The New York Public Library

Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

THE PETWORTH MANUSCRIPT OF "GRACE DIEU" OR "THE PIL

NOV 2 7 1928

PRINTED AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

form p5 [xi-12-28 17c]

Τ

HE Bulletin is published monthly by The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and Forty Street, New York City. Subscription $1.00 a year, current single numbers 10 cents. Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter, February 10, 1897, under Act of July 16, 1894. Act for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized. Pri The New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street. November, 1928. Volume 32, Number

BULLETIN OF

The New York Public Library

Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

VOLUME 32

NOVEMBER, 1928

NUMBER 11

THE PETWORTH MANUSCRIPT OF "GRACE DIEU” OR "THE PILGRIMAGE OF THE SOUL"

An English Illuminated Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century

BY VICTOR HUGO PALTSITS

HE fine manuscript here described takes its name from its last owner, the Right Honourable Lord Leconfield, of Petworth House, Sussex, England. It was recently acquired by the Library for the William Augustus Spencer Collection of Illustrated Books. Our researches have brought to light the history of the provenance of the manuscript from the time of its production in the second. quarter of the fifteenth century.

THE PROVENANCE OF THE MANUSCRIPT: Fortunately this manuscript has on flyleaves inscriptions of fifteenth and sixteenth century origin indicative of early ownership. A research excursion for the identification of these persons and so establishing the successive ownership has been fruitful beyond expectations. The earliest inscription is on the verso of the first fiyleaf, thus: "Liber dñs Thome comorworth militio." This is Sir Thomas Cumberworth of Somerby, near Glamford Briggs, co. Lincoln, who was the son and heir of Robert de Cumberworth of Somerby and Stayne-in-the-Marsh, and his wife, the daughter and heiress of Sir William Ergham, of Ergham, co. York. Sir Thomas Cumberworth, Knt., was high sheriff in 1415 and again in 1431; and he was in the parliaments of 1420, 1421, and 1424 as the representative of his county. On one of the chimes, still extant, which he presented to Somerby Church, there is the inscription: "Dñs Tomas Cvmberworth," etc., with the year 1431.- Peacock, Edward. English Church Furniture (London, 1866), p. 180-181 (note). Sir Thomas made a will on February 15, 1450 (O. S.), in which he calls himself "Thomas