John Scotus Eriugena, translation of the ps.-Dionysian corpus

Title

John Scotus Eriugena, translation of the ps.-Dionysian corpus

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 128

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xii in.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (HSOS/HFFH).

Physical extent

Fols. xv + 239 (numbered fols. 1–237, xvi, xvii) + iv (numbered fols. xviii–xxi).

Hands

Written in carolineby a variety of scribes, with frequent shifts among them. Punctuation usually by pointonly, but one scribe, responsible for fols. 97–143, shows a very large repertoire: point, middle point , high point, punctus interrogativus, and punctus versus(many examples of this mark later corrections).

Decoration

Headings in red, usually in rustic capitals.

The introductory quire and the head of the first main text elaborately polychromatic with alternating lines of red, blue, and green ink at incipits.

The last two texts are headed by 6-line arabesque initials in red and green, the second with a later head drawn in.

At minor divisions, red, blue, green, purple, and gold 1- and 2-line arabesque initials, without flourishing but sometimes a dot of a contrasting colour.

On fol. 9v at the head of the first text, a 7-line O containing Christ nimbed, standing on the heads of two dragons, holding a Greek cross and a book.

Some later initia were to receive similar treatments but are now either blank (fol. 187v) or were filled in later (fols. 53, 111v).

See AT, no. 11 (4) and plate ii (fol. 9v).

Binding

Brown leather over wood, s. xv ex., with stamps associable with ‘the Floral Binder’, active in Oxford 1477–96; see Oldham, 22–3. The punches are Oldham, plate xviii, nos. 167 and 173. Graham Pollard identifies ‘the Floral Binder’ with a Thomas Uffington of Oxford in ‘The Names of Some English Fifteenth-Century Binders’, The Library5th ser. 25 (1970), 193–218 at 210. Sewn on five thongs, taken straight into the board and staggered, as in Pollard’s figure 4 . Remains of seats for straps and clasps. Gold ‘128’ at the head of the spine, in black ink on the leading edge, along with indication of contents (s. xvii): ‘Dionys Areopag Hierarch | Bemen ..... | Beda ..... ‘ and the old shelfmark ‘L iii’. Pastedowns old vellum, blank; a College bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, fifteen vellum flyleaves (most early modern, the last two certainly medieval); at the rear; four more medieval vellum flyleaves (xviii–xxi), of which the first three are the first three leaves of a quire, but fol. xxi single, pasted to the rear pastedown. On the back pastedown a note of repairs ‘by Mr. Fifield of the Bodleian Library 4 October 1968’.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegii Sancti Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ Ex dono Johannis Marshameiusdem Collegij Convictoris 1621’ (fol. 2, upper margin).

Provenance

‘aquilonali parte Autem’ (fol. xviiv, s. xii 3/4, perhaps the opening of a text?).

Washed additions in a later hand (fols. xix, xxv, xxi, s. xiii ex.).

A contents list with only three items, all the ps.-Dionysian items a single entry (fol. xvv, s. xiv in.).

Pen-trials, including ‘honorificabilitudinitatibus’ (twice) (fol. xxiv, all s. xv in.).

‘2° fo predicti patris’ (the front pastedown, s. xv).

Initial entries for an index (fols. i–ii, s. xv/xvi).

Notes on contents (the rear pastedown, s. xvi in.).

Notes by WHS, 5 May 1916, on the book, with the old shelfmark ‘Abac: ij N°. 11’ (the front pastedown).