JOSEPHUS; S. XII 3/4

Title

JOSEPHUS; S. XII 3/4

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 316

Place of origin

England, West Midlands (?)

Date

S. XII 3/4

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

172 leaves (iii + 169) The edges retrimmed and spattered with red.

Hands

Two expert protogothic bookhands, the first French, the second English: fols. 2–8v, 9–164v.

Decoration

Handsome arabesque initials in red, dark green, blue and sometimes pink associated with display script in the first three colours; plain red, blue or green initials; the capitula have red or blue initials, plain or flourished in the other colour or both.

Binding

s. xix, sewn on five bands. Fols. i-iii, 167–9 are modern paper blanks. Near the foot of the early parchment leaves are the marks of an iron chain-staple.

Provenance

Made in England, probably at a religious community in the west midlands.

On f. 165v is pencilled, in a large formal hand of s. xiv, ‘Wymundus uice K?ham’.

On f. 1v in a large formal gothic quadrata hand with flourished initial, ‘Liber Magistri Iohannis Tailour sacre theologie professoris’; in the untidy secretary hand that writes the Fitzjames inscriptions, ‘Librum istud dedit ad communem utilitatem in hac bibliotheca studentium bone memorie uenerabilis pater M. Iohannes Taylour, sacre theologie professor deuotissimus. Cuius igitur em / propicietur Deus ut requiem habeatur et ad gaudia transeat sempiterna.’ An attempt has been made to erase ‘Cuius ... sempiterna’.

Given to the College in 1493 by the executors of John Taylor, and deposited in the library on 2 August 1494: see MS 2.

At the head of f. 2 is the James no. ‘50’ (though this might be MS 317), s. xvii in. On f. 1v is a title, ‘Liber Coll: Mertonensis Oxon.’and ‘O. 2. 2. Art.’, s. xvii, and the College bookplate. ‘O. 2. 2. Art:’ is repeated on f. 1. Inside the front board is the College bookplate again, with ‘O. 2. 2.’, canc. and replaced with ‘M. 2. 2’ in red, and ‘No. 316 in Mr Coxe’s Catalogue’.