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[Bulla]
Title: Bulla [Epistolae et privilegium. "Quotiens illud a nobis" ].
Origin: Notarized at Ferentino, Italy,11 January 1174/75.
Description: Manuscript on thick parchment. Broadside. 70 x 53 cm. Single column of 30 lines. Textblock: 42 x 45 cm. Seal wanting.
Comments: This large bull was written in brown ink in fine chancery script. The signatures appear in three columns, with one line of subscription by the notary Gratianus. First line of salutation appears in elongated ornamental script; with rota diagram and papal monogram. This bull granted papal protection to the wealthy Benedictine Abbey of St. Pierre at Méobecq (today in the Department of Indre, France) confirming its possessions within the dioceses of Bourges and Tours. The abbey, which claimed the seventh-century Saint Cyran as its founder, depended both financially and administratively upon the archbishops of Bourges and Tours, and had a history of jurisdictional disputes that was ended by Alexander III’s bull of confirmation. The abbey was dissolved during the French Revolution. The verso of the bull carries three French library notations dating from the fifteenth century forward. Transcription of text on file.
Decoration: Papal monogram.
Provenance: (1) Abbey of St. Pierre, Méobecq 1174-1789. (2) Louis-Alphonse Savary, third Marquis de Lancosme (1750-1820), 1791-1820. (3) Madame Marie-Louise Marguerite Savary de Lancosme-Breves, the Comtesse de Lambert (1840-1909), 1920-?. (4) Marquis Charles de Lambert (1865-1944) sold c.1931. (5) Bernard Breslauer, London, 4 August, 1964. (6) Bernard Rosenthal, New York, 1964. (7) Purchased with funds granted by Mr. J. S. Bridwell and Mrs. Margaret Bridwell Bowdle, 1964.
Bibliography:
Eugene Hubert, La Bas-Berry, Histoire et archéologie du départment de l’Indre, 3eme fascicule. Canton de Buzançais, Paris, 1908, pp. 489-522.
Marcia Kupfer, Romanesque Wall Painting in Central France: The Politics of Narrative New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 175-178.
Henri Stein, “La Dédicace de l’église abbatiale de Méobecq en 1048,” in: Centennaire de la Société National des Antiquaires de France, Recueil de Mémoires. Paris, 1904, pp. 417-422.
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