Thomas Aquinas, Commentarius super primum librum Sententiarum; Italy (Rome), AD 1256 × 1281

Title

Thomas Aquinas, Commentarius super primum librum Sententiarum; Italy (Rome), AD 1256 × 1281

Shelfmark

Lincoln College MS. Lat. 95

Place of origin

Italy (Rome)

Date

1256 × 1281

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment, of middling quality: thin, flexible, somewhat cockled but with an even sit; it is ivory in colour, smooth and shiny on the flesh-side, yellower with follicles on the hair-side, sometimes quite dark. Arranged like to like, flesh-side outermost. There are flaws, not many, but a cluster in QQ6–7, 9. There are natural edges at fols. 14, 66, 68, 104; holes have been written around in 22, 34, 83 (large holes in the margins of 65, 70, 71, 107, 109, 115, very large in 122); there is a running cut to the foot of leaves 58–61; a slit has been sewn together at fol. 113; in Q7, leaves 3, 6 and 7, 10 are short at the foot.

Physical extent

ii + 121 + ii; flyleaves are medieval parchment contemporary with the text-block, conjoint with pastedowns.

Hands

All the hands involved in the manuscript belong to the later thirteenth century, writing small, Italian cursive minuscules, much abbreviated. Boyle & Boyle dubbed the scribe of the Paris scriptum Hand A and the scribe of the reportatio Hand B. They named a further hand the Corrector. In fact, several men contributed to the main text. Preserving the current designation, we would identify Hand A1 (fols. 3ra–97vb), Hand A2 (98ra–116vb), and Hand A3 (117ra–123va). The first of these, who wrote most of the manuscript, is characterized by a leftwards lean and round, rather irregular forms; there are changes of ink and nib throughout his stint, but ductus and letter forms remain the same. Hand A2 is smaller, tighter and more consistent and, in spite of its tiny size, has more weight and definition. Hand A3 in aspect is something of a return to A1, but more upright and regular with different letter choices, notably a large, round s in terminal position rather than the leftwards leaning tall s found earlier.

Shortly after the manuscript was written, Hand B received it and added the reportatio in the wide margins at the outer edge and the foot. It is a small, thin glossing script in a light brown ink. It is clear that this scribe had the book first since all other corrections to the main text in other hands are subsequent, having to be fitted around Hand B’s work; only scribal self-correction of the main text ever stands in the way of Hand B. There is a strong argument for identifying this scribe as Iacobus Raynucii OP, who died in 1286 as bishop of Florence. He was an early owner of the manuscript and may have been one of Thomas’s students at Santa Sabina (see History). Johnson, ‘“Alia lectura fratris thome”’, 61, found a similarity between this hand and one in BAV MS Vat. lat. 781, a scribe who took over from one of Aquinas’s habitual secretaries, thereby raising the possibility that our scribe was likewise a member of Thomas’s retinue. (This specimen is illustrated by A. Dondaine, Secrétaires de saint Thomas, 2 vols in 1 (Rome 1956), pl. 18, dubbed Hand o.) While undoubtedly similar in aspect, the two hands are not the same, as is revealed by the many differences in duct and handling as well as individual letter forms (the g, for example, is very distinctive to each hand).

Decoration

The major initial E is historiated with the Dominican author, seated, his right hand raised in a teaching posture and his left hand behind a book open in his lap. His hood half covers his tonsure. The initial is plain blue with white modelling, foliated in orange at the upper and lower terminals, and is boxed on a pale rose ground. Two nicely drawn wyverns hang from the inner corner and descend the length of the column. The upper wyvern is more finely detailed, with an expression of hungry mischief, and is coloured blue with rose breast and legs and red wings, all modelled in white; the lower wyvern, who is held around the head by the first’s tail, has a rose-coloured body and blue wings.

There is much use of blue and red on all pages. Initials stand in the margins (the scribe’s guide letters remain visible) and are three-line lombards in one of the two colours with penwork flourishing in the other.

There are many paraphs in the same two colours, the horizontal element extended over neighbouring words, and the same artist was responsible for the running headings that cross the opening and label the distinction, in the form ‘¶ D’ | III’. This is all Italian work.

Binding

By Roger Barnes of Oxford, an early seventeenth-century binding of reverse calf over pulpboard. Decoration on both boards is restricted to a rectilinear pattern of intersecting lines. Three-line blind fillets to the edges crossing unmitred at the corners, repeated inset at 45 mm to produce a pattern of panels, a rough square at each corner and a central panel, unembellished. Sewn on four double thongs of tanned leather, raised at the spine. Endbands of white thread are non-structural. Paired fore-edge ties of green cord are cut away flush to the boards. Fore-edges are sprinkled red. Marks of the usual college chain clip are at the fore-edge of the back board towards the foot, with verdigris inside. The joint has split entirely on the top board and is half split on the lower; but the condition otherwise is very good. Flyleaves of tough medieval parchment, contemporary with the text-block: the front pastedown is lifted; the rear pastedown is partly loose at the top corner and has been cut away at the bottom corner where the brass chain-clip was. Wormholes relating to an earlier binding extend through the first sixteen leaves and the last seven.

