YALE UNIVERSITY
BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
GENERAL COLLECTION OF RARE BOOKS AND
MANUSCRIPTS
PRE-1600 MANUSCRIPTS
Beinecke MS 19 (olim Z109.250) France, s. XIV^^2
Hours (fragment)
ff. 1r-19v Penitential Psalms, text begins imperfectly: 6. 6-11
(Quoniam non est in morte...), 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, 142. Folio 19v
ends with the rubric: Ci apries commencent les xv saumes.
Parchment, ff. i (contemporary parchment) + 19, 152 x 113 (73 x
53) mm. Written in 11 long lines; single vertical bounding lines,
double horizontal bounding lines, full across. Ruled in ink; prickings
in upper and lower margins.
I^^6 (-1), II^^4 (missing one folio; structure uncertain), III^^2,
IV^^10.
Written by a single scribe in liturgical gothic script.
Carefully executed initials, 3-line, on blue or pink rectangles
outlined in black, mark the beginning of each psalm; partial cusped
borders, also in blue and pink, attached to each. Initials infilled
with intertwining vines, often on gold ground, sometimes with small
animals; modest use of gold dots inside rectangular grounds and
borders. 1-line initials of blue with red penwork with blue dots and of
gold with blue penwork and red dots. Line-fillers in combinations of
red, blue and gold (various linear and flower designs).
Binding: s. xix. Bound in a piece of blind-tooled brown calf, once
part of a 17th-18th century binding. Front pastedown and flyleaf from a
Bible concordance, version 3 (France, s. XIII/XIV; see R. H. and M. L.
Rouse, "The Verbal Concordance to the Scriptures," Archivum Fratrum
Praedicatorum 44 [1974] pp. 5-30). Back pastedown from 15th-century
antiphonal, with musical notation, containing a portion of the office
for Nicolas (6 Dec.).
Written in France at the end of the 14th century, probably as part
of a Book of Hours. Signature and date at the top of f. 10r in faded
ink: "Godefroid 1705." Given in 1926 by Leonard Bacon and Susan Bacon
Keith in memory of their father, Nathaniel Terry Bacon.
Bibliography: De Ricci, v. 1, p. 165, no. 19.
Barbara A. Shailor