Collection ID: 0023 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Historia scholastica

Authors

• Petrus, Comestor, active 12th century (http://viaf.org/viaf/40175167)

Other related names

• Royaumont Abbey(?), former owner
• Lewis, John Frederick, 1860-1932, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/63874811/)
• Lewis, Anne Baker, former owner

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

Lewis E 168
(Philadelphia, United States, Free Library of Philadelphia, John Frederick Lewis Collection of European Manuscripts)

Alternate identifiers

• deRicci: 132

Publisher

Free Library of Philadelphia

Language

Latin

Origin

Place

France

Summary

This manuscript contains the Latin text of Petrus Comestor's biblical paraphrase, the "Historia scholastica" (fols. 1r-214v). It includes tables of contents for each book of scripture covered, as well as marginal glosses in near contemporary and later medieval hands in both drypoint and ink. The body text is helpfully annotated with running headings and chapter numbers, and this book also contains medieval foliation in ink. Catchwords and signatures are also consistently applied. Decoration is limited to colored initials of varying sizes in red and blue, most with pen-work flourishes. In the margin, the scribe has included small letters indicating where initials and chapter numbers were to be painted. Throughout the book there is evidence of historic damage and repairs, which on fols. 77, 102, 103, and 153 takes the form of colorful decorative stitching. This manuscript may have belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of Royaumont before the French Revolution.

Notes

• Written on very thin parchment
   
• At fol. 188, the early foliation skips to 189 but there is no missing leaf; thereafter the modern pencil foliation is correct
   
• Book IX, omitted by the original scribe, has been added in a different hand after the end of the main text (fols. 214r-v)
   

Extent

Ii+214+ii; 296 x 212 mm bound to 307 x 223 mm

Foliation

Later medieval foliation in ink, upper right recto (occasionally supplemented by modern foliation in pencil)

Collation

1-14 (12), 15 (10), 16-18 (12)

Signatures

Consistent contemporary signatures on fols. 12v, 24v, 36v, 48v, 60v, 72v, 84v, 96v, 108v, 120v, 132v, 144v, 156v, 168v, 178v, 190v, 202v, and 214v

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Contemporary catchwords on fols. 12v, 24v, 36v, 48v, 60v, 72v, 84v, 96v, 108v, 120v, 132v, 144v, 156v, 168v, 178v, 202v, and 214v

Binding

Nineteenth-century blue morocco, gilt with "HISTORIA SCHOLASTICA / PETRUS COMESTOR / SÆC. XIII." stamped on spine; in modern red cloth slipcase

Layout

Two columns of forty-four lines; frame-ruled in ink, pricking holes visible; written area: 196 x 142 mm; evidence of trimming

Decoration

Large and small ornamental capitals with marginal penwork tracery in red and blue; rubrication and paragraph marks in red

Script

Gothic--textualis

Provenance

• May have been in the Abbey of Royaumont in 1791 (see Huglo 2013); lot 429 in American Art Association sale, New York, Jan. 30, 1928 (print catalog clipping pasted inside front cover); John Frederick Lewis, Philadelphia (his shelfmark "168" in green crayon on flyleaf 1v); given by his widow, Anne Baker Lewis, to the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1936
   

Related resources

• De Ricci, Seymour, with the assistance of W.J. Wilson, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, vol. 2 (New York,: H. W. Wilson, 1935-40), p. 2049, no. 132.
• Free Library of Philadelphia, A Descriptive Catalogue of the John Frederick Lewis Collection of European Manuscripts in the Free Library of Philadelphia, compiled by Edwin Wolf, 2nd, with an introduction by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach (Philadelphia: The Free Library, 1937), p. 182, no. 168.
• Free Library of Philadelphia, Saints, Scribes, and Scholars: An Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Collections of the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, compiled by Satoko I. Parker, Walter A. Frankel, and Marie E. Korey (Philadelphia: The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1988), p. 6.
• M. Huglo, "La dispersion des manuscrits de Royaumont," Revue bénédictine, t. 113, f. 2 (2003), p. 377 (article: pp. 365-406).

Keywords

• Commentary
• 14th century
• French
• Gloss
• Gothic
• France
• Biblical
• Scripture

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 168: Historia scholastica are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, Free Library of Philadelphia, Special Collections has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E 168: Historia scholastica. This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• fol. 1r — Historia scholastica; incipit: Reverentissimo patris et domino suo Wilhelmo dei gracia senonensi episcopus Petrus servus christi... [fol. 2r]; explicit: Gladio enim perimebantur nobiles et in loco magis honorabiliori scilicet in cathacumbis. [fol. 214r]

Decorations

• Inside front cover — Notations in pencil and ink
• Inside front cover — Print catalog clipping
• fol. 2r — Decorated initial R
• fol. 2r — Decorated initial I
• fol. 30r — Decorated initial H
• fol. 46r — Decorated initial U
• fol. 52v — Decorated initial Q
• fol. 52v — Decorated initial L
• fol. 62r — Decorated initial Q
• fol. 62r — Decorated initial Q
• fol. 69r — Decorated initial L
• fol. 76v — Decorated initial L
• fol. 85r — Decorated initial P
• fol. 93r — Decorated initial I
• fol. 105r — Decorated initial P
• fol. 120r — Decorated initial H
• fol. 122v — Decorated initial E
• fol. 123r — Decorated initial E
• fol. 125r — Decorated initial P
• fol. 132r — Decorated initial P
• fol. 134r — Decorated initial H
• fol. 136v — Decorated initial P
• fol. 138v — Decorated initial L
• fol. 143v — Decorated initial T
• fol. 148v — Decorated initial S
• fol. 150r — Decorated initial M
• fol. 155v — Decorated initial F
• fol. 191r — Decorated initial A