Saints' Lives

This manuscript, which was made at or for the Cistercian monastery at Himmerode, Germany, is a compilation of several texts written in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. The first and third texts, William of St. Thierry's Life of St. Bernard and Hugh of St. Victor's On the lamentations of Jeremiah, are contemporary but were written separately and then bound together. A third text, Jacques de Vitry's Life of St. Marie d'Oignies, was inserted between them at a later time. Several additional texts were added to blank folios in the thirteenth century, most notably a letter by Hildegard of Bingen on the final folio. Many different hands can be identified throughout the manuscript, sometimes changing every few lines; this variety of scribes is especially evident in the third text. Although the book contains no pictorial illuminations, large, ornate decorated initials, drawn in bright green and red, announce the beginning of each chapter.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Cistercian abbey of Himmerode (in the diocese of Trier throughout the medieval period until 1802-1803) [thirteenth-century (?) inscription in top margin of fol. 1r reading "Liber fratrem monachorum sancte marie in hemenrode ordinis cisterciensis" with shelf mark B.viii in lower margin; fols. 71v and 139r with same inscription in a second, fourteenth-century(?) hand, reading "Liber monachorum Sancte Marie in himerode ordinis cisterciensis trevirensis dioces"]; Josef von Görres collection, Germany, 1802/3-1902 [nineteenth-century library number N.93 in top margin of fol. 1r]; Görres collection sale, Munich, 1902, Catal.libr.mss. lot 60, p. 12 ; Léon Gruel and Engelmann collection, Paris, 1902-1903 (bookplate no. 125); Henry Walters, Baltimore, June 9, 1903, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.