Rare Books and Special Collections: The Medieval Book - NIU - University Libraries

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Rare Books and Special Collections: The Medieval Book

These are materials held in RBSC that serve as examples of the process of making (and selling) medieval manuscripts. Students have an opportunity to learn the proper handling of early materials. To request a class visit, please email the Curator.

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The Real Thing

Medieval Manuscript Leaves

These illuminated leaves, encased in mylar for safe handling, provide a glimpse into manuscript production for a variety of works from 1150 to the early 1400s.

Vellum Manuscript, ca. 1200.

Rare Oversize PA8200.A1 .V444 1200A

This vellum manuscript, which was originally part of a binding, allows students to feel actual 13th century vellum, and to examine it close up without worry of damage to materials.


Available Facsimiles:

Our Newest Acquisition:

The Luttrell psalter : a facsimile / commentary by Michelle P. Brown. London : The British Library, 2006.

Fine Arts Collection ND3357.L8 L86 2006a


The Ellesmere Facsimile of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (1995 facsimile of ca. 1400 manuscript)

NIU's copy if this illuminated facsimile is bound in an early fifteenth-century-type binding of oak boards and quarter leather.

Rare Books Oversize PR1866 .W76 1995a

Please see below for other facsimile editions of the Canterbury Tales.


Vespasian psalter.

The Vespasian Psalter. British Museum, Cotton Vespasian AA.I. Ed. by David H. Wright. With a contribution on the gloss by Alistair Campbell. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 14.

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1967.

Rare Books Collection BX2033 .A4 1967

Known as the Vespasian psalter, the composite ms. contains the Psalms followed by a collection of various texts, some of them pertaining to Catholic liturgy. Latin and Anglo-Saxon; editorial matter in English.


Vercelli book.

The Vercelli Book : a late tenth-century manuscript containing prose and verse, Vercelli Biblioteca

Capitolare CXVII / edited by Celia Sisam. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 19.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger,1976.

Rare Books OversizePR1495 .A11976


Blickling homilies.

The Blickling homilies, the John H. Scheide library, Titusville, Pennsylvania. Edited by Rudolph Willard. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v.10.

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1960.

Rare Books Collection PR1590 .A11960


Catholic Church.

Psalter (Paris Psalter) The Paris psalter : Ms. Bibliothèque nationale fonds Latin 8824 / pref. by various contributors ; collected by Bertram Colgrave. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 8.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1958.

Rare Books CollectionPR1757 .P71958

Notes: "The Paris Psalter contains in the left hand column of each page a Latin text of the Psalter. For the first fifty psalms the right hand column gives a West-Saxonprose paraphrase, and forthe rest of the Psalter it is filled by an Anglo-Saxon metrical version."--p. 15.


Læce boc.

Bald's Leechbook (British Museum Royal manuscript 12D. xvii) Edited by C. E. Wright. With an appendix by Randolph Quirk. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 5.

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger; [Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press] 1955.

Rare Books CollectionZ115Z .L2


Beowulf.

The Thorkelin transcripts of Beowulf in facsimile. Edited
by Kemp Malone. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 1.

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1951.

Rare Books CollectionPR1580 .M31951


Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673-735.

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Anglo-Saxon.The Tanner Bede : the Old English version of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, Oxford Bodleian library Tanner 10, together with the mediaeval binding leaves, Oxford Bodleian library Tanner 10* and the Domitian extracts, London British Library Cotton Domitian A IX Fol. 11 /edited by Janet Bately. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 24.

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1992.

Rare Books Collection BR746 .B441992A


Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400.

Works. 1979.Poetical works : a facsimile of Cambridge University Library MS Gg. 4.27 / Geoffrey Chaucer ; with introductions by M. B. Parkes & Richard Beadle.

Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1979-

Rare Books Collection PR1850 1979


Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400.

The Ellesmere Chaucer reproduced in facsimile.Manchester, The University press, 1911.

Rare Books Oversize Z115 .ZC4


British Library. Manuscript. Cotton Tiberius B.V.

Pt. 1. An eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated miscellany : British Library Cotton Tiberius B.V. part I : together with leaves from British Library Cotton Nero D.II.edited by P. McGurk ... [et al.]. Early English manuscripts in facsimile ; v.21.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1983.

Rare Books OversizePR1500.C67 E41983A


Bakhaila M¯ik¯a`el.

The Book of the mysteries of the heavens and the earth and other works of Bakhayla Mîkâ`êl (Zôsîmâs); the Ethiopic texts edited from the unique manuscript (Éth. 37 Peiresc) in the Bibliothèque Nationale, with English translations by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge; with photo-lithographic reproductions of the texts.

London:Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1935.

Rare Books CollectionBX125 .B3


Jenkinson, Hilary, Sir.

The later court hands in England from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, illustrated from the Common paper of the Scriveners'Company of London, the English writing masters, and the public records.

New York: Ungar [1969]

Rare Books Oversize Z115.E5J57 1969


Rand, Edward Kennard, 1871- .

A survey of the manuscripts of Tours. The Mediaeval academy of America. Publication no.3. Studies in the script of Tours, 1.

Cambridge, Mass., Mediaeval Academy of America, 1929.

