YALE UNIVERSITY BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND
MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY GENERAL COLLECTION OF RARE BOOKS AND
MANUSCRIPTS MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE MANUSCRIPTS
Osborn fa51
Higden, Ranulf, d. 1364, Polychronicon, [14--].
In Latin.
1 v. (379 leaves) ; 29 cm.
Ranulf Higden (circa 1280-1364) was a Benedictine monk of the monastery of St. Werberg
in Chester, England. He wrote the Polychronicon, a universal history on a Biblical
plan; over one hundred manuscript copies of this work survive.
Manuscript, on paper, in an anglicana book hand, of the "intermediate" version of
Higden's Polychronicon, in which the last book is continued to 1376. The manuscript
is rubricated; two-line initials in blue decorated with red occur throughout.
Ex libris Sebastian Evans. Ex libris John Burns. Ex libris Harold Douthit. Purchased
from Bernard Quaritch, Ltd. on the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Fund, 2009.
Marginal annotations and pen trials include a note concerning "henrico mathew" in
a fifteenth-century hand on the final paper leaf, and a September 1550 note recording
the death of "mine uncle Oliver Godfraye" on the second front flyleaf.
Pythagorean diagram in red and black tipped onto 88v.
Bifolium from fourteenth-century chronicle tipped onto second front flyleaf.
Binding: contemporary leather over wooden boards, repaired; 19th-century leather straps
and nielloed metal clasps and catches.
Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon. James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Subjects:
Higden, Ranulf, d. 1364. -- Polychronicon.
World history -- Early works to 1800.
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.