Prick of Conscience, etc.

Title

Prick of Conscience, etc.

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 57

Associated place

Ireland

Lancashire

Essex

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv med.

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Paper (with vellum strips round the quire sewings, outside and centre). The quires, excluding losses and additions ( fol. 236has the watermark) are regular groups of four sheets folded in folio. There are two paper stocks, appearing in large blocks: A Waage/Balance:resembles Piccard V 5, nos. 258–319, 382–4, in common use 1441 × 1499; and Briquet’s no. 2446 (1443), but here on two chain-lines (Piccard’s type II), not three (his type III) in all the examples illustrated; the sole stock of booklet 1, sixty-seven full sheets and three half-sheets. B Drache/Basilic:most like, but not identical with, Briquet, no. 2692 (1460) (cf. no. 2691, 1457), with the mark at right angles to the chain-line , two wings and a twisted (not looped) tail ; Piccard X (Fabeltiere), nos. 866–918 (in use 1413 × 1434) are dissimilar; the sole stock of booklets 2–3, fifty full sheets and two half-sheets.

Physical extent

Fols. iv + 241(numbered fols. 1–240, but an unnumbered leaf following fol. 210) + iii (numbered fols. v–vii).

Hands

Written by a single scribe in anglicana, with patches more given to secretary forms, (sporadic use of secretary g and simplified w). Punctuation by medial point and double virgula(the verse unpunctuated).

Decoration

Headings and names of sheriffs and their years in red, with red brackets in item 2; a heading in red for item 4.

At the head of item 1, a 5-line lombard in text ink on marginal flourishing, unfilled blanks at the heads of items 2 and 3.

In item 1, the scribe’s running titles indicate subjects of individual books; frequent marginal ‘Nota’ marks by the scribe.

Binding

A modern replacement. When Ralph Flenley, Six Town Chronicles of England (Oxford, 1911) described the manuscript (60–2), it was apparently bound in wrappers comprising the current flyleaves. Sewn on six thongs. At the front, a modern paper flyleaf and three of medieval vellum; fol. i is glued to the stub of fol. iv, replacing its conjoint, presumably the pastedown of the medieval binding; fols. ii and iii are a conjoint bifolium. At the rear, two medieval vellum flyleaves and one of modern paper (v–vii); fol. vii is glued to fol. vi, and the latter leaf was a pastedown in an earlier binding.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegii Divi loannis Baptistae Oxon Ex dono Magistri Dauenet Oenopoli Ciuitatis Oxon’ (fol. 1). Davenant, a taverner, was mayor of Oxford at his death in 1621; his eldest son Robert was a Fellow of the College and a DD.

Provenance

Guide directions ‘hole’ and ‘hole w’ (s. xv), for an inscription ‘Hoole’ on a flourished plate, beneath it on a lozenge attached to the plate by a lock, with arms: two bugles above a portcullis, one bugle beneath; below all this a capital M and a capital W surmounted with a crown (fol. ii) .

A variety of early signatures: ‘ Thomas wryghetbok’ ( fol. v, s. xv med.); ‘Nicolas Holdaornss’ (fol. vv, s. xv/xvi); ‘Dodlay’ ( fol. v, s. xvi); ‘Mathew quytarell’ (fol. v, s. xvi med.); ‘Iohn Sparke oweth this booke 1579 (?)’ (fol. v) and ‘To my most lovinge Freind lohanne sparke in angellitara’ ( fol. 118v).

‘Iohan Davynant’ (fol. v , s. xvi); ‘Iohn dauenant wryt this same’ (fol. 188 , s. xvi/xvii), the first presumably an ancestor of the second, the donor.