Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

Scattering Scripture

Scott Gwara and I originally recounted the provenance of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible as a complete codex in a 2016 series of case studies retracing the histories of six now-broken medieval manuscripts.⁶ As we reported there, (known) descriptions of the complete Hornby-Cockerell Bible were [End Page 272] printed in five different catalogues between 1880 and 1981. The earliest account appears in the five-volume inventory of the library of the famous nineteenth-century English book collector Henry Huth (1815–1878), where it is described in the barest of terms as a fourteenth-century manuscript featuring a seven-chambered initial introducing Genesis and additional unspecified historiated initials for each successive book of the Bible.⁷ Upon Huth's death, the manuscript, along with the rest of his library, passed to his son, Alfred Henry Huth (1850–1910), after which it was consigned to Sotheby's for auction in 1911 in the wake of the younger Huth's own death. Although no earlier description of the manuscript has yet been found, in a pair of April 2017 entries to his blog Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, Peter Kidd revealed important information allowing us to trace the manuscript backward to Henry Huth's own source, the noted London bookseller Joseph Lilly (1804–1870). Using Alfred Henry Huth's own personally annotated copy of the 1880 catalogue of his father's collection, Kidd was able to determine that the younger Huth's marginal notes recorded his father's purchase of the manuscript from Lilly in 1856 for the sum of £18 18s.⁸ Unfortunately, the provenance trail runs cold here, and we cannot yet trace the manuscript's ownership back any further.⁹

The 1911 Sotheby's catalogue added a bit more descriptive detail to the original 1880 listing, maintaining the incorrect dating of the manuscript to the fourteenth century, but providing more information about its script, textual layout, rubrication, and, notably, its illustrated content, describing [End Page 273] its "richly painted and brilliantly illuminated historiated and decorative initials … of very high artistic merit" and the "thick and brilliant" gold and colors used to execute these graphic elements.¹⁰ The differences between these two earliest descriptions of the manuscript are striking. Whereas the Huth catalogue provides a relatively condensed description that highlights not the item itself, but its subsidiary place within a larger, predominantly printed book collection that prioritizes their owner's own intellectual and collecting conceits rather than the details of the manuscripts themselves, the Sotheby's listing highlights the Bible's own unique artistic qualities. The manuscript moves from being a complementary and dependent unit within a larger whole to a solitary, unique object that stands out on its own artistic and commercial merits. In short, the auction listing's focus on the manuscript's illustrative features separates the Hornby-Cockerell Bible from the bibliographic herd, so to speak, unwittingly setting it on the road to be cut apart seventy years later.

The renowned bookselling firm Quaritch acquired the manuscript from Sotheby's for £300 on behalf of C. H. St. John Hornby (1867–1946), founder of the legendary Ashendene Press and prominent collector of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. Hornby commissioned Katherine Adams to remove the manuscript from its earlier (but not original) brown morocco binding and rehouse it in fine, blind-tooled white pigskin, retaining it as a prized possession until his bequest of the manuscript upon his death in 1946 to Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867–1962). Cockerell eventually sold the Bible back to Quaritch on 18 January 1957 for £1,500, with Quaritch quickly selling it on 7 February to Heinrich Eisemann (1890–1972) for £2,250.¹¹ The manuscript then disappears for five years before resurfacing in Catalogue 58 of the California-based dealer Harry A. Levinson [End Page 274] (1904–1995), presumably languishing in stock until its sale in 1965 to the Texas attorney and book collector Arthur Haddaway (1901–1981) on 8 November 1965 for $17,000.¹² Haddaway likely was intrigued by Levinson's fulsome description of the manuscript, which re-dates it to the thirteenth century and adds substantial itemized and narrative detail to the 1911 Sotheby's description, further qualifying its illuminated content as being of the "highest quality" and in the "finest state of preservation."¹³ Haddaway later loaned it to the University of Texas for display in its April–June 1971 exhibition Gothic and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts from Texas Collections, where it featured prominently in the show's accompanying catalogue.¹⁴ In contrast to earlier commercial descriptions, this catalogue recognized the manuscript's scholarly value and interest, paying particular attention to the potential historical production milieus of its illuminations (of which, more below).

The Hornby-Cockerell Bible changed hands one final time as a complete codex after Haddaway's death, when it was sold at Christie's for $23,100 on 25 September 1981 to a trio of investors comprising Bruce Ferrini, an Akron-based manuscript and antiquities dealer; Dr. Michael Greenberg, a Chicago-area dermatologist; and Philip Sills, Greenberg's uncle and a New York City–based women's clothier. As Gwara and I mentioned in 2016, the Christie's catalogue description effectively serves as both an obituary for the manuscript and a shopping list for would be book-breakers.¹⁵ The description accurately re-dates the manuscript to the early thirteenth century, provides general details about its codicological and illuminated features, and, most importantly to this story of biblioclasm, an itemized list of eleven [End Page 275] of the manuscript's most impressive historiated initials.¹⁶ I have in my possession Ferrini's own copy of the 1981 auction catalogue, with manuscript annotations drawing attention to the total number of historiated and illuminated initials (seventy-one and eighty-one, respectively), and a note recording an upper amount of $35,000 to be bid in the event of stiff competition. Clearly the syndicate was keenly interested in securing this manuscript.

