Beschreibung:

with readings from Gregory the Great, Dialogues and John Chrysostom, Homily XLI, in Latin on parchment [probably Low Countries or Rhineland, last decades of the twelfth century] Single leaf, with double column, 38 lines of an angular early gothic bookhand with few biting curves and written below topline, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, one very large initial ‘H’ (opening “Homo rex dicitur …”, the opening of John Chrysostom, Homily XLI, ch. 22), in split brushstrokes of red and blue ending in zigzagging tails, infilled with simple and near-abstract penstrokes picking out curling acanthus leaves, recovered from a limp parchment binding and with tiny scuffs and holes from stitching (obscuring a few letters), but in remarkably clean condition, 485 by 340mm This leaf is from an exceptionally large and probably monastic book, doubtless produced for public reading. The initial here is executed in a few minimalistic strokes, exploiting the brushwork to its fullest to convey quite charming sweeping curves and tiny undulating terminals with the least possible decoration, and has a simple and abstract beauty. It shares several characteristics with contemporary Cistercian manuscripts, and is markedly close to a twelfth-century copy of Augustine’s Sermons from the Cistercian abbey of Cambron (Brussels, Bibliothéque royale, MS. 21843: T.G. de Grand, Manuscrits cisterciens, 1990 no. 50, illustrated pp.190-2), and may well be the product of the same scriptorium.