Digital Medieval Manuscripts at Houghton Library
Bibliography for Harvard University, Houghton Library,
MS Typ 966
This bibliography was compiled by William Stoneman.
Please be advised that some links may require Harvard ID and PIN.
HOLLIS Record (Link) and Digital Images (Link)
This leaf was written and illuminated in England; the published literature suggests the parent lectern Bible was written perhaps in East Anglia, and was perhaps volume 3 of a 4-volume set. The contents of the lost volumes are determined to have been: volume 1 (Genesis-Ruth), volume 2 (Kings-Psalms) and volume 4 (I Maccabees-end of the New Testament). Volume 3 originally contained Proverbs-Malachi and consisted of 413 leaves; already missing 11 leaves the existing leaves in the volume were numbered in pale red ink in the 18th century. MS Typ is f. 374 and contains Hosea 10-12. The volume was broken up in or around 1927 by the London bookseller Albert Myers. Nearly 170 leaves, scattered across four continents, are now known; the most recent list is in de Hamel (2008). A substantial group of text leaves is now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. Bib. B. 4; the surviving leaves with historiated initials are:
f. 182 (Jeremiah) Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, MS Lewis E M 66-3A
f. 261 (Baruch) Bloomington, Indiana University, Lilly Library, MS Ricketts 15;
f. 339 (Daniel) Bloomington, Indiana University, Lilly Library, MS Ricketts 15;
f. 367 (Hosea) Chicago, Art Institute, MS 31.25;
f. 380 (Amos) Bloomington, Indiana University, Lilly Library, MS Ricketts 15;
f. 388 (Micah) New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M. 741.1;
f. 393 (Nahum) Korner collection, Sotheby’s, London, 19 June 1990, lot no. 13;
f. 395 (Habakkuk) New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M. 741.2.
The Houghton Library Report of Accessions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard College Library, 1979. MS cited on p. 6. HOLLIS
A brief description without call number in a report of annual accessions.
Margaret M. Manion, Vera F. Vines and Christopher de Hamel. Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections. Melbourne, London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1989. MS cited (p. 95) under its previous call number (MS Typ 405) in a list of the known surviving leaves included in the description of two sister leaves (Dunedin Public Library, Reed Fragment 13) on pp. 93-95. HOLLIS
Christopher de Hamel. “The Bohun Bible Leaves,” Transitus: Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australia and New Zealand (Script and Print: Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand 32, Special Issue). Melbourne: 2008. pp. 49-63. The most recent state of scholarship which retracts the suggestion that the four-volume set was made for a nunnery and that the first volume was London, British Library MS Royal I. E.IV. MS cited (p. 63) under its previous call number (MS Typ 405) in a list of the known surviving leaves. The two sister leaves in Dunedin are reproduced in color as Figures 7 and 8. HOLLIS
Peter Kidd. “Supplement to the Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library,” Huntington Library Quarterly 72.4 (2009). This MS not cited specifically on p. S-88 (MS HM 70391), describing the sister leaf at the Huntington Library. HOLLIS
Christopher de Hamel. Gilding the Lilly: A Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library. Bloomington: Lilly Library, 2010. This MS not cited specifically on pp. 104-106 (no. 47), describing (MS Ricketts 15) and reproducing in color (f. 339: Daniel) one of the sister leaves at the Lilly Library. HOLLIS
