Browse images of manuscripts
Contents
| Introduction
List of manuscripts, arranged by century and country of origin:
|
 |
Introduction
About a thousand images can be reached from this page. Information about
the manuscripts and the digital images can be found at the bottom of this page,
and at the bottom of the pages with the images themselves, under the following
headings:
A considerable number of Oxford's most important manuscripts have been
digitized at high resolution in their entirety: these images can be reached
from http://image.ox.ac.uk/.
List of manuscripts, arranged by century
and country of origin
11th century
England
- Ps.-Apuleius, Herbal, in Latin
England, St.
Augustine's abbey, Canterbury; 11th century, c. 1070-1100
- Ps.-Apuleius, Dioscorides, Herbals (extracts), etc.,
in Latin and English
England, Bury St. Edmunds; 11th century, late
Miscellaneous 11th-century manuscripts
12th century
England
- Augustine, Soliloquies, etc., in Latin
England,
Winchcombe Abbey (Gloucestershire); 12th century, second quarter
- Medical and herbal texts, in Latin
England; 12th century,
late
Miscellaneous 12th-century manuscripts
13th century
England
- Bible, with select Masses, in Latin
England, Oxford; 13th
century, first half.
Illuminated in the style of, and perhaps by, William
de Brailes
France
- Cistercian Missal, in Latin
France, Pontigny; datable to
1203-14
Italy
- Gregory IX, Decretals, with the apparatus of Bernard
of Parma, in Latin
Italy, Modena/Bologna; 13th century, dated 1241
Miscellaneous 13th-century manuscripts
Late 13th to early 14th century
England
- Fragments of polyphonic music, in Latin ('The Worcester
Fragments')
England, Worcester; late 13th - early 14th century
Miscellaneous late 13th- to early
14th-century manuscripts
14th century
England
- Breviary of the Benedictine Abbey of Chertsey, in Latin
(fragments and cuttings)
England; 14th century, first quarter, 1307 or
later
- John Wyclif, Sermons on the Sunday Epistles and
Gospels, etc., in English (northern dialect) and Latin
England;
14th century
- Fragments of polyphonic music (motets), in Latin and French
England, Bury St. Edmunds; 14th century
- Noted Missal, Use of Sarum, in Latin ('The Buckland Missal')
England; 14th century, c. 1370-80(?)
Italy
- Antiphoners, in Latin (twelve leaves from three(?) different
sets of Franciscan(?) volumes)
Italy, Pisa; mid and late 14th century
- Dante, Divine Comedy, in Italian
North Italy,
Genoa(?); 14th century, third quarter
- Fragments of polyphonic music: mass-settings, in Latin,
Italian and French
Italy; late 14th-century
Miscellaneous 14th-century manuscripts
Late 14th to early 15th century
England
- Roger Dymmock, Liber contra duodecim haereses et errores
Lollardorum, in Latin and English
England; c. 1400
15th century
England
- Private prayers and Offices, Use of Sarum, in Latin, with
instructions to the illuminator in English
Northern England; early 15th
century
- Psalter and Missal excerpts, in Latin ('The Whetenal
Psalter')
England; early 15th century, with additions
- Fragment of a choirbook containing polyphonic music (Agnus
dei), in Latin
England; 15th century, c. 1420-30
- Fragments of polyphonic music, in English, French, and Latin
England; 15th century, first half
- Psalter and prayers, in Latin and English
England; 15th
century, second half
- Nicholas Upton, De studio militari, in Latin
England; 15th century, second half
- Treatises on Heraldry, in Latin and English
England; 15th
century, second half
- Missal, Use of Sarum ('The Closworth Missal')
England;
15th century, third quarter
Miscellaneous 15th-century English
manuscripts
France
- Book of Hours, Use of Angers, in Latin
France, Angers(?);
15th century, c. 1470s
Germany
Miscellaneous 15th-century German
manuscripts
Italy
- Cicero, Letters, in Latin
Italy, North-east,
Ferrara(?); 15th century, first half
- Hugo de Prato florido, Sermons, in Latin
Italy,
Parma, the Dominican convent; dated 1439
Written by Johannes Bellus of
Ferrara
- Jerome, Epistolae morales et ad mulieres destinate, in
Latin
Italy, Padua; 15th century, c. 1450-60
- Boccaccio, Decameron, in Italian
Italy, Ferrara;
c. 1467
Illuminated by Taddeo Crivelli for Teofilo Calcagnini
- Old Testament Books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and
Ecclesiasticus, in Latin
Italy, Venice(?); 15th century,
c. 1470-80
Miscellaneous 15th-century Italian
manuscripts
The Netherlands
- Book of Hours (single leaves from), in Latin
Holland;
15th century, c. 1420-30
- Book of Hours, in Dutch
The Netherlands, Utrecht
diocese(?); 15th century, second quarter
- Missal, Use of Utrecht, in Latin
The Netherlands,
Utrecht; mid 15th century
- Psalter-Hours, in Dutch
Holland, Haarlem?; 15th century,
c. 1460-70
- Book of Hours, in Dutch
North Holland;15th century,
c. 1465-70
- Thomas à Kempis,Various works, in Latin
The
Netherlands; 15th century, second half
- Book of Hours, in Dutch
The Northern Netherlands,
Enkhuisen(?); 15th century, after 1471
- Bridgettine Breviary, in Latin
The Netherlands, North
Brabant; late 15th century
Miscellaneous 15th-century
Netherlandish manuscripts
Late 15th to early 16th century
England
- Commonplace book of Humphrey Newton (1466-1536), of Pownall,
Cheshire, in Latin and English
England; 15th and 16th centuries
Including calligraphic alphabets, and drawings.
