A new book in the Bodleian

I spent a considerable part of this morning and afternoon attending an online symposium at the Bodleian Library. It was devoted to a book the Library has recently acquired. Now there is nothing unusual in that - as Bodley’s Librarian pointed out in his opening remarks the Library takes in something like a thousand books every day. This one however is exceptional.

An illuminated manuscript French translation of the New Testament produced to the highest standards of the day in the Parisian ateliers during the last quarter of the thirteenth century it was acquired before 1350 by the future King Jean II, who inscribed his name in it as a sign of ownership. It may have come to England as a result of the King’s captivity after the battle of Poitiers in 1356, or, perhaps more probably, with his granddaughter Queen Joan of Navarre, who married King Henry IV in 1403. The application of ultra-violet light has revealed the erased names of later English owners - Thomas, later Duke of Clarence, his stepson Edmund Beaufort, Count of Mortain and later Duke of Somerset, who then gave it to his stepfather’s youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Duke Humphrey - or Humfrey - was, of course, a seminal figure in the development of what became the Bodleian Library, and a significant patron of learning and literature both established Latin and French texts and the latest Italian Humanist versions. The volume appears to have disappeared after Duke.Humfrey’s death in 1447 before reappearing in the eighteenth century. Thanks to a government ban on its export it has now been acquired and given a permanent home in the library its last royal owner so clearly supported and valued.

The symposium offered a series of fascinating talks about the book, which is on show in the Weston Library, and, as of today,  also available in digitised form online at Bodleian Library MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1

The full Bodleian catalogue entry with the various recovered inscriptions can be seen at MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1 - Medieval Manuscripts

The Bodleian website illustrates two of the miniatures and lists the impressive array of contributors to the symposium at From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey

The book itself and the symposium provide and provided a fascinating insight into the cultivated literary tastes and patronage of princes either side of the Channel between the last years of St Louis and the mid-fifteenth century.

Wikipedia has an illustrated biography of the Duke at Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester

 

Humphrey Duke of Gloucester

Fifteenth century portrait by an unknown artist Library of St Vaast, Arras

Image: Britannica