Religious miscellany; England, s. xvmed and s. xv3/4 (I-III), and s. xiiimed or s. xiii2 (IV)

Title

Religious miscellany; England, s. xvmed and s. xv3/4 (I-III), and s. xiiimed or s. xiii2 (IV)

Shelfmark

Christ Church MS. 91

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xvmed and 3/4

s. xvmed

s. xv3/4

s. xiiimed or s. xiii2

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Physical extent

Fols: i + 230

Binding

Brown leather over chamfered bevelled wooden boards, s. xv. Sewn on seven thongs, taken straight into the board, as depicted by Pollard, fig. 5. Seatings with stubs of leather straps in the upper board, two and three nails; metal clasps at the edge of the lower board. A single nailhole from a chain staple in Watson’s position 4; and two nailholes from another, in position 5 (this latter a ChCh chain: see Appendix I). Pastedowns heavy waste parchment, a ChCh bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, one heavy parchment flyleaf, conjoint with the pastedown (fol. i).

Provenance

The initials in the colophon to item 2, ‘C P R Y S’ (fol. 83ra), are possibly scribal signature, though an abbreviation of a motto is equally plausible. MLGB3 assigns the book, along with MS 90, to Crediton (Devon), the collegiate church of the Holy Cross; in 1947, Neil Ker read under ultraviolet light the inscriptions ‘Decano Crediton’ and ‘liber J. Lyndon’ on fol. iv. Lyndon, fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 1434, rector in 1441–42, was Dean of the church in Crediton from 24th February 1442, until his death in or before early 1487. On him and his books, see BRUO, 1191, and James M. W. Willoughby, The Libraries of Collegiate Churches, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 15, 2 vols (London, 2013), 1:100–101. It is Lyndon who writes the table of contents (fol. iv) and provides the running headers, chapter divisions (eg item 22) and annotations throughout the volume. It was presumably him who had the fascicules brought together and bound as one codex; he also provided pieces of string attached to the outer margin of certain pages to provide tabs to the openings of works (fol. 90, 113, 195).

Ker also read on fol. 1 (the upper margin) ‘Guilihelmi Muggi liber ex dono Magistri Georgii Mason’ and spotted another illegible inscription at the top of fol. 195. For the route of descent from Mason to Mugge to Ballow, see MS 90, provenance.

Like the preceding book, a gift of William Ballow: ‘Hunc codicem manuscriptum Ædi Christi in gratiam studiosorum ibidem Guilielmus Ballowe in artibus Magister testificandi amoris sui ergo dono dedit 5º. Octobris anno Domini 1601’ (fol. iv). There is a cancelled ChCh shelfmark at the front pastedown, ‘B..’, which must relate to the 1676 Catalogue, though this manuscript receives no entry there (see Appendix I). Immediately below that note, and below the donation note at fol. iv, Edward Smallwell added the New Library shelfmark of ‘F.14’ (see Appendix IV); this also appears stamped on a tiny tab on the spine.