Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica I; England, s. xiv1

Title

Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica I; England, s. xiv1

Shelfmark

Exeter College MS. 33

Place of origin

England

Date

2: s. xiv1

*1: s. xiiiex

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment FHHF

Physical extent

170 leaves preceded by two 18th-century paper flyleaves and one medieval membrane leaf, and followed by two 18th-century paper flyleaves.

Hands

*1, anglicana.

2, a small gothic bookhand undecided between rotunda and semiquadrata, perhaps by one scribe throughout. Punctuated with low point and double virgula. Quaestiones are numbered in ink, s. xv.

Decoration

*1, none.

2, a quite good 7-line illuminated initial with extender on fol. 1r (Alexander and Temple, no. 232),

otherwise 2-line blue lombards flourished red, and red flourished blue, with extenders. Blue and red paraphs and blue-and-red running head numbers.

Binding

Sewn on four bands. Standard Exeter binding: simple and quite elegant, calf over millboards, the calf bearing blind decoration of a floral type, early 19th century. The spine, like that of MS 35, is elaborately blind-tooled.

Provenance

No early history is known and the book is recorded in neither Ecloga nor CMA, but at the foot of fol. iiir is ‘Liber Coll. Exon’ in a hand which may be of s. xvi and can hardly be later than s. xvii1 and is found in manuscripts that were certainly in the College’s medieval library. It is likely that this book was in the medieval library too. See further Watson, Exeter, Introduction, pp. xxii–xxiii.

Exeter library identifications, on the front pastedown, are: bookplate 3 and on it ‘Q8–13 Gall’ (deleted), ‘72’, ‘172–E–9’, ‘Coxe XXXIII’ and a title ‘Alexandri de Ales Summa Theologica’ in a modern hand. ‘9’ is on a serrated paper label at the top of the spine.