BIBLE,
in Latin, Jeremiah 30, 6–32,19 and 44,21–48,24
Germany or perhaps Switzerland, mid-12th century.
A nearly complete bifolium (the leaves not consecutive, 408 x 280 mm (text area 393 x 235 mm)), double columns of 50 lines written in a late, rather prickly Carolingian hand in brown ink, ruled with a hard point, spaces for (two-line) initials left empty, some lesser initials set out into margins, headings in capital letters executed in the brown ink of the text; recovered from a binding and with consequent staining and wear, a few holes, a small amount of text trimmed away from outer columns and at foot, the fold of the bifolium strengthened with paper; bound in modern buckram boards.
From a folio German romanesque Bible.
The scribe had trouble with the passage ‘Et qui fugerint gladiu[m] revertentur de terra Juda viri pauci’, which has been emended (without erasing) to ‘Et qui fugerint gladiu[m] revertentur in terra[m] Juda viri pauci’. Curiously, the words ‘de terra Juda viri pauci’ were originally written over an erased passage which evidently included the word ‘egipti’. The standard (Vulgate) reading is ‘Et qui fugerint gladium, revertentur de terra Aegypti in terram Juda viri pauci’ (Jeremiah 44,28).
Provenance: Mark Lansburgh of Phoenix/Santa Barbara, California (1963); Bernard Rosenthal, his I/164 (1963–1989); Quaritch Catalogue 1147 (1991), no. 11; Martin Schøyen, his MS 640.
