Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Codex containing a printed work Anicij Torquati Seuerini Boetij viri nominis celebritate quam memorandi: textus de philosophie consolatione cum editione commentaria beati Thome de aquino ordinis predicatorum (printed by Anton Koburger, Nuremberg, 28 June 1486 and treated as item (3)) to which items (1) and (2) were added, bound with the manuscript work, items (4)-(19).
Paper, folio: watermark f.i, original first blank of printed index, a bull's head with tau cross; others bull's head with cinquefoil as in manuscript; f.56, 63, 67 bull's head with serpent, not nearly identified in Briquet or Piccard; 310 x 210-215 mm, top and outer edges cropped with slight loss to heading and marginal notes, e.g. f.31r, 32v, 33, 41v, 42. Tears, some glued up or patched, in the lower margins of f.11-13 and 70-80, as from hasty or careless turning of the pages; lowest part of outer margins soiled, as from thumbing, especially item (18a), but rather less in item (5g-m).
medieval foliation in sharp gray (ink 71-77), at the top centre of each recto, with 60 repeated instead of 61; modern foliation in pencil.
110 with an extra leaf stuck over the blank verso of 1, 28, 36, 4-512, 612 wants 7 after f.54, 7-812
Written space 220-253 x 135-160 mm; no ruling, but traces of drypoint vertical frame-lines, e.g. f.5-24, 40, 60-69, and also of horizontal frame-lines in f.5-24. 28-55 lines.
Items (4)-(5), (12) lines 1-5, 15-16 and 18-19, in hybrida; contents-list and ex libris (front flyleaf), items (2), (6)-(14) except lines 1-5 of (12), and (17), cursiva, becoming closer to hybrida towards the end, rather more currently for items (6a), (6b) and start of (6c), and much more currently for items (2), most of (10d), (14) and the start of (17). By at least three proficient scribes: (I) items (1), (4, (15a) except pages 2-5 (f.49v-51r), and (15b)-(19b); (II) items (5) and pages 2-5 of (15a); (III) items (2) and (6)-(14), and the ex libris, with (13) and (14k) both dated [14]80. Changes at f.42v, 45/1 & 5 and 62/63, but not from 49v-51r (paler ink)? Punctuation includes flex throughout.
Capitals lined with red throughout printed and manuscript works, except f.33v-37v and item (14). Paraphs in red throughout printed work. Initials: (printed work) (i-ii) 3- and 4-line lombards, to divisions of commentary, and of index and text, in solid red; (iii) 6-line, to start of commentary, solid red with ink infilling; (iv) 10-line, to start of text, in maroon (similar, but not now identical, to that in item (5)) with infilling and framing by red penwork. In mnuscript works, to item (4), 2-line, solid red; to items (6)-(10) and separate sermons, 3-line, ink or red outline, or, f.29, solid red; to items (15)-(19) and, more clumsily, (12)-(13), 2- and 3-line, solid red, except, (19a), red outline; to item (5) sermons, 5-, 6- or 7-line, solid red or red-brown, except to start of item (5), 7-line, red and red-brown.
Correction and Annotation (printed work) “Multitudo” twice, 15th/16th century, f.b.iij. (Manuscript works) Corrections, in red in items (6) and (14m), or, items (10c-d), (17), (18a) and (19a), by deletion in red. Substantial marginal additions, 15th/16th century, in item (9a); one brief gloss in red in item (4). Abbreviated words expanded, presumably to facilitate reading aloud, in items (5d) and (5k) and (18a), also, 17th century (?), (15a) and (18a).
Presumably that referred to by the note, “Ligatus anno [domini] .M.CCCC.88o”, top right corner of front pastedown. Four bands, apparently running straight into wooden square-cut boards (325 x 217 mm); head- and tail-bands of red-stained white thongs; original (?) covering of brown leather, on which triple blind fillets define a central panel (c. 188 x 85-90 mm) divided into diamonds (3 x 3) and with a frame (28 mm. wide); impressions of at least six different stamps on the front board, now in poor condition, the clearest a small five-petalled flower (6 mm diameter) repeated to form a pair of quincunxes on either side of a rosette (25 mm diameter), apparently covered with red paper, used in the central section of top and bottom borders; impressions of seven different stamps on the back board, with only one (?), an elaborated fleur-de-lys (26 x 20 mm diamond-shaped), repeated from the front board, three others three diamond-shaped, a dog (26 x 20 mm), a dart-pierced heart (20 x 16 mm) and a fleur-de-lys (6 x 4 mm), all in the central panel, two square, fleur-de-lys type (23 mm) and a bust (??) in a framed circle (16 mm), and one rectangular, a foliate border piece (20 x 13 mm); stubs of two leather straps, presumably for clasps, fixed to the outer edge of the back board by small trapezoid brass plates, and, in the corresponding positions on the front board, marks as of two catches, with cut-ins at the outer edge of the board; traces of a quincunx of bosses on the front board, and of four on the back board, with the brass pin of one of the latter remaining; brass strips on the outer corners, extending c. 50 mm up the edges of the boards, and with c. 7.5 mm folded over their outer faces; spine replaced, by Birdsall & Son Ltd. of Northampton, c. 1938. Early bindings on other Huysburg manuscripts located in Kramer. Fore-edge tags on f.3, 49, 58, at beginnings of items; one torn from f.40.