In contrast to John Ruskin's and Otto Ege's frequently cited arguments for the altruistic breaking of manuscripts on egalitarian and educational grounds, or Christopher de Hamel's devil's-advocacy for the utility of deliberate fragmentation as an agent of preservation and conservation, the breaking of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible was never about encouraging learning or increasing the chances that at least some small part of it would survive despite unforeseen and yet-to-come catastrophe.¹⁷ Rather, it was simply about the art of the deal. Within a month of the manuscript's purchase, what had once been a complete, deluxe early thirteenth-century Bible had been reduced to a stack of 440 individual leaves ready to be dispersed around the world. Philip J. Pirages's Catalogue 11 (1986) is perhaps the earliest appearance of single leaves.¹⁸ Quaritch offered an additional three folios in its Catalogue 1036 (1984), another two in Catalogue 1056 (1985), as well as a pair in Catalogue 1270 (2000).¹⁹ Ferrini listed some of his own cut of the [End Page 276] leaves in his Catalogue One (1987) and in sales exhibitions he organized at London's Schuster Gallery (1987) and Tokyo's Maruzen International, Ltd. (1988).²⁰ Edward R. Lubin listed four folios in his 1988 catalogue, and Maggs also got in on the action, offering a leaf in its European Bulletin 21 (1997).²¹ An illuminated leaf featuring the opening of Daniel appeared in Pirages Catalogues 47 and 49 (ca. 2002–03), and twice at auction by Sotheby's.²² Other leaves have continued to appear at additional Sotheby's and Christie's auctions and in the lists of dealers around the world.²³ Prices for [End Page 277] individual folios through the years have ranged between $200 and $1,500 for text leaves, and $1,400 and $9,000 for illuminated folios.

The dispersal of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's parts, however, involved more than just the systematic marketing of leaves for sale. While a large portion of the manuscript's folios did quickly find their way into the commercial market, the syndicate had a different plan for more than half of them: they would be donated institutionally for a substantial tax benefit. Dr. Greenberg shared details of this idea with me when we met in January 2016 at a suburban Chicago restaurant to discuss the breaking of the manuscript.²⁴ He told me that his syndicate had deliberately targeted the Hornby-Cockerell Bible for breaking. Ferrini, he related, chose the manuscript because it "was a known Bible" and because it was something "that could be compartmentalized" into individual units of value. Greenberg recalled that Ferrini cut up the Bible himself shortly after the sale, after which the two met in Akron, where together they divided the now disjunct leaves as if they were "splitting up pieces of candy on Halloween." While Ferrini clearly intended to sell his share of the leaves, Greenberg and Sills would combine theirs and donate them institutionally. The Ohio State University, Greenberg revealed, was "pre-chosen" in advance of purchasing the Hornby-Cockerell Bible, in large part because of an already existing donor relationship between Sills and the university. A manuscript note on the first page of Ferrini's copy of the Christie's auction catalogue offers some potential support for this statement: "Stillman Hall on O.S.U." Although the note does not outline any specific plans for distributing the leaves, it does suggest that Ohio State was, indeed, on Ferrini's mind in relation to this auction. Additionally, Stillman Hall is the home of the university's Office for Arts and [End Page 278] Sciences Advancement, the very department that would have overseen and approved any donations of manuscript leaves to Ohio State.

Surviving donor records help paint a more complete picture of the syndicate's "generosity." In a 2 March 1982 letter to Jonathan Green, director of the Ohio State University Gallery of Fine Art, Greenberg described himself as "the driving force" behind a family consortium that would pool their resources to create a "major collection" of manuscript leaves. They had chosen Ohio State as the target for their philanthropy, he explained, "because of the special feeling other relatives, especially Mr. Philip Sills, has [sic] for your institution."²⁵ Altogether, four individuals would deposit a total of 251 folios from the Hornby-Cockerell Bible in the university's newly established art museum. In March 1982, Greenberg, Sills, and Greenberg's father-in-law, Abraham Pelunis, officially placed their leaves on deposit. Greenberg contributed a total of fifty text leaves and a pair of illuminated folios; Sills offered sixty-six text and seventeen illuminated leaves (retaining two text leaves and the illuminated folio featuring the historiated initial opening the book of Daniel later listed for sale multiple times by Pirages and Sotheby's); and Pelunis presented sixty-six text and eighteen illuminated folios (also keeping two text leaves and a single illuminated folio featuring the opening of the Interpretationes nominorum hebraicorum). Greenberg and Sills finalized their donation in November 1982, but Pelunis retained title to his folios, allowing Ohio State to keep them on deposit. A fourth benefactor, Charles Hoff, donated an additional fifteen text and two illuminated folios in the same month, with subsequent donations each year through 1986 totaling another twelve text and three illuminated leaves.²⁶ Ohio State acknowledged each of the November 1982 donations with gratitude, noting that together these materials represented a "significant addition" to the university's [End Page 279] holdings of fine arts resources and that the leaves' arrival on campus had "generated a good deal of immediate scholarly interest from both the departments of Art History and Classics."²⁷ The scholarly utility of the leaves was a definite boon to the university, but surviving appraisals submitted with each deposit or donation reveal the financial advantage each donor obtained by transforming an intact codex into its constituent leaves. All told, Ferrini and other appraisers valued the 251 leaves deposited at Ohio State at $223,700, with text leaves assigned a value of $300 to $400 each, and illuminated leaves ranging from $1,750 to $5,000.²⁸ All in all, a not insignificant return for a little over half of a codex that had been sold for just over $23,000 not long before.²⁹

