Details

Subject(s)

• Jesus Christ—Biography—Meditations—Early works to 1800 [Browse]
• Jesus Christ—Poetry—Early works to 1800 [Browse]
• Jerusalem—History—Siege, 70 A.D.—Poetry—Early works to 1800 [Browse]
• English poetry—Middle English, 1100-1500 [Browse]
• Manuscripts, English (Middle)—New Jersey—Princeton [Browse]

Attributed name

• Bonaventure, Saint, Cardinal, approximately 1217-1274 [Browse]

Donor

• Taylor, Robert H., 1908-1985 [Browse]

Related name

• Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Taylor MS. 11. [Browse]

Library of Congress genre(s)

• Poetry [Browse]
• Meditations [Browse]

Getty AAT genre

• Manuscripts—England—14th century [Browse]

Notes

• 1st work: an anonymous mid-14th-century Middle English translation of Pseudo-Bonaventure's Meditationes passionis Christi; 2nd work: The Siege of Jerusalem, alliterative version, lines 1-1143.
• Script: Anglicana formata, the work of one scribe, but heavily corrected by a later 15th-century hand.
• Decoration: Each of the three works opens with a 4-line blue initial with red pen flourishes. Sections within each work open with similar 2-line initials.

Binding note

England, 19th century. Tooled and gilt-stamped parchment over beveled wooden boards (8 mm thick), with leather ties. Sewn on 5 raised bands; endbands with secondary sewing in olive green.

Provenance

Taylor MS. 11 was written by a scribe of West Yorkshire origin, probably in Yorkshire, and may have belonged to the Augustinian Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Bolton, West Yorkshire. The American antiquarian bookseller Laurence C. Witten (1926-1995), of New Haven, Connecticut, acquired the manuscript and sold it to Robert H. Taylor (1908-1985), of Princeton, New Jersey, Class of 1930. Taylor's blue oval bookplate is on the inside front cover. His bequest to the Princeton University Library, 1985.

Source acquisition

Gift of Robert H. Taylor.

References

Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 1, pages 426-428.

Cite as

Taylor MS. 11, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Other format(s)

Also available in an electronic version.

Other title(s)

• Siege of Jerusalem
• Meditationes vitae Christi. English (Middle English)
• Siege of Jerusalem (Middle English poem)

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