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Sentences, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [England, late 13th century]
Details
Peter Lombard (c.1096-1160)
Sentences, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [England, late 13th century]
A handsome English manuscript of one of the fundamental university texts of the Middle Ages, Peter Lombard’s Sentences, in a medieval binding and with early provenance from Burton Abbey and Winstanley Hall.
c.340 x 220mm. 150 + ii leaves, collation: 1-28, 37 (of 8, lacking vii), 4-108, 114, 127 (of 8, lacking vi), 13-158, 167 (lacking v), 17-198, 205 (of 8, lacking vi-viii), 53 lines in two columns, ruled space: 230 x 65mm, catchwords survive, rubrics in red, headers and distinctiones in red and blue, initials alternately in red or blue with infill of the contrasting colour throughout, larger penwork initials opening the four books in red and blue with flourishes extending into margins, numerous marginal additions in contemporary and near-contemporary hands throughout, occasional natural flaws to the vellum and contemporary repairs and stitching (lacking 6 leaves: single leaves after ff.22, 88, and 118 and three leaves after f.150, lower margins of ff.17, 21, 36, 38, 44, 74, and 105 excised but not affecting text, some staining and cockling, corners of leaves sometimes frayed, a few wormholes). Medieval binding of white pigskin over bevelled wooden boards, remnants of clasps survive (the binding rubbed with fragments of pigskin missing revealing the wooden boards, the boards chipped and wormholed, sewing structure at spine exposed, lacking clasps and catches). Fitted box.
Provenance:
(1) The manuscript is a heavily glossed and annotated English production from the end of the 13th century. A sentence on one of three 16th-century vellum strips likely used as bookmarks may provide some indication of early provenance: ‘[…]by prior v kalends Aprilis obiit Frater Edmundus Swayne monachi sacerdotis et professi monasterii beate Marie sancteque Moduenne virginis de Burton super Trent ordinis Sancti Benedicti.’ This is Burton Abbey at Burton upon Trent, traditionally said to have been founded in the 7th century by the Irish abbess St Modwenna and refounded between 1002-1004 as a Benedictine abbey by the king’s thegn Wulfric Spot. The community was never large, but the abbey enjoyed special privileges and influence and was endowed with a substantial library. A 12th-century catalogue of the abbey’s library holdings lists 78 manuscripts (London, British Library, Add. MS. 23944, f.157); more recently Ker identifies 9 manuscripts and 10 printed books (although not all attributions are now accepted – see N. R. Ker, Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books, 1964, pp.15-16 and Supplement, p.5). When the abbey was visited by Bishop Blythe in 1524, there were 22 resident monks, including the abbot and the prior. One of these was Brother Edmund Swayne, mentioned in the vellum strip, the hospitaller and warden of the infirmary. On this visit, there were complaints that the abbey had no instructor in grammar and that the books in the refectory were in a bad state of repair (see ‘Houses of Benedictine monks: The abbey of Burton’, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3, 1970). In the entry for Burton Abbey in a ‘list of families’ in the archdeaconry of Stafford in 1532-3, the abbey list starts with the prior, Robert Norbury (perhaps the cut off ‘by’ at the beginning of the strip mentioned above), followed by 9 monks, including Edmund Swayne. The abbey was dissolved in 1539 and the library dispersed.
(2) Edmund Winstanley: later 16th-century ownership inscription on recto of final flyleaf: ‘Edmundus Winstaniensis est verus […]itatis possessor huius libri vel huic libri’. The Winstanleys had resided in their eponymous manor house since at least the 13th century (A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4, 1911, pp.87-9). When Sir Thomas Winstanley died in 1562 he granted use of his estate to his wife Elizabeth until their son and heir Edmund came of age. When he did he became, by all accounts, an ‘absentee landlord’, and the estate was left in the hands of another Edmund Winstanley – a cousin or an uncle. In January 1596 Winstanley Hall and its lands were sold by Edmund to James Bankes (1542-1617) (or Banck, Banc, Bancke, Banckes, Bancks, Bank), successful London goldsmith (on whom see J.H.M. Bankes, ‘James Bankes and the Manor of Winstanley, 1595-1617’, The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1942, pp.56-93). ‘Rauff Bancks’ is written upside down on f.98v: this is plausibly his son, mentioned in his will of May 1617 (see 'Bankes', p.88). Likely this same Rauff Bancks is mentioned in an inventory of the goods of Robert Banckes (‘Robert’ is written upside-down in a 17th-century hand on the front paste-down) dated 9 November 1626 (R. J. A. Shelley, ‘Wigan and Liverpool pewterers’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 97, 1945, p.6). Another indication that we are dealing with the same Lancashire family is found in another inscription on f.98v (also upside-down): ‘Noverint univarsi per presentes me thomam mollynex of Pemberton with in the count[y]’: Thomas Mollynex, or Molyneux, sold Sankey House and 24 acres of land in Pemberton to James Bankes in 1581 for the sum of £450 (see 'Bankes', p.63).
