Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/499

to have been in the possession of Miulbrigid Mac Diinmn, or Mielbrigid the son of Diunan, Abbot of Derry and Bishop of Armagh, who deceased about 9:37/ 'I'he Library also possesses a priceless copy of the Apocalypse, of the end of the thii-teenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, and comprising seventy -eight delicately yet brilliantly coloured drawings of the ])riiicipal scenes in the Revelation, heightened in many instances by resplendeutly gilded back-gi'ounds. We have examined this wonderful MS., and admire especially the grandeiu' of its pictured angels. The courtesy of the Arciil)ishop enables us to present the reader with a faithfid reproduction of the design of one of the above series of paint- ings, which represents St. John falling down to worship the Angel, and has, in the original, a background of deep blue, and a broad border of burnished gold. At the end of the Apocalypse are twenty-eight pictures, inferior perhaps, in some respects, to those which precede them, and by a diflerent hand, but singularly weird and striking ; and at the beginning of the volume the arclucologist will be delighted to find a full-lengtli painting of an attenuated tonsured monk, vested in a black gown with hanging sleeves, who is busied in colouring a statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child, which stands on the sculi)tured capital of a short pillar or pedestal. Of the .Vissrr/, the Lambeth collection contains but one (a French) copy worthy of special mention. It is of the use of the Church of Limoges, and of the second half of the fifteenth century. Of the Breviavi/, the Library has a splendid example, which formerly belonged to Archbishop Chichele. It is a folio MS., adorned with numerous very delicate small miniatures, capital letters, and elegant borders, by an English artist earh' in the fifteenth century. Of the Gradual,^ it possesses one fine specimen, well written, with ^ A MS. ni)te upon the fly-leaf, says Mr. Kcr.'ihaw, further recorda, "Tins book was a present frota King Athel.stan to the City of Canterbury." In it arc placed three entries in "Saxon." The first of these is very curious as being a letter from Wulfstan, Archbishop of York to King Canute, and perhaps the earHcst one of the kind known. The translation of it is as follows : '• Wulfstjui, Archbi.sbop, greets Cnut King his Lord, and Aelfgyfe the Queen humbly. And I make known to you two, liege, that we have done even as the certificate came to us from you with regard to Bishop Aethelnoth : that we have now conse- crated him. Now pray I for God's love and for all God'.s Saints that ye show respect unto God and to the Holy Order. That he may be deemed worthy of those possessions that others were before him, nninely Dunstan the (lood and many another: that he may be also thought worthy of right'i and honours. And thus it may be fur both of you profitable be- fore God and eke honourable before the world." Aethelnoth was consecrated Arch- bishop of Canterbury on the 13th of November, 1020. ^ The Gradual or Gradale (the Grayel, Graiel, Greyle, &c., of English Monastic Inventories, Wills, and other documents) " is so called," says Mr. Kershaw, "from the dc'jrces contained in it." This de6ni- tion is insufficient and obscure. The origin of the term Gratlual in its relation to the class of Office book so named, is due to the circumstance that those Volumes contain inter alia, the anthems sung after the Epistle in the Com- munion Service (when rendered cho- rally) of the Roman Churcli, which are called (jradalia from an ancient custom which once prevailed of chanting them on the Gradus, i.e. steps of the Ambo or pulpit, in which the Epistle used to be recited. Lyndwode's gloss upon the term is, '^ Orndnle, sic dictum a Gradali- bus in tali libro contentis. Stricte tamen ponitur Gradale pro eo quod gra- datim ponitur post Epistolam : hie tamen jionitur pro I.ibro integro in quo contineri drbent Officium aspersionis Aquae bene- dicta), Missarum inchoationes, sive officia, Kyrie, cum versibus, Gloria in excelsis, Gradalia, &c."