Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex gathering 5 sets of theological quaestiones (identified as parts (A)-(E)) written in the mid 13th to early 14th century. The manuscript is identifiable from their late 14th century catalogue as one given to St Augustine's Priory, Canterbury by John Mankawel (died around 1330). The early attribution to Robert Kilwardby, f.1r, cannot refer to the Quaestiones in the earlier sections (A)-(B) but may relate to material in (C)-(E). Owned by George Davenport and given by him to Bishop Cosin's Library around 1670.
Parchment, some flaws and natural edges; hair and flesh clearly distinguished; quires with flesh-side outermost), outer edge cropped (leading to loss of prickings and part of marginal note f.118v).
foliated, 1-159; 14th/15th century foliation in ink of f.3-157 as 1-158, omitting 111 and 113 and repeating 138.
(A): f.3-46 - 112, 28, 3-412, (one quire or more lacking after f.46). (B): f.47-63) 512, 64 + one leaf (f.63) after 4. (C): f.64-111 - 7-1012; (D): f.112-123 1112. (E): f.124-156) 12-1412, (one quire or more lacking after f.159).
Prickings in outer margins only, frequently cropped away. Five sections intended to accompany each other, all ruled in brown lead, 2 columns:
(A) Written space 200 x 141-146 mm, 50 lines
(B) Written space 195-205 x 142 5 mm, 48-53 lines
(C) Written space 202 x 143 mm, 48-50 lines
(D) Written space 214 x 141-145 mm, 53 lines
(E) Written space 200-202 x 137-140 mm, 50 lines, with a pair of horizontal lines above and below written space, the latter not infrequently at an angle and repeated straight.
Contents-list on f.2r in small 14th/15th century anglicana, badly faded.
(A)-(B) Written in small gothic minuscule, unevenly, by one hand
(C) Written in (i) incipient anglicana f.64r-65v, (ii) f.66r-93r penultimate word, cursive gothic minuscule, leftwards-leaning, (iii) anglicana f.93r last word (where the marginal numbering ceases)-111v; for (i) and (iii), cf. Thomson, plates 94 (1282), and 95 (1291), also Watson, plates 131 (1286/1290 x 1296), 137 (1291, the same book as Thomson plate 95), which are apparently all of English origin
(D) Written in incipient anglicana, by one (?) somewhat variable hand f.112r-123r
(E) Written in a small square gothic minuscule of university type, somewhat clumsily. Possibly by “H de messingham”: the name is written in what appears to be the text hand f.133r lower outer corner, too early to be the early 15th century fellow of Merton College, Oxford, Nicholas de Messingham. A brother Johannes de Massingham is also recorded later at Canterbury in 1375.
Not executed: spaces for initials to quaestiones: (A) 2 or (f.3r) 3 line; (B) 1 line or none; (C) 4 line (f.65v) or (f.64r) 5 line; (D) none; (E) 2 line. Indicators for paraphs (//) not generally implemented, but some in original black/brown ink, with marginal elaborations on f.93v-111r.
Original side notes in (A)-(D), indicating and numbering arguments, with vestiges of an alphabetic indexing system in (C), and titles of some quaestiones in lower margins by a thin early corrector's hand in (A)-(D). Some supplies of missing matter in (C) show that an exemplar was available for checking by the original copyists and an early annotator. Corrections and annotations by more than one contemporaneous hand, in ink and soft grey/brown, largely in the early part of (A); markings include a profile of a human face, with tonsure, e.g. f.84v, or distinctive hand pointers, e.g. f.85, 88. “Hic” added at the beginning of item (B2) in soft brown in the margin, followed by “Questio” against item (B3), 3-6 against items (B4)-(B7) and “non plus” at the end item (B7), are perhaps directions to a subsequent copyist.
Rust marks from two fastenings on outer edge of f.1. Rebound in mid 19th century by Tuckett with new boards re-using 15th/16th century tooled leather on which are a lozenge stamp with the initials PI, and a large rose in a circle, which have been attributed by Graham Pollard to Peter Ingram of Canterbury, c. 1510. The lozenge occurs on two other manuscripts, Oxford Bodleian MSS Bodley 391, from St Augustine's Canterbury, and Arch.Seld.B.14 (Chaucer), the latter illustrated in Boyd, plate iii. Spine and outer endleaves replaced by Tuckett (retaining two medieval flyleaves as f.1-2), two clasps; spine-title "Theologia scholastica", from Davenport's on f.2r.
Written in England or France, mid 13th - start of 14th century, (C)-(E) slightly later than (A)-(B).