Written in Germany, all by 1488, the date of the binding.. Part possibly, to judge by the absence of “bone memorie” in item (7b), before John Hagen's death in 1475 was widely known; items (13) and (14k) in [14]80.
Written for a religious community, see “alio libro nostro” item (15d), and “in Refectorio” item (19a) rubric, also marking of (18a) to facilitate reading aloud. “Huisborch sancta tuus est liber iste Maria”, 15th/16th century, front flyleaf, in the same hand as the preceding contents-list, is the ex libris of the Benedictine house of Huysburg (diocese of Halberstadt), an early member (1444) of the Bursfeld congregation (Krämer, p.369. Paper label, as for press-mark or note of contents now totally obliterated, 40 x 48-50 mm, stuck on centre-line of front board, 40 mm from its upper edge. “148”, 19th century, in pencil in lower right corner of back pastedown, perhaps an inaccurate note of the number of leaves. Came to England perhaps at the same time as fifteen Huysburg manuscripts acquired by the British Museum in 1837. Belonged to Dr M. J. Routh, president of Magdalen College Oxford, who wrote a long note on the front pastedown citing other editions in booksellers' catalogues and a note on the back flyleaf. A price “(10/6)” by another hand above his front pastedown note. He died in 1854, bequeathing his extensive library of printed books to Durham University. “R.LXIX.C.3”, later 19th century, in pencil inside front pastedown and at top of f.ii, the press-mark of the Routh collection in Durham; “10801” in pencil probably Birdsalls' binding reference c. 1938. Former shelfmark S.R.2.B.3 (the location when stored in the Old Strong Room at Palace Green Library).
Seventeen lines of verse on attaining final reward
First line of the couplet Walther 1959, 11461
The contents-list on the front flyleaf, in the same hand as the Huysburg ex libris which follows it, originally registered all the substantial items except (4); to it the same hand added an entry for item (4), and, after the entry for (19b), “In fine appositum est aliquid de Boecio de consolacione philosophie”, with a note added over it in red, “dum non s(?)”, 15th/16th century, apparently registering its absence. Above the contents-list a note, “Hunc registrum habes in fine huius libri manifestius”, 15th/16th century, also refers to something not now present. Repair to the binding makes it impossible to tell whether leaves were removed “in fine” after the book was given its present binding in 1488. Item (15d) comprises a cross-reference, in the same hand as (15c) and (16), to “alio libro nostro”, with the press-mark “.T.vi.”, while added notes at (6d) and (9c) refer to other books, simply by their press-marks, “.SS.v” and “MM.vij”, and so presumably in the same communal collection; another, (7b), refers to a book elsewhere, at a major Benedictine house in the diocese of Halberstadt. The rubric to (19a) apparently implies that the book was used for reading in the refectory, cf. Annotation for the markings of (18a). A printed copy of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, with “Additiones” may have been the source for items (6c-d) re Visitation, (7a) B.V.M. Conception decree, and (12)-(13) miracles; the work is referred to explicitly in the note at (6d). Details of the additions found in various incunables are given in M.-L. Polain, Catalogue des Livres Imprimés au Quinzième siècle des Bibliothèques de Belgique ii (Brussels, 1932), nos. 2183-2214.
