early Poetry of William Morris’, Journal of William Morris Studies 15.4 (2004), 41-54 (p. 42).
F. O. Büttner, ‘Der illuminierte Psalter im Westen’, in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 1-106 (p. 11 n. 7, p. 27 n. 126).
Nigel Morgan, ‘Patrons and their Devotions in the Historiated Initials and Full-Page Miniatures of 13th-Century English Psalters’, in The Illuminated Psalter: Studies in the Content, Purpose and Placement of its Images, ed. by F. O. Büttner, (Belgium: Brepols, 2004), pp. 309-22 (p. 309 n. 1).
The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), pp. 97, 183, 249.
Nigel Morgan, 'The Trinity Apocalypse: Style, Dating and Place of Production', in The Trinity Apocalypse (Trinity College Cambridge, MS R.16.2) (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 23-43 (p. 26, fig. 26).
Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: University Press, 2009), pp. 229-33.
Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 12 [exhibition catalogue].
Nicholas Vincent, 'The Great Lost Library of England's Medieval Kings' in1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts, ed. by Kathleen Doyle and Scot McKendrick (London: The British Library, 2013), pp. 73-112 (pp. 95-96, 107). |
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Part 1
ff. 1-218 |
| Psalter, with litany, prayers and Easter tables (The 'Westminster Psalter') |
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f. 4v
Calendar |
f. 5
January |
f. 5v
February |
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f. 6
March |
f. 6v
April |
f. 7
May |
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f. 7v
June |
f. 8
July |
f. 8v
August |
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f. 9
September |
f. 9v
October |
f. 10
November |
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f. 10v
December |
f. 12v
Annunciation |
f. 12v
Annunciation |
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f. 13
Visitation |
f. 13
Visitation |
f. 13v
Virgin and Child |
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f. 13v
Virgin and Child |
f. 14
Christ in Majesty |
f. 14
Christ in Majesty |
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ff. 14v-15
King David playing the harp |
f. 14v
David playing the harp |
f. 14v
David playing the harp |
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f. 15
David and Goliath |
f. 15
David and Goliath |
f. 53
Inhabited initial |
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f. 66
Inhabited initial |
f. 66v
Decorated initial |
f. 80v
Jonah |
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f. 98
Inhabited initial |
f. 116
Christ and a monk |
f. 116
Christ and a monk |
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f. 132v
Decorated initial |
f. 219v
King |
f. 220
Knight |
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f. 220v
Christopher |
f. 221
Archbishop |
f. 221v
Veronica head of Christ |
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