William of Nottingham, commentary on Unum ex quatuor

Title

William of Nottingham, commentary on Unum ex quatuor

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 2

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv1 (after 1409)

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF).

Physical extent

Fols. i + 378+ i (numbered fol. ii).

Hands

Written in two forms of gothic textura quadrata, the text in a large biblical style, the gloss in a normal text hand with an anglicana tinge. Punctuation by point only.

Decoration

Headings in red.

At the heads of the parts, 9- or 10-line blue and violet champes with gold leaf and demivinets of the same, with floral sprays and buds, and animals either in the foliage or the initial (most elaborately, that to part 12, fol. 326va, with a wyvern, a bagpiper, an animal blowing on its tail as if it were a recorder, a woman, and a hawker).

At lesser divisions, 2-line lombards in alternate blue on red flourishing and gold on violet flourishing, including line-fillers of the same and often with elaborate marginal extensions. In the extensions, many small animal and human heads (with washed ‘rounding’).

Running titles in red (after fol. 113not on every page) with full references to parts and chapters, as well as to the biblical text discussed.

The indicesare slightly more elaborate in presentation. Fol. 342rahas a larger capital (13 lines), with a winged centaur shooting a bow in the demivinet, and there are marginal titles for each entry in text ink on alternating red flourishing headed by a blue paraph and purple flourishing headed by a gold paraph.

See AT no. 359 (36), with dating s. xiv ex. , and plate xxiv (the hawker from fol. 326va).

Binding

Wooden boards with slightly bevelled edges, probably s. xv, recovered in s. xix incised brown leather (a small grid pattern). Sewn on nine thongs, the two outer pairs, head and foot, pegged into a single hole, as in Pollard’s figure 6. A single nail-hole from a chain staple in Watson’s position 4.‘2’ in gold at the head of the spine and in black ink on the leading edges, above it also in black crayon a notation of contents, ‘Nottingham’. Pastedowns modern marbled paper. At the front and rear, a single modern paper leaf (the rear ii), both blank.

Provenance

A very few scattered pen-trials (fols. 1v, 235, 236, 378).

‘Liber Collegij Divi loannis Baptistae Oxon’ Ex dono Magistri Ioannis StonorGenerosi de Northstoke in Comitatu Oxon’ 1609’ (on a vellum tag, at the top of the inner front cover).