BERNARD, HUGH OF ST VICTOR; S. XIV

Title

BERNARD, HUGH OF ST VICTOR; S. XIV

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 53

Place of origin

France, Paris (?)

Date

S. XIV

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment; fols. i and 265 are of thick, stiff parchment.

Physical extent

267 leaves (i + 265, incl. 193A)The edges retrimmed with loss of early marginalia. fols. i and 265 are of thick, stiff parchment.

Hands

French gothic rotunda bookhands, that which writes fols. 1–96 of Italian appearance.

Decoration

Red and blue flourished initials with long bar borders; red initials flourished in violet, blue initials flourished in red; running heads in blue and red capitals.

Binding

Late medieval, heavily restored and resewn by Maltby. Cushion-bevelled oak boards, now bare, with projecting foredges, rebacked with modern vellum; sewn on four bands. Formerly two straps from recesses in the front board to catches in the back. Formerly chained from the middle of the foot of the rear board, and from the foredge of the front board, near the foot. A mark from this staple is on the former pastedown fol. i, which also has, near the head, the mark of the large brass chain-staple (two pairs of holes in a row); there is no corresponding mark on either board. This leaf was clearly at the rear and the other way up in an earlier binding.

Acquisition

The large chain-staple mark indicates that the book was at the College before c.1500. At the head of fol. 1 is the James no. ‘232’ (recte236), s. xvii in. On fol. iv: a table of contents, s. xvii, ‘N. 4. 14. Art:’, s. xvii, canc. and replaced by ‘B. 3. 6 (LIII)’ in red; the College bookplate. ‘14’ is inked on the foredge.

Provenance

Probably made in Paris.