Unfortunately, not all of the folios deposited at the university in 1982 would remain in its collections. On 29 April 1985, Pelunis wrote to Ohio State requesting that all eighty-four of his leaves be returned to him "for a few weeks" for reappraisal and stating that his intention was "still to donate them to the University at the most auspicious time." Jonathan Green dutifully returned them via FedEx courier on 17 May 1985. No mention is made of the leaves in surviving correspondence at Ohio State for more than four years, until a university development officer named Linda Bowers wrote Pelunis on 8 August 1989 to discuss plans for a non-manuscript donation. [End Page 280] Later in the letter she mentions the "set of leaves—these from an historic Bible" appraised by Ferrini and once on deposit at the university, notes that the materials were never returned, and asks whether Pelunis still intended to donate them to Ohio State. No written response from Pelunis remains on file, but a handwritten addendum on a copy of the letter sent to him records the result of a 21 August 1989 phone conversation between Pelunis and Bowers: "Pelunis gave the lvs. to his son-in-law (Greenberg) to sell. These were sold for $30,000."³⁰ Quaritch's inclusion of Pelunis's illuminated Psalm 26 leaf (fol. 170) in its 1985 Catalogue 1056 reveals that despite his stated intention to donate the leaves to Ohio State, Pelunis must have sold them very soon after their return to him in May that year. Other Pelunis leaves appeared in the 1987 Schuster Gallery show and 1988 Edward R. Lubin catalogues mentioned above.³¹ Ironically, the only illuminated leaf Pelunis once owned that ultimately was donated to Ohio State was folio 404, featuring the historiated initial "A" opening the Interpretationes nominorum hebraicorum, the only leaf he held back from his 1982 deposit. At some point, he gave or sold the leaf to Charles Hoff, who then presented it to the university in 1985.³²

Whether sold commercially or donated for tax credit, the comprehensive dispersal of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's leaves provided its 1981 purchasers with great profits. In "The Butcher's Bill," Scott Gwara and I presented an estimated total cost of $887,700 for the reconstruction of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible in today's market, based on a per-item cost of $450 for each of the manuscript's text leaves and $6,500 for each of its 114 illuminated folios. While these figures represent a staggering 1,380 percent return on investment over the $23,100 (approximately $60,000 adjusted for inflation) [End Page 281] Ferrini, Greenberg, and Sills paid for the Bible in 1981, these numbers, in all likelihood, are too conservative.³³ Recent auction sales, dealer listings, and professional appraisals of leaves donated to Ohio State since the publication of our article in 2016 suggest that text leaves realistically could fetch anywhere between $750 and $1,500 depending on their textual content and density of rubrication, while many folios featuring substantial historiated and illuminated initials might command retail prices or appraised values between $9,000 and $20,000 per leaf. Whatever the exact figures might be, the financial motivation that inspired the manuscript's destruction is clear.

Defining Scripture

While the profits Ferrini, Greenberg, and Sills realized by cutting apart this manuscript were high, the cost of its breaking to scholarship was even greater. In the remainder of this essay I will discuss what the surviving and traceable leaves can tell us about its original textual content and organization, art historical context, and how at least one of its medieval owners might have used it. Although this analysis of more than 200 of the Bible's original 440 folios might allow us to reconstruct some of the material, historical, and artistic contexts that have been lost as a result of its fragmentation, the number of leaves that are still missing make any observations and conclusions only provisional, at best. Nevertheless, a careful examination of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's leaves can still yield interesting and illuminating results.

So what exactly is the Hornby-Cockerell Bible? In terms of its size, script, textual content and organization, and illuminated features, we can confidently describe the manuscript as one of a handful of examples of what Laura Light has described as transitional or proto-Paris Bibles. As Light and other scholars have explained, the first quarter of the thirteenth century was a dynamic period in the textual and material evolution of Bible manuscripts. New academic and pastoral concerns and practices dictated [End Page 282] the need for a new type of Bible that could encompass the entire canon of Scripture in a single, more portable volume. Additionally, in order to facilitate ease and consistency in accessing and referencing the biblical text for scholarly, liturgical, and pastoral purposes, a new order of the Bible's books was imposed, a set of standardized ancillary prologues prefacing each book began to emerge, each book's chapter structure was revised and standardized, new paratextual elements were added to assist readers in accessing and interpreting the text, and the design and content of the Bible's illustrated features changed. In short, the entire look, feel, and utility of the Bible altered drastically between 1200 and 1225.³⁴

The Hornby-Cockerell Bible embraces all of these changes. Measuring 220 × 145 millimeters (mm), with some slight variation from leaf-to-leaf, and including the entire corpus of biblical books from Genesis to Apocalypse, it is easily portable, as opposed to most earlier eleventh- and twelfth-century pandects that could stretch to more than 500 mm in height, yet not as small as the later pocket Bibles that would emerge by the mid-thirteenth century.³⁵ Christopher de Hamel has noted that the gradual shrinking of Bibles began systematically in the third quarter of the twelfth century, with [End Page 283] many "decreasing to perhaps 250 mm tall" by about 1200.³⁶ He goes on to provide a series of examples demonstrating this gradual decrease, citing four Bible manuscripts likely made in Paris from circa 1200 (335 × 230 mm), 1210 (217 × 152 mm), 1215 (210 × 140 mm), and 1225 (160 × 110 mm).³⁷ This demonstrated progression, though hardly scientific or definitive, is largely consistent with the sizes of other Bibles produced during the same period.³⁸ It also suggests that based solely on its size we might provisionally date the Hornby-Cockerell Bible to circa 1210–15.

