Sole extant copy of verse Life of St Edward the Confessor, originally composed probably by Matthew Paris for Queen Eleanor of Provence, using Vita<\/i> by Aelred of Rievaulx and Matthew's own historical works. Contrary to Pam Robinson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 737-1600 in Cambridge Libraries<\/i> (1988), no. 24, only the date of composition of the lost original may be ascertained: 1236-72, probably 1236-45, and perhaps 1236-39 (see: Binski, 'Abbot Berkyng's Tapestries', pp. 89\u201395).<\/p>" }, { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "England, London/Westminster." }, { "label": "Provenance", "value": "
Since the manuscript is a copy of London/Westminster origin, it was perhaps made for Queen Eleanor's daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile on her arrival in England in 1255. It may have been one of the books about Sts Thomas and Edward repaired and rebound for Eleanor in 1288 (wardrobe account in The National Archives, E101/352/11 mem. 2: see B.F. and C.R. Byerly, Records of the Wardrobe and Household, 1286-1289<\/i> (1986), p. 379, no. 3217).<\/p>
Laurence Nowell (b. c. 1530, d. 1570), antiquary: name and date, 1563, inscribed on f. 3r<\/a>. Nowell may have acquired the manuscript from William Bowyer (d. 1569/70), antiquary and Keeper of Records in the Tower, who made numerous manuscripts available to Nowell (see: Black (1982), p. 117 and n. 7).<\/p> William Lambarde (b. 1536, d. 1601), antiquary and lawyer, and friend of Nowell's: name inscribed in archaised form on f. 3r<\/a>) (see: Black (1982), p. 116).<\/p> 'Au Monsir Cope son Treschur Anye, Envoi a Guill. Lambard cest Poesie': manuscript apparently given by Lambard to Sir Walter Cope (d. 1614), administrator, according to inscription on f. 3r<\/a> (see Watson (1987), MS B2).<\/p> Perhaps part of the collection of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (b. 1520/21, d. 1598), royal minister: it was apparently sold with other books from his library by T. Bentley and B. Walford, 21 Nov. 1687).<\/p> John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely: no. 36 (f. 2r<\/a>) in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ<\/i> (c. 1697).<\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Extent",
"value": "Codex: ii + 2 + 33 + 1 + iii leaves. Leaf height: 280 mm, width: 195 mm."
},
{
"label": "Funding",
"value": ""
},
{
"label": "Date of Creation",
"value": "Mid-13th century (perhaps c. 1255)."
},
{
"label": "Classmark",
"value": "Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee.3.59"
},
{
"label": "Note(s)",
"value": "Decorated initial on f. 3r added later; should be 'C'.; First line of text inserted at foot of f. 3r."
},
{
"label": "Donor(s)",
"value": "George I, King of Great Britain, 1660-1727"
},
{
"label": "Additions",
"value": " List of the liberal arts added to the lower margin of f. 19v<\/a> by a late 13th-/early 14th-century hand.<\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Subject(s)",
"value": "Great Britain--History--Edward, the Confessor, 1042-1066; Christian saints in literature"
},
{
"label": "Associated Name(s)",
"value": "Bradshaw, Henry, 1831-1886; Pink, H. L.; Moore, John, 1646-1714; Pine, John, 1690-1756"
},
{
"label": "Format",
"value": "Codex"
},
{
"label": "Data Source(s)",
"value": "This catalogue entry draws on the description provided by Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, with the collaboration of Stella Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University Library<\/i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) (used here by kind permission of Cambridge University Press)."
