JEROME ON THE PSALMS; S. XV ex.

Title

JEROME ON THE PSALMS; S. XV ex.

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 24

Date

S. XV ex.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

170 leaves The edges lightly retrimmed and stained yellow.

Hands

Similar hands to MS 23; the scribe who begins work at fol. 12 was Continental.

Decoration

The first leaf was doubtless excised for its major decoration. Otherwise 2-line initials, purple or green flourished in the other colour, or blue flourished in red; lemmata and running titles in red with purple, blue or green paraphs; highlighting in yellow.

Binding

Original, cushion-bevelled oak boards with slightly projecting foredges, covered with tawed skin, an overcover of the same sewn on, perhaps once pink (some colour remaining on the turn-ins), trimmed at the foot; sewn on five bands, slightly raised and blind-tooled; two straps of tawed skin with large clasps of chased brass, nailed to the front board beneath the overcover, to shell-shaped catches at the back (Pl. 24). A label 165 × 65 mm., nailed under horn to the back cover, bears Fitzjames’ arms in colour and ‘Iheronimus super psalterium ex dono domini Ricardi Fitzjames nuper Londoniensis episcopi anno Domini Mo quingentesimo decimo viio.’, in large formal script (Pl. 17). The marks of brass chain-staples at the foredges of both boards, near the foot at the front and near the head at the rear.

Provenance

Made for Richard Fitzjames, and given by him to the College.

On the front pastedown are ‘Hieronymus in Psalmos’, s. xvii; ‘N. 2. 12. Art:’, s. xvii, canc. and replaced with ‘B. 3. 2. (XXIV)’ in red; the College bookplate.