![A SAMMELBAND OF SECULAR TEXTS, including GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (c.1100-c.1155), Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini and GERALD OF WALES (c.1146-c.1223), Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, in Latin and Anglo-Norman French, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Ireland or England, first quarter 14th century].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01568_0005_004(a_sammelband_of_secular_texts_including_geoffrey_of_monmouth_historia115843).jpg?w=1)
![A SAMMELBAND OF SECULAR TEXTS, including GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (c.1100-c.1155), Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini and GERALD OF WALES (c.1146-c.1223), Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, in Latin and Anglo-Norman French, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Ireland or England, first quarter 14th century].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01568_0005_002(a_sammelband_of_secular_texts_including_geoffrey_of_monmouth_historia115843).jpg?w=1)
![A SAMMELBAND OF SECULAR TEXTS, including GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (c.1100-c.1155), Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini and GERALD OF WALES (c.1146-c.1223), Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, in Latin and Anglo-Norman French, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Ireland or England, first quarter 14th century].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01568_0005_003(a_sammelband_of_secular_texts_including_geoffrey_of_monmouth_historia115843).jpg?w=1)
![A SAMMELBAND OF SECULAR TEXTS, including GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (c.1100-c.1155), Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini and GERALD OF WALES (c.1146-c.1223), Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, in Latin and Anglo-Norman French, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Ireland or England, first quarter 14th century].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01568_0005_001(a_sammelband_of_secular_texts_including_geoffrey_of_monmouth_historia115843).jpg?w=1)
Details
A SAMMELBAND OF SECULAR TEXTS, including GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH (c.1100-c.1155), Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini and GERALD OF WALES (c.1146-c.1223), Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, in Latin and Anglo-Norman French, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Ireland or England, first quarter 14th century].
265 x 180mm. 208 leaves, APPARENTLY COMPLETE: 12, 22, 3-612, 710, 8-912, 10-118, 1212, 137 (iv an inserted singleton), 14-1912, 2011 (of 12, xii a cancelled blank), 21-222. Written in a variety of 14th-century hands, contemporary annotations and penwork intitials throughout (some minor soiling and staining, vellum with original defects, first text seemingly incomplete, but likely originally so). Early 17th-century English brown calf stamped with the Ley arms (edges rubbed and scuffed, some splitting and losses to spine).
PROVENANCE:
(1) ST MARY’S ABBEY, Dublin: 14th-century inscriptions. Contemporary inscriptions throughout, including one on f.5 referring to Cadwaladr’s son Ivor, and the former’s baptism by pope Sergius I (a conflation of Cadwaladr with Caedwalla of Wessex for which Geoffrey of Monmouth was responsible). The early version of the Ordinances of 1311 (ff.116-118) is in an early 14th-century hand. (2) REDMOND O’GALLAGHER, OSA, bishop of Killalla in the province of Tuam from 1545 until translated to Derry in 1569; he died in 1601: his inscription ‘Ramu[n]dus Alandensis ep[iscop]us’ on f.3. (3) EDWARD BUGGYN, possibly Edward Buggin (d.1590) of Clerkenwell, clerk for writing patents for leases of lands in the Exchequer from 1559-71 and clerk comptroller of the revels from 1570-84: his name in a 16th-century court hand, along with a motto in a Chancery hand ‘Quo quid antiquius eo melius’ – ‘the older the better’ on f.4. (4) JAMES LEY, FIRST EARL OF MARLBOROUGH (c.1552-1629), English judge and politician, one of the four founding members of the London-based Society of Antiquaries, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland and then in England and Lord High Treasurer: his binding and armorial stamp, chevron between three seal’s heads with the hand of Ulster in escutcheon. (5) LEWIS MORRIS (1701-1765) poet, scholar and patriotic Welshman, of Cardiganshire, bought from the bookseller Thomas Osborn (1704-1767) in July 1753: his inscription and list of contents on f.2. (6) REV. TREADWAY NASH (1725-1811) of Bevere, near Worcester, 1773: his inscription on upper and lower boards; his bookplate, pasted over. (7) JOHN SOMERS COCKS, 1ST EARL SOMERS (1760-1841): his bookplate. By descent to the current owner.
