Hymnal, Sarum Use

Title

Hymnal, Sarum Use

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 60

Place of origin

English

Date

s. xvi in.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF).

Physical extent

iii + 1188 (numbered 1–117, iv) + ii (numbered v–vi).

Hands

Written in gothic textura semiquadrata . Punctuation by point and virgula.

Decoration

Headings and the musical staves in red.

Stave-high red, blue, and green lombards or pen-work strap capitals at the heads of individual hymns, frequently unflourished, often on either red or text-ink flourishing. Verses of the hymns sometimes divided with 1-line alternate red and blue lombards, with the same variations in flourishing.

Binding

Yellow-brown leather, s. xvii, over millboards, stamped with a frame with flowers at each corner. Sewn on five thongs. A mark on the upper board suggests the book was once chained with a staple in Watson’s position 6; there are also three holes, the impression of the staple, and some verdigris staining in fol. ii. Gold ‘60’ at the top of the spine (apparently on a space which once had a paper lozenge for the number), in black ink on the leading edges. Pastedowns modern paper, a College bookplate on the front pastedown (another on fol. iiv). At the front, a modern paper flyleaf and two medieval vellum ones (the first a former paste- down); at the rear, one medieval vellum flyleaf (again, a former pastedown) and one modern paper one.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegli Sanctj Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Venerabilis virj Guilielmj LaudSacrae Theologiae Doctoris Ejusdem Collegii Praesidis et Ecclesiae Cathedralis Gloucest’ Decanj 1620’ (fol. 1, upper margin).

Provenance

‘This is one of the churche Bookes of tthame Made by me Wylliam foorestprest’ (fol. ivv). Ker, MLGB 188, 310 probably incorrectly identifies Forrest as a monk of Thame (Oxon., OCist); he also signed the only other book Ker finds from the house, BL, MS Burney 357 (other pieces of this book are dispersed among the Burney MSS). Forrest was vicar of Bledlow (Bucks.) in the 1540s; best known as a Catholic poet, he died after 1581; see DNB 7:444–5; BRUO 1501– 209–10. He was a petty canon of Osney Cathedral and drew a pension until at least 1545 in addition to the two MSS already mentioned, he also owned, and partially wrote, the Tudor part-books now BodL, MSS Mus. Sch. e.376–81 (including eighteen masses).

A bit of musical notation (fol. iii).

A frame with an inscription in one of its compartments, now defaced with black ink but partly legible in sunlight: ‘Ex dono reuerendisimo p atris et domini domini Roberti kynge huius Ecclesiae cathedralis Oseneyae primi Antistitis Anno Domini MCCCCCxlij.’ (portions now illegible supplied from Derham’s transcription, MS 373, fol. 77); above this ‘Chrygis ythegis othegowre’ and below it ‘lathegady y e Cysie booke’ (fol. iiiv, s. xvi in.). The inscription suggests that Forrest made the book under King’s auspices, for the latter was both an abbot of Thame and the last abbot of Osney (and first bishop of Oxford).

‘leonarde williamesoethe this booke’ (fol. 72, upper margin; s. xvi 3/4); he probably serves to identify the book with Thame church, not the Cistercian house, since King’s sister married Sir John Williams of Thame .

A partly erased inscription, ‘O lord yi ’ (fol. v).