Johannes de Platea, Commentary on Justinian, Institutes; England, s. xv2.

Title

Johannes de Platea, Commentary on Justinian, Institutes; England, s. xv2.

Shelfmark

Christ Church MS. 104

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv2

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment (usually FSOS, but in early parts, before fol. 104, sometimes does not follow Gregory’s Rule, and unlike sides face one another); many leaves have marks of mould

Physical extent

Fols: i + 312 + i (numbered fol. 313). Flyleaves parchment.

Hands

Written in gothic secretary with frequent use of anglicana double-bowled g, with headings and section openings in a thick gothic textura quadrata which is the height of two lines.

The scribe adds occasional annotations in margins and central reservation (eg fol. 221, 227, 234, 306).

Punctuation by point only.

Decoration

At major divisions, four-line blue lombards with red flourishing; these do not appear usual English work, but, rather, are Italianate in style, and employ experimental capitals: eg variants of A (fol. 71va: slanted-backed majuscule; fol. 73ra, 109vb: v-shaped horizontal; fol. 116va: heavy wedged horizontal arms at top), variants of E (fol. 38ra: round-backed; fol. 39ra: double-backed; fol. 39vb and 40ra: square-backed), H with hooked horizontal (fol. 46rb), variants of I (fol. 2vb, 4va, 5va etc), humanist N (fol. 8ra, 27rb, 80ra etc), flat-topped R (fol. 134vb), key-shaped T (fol. 163v), variants of V (fol. 29vb, 64va: U-like with a hooked left arm; fol. 29va: heart-shaped). A very few of these near the end have been missed out, and blanks left, e.g. fol. 203va. These letter-forms (but not the background on which they stand) have a generic similarity with those in, eg, the later leaves of BL, MS Arundel 66 (Astrological collection, London, 1490). At subsidiary divisions, ornamental text-ink paraphs with the lemma in textura.

It is perhaps the scribe, in a smaller script distinguished by its use of double-bowled d, that adds at top right of each recto, up to fol. 199, a note of the subject that folio.

Binding

Uncovered pasteboards, with half-leather for the spine, ?s. xviii. In the top spine compartment ‘Jo. de Platea in Justinian’, s. xix. Sewn on five thongs. The pastedowns are old parchment, a ChCh bookplate on the front pastedown. On the front and back pastedowns there are holes from a quincunx arrangement of bosses from an earlier binding, presumably that of the first owner himself.

Provenance

Armorial information indicates the patron of the book: a coat-of-arms ‘quarterly gules and ermine, in the first and fourth quarters a goat’s head erased argent’ below first column of fol. 1 and a rebus MOR in blue on a brown painted tun below the second. Both signify John Morton (d. 1500), who was bishop of Ely from 1478 until he was elevated to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1486, Chancellor of England from 1487, and, from 1493, a cardinal. That his arms appear without any reference to him as bishop, let alone cardinal or archbishop, may date what we may assume was his commissioning of this manuscript to earlier in his career. For him, see BRUO, 1318–20, where this volume is ignored in the account of his eight surviving books (1320). These include two other civil law commentaries, a printed Bartolus de Sassoferrato on Justinian (Venice, 1475, now BL, IC.20238) and BL, MS Arundel 454, a glossed Justinian, as well as two books of canon law (BL, MSS Arundel 435 and 461). At MS Arundel 454, fol. 1 Morton’s coat-of-arms and rebus appear in the same position as in our manuscript (see the on-line BL Illuminated MSS Catalogue [last accessed 3rd October 2012]). The only other indication of an early provenance is the inscription Rawlyn (upside down on the front pastedown, s. xvi in.?).

Although the book itself contains no note to the effect, it was bequeathed by Wake, and is the first in his autograph schedule of his manuscripts (MS 352/8, fol. 1): ‘Jo: de Platea Comment in Institutiones Justiniani’.