Other features also support a dating to this period. Beginning around 1200, a new scholarly and theological emphasis on the importance of the literal, or historical, sense of Scripture as the foundation for allegorical, tropological, and anagogical interpretation inspired the imposition of a new order on the books of the Bible.³⁹ By about 1230, this new order clearly marking the conceptual divisions between history, doctrine, and prophecy had emerged, comprising the Octateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth), I–IV Kings, I–II Chronicles (followed by the apocryphal prayer of Manasses), I–III Ezra (II Ezra = Nehemiah), Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, Psalms, the Sapiential books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus), the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations, Baruch, Ezekiel, and Daniel), the Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi), I–II Maccabees, the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), the Pauline Epistles (Romans, I–II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I–II Thessalonians, I–II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews), Acts, [End Page 284] the Catholic Epistles (James, I–II Peter, I–III John, and Jude), and Apocalypse.⁴⁰ This new order nested the Old Testament doctrinal and prophetical books between the historical accounts of Genesis–Esther and I–II Maccabees, introduced the Christian era through the Gospels' historical accounts of Christ's life, espoused proper Christian doctrine through the Epistles, and brought history to a close with John's prophecy in Apocalypse. Along with imposing this new order, scholars also added a series of sixty-four prologues to the canonical biblical text.⁴¹ Many of these supplementary paratexts were the work of St. Jerome, or derived from his writings, but others were the product of theologians writing between the Patristic era and the twelfth century.⁴²

The Hornby-Cockerell Bible's traceable leaves reveal that the manuscript largely adheres to the new order of biblical books and includes a relatively full range of associated prologues. However, it also departs from the standard model in some significant ways. For instance, rather than appearing between the Pauline and Catholic Epistles, Acts falls between the Gospels and Pauline Epistles, reinforcing the historical link between the biography of Christ and the later activities of his disciples. Also included in the manuscript, but left out of the ordinary contents of the later Paris Bible, is Paul's apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans (fol. 389v), a text not commonly included in Bibles after the twelfth century. The manuscript's biblical prologues deviate more significantly. Altogether, I have been able to [End Page 285] trace twenty-nine Hornby-Cockerell Bible folios preserving text from thirty-five prologues representing thirty-three biblical books.⁴³ Of this total, sixteen, or nearly half, diverge from the standard set of prologues that circulated with the later Paris Bible, including those for Job (166v), all four of the Minor Prophets whose leaves I have been able to trace, Acts (353r), the prologue to the Pauline Epistles (365v), Ephesians (381r), Hebrews (389v), the Catholic Epistles, and Apocalypse (397v) (fig. 1).⁴⁴ Textual disparity between manuscripts, of course, is not unusual, but these significant variations nevertheless clearly reveal the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's transitional nature and the relatively early place it occupies in the textual evolution of the Bible between 1200 and 1230.⁴⁵

This period also witnessed a thorough revision of the Bible's chapter numbering arrangement. Many Bible manuscripts composed before 1230, and most before 1200, included long capitula lists outlining the structure and summarizing the contents of each biblical book. The number of chapters assigned to a given book could vary from manuscript to manuscript and differed radically from the revised and standardized system imposed on the Bible beginning in the late twelfth century and roundly accepted by the end [End Page 286]

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Figure 1.

Fol. 393r, featuring an anthropomorphic initial of St. James opening the Epistle of James, and preceded by three prologues and the capitula list.

[End Page 287] of the third decade of the thirteenth.⁴⁶ Until recently, this new system of chapter numbering had been attributed to Stephen Langton (1150–1228), the famous biblical scholar active in the scholastic milieu of Paris until his installation as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1207.⁴⁷ The influence of twelfth-century biblical commentaries and the need to create a reliable system of reference to access both the Bible and these scholastic works, so the argument goes, inspired Langton and his followers to repackage the Bible's chapter structures. Paul Saenger, however, has questioned this traditional view, arguing that the origins of the Bible's modern chapter divisions can instead be traced to monastic, liturgical, and Hebraic influences.⁴⁸

Whatever the motivation behind the adoption of this new system might have been, both traditional and revised orders were being used during the first quarter of the thirteenth century. Sometimes, as in the Hornby-Cockerell Bible, a manuscript will preserve both old and new chapter numbering arrangements. Capitula lists appear throughout the manuscript (fig. 2), with Roman numerals penned in alternating red and blue (sometimes overwriting or lying next to earlier guide letters in plummet) corresponding to each division consistently placed in the margins adjacent to the appropriate passages. In her detailed survey of fourteen transitional Bibles featuring both old and new chapter arrangements, Laura Light notes that it often can be very difficult to verify whether the new numbers were added as part of the manuscript's original production process or by later readers.⁴⁹ Certain pieces of evidence in the Hornby-Cockerell manuscript [End Page 288]

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Figure 2.

Fols. 257c–258r, the capitula list to Ezekiel.

seem to suggest that its new chapter numbers likely were added as part of its original composition.

Throughout most of the manuscript, new chapter numbers supersede the old system through a multi-layered system of revision. Wherever a new chapter division begins, its revised number is added in the margin, often twice, once in plummet (presumably the earlier of the two numbers) and again in brown ink. Additionally, the earlier rubricated chapter number associated with the passage is usually crossed out, typically in ink, but occasionally in plummet (fig. 3). Infrequently and when possible, elements of the earlier rubricated chapter number might be erased or added to in order [End Page 289]

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Figure 3.

Fol. 340r, detail of revision of the old chapter number "LIII" to the new number "XVII" in plummet and ink in the Gospel of Luke.

to render the new chapter number instead.⁵⁰ While the revised numbers rendered in ink are likely later additions to clarify the revisions, I strongly suspect that the associated revised numbers in plummet are original to the manuscript's creation and were, in fact, added as part of the general correction process in the scribal workshop.⁵¹ Plummet guide letters for running titles and illuminated initials survive on numerous folios.⁵² Additionally, a scribal error resulting from dittography in Daniel 3:3 (fol. 276r, col. A) is signaled in the adjacent marginal space with the corrector's note "sup(er)-fluu(m)" written in plummet and the error corrected via strikethrough and subpunction of nearly five lines of text. The revised plummet chapter [End Page 290] numbers added in the margins throughout the manuscript appear to be in the same hand as the one used to write this call for correction and the helpful guide letters.

