An illuminated leaf from the 'St Albans Bible', in Latin [France (Paris), 1330-50]

single leaf, 286x198mm, vellum, 2 columns, 46 lines, 188x120mm, with three illuminated initials at the beginning of I Corinthians 5, 6 and 7, with leafy extensions prolonged almost the full height of the page, some tape-stains at edges and a discreet tear in the outer margin, otherwise in fine condition, framed

From a somewhat imperfect and mutilated Bible sold in our rooms as 'The Property of a Lady', 6 July 1964, lot 239, with four illustrations, bought by 'Moreland' and broken up: individual leaves were offered by the end of the same year in Philip C. Duschnes’s Catalogue 169. The front flyleaves were from a Register of John Whethamstede, Abbot of St Albans, and it has been proposed that it is one of two Bibles recorded as obtained for St Albans, possibly from the estate of Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham and author of the Philobiblion, by Michael of Mentmore, Abbot of St Albans 1335-49 (see C. de Hamel in Fine Books and Book Collecting, 1981, pp.10-12).