Added below contents-list, by similar but more current hand, on first originally blank leaf of the printed text “In Vitas patrum legitur diabolus tribus modis securitatem in mentem hominis mitt<..> ... ex epistola b. Macharij ad monachos | O quanti decipiunt et decepti sunt ... qui operantur iniquitatem.” A number of passages refer to St Macarius in the Vitas Patrum.
f.1r-v is in fact two leaves stuck together with nothing written on the respective verso and recto, now slightly separated. In the margin of f.2r beside the words in the text “canere cepit quoddam responsorium” the main hand wrote “Gaude maria virgo”, with musical notation, and in red “cuncti”. On f.2r, in ink, erased, partly legible in ultra-violet light: “Incipit sermo (?) ... B...j de”, an intended heading, presumably erased because no text was entered following. f.2v blank.
Twelve sermons of untraced authorship. In the texts of (5b-m) rubrics cite Vox Christi (5g); Vox Marie (5f-g, j); Collector (5b, f-m); Collectum de dictis sanctorum (5e, g); Ambrose (5c-d, f, h-i, k, m); Augustinus (5e, m); Leo papa (5k); Gregorius (5k); Bede (5b, h-i, k); Maximus (5b); Bernard (5b, d, g, i-k, m); Simon de Cassia (5c-d, f, h-i), Silvester (5e, g, i); Silvester de Fagineto (5d-g, k); Oracio (5j). Collector is the name often given to Petrus de Harenthals for his Collectarius super librum Psalmorum (printed Cologne 1480). Two surviving Huysburg manuscripts, BL Add. 10958-9, have works of Simon de Cassia, whose Expositio super totum corpus Evangeliorum was printed at Cologne, 1486. Silvester de Fagineto has not yet been traced. The top six lines of f.24r are written in the main hand on a piece of paper pasted to the leaf, over illegible text, presumably owing to a copying mistake.
Preface to (5b)-(5m), referring to the Council of Basel, and bulls of Urban VI and Boniface [IX] (d. 1404). Pope Urban authorized the feast of the Visitation in 1389; for the bull of Pope Boniface, see item (6d); the date was set at 2 July in 1441 by the irregular continuation of the Council of Basel, see note to item (7a).
Ends with a series of eighteen miracles, divided into two nines, in the second of which each begins “Visitat”.
(6a-c) and (6e), four sermons; (6b) and (6e) of untraced authorship. A copy of the bull referred to in (6d) apparently precedes (6e) in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4685, dated 1496-99, from Benediktbeuern, see B. Hauréau, Initia, Appendix i, 207.
Maximus of Turin pseud., Homelia 82. PL lvii, 429-32. This is one of the homilies set for martyrs in the Commune sanctorum in the homiliary of Paul the Deacon, and some of its precursors.
A version of the sermon for the Visitation, referring to Pope Urban VI's bull of 1389, (see item (5a)), appended among the “Additiones” in some early printed copies of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea (e.g. Strassburg 1496, cap. 179), where it is followed by the bull referred to in (6d), cf. items (7a) and (12)-(13).
Note referring to a copy of the bull of Boniface [IX of 1389], ordering observance of the feast of the Visitation, found in a copy of Legenda aurea, also known in Germany as Longobardica historia see (6c). The press-mark of the book containing a copy of the bull is given in an addendum as SS.v, with the number 394; this may have been a printed book, for there are undated incunable copies of Legenda Aurea containing more than 394 leaves, e.g. Strasbourg by Husner (422 leaves), Ulm by Zainer (418 leaves).
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of B.V.M. was not defined by the pope until 1854; the Council that began in Basel removed to Ferrara in 1437 and the subsequent sessions at Basel were irregular. The text of the “decree” is given in Bk 15 cap. 26 of John of Segovia, Historia Gestorum Generalis Synodi Basiliensis, ed. E. Birk, Monumenta Conciliorum Generalium Seculi Decimi Quinti: Concilium Basileense -- Scriptorum III,i,2 (Vienna, 1886), 364-5; also appended among the “Additiones” in some early printed editions of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea (e.g. Strassburg 1496, cap. 188), cf. items (6c-d) and (12)-(13).
All crossed out in red. Ilsenburg was a Benedictine house, approximately 60 miles north of Erfurt, in the same diocese as Huysburg. It would appear from the catalogue that the library of the S. Salvator Charterhouse near Erfurt held no substantial collection of sermons by John Hagen (d. 1475) on the Conception of B.V.M., but that they were scattered in a number of manuscripts, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutchslands und der Schweiz, ii, ed. P. Lehmann, (Munich, 1928), 592 references at lines 1-3; cf. also MMBL iv, 31, 36, 39-40, for examples in surviving manuscripts from Erfurt, now at St Hugh's Parkminster; cf. S. Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, I (Munich 1989), 215-24 (Erfurt), 369-70 (Huysburg). For Hagen see A. Gruijs, Cartusiana I (1976), 112-3. The cancellation, by what looks like the same red as original underlining etc., might mean that the sermons in question were no longer so located.
