Beschreibung:

A fine interlace initial from the Pontigny Abbey copy of Gratian's Decretum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France (almost certainly Pontigny, Burgundy), second half of the twelfth century] Rectangular cutting, trimmed on all four sides with losses there, with a large initial 'I' (opening 'I[n infamiam cuiusdam] ...', Causa V; the initial 163 by 68mm.), formed from tightly interlacing red and green bands heightened with white and dark green brushstrokes, these terminating at top in curled buds of acanthus leaves, and at foot in a single acanthus leaf spray in green, red and grey-blue heightened with rows of white dots, all on rich blue grounds, one- and 2-line initials in red and pastel blue, red rubrics, remains of double columns of 33 lines of an excellent early gothic bookhand, the initial bright but the text on recto somewhat faded making legibility difficult, text on verso quite legible, cockling at edges, and small circular stains at corners and midpoints from metal tacks once used to mount the cutting to a board, overall in good and presentable condition, 230 by 148mm. A fine and bright twelfth-century initial, almost certainly from a parent manuscript from the medieval library of Pontigny Abbey, and perhaps consulted there by St. Thomas Becket and Stephen Langton Provenance: 1. Almost certainly from a grand copy of Gratian's Decretum made in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny in the second half of the twelfth century, and recorded as no. 153 in their late twelfth-century catalogue as 'Volumine uno, Decreta Gratiani', and then no. 100 in the early seventeenth-century catalogue, no. 235 in their catalogue of 1778, no. 7 in the catalogue of 1791, and no. 73 in the list prepared of their possessions after the suppression of the community during the French Revolution. Pontigny held one of the great libraries of Romanesque France, seen by Herbert of Bosham in the 1160s, and as C. de Hamel notes, it was the place of exile of St. Thomas Becket in 1164-66 and Stephen Langton in 1207-13 'both while preparing their respective claims under canon law to the rights of the archbishopric of Canterbury. It seems inconceivable that they would not have consulted the Pontigny Abbey copy of Gratian' (Gilding the Lilly, 2010, no. 19, p. 45). 2. The parent volume was dismembered probably in Auxerre in the early nineteenth century, with complete leaves (measuring 450 by 320mm.) now surviving in Auxerre, Bibliothèque municipale, ms 269, and Cleveland Museum of Art, MS 54.598, and cuttings such as this one in (i) London, Victoria & Albert Museum, MS 8985, (ii) Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis EM. 16: 8-9, (iii) Lilly Library, Bloomington, Ricketts 205.7, and (iv) Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS 4874 E, no. 2. The identification of these was begun by W. Cahn in his 'A Twelfth-Century Decretum Fragment from Pontigny', Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975, pp. 47-59, and continued by M. Peyrafort-Huin, La bibliothèque médiévale de l'abbaye de Pontigny, 2001, no. 53), with further comment by de Hamel (op. cit.). 3. This cutting acquired in France in the nineteenth century (reportedly 1843), and thence by descent. From them directly to Roger Martin in 2012. Decoration: The high quality of the script and initial here, executed in exquisite style but without use of gold, are in keeping with the best work from the Pontigny scriptorium. Compare the great Pontigny Bible, also dismembered into fragments after the French Revolution (reproduced in W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts: the Twelfth Century, 1996, no. 82, pp. 102-103).