Vulgate Bible

Title

Vulgate Bible

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 4

Place of origin

English

Date

s. xiii ex.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (HSOS/HFFH).

Physical extent

ii + 523 + ii (numbered iii–iv).

Hands

Written in gothic textura prescissa . Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus .

Decoration

Headings in red to identify texts, although many within individual books remain unfilled, especially in Psalms, sporadically in major prophets and in the New Testament.

Occasional marginal directions in anglicana.

At initia, 6-line red and blue lombards on red and blue flourishing with penwork extensions.

At the heads of chapters, 2-line blue lombards on red flourishing with red and blue bars along the column.

In Psalms, larger 7-line capitals at the heads of Nocturns.

Marginal blue chapter numbers with blue paraphs on red flourishing.

Running titles in blue lombards on red flourishing (both lacking in Psalms). In item 2, each entry preceded by a 1-line blue lombard on red flourishing, 2-line high examples at the alphabetical divisions.

In the intercolumnar space of fol. 4, a seven-compartment illustration, running the full length of the writing area: the works of the six days, with the Sabbath drawing defaced. A large square, presumably with an armorial device, has been cut out at the foot of the leaf and repaired with recent vellum. At the head and foot, gold, blue, and violet stylized borders; at the top a wyvern and centaur with bow, at the bottom a parrot and peacock, two monsters (human torsos, serpent middles, and legs and feet of lions) armed with swords and shields atop wyverns.

See AT no. 220 (24), dated s. xiii3/4, and plate xii (four of the Creation scenes from (fol. 4).

Binding

Wooden boards bevelled on the inner edges, re-covered in brown leather with ornate gold stamping, s. xvii in. The binding retouched at the Bodleian Library, 1981. Sewn on six thongs, taken straight into the board as in Pollard’s figures 3 and 4. Grooves in both boards for two straps and clasps (three of the four brass nails for the latter still present in the lower board). Gold ‘4’ at the head of the spine and gold floral stamps in each spine compartment. Black ink ‘4’ on the leading edges. Pastedowns are modern vellum, with the College bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, a modern paper flyleaf and a medieval vellum one; at the rear, a medieval vellum flyleaf and a modern paper one (iii–iv). The two vellum flyleaves may have been pastedowns in an earlier binding. For discussion of the binding, see ‘Fine Bindings 1500–1700 from Oxford Libraries’ (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1968), no. 126 (71) and plate 27. Here the binding is tentatively identified with John de Planche, a French binder working in London, and there are further references.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegii Sancti Iohannis Baptistae Oxon’ Ex dono Reverendi in Christo Patris IOANNIS Episcopi Roffensis Anno Domini 1620’ (fol. 1). For John Buckeridge, former President of the college and bishop of Rochester, as a library benefactor, see Hunt 63, 66.

Provenance

‘III Secunda Pars Biblie Stephani De cranebrokede claustro Roffensis’ (s. xiv, written across the foot of fol. 238). A similar inscription at the foot of fol. 1 has been vigorously erased, ‘Biblia de cla [including a hole in the leaf due to erasure] nens’ Stephani de cranebrok’ Prima pars’. Ker, MLGB, 164, 297.