Details

Subject(s)

• Great Britain—Kings and rulers—Genealogy—Early works to 1800 [Browse]
• Manuscripts, Latin (Medieval and modern)—England [Browse]
• Manuscripts, Latin (Medieval and modern)—New Jersey—Princeton [Browse]
• Illumination of books and manuscripts [Browse]

Related name

• Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Princeton MS. 57. [Browse]

Notes

• Script: Textualis libraria and Anglicana formata. Scribe 1 was responsible for the Prophetie Merlini (membranes 2-3 on face), and the genealogical chronicle (membranes 2-3 on dorse) in Textualis libraria.
• Decoration: The roll is decorated with 23 pen-and-ink stylized medallion portraits from Alfred the Great to Henry III.* Large pen-flourished initials in red and light blue; smaller initials in either red or light blue; roundels in red; and genealogical lines in red and brown ink. Guide letters for initials and decorative line-fillers are visible.

Binding note

Stored in a clam-shell box.

Provenance

Princeton Ms. 57 is the oldest of the 40 English genealogical chronicle rolls that Olivier de Laborderie surveyed and studied. The earliest provenance information is a mid-14th-century ownership inscription in red ink on the dorse, at the top of membrane 2. Intermediate provenance of Princeton Ms. 57 is unknown. There is a shelf mark of unknown origin, “145/4” (18th century?), on the dorse. In the 20th century, the roll was in the Clumber Library of Henry Pelham Archibald Douglas (1884-1928), 7th duke of Newcastle, at Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire. Many of the manuscripts in the Clumber Library were acquired by his grandfather, Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, 4th duke of Newcastle (1785-1851), from private collections. It was sold on 15 February 1938 as part of the Clumber sale at Sotheby's, London. At the sale, it was acquired first by the London booksellers Maggs Bros. A few years later, the London antiquarian bookseller William H. Robinson, Ltd., offered the manuscript in Short-Title Catalogue No. 75. In May 1945, the Princeton University Library purchased the manuscript from Robinson, chiefly with funds provided by the Friends of the Princeton University Library (Acc. no. AM 13054).

References

Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 2, page 251-254.

Cite as

Princeton MS. 57, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Other title(s)

• Prophetia Merlini
• Prophetia Merlini (Geoffrey of Monmouth)

OCLC

1107084717

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