A supplement to Koert van der Horst, Illuminated and Decorated Medieval Manuscripts in the University Library, Utrecht (1989). Vol. 2: Loose manuscript fragments (second section); Bound maculature (first section) (original) (raw)
2011
HS 194, a late medieval manuscript in the collection of Nijmegen University Library, is relatively unknown to scholars of Middle English. The manuscript, a small and rather soberly decorated prayer book, contains a range of devotional material in English and in Latin, in some cases uniquely attested and hitherto unknown. An added attraction to Nijmegen 194 is the detailed record of post-medieval ownership notes, entered into the manuscript by several generations of a single family of owners. These family records enable the present-day user to trace the whereabouts of the manuscript from the mid-sixteenth century until the end of the nineteenth century. The manuscript is a composite whose contents are divided across eleven booklets. Analysis of the manuscript's layout, script and decoration, as well as indications from the book's contents, point towards a fifteenth-century English origin. The majority of booklets that make up Nijmegen 194 do not seem to be designed to accompany each other; the manuscript as a whole probably came into existence in the hands of the first identifiable sixteenth-century owners. We analyse the construction, script, decoration, date, provenance, ownership and contents of Nijmegen 194, in order to come to a better understanding of the composition and history of the manuscript.
Based on a combination of research methods and traditions, this three-part study presents a survey of the present state of knowledge about the production and ownership of deluxe manuscripts in the late-medieval Netherlands. Part One is based on the analysis of a corpus of about 3,700 extant illustrated manuscripts produced between 1400 and 1550 in the (northern and southern) Low Countries. The composition of this corpus made it possible to glean general information about many aspects of manuscripts production, such as chronological and geographical distribution, the various kinds of texts, dimensions, the languages used, and the relationship with the production of printed books. Substantial consideration is given to the methodological problem of the extent to which we can state that what we are discussing is also a faithful reflection of what was originally produced. The cautious conclusion is that surviving illustrated manuscripts might represent 20% of all those originally made. Compared to estimates for the survival of other objects this is an extremely high proportion. Part Two revolves around the leading owners of illustrated manuscripts in the Netherlands – the ducal family and the noble elite. The libraries of the Burgundian dukes and those of the foremost noble families are analysed by means of inventories and surviving manuscripts. In the wake of the great bibliophile duke Philip the Good we see the appearance among members of the noble elite born between 1420 and 1435 of a sort of fashion in book ownership. The many deluxe manuscripts they commissioned were typically ‘Burgundian’ in both outward aspect and content. In this respect they differ from the books owned by the lower court functionaries – the parvenus – who often sprang from burgher stock. We see how, by the building of a certain sort of library, a small elite demonstrated a group identity. This can be interpreted in the light of the ‘Burgundianizing’ of the Netherlands: under Philip the Good and Charles the Bold the noble elites of the various principalities were gradually transformed into a supra-regional group. Cultural expressions such as the acquisition of magnificent manuscripts played a role in this process. Part Three draw conclusions from the two former parts and enlarge the discussion. The (book owning) people as well as the manuscripts are part of society and both play their part in political, religious, social, economic and cultural life of the later medieval Low Countries. As an appendix to this book, a database containing information on some 3700 illustrated Netherlandish manuscripts (1400-1550) is published on the web: http://www.cn-telma.fr/luxury-bound/