Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Saturday 30 May 2015

St Bede the Venerable


Last Monday was the feast of St Bede the Venerable, and John Dillon has posted these medieval images of St. Bede on the Medieval Religion discussion group.

a) Bede as depicted on the opening folio of a twelfth-century copy of his Homiliae Evangelii (Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 47, fol. 1v):




b) St. John dictating to Bede as depicted on detached fol. 1v of Lambach, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. VI (frontispiece to Bede's In Apocalypsin; circa 1140; leaf now in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; image expandable):

  • Saint John Dictating to the Venerable Bede


c) Bede as depicted in an initial 'S' in an earlier thirteenth-century copy (ca. 1220) of his De locis sanctis (Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 36, fol. 221r):

http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht6/IRHT_098040-p.jpg


d) Bede as depicted in an illumination illustrating his prayer Domine ihesu christe qui septem verba... in a later fourteenth-century (circa 1378-1383) book of prayers of southern French origin (Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 6733, fol. 56r):

http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht3/IRHT_057772-p.jpg


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you. I'm researching manuscripts of Bede's prayer, The Seven Words of Jesus Christ on the Cross, and you've just put me on the trail of another one.
--
Norm Anderson
walkswithastick@comcast.net