Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue (review)

Abstract

Reviews 179 scholars had only a limited understanding of German and knew his work only through reviews and summaries. Brush notes that Goldschmidt and Voge had no effect whatsoever on art historical scholarship in Britain or America prior to World War I. By the 1920s Voge had retired to a life of solitude after a nervous breakdown, and Goldschmidt's scholarly profile was public and international. The English speaking world was catching up too, with scholars such as Fred H. Crossley and Arthur Gardner, both specialists on tomb sculpture. Reading The Shaping ofArt History is a fascinating historical and intellectual journey through a very different world which is not so far removed from now. Brush's prose is elegant and the book i s very enjoyable to read, bringing little-knownfiguresto life and making their pioneering scholarly efforts seem fresh and new. Carole M. Cusack School ofStudies in Religion University ofSydney Budny, Mildred, Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustr Catalogue, Kalamazoo, Medieval Institute Publications, 1997,2 vols, cloth; pp. civ, 868; 747 b / w plates, 16 colour plates; R.R.P. US$300.00. Matthew Parker had previously been Bible Clerk and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge w h e n Henry VIII recommended him for the mastership in 1544. H e remained in that position until 1553 w h e n the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor l e f t him, as a committed Reformer and a married priest, out of favour. Five years later with Elizabeth on the throne, Parker hoped 180 Reviews to return to his position as Master at Corpus, but instead the new queen chose him to be Archbishop of Canterbury and there he remained until his death in 1575. O n e of the m a n y difficulties he faced as archbishop was establishing the structure and authority of the Church of England, its position in history and its doctrine. In 1568 the Privy Council authorised Archbishop Parker to try to collect manuscripts which had been dispersed w h e n the great monastic houses and libraries had been broken up. It was thought that these manuscripts might provide records of the history of the English church and state, and in particular, might enable the Elizabethan Church of England to claim historical justification for some of its differences from the R o m a n church. In fact they did— Parker and his assistants, through careful study of the manuscripts, were able to show, for instance, that the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, the marriage of priests, and the interpretation of the eucharist as figurative all had precedents in the Anglo-Saxon Church. Although the Privy Council had allowed for the return of the manuscripts if the owners wished them back, many apparently went unclaimed, for at Parker's death there were more than 400 manuscripts in his collection. Most of these he left to Corpus Christi, his former college, under the terms of an indenture which limited access to the manuscripts to a few members of three Cambridge colleges only and stipulated that the entire collection was to pass to Caius College if six folio manuscripts or eight quarto or twelve smaller format ones were lost. The penalty has had the intended effect: Parker's great collection has remained intact even though the College has relaxed somewhat his strict rules on who may have access to the manuscripts. Still it is not a collection to which it is easy to gain access, and readers in the Parker Library have never been able to browse through the volumes lining the walls. Reviews 181 These two superbly produced volumes will give m a n y frustrated readers that chance to browse through and study at least part of that collection. A s the former Parker Librarian R. I. Page notes in his introduction, the Parker Library has a number of important collections: 'medieval chronicles, early French texts, Romanesque Bibles, incunabula, Reformation manuscripts and documents on the early history of the Church of England' (p. 25). This new illustrated catalogue focuses on what he describes as 'one of its greatest...