John Lathbury, OFM, Alphabetum morale; England, s. xvmed

Title

John Lathbury, OFM, Alphabetum morale; England, s. xvmed

Shelfmark

Exeter College MS. 26

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xvmed

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment FHHF

Physical extent

215 leaves, preceded by one modern paper flyleaf and followed by the stubs (233 × 60 mm) of two medieval flyleaves which have been cut away, another medieval flyleaf (fol. III), once a pastedown, a modern paper flyleaf (fol. IV), and another flyleaf and its turnover (fols. V–VI) on which see Binding, below. The tops of many leaves have been damaged by damp but there is no loss of text.

Hands

Fols. 1–88v are in one secretary hand, sparsely punctuated by low point.

The rest of the book is in several bastard secretary hands, sparsely punctuated by low point and double virgula. A book script varying between rotunda and semiquadrata is used for headings.

Decoration

On fol. 1 is a 9-line red-and-blue lombard which is extended to form a bar-frame border. Lombards throughout are otherwise 3/4-line and there are red and blue paraphs.

Binding

Sewn on five bands, between millboards covered with reversed calf, with three blind fillets round the edges, s. xvii. The spine, label, and endpapers are new, replaced by Maltby of Oxford in 1979. On fol. III (see above, Structure) towards each corner, are four sets of three holes, one with a trace of green staining, which suggests that an earlier cover had four bosses. Fols. V–VI are another former flyleaf, a leaf and its turnover from a printed (probably incunable) copy of Gratian’s Decreta, as in MSS 28, 30, and 43, which are bound in the same 17th-century style and were probably added by the 17th-century binder rather than being taken over from an earlier binding.

Provenance

Although the book was probably at Exeter c. 1600, Ecloga does not record it unless it is no. 27, ‘Lathbury in threnos’ (the only other Lathbury, MS Exeter 27, being identifiable as Ecloga, no. 23 by the citation of its incipit). MS 26 may also be CMA 20 (‘Johannes Lathbury … Loci Communes’).

Exeter library identifications are, on the front pastedown, bookplate 1, ‘E 1–14’ and ‘Q8–6 Gall’ (both deleted), ‘173. F.18’ altered from ‘172. G. 6’ (deleted), ‘173 F 18’ (deleted), ‘171.I.8’ and ‘Coxe Cat. no. xxvi’.