Beschreibung:

BOOK OF GENESIS, glossed, in Latin, MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [northern France, mid-12th century] 278 x 190mm. 130 leaves: 1-16 8, 17 2, signed with roman numerals at centre lower edge on the final versos, each signature with simple pen-work ornament, up to 15 lines of text and up to 55 lines of marginal gloss written in dark brown ink in two principal sizes of protogothic script between six verticals and on up to 15 or 55 horizontals ruled in blind (quires 1-3) or in plummet (quires 6-17, quires 4-5 transitional with evidence of both), justification: 213 x 155mm, prickings visible in upper, outer and lower margins of most leaves, each page with a central text column of varying width and a column of gloss on either side, the gloss sometimes extending into long lines at the top and/or bottom of the page, one large decorated initial in red and brown, text capitals and paragraph signs in the hand of the scribe, blind sketch of a horse and a hare in the lower margin of f.84v, a horse on f.98v (rectangular piece approximately 12 x 75mm cut from fore-edge of f.1, natural flaws to around 20 leaves, including one on f.124 which preserves a fringe of the animal's hair, small faint stain to outer mostly blank margins of around 50 leaves). CONTEMPORARY TAWED SKIN OVER OAK BOARDS, preserving the square-cut tab at top of spine, natural linen headbands, evidence of two straps catching on pins on the front cover, mark of chain hasp at top of back cover (first quire resewn, top headband renewed, tab trimmed from tail of spine, original oval hole in back cover neatly mended with a sewn patch, oval hole in skin at lower joint, minor wear, without the clasps), preserving as original pastedowns two leaves from a Bible manuscript of the early 9th century (the back pastedown partially lifted, trimmed and torn with some loss of text). PROVENANCE: In a contemporary binding and with a medieval provenance from the Premonstratensian abbey of St Mary in Steinfeld in der Eifel 1. Steinfeld in der Eifel, Premonstratensian abbey of St Mary: excised inscription on f.1v, the remaining ascenders and abbreviation signs corresponding to the intact inscription Liber ecclesie sancte Marie in Steinvelt in BL, Add. Ms 24682; 17th-century shelfmark 'Loc.255 N.2' on f.1, corresponding to the similar shelfmark in BL, Add Ms 24682. The present manuscript is not listed in the fragmentary 12th-century library catalogue from Steinfeld (ed. G. Becker, Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui , Bonn 1885, no.98). 2. Leander van Ess (1772-1847), German collector and translator of the Bible: his printed number '35' on spine; described in Sammlung und Verzeichnis handschriftlicher Bücher ... welche besitzt Leander van Ess (Darmstadt 1823) as 'Liber Genesis cum glossis ex Ss. Patribus. Auf 128 Pergamentblätter gut geschrieben, viel gebraucht, doch gut erhalten, das Pergament sehr dick, in gutem Holzband gebunden. Folio minor'; sold by Van Ess in 1824 to 3. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): his printed number '420' on spine; sale, Sotheby's 21 November 1972, lot 535, to Lionel & Philip Robinson Ltd; listed by S. Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters (Munich 1989), ii, p. 738, with location unknown. CONTENT: Genesis, with prefatory, marginal and interlinear glosses ff.1v-129v. The development of the glossa ordinaria on the Bible was one of the great achievements of 12th-century scholarship. It had long been the practice to write explanations of individual words or copy explanatory extracts from patristic texts into manuscripts of books of the Bible, where they facilitated study, preaching and teaching. At the beginning of the 12th century a group of scholars around Anselm of Laon (d.1117) regularised this process by assembling what became a standard set of excerpts from the exegetical works of the Fathers and copying them between the lines for short notes, or in the margins of the Biblical text for longer extracts. The gloss on the Pentateuch, including Genesis, is attribu