Book III, The elevation at Mass
Fitzwilliam Mus. MS Marlay Cutting fr.2
Raymund de Peñafort, Decretals of Gregory IX
Single leaf cutting
Southern France, ca 1320–1340

Image reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Book III of the Decretals is entitled ‘On the Life and Honesty of the Clergy’ and is illustrated by a miniature of a priest celebrating Mass at the moment of the elevation with kneeling laymen and clerics at a lectern behind him. The figure style and ornament suggests that the book from which this leaf was excised was made in Southern France although not clearly associated with Toulouse which was the major centre in that region for producing canon law books. The commentary text surrounding the Decretals text, as for the previous items, is by Bernardo Botone of Parma (d. 1266). His was the standard commentary on the Decretals of Gregory IX, often called the Glossa ordinaria.