Theological miscellany

Title

Theological miscellany

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 98

Associated place

France

England

Place of origin

Francewith some of the additions made in England

Date

s. xiii2

with additions s. xiii ex. and s. xv

s. xiii ex.

with additions s. xiii ex.

with additions to s. xiv1

with additions s. xiii ex., s. xiii/xiv, s. xiv, and s. xv in.

s. xiii med. or xiii 2

with additions s. xiii/xiv

s. xiii ex. or xiii/xiv

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Seven separate MSS, all on vellum

Physical extent

Fols. iv (numbered fols. i–ii, 1–2) + 224(numbered fols. 3–226) + i (numbered fol. iii).

Binding

Reversed calf over millboards, with a simple fillet, s. xvii. Sewn on four thongs. String ties on both boards to keep the book closed; a chain-staple mark in Watson’s position 6. ‘98’ in black ink on a paper lozenge at the head of the spine, in black ink on leading edges. Manuscript pastedowns, a College bookplate on the front one. At the front, two modern paper flyleaves (the first only half the page vertically) and two medieval vellum flyleaves from an earlier binding (fols. 1–2); at the rear one paper flyleaf (iii).

Pastedowns: from a breviaryon each board a portion of a bifolium, neither sheet complete. The fullest leaves (at the top on both boards) overall 182 surviving mm 137–43 writing area 162–7 surviving mm 103 , in 27–9 long lines. The upper leaf on the lower board includes part of John 6, a reading for the third nocturn on Corpus Christi, ed. BrevSar, 1070.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegij Sanctj Johannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Venerabilis virj Guilielmj Laud Sacrae Theologiae Doctoris ejusdem Collegii Praesidis et Decanj Ecclesiae Cathedralis Gloucest’ 1618’. Exhibited Laud Exhib, no. 6 (8).

Provenance

‘liber Magistri Ad’ le fraunces ’ (fol. 1, upper margin; s. xiii ex.). He is not in BRUO, BRUC, or among Glorieux’s thirteenth-century Parisian masters.

‘liber Tercij [over erasure]loci in quarta stacione’ (fol. 1). Not associable with any system cited in Ker, MLGB(Chester OSB had ‘loci’, but the books include no notation of ‘staciones’; see pp. 49–50) and probably not from an English library. With another note, in the same hand, s. xiv ex.: ‘tituli huius voluminis continentur in 2 ofolio’. The answering note appears as promised (fol. 2v, s. xiv med.); it includes another shelfmark, ‘Septimus liber tercii loci quarte stacionis’ and an earlier s. xiv table of contents which explicitly mentions only items in fols. 19–124, 183–214. Associated with the contents is a second reference to the shelfmark, ‘incipient’ tunc pater 2 ofo [indicating the presence of MS 1] in vno volumine tabul’ et ponuntur 3 o loco stacione 4o’, the numbers here a later supply over erasure.