},
{
"label": "Language(s)",
"value": "Anglo-Norman French"
},
{
"label": "Author(s)",
"value": "Matthew Paris"
},
{
"label": "Binding",
"value": " Full green morocco, by Douglas Cockerell and Son, Grantchester, 1967: note by H.L. Pink on front pastedown<\/a>.<\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Script",
"value": " Written in a cursive gothic bookhand<\/i>.<\/p><\/div><\/div>"
},
{
"label": "Excerpts",
"value": " This is the only known surviving copy of an illustrated Anglo-Norman verse Life of St Edward the Confessor, written in England probably in the later 1230s or early 1240s and, as preserved in this manuscript, executed c. 1250-60.<\/p> A masterpiece of mid thirteenth-century English illumination, the manuscript preserves vital evidence for the study of the hagiographical writings about Edward the Confessor that were sponsored by Henry III, and also for the complexity and sophistication of English pen and wash narrative art in this period. The text, entitled in the first rubric 'la estoire de seint aedward le rei translatee du latin' (f. 3r<\/a>), is based upon Aelred of Rievaulx's Vita Sancti Edwardi regis et confessoris<\/i>, which was composed in Latin around the time of the saint's canonisation in 1161. Aelred's Vita<\/i> tells how Edward was exiled as a boy during the Danish occupation (see f. 4r<\/a>), and how his rule proved of benefit to the English people; it describes his visions and miracles, his patronage of Westminster Abbey (f. 19r<\/a>) and the manner of his death (f. 29r<\/a>), before covering the downfall of his successor, Harold (f. 34v<\/a>), and the eventual opening of the king's tomb (f. 36r<\/a>).<\/p> The present translation into verse was composed by someone either at Westminster, where the shrine of the saint lay, or more probably at St Albans. Numerous correspondences between the text and the historical works of Matthew Paris (1200-1259) suggest very strongly that Matthew was in fact the author. The text opens with a form of dedication to Queen Eleanor of Provence, and was thus composed after 1236, when Eleanor married Henry III. It was probably written before the birth of Prince Edward, later Edward I, in 1239, and certainly before the start of work on the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey by Henry III in 1245, which the passages in the poem about Edward the Confessor's own refoundation of the Abbey appear to anticipate.<\/p> Consisting of thirty-seven folios and a total of sixty-four pictures, the present manuscript is a slightly later copy of the original. The script and illustrations demonstrate numerous points of contact with a number of stylistically and codicologically similar manuscripts produced not at St Albans but in London, or at Westminster itself: these include: The format of the manuscript, with framed illustrations at the head of the page, resembles such autograph works of Matthew Paris as his Life of St Alban (Dublin, Trinity College, MS 177<\/a>), and also the stylistically related Apocalypses mentioned above. Here, however, the form of the poem, in octo-syllabic rhymed couplets that yield a short line and thus three columns of text per page, has shaped the appearance of each opening. As a rule the illustrations, accompanied by rubrics, cover all three columns, but occasionally occupy fewer. The marginalia are notable: that on f. 3r<\/a> shows a semi-erased image of a man and woman kissing, perhaps a subversive reference to the substance of the main text, which stresses Edward's chastity.<\/p> Paul Binski The manuscript comprises four quires of eight leaves, plus a further quire now of only a single leaf but apparently originally a bifolium from which the first leaf has been lost. No leaf signatures. <\/p> No quire signatures. <\/p> Catchwords. <\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Physical Description",
"value": " 4r<\/a>: pur parchater <\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Acquisition",
"value": "Presented to the University Library in 1715 by George I: donation bookplate engraved by John Pine in 1736 on front pastedown<\/a>."
},
{
"label": "Decoration",
"value": " Miniatures:<\/p> Forty-two framed drawings stretching across all three text columns and twenty-two across two text columns, some containing more than one scene, tinted in blue, green, red, pink and brown, many with inscriptions, some rubbed, with occasional details in gold (14v<\/a>, 19v<\/a>, 20r<\/a>) and fictitious heraldry in battle scenes (5r<\/a>, 12r<\/a>, 12v<\/a>, 31r<\/a>, 32v<\/a>, 34r<\/a>, 34v<\/a>).<\/p> At least three artists. Manuscript may be compared with four related Apocalypse manuscripts from the same workshop (see: Morgan (1988), nos 122, 124\u201325 and 107), of which group this manuscript is latest in style and the most heterogenous: Also related to wall paintings of c. 1250 in the Dean's Cloister, Windsor Castle.<\/p> Ornamental and minor initials:<\/p> Ten-line initial initial A (should be C) in blue and gold, with red penwork flourishing, added at the opening of the text in the 14th or 15th century (f. 3r<\/a>).<\/p> Two- and three-line initials, alternating in red and blue, with contrasting pale blue and red infill and marginal flourishing.<\/p> Bas-de-page:<\/p> A few bas-de-page drawings by the main artists: 19th-century foliation<\/p> [i-ii] + 1-2 + 3-34, 36-37 + [iii-v]<\/p> Numbering in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos, probably by Henry Bradshaw, University Librarian 1867-1886.<\/p>Folio numbers 35 and 38 assigned to leaves no longer present in the volume (as per historic foliation practice at Cambridge University Library).<\/p> 18th-/19th-century pagination<\/p> 1-65 (for ff. 3r-36r<\/a>)<\/p> Pagination in ink in the lower outer corners of the rectos and versos.<\/p><\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Bibliography",
"value": " Editions:<\/b><\/p> Translations:<\/b><\/p> Facsimiles:<\/b><\/p> Manuscript Descriptions:<\/b><\/p> Exhibition Catalogues:<\/b><\/p>
Professor of the History of Medieval Art
University of Cambridge <\/p>"
},
{
"label": "Former Owner(s)",
"value": "Eleanor, Queen, consort of Edward I, King of England, -1290; Laurence Nowell; Bowyer, William (d. 1569/70); Lambarde, William, 1536-1601; Cope, Sir Walter (d. 1614); Burghley, William Cecil, Baron, 1520-1598"
},
{
"label": "Title",
"value": "Vie de seint Aedward le Rei"
},
{
"label": "Author(s) of the Record",
"value": "Suzanne Paul, James Freeman, Medieval Manuscripts Specialist, Cambridge University Library"
},
{
"label": "Material",
"value": "Parchment (HFFH<\/i>)"
},
{
"label": "Collation",
"value": "