Original leaf from an English manuscript pocket Bible. From a Bible illuminated at the workshop of William de Brailes - one of the few 13th century English illuminators known by name! (De Brailes maintained an active workshop at Oxford c. 1238-52. He was illuminator of the Oxford Bible). Written with brown ink in Latin gothic script on animal vellum. (185x135mm)
Rubricated chapter numbers, initials & marginalia in red & blue. 54 lines of text in double columns (10 lines per inch!). For sister leaf see Blackburn Collection, Cleveland Museum of Art, pl. 4.
Produced in Oxford, c. 1240 A.D.
Line 2 begins John 7:51 - 9:34: ''Numquid lex...'' (Doth our law judge any man, unless it first hear him, and know what he doth?...He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her...I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life...You are of this world, I am not of this world...You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free...If any man keep my word, he shall not see death forever...I am the light of the world...).
This leaf, from a “portable” Bible during the Crusades period, would have been used in the abstract study of theology or preaching of the Gospel around the medieval countryside.
Presented in an archival 14 x 11'' mat
