NICHOLAS GORRAN ON PSALMS; S. XIII ex.

Title

NICHOLAS GORRAN ON PSALMS; S. XIII ex.

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 167

Place of origin

script of French and slight Italian appearance.

Date

S. XIII ex.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

355 leaves (vi + 349) The edges heavily retrimmed and spattered with red.

Hands

French gothic rotunda bookhands of slightly Italian appearance.

Decoration

Unfilled spaces for initials; rubrics and red highlighting and underlining of lemmata, omitted after quire 16.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii, rebacked; sewn on eight bands; formerly chained from the usual position. fols. i-iv, 347–9 are paper binding leaves, the two outermost modern, the others s. xvii; the two outermost of these are from the same printed book as in MS 11. fol. v was a pastedown in an earlier binding. At the foot of fol. v is the mark of an iron chain-staple; on the foredge are the marks of two straps. Fainter marks near the foot of fol. 466v are probably from the large iron chain-staple. Either this or MS 168 was rebound in 1436–7: Appendix B, no. 95.

Provenance

On fol. v ‘Liber scolarium domus de Merton’ in Oxon’ ex legato M. Willelmi de Burnel prec’’. At the head of fol. 1, s. xv, ‘Liber domus scolarium de Merton’ in Oxon’ ex legato Magistri Willelmi de Burnell’. For Burnell, dean of Wells 1292–5, d. 1304, see MS 14. UO47. 30, ‘in libraria’.

Inside the front board is a sheet of paper with ‘F. 3, 4’ (canc.) and the contents, s. xvii, ‘O. 6. 7. Art:’, canc. and replaced by ‘K. 3. 4 (CLXVII)’ in washed-out red ink renewed in pencil; the College bookplate. ‘9’ was inked on the foredge, then scraped off.