Alain of Lille (c.1128-1202/03)
De Sex Alis Cherubim, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France, c.1200]
An early witness to Alain of Lille’s text on the symbolical significance of the feathers of the Seraphim.

162 x 139mm. A gathering of 4 leaves, the text consecutive, from ‘[...] manifestat satisfactio curat’ to ‘de radice bonae voluntatis proferre conspiciunt’ (Migne, PL, 210, 177-179), 22 lines in a rounded gothic hand, blind-ruled, prickings survive (recovered from a binding, with the text of the first and last leaf very faded and rubbed, some staining and wormholing).

Provenance:
Colker MS 76; acquired in 1965 from Maggs.

The object of this confessional opusculum, generally attributed to the French poet and theologian Alain of Lille, or Alanus de Insulis, is to attribute a symbolical significance to every feather in the six wings of the Seraphim (not, as the title would erroneously have it, the Cherubim). Curiously, the author conflates the cherubim with the seraphim in his text too, particularly when he speaks of the visions of Isaiah (seraphs) and of Ezekiel (cherubs) as if pertaining to one and the same choir of angels.

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