Sermon 220
Sermon 221
Sermon 222
Vita S. Eugenie. Here with a passage omitted, see (9b); also with a further short passage included at the end. In the margins of f.32v there are four passages added in a contemporary hand, keyed into the text, and referred to in (9c), but subsequently crossed out in red: “[R]omana grauitate ... imposuit”, PL 73, 606-7; “Ipse vero plus ... sed tradicioni”, ibid., 607/4-7; “eciam Eugenia pulchra ... castitate”, ibid., 607/15-16; “[ph]ilosophorum quoque ... stoicorum taciturnitates”, ibid., 607/37-41. A fifth marginal passage on f.32v, keyed in after “beati Pauli apostoli doctrina”, ibid., 607/25, which does not occur in PL 73 or 21, quotes 1 Cor. 7:28: “vbi ait tribulacionem enim carnis habebunt huiusmodi”. A 2-line note in the lower margin of f.37r is concealed by a piece of paper stuck over it.
Added by the hand of (9a) in space below its Explicit. Passage omitted from (9a), PL 73, 608/up11 - 609 end of cap. v; a marginal note at the appropriate point in (9a), f.33r, with orb and cross sign, refers to it.
Added by the same hand in top margin of f.33r, but with red lines of cancellation. Note referring to a fuller version of (9a), most probably, being parchment, in a manuscript, and indicating that this was the source of the marginal additions (cropped) on f.32v-33r.
Sermon App. 208
Note on authorship of (10a), referring to Ludolph of Saxony, Vita Christi, II,lxxxvj.
Sermon 4; a passage of 10½ lines on f.40v bracketed with a note in red “in concepcione illud vacat”.
Sermon on Purification of B.V.M., part i.
PL 73, 846-7, where it forms cap. 53 of “Excerpta ex Severo Sulpicio et Cassiano” with which Book 4 begins in that version.
Miracle of St Katherine. Appended among the “Additiones” in some early printed copies of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea (e.g. Strassburg 1496, cap. 209), cf. items (6c-d), (7a) and (13).
Miracle of the feast of the Conception of B.V.M. This is the first of those recorded in a pseudonymous letter of Anselm of Canterbury appended among the “Additiones” in some early printed copies of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea (e.g. Strassburg 1496, cap. 188), cf. items (6c-d), (7a) and (12); here William, duke of Normandy, is rendered as Gilbertus, and Helsinus abbot of Ramsey as Ulsinus abbot of Rheims, and these readings, together with the omission as here of the opening epistolary clauses, are reported in T. Graesse's edition of Legenda Aurea (Dresden & Leipzig, 1846) pp. 869-70 from the now unidentifiable “Ed. Pr. Dresd. 1472”. PL 159, 323-6 gives a different version of the miracle.
Additions in space remaining at the end of quire 5, end of 15th century, or (14l*) 16th century; (14a*-k* and n*-o*) by one hand, dated [14]80.
Extract from Raymund of Sabunde, Theologia naturalis sive liber creaturarum, composed between 1434 and 1436, and printed from before 1485
Three lines in a different hand and paler ink
Isidore, Sententiae, II,8-10 extract
Three lines, bracketed with (14n*)
Sermon on St Martin
Sermon on St Andrew the apostle
Second sermon on St Andrew the apostle
Cross-reference to a third sermon on St Andrew.
Opus imperfectum in Mattheum, hom. xxxv (translated extract). PG 56, 825/34-829/48. f.62v blank, unruled except blind margin for previous page.
Sermon, of unidentified authorship. Attribution to Pope Leo I (d. 461) is manifestly erroneous: the opening section refers to the consecration by Pope Boniface of S. Maria ad martyres on the site of the Pantheon in Rome, which took place in 609, some time before the general adoption of the feast of All Saints, to which the text explicitly refers, “hec est in honore omnium sanctorum generalis et gloriosa celebritas” f.63r.
Passion of SS. Dorothy and Theophilus; ed. Acta Sanctorum Febr. I (Antwerp 1658), 773-6, from three MSS (from Trier, Utrecht and Horne). This is not the text appended among the “Additiones” in such early printed copies of Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea as Strassburg 1496 (cap. ccvii), nor T. Graesse ed. (Dresden & Leipzig, 1846), pp. 910-12, cf. items (6c-d), (7a) and (12)-(13)
Note (in red) of protection afforded by the name or image of St Dorothy against miscarriage, fire, theft or a bad death.