The folios preserving I–IV Kings and text from the Minor Prophets Amos, Jonah, and Micah also provide clues suggesting that the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's scribes may have been working from a copy text that included the new chapter numbering scheme. While I–III Kings all feature capitula lists and their associated early marginal chapter numbers, each revised to reflect the new numbering system, IV Kings has no capitula list and includes no marginal rubricated chapter numbers.⁵³ Instead, plummet numbers corresponding to the modern system have been written in the margins. The leaves for Amos (285), Jonah (287r), and Micah (287v) reveal the same apparent original composition of the text according to the revised chapter numbering structure, rather than the old. The lack of color on these folios is startling after seeing repeated margins sprinkled with the old chapter system's red and blue numbers. These leaves, in contrast, are bare, with no color in the margins or in the text to mark the beginning of new chapters. Although all of these features might point persuasively to the conclusion that both old and new chapter numbering systems were added to the Hornby-Cockerell Bible during its original composition, the examination of additional, still missing, leaves is necessary before we can accept this deduction securely.

A final significant textual feature reflecting the manuscript's status as a transitional Bible is its inclusion of the Interpretationes nominorum hebraicorum (hereafter INH) as an original paratextual element of its composition, a fact testified to by this section's pricking marks, ruling pattern, textual layout, and scribal hands, all of which match those used throughout the rest of the manuscript. The INH is a text with a long and complex history, and like the revised order of the biblical books, their accompanying standardized set of prologues, and the new chapter numbering system, [End Page 291] it was created to facilitate the use of the Bible in pastoral, scholarly, and liturgical contexts and had become a standard component of most Bibles after about 1230. The text originally derived from Jerome's work on the Vulgate and his attempt to create a guide to the meanings of the Bible's Hebrew and Aramaic names. By the end of the twelfth century, the INH circulated in three major versions, the Adam, Aaron, and Aaz rescensions.⁵⁴ The Hornby-Cockerell Bible includes the largest and most advanced and popular of these, the Aaz version.⁵⁵ Surviving in over 900 manuscripts, it provides definitions for approximately 5,250 words, all arranged in a single alphabetical order encompassing the entire Bible (in contrast to Adam's 1,050 and Aaron's 1,425, which were arranged alphabetically and partitioned according to each biblical book).⁵⁶ Prior to 1230, the INH principally circulated independently of the biblical text, with a manuscript produced in 1234 so far being the earliest securely datable instance of the text, having been copied as part of a Bible's original production process.⁵⁷ As the various textual features described above reveal, the Hornby-Cockerell Bible was clearly completed before this date, consequently making it one of the earliest known Bibles to include the INH as one of its integral parts.⁵⁸ Further testifying to the likelihood of an early thirteenth-century date for the manuscript's composition is the fact that the version of the INH it includes represents one of the many minor variants that characterized [End Page 292]

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Figure 4.

Fol. 404r, opening of the Interpretationes nominorum hebraicorum.

the Aaz version before it settled into its final form by about 1225.⁵⁹ The Hornby-Cockerell version begins Aad testificans, going on to include entries for Aalma, Asio, Aaron, Aars, and Aath before finally arriving at the more typical first entry, Aaz apprehendens (fol. 404r), found in later versions of the text (fig. 4).⁶⁰ [End Page 293]

Each of the textual or organizational features described above—the order of the biblical books, their prologues, the presence of both old and new chapter numbering systems, and the inclusion of a variant form of the INH—all signal that what Ferrini, Greenberg, and Sills cut apart in 1981 was an intact early thirteenth-century "transitional" Bible. As we shall see in the discussion below, the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's illuminated and decorated content also reflects a range of features illustrating the transition from Romanesque to Gothic modes of Bible production that took place between 1175 and 1225.

Illuminating Scripture

At the same time that new scholastic, pastoral, and liturgical requirements were driving the textual and scribal reorganization of the books of the Bible, the revision of their chapter structure, and the imposition of new standardized paratextual elements such as prologues and the INH, artists were also developing a more normalized approach toward illustrating the biblical text. The full-page illustrations and complex schemes of illumination commonly found in early-medieval Bibles gave way in the Romanesque period to the systematic use of historiated initials as signals of textual division.⁶¹ Eventually, artists working in the emerging Gothic style would employ such initials on an industrial scale in the new, smaller format pandects that were beginning to emerge beginning around 1200.⁶² Illuminators' workshops that earlier had been located in urban and monastic centers across a wide geographical area gradually followed their scribal colleagues in great numbers to Paris to meet the city's rapidly growing demand for books. Once there, these workshops frequently found themselves working together to keep up with ever-increasing quantities of commissioned work. All this cooperative activity resulted in the creation of a dynamic milieu of collaboration [End Page 294] and shared influence, with multiple illuminating hands and various artistic workshops all potentially working together to create a single manuscript.⁶³ These would seem to be the conditions under which the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's illuminations were executed.

