Abbreviamentum statutorum, Statutes of England (vetera statuta), Statutes of England (nova statuta), Edward III to Henry VII — 15th century, end (1496 (?)); English

Title

Abbreviamentum statutorum, Statutes of England (vetera statuta), Statutes of England (nova statuta), Edward III to Henry VII — 15th century, end (1496 (?)); English

Shelfmark

MS. Hatton 10

Place of origin

English

Date

15th century, end (1496 (?))

Language

Anglo-Norman

Middle English (1100-1500)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

vi + 375 + viii medieval leaves

Hands

One hand; formal anglicana with secretary influence. Malcolm Parkes identifies the same scribe in ten other statute manuscripts: M. B. Parkes, Their Hands before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes: The Lyell Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford 1999 (London, 2016), 44-45.

Semi-quadrata script is used for the display script.

Decoration

Fine historiated and other borders.

Fine initials. Borders and major initials on fols. fols. 43r, 97r, 153r, 188r, 210r, 226r, 290r, 328v, 336v. Minor initials (fols. 7-42) at the beginning of each letter of the alphabet, (Vetera Statuta) the beginning of each statute, (Nova Statuta) the beginning of each regnal year.

Some initials inhabited or historiated: fol. 43r (fool), 290r (king with lay and clerical advisers), 336v (king with lay and clerical advisers).

Binding

Contemporary London (?) binding of brown stamped leather over wooden boards (severely worn): panel design: central diaper pattern with latticework stamps, surrounded by alternating stamps of lion passant and six-petalled flower; the tentative attribution to the Half-Stamp Binder (Pächt and Alexander, Scott) should probably be rejected.

Acquisition

Bought, along with most of Hatton’s collection, in 1671 by the Bodleian Library from London bookseller Robert Scot (who had purchased it from the Hatton family itself).

Provenance

Kathleen Scott identified three bifolia containing the Modus tenendi parliamentorum and the Tractatus de senescalcia Anglie as a stray from the present manuscript: now Chicago, Case MS. 32.1 ; acquired by the Newberry from Bernard Rosenthal in 1960.

The MS ends with statutes from the eleventh year of Henry VII’s reign and thus could have been finished no earlier than 1495/6. Malcolm Parkes identifies the Hatton 10 scribe’s involvement in ten other manuscripts produced between 1470 and 1492.

Produced probably for Thomas Pygot (d. 1520) of Little Horwood and Whaddon, Bucks., who married Elizabeth Iwardby: arms in the borders of fols. 328v and 336v quarterly Pigot and Iwardby. See J. W. Baker, The Men of Court 1440 to 1550(2012), II. 1278-9, with the caveat that the quartering of arms would suggest the generation after Thomas.

At the top of fol. 7r, “Mr. Pagitt.2.” is written in a late sixteenth- or seventeenth-century hand above the main text: unidentified, perhaps a member of the Northamptonshire legal family.

Christopher Hatton, 1st Baron Hatton (d. 1670).