Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in psalmos 101–150; England, s. xiv¼

Title

Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in psalmos 101–150; England, s. xiv¼

Shelfmark

Exeter College MS. 37

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xiv¼

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment FHHF

Physical extent

224 leaves preceded and followed by one 18th-century paper flyleaf

Hands

Written in several anglicana hands, some showing secretary influence. Punctuated by low point, punctus elevatus, and punctus interrogativus.

Decoration

On fol. 1r is an illuminated 4-line initial extended to form a half-border. Main colours are blue and brown. A hole in the lower margin suggests that a coat of arms has been excised.

Before each psalm are 4/5-line lombards, blue flourished red. Lemmata underlined red; red stroking. Alexander and Temple, no. 426.

Binding

Sewn on five bands. Standard Exeter binding: simple and quite elegant, calf over millboards, the calf bearing blind decoration of a floral type, early 19th century. On the spine is a red leather label with the title in gold. Endbands are lost.

Provenance

It is not known when the volume came to Exeter but unless we suppose that this manuscript and MS 38 were together before coming to the College (for which there is no evidence) their sharing a common history in the fifteenth century, shown by the presence of the hand of that date that added the opening words of psalms (see above), makes it very probable that they were both in the College then. One of them may indeed be the book referred to in the Rector’s Accounts for summer 1419, ‘Item Vs pro vno libro beati Augustini.’ Both are recorded as being in the library c. 1600 (Ecloga, nos. 28 and 22 respectively) and at the end of the 17th century (CMA, nos. 29 and 22 respectively).

On fol. 109 (as in MSS 28 fol. 173 (172), 38 fol. 94 and 40 fol. 47) a tab to bear a title was created, all that can now be read on this one being ‘Aug Ps’.

Exeter library identifications are, on the front pastedown, ‘P8—6 Gall’ (deleted), ‘173–H–2’, ‘Ex: Coll: Oxon:’, ‘Coxe Cat. no. XXXVII’ and the book stamp. On the spine is a round paper label with ‘2’ on it.