Calendar in Latin, New Testament in the Later Version of the Wycliffite Bible with usual prologues, Old Testament lectionary of Type II, Table of lections of Type I — 15th century, first quarter; England, London (?)

Title

Calendar in Latin, New Testament in the Later Version of the Wycliffite Bible with usual prologues, Old Testament lectionary of Type II, Table of lections of Type I — 15th century, first quarter; England, London (?)

Shelfmark

MS. Rawl. C. 259

Place of origin

England, London (?)

Date

15th century, first quarter

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment, paper flyleaves

Physical extent

263 leaves, c.

Hands

textura, black and brown ink; the scribe of Old Testament lectionary is different from the scribe of New Testament

Decoration

3- to 5-line red and blue ‘puzzle’ initials with red and purple penwork at the beginnings of books; 3- to 4-line similar initials at the beginnings of prologues; 2- to 3-line blue initials with red penwork at the beginnings of chapters. Penwork in Old Testament lectionary is in a different style than that in the calendar and New Testament.

Binding

Light brown leather over pasteboard, 19th century. Blind fillet-line border round the outer edge of both covers. Five raised bands on spine framed by blind fillet lines. Gilt lettering on spine: ‘WICKLIFFE’S NEW TESTAMENT’ and ‘RAWL. MS. C. 259’. Blind roll floral designs on the edges of covers and turn-ins. 19th-century paper pastedowns and flyleaves. Flyleaves made of laid paper with Hearne’s inscriptions, dating from a 17th- or early 18th-century binding. Parchment flyleaves made from a 12th-century Latin manuscript containing fragments of St Augustine’s Confessions. These flyleaves may have served as pastedowns of a medieval binding sewn on four stations (offprints on the flyleaf at the beginning).

Acquisition

Bodleian Library: bequeathed by Rawlinson and accessioned in 1756.

Provenance

Translation of Thomas Becket is erased, presumably at Reformation.

Edward Etterick of Totteridge, Hertfordshire (Foster, J., Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1714, 4 vols (London: Joseph Foster; Oxford: Parker and Co., 1891–92), p. 467), fellow of New College, matriculated 1714.

Thomas Hearne, bap. 1678, d. 1735; see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Suum cuiq. Tho. Hearne, Oct. 9. 1719. I have made mention of this MS. in my Preface to Camden’s Eliz. (Oxon. 1717, p. 123.) It then belong’d to Edw. Etterick, Esq., Fellow of New College. I purchas’d it since his death on fol. iv recto in his hand; see Hearne, Thomas (ed.), Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha, ad annum M.D.LXXXIX (Oxford: 1717). On fol. v recto in Hearne’s hand: The New Testament, in old English, commonly called Wicliff’s Translation, with the Calendar prefix’d. On fol. v verso in Hearne’s hand: Scriptus hic liber circa AD 1370, nam quae notantur paginis a & k videntur tum recentia and beneath in the hand of Thomas Baker (1656–1740; see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) Scriptum fuisse hunc librum exploratum haveo AD. 1345 and lower Sed Amicus noster egregie fallitur, aut edo fallor.

Richard Rawlinson (1690–1755); see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Title

New Testament (later Wycliffite version, with lections)

Shelfmark

MS. Rawl. C. 259

Date

early 15th century

Language

English

Physical extent

1 item