It is generally believed that the first reference to the Bible of St. Louis can be found in the second will and testament of
Alfonso the Wise, of January 10, 1284. This will mentioned an “illuminated Bible in three volumes, given to us by king Louis of France". The will was written in Spanish. The original was lost, but an early copy reads as follows: "E mandamos otrosi, que las dos biblias et tres libros de letra gruesa, cobiertas de plata, é la otra en tres libros estoriada que nos dió el rey Luis de Francia, é la nuestra tabla con las reliquias, e las coronas con las piedras é con los camafeos é sortijas, é otras nobles que perteneçen al Rey, que lo aya todo aquel que con derecho por nos heredare el nuestro señorío mayor de Castilla é León". Shortly after the death of Alfonso his wills were translated into
Latin and the original translations are still available. The ‘Louis of France’ mentioned in the will might theoretically be
Louis VIII of France, but considering that Alfonso was only five years old at the death of Louis VIII it is unlikely that the King Louis he referred to was Louis VIII, so the will must have meant Louis IX.
Fernando III, Alfonso's father, was a cousin of Louis IX and there were close links between the French and the
Castilian royalties. Whether the three-volume historiated Bible mentioned in the will was in Seville or Toledo when the will was drafted, we can only guess. According to a note in the
Historia Ecclesiastica de Toledo by
Jerónimo Román de la Higuera, Alfonso had also left his possessions that were in Toledo at that time to his rightful successor, in a document apart from the will written in Seville. Toledo was occupied in 1284 by
Sancho, the rebellious son of Alfonso. The fact that the three-volume historiated Bible was separately mentioned in the will written in Seville could mean that it was in the possession of Alfonso at that time. Alfonso seemed to have reconciled with Sancho before his death and thus Sancho became the rightful successor, and the Bible was therefore probably in his possession. From this, one might conclude that the Bible ended up in the Cathedral of Toledo only after the death of Alfonso in 1284, perhaps as a donation from Sancho. If the Bible mentioned in the will is indeed the ‘Bible of St. Louis’, there is still the question of when it came to Spain. Since Alfonso was crowned king during the participation of Louis IX on the
seventh Crusade, one can suspect that the manuscript arrived in Spain after 1254. This was indeed a busy period in the dynastic relations between Spain and France. However, the Rich Bible was already described in 1466 by Gabriel Tetzel, a patrician from Nuremberg. Another testimony is the Osuna Bible, now kept in Madrid, which was copied from the Bible of St. Louis at the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th century. The text of this Osuna Bible ends at the Apocalypse of John, XIX: 15–16, like volume 3 of the Toledo Bible. This means that the Morgan fragment had already been removed from the Toledo Bible at that time. This so-called Morgan fragment, which contains the authorship miniature, was owned by François de la Majorie, Seigneur des Granges et de la Majorie, around 1593. His coat of arms was painted on folio 1. The coat of arms in question was used from 1593 onwards, after his marriage to Anne de Turenne. The work stayed in the family and in 1838 it was owned by Alois de Chievres (1828–1904), who left it to his son in law the Vicomte George Marie Louis de Hillerin (1842–1892). It then passed to Otto Weiner. Morgan bought it from Louis Badin, a Parisian bookseller, in 1906. == Patron ==