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Description: | In the late middle ages, Dominican and Franciscan monks developed the skill of preaching to a high degree. They were responding to the spiritual needs of a growing lay population--country people and city-dwellers, literate and illiterate--who needed more direct contact with the church. Nicholas of Gorran, a 13th-century Dominican based in Paris, was one of the greatest experts on delivering the meaning of the bible to the laity. He wrote the commentaries on the gospels, catholic epistles and revelations copied in this manuscript, which would have been used by other preachers to compose sermons in English. It belonged, according to inscriptions in it, to the collegiate church and hospital of St Thomas of Acon (or Acre) in Cheapside, London. Founded about 1190 in memory of Thomas Becket by his sister, Agnes, the hospital was bought after the Reformation by the Mercers' Company, who built their Hall and Chapel on the site.
Each gospel commentary begins with a prologue: this page has the beginning of the prologue for the one on John. The scratches and marks in the margins indicate how much it was used: Nicholas of Gorran's commentaries were still being published in the 17th century. The word in the left margin corrects an error, and the small letters in the lower right corner are aids for assembly of the manuscript. | License: | http://www.bl.uk/services/copy/permission.html | Rights holder: | British Library | Source: | Collect Britain | Identifier: | http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personal... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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