ARTICELLA &c.; S. XIV

Title

ARTICELLA &c.; S. XIV

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 220

Place of origin

England, Oxford

Date

S. XIV

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

185 leaves (iii + 182)The edges savagely retrimmed with loss of marginalia and spattered with red.

Hands

Probably a single English gothic rotunda bookhand throughout. The additions are all in anglicana hands, little later than the main text.

Decoration

Large and handsome red and blue flourished initials; red or blue initials flourished in the other colour; plain red or blue initials and paraphs; occasional highlighting in red.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii, rebacked; sewn on four bands; formerly chained from the usual position. Fols. iii and 180 are modern paper blanks; fols. i-ii, 181–2 are s. xvii, fols. i and 182 from the same printed book as in MS 117. Near the foot of fol. 179v is the mark of the large iron chain-staple. Fol. 1 was pasted down in an earlier binding, which probably had an iron chain-staple near the foot of the foredge. Marks on the first and last leaves suggests the presence of two straps on earlier covers.

Provenance

Probably made at Oxford, and perhaps owned and annotated by Nicholas Tingewick.

At the College beforec.1500; seen there by John Bale (Appendix C, no. 9). Inside the front board is a sheet of paper with a table of contents and ‘P. 2. 3 Art:’, s. xvii; the same or a similar hand writes some of the contents onto the turn-in and board. Also the College bookplate, and another paper slip with the shelf-mark s. xvii, canc. and ‘No. CCXX N. 3. 3’ in red. ‘3’ is inked on the foredge.