A Twelfth-Century English Manuscript Hidden Inside a Renaissance Book: Two Romanesque Leaves on the Sacraments Preserved as Original Pastedowns

CHARTRES, Ivo of; AUXERRE, Remigius of. Two Leaves from a Compilation of Texts on the Sacrament, including De sacramentis dedicationis, De dedicatione ecclesiae, and others In Latin, manuscript on vellum

[probably England, third quarter of the 12th century]

[with] CATTANEO, Sebastian. Enchiridion, eorum quae …Ingolstadt: D. Sartorius, 1589

Each leaf: 160 x 100 mm

Description
Two leaves reused in a 16thcentury binding, and still in situ as pastedowns on the detached boards from that binding, each trimmed at edges (with one vertical edge trimmed to the edge of the text), written in
single column of 22 lines of a finely written pregothic bookhand, with only occasional biting curves, one large simple red initial.

Some spots and stains, else good condition.

Binding
The later binding. possibly Oxford C16th, of dark brown leather over pasteboards, boards with original single fillet and later floral stamp applied to centre of each board. First leaf of the printed text and boards detached.

The two near-complete leaves are in situ pasted to the boards of a copy of Sebastian Cattaneo, Enchiridion, eorum quae …, printed by D. Sartorius in Ingolstadt in 1589.

Provenance
1. The parent manuscript was written in deliberately small and portable format, perhaps for an itinerant ecclesiastic, probably in 12th-century England. The volume was then set aside and reused as binding material in the 17th century.
2. Ratcliffe College, Leicester: their ex libris at head of first leaf and armorial bookplate loosely inserted in volume. Rare books from their holdings occasionally deaccessioned from at least the mid 1990s.