Odo of Cluny, Epitome Moralium s. Gregorii in Iob. France/South of the Loire, s. ix2/4.

Title

Odo of Cluny, Epitome Moralium s. Gregorii in Iob. France/South of the Loire, s. ix2/4.

Shelfmark

MS. Laud Misc. 456

Place of origin

France, South of the Loire, possibly in a nunnery (see Script).

Date

9th century, second quarter.

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment. The first and last leaves of the volume appear to have directly faced the boards of a previous binding: (fols 1r–v, 198v–201v) several rust marks (the last two leaves partly damaged), from former binding furniture, including two fore-edge straps/clasps.

Physical extent

i (17th-cent.) + 201 + i (17th-cent.)leaves

Hands

Carolingian minuscule, s. ix2/4, by several hands. Occasional marginalia in lead point or ink, in contemporary and later, up to 15th-cent. hands.

'Aystrud scripsit', fol. 201v. Note suggestive of a female scribe.

Decoration

Decorated initials in red, green and yellow.

Rubrication.

Sketches and drawings.

Binding

Brown tanned calf over laminated pulpboard for Archbp. Laud, 1637–1639

Acquisition

Given to the Bodleian as part of his third donation, dispatched on 28 June 1639.

Provenance

Mainz, Carthusian abbey of St Michael: the late 14th-cent. ex-libris inscription at the upper margin of fol. 1r: ‘Iste liber est fratrum montis sancti michahelis prope mogunciam ordinis Carthusiensis’ (faint) and, in a different hand, at the upper right margin of fol. 200v: ‘Iste liber est Cartusiensium prope mogunciam’. A German hand of s. xiv2/4 inserted in the left-hand margin of fol. 52v a note alluding to the Battle of Mühldorf (Battle of Ampfing), near Mühldorf am Inn, fought on September 28, 1322, between the Duchy of (Upper) Bavaria and Austria (king Louis of Wittelsbach led the Bavarians, while his cousin, the anti-king Frederick of Habsburg, commanded the Austrians): ‘Anno Domni Mo | CCC XXII Lo|dewicus rex ro|manorum et dux austrie habebant | in baubaria | conflictum magnum’. The manuscript may therefore be located in Southern Germany/territory of Mainz in the second quarter of the 14th century, and it seems very likely that it was already in the possession of the Mainz Charterhouse at that time (cf. G. Braga, ‘Problemi di autenticità per Oddone di Cluny: l’Epitome dei “Moralia” di Gregorio Magno’, Studi medievali, 3rd ser., 18/2 (1977), p. 127).

William Laud, 1573–1645: Ex-libris, dated 1638, at the lower part of fol. 1r.

Title

Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job

Shelfmark

MS. Laud Misc. 456

Date

9th century, first half

Language

Latin

Physical extent

201 Leaves

Custodial history

Manuscript 2755 acquired by the Bodleian Library