Provenance

The earliest date for the manuscript’s creation would be around 1256, when Aquinas is judged to have completed his first scriptum on the Sentences in Paris. The added Lectura romana dates from 1265–6, the year he began his lectorship at Santa Sabina in Rome with his exposition of the first book of the Sentences before embarking thereafter upon the Prima Pars of his Summa theologica. This copy could have been added to the book at any point thereafter from notes, but this must have happened before the early 1280s, for a terminus is provided by the career of Frater Iacobus Raynucii. He is referred to in an erased note at the top of 2r (partially read by Fr Dondaine under ultra-violet light and completed by Fr Boyle, his uncertain readings in angle brackets): ‘Frater lacobbus Ray. perusinus debet recipere de fratre Nicola de Mediolano .xlij. sol. pro isto libro. Et pro predicta pecunia predictus frater Nicola promisit (illegible)’. The vendor was almost certainly Iacobus de Raynucii, a Dominican of the Roman province who was elected bishop of Florence in 1286 short months before his death. When raised to the bishop’s bench, he was prior of Santa Sabina. He had been appointed preacher general of the order in 1281. This note describes him only as frater, referring to him neither as bishop nor preacher general, so presumably dates before 1281. Earlier than that, he had been appointed lector at Città di Castello in 1273; if that had been his first appointment as lecturer it would not be unreasonable to place him in 1265–6 as a student of Thomas’s at Santa Sabina. The reportatio which he copied into the manuscript would therefore be his own (Boyle & Boyle, 3–5, 67–8).

The name of the second man mentioned in the inscription is repeated at the foot of fol. 81v, where Fr Dondaine read ‘fratris nicholutii’. Nicholas of Milan (fl. 1273–93) was a Dominican friar serving the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Imola in northern Italy. He has been identified as a plausible candidate for author of the anonymous Speculum humanae saluationis, a widely read work expressing a deep interest in Aquinas’s theology (see Vrudny, Friars, Scribes, and Corpses, 22–8). Nicholas was a lector by around 1273 but in 1283 he gave up teaching and devoted himself to preaching, which would mean that he bought this manuscript before 1283 and perhaps in or after 1281, if Iacobus sold it after his appointment as prior at Santa Sabina, having given up teaching. It is the case that Iacobus and Nicholas both became lectors at the same time and either could have been Scribe B, eager to transcribe his reportatio into this copy of the Paris scriptum, which had probably been acquired for that very purpose. But it is reasonable to favour Iacobus as the hand of the reportatio, since that text was added at a very early point, before any other note or correction was made beyond self-corrections by the scribes of the main text.

Two English owners are named in the inscription on fol. 2v (see above): William Chamberleyn, who reportedly gave the book to the College, and Richard Chester, whom a second scribe thought the book actually belonged to. He is also named at fols. 5r (‘liber M’ Ric’ Chester’) and fol. 97v (‘Constat Ric’ Ch’) and his monogram ‘TC’ appears at the foot of 112r. Richard Chester (d. before 1464) was fellow of Merton College in 1415, still in 1419, BTh by 1430 and DTh by 1433. He went on to amass a considerable preferment, which included canonries of Dublin, Hereford, and St Paul’s, London, as well as a couple of rectories in Lincolnshire; Bishop Fleming licensed him to preach in the diocese of Lincoln in 1421. He was present at the Council of Basel in 1433 in the entourage of Robert Fitzhugh, bishop of London. He was king’s clerk in 1442, when granted a stipend of 12d a day for ten years for good service to the king at the Roman curia and about the king’s person, and is reported as chaplain to the king in 1444 and 1447. (Emden summarized Chester’s career in BRUO 407–8.) Much less is known about William Chamberleyn, and there is nothing to say that he ever travelled. He was the first rector of Lincoln College, nominated by the Founder, 19 December 1429 (BRUO386). He died, as per the inscription here, on the feast day of Sts Felicity and Perpetua in 1433, which is 7 March 1433/4. He is known as the donor of two other books: Lat. 12 and 36. The priority in the ownership of this manuscript is difficult to establish. Chamberleyn had better links to the College but Chester, the younger man, seems to have had it after Chamberleyn. He also had better opportunities to acquire the book, during continental travel and missions to Rome, were the book then still in Italy. Alternatively, it is possible that it had been brought to Oxford from Italy by a friar and escaped there on to the second-hand market, to be acquired by Chamberleyn. Had Chester acquired it at Basel in 1433 he could hardly have had time to give it to Chamberleyn before the latter’s death in the spring of 1434. And yet it is Chamberleyn’s name which is struck through in the ex dono and Chester’s which is inserted with the comment ‘credo quod pertinet’. One way to read that would be that the manuscript had been left by Chamberleyn to the College with a lifetime’s reversion to Chester. In 1474, a decade or more after Chester’s own death, it was reported in the inventory of the College library as his gift, at which time it was kept chained to the second desk on the north side of the room: ‘Item sanctus Thomas super primum librum Sentenciarum ex dono magistri Ricardi Chester 2o fo. secundum raciones’ (UO38. 124).

The College’s medieval ex dono is at the foot of fol. 2v (see above). No visible James number. In the top corner of the first page of the text proper, in brown ink of s. xvii, is the College press-mark ‘E. 47. 5’, offset on the facing verso. The College bookplate of 1703 is affixed in normal position at the centre of the front board, which shows that the pastedown had been lifted before this time. Below this the Victorian pencil mark reads ‘Linc 95 C.28’. The Bodleian shelf-mark is pencilled below: ‘MS. Linc. Coll. (d) Lat. 95’. On the spine, square paper labels: in the top compartment, an arabic numeral 28 on the small, printed label; in the fourth compartment the larger, blue-bordered label is almost entirely rubbed away, as is the pale blue Bodleian label at the foot with printed shelf-mark, ‘MS. Linc. Coll. Lat. 95’. The fore-edge label is present but rubbed, reading ‘.2’.

Booklists: Vetus Registrum, fol. 17r; James, Ecloga, no. 32.