PETER LOMBARD ON THE PAULINE EPISTLES; S. XIII in.

Title

PETER LOMBARD ON THE PAULINE EPISTLES; S. XIII in.

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 182

Place of origin

France, Paris

Date

S. XIII in.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

318 leaves (ii + 316)The edges retrimmed affecting marginalia and spattered with red. fol. 61 mostly excised.

Hands

Two excellent early gothic bookhands (the second beg. in quire 20), possibly French, of the type used for glossed books. A neat French bookhand little later than the main text supplies omitted passages in the margin.

Decoration

In Parisian style. Fine historiated and decorated initials in gold and colours, flourished in red and blue, open the text and sometimes also the gloss of each book: fol. 1 22-line P with God the Creator; the opening initial of Rom. lost with the excised leaf after fol. 1; fol. 69v 12-line gold H on pink and blue ground with fine curling foliage perhaps once silver; fine arabesque P in red and blue; fol. 132v 24-line P with half-length Paul holding a scroll; fols. 165, 212 P with foliage and pen-flourishing in purple, green, orange and white; fol. 165v 22-line P with half-length Paul in the act of writing (a fine representation of a scribe at work); fol. 192 22-line P with half-length Paul holding a scroll; fol. 212v 20-line P with Paul being lowered from the walls of Damascus; fol. 226v 19-line P with half-length Paul holding a book; fols. 239, 275 24-line and 41-line gold P on red and blue ground with foliage; fol. 249 22-line P with half-length Paul holding scroll and gesturing; fol. 254v P with half-length Paul gesturing; fol. 267 gold P on pink and blue ground; fol. 279 19-line violet P enclosing a gold ground with coloured foliage; fol. 280v 11-line gold M on a blue ground with fine curling foliage perhaps once silver. In the text red or blue initials flourished in the other colour; occasionally green flourished with red; in the gloss plain red or blue initials; red underlining of lemmata and marginal auctoritates; running heads in red and blue capitals.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii, sewn on five bands; formerly chained from the usual position. On fol. i (but not the front board) is the mark of a brass chain-staple near the foot of the foredge; two other faint marks may indicate lost foredge straps. fol. i was a pastedown in an earlier binding.

Provenance

Made professionally in Paris.

On fol. iiv ‘Liber domus scolarium de Mertonhalle in Oxon’ ex dono Magistri Iohannis Burbache doctoris in theologia et quondam socii huius domus ut inchatenetur in libraria communi ad perpetuum usum studencium ibidem.’ For Burbage, fellow 1411–35, d. by Dec. 1451, see MS 3.

At the head of fol. 1 is a title in a hand of s. xvi, and ‘F. 5, 5’, canc. Inside the back board is a slip of paper with a title, s. xvi, upside down. On fol. iivis a title of s. xvii, and ‘O. 7. 10 Art:’, canc. and replaced with ‘O. 3. 3’ and ‘No. CLXXXII’ in red, the first itself canc. and replaced with pencilled ‘Q. 1. 8’; the College bookplate. ‘10’ is inked on the foredge.