Rimako Itoh

The Decoration of the Cambron Speculum Manuscripts of Vincent of Beauvais.

(Rimako Itoh conducted research at The Bakken in the summer of 2001 and in September, 2002).

Parts of a set of the Speculum Maius manuscripts of Vincent of Beauvais are kept in two libraries in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Two volumes of the Speculum historiale are in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, and two volumes of the Speculum naturale are in the Bakken Library (illustrations shown above and below are from the Bakken Speculum). The original set consisted of seven volumes, four Historiale and three Naturale. All seven came from the Cistercian monastery of Cambron in Belgium; all are dated as late thirteenth century (1). These manuscripts have no historiation but the large initials are decorated by nonfigurative motifs (below, large initial R). Their decoration was studied by Prof. Alison Stones in 1977 (2).

I had been studying the monochrome type of Cistercian manuscript illumination of the twelfth century. I first saw the Minnesota Speculum manuscripts when I stayed in Minneapolis in 2000-2001 and wondered whether they showed a Cistercian tradition or not, and under what artistic circumstances they were produced. I began looking at manuscripts related to the Minnesota-Cambron Speculum, including those at the Collège de Bonne-Espérence in Belgium. In a note about them in the Vincent of Beauvais Newsletter (VBN), XXVI (2001), Prof. Stones attributed their pen-flourishing to the Cambron decorator (3).

Here are my current thoughts about the materials that I have seen up to now. The Cambron manuscripts, dated around the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century, including the Minnesota Speculum volumes, have the same style of decoration of pen-flourished initials with nonfigurative motifs. Comparing the Bonne Espérence volumes to the Minnesota volumes, I found slight differences in the Bonne Espérence volumes. They are more freehanded than the Cambron manuscripts and have motifs not seen in the Cambron volumes.

I studied another Speculum manuscript (MS. BR II 1063, Bibiliothèque Royale de Bruxelles), from the Cistercian Monastery of Aulne in Belgium, which is also decorated in the same type of nonfigurative motifs. However, it does not show so close a similarity to the Cambron volumes as the Bonne Espérance volumes (4). These monasteries are in the vicinity of Cambron.

At the end of the thirteenth century, the Monastery of Cambron was known to be enthusiastic about academic works, especially during the period of the abbacy of Boudouin de Boussou (1288-1293), a scholar who studied at the University of Paris with Thomas Aquinas. From these facts, I would assume that Cambron played an important role in the production of Speculum works in this region at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century.

I am continuing to investigate the development and the variations of the style of decoration discussed here in the manuscripts of Cambron and the surrounding region (5). I would like to know how the Speculum was received at that time at Cambron and at other monasteries in Belgium.

Lastly I would like to express my gratitude to the two libraries in Minneapolis. The Minnesota volumes led me to think about the Speculum of Vincent of Beauvais and its reception in the monasteries of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

(1) Volume 1 of the Historiale is Bibiliothèque Royale de Bruxelles, BR II 941. Volumes 2 and 4 are in the James Ford Bell Library. Volume 3 is missing. Volumes 1 and 2 of the Naturale are in the Bakken Library; volume 3 is the British Library, Add. 15583. Also see Robert Plancke, Les catalogues de manuscrits de l’ancienne Abbaye de Cambron, Mons et Frameries, 1938.

(2) Alison Stones, “The Minnesota Vincent of Beauvais Manuscript and Cistercian Thirteenth-Century Book Decoration”, The James Ford Bell Lectures, 1977, No.14, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. See also Gregory G. Guzman, “The Cambron Manuscript of the Speculum historiale”, Manuscripta, XIII (1969), 95-104, and “Another Volume of the Cambron Manuscript of Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum historiale”, Scriptorium, XXXVII (1983), 112-119.

(3) Alison Stones, “A Note on Some Re-discovered Vincent of Beauvais Volumes”, VBN, XXVI (2001), 10-13. There was also an earlier brief Note about these volumes; see “New Speculum Manuscripts”, VBN, XXIV (1999), 3. I would like to express my gratitude to Freddy Bourlard, the president of the Collège de Bonne-Espèrence, who allowed me to examine the manuscripts at his school. The manuscripts attributed to the Cambron-Minnesota Speculum decorator are listed in Alison Stones, (1977), 35-36; they are originally listed in Plancke, (1938). Of these, I have seen the manuscripts at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels, at the British Library in London, and a cutting at St. John’s University at Collegeville, Minnesota (the Kacmarcik collection, Arca Artium).

(4) One folio of a fourteenth century Speculum historiale from the monastery of Cîteaux (fol. 48v, BR 17970, Bibliothèque Royale de Bruxelles) has a similar pen-flourished initial.

(5) Recently, I found that there is a manuscript decorated with the same type of initials and with two illuminations. (MS. Bethune 2, Breviary-Missal. Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota.)

An oral version of this study, accompanied by numerous clarifying slides, was presented at the 37th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 3, 2002. It also appears in the Vincent of Beauvais Newsletter, XXVII (2002), 2-4. (Gregory G.. Guzman, Ed.)

Rimako Itoh
Meiji University, Japan
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