Sales catalogue: Quaritch

Date:
September 1886
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/17/44
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Quaritch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/100 page 3441
    r) oO * . ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS: ENGLISH. 3441 5 a é written about the same time as the original documents, that is at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, was in the possession of Richard Sakevyle (Sackville), Sheriff of Sotherey (Surrey) and Sussex in 1504, as appears by a note in his handwriting at the end. PRAYERS, HYMNS, AND HOURS OF THE VIRGIN, tr Anglo- - French and im Latin, sm. 8vo. illuminated Manuscript on vellum, with near ly 300 Miniatures, many of them in camaieu style, and some of the designs being extremely fine and delicate ; every page ruled with a straight border which blooms into wy-leaves at the extremities; executed by an Linglishman in France; tn a sixteenth-century calf binding, in a red morocco case, £120. About 1360 A MS. of singular interest and attractiveness, by reason of the extraordinary quantity of its 285 miniatures, and the peculiar character of its composition. The artistic portion is so excellent that it must be assigned to a French hand, notwithstanding that the larger miniatures are, in the English style, painted on leaves of which the reverse is blank; but the writing is no less decidedly English. The French language, which occupies a very large part of the book, is in a distinctly and some of the stories of the Miracles de notre Dame are man whose grammar and style were very corrupt. It is easy to conclude that the MS. was written in Poitou about 1360 by some one like the Chandos-herald, whose poem on the Black Prince has lately been produced by Francisque Michel; and that he caused the illumination and miniatures to be done for him by a French artist. On one of the margins of this book we find written, in a hand of the early part of the sixteenth century, “My cowysyn Carwe, I pray you remember your. first Khzabeth Poyntz.’ Of about the same date is a prayer beginning Siveet lady, holy maiden, added on the first page, and another piece on p. 4 which points out the merits of the cross which is painted on the scale of one fifteenth part of the stature of the Saviour, ‘The mette (7.e. measure) of owre lord.” These two pieces are in a decidedly northern or Scottish orthography, which, with the name of Hlzabeth Poyntz, enable us to trace the genealogy of this book. Its age takes us back to Sir John Carew, who fought at Cressy under the Black Prince, was afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland, and died in 1363, leaving a son, Leonard de Carru. For either of these two personages, the father or the son, the MS. must have been written. The direct descendance of Leonard was as follows: Sir Thomas— Sir Nicholas—Sir Thomas—-Sir Nicholas—Sir Edmund Carew 237 *
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