CONTENT:
A rhyming poem in Latin f.3; an abbreviated Latin translation of Aristotle’s On the Nature Of Animals, beginning: ‘Quedam partes animalium sunt simplices [...]’ ff.5-16v; DARES PHRYGIUS, De Excidio Troiae historia, ff.17-29; GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini, ff.29v-109; interpretation and explanation of the Prophecies ff.109v-115v; Song on the Kings of Scotland, in Latin, f.115v; a preliminary version of the Ordinances of 1311, in Anglo-Norman French, ff.116-118; Verses of the Sibyls on the coming of Christ, in Latin, f.118v; blanks ff.119-121; GERALD OF WALES, Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, with penwork initials, ff. 122-204v.
A FASCINATING COMPILATION OF SECULAR TEXTS OF SIGNIFICANT RELEVANCE FOR IRELAND, WALES, SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. The present volume is a beguilingly prescient monument to the unity of the British Isles and a tour de force of writing and bibliophily across four countries, given its probable Irish monastic origin and early Irish religious ownership, its secular texts composed by two behemoths of Welsh historiography (as well as its later Welsh ownership), the poem relating to Scotland, an early version of the Ordinances of 1311 and its later English aristocratic provenance. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and Prophecies of Merlin and Gerald of Wales’ Topography and Conquest of Ireland are seminal texts on the history and mythology of Britain and Ireland (the former providing one of the earliest developed narratives of the Arthurian legend), surviving today in several hundred manuscripts – as does Dares Phrygius, a fifth- or sixth-century Latin pseudo-history billed as an eyewitness account of the Trojan War. The other texts in the present sammelband are more unusual: the abbreviated Aristotle seems to appear in this form only in a few manuscripts, such as Palermo, Biblioteca Comunale, Qq. G.31 (ff.153-185v) and the Song on the Kings of Scotland appears in a handful of manuscripts including Berkeley HM 1345, BnF MS Ancien Fonds 5178 and British Library Royal 9 B IX.
Most interesting, perhaps, is what appears to be an early version, dated 17 March and 26 March 1310 (but necessarily later than this, given the inclusion of Robert Clifford among the Ordainers), of the Ordinances of 1311 – the central programme of reform produced in the reign of Edward II with the aim of restricting the power and influence of the king after the English setbacks in the Scottish war. The complete document containing forty-one articles was presented to the king and Parliament in 1311 (and survives in six manuscripts – all in institutional collections), but six preliminary ordinances were released immediately upon the appointment of the Ordainers in March 1310. The present text contains five ordinances, and lists the names of these 8 earls, 7 bishops and 7 barons, including Robert Clifford, who replaced Robert FitzRoger on the latter’s death (see M. Prestwich, ‘A New Version of the Ordinances of 1311’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LVII (1984), pp. 189-203; S. Phillips, Edward II, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 161-7).
265 x 180mm. 208 leaves, APPARENTLY COMPLETE: 12, 22, 3-612, 710, 8-912, 10-118, 1212, 137 (iv an inserted singleton), 14-1912, 2011 (of 12, xii a cancelled blank), 21-222. Written in a variety of 14th-century hands, contemporary annotations and penwork intitials throughout (some minor soiling and staining, vellum with original defects, first text seemingly incomplete, but likely originally so). Early 17th-century English brown calf stamped with the Ley arms (edges rubbed and scuffed, some splitting and losses to spine).
