Single very large leaf, with double column of 22 lines in a rounded English gothic bookhand (with Proverbs 12:21-13:23) with significant lateral compression of lines, capitals touched in hairline penwork, running titles and versal numbers in blue and red, paraph mark in gold in blue and pink grounds, one large illuminated initial on similarly bi-coloured grounds with foliage picked out in white hairline brushwork, and with fleshy foliate terminals emerging from head and foot into the margins, Early Modern foliation '12' at upper outer corner of recto, small spots and stains, slightly cockled, small marks on reverse from old mounts, else good condition, 450 by 300mm
The parent volume of this leaf was dispersed by Winifred Myers (1909-1985) of Bond Street, London, and appears originally to have been part of a four volume set. The initial volume perhaps survives as London, British Library, MS. Royal I.E.IV. Stylistic links between the style of the decoration here and other manuscripts made for the Bohun family, earls of Hereford, whose main estates were in East Anglia, have been made (L. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285-1385, 1986, no. 132). Other leaves from the parent manuscript in the Bodleian (MS. Bib. Lat.b.4) include ex libris marks of three Early Modern Cheshire families, and these have led to connections being made to the Benedictine Priory of St. Radegund's, Cambridge (suppressed in 1496 to establish Jesus College), and most recently the Carmelite Friary in Chester. A list of the surviving leaves known in 1989 was published by C. de Hamel in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections, 1989, pp. 93-95, and in an updated form by the same author in 'The Bohun Bible Leaves', in Script & Print, Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia & New Zealand, 32 (2008), pp. 49-63
