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Walters Ms. W.29, Three Treatises by Honorius AugustodunensisBrowse images (Browse images in a new window) | TEI in XML format
Manuscript
Three Treatises by Honorius Augustodunensis
Text title
Vernacular: Expositio in Cantica Canticorum; Sigillum Sanctae Mariae; Neocosmus
Author
Authority name: Honorius Augustodunensis, ca. 1080-ca. 1156
Known as: Honorius of Autun
Abstract
This manuscript was created in southern Germany or northern Austria in the second half of the twelfth century. It is remarkable for having retained its original binding, made of stamped deerskin on wood. The text contains three exegetical works by Honorius Augustodunensis, a monastic scholar active in the first half of the twelfth century. The main text, an exposition of the Song of Songs, is accompanied by a striking series of images that depict the four âbridesâ who form the basic organizing principle of the interpretation. It is possible that Honorius himself devised these images to accompany his text (see Curschmann, âImagined Exegesis,â 153f and Cohen, âSynagoga Conversa,â 321). Five other extant late twelfth-century manuscripts, all from the same geographical region, contain these texts, and the illustrations in each are remarkably uniform in their representation of the brides (see, e.g., Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 4550). This manuscript, written in the same region and around the same time as Honoriusâs composition, offers a rare glimpse into what must have been a vibrant and complex culture of reading, writing, and illustration. Due to the fragile nature of the binding, the book could not be opened for imaging.
Date
Second half of the 12th century CE
Origin
Southern Germany or northern Austria
Language:
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Support material
Parchment
Unable to open book
Collation
Formula: Undetermined due to fragility of the book
Comments:
Dimensions
18.0 cm wide by 26.6 cm high
Written surface
13.0 cm wide by 19.0 cm high
Layout
Contents:
fols. 1r - 150v:Binding
The binding is original.
Original twelfth-century binding, consisting of light to medium brown deerskin over wooden (beech) boards; leather stamped with eleven different nonfigural designs, several of which (e.g., a Greek meander) recall older, Mediterranean patterns; stamps arranged in panels; front and back panels not identical; like other German and Austrian bindings, far less elaborate in its decoration than contemporary bindings from France and England
Provenance
Created ca. 1150-1200 in southern Germany or northern Austria, perhaps Lambach or Salzburg (see Holter, "Initialen," 261f and Hoffman, 287)
Formerly Lambach Ms. 94; old labels on spine
Jacques Rosenthal, Munich, sale of 1928, catalog 90, no. 144
Léon Gruel, Paris, probably acquired from Rosenthal sale in 1928; Gruel no. 1369, bookplate on front pastedown
Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired from Gruel before 1931
Acquisition
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Bibliography
Holter, Kurt. "Initialen aus einer Lambacher Handschrift des 12. Jahrhunderts." Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46-47 (1993-1994): pp. 255-265.
Haussher, Reiner, ed. Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur. Katalog der Ausstellung. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Württembergisches Landesmuseum, 1977. pp. 565-566. no. 740.
Bibliotheca Medii Aevi Manuscripta: Pars Altera. Einhundert Handschriften des Mittelalters vom zehnten bis zum fünfzehnten Jahrhundert. 90. Munich: Jacques Rosenthal, 1928, pp. 48-50, no. 99.
Matter, E. Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
Hoffmann, Konrad. The Year 1200: A Centennial Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970, pp. 286-287, no. 280.
Evans, M. W. Medieval Drawings. London: Paul Hamlyn, 1969, p. 26, no. 37.
Schmidt-Künsemüller, Friedrich Adolf. Die Abendländischen Romanischen Blindstempeleinbände. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag, 1985, p. 164, no. 112.
Cohen, Jeremy. "Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Christianity's 'Eschatological Jew.'" Speculum 79 (2004): pp. 309-340.
Curschmann, Michael. "Imagined Exegesis: Text and Picture in the Exegetical Works of Rupert of Deutz, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Gerhoch of Reichersberg." Traditio 44 (1988): pp. 145-169.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 821. no. 387. Also Vol. 2, p. 2292.
Davis, Lisa Fagin. The Gottschalk Antiphonary: Music and Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Lambach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 25.
Walters Art Gallery. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baltimore: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1949, pp. 12-13, no. 27.
Walters Art Gallery. The History of Bookbinding, 525-1950 A.D. Baltimore: The Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1957, p. 47, no. 109.
Contributors
Catalogers: Kauffman, Nicholas; Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editors: Herbert, Lynley; Noel, William
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Conservators: Owen, Linda; Quandt, Abigail
Contributors: Bockrath, Diane; Emery, Doug; Noel, William; Tabritha, Ariel; Toth, Michael B.
Publisher
The Walters Art Museum
License
Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.
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