France
- Book of Hours, in Latin and French
France, Rouen; late
15th or early 16th century
The Netherlands
- Hours of the Holy Spirit and prayers, in Latin with English
rubrics
Made in Flanders for an English patron; late 15th or early 16th
century
Miscellaneous late 15th to early
16th century manuscripts
16th century
England
- Founders' and benefectors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey, in Latin
England, Tewkesbury; 16th century, first quarter
Miscellaneous 16th-century
manuscripts
17th century
- 'Tradescant's Orchard': watercolours of garden fruits,
arranged roughly by date of ripening; made perhaps in association with the
elder John Tradescant
17th century, 1620s?
Catalogue information
In cases where there
is no official published Library catalogue description for one of these
manuscripts, such a description is currently being prepared. In these cases, as
an interim measure, we have provided skeletal 'checklist' information, which
includes a bibliography that will direct users to sources of further details.
Bodleian filmstrips
The 35 mm.
filmstrips or slides from which these images are scanned derive mostly from a
stock of more than 30,000 images, as published by the Bodleian Library over the
last forty years or so.
The core of the slides and filmstrips collection — all the images of medieval
and Renaissance manuscripts belonging to the Bodleian, but excluding those of non-Bodleian
manuscripts, later manuscripts, printed books, etc. — was digitized more recently
in a project funded by ARTsstor, and is now alteratively available through the LUNA browser
in the collection named 'Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts (from 35mm)' as listed at
http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/digitalimagelibrary/index.html.
This website duplicates most but not all of the images presented above.
Image captions
The captions accompanying
the images are mostly taken from handlists prepared over the decades by a
number of staff and volunteers to accompany the published filmstrips. They are
intended to serve here as a guide to content of the images, but have not been
systematically rechecked.
Image quality
Since most of the images
presented here have been scanned from the Library's stock of existing slides
and filmstrips; their quality is not always up to the highest standards of new
photography. Nonetheless, it is hoped that even the scans from the oldest
filmstrips will provide users with a great deal of further material for visual
reference, in a convenient form. Users who require higher quality images may
order photographs in the normal way: see the
Imaging
Services page.
Sometimes two or more thumbnails may show the same subject. Such
apparent duplicates are included for archival purposes: they will derive from
shots of the same item, taken at different times, and may therefore show
differences of lighting, colour contrast and general quality.
Image editing software has been used to 'sharpen' the thumbnail images,
and to reduce the number of colours each thumbnail contains to a maximum of
256; but no manipulation of the larger images has been performed. Users may use
their own imaging software to alter features such as the the brightness,
contrast, or colour-balance of the images, for purposes of private study.
The images were scanned from existing 35 mm. transparencies using a
Nikon LS-2000 slide scanner, at a resolution of 2,700 dpi, in 24-bit colour,
which produces an uncompressed TIFF image file a little under 30MB in size. The
shelfmark, folio reference, and copyright notice were then added to each file
manually using Adobe Photoshop, and saved as an uncompressed TIFF. A batch
process using Photoshop creates the JPEG compressed files.
Note that the apparent quality of the images as viewed on-screen is in
part dependent upon the quality of the monitor used to view them, and the
apparent colour-values are likewise dependent on whether the monitor has been
correctly calibrated, and on the ambient lighting conditions of the room.
Image sizes
The JPEG thumbnail images on the
linked pages are 200 pixels in length along their longest side, use no more
than 256 colours, and the files are each about 15-20KB in size. Clicking on
each of these images will load a larger version, 500 pixels in length.
The larger versions of each image, respectively 500, 1000, and 1500
pixels along the long side, can be viewed by clicking on the 'Small', 'Medium',
and 'Large' links beneath each caption. The images of 500 pixel-length are each
about 50-100 KB in size; the 1000 pixel ones about 200-350 KB, and the 1500
pixel ones are about 500-750 KB. We recommend that users start by selecting the
smaller sizes before attempting to download the larger ones, since the latter
may seem slow to load: this will depend on the speed of each user's internet
connection and computer system.
Western
manuscripts to c. 1500
Western
manuscripts
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Page created December 1999 by PJK; last
modified 19 October 2009 by LwM.
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