NICHOLAS OF OCKHAM; S. XIV in.

Title

NICHOLAS OF OCKHAM; S. XIV in.

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 134

Place of origin

England, Oxford (?)

Date

S. XIV in

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

192 leaves (i + 191) The edges savagely retrimmed with loss of running heads and marginalia, spattered with red.

Hands

Two proficient English scribes writing low-grade bookhands of university type, including many anglicana forms. The first finished his stint at the foot of fol. 62, well into d. 9. The second, however, took up the text at d. 6 (which already occurred at fol. 57vb). An early reader signalled the resulting overlap with ‘Va—cat’ and alteration of the catchword at fol. 61v. The second scribe writes the running heads, corrects the work of the first, and writes distinctio- and quaestio-numbers in the margins, the titles of the quaestiones in the lower margins. Marginal annotation in early anglicana hands.

Decoration

Blue initials flourished and with partial borders in red and blue; blue initials flourished in blue; red or blue paraphs.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii; sewn on four bands; formerly chained from the usual position. fol. i was a pastedown in an earlier binding. Fols. 190–1 are paper endleaves, 191 from the same printed book as in Merton College MS. 19 (fol. 9).

Provenance

Probably made at Oxford and owned by the Franciscans.

At the head of fol. i is a damaged inscription, of which ‘[?] L. iii s. Willelmi durant ’ can be read. At the head of fol. 1vis ‘Iste liber est liber domus scolarium de Merton’ in Oxon’ ex dono M. Willelmi Durant quondam custodis eiusdem domus. Oretis igitur pro anima eiusdem’, a version repeated below in a hand of s. xvii. For Duraunt, warden from 1351 until his death in 1375, see MS 84.

On the same leaf is ‘O. 3. 6. Art:’, s. xvii, canc. and replaced with ‘L. 1. 6 (CXXXIV)’ in red. At the head of fol. 2 is ‘D. 6, 15’, s. xvii. ‘6’ is inked on the foredge.