Original leaf from a medieval manuscript pocket Bible. Latin gothic minuscule script, ruled in red & written in brown ink on extremely thin animal vellum. (170 x 124 mm - 6.8 x 5") .
Rubricated chapter numbers in red & blue. Three illuminated multi-line initials alternating in red/blue with delicate contrasting internal penwork in red/blue & continuing into the margins. 53 lines of text in double columns (12 lines per inch!).
Produced in France (Paris), c. 1250.
Text contains Genesis 34: 23 - 37:33 ''Tantum…'' (only in this let us condescend, and by dwelling together, we shall make one people...God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and he blessed him, Saying: Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called him Israel. And said to him: I am God Almighty, increase thou and be multiplied. Nations and peoples of nations shall be from thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to thee...And Juda said to his brethren: What will it profit us to kill our brother, and conceal his blood? It is better that he be sold to the Ismaelites...And they took his coat, and dipped it in the blood of a kid, which they had killed...And the father acknowledging it, said: It is my son's coat, and evil wild beast hath eaten him, a beast hath devoured Joseph...).
This leaf, from a ''portable'' Bible during the period of the Crusades, would have been used in the abstract study of theology or the preaching of the Gospel around the medieval countryside.
Shipped in archival 14x11'' mat.
