Crispin 12 is a missal, a service book containing texts for performing the mass, copied in France in the mid 1400s for John III de la Rochefoucauld, bishop of Mende and thirtieth abbot of St. Amant-de-Boixe, in the diocese of Angoulême. De la Rochefoucauld’s arms, or a cross gules, supported by two angels, appears in the lower margin of the image below.
This illumination depicting the symbols of the Evangalists, based on John’s vision in the Apocolypse–Matthew as Man, Mark as Lion, Luke as Ox, John as Eagle– along with another full-page illumination of the crucifixion of Christ, comprise a bifolium that was added to the manuscript in the early 1600s.
The Crispin Collection of exquisite examples of early bookmaking and fine binding was given to Honnold Library by Dr. Egerton Crispin during the 1950s and early 1960s. Nearly fifty Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, including 12th century sermons, 13th century Bibles, 14th and 15th century books of hours, missals, psalters and antiphonals are among the contents of the Crispin Collection.
Denison Library on the Scripps College campus, and the library at the Claremont School of Theology also hold significant collections of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. These collections are cataloged definitively in Dutschke and Rouse, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Claremont Libraries (University of California Press, 1986), call number Z 6621 .H5814 1986