Lot 28

Bible, Ezekiel, in Latin, in an early Carolingian minuscule, decorated manuscript on vellum [Tours (the abbey of St. Martin or Marmoutier), first third of the ninth century]

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

large fragment of a leaf, 215mm. by 220mm., remains of 2 columns, 28 lines in brown ink in a fine and accomplished early Carolingian minuscule, most probably identifiable as one of the Tours scribes Fredegaudus or Theodegrimus (who copied fols.62r and 140v respectively of the Livy in Vatican, reg.lat.762, during the abbacy of Fridugisus, 807-34), initials touched in terracotta-red, small corrections, punctuation marks, underlining and chapter numbers added by a thirteenth-century hand in black ink, small spots, horizontal fold and staining to verso from reuse in binding, else good condition, hessian binding

Provenance

An important witness to the Carolingian 'Tours' Bible: "the Fabergé eggs of Carolingian book production" (McKitterick in The Early Medieval Bible, 1994, p.73)

provenance

Bernard Breslauer; sold in May 1960 to Bernard Rosenthal; Quaritch, Bookhands V, cat.1147 (1991), no.2; Schøyen MS 624.

Catalogue Note

text

The very earliest years of the Carolingian renaissance, those under the watchful eye of Charlemagne (c.742-814) and his immediate heirs, focussed on the reform of the Bible. In 789 in his Admonitio Generalis, Charlemagne called for the protection of the surviving manuscripts of the text from wanton destruction, and he ordered that only trusted and mature scribes were to undertake its copying. Alcuin (c.740-804), his foremost court-scholar, was engaged on the task soon after becoming the abbot of St. Martin's in Tours in 796. As he records himself in a letter to his eventual successor Fridugisus, the finished product was to be delivered to Charlemagne on Christmas Day 800, the day of his imperial coronation in Rome (cf. Ganshof, 'La révision de la Bible par Alcuin' Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 9, 1947, pp.7-20).

The two imperial scriptoria of Tours then specialised for half a century in producing monumental Pandects and Gospel Books for dissemination throughout the Carolingian empire: David Ganz traces some 46 Bibles and 18 Gospel Books from the scriptorium for the period 800-853 ('Mass Production of Early Medieval Manuscripts: The Carolingian Bibles from Tours', in The Early Medieval Bible, 1994, pp.53 and 61-62, not including the present example). It was a previously unparalleled effort of book production, producing at least two complete de luxe sets each year for half a century. These were the volumes that spread Christianity and Carolingian minuscule throughout Europe.

This is the only recorded fragment of a Tours Bible in private hands. The text is from Ezekiel 46:5-47:1 and 47:8-48:8.

literature

R. McKitterick, 'Carolingian Book Production', The Library, 6th series, 12 (1990), p.30