(3) A 17th-century inscription on f.39 reads ‘Edmund Bursall of Assot’, accompanied by three lines in English.
(4) Sotheby’s, 14 June 1954, lot 35: cutting from the sale catalogue attached to front pastedown.
Content: Peter Lombard (c.1096-1160), Sentences, ff.1-150v: Prologue and chapter summaries for Book I ff.1-2v; Book I ff.2v-43; chapter summaries for Book II, ff.43-44v; Book II ff.44v-83; chapter summaries for Book III ff.83-83v; Book III ff.84-112v; chapter summaries for Book IV ff.112v-114; Book IV ff.114-150v, ending in Distinctio XLIV.6: ‘cur non dicamus quamvis miris veris tamen […]’ and lacking the final 6 Distinctiones.
Peter Lombard’s seminal ‘Four Books of Sentences’ shaped centuries of scholastic interpretation of Western Christian dogma and remained a key theological text in all Western universities well into the 16th century. This all-encompassing work was an attempt to provide a systematic theological investigation through the collection of patristic interpretations (‘Sententiae’) of Scripture. So popular was Lombard’s work that some 900 manuscripts still survive today, although copies are extremely rare on the market. As in the present manuscript, copies of Lombard’s Sentences were often accompanied by glosses providing marginal explanations and commentary on the text: the principal gloss here appears almost contemporaneous to the main text, but the further additions and annotations indicate that the manuscript was used and updated for decades after its production.
Christie's would like to thank Christopher Whittick and Nigel Tringham for their assistance in identifying Brother Edmund Swayne of Burton Abbey.
Sentences, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [England, late 13th century]
A handsome English manuscript of one of the fundamental university texts of the Middle Ages, Peter Lombard’s Sentences, in a medieval binding and with early provenance from Burton Abbey and Winstanley Hall.
c.340 x 220mm. 150 + ii leaves, collation: 1-28, 37 (of 8, lacking vii), 4-108, 114, 127 (of 8, lacking vi), 13-158, 167 (lacking v), 17-198, 205 (of 8, lacking vi-viii), 53 lines in two columns, ruled space: 230 x 65mm, catchwords survive, rubrics in red, headers and distinctiones in red and blue, initials alternately in red or blue with infill of the contrasting colour throughout, larger penwork initials opening the four books in red and blue with flourishes extending into margins, numerous marginal additions in contemporary and near-contemporary hands throughout, occasional natural flaws to the vellum and contemporary repairs and stitching (lacking 6 leaves: single leaves after ff.22, 88, and 118 and three leaves after f.150, lower margins of ff.17, 21, 36, 38, 44, 74, and 105 excised but not affecting text, some staining and cockling, corners of leaves sometimes frayed, a few wormholes). Medieval binding of white pigskin over bevelled wooden boards, remnants of clasps survive (the binding rubbed with fragments of pigskin missing revealing the wooden boards, the boards chipped and wormholed, sewing structure at spine exposed, lacking clasps and catches). Fitted box.
