Dijon, Bibliotheque Municipale 574 (olim 334) Bede, "Historia Ecclesiastica"
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Abstract
113. Dijon, Bibliotheque Municipale 574 (olim 334)
Bede, "Historia Ecclesiastica"
[Ker App. 8; Gneuss -]
HISTORY: A handsome Bede, carefully planned and executed, written at Citeaux (founded 1098, some 20 miles south of Dijon) in the third quarter of the 12c, during a period when the decoration of Cistercian texts was minimal. Speculation on how the text of Bede came to Citeaux is offered by Dobbie (1937: 18): an Englishman, St. Stephen Harding, was abbot of Citeaux 1109-1134, and he organized a scriptorium. The retention of the manuscript there is indicated by the 15c inscriptions at the bottom margin of ff. 2r, 66r and 114r in large letters 'Liber cistercij'. On f. 116v also in large letters of the 15c 'De 4ta ba<n>ca de lat<ere> ref<ectorii> XI', and it is recorded at Citeaux in 1480/82 as no. 215 in the inventory compiled by Abbot Jean de Cirey (Wuest 1906: 207; cf. Załuska 1991: 13, and Bell 1999), who also set in motion the transfer of the books to a new library (now restored) in 1498 or soon afterwards. There are scarcely any marginal annotations or additions, the only notable one being on f. 96r in the top margin 'S<an>c<t>i spiritus assit nobis gr<ati>a'.
The manuscript evidently remained at Citeaux until the abbey's suppression in 1791, when it was moved to Dijon, the principal town in the departement of Cote-d'Or, along with most of the other 240 or so medieval manuscripts now at Dijon (Plouviers and Saint-Denis 1998: 254). There it joined the Bibliotheque Publique founded in 1701 in the college of the Godrans (named after a President of the Parlement de Bourgogne), which was also the Jesuit College, and this library was formally constituted as the Bibliotheque Municipale in 1803. The binding was remodelled in 1930 in the style of Jean de Cirey (late 15c) with the arms ofCiteaux superimposed at the centre of the front cover from an earlier 18c binding. The inscription from the spine of the earlier binding is attached to f. 1r. Previously described in Catalogue Generale 1889.