Richard Rolle, Parce michi, saints’ lives

Title

Richard Rolle, Parce michi, saints’ lives

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 147

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv3/4

s. xv ex.

Language

Latin

Middle English (1100-1500)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum and paper. From fol. 225 completely vellum (FSOS/FHHF); before that point, each quire comprises a vellum sheet folded around two paper sheets (to fol. 125) or a single paper sheet, both vellum and paper in quarto, in each quire with an additional paper half-sheet. There are four main paper stocks, typically appearing in blocks: A: Unidentified, perhaps a small armorial : the sole stock in quires 2–4 and 10–11, the watermarked half-sheet of quire 5 (eight full sheets and six halves, three with the mark). B: Waffen/ Coutelas: not elsewhere recorded, with the hilts of the swords forming a circular rim ; cf. Briquet, no. 5157(Florence 1456, Udine 1459) and Piccard IX ( Werkzeug und Waffen ) 2, Type 7, nos. 531–3 (Italian, 1453 x 1469): two sheets in quire and the sole stock of quires 6–9 (ten full sheets and four halves, two with the mark); C: Ochsenkopf/ Tête de boeuf: generally of Piccard Type 1, but not elsewhere recorded, with prolonged muzzle: the sole stock of quires 12, 14–15, and the full sheet of quire 17 (four full sheets and three halves, one with the mark). D: Traube/ Raisin: of the type Piccard XIV ( Frucht), nos. 1–174, in common use 1437 x 1460+: the sole stock of quires 18–19 (two full sheets and two halves, one with the mark). No watermarks have been found in quire 13. Quires 16–17 include a full sheet and two watermarked halves of two further unidentified stocks (one certainly of Briquet’s type Indéterminé). Quire 1 includes a different very small example of Ochsenkopf, on a leaf (fol. 4) which appears to have replaced a cancel; the quire originally was entirely on a fifth stock: E: Ochse/Boeuf: of the type Piccard XV ( Vierfüssler), 3, Type 6, nos. 1040–74 (1446 x 1453, with four later examples recorded as late as 1463, Germany and the Netherlands): probably two full sheets and an unwatermarked half.

Physical extent

Fols. iv + 264+ ii (numbered fols. v–vi).

Hands

Written in secretaryby William Ebesham; see A. I. Doyle, ‘The Work of a Late- Fifteenth-Century Scribe, William Ebesham’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library39 (1957), 298–325 at 316–17. Punctuation by medial point , punctus elevatus, and occasional virgula. Doyle’s plates VI A and B reproduce fols. 123v and 132v in part.

Decoration

Headings in red.

At the heads of texts, 3- and 4-line blue lombards on red flourishing with sprays.

Text lemmata in decorative textura.

Texts divided by red paraphs and red-slashed capitals.

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on five thongs. At the front, a marbled paper leaf, one modern paper flyleaf, two medieval vellum flyleaves (the first a former pastedown); at the rear, where fol. 264 is a former pastedown, one modern paper flyleaf and another marbled leaf (v–vi).

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegij Sanctj Johannis Baptistae Oxon ex dono Richardi ButlerDoctoris Theologiae Archidiaconi Northampt’ procurante Reuerendo in Cristo Patre Johanne Episcopo Roffensi 1613’ (fol. 2, upper margin).

Provenance

Ebesham’s index for the volume (fol. iv).

Iste liber constat Thome LynneMonachus Westmonasterij’ (fol. iii v; textura, s. xv). Doyle (316–17) identifies Lynne as a monk who said his first Mass c.1455–6 and died 1473/4.

‘Iste liber pertinet Willielmo Graunt et Willielmo Grove MonachiWestm'' (fol. 263v; textura quadrata, s. xv ex., in red). According to Doyle (317), Grant and Grove were Westminstermonks, 1469–1510 and 1485–92 respectively.

‘Richardi Butler rectoris de Aston in walles ex dono Magistri Al[a paste stain] Butlersenioris 24 Decembris 1607’ (fol. iiiv).