Unfortunately, we cannot identify with absolute certainty a single, dominant workshop that would have been responsible for executing or overseeing the creation of the Hornby-Cockerell manuscript's seventy-one historiated and eighty-one illuminated initials (of which Ohio State currently holds leaves featuring thirty historiated and thirty-one illuminated initials). Thus far, the only mention of the possible milieus in which the manuscript's illuminations might have been produced have appeared in dealer and auction descriptions of single leaves, and, briefly, in the catalogue for the 1971 University of Texas exhibition that prominently featured the manuscript. This latter description credits the manuscript's illuminations to a trio of artistic hands. One, it says, "is typical of work done under Byzantine influence," while a second strongly evokes the work produced by Paris's Moralized Bible workshops between about 1235 and 1250. A third hand, which the description's author dubs the "Master of the Old Testament Ladies," is responsible for a series of female figures illustrating Ruth, I Ezra, Judith, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.⁶⁴ Later commercial catalogues offering individual leaves ascribe the illuminations to a number of different workshops, including the Blanche and Almagest ateliers, the artists responsible for the Vienna Moralized Bibles, and the Morgan 92 group, with many descriptions simultaneously citing multiple ateliers.⁶⁵ Upon close examination, none of these attributions is a perfect fit, though each group's [End Page 295] work does share at least some affinity with the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's illuminations.

The most common attribution by far is to the Vienna Moralized Bible workshop, but this ascription seems rote, at best, as none of the listings offer any descriptive details supporting this possible provenance.⁶⁶ Given the immense number of illuminations produced by this workshop (approximately 13,000 for a single Bible, for instance) and the influence of Robert Branner's focused work on this atelier's distinct hands and their individual output, I suspect that many dealers have credited the creators of the Moralized Bibles with the Hornby-Cockerell manuscript's creation simply as a matter of convenience.⁶⁷ When compared with the many Moralized Bible illustrations reproduced in Branner's study, any similarities seem to be of the more general variety common to most illuminated output of the first half of the thirteenth century, such as the use of black pen lines and ink shading to render drapery effects.⁶⁸ Overall, however, the tone of the Hornby-Cockerell illuminations is more varied, relying on a more diverse color palette than the heavy reliance on red and blue evident throughout the Moralized Bibles and so many other Bible illuminations produced in Paris after about 1225.

The next most popular ascription is to the atelier identified by Branner as the Morgan 92 group.⁶⁹ Among the characteristic qualities of this group are figures with undulating hair, long noses with bulbous ends, fleshy cheeks spotted in red, small mouths, and rounded jaws, all of which appear to greater or lesser degree in the Hornby-Cockerell Bible. In particular, dealers have likened the manuscript's illumination to New York, The [End Page 296] Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.269.⁷⁰ A close comparison of the two, however, reveals more differences than similarities. Each manuscript's ruling pattern and line count differs, and the rubricated marginal chapter numbers in the Morgan manuscript are each preceded by a pilcrow that Hornby-Cockerell's numbers lack. Decoratively, MS M.269 features red and blue multi-line textual initials with flourishes that extend, often extravagantly, into the margins, whereas Hornby-Cockerell's are unembellished, single-line initials. Additionally, MS M.269's text is uniformly divided according to modern chapter numbers. Admittedly, all of these might be small differences, but in codicological and textual matters, fine details are often revealing.

A careful comparison of each Bible's illuminations reveals further discrepancies. MS M.269's figures are squat with thick hands and feet, in contrast to the more elongated figures, hands, and feet found in the Hornby-Cockerell Bible. The faces of the figures in the Morgan manuscript feature little coloration and only occasional fine detail, and they include little to no application of graded color or shading in their modeling. Hornby-Cockerell's figures, in contrast, are carefully modeled to render subtle, frequently ocher-shaded, contours in their faces, necks, hands, and feet. Finally, like illuminations attributed to the Vienna Moralized Bible workshop, MS M.269's compositions rely heavily on red and blue as their dominant colors, as opposed to the Hornby-Cockerell manuscript's regular use of green, orange, pink, and maroon in addition to the red and blue that dominates so much later Bible illumination. Altogether, MS M.269's codicological, textual, decorative, and illuminated features suggest a date of composition at least a generation later than the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's own production.

This brings us to the final two workshops to which the manuscript's illuminations have been credited: the Almagest and Blanche ateliers.⁷¹ To [End Page 297] these, we might also possibly add the Alexander atelier.⁷² According to Branner, each of these workshops originally was active outside Paris but had migrated to the growing city sometime during the first decade of the thirteenth century.⁷³ The Hornby-Cockerell Bible's illuminations share a number of distinct features indicating a close connection between it and these affiliated workshops. On the more decorative side of things, for instance, the manuscript incorporates the stepped, square terminals around each initial that appear commonly in works produced by the Almagest and Alexander ateliers.⁷⁴ Similarly, the manuscript also incorporates into its initials the "tentacular," spiraling vines terminating in thick, meaty foliage characteristic of the "Channel Style" of ornamentation so popular in southeast England and northern France between 1175 and 1225.⁷⁵ The Hornby-Cockerell Bible's large twenty-seven-line initial "P" opening the Acts of the Apostles, with its winding, multicolored foliage both comprising and extending from the letter's body, provides a fine later example of this style and its playful effect (fol. 354r). Another early decorative feature is the inclusion of distinctive and carefully executed tooling around the perimeter of most initials' burnished gold fields. Consisting of a hollow circular punch that leaves a small round impression in the gold with a small dot at its center, this embellishment was derived from Byzantine artistic influences that were being adapted by illuminators beginning in the late twelfth century.⁷⁶ Other examples of Byzantine influence are apparent in the Bible's [End Page 298] figural illumination, including the aforementioned ocher shading of faces, necks, hands, and feet.⁷⁷ Additionally, we see the incorporation of the newly emerged muldenfalten style's fine black pen lines to render the hairpin contours of drapery (see fig. 1), and the application of shaded colors or white dry brush accents to provide additional depth suggesting the shape of the human body underneath garments (figs. 5 and 6).⁷⁸ Each of these features were employed by the artists of the Alexander, Almagest, and Blanche ateliers in their work, including a number of Bibles they produced that Branner has identified as possibly the earliest illuminated copies of what would become the standardized Paris Bible.⁷⁹ It would seem, then, that the Hornby-Cockerell manuscript most likely was produced within the same artistic milieu as these workshops (if not by one, or some combination, of them) between about 1210 and 1220, either in Paris or, perhaps, another northwestern French center of manuscript production such as Amiens or Rouen.⁸⁰ [End Page 299]

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Figure 5.

