Biblia Sacra

Description

John Hellstern: This Bible was sold to me by an antiquarian book dealer in London as likely being scribed at Cambridge, England about 1180. Description: There are 148 vellum sheets, making a total of 296 r. and v. pages. Each page is approximately 5 by 7 ½ inches. The vellum is somewhat of a darker hue (due to age?) than later scribed Bibles. The first few pages of Genesis and the last few of the Psalms, two music pages, and 2 pages of prayers are even darker, almost certainly due to greater handling and length of time that this portion of the Bible was in a pre-bound state before my purchasing it. (See note below on purchase and binding.) The text is scribed in brown ink, typical of the above suggested dating, and measures approximately 3 1/8 by 5 ¼ inches, with about 10 lines per inch, and a full page numbering between 53 to 57 lines. Red and blue ink rubrication denotes both Book divisions as wells as major divisions of the text, later identified as chapter divisions. This hand rubrication begins with a capital letter, but continues with scroll work down the sides and middle of the text. The text is scribed on quite strongly marked lines, typical of Bibles done at Cambridge. (Cf. the website below on the Cambridge Bible.) The script is very similar to a 53 line Bible scribed in England about 1220-1240: Cf. http://www.humi.keio.ac.jp/~matsuda/catalogue/leaf/main/124-v.html