From St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, where it is catalogued (Dublin, Trinity College, MS 360, f.49r as "Questiones de verbo Roberti de kylwarbi et Johannis Mankawel 2o fp pa nichil D 7a ga 3o" (Barker-Benfield, volume I, p.735, no. 616).
After contents-list on f.1r, “precij v s.”, 13th/14th century.
Inscription: “Johannis Mankael”, f.1r, 14th century, below the press mark, “Distinctio vii Gradus III”, of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, refers to the donor of this and 38 other volumes, several of which survive. The manuscript's contents probably all pre-date him, for he became D.D. c. 1325-9 and died in 1334, see BRUO, 1214-15. See also Emden 1968, p.12-13; Barker-Benfield, volume III, 1844-45 (questioning year of death).
Title: “Questiones diuerse super sententias”, at head of lower cover, in ink, 15th/16th century. Inscription: “JBaxter 1570”, f.3r, perhaps the rector of St Mary the Less, Durham (died 1572). “Samuell Bushe”, f.159v upside down, 16th/17th century.
“Geo.Davenport. 1664.” f.1v; ex-libris and shelf-mark by Thomas Rud f.3r.
In hoc libro continentur ista | [one line erased and illegible] | questiones determinate de verbo multe et bone | questiones multe Fratris Roberti de kiliewardby | with a further erased illegible line bracketed to the right of the foregoing lines, written late 13th century. Kilwardby is not styled archbishop of Canterbury, which he became in 1272.
Contents list. [1] Vtrum verbum in diuinis dicatur essentialiter aut tantum personaliter Primo fo[lio] ... ... (88) Vtrum anima rationalis sit mortalis fo[lio] 155. List of articles of (A)-(E), with a numbering in fives added by Thomas Rud. The numbering of the items below follows that in the margin of each by the original hand and the later list above, despite its omission of five articles (B1), (D4), (E10), (E11), (E24). Added in two columns, 14th/15th century anglicana hand.
Quaestiones: fourteen articles, the last breaking off imperfectly, on topics of Peter Lombard, Sententiae books 1 and 3, citing chiefly Anselm and Augustine, also Hugh of St Victor; nos 3, 8 14 numbered in the margins by the copyist.
Quaestiones: sixteen articles, on topics of Peter Lombard, Sententiae books 1-2, mostly much less fully elaborated than in (A). Nos 15-20 numbered 1-6 in soft brown in margins.
No final stop so possibly incomplete
Quaestiones: twenty-two articles, on (?) theological topics of Peter Lombard's Sententiae books 1-2, frequently citing Augustine, also philosophical, e.g. Alpharabius, De intellectu (f.95v, 103v). The text runs on, without indented initials or line breaks, but with questions 2-4, 8-9 and 13 numbered in the margin; otherwise fresh articles being identifiable only from inconspicuous side notes, some underlining, and the later contents table, f.2r. The article numbered “13”, f.88r, is in fact the twelfth; this may be because the start of article [11] was omitted as part of the deficit noted on f.84v, but the purported omission is doubtful, for there is no clear break in the argument at the point indicated. f.111v final line of col. b left blank.
f.84v marginal note with cross in text, by early 14th century corrector: “+ hic deficit folium et plus”
Quaestiones: nine articles; and, (D10), an expository passage. f.123v blank, unruled.
Quaestiones: thirty articles, the last imperfect, with the opening only of another (E24), at which point the subject matter changes. Avicenna, De vi informativa, cited f.148rb; “augustinus ... in libro suo de anima” in the text is corrected marginally by a contemporary hand to “auicenna”, f.145r. Spaces left in the text at a number of points suggest that the copyist had difficulty with the exemplar. Items (E4)-(E8) numbered in the margin by the main hand, 10-11 and 13-15.
3 lines left blank; change of ink
Ending imperfectly with catchwords: superius con
Barker-Benfield, B. C., St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Corpus of British medieval library catalogues, 13 (London: British Library, 2008)
Boyd, B., Chaucer and the medieval book 
, (San Marino CA.: Huntinigton Library, 1973)
BRUO: Emden, A. B., A biographical register of the University of Oxford to 1500 (Oxford: OUP, 1957-59)
Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis
dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at
various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including
catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.
,
Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).
Emden, A. B., Donors of Books to St Augustine's, Canterbury , (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1968)
Thomson, S. H., Latin bookhands of the later Middle Ages, 1100-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969)
Watson, A. G., Catalogue of dated and datable manuscripts c. 435-1600 in Oxford libraries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)