Breviary(Premonstratensian Use)

Title

Breviary(Premonstratensian Use)

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 265

Place of origin

Belgium

Date

s. xv ex.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Paper. All quires except the first are formed regularly, from three sheets folded in quarto. There are six paper stocks, three of them ( B, C, F) providing material for nearly 90 per cent of our MS: A: an enthroned king, not in Briquet ; the sole stock of quire 1 (one full sheet, an unwatermarked half-sheet, and a single leaf with half the mark). B: Pot: resembles Briquet nos. 12497, 12499(our mark lacks the double wire at the foot), a type widely dispersed through northern France, the Low Countries, and western Germany, 1488 x 1508; the sole stock of quires 2, 18–23, 26–34, and the two outer sheets of quire 35 (fifty sheets total). C: Krone/Coroun: not in Briquet, or Piccard, a simple tiara with three peaks above a heart and the initials ‘d s’; the sole stock of quires 3–4, 10–11, 24, and the inner sheet of quires 7 and 35 (seventeen sheets total). D: Buchstabe/Lettre P: perhaps two different marks, of Piccard IV 1, Type II, a stock common from the 1490s until c.1530; the sole stock(s) of quires 5–6, 8, and the two outer sheets of quire 7 (eleven sheets total). E: Armoiries Bande: resembles the general type Briquet, nos. 1038–42, frequent in the same areas as B, mainly 1461 x 1485, but variants cited as late as 1518; the sole stock of quire 9 (three sheets total). F: Sphere: a T/O map surmounted with small Greek cross , not in Briquet (but cf. nos. 14012, 14019, analogues of s. xvi ex.); the sole stock of quires 12–17, 25 (twenty-one sheets total).

Physical extent

Fols. i + 415 + i.

Hands

Written in textura, described by Ker as ‘a set hybrida with split strokes at the top’. Punctuation by point and double point.

Decoration

Headings in red.

At the head of text 4 (fol. 8), a 9-line blue capital, with gold leaf worked in a floral design in red, with a penwork vinet in red and purple ink, with vine designs and animals (deer, rabbit).

A second level of initials at the heads of the nocturns and of Psalms 51 and 101: 5- to 8-line red lombards with some infilled designs.

Smaller 2- and 1-line red lombards, the first at heads of psalms/sections, the second to mark verses and heads of individual prayers.

Red slashed capitals to divide texts.

See A1 no. 819 (82).

Binding

Brown leather (calf), s. xviii, gold-stamped with lilies of the abbey of Parc, within a lozenge, on which appears ‘parchensis bibliothecae’; on the armorial stamp, in the smaller size, see Emile van Balberghe, ‘Les critères de Provenance des manuscrits de Parc’, Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique , numéro special 11 (1974), 525–42 at 528 and plate 4. Sewn on five thongs. In the upper spine compartment on a red leather tab, the gold-stamped title ‘Breviarium ordinis Premonstrate’. Gold-stamped floral designs on the spine. On a paper lozenge at the head of the spine ‘i 2’. All edges red-speckled. Pastedowns modern paper, on the front one a College bookplate. At the front, one modern paper flyleaf at the rear, one modern paper flyleaf (ii).

Acquisition

‘E libris Collegii Divi Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ Donum Dedit Georgius Hart MorleyEjusdem Collegii Commensalis 1831’ (fol. 1, lower margin). Ker suggests, following a note on British Museum stationery stuck inside the front cover, that the MS came to Morley in the sale of John Peckham of Slough, by Wise, in Oxford, 5–9 May 1831, which included Parc mss. [‘perhaps lot 121’]. The NLW MS was probably lot 82 in the sale, the British Museum note continues, and BL, MS Additional 39678, also from Parc, had belonged to Philip Bliss, a fellow of St John’s from 1809 (and Bodley’s sub-librarian 1822–8).

Provenance

The arms of the abbey of Parc stamped on the binding; and the pressmark ‘I. theca XI.’ (the front pastedown). The adjacent volume in the library of Parc, ‘I. theca XII.’, is now BL, MS Additional 39678. On the initial dispersal of the MSS, see further van Balberghe, ‘Sylvan Van de Weyer et la vente des manuscrits de Parc en 1829’, Archives43 (1972), 108–30 .

The old shelfmarks ‘Arch. B.68’ and ‘b.1.14b’ (the front pastedown).