Saints' lives

Title

Saints' lives

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 182

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv med.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF).

Physical extent

Fols. iii + 149(numbered fols. 1–147, iv, v) + ii (numbered fols. vi–vii).

Hands

Written in textura with many anglicana forms (g). Item 10 has been added, in a different ink; although very similar, this may be a different hand. Punctuation by pointand punctus elevatus.

Decoration

Headings in the text hand underlined in red.

Texts introduced by 2-line blue lombards, on red flourishing through the first example on fol. 87 (the opening leaf of quire 12), thereafter unflourished.

Running titles in upper corners of rectos to indicate the subject.

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on four thongs. At the front, a marbled paper leaf (dated 1925 on the verso), a modern paper flyleaf and one medieval vellum flyleaf (another College bookplate on its verso); at the rear, a modern paper flyleaf and another marbled leaf (vi–vii).

The front vellum leaf (fol. iii)is waste, used as a pastedown in an earlier binding. It is half a calendar page for January (with the top at the leading edge), in texturasemiquadrata, s. xv; feasts include Paul primus heremita, Wulfstan, Antony (in red). Fol. 7 may be a singleton half of the same sheet; the ruling (recto only) is for a calendar like (fol. iii) .

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegij Divi Johannis Baptistae ex dono Domini Gulielmi PaddeiMilitis et Collegii olim Convictor 1634’ (fol. 2, upper margin).

Provenance

‘liber Wittham [Witham (Somerset, OCart)]quod Ioh’ blacman’ (fol. 1, lower margin) (Ker, MLGB 205, 317). The MS is in Blackman’s usual hand, not that illustrated in Watson, DMO(no. 596 [97–98], with bibliography) and plate no. 618 (b). For Blackman, see BRUO 194–5 , which cites his list of donations to Witham, where our MS appears as no. xviii; seven of these volumes survive. For discussion see Roger Lovatt, ‘The Library of John Blacman and Contemporary Carthusian Spirituality’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History43 (1992), 195–230.

Notes on contents (fol. iiiv, s. xvi2 secretary).