William Heytesbury, Sophismata

Title

William Heytesbury, Sophismata

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 198

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv in

s. xv

Language

Latin

Contents

Support

Comprising three originally separate MSS, the first on mixed vellum and paper, the last two single quires on vellum (HSOS/ HFFH). In manuscript 1, scribes 1 and 2 simply alternate vellum and paper leaves (the vellum always outside); scribe 3 uses a vellum sheet to form outer and central bifolia and regularly has two groups of two paper sheets each between these and a third vellum bifolium. The paper leaves do not appear to be formed by folding but from cutting appropriately sized bifolia from sheets; wire lines run both vertically and horizontally, and watermarks appear irregularly and indiscriminately. The first twelve quires are on very archaic paper, with pronounced widely spaced wire lines. There are four stocks: A: Monts/Dreiberg in quire 3; B, C: Ciseaux of two types,one each in quires 4 and 5; D: Horn in quire 8; E: Fleur, perhaps more than one type, in quires 16–18.

Physical extent

Fols. 1 + 193(numbered fols. 1–194; fol. 150 is assigned to a tab sewn to fol. 151) + i (numbered fol. ii). (after fol. 116, slightly wider, about 120 mm)

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on four thongs. At the front, one modern paper flyleaf (dated 1789); at the rear, one modern paper flyleaf (ii).

Acquisition

‘Iohannes White de Suthwykk in Comitatu Sutht Armiger dedit hunc librum Thome Whitede london militi ad vsu Colegij per ipsum de nouo erecti in Oxon’ Anno 1555’ ( fol. 1, lower margin).

Provenance

Ker could read under ultraviolet light what we can no longer clearly discern, the erased inscriptions, ‘quaternus fratris Iohannis de Claxtonordinis predicatorum Bostonie’ ( fol. 181, upper margin) and the words ‘quod [? quaternus]frater I Claxton de Booston’ ( fol. 188v, below the inscription described next); for the ascription of fols. 181–8alone to the Boston Dominicans, see MLGB 11, 231.

‘Ista sunt sophismata Fratris Willielmi Louent [the name over an erasure]ordinis predicatorum cicestrie [again over an erasure]’ (the upper margin, fol. 188v) (the Chichester Dominican convent , Ker MLGB51, 248) .

Ker also read with ultraviolet another erased inscription (s. xv ex., fol. 180v, below an earlier contents table added s. xv) ‘Iste quaternus ordinis predicatorum leycestrie’ ( MLGB 113, fols. 1–180 only).

Pen-trials ‘Mary Whyght’ twice (fol. 173v, s. xvi).

The old shelfmark ‘Abac: ij N. 51.’ (fol. 1 , margin).