Ps.-JOHN CHRYSOSTOM; S. XIV med.

Title

Ps.-JOHN CHRYSOSTOM; S. XIV med.

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 11

Place of origin

England, Oxford (?)

Date

s. xiv

S. XIV med.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

143 leaves (iii + 140)The edges heavily retrimmed affecting running heads and marginalia, and spattered with red.

Hands

A single expert anglicana formata.

Decoration

Blue initials flourished with red, the first with a partial border in the colours; red or blue paraphs.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii, sewn on six bands; formerly chained from the usual position. fols. i-ii, 139–40 are paper binding leaves, the outermost from a copy of a printed book, s. xvi or xvii, running head bk. 5 ‘De romano pontifice’. fol. 138 was a pastedown in an earlier binding. At its head are four spots of rust, probably from the large iron chain-staple. These marks can only have originated when the leaf was in the reverse position to the present, i.e. when the recto was the verso, and the leaf not pasted down. A rust-spot at the foot of fol. iii, near the foredge, may be the mark of a former chain-staple.

Provenance

Probably made commercially at Oxford.

At the head of fol. iiiv ‘Liber domus scolarium aule de Mertone quem dedit collegio scolarium predictorum Iohannes Turk quondam socius aule predicte incathenandum in communi libraria eiusdem collegii.’ John Turk (BRUO 1916–17), fellow in 1352, still in 1355, chancellor of the University in 1376, canon of Salisbury &c., d. by Feb. 1397.

Below is a table of contents, s. xvii, and the College bookplate. At the head of fol. 1 is the James no. ‘117’ (recte 187), s. xvii in. Inside the front board is a sheet of paper with contents, s. xvii, and modern pencilled ‘N. I. 11’, replaced by ‘B. 2. 1 (XI)’, in red. ‘11’ is inked on the foredge.