Peter Lombard, Bartholomeus of Brescia, Roffredus de Epiphanio of Benevento (?) — 13th century, late; France (?)

Title

Peter Lombard, Bartholomeus of Brescia, Roffredus de Epiphanio of Benevento (?) — 13th century, late; France (?)

Shelfmark

MS. Lyell 14

Place of origin

France (?)

Date

13th century, late

14th century

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

267leaves (fol. 1, 267 are flyleaves)Edges badly cropped

Hands

Written in a university text hand, possibly in France.

Decoration

One painted initial survives at the beginning of book III (fol. 147): it is in pink, on a blue and pink ground with some geometrical decoration in straps of pink and decorated with spots of gold.

On fols. 2r, 4v, 7v, 9v and 12r, initials in blue and red flourished in red and blue, other initials red flourished in blue or blue in red penwork.

On fol. 1v and 2r are offsets which suggest that there may once have been a table of consanguinity at the beginning of the MS.

Binding

Bound in N. France, probably in the last quarter of the 15th cent., in wooden boards covered with brown calf blind stamped with diagonals forming lozenge compartments in which are stamped two seals: a a pascal lamb with 'S. IEHAN DE BOIENVAL'; b a saintly bishop or abbot with cross, mitre, and halo and 's. M. DE LA MEAUFE'. Reproduced by Goldschmidt, Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings, pl. II (front cover), XCIX, 3 (rubbings of stamps). Two metal clasps on modern leather straps.

Acquisition

Chosen as one of the hundred manuscripts bequeathed to the Bodleian by Lyell in 1948.

Provenance

The stamps on the binding suggest that the MS. once belonged to a monastery or church in N. France. There is a village called La Meauffe in Brittany, near St. Clair in the diocese of Coutances.

Throughout the MS. are a number of notes and scribbles in English hands of the late 16th-17th cents. These include: (fol. 4)' Robert Ashton', possibly the man who matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1624 and later became a barrister at Lincoln's Inn (Foster, Alumni Oxonienses , p. 36)

(fol. 7v) 'Josias Lambert of Carton (=Carlton?) in Craven in the countye of Yorke gentleman doe alowe and command to bee alowed all and singuler.' A Josias Lamberte of Skipton in Craven, Yorks., matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1623 (Foster, p. 871)

(fol. 208) 'William Deane of Hawaorthe'; (fol. 242, 263, 266) ' Thomas Ellys'; (fol. 263)'For as muche as I am enformed that Robert Deane of Haworthe in the countie of Yorke Clotheyerhave had and stowlen(?)'. A Robert Deane of Yorks. matriculated at University College in 1586 (Foster, p. 390).

Later belonged to George Dunn of Woolley Hall near Maidenhead(bookplate): lot 486 in his sale, Sotheby's, 11-14 Feb. 1913

E. P. Goldschmidt, see his Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings , London, 1928, no. 3 and pls. II, XCIX 3.

James P. R. Lyell, 1871–1948: bought by Lyell in December 1941 from Davis and Orioli.