Fol. 204r, historiated initial inhabited by Sirach opening Ecclesiasticus.

The iconographic content of the manuscript's historiated initials is not overly unique, although a few features do require mention here. The magisterial opening initial to Genesis includes one element not often found in Bibles of the period. The initial "I" (of "In principio") extends down the length of the center of the page, its seven separate chambers depicting a different scene, including the creation of the world, the creation of Eve, God instructing Adam and Eve, the temptation in the garden, the expulsion [End Page 300]

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Figure 6.

Fol. 332v, historiated initial inhabited by Luke opening the Gospel of Luke.

from Eden, Adam digging while Eve spins, and the murder of Abel. As a survey of contemporary illuminated Bibles reveals, the initial's inclusion of Cain's murder of his brother is very unusual.⁸¹ [End Page 301]

Perhaps more interesting in helping to define the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's significance is the cycle of illuminations illustrating the Pauline Epistles. As Luba Eleen has noted, the iconography of Paul changed fundamentally in the twelfth century. The traditional depiction of him as "the apostle of doctrine" portrayed with a book or scroll rapidly gave way to the visualization of him as an embodiment of Christian militant qualities. This change occurred in part, Eleen argues, as a response to the Crusading ideal and as a symbolic representation of the Church's paired secular and spiritual powers, but it also reflected a new understanding of the apostle to the Gentiles as a warrior in his own right. Taking the text of Hebrews 4:12 as its model ("The word of God is alive and active. It cuts more deeply than any two-edged sword"), this interpretation inspired a new iconographic representation of Paul: the now familiar image of him wielding a sword.⁸² This image, however, would remain quite rare until about 1240. Based on her analysis of 286 Bible manuscripts produced between 1100 and 1250 in the University of Toronto's Corpus of Bible Illustrations, Eleen recorded a total of four depictions of Paul holding both a book and sword, and six of him with only a sword.⁸³ Although I have not yet located each of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's folios illuminating the Pauline Epistles, I have been able to examine eight of them and have found dealer records describing two more, as yet untraced, leaves. Of these, two depict him in the traditional way, holding only a book (Philippians [382v] and I Thessalonians [385r]), three others depict him holding [End Page 302] a sword (Romans [367r] and I–II Corinthians [372r and 376v]), and five show him holding both book and sword (Galatians [379v], Ephesians [381r], Philemon [389r], Laodiceans [389v], and Hebrews [390r]) (fig. 7). Eleen cites the Lothian Bible, dated to the first quarter of the thirteenth century, as containing the earliest examples of this motif used as the

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Figure 7.

Fol. 381r, historiated initial inhabited by St. Paul opening the Epistle to the Ephesians.

[End Page 303] subject for illuminated initials.⁸⁴ As its textual features and artistic styles have shown, the Hornby-Cockerell Bible dates to this same period. Undoubtedly there are other, as yet unexplored manuscripts that could include early examples of the militant Paul, but the fact that the Hornby-Cockerell manuscript includes illuminations that nearly double Eleen's recorded figures helps testify to its unusualness and importance as one of the first illuminated witnesses to the evolving Paris Bible.

Reading Scripture

Despite the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's current fragmentary state, its textual, organizational, and artistic features all argue for its production in or near Paris sometime during the first quarter of the thirteenth century as scholars, scribes, and illuminators worked together to create the standardized contents and features of the emerging Paris Bible. In addition to making our analysis of its origins and context of production more challenging, the manuscript's breaking and the subsequent dispersal of its leaves have also made it more difficult to assess exactly how its medieval readers might have used it. In this brief section, I will examine a small number of marginal [End Page 304] annotations that point out the topical preoccupations and possible context of use by one of the manuscript's early users.

Altogether, direct evidence for medieval reader interaction with the Hornby-Cockerell Bible appears on sixteen of the 213 individual folios I have been able to trace and examine closely. Although most of the manuscript lacks annotations, the nota bene marks and short comments that do appear are suggestive. The marked folios preserve a total of thirty-five separate entries that typically act in a prescriptive or exhortatory fashion, rather than offer any explanatory or expansive commentary. Nine are simple manicula—or small illustrated hands—pointing out passages of particular interest to the reader; twenty-four provide short textual annotations highlighting the content of certain passages; one simply reproduces Psalms 2:7 in microscopic script in the lower margin of the leaf bearing Ecclesiasticus 27:6–29:5 (211r); and the final specimen is a simple, yet fascinating ink line drawing that graphically evokes its accompanying passage's lesson. Together they demonstrate their maker's preoccupation with proper and improper moral behavior, the salvific power of faith and prayer, and the punishment of sin.