Note (in red) of incident at Brunswick corroborating (18b) in the case of fire.
This homily by Bede is one of those set for the dedication festival in the homiliary of Paul the Deacon; the rubric here indicates that the first part of the homily was used in choir, with the text here for reading in the refectory.
Sermo app. 25
Appendix ad monumenta sex priorum Ecclesiae saeculorum. Vitae Patrum, sive, Historiae eremiticae libri decem , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 73-74 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1860)
Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi opera omnia , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 32-47 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1841-1865)
Ambrosii Autperti Opera / Pt. 3, Vita sanctorum patrum Paldonis Tatonis et Tasonis Libellus de conflictu vitiorum Atque virtutem Oratio contra septem vitia Sermo de cupiditate Sermo in purificatione Sanctae Mariae Homilia de transfiguratione Domini Sermo de adsumptione Sanctae Mariae 
Corpus Christianorum, 27B (Brepols, Turnholt, 1979)
Venerabilis Bedae, anglo-saxonis presbyteri, Opera omnia ex tribus praecipuis editionibus inter se collatis, nempe coloniensi, duabusque in Anglia, studio doctissimorum virorum Smith et Giles, non sine ingenti litteratorum plausu in lucem vulgatis, novissime ad praelum revocata, meliori ordine digesta, variis monumentis aucta, et, quod maximum est, innumeris, quibus scatebant, mendis diligenter expurgata, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 90-95 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1861-1862)
S. Bernardi abbatis primi Claræ-Vallensis opera omnia : post Horstium denuo recognita, aucta et in meliorem digesta ordinem, necnon novis præfationibus, admonitionibus, notis et observationibus indicibusque copiosissimis locupletata tertiis curis Joannis Mabillon , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 182-185 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1854-1862)
Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina antiquae et medii aetatis (Brussels, 1898-1901); Supplements (Brussels, 1911, 1986)
Sancti Patris Nostri Ioannis Chrysostomi Archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani opera omnia quæ exstant vel quae eius nomine circumferuntur , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca 47-64 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1858-1862)
S. Fulberti Carnotensis episcopi Opera omnia, ad editiones Bouqueti, Chesnii, Caroli de Villiers recognita, ordinate disposita, ac monumentis nonnulis aucta et illustrata. Accedunt Guidonis Aretini musica, Ademari S. Cibardi monachi, Dudonis decani S. Quintini Veromandensis Lamberti Aschafnaburgensis scripta historica ; necnon Joannis XIX, Benedicti IX, Roberti Francorum regis, Emmæ reginæ Anglorum, Guillelmi ducis Aquitaniæ epistolæ et diplomata ; intermiscentur Aribonis Moguntini, Ebali Remensis, Popponis Trevirensis, archiepiscoporum ; Godehardi Hildesheimensis, Heriberti Eischtettensis, Rotberti Londinensis, Gauslini Bituricensis, Adalberonis Laudunensis, episcoporum ; Guillelmi I abbatis S. Germani a Pratis, Guillelmi abbatis S. Benigni Divionensis, Eberhardi, Peringeri, Ellingeri, Udalrici, abbatum Tegernseensium ; Cathwalloni Rothonensis abbatis, Angelranni, abbatis Centulensis, Ledwini abbatis S. Vedasti, Othelboldi abbatis S. Bavonis Gandensis, Meginfredi Magdeburgensis praepositi, Arnoldi ex comite monachi, Froumundi coenobitae Tegernseensis, Papiae grammatici, Garciae Cuxasensis, Bernardi Scholastici Andegavensis, Godeschalki, scripta vel scriptorum fragmenta quae exstant , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 141 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1853)
Krämer, S., Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters i, (Munich, 1989)
Sancti Maximi, Episcopi Taurinensis, opera omnia , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 57 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1862)
Römer, F., Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus. 2.2, Grossbritannien und Irland. Verzeichnis nach Bibliotheken (Wien: Böhlaus, 1972)
Tyrannii Rufini Aquileiensis presbyteri opera omnia quae de suo elucubravit , Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina 21 ( [Paris] : Excudebatur et venit apud J.-P. Migne, 1849)
Walther, H., Proverbia sententiaeque latinitatis medii aevi. Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anordnung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963-86)