Provenance:
(1) The manuscript is a heavily glossed and annotated English production from the end of the 13th century. A sentence on one of three 16th-century vellum strips likely used as bookmarks may provide some indication of early provenance: ‘[…]by prior v kalends Aprilis obiit Frater Edmundus Swayne monachi sacerdotis et professi monasterii beate Marie sancteque Moduenne virginis de Burton super Trent ordinis Sancti Benedicti.’ This is Burton Abbey at Burton upon Trent, traditionally said to have been founded in the 7th century by the Irish abbess St Modwenna and refounded between 1002-1004 as a Benedictine abbey by the king’s thegn Wulfric Spot. The community was never large, but the abbey enjoyed special privileges and influence and was endowed with a substantial library. A 12th-century catalogue of the abbey’s library holdings lists 78 manuscripts (London, British Library, Add. MS. 23944, f.157); more recently Ker identifies 9 manuscripts and 10 printed books (although not all attributions are now accepted – see N. R. Ker, Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books, 1964, pp.15-16 and Supplement, p.5). When the abbey was visited by Bishop Blythe in 1524, there were 22 resident monks, including the abbot and the prior. One of these was Brother Edmund Swayne, mentioned in the vellum strip, the hospitaller and warden of the infirmary. On this visit, there were complaints that the abbey had no instructor in grammar and that the books in the refectory were in a bad state of repair (see ‘Houses of Benedictine monks: The abbey of Burton’, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3, 1970). In the entry for Burton Abbey in a ‘list of families’ in the archdeaconry of Stafford in 1532-3, the abbey list starts with the prior, Robert Norbury (perhaps the cut off ‘by’ at the beginning of the strip mentioned above), followed by 9 monks, including Edmund Swayne. The abbey was dissolved in 1539 and the library dispersed.
(2) Edmund Winstanley: later 16th-century ownership inscription on recto of final flyleaf: ‘Edmundus Winstaniensis est verus […]itatis possessor huius libri vel huic libri’. The Winstanleys had resided in their eponymous manor house since at least the 13th century (A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4, 1911, pp.87-9). When Sir Thomas Winstanley died in 1562 he granted use of his estate to his wife Elizabeth until their son and heir Edmund came of age. When he did he became, by all accounts, an ‘absentee landlord’, and the estate was left in the hands of another Edmund Winstanley – a cousin or an uncle. In January 1596 Winstanley Hall and its lands were sold by Edmund to James Bankes (1542-1617) (or Banck, Banc, Bancke, Banckes, Bancks, Bank), successful London goldsmith (on whom see J.H.M. Bankes, ‘James Bankes and the Manor of Winstanley, 1595-1617’, The Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1942, pp.56-93). ‘Rauff Bancks’ is written upside down on f.98v: this is plausibly his son, mentioned in his will of May 1617 (see 'Bankes', p.88). Likely this same Rauff Bancks is mentioned in an inventory of the goods of Robert Banckes (‘Robert’ is written upside-down in a 17th-century hand on the front paste-down) dated 9 November 1626 (R. J. A. Shelley, ‘Wigan and Liverpool pewterers’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 97, 1945, p.6). Another indication that we are dealing with the same Lancashire family is found in another inscription on f.98v (also upside-down): ‘Noverint univarsi per presentes me thomam mollynex of Pemberton with in the count[y]’: Thomas Mollynex, or Molyneux, sold Sankey House and 24 acres of land in Pemberton to James Bankes in 1581 for the sum of £450 (see 'Bankes', p.63).
(3) A 17th-century inscription on f.39 reads ‘Edmund Bursall of Assot’, accompanied by three lines in English.
(4) Sotheby’s, 14 June 1954, lot 35: cutting from the sale catalogue attached to front pastedown.
Content: Peter Lombard (c.1096-1160), Sentences, ff.1-150v: Prologue and chapter summaries for Book I ff.1-2v; Book I ff.2v-43; chapter summaries for Book II, ff.43-44v; Book II ff.44v-83; chapter summaries for Book III ff.83-83v; Book III ff.84-112v; chapter summaries for Book IV ff.112v-114; Book IV ff.114-150v, ending in Distinctio XLIV.6: ‘cur non dicamus quamvis miris veris tamen […]’ and lacking the final 6 Distinctiones.
Peter Lombard’s seminal ‘Four Books of Sentences’ shaped centuries of scholastic interpretation of Western Christian dogma and remained a key theological text in all Western universities well into the 16th century. This all-encompassing work was an attempt to provide a systematic theological investigation through the collection of patristic interpretations (‘Sententiae’) of Scripture. So popular was Lombard’s work that some 900 manuscripts still survive today, although copies are extremely rare on the market. As in the present manuscript, copies of Lombard’s Sentences were often accompanied by glosses providing marginal explanations and commentary on the text: the principal gloss here appears almost contemporaneous to the main text, but the further additions and annotations indicate that the manuscript was used and updated for decades after its production.
Christie's would like to thank Christopher Whittick and Nigel Tringham for their assistance in identifying Brother Edmund Swayne of Burton Abbey.
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