Richard Fitzralph, Sermons

Title

Richard Fitzralph, Sermons

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 65

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xiv ex.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF).

Physical extent

Fols. i + 203+ i (numbered fol. ii).

Hands

Written in anglicana, fols. 67–72perhaps by a different scribe from the remainder. Punctuation by point and medial point.

Decoration

Headings in red, introduced by 1-line unflourished blue lombards.

At the head (fol. 1ra)a 7-line champe in blue, violet, and gold leaf, with a leafy spray.

The sermons are introduced by 3-line blue lombards on red flourishing.

Sermons broken with alternate red and blue paraphs and red-slashed capitals; red underlining for biblical citations.

Decorative top-line ascenders are often filled with faces and various animal shapes (fish, lions’ heads, birds), frequently coloured with rubricator’s red.

See AT, no. 318 (32), dating s. xiv3/4.

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on six thongs. At both the front and rear, one modern paper flyleaf (at the rear, ii).

Acquisition

'Liber Collegij Divi Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Dominj Gulielmj PaddejMilitis et ejusdem Collegij olim Convictoris 1634’ ( fol. 1, upper margin).

Provenance

‘liber fratris nicolai Stremer ar’ conuentus ordinis warrewici quem partim emit et partim mendicauit a dompno Iohanne SavellMonacho ordinis sancti benedicti Anno gracie M occccolxxixo. tunc diaconus et cursor Oxon’ ( fol. 203vb, following the explicit, partially erased) (Ker, MLGB 194, 313, the Warwick Dominican convent) . Stremer was at Oxford 1478–9; he was eventually (1501–5) prior provincial of his order; the biography at BRUO 1802 notes other books possibly associated with him, but BRUO, in spite of the cross-reference in this entry, does not include John Savell.

Probably, given William Paddy’s donation to St John’s and his ownership of other books from this source, identical with a book owned by Henry Savile of Banke ; see Watson, Savile, no. 23 (22). In his catalogue, Savile notes ‘My lord Carew had this book. lost’. George, Baron Carew of Clopton and Earl of Totnes (d. 1629), a courtier under the first two Stuart kings, was a friend of antiquaries and an avid collector of material on Ireland (where he had served under Elizabeth). Most of his MSS passed to Laud and eventually to Lambeth Palace Library (see DNB).