With a large miniature depicting the Wound in Christ’s side
The composition of the volume is complex and would reward further research. In overview, it is composed of four main parts, the first with texts by Augustine, Anselm, and David of Augsburg (quires 1–7); the second an ordo for giving communion to a sick monk (quire 8); the third with prayers to the Virgin (quire 9); and the fourth a miscellaneous collection of prayers, devotions, a miniature of the Wound of Christ, and texts concerning the use of images (quires 10–15, with a change of scribe and layout at the beginning of quire 12, fol. 122). The last few decades have seen an explosion of interest in medieval images of the Wound in Christ’s Side. In most depictions of the Crucifixion, the wound is shown as a horizontal laceration, but when shown separate from Christ’s body it is often depicted in close-up and vertically, and this has led many scholars to read the image in other ways. As David S. Areford puts it, “Although the mandorla-shaped wound suggested the presence of Christ’s body and the totality of his suffering, its fleshy form certainly encouraged other corporeal associations. In this regard, several scholars have explored the erotic, gendered, and psychosexual aspects of these images, interpreting the wound as a not-so- veiled substitute for the vulva or vagina”. Images of the Wound in Christ’s Side are often part of a series of images including his other wounds, or are incorporated into larger ensembles, such as the Arma Christi, and are typically 15th-century, so the present image is especially notable for its early date and for the fact that the Wound is the only image in the entire manuscript, whose text concludes with two pieces discussing the use of images in religious devotion (fols. 139v–140v).
David S. Areford, “Reception”, Studies in Iconography , 33, 2012, pp. 73–88; written as a follow-up to his “The Passion Measured: A Late-Medieval Diagram of the Body of Christ”, in The Broken Body: Passion Devotion in Late-Medieval Culture , 1998, pp. 211–38. Provenance: i) Written no earlier than the 1330s, perhaps in northern France but more likely in the southern Netherlands, and in view of the later provenance, in all likelihood at Liège. The involvement of an illuminator and several scribes, some doing relatively short stints, suggests collaboration within a monastic setting rather than production in a professional lay workshop. ii) The Benedictine Abbey of Saint- Jacques, Liège: inscribed with their ownership notes at least nine times, in various forms, including “Liber monasterii sancti Jacobi Leodiensis in insula”, and with their shelf-mark “F. 57” (fol. 1r). The presence of so many ownership inscriptions in any manuscript is extremely unusual, and is perhaps explained by how small and potentially easy to steal this volume would be. Included in their sale: Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de la célèbre ex-abbaye de St. Jacques à Liège . . . le 3 mars 1788 , lot 343. iii) Dawson’s Book Shop, Los Angeles, catalogue no. 87, December 1932, with pencil price [$]75.00, later crossed- through and reduced to 35.00 (fol. i verso, upper left corner). iv) Until recently in an American private collection.
3 SAINT-JACQUES ANTHOLOGY. A compilation of devotional and other texts in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment. Southern Netherlands (Liège?), perhaps mid - 14th century £57,500 Parchment, c .130 × 95 mm, vi + 141 leaves, apparently complete except for excised blanks. Collation: i 10–ix (1st is the pastedown, 6th, 8th, 9th blanks excised); 1–4 8 , 5–7 12 (fols. 1–68); 8 6+1 (7th inserted; fols. 69–77), 9 12 (fols. 78–89); 10 8 11 14 , 12 12 , 13 12 , 14 4 (the last is the pastedown) (fols. 90–140), catchwords except at the end of codicological units, leaf-signatures “a” in quire 10; prickings often survive in all outer margins suggesting that the book preserves its full medieval dimensions; ruled in plummet for 21–23 lines per page, written in gothic script by several hands, rubrics in red, capitals stroked in red in some sections, illuminated with a large miniature of the Wound in Christ’s Side, one fine five-line puzzle initial, the interior with fine penwork decoration in the form of hybrid creature reserved against a hatched background (fol. 1r), two-line initials and one-line paraphs alternately red or blue, the initials often with penwork ornament, sometimes filing a margin, and sometimes [ 156843 ] incorporating a human face. Bound in the substantial remains of a medieval binding: sewn on four bands laced into slightly bevelled wood boards covered with undecorated brown leather; the spine with an added 18th-century(?) title piece lettered in gilt capitals “Augustinus | de | Verba dei”, the base of the spine lettered “MS. [SAE]C. XV”; the sewing broken at fols. 56–57 and 88–89; the spine restored, with new joints.
A remarkable anthology of texts from the library of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Jacques, Liège, illuminated with one large miniature depicting the Wound in Christ’s Side notable for its early date, bound in the substantial remains of a medieval binding.
SIXTY FINE ITEMS
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