Petrus de Herenthals, Richard Ullerston — 15th century, early (after 1415); English, Oxford (?)

Title

Petrus de Herenthals, Richard Ullerston — 15th century, early (after 1415); English, Oxford (?)

Shelfmark

MS. Lyell 20

Place of origin

English, Oxford (?)

Date

15th century, early (after 1415)

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

i + 227 leaves (fol. i and 227 are flyleaves)Edges slightly cropped

Hands

Written in a formal set secretary hand in England, probably at Oxford, in the early 15th cent. The scribe uses a double-compartment 'a' on fol. 1-4, then changes to a single compartment 'a' on fol. 4v

Decoration

Fol. 1, on gold ground, initial in blue filled with sprouting interlacing foliage in blue, red, and orange, all decorated in white, joined to a bar border on three sides with clusters and sprays of foliage in the same colours. There are some touches of pale green. Similar initials and border on fols. 3r, 34v, 53v, 74v, 99r, 142r, 159v.

Borders: see above.

Other initals in blue, skilfully flourished in red.

(Pächt and Alexanderiii. 864)

Binding

19th-cent. binding in white parchment with foliage ornament imprinted in black and blue (as MS. Lyell 6), over old boards, with same ticket of E. Parry, Bookseller and Stationer, Bridge Street Row, Chester.

Acquisition

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

Provenance

On fol. 215 is the erased note (15th cent): 'Iste liber constat magistro Roberto Colby'. A notary called Robert Colby executed a document in Balliol College, Oxford, in 1419; see Emden, B.R.U.O., p. 459.

Later in the Mostyn Library: on the front pastedown is the Gloddaeth Library ticket (no. 63) and 'MS. No. 70': the number of the MS. in Hist. MSS. Comm., 4th report, 1874, App. p. 349. Lot 123 in Mostyn sale, Sotheby's 13 July 1920.

James P. R. Lyell, 1871–1948: bought by Lyell in July 1942 from Quaritch; see their Catalogue of Illuminated and other MSS., 1931, no. 79.