William of Wheatley, W. de Monte, Grosseteste; etc.; England, s. xiv1

Title

William of Wheatley, W. de Monte, Grosseteste; etc.; England, s. xiv1

Shelfmark

Exeter College MS. 28

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xiv1

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment FHHF

Physical extent

308 leaves preceded by one printed flyleaf and its turnover (fols. ii, i), one 18th-century paper flyleaf (fol. iii), a medieval membrane flyleaf and its turnover (fols. v, iv); and followed by the same sequence of leaves in reverse order.

Binding

Sewn on six bands between millboards covered with reversed calf, with triple blind fillets round the outer edges, s. xvii. Printed binding leaves at front and back, from the same, probably incunable, copy of Gratian’s Decreta as the leaves in MSS 26, 30, and 43, which are bound in the same style, were probably added by the 17th-century binder rather than being taken over from an earlier binding.

Provenance

On fol. vv (1v) is ‘Liber iste fuit emptus scolaribus de Stapeldon Hall cum bonis magistrorum Henrici Whitefeld et Johannis Landreyn. Oretis igitur pro vtroque.’ Whitfeld was one of the bp. of Exeter’s visitors to the college, in 1371, 1374, and 1378 and was alive in 1384. Landreyn was a fellow of Exeter, d. 1409. On both men see BRUO. Entries in the Rector’s Accounts for 1389 which refer only to the Boethius texts in this volume suggest that the other items were added after it reached the College (e.g. ‘reddit compotus de centum solidis de bonis M. Henrici Wytfelde pro libris philosophie emendis’, ‘reddit compotus de v marcis solitis pro boicio de disciplina scolarium et de consolacione philosophie emptis ad vsum domus’), but the above inscription is followed by a contents list, also of s. xv1, which shows that the contents were then as they are now except that a final item was ‘Lincoln de libero arbitrio aliter quam prius’, i.e. Recension 1: see Thomson, Grosseteste, 11.

On fol. Ir (308r), are ‘Finiunt opera Boecii cum Jº’ and ‘die sancti Vlstani gracia ei concessa’, both perhaps of s. xv and if so dating from after the book’s arrival at Stapledon Hall.

On fol. 1r (2r) is ‘Gulihelmus Whetley commentator huius libri’ in a hand of s. xvimed.

On fol. 173 (174), as in MSS 37 fol. 109, 38 fol. 94, and 40 fol. 47, a tab has been created by cutting the membrane; on it is ‘Grosthead August.’ in a hand of s. xviiin.

Although not recorded in Ecloga, the book was surely in the College in medieval times, since Bale, Index, 377, records several Grosseteste texts from it, items C(iv–vi). CMA, 43.

Exeter library identifications are, inside the front cover: bookplate 1, ‘E1—22’ and ‘Q8—8 Gall’ (both deleted), ‘172–G–8’ and ‘Coxe Cat. no. XXVIII’.