MS. Laud Lat. 45

Decoration

Decorated, inhabited and historiated initials in two styles (in gold or gold, crimson and green on a blue ground, fols. 1r-38v; in green, blue, red and other colours on gold and coloured grounds, fols. 73v-end) (cf. Pächt and Alexander i. 484, pl. XXXIX). The initial on fols. 38r contains part of the text; the unfinished initial on fol. 2r was also intended to do so, and it seems to have been intended that all initials would follow suit. In fact the later initials fill the whole space left for them, so that the incipits of the Biblical texts are frequently incomplete (e.g. fol. 88v 'P⟨aulus apostolus non⟩ ab hominibus', fol. 131r, 'P⟨aulus apostolus⟩ Ihesu Christi'; fol. 137r, 'P⟨aulus⟩ vinctus'; the exceptions are fols. 73v, 109v, 114r, 119r, 122r, 138r).

12-line historiated initial P, fol. 38r, on a blue ground: the apostle Paul, seated with open book; the bowl of the P formed by a dragon whose tail is the trunk of a tree; the opening text of the Epistle in decorative majuscules on the blue ground.

Large (c. 10-16 line) decorated or inhabited initials at the beginning of Biblical books (fols. 1v, 2r, ground unfinished, 73v, 88v, 99v, 109v, 114r, 119r, 122r, 124r, 131r, 134r, 137r, 138r; curtain surviving at 99v, traces of other curtains e.g. fols. 131r, 137r, 138r); smaller (5-6) line initials at corresponding sections of the gloss or minor divisions of the Biblical text (fols. 38r, 73v, 88r-v, 99v, 109r-v, 114r (inhabited), 118v, 119r, 121v, 122r, 124r, 131r, 134r, 136v).