Hrabanus Maurus, Etymologiae sive de universo

Title

Hrabanus Maurus, Etymologiae sive de universo

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 5

Place of origin

England

Date

, s. xii3/4

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (HSOS/HFFH).

Physical extent

Fols. iii + 182+ ii (numbered fols. iv–v).

Hands

Written in protogothic bookhand , the tops of minims often spatulate or paddle-like, as in mid-century hands, but mark of abbreviation usually flat, as in the late twelfth century. Punctuation by pointand punctus elevatus.

Decoration

Headings in red.

Large painted capitals at the opening of each book.

On f. 5ra, a 15-line high ‘P’, with descender down whole page, of gold leaf on violet ground with vines, flowers, and dragons; the first three words of the text in uncial 3-line gold capitals on a slate-blue ground.

For the other books, 6-line champes of blue and violet on gold leaf grounds or (for 1 especially) a gold leaf letter on violet ground.

Many initials repeat the dragon, vine, and flower motif, or use other animal shapes.

At chapter headings, alternating 3- or 4-line slaty blue or red lombards on restrained flourishing of the other colour; alternate 1-line lombards of the same to break up the text. Through the first three books, up to fol. 30(the end of quire 3), the alternation includes red capitals on green and green on red.

Running titles in red provide book numbers.

At least three initials, all grouped around quire 4, approach a historiated form: (a) for book 4 (fol. 30rb), probably Isaac meeting Rachel at the well (in orange, violet, slate blue); (b) for book 5 (fol. 37rb), God enthroned holding the sun and moon; (c) for book 6 (fol. 40va)God coming to Adam at his creation.

On fol. 30, instructions for the rubricator, written vertically along the leading edge, where they should have been fully cut off, still survive.

See AT no. 134 (16), dated c.1200, and plate vii ( fols. 40va and 55vb).

Binding

Modern replacement; the upper third of the spine now lost and the lower board almost totally detached. Sewn on five thongs. At the front, a marbled paper leaf a modern paper flyleaf, a vellum flyleaf; at the rear, a modern paper flyleaf and another marbled paper one (iv–v). Fol. iii may have been an earlier pastedown and has holes and verdigris from a chain staple in Watson’s position 6.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegij Divi Ioannis Baptistae Oxon’ Ex dono Magistri Ioannis StonorGenerosi de North Stoke in Comitatu Oxon’ 1609’ ( fol. 1 , upper margin).

Provenance

‘hic est liber sancte Marie de RadingQui eum celauerit uel fraudem de eo fecerit anathema sit’ (on a vellum label pasted to fol. iiiv, s. xiii in.) (Ker, MLGB 157). Identifiable as the Reading copy noted at RegistrumR.11.3 (126, 268) .

‘Liber Clementis Burdett’ (partially erased, fol. 182v; repeated in an s. xx note, fol. iv). On Clement Burdett, a mid to late sixteenth-century Berkshire vicar, see the extensive biographical accounts and discussion of his role as collector of Reading Abbey books, with discussion of their dispersal, Liddell, 51–3 , Coates, 131–41.

‘Iohannes Stonor’ plus a mark, ‘Liber Iohannis Stonor’ (on the label pasted to fol. iiiv, above the Reading ex-libris; and fol. 182v, upper margin respectively).

The old shelfmark ‘Abac: ij: No78’ ( fol. iiiv, erased).