PROVENANCE:
(1) ST MARY’S ABBEY, Dublin: 14th-century inscriptions. Contemporary inscriptions throughout, including one on f.5 referring to Cadwaladr’s son Ivor, and the former’s baptism by pope Sergius I (a conflation of Cadwaladr with Caedwalla of Wessex for which Geoffrey of Monmouth was responsible). The early version of the Ordinances of 1311 (ff.116-118) is in an early 14th-century hand. (2) REDMOND O’GALLAGHER, OSA, bishop of Killalla in the province of Tuam from 1545 until translated to Derry in 1569; he died in 1601: his inscription ‘Ramu[n]dus Alandensis ep[iscop]us’ on f.3. (3) EDWARD BUGGYN, possibly Edward Buggin (d.1590) of Clerkenwell, clerk for writing patents for leases of lands in the Exchequer from 1559-71 and clerk comptroller of the revels from 1570-84: his name in a 16th-century court hand, along with a motto in a Chancery hand ‘Quo quid antiquius eo melius’ – ‘the older the better’ on f.4. (4) JAMES LEY, FIRST EARL OF MARLBOROUGH (c.1552-1629), English judge and politician, one of the four founding members of the London-based Society of Antiquaries, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland and then in England and Lord High Treasurer: his binding and armorial stamp, chevron between three seal’s heads with the hand of Ulster in escutcheon. (5) LEWIS MORRIS (1701-1765) poet, scholar and patriotic Welshman, of Cardiganshire, bought from the bookseller Thomas Osborn (1704-1767) in July 1753: his inscription and list of contents on f.2. (6) REV. TREADWAY NASH (1725-1811) of Bevere, near Worcester, 1773: his inscription on upper and lower boards; his bookplate, pasted over. (7) JOHN SOMERS COCKS, 1ST EARL SOMERS (1760-1841): his bookplate. By descent to the current owner.
CONTENT:
A rhyming poem in Latin f.3; an abbreviated Latin translation of Aristotle’s On the Nature Of Animals, beginning: ‘Quedam partes animalium sunt simplices [...]’ ff.5-16v; DARES PHRYGIUS, De Excidio Troiae historia, ff.17-29; GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH, Historia Regum Britanniae and Prophetiae Merlini, ff.29v-109; interpretation and explanation of the Prophecies ff.109v-115v; Song on the Kings of Scotland, in Latin, f.115v; a preliminary version of the Ordinances of 1311, in Anglo-Norman French, ff.116-118; Verses of the Sibyls on the coming of Christ, in Latin, f.118v; blanks ff.119-121; GERALD OF WALES, Topographia Hibernica and Expugnatio Hibernica, with penwork initials, ff. 122-204v.
A FASCINATING COMPILATION OF SECULAR TEXTS OF SIGNIFICANT RELEVANCE FOR IRELAND, WALES, SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND. The present volume is a beguilingly prescient monument to the unity of the British Isles and a tour de force of writing and bibliophily across four countries, given its probable Irish monastic origin and early Irish religious ownership, its secular texts composed by two behemoths of Welsh historiography (as well as its later Welsh ownership), the poem relating to Scotland, an early version of the Ordinances of 1311 and its later English aristocratic provenance. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and Prophecies of Merlin and Gerald of Wales’ Topography and Conquest of Ireland are seminal texts on the history and mythology of Britain and Ireland (the former providing one of the earliest developed narratives of the Arthurian legend), surviving today in several hundred manuscripts – as does Dares Phrygius, a fifth- or sixth-century Latin pseudo-history billed as an eyewitness account of the Trojan War. The other texts in the present sammelband are more unusual: the abbreviated Aristotle seems to appear in this form only in a few manuscripts, such as Palermo, Biblioteca Comunale, Qq. G.31 (ff.153-185v) and the Song on the Kings of Scotland appears in a handful of manuscripts including Berkeley HM 1345, BnF MS Ancien Fonds 5178 and British Library Royal 9 B IX.
Most interesting, perhaps, is what appears to be an early version, dated 17 March and 26 March 1310 (but necessarily later than this, given the inclusion of Robert Clifford among the Ordainers), of the Ordinances of 1311 – the central programme of reform produced in the reign of Edward II with the aim of restricting the power and influence of the king after the English setbacks in the Scottish war. The complete document containing forty-one articles was presented to the king and Parliament in 1311 (and survives in six manuscripts – all in institutional collections), but six preliminary ordinances were released immediately upon the appointment of the Ordainers in March 1310. The present text contains five ordinances, and lists the names of these 8 earls, 7 bishops and 7 barons, including Robert Clifford, who replaced Robert FitzRoger on the latter’s death (see M. Prestwich, ‘A New Version of the Ordinances of 1311’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LVII (1984), pp. 189-203; S. Phillips, Edward II, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 161-7).
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