Rare Books CollectionZ115 .FR3


Bible. Manuscripts, Latin. O.T. Psalms.

The Stuttgart Psalter, Biblia folio 23, Wuerttembergische landesbibliothek, Stuttgart. Illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages.

[Princeton] Pub. for the Dept. of art and archaeology of Princeton university, 1930-

Rare Books Collection ND3357.S7 A3


Orosius, Paulus.

The Tollemache Orosius (British Museum Additional manuscript 47967) edited by Alistair Campbell. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 3.

Copenhagen:Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1953.

Rare Books CollectionPA6518 .O81953


Nowell codex.

The Nowell codex; British Museum Cotton Vitellius A. XV,second ms., edited by Kemp Malone.Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 12. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1963.

The Nowell codex contains five works: a fragment of an English life of St. Christopher, the Wonders of the East, Alexander's Letter to Aristotle, Beowulf, and Judith.

Rare Books Collection PR1505 .B7


Bible. N.T. Gospels. Latin. Durham Gospels.

The Durham Gospels together with fragments of a Gospel Book in uncial. Durham, Cathedral Library, MS A.II.17 edited by Christopher D. Verey, T. Julian Brown, Elizabeth Coatsworth ; with an appendix by Roger Powell. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 20.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1980.

Rare Books Collection BS2552.D8 V4

Facsimile of Latin Gospels in insular semi-uncials and minuscules probably written ca. 690 at Lindisfarne; with fragments of uncial Gospels probably written ca. 716 at Wearmouth. Some details of ornament in color. With commentaries in English on text, palaeography, decoration, binding, and restoration.


Author: Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673-735.

The Leningrad Bede; an eighth century manuscript of the Venerable Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in the Public Library, Leningrad. Edited by O. Arngart.Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 2.

Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1952.

Rare Books CollectionBR746 .B51953

Other Name: Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia biblioteka imeni M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina. Mss. (Lat. Q. v. I. 18)


The Copenhagen Wulfstan collection

Copenhagen Kongelige Bibliotek Gl. kgl. sam. 1595. Edited by James E.Cross, Jennifer Morrish Tunberg.Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 25.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger ; Baltimore : John Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Rare Books Oversize BX880 .C6641993A

Manuscript associated with Archbishop Wulfstan and bearing his annotations. Texts in Latin or Anglo-Saxon; commentary in English.


British Library. Manuscript. Stowe 944.

The Liber vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester : British Library Stowe 944, together with leaves from British Library Cotton Vespasian A. VIII and British Library Cotton Titus D. XXVII. Edited by Simon Keynes.Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 26.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1996.

Rare Books Collection Z115.E5 B7571996A

Manuscript text in Latin.


The Épinal, Erfurt, Werden, and Corpus glossaries. Edited by Bernhard Bischoff ... [et al.]. Early English manuscripts in facsimile. v. 22.

Copenhagen : Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1988.

Rare Books Collection PE274.A5 E641988A

Contents: Épinal Bibliothèque municipale 72 (2) -- Erfurt Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek Amplonianus 2° 42 -- Düsseldorf Universitätsbibliothek Fragm. K 19: Z 9/1 -- Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 187 III (e.4) --Cambridge Corpus Christi College 144.


Codex Colombino. [Mixtec hieroglyphic manuscript].

México:Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología,[1966].

Special CollectionsF1219.C637 X1966

Facsim. reproduction; original consists of 24 sections 20 x 26cm."Three Mixtec historical codices--Colombino, Bodley, and the Nuttall reverse--present the same general biography of the ruler 8-Deer." Issued in wooden case with volume of commentary and interpretation.


The Codex Mendoza.

Ed. by Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt.

Berkeley : University of California Press, c1992.

Special Collections F1219.56.C625 C641992A

Contents: v. 1. Interpretation of Codex Mendoza. -- v. 2. Description of Codex Mendoza. -- v. 3. A facsimile reproduction of Codex Mendoza. -- v. 4. Pictorial parallel image replicas of Codex Mendoza, with transcriptions and translations of the Spanish commentaries and translations of the Spanish glosses.

Vol. 1 contains revised versions of six papers originally presented at a symposium organized at the International Congress of Americanists held in Manchester, England.


Clovio, Giulio, 1498-1578.

The Farnese hours : the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York introduction and commentaries by Webster Smith.

New York : G. Braziller, [1976]

Book Arts Collection ND2895.N485 P5

Notes: Facsim. of the pages from ms. M 69, Pierpont Morgan Library, with illuminations by Giulio Clovio, ca. 1537-1546. In part with the text of the Hours in Latin.


Cloisters (Museum).

Les belles heures du Duc de Berry, introduction by James J. Rorimer ; notes by Margaret B. Freeman.

London : Thames and Hudson, [1959?]

Rare Books Collection ND3363.B5 N48 1959a


The Book of Kells : reproductions from the manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin with a study of the manuscript by Françoise Henry. 1st American ed. New York : Knopf, 1974.

Book Arts Collection Oversize ND 3359.B7 S8 1974

Notes: Issued in a slipcase. "126 colour plates, 75 monochrome illustrations." I


The Lorsch Gospels.

New York : George Braziller, Publisher, 1967.

Book Arts Collection Oversize BS 2552 L6 B713


Selected Medieval Manuscripts Links

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