Augustine, Sermons on Psalms

Title

Augustine, Sermons on Psalms

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 19

Place of origin

English

Date

s. xiii/xiv

s. xiv in

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF)

Physical extent

264 + i

Hands

Written ingothic textura semiquadrata or rotunda. Punctuation by point, punctus elevatus, and punctus interrogativus. Punctuation by point, punctus elevatus, and punctus interrogativus.

Decoration

Headings in red at the head of each psalm, with 2- to 4-line red and navy-blue lombards (unflourished).

Smaller lombards for some inner divisions.

At the head, a 7-line red initial with navy vine and leaf infill.

Many instructions for rubrics at the page foot in a small informal hand, perhaps s. xiii ex.

Binding

Brown reversed calf over millboards, s. xviii. Sewn on five thongs. ‘19’ in gold at the head of the spine. Two pairs of string ties front and rear; a chain staple mark with two intact nails in Watson’s position 6, the staple intact inside the front cover. A College bookplate on the front pastedown. One blank modern paper flyleaf at the rear (i).

Acquisition

'?Ex dono Ricardi Tilesley1619' (the front pastedown, s. xx, in pencil). Tilesley’s bequest, including this MS, appears in col. lxxxix of the Benefactors’ Book and is discussed at Hunt, 65; he was an archdeacon of Rochester.

Provenance

'Hic est liber ecclesie beati Thome martiris de lesnes de dono fratris thome de sanduyco quem qui abstulerit aut illi super eo fraudem fecerit nisi eidem ecclesie plenare satisfeceret anathema sit maranatha’ (fol. 1), in anglicana, s. xiii/xiv. Ker, MLGB 114, 274 (where Thomas of Sandwich is noted as having given two other books, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College MS 135; and BodL, MS Bodley 656 ). This is the third volume of a four-volume copy; no surviving Lessness book can be one of the companion volumes.

'Tercia pars Augustini super Psalterium' (fol. 1 foot, s. xv, bastard secretary), with an addition ‘A Psalmo 80 ad finem Psalmi 118’ (s. xvii).