Leaf from the St Albans Bible, France (Paris), 1320s-1330s.

Leaf (cutting) from a French bible. Double-sided. Gothic script. Written in brown ink on parchment. Gold, colour pigments and ink. Text in two columns of 46 lines.
Recto: one decorated initial "A"(white, blue and red on a gold ground). Running title and chapter numbers in gold and blue with black and red penwork.
Verso: running title in gold and blue with black and red penwork.

From a Bible in the library of the abbey at St Albans from at least the 15th century. May have been one of two Bibles obtained by abbot Michael of Mentmore (abbot from 1335 to 1349) for the abbey. He could have got it from Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, who visited Paris in the 1320s and 1330s. This Bible could have been one of the books Richard de Bury bought there (see de Hamel 1981 and Kidd 2021).
Bound volume (though already incomplete): Sotheby's sale, London, 'The Property of a Lady', 6 July 1964, lot 239 (then 526 leaves in a 16th-century vellum binding; described as 'wanting the first two leaves of the prologue and the first leaf of each of the four gospels', with 'initials or decorations cut from about thirty leaves'); bought at this sale by Philip Duschnes (£1,500) who broke the manuscript and was selling it as single leaves by the following year.

This leaf:
Purchased from R.F. Martin, Esq., 9 Portman street, London, together with other cuttings (now CIRC.198 to 207-1923); received on 5 March 1923 . Paid £7.10.0 for four pieces: CIRC.204 to 207-1923. (Information from Departmental Circulation Register 1923)

Cuttings from the same manuscript in the V&A collection: Museum nos Circ. 153-1919, Circ.207-1923 and Circ.721-1924.
Cuttings from the same manuscript in other collections: Tregaskis, Catalogue 777 (1916), no. 37 (two leaves); Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Lat 471 (one leaf); Vancouver, UBC Library, Z114 M424; etc. (for more see Kidd 2021).

French illuminated Latin bible fragment, with a decorated initial "A" and a border.

CIRC.207-1923