THOMAS AQUINAS; S. XIII 3/4

Title

THOMAS AQUINAS; S. XIII 3/4

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 72

Place of origin

England, Oxford

Date

S. XIII 3/4

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

264 (i + 263) leavesThe edges savagely retrimmed especially at the head, with loss of running heads and marginalia, and spattered with red.

Hands

An English gothic rotunda bookhand of university type, correcting its own work in the margins.

Decoration

On fol. 1 a 6-line initial Q in colours on a squarish ground, enclosing Thomas preaching to lay persons including a soldier, in the style of the William of Devon painter, for whom see E. Temple, ‘Further additions to the William of Devon group’, BLR11 (1984), 344–8 and figs 2–3; Morgan, Early Gothic, II, pp. 22, 128, 153, 161–2. Red and blue flourished initials; blue initials flourished in red; red or blue paraphs. Catchwords and runovers are associated with attractive grotesques in pen-and-ink.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii, repaired in modern times; sewn on five bands; formerly chained from the usual position on the rear board; fols. i and 263 are modern paper blanks.

Provenance

Doubtless made commercially in Oxford. In the outer margin of fol. 81 is a monk’s head very like the Gloucester ones illustrated by N. R. Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1960), pl. 27 b-c. It is not known when this book came to the College prior to 1600.

Inside the front board is a sheet of paper with (1) ‘D. 4, 2’, s. xvii, canc., (2) the contents, s. xvii, (3) ‘N. 6. 6. Art:’, s. xvii, canc. and replaced with ‘I. 1. 2’, in red, and (4) the College bookplate. The James no. ‘6’ is at the head of fol. 1 (s. xvii in., slightly cropped), and the same number is inked on the foredge.