Beschreibung:

PETER COMESTOR (c.1100-1178). Historia Scholastica , in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [France, second half 12th century] 297 x 220mm. 143 leaves (of 185): 1 5(of 8, lacking i-iii), 2-4 8, 5 6(of 8, lacking iv and v), 6 8, 7 7(of 8, lacking iii), 8 6(of 8, lacking iv and v, lower half of vi excised), 9-10 8, 11 4(of 8, lacking iii-vi), 12 4(of 8, lacking iii-vi), 13-14 8, 15 6, 16 2, 17 8, 18 8, 19 2(of 8, lacking i, iii-vi and viii), 20-21 8, 22 5(of 8, lacking iv-vi, viii blank endleaf), lacking 9 leaves between gatherings 15 and 16 and a further 8 leaves between gatherings 20 and 21, quire numbers on final versos in two series from i-xv and i-iiii, informal catchwords in inner lower corners of final versos up to gathering 15, near contemporary foliation, two columns of 40-41 lines (except gatherings 15 and 16) in dark brown ink in a protogothic bookhand between five verticals and 40-41 horizontals ruled in plummet, justification: approx. 215 x 150mm, prickings survive on most leaves, rubrics in red, running titles in blue and red in gatherings 1-17, flourished initials in blue, red and green throughout, FOUR LARGE ILLUMINATED INITIALS in gold and silver on coloured grounds (silver oxidised, marginal staining to edges of some folios, final 6 folios margins dampstained and buckled). CONTEMPORARY VELLUM OVER THICK WOODEN BOARDS (rebacked, lacking centre and corner bosses and two clasps). A HANDSOME AND EARLY COPY OF THE TEXT THAT BECAME THE STANDARD WORK ON BIBLICAL HISTORY THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE AGES. PROVENANCE: Presumably destined for a monastic library. There is an erased explicit, and various uninformative inscriptions and pen-trials on the endleafs in French hands of the 13th-16th centuries. These include the word 'Langhat'. CONTENT: Peter Comestor (literally 'Peter the Eater' from his voracious appetite for knowledge) was Dean of the Cathedral at Troyes from 1147-1164 and then Chancellor of the University of Paris until he retired to the monastery of St Victor in 1169. He wrote influential Sermons and a Gloss on the Gospels but the Historia Scholastica can be regarded as his principal work and he became known as the 'Magister Historiarum'. The work provided a continuous history from the Creation until the end of the Acts of the Apostles and was based upon the books of the Bible, where necessary correlating different accounts of an event and marrying disjointed sequences; in spite of this scriptural primacy the narrative was rounded out and any gaps filled by drawing upon the Church Fathers and authors of classical antiquity. Often literal or allegorical explanations of the Biblical events were also. The Comestor explained in a prologue that he had compiled the work at the urging of colleagues who wanted a compact and coherent biblical history that also provided information only briefly alluded to in the Great Gloss. The result was so successful that within a generation the Historia itself became the subject of university lectures and it was frequently annotated and commented upon. The present copy is likely to have been made within a few decades of the composition of the work. By comparison with J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina , 198, cols 1053-1722, the present manuscript now opens at 1064, Ch. 9. Originally this copy was prepared in three sections: Genesis to Deuteronomy (eight gatherings); Joshua to Maccabees (nine gatherings); the final section opening Mortuo symone (Migne 1525 ch.2) and finishing with the Acts of the Apostles. A list of contents added at the end and the foliation under the running headings was supplied soon after the completion of the manuscript. ILLUMINATION: The illuminated initials, all with staves of gold, or gold and silver and set against grounds or foliate decoration of red, blue or green with white penwork decoration, are on ff. 28 (opening of Exodus ), 45 (opening of Leviticus ), 66 (opening of Joshua ) and 130 (opening of Mortuo symone.... ).