The surviving manicula point to passages exhorting the reader to cleave to a good wife (Prov. 18:22, 191r), have mercy on the poor (Prov. 19:17, 191r), provide proper care for the cattle in one's keeping (Ecclus. 7:24, 206r), seek and call upon the Lord in times of trial (Isa. 55:6, 231r), and flee from fornication (I Cor. 6:18, 373v). Others point out passages on larger topics, such as the obedience of children (referring to the old chapter 18 of Ephesians in the book's capitula list, 381r), the power of true prayer (III Kings 8:46; 101r), and the consequences of following ill counsel (III Kings 12:13–14, 102v). Folio 46r preserves perhaps the most interesting combination of annotations, a maniculum pointing to Numbers 24:17 and the prophecy of the coming of Christ, and, a bit further down the column, a simple doodle of a hangman's gibbet drawn next to Numbers 25:3–6 and its description of God's instructions to hang idolators in punishment for their sin (fig. 8). The reader adds no verbal commentary to this page, instead using the maniculum to highlight Christ's role as judge and punisher and the gibbet as a visual illustration and mnemonic of the wages of improper faith and worship. [End Page 305]

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Figure 8.

Fol. 46r, featuring a maniculum and a drawing of a hangman's gibbet highlighting the text of Numbers 25:3–6. Also note the revision of the old chapter number "LVII" to the new number "XXV" in both plummet and ink.

Like the illustrated manicula and gibbet, the manuscript's textual annotations also serve a simple mnemonic purpose. A series of notes offering very short topical summaries of particular verses in III Kings 8:35–54 (101r) invokes the tribulations through which proper supplication to God shall deliver sinners: through storms (8:35) and pestilence (8:37), as a stranger and convert (8:41), through captivity (8:46), and in emulation of Solomon's mode of prayer (8:54). Other annotations call attention to Solomon's later descent into idolatry at the urging of his wives and concubines (III Kings 11:203, 102r), the punishment of the house of Jeroboam for its idolatry (III Kings 14:10), and the role of the Holy Spirit in the creation of wisdom (Ecclus. 1:9, 204v). Additional notes advise caution in pursuing wealth (Prov. 23:4, 192v), discourage the repetition of erroneous teaching (Ecclus. [End Page 306] 7:15, 206r), and recommend marital faithfulness (Ecclus. 7:21, 206r). And a series of six textual nota bene references on folio 205r emphasizes several moral topics discussed in Ecclesiasticus, including humility (3:20), hardness of heart (3:27), the power of alms (3:33), the power of the tongue in promoting wisdom (4:29), the need to fight for justice until death (4:33), and the manner in which one should govern one's household justly (4:35).

Of all the reader-added marks in the manuscript, only two provide any potential indication of an active use of its text for a specific purpose. Written in the margins immediately adjacent to Matthew 7:15 (fol. 316r) and Mark 8:2 (fol. 327v) are the words "dominica viij" and "dominica vij," respectively, simple notes indicating some sort of affiliation between this verse and the eighth and seventh Sundays of an undisclosed liturgical period. Each passage did serve as an antiphon for the celebration of the Divine Office on the seventh and eighth Sundays after Pentecost.⁸⁵ More likely, it is possible that these notes could refer to the verses' use within a different service context, for instance as liturgical prompts for lections during the celebration of Mass on these days. Additionally, and perhaps more likely given the moral-theological focus of the manuscript's other marginal notes and marks, they may serve a pastoral purpose by designating particular Sundays for which these Gospel passages would have served as the doctrinal themes of the days' sermons. Without the evidence of additional reader-added marginalia, however, this conclusion can only be speculative. All we can say with certainty is that one of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's medieval owners was particularly interested in examples of morally correct and sinful behavior, with an emphasis on the bitter consequences of idolatry and the need to worship God properly. This emphasis on moral theology and its possible application within a pastoral context aligns perfectly with the way that many readers used their Bibles from the early thirteenth century on.⁸⁶ Perhaps additional leaves waiting to be discovered will reveal [End Page 307] more information about the medieval use of the manuscript, just as they could reveal more about the manuscript's textual and artistic contexts of production.

Revaluing Scripture

Tragic though the breaking of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible may have been, the unfortunate day in late 1981 when Bruce Ferrini and Michael Greenberg erased its more than 750 years' worth of codicological, textual, and artistic integrity did not define this book. Rather, their simple—but profoundly impactful—act of biblioclasm provided the manuscript with a new way to tell its story. While the dispersal of its leaves makes recovering its full history more difficult, it also has drawn attention to the manuscript that it might otherwise not have received. This attention, in turn, has resulted in the discovery of another rare transitional or proto-Paris Bible bearing important witness to the dynamic evolution of the Bible as text, artistic work, and material artifact in the early thirteenth century.⁸⁷

But the attempt to reconstruct and analyze the Hornby-Cockerell Bible has done more than just provide valuable historical context for the manuscript. It also enables us to tell a deeper story about the moral and intellectual cost of biblioclasm in the face of commercial profit. When I interviewed Dr. Greenberg about his role in the breaking of the manuscript, I asked him what he thinks now about the part he played in its destruction. He paused for a moment, acknowledged the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's historical significance, and then answered that the manuscript's breaking and my current attempt to reconstruct it tell a deeper story about the recognition and price [End Page 308] of greed and the consequent effort required to right what he described as "a profound wrong." Ultimately, Dr. Greenberg comes across as a genuinely repentant biblioclast. Breaking the Hornby-Cockerell Bible, he explained, "made me more aware of doing what was right in life, no matter the profit level." He went on to say that he "should have done the right thing, not the expedient thing," and that "the story of this Bible can teach us that." He paused, took a sip of coffee, and concluded, "Something of great importance was destroyed in pursuing a gold calf. That's the gift of this Bible."⁸⁸ In addition to their historical and commercial worth, then, it would seem that the Hornby-Cockerell Bible's dispersed, but slowly reunifying, leaves also have profound ethical value and tell an important cautionary tale about the real cost and lasting effect of biblioclasm. [End Page 309]