DCL MS. A.III.17Isaiah, glossed
Held by: Durham Cathedral Library: Durham Cathedral Manuscripts

Old Testament, Book of Isaiah, with glosses

Digitised: https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1mzp38wc621.html

Physical description of manuscript
Support

Parchment

Extent: iii+117+i f
Size: 370 mm x 240 mm

Foliation

Modern pencil foliation.


Secundo folio: interpretem. legant
Collation

I-XIV8, XV5 (=6 with leaf 6, blank, cancelled)

Signatures: Contemporary signatures (a Roman numeral flanked by dots; final verso, lower margin, centre)
Layout

One-three coumns, 46 lines

Script

Written in Textualis semi-quadrata probably the same scribe as DCL MS A.III.2 and York Minster XVI.Q.5. Corrections by the same hand as corrects DCL MS A.III.2, A.III.19, and A.III.24, and York Minster XVI.Q.5.

Decoration

Channel-style decorated initials.

Binding

Reworked by Tucketts mid 19th century; Romanesque blind-tooled covers (both nearly complete) laid onto modern leather ones. Stamps on the front are: Virgin and Child (centre), David playing the harp (on either side), and a kneeling king (repeated in a continuous line across the top and the bottom). Those on the back are: standing St Peter (three) at the centre, Agnus Dei (three) at the centre; pair of men behind a crenellated arcade, one blowing a horn (two lines of five), the Virgin and Child (central), Samson and the lion (two rows of four), a rider (continuous line across both top and bottom). Hobson, no. XII, pls. 21a-b; Schmidt-Künsemüller, no. 48 (gr. 4: ascribed to Paris 1170/75) with plates of both covers; de Hamel, chapter 6, p. 86.

Manuscript history
Creation

Written in Northern France, late 12th century.

Provenance

Inscription: “Liber sancti Cuthberti de Dunelmo ex dono Magistri Roberti de Adingtona. Ysayas glosatus”, early 13th century, f.2r, top, in the same hand as that of parallel entries in DCL MSS A.III.5, f.1v and A.III.16 f.2r.
“ysayas .glo.”, early 14th century, with ‘de le splendement’, s. xv/xvi, by Thomas Swalwell, monk of Durham c. 1483-1539, fol.3r, top right Pressmark: “.F.”, mid 14th century, f.2r, top left. “.F.”, 14th-15th century, f.3r, top left.

Manuscript contents
(a)     f.3r-119r
Modern title: Isaiah, glossed
Language: Latin

Microfilm
Microfilmed in 1985/86 by the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Copies held by them and Durham University Library.

Digitised material for Durham Cathedral Library MS. A.III.17 - Isaiah, glossed
Digitised August 2017 as part of the Durham Priory Library Recreated project
https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1mzp38wc621.html
Bibliography

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.   OCLC citation, Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).

de Hamel, Christopher, Glossed books of the Bible and the origins of the Paris book trade   OCLC citation, (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Boydell Press, 1984)

Hobson, G., English Binding before 1500   OCLC citation (Cambridge: CUP, 1929)

Mynors, R.A.B., Durham Cathedral manuscripts to the end of the twelfth century. Ten plates in colour and forty-seven in monochrome. With an introduction [including a list of all known Durham manuscripts before 1200]   OCLC citation, (Durham: 1939)

Schmidt-Künsemüller, F. A., Die abendländischen romanischen Blindstempeleinbände   OCLC citation (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1985)

Index terms