Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex containing copy of Petrus Dorlandus' Viola animae, written in 1497, bound with a printed copy of Theologia viuificans ... originally owned by the Abbey of St Jacques, Liège and subsequently by Martin Routh.
Paper, folio: watermarks of gothic p with forked tail and quatrefoil in quires 1, 2 and 5; a crowned shield of arms in quire 5 and another unclear on f.47; quire 4 (f.23-32) thicker quarto paper. Most outer edges cropped with slight loss of marginal notes, e.g. f.4-10v, 22v, 33, 45, also top edges, f.26 and 29, but uncut deckle fore-edges f.23-32.
Foliated 1-52
112, 210, 38+2 singletons after 1 and 8 (?f.24 and 32: one stub of an old leaf before f.23, another before f.31 and a wider one stuck to f.32r; sewing between 27 and 28); 48 + 1 single leaf (f.41) after 8, 510 wants 10 (blank ?) after f.50; also two thinner free paper stubs before 23, two after 32, and two after 41, all recent rebinding guards of folds; (MMBL says 410 wants 5 after f.36, but no text is missing and 35+38 and 36+37 are both conjoint, with visible sewing between the latter.)
Written space 214-232 x 140-160 mm; no ruling, traces of framing in brown, e.g. f.19-21, 24v-28, 33-41v (quire 4); 38-65 lines.
Names in the text of interlocuters (Raymundus, Dominicus) in red, by one hand, probably (a), f.2v-22v; by the text scribe f.33-41v (quire 4); otherwise in the ink of the text, underlined, f.23-24 and 42-49 (quire 5), in red.
Running titles. Almost invariably only on versos or, f.7-9 and 13-49, only on rectos, in red or, f.25-27, 29-30 and 42-49 (quire 5), by the scribes of the text in ink; those in red in quire 4 (f.33-41) by the text scribe, and the rest probably, or, quire 1 (f.2v-13), certainly, by hand (a).
Written, proficiently, in cursiva or hybrida, by ten scribes: (a) f.1, f.2r last three lines and last ten lines of f.49 (item 4), and, in red, the note of the date appended to item (3) (f.49), the marginal notes on f.3-23 and 33-41v (quire 4), the interlocutors' names on f.2v-22v and the running-titles of f.2v-13 and probably of f.14-24, cursiva, with author's name on f.1 in black hybrida; (b) f.1v-2 first half of ante-penultimate line, and 2v line 1-first half of line 12, 3r heading and name, 3v/19-4/10 first half, 11-12v, an elegant cursiva currens; (c) f.2v/12-3v/18 and 4/10-10v, cursiva to 4v/20, thereafter losing loops to be more hybrida currens; (d) f.13r-v and 22r-v (the outer bifolium of quire 2), hybrida; (e) f.14-15v and 20-21v (two bifolia), cursiva; (f) f.16-19v (the inner two bifolia of quire 2), hybrida, varying at first in size and spacing, clumsily; (g) f.23-30v, neater cursiva; (h) f.31-32v, current cursiva/hybrida; (i) f.33-41v (quire 4), neat small hybrida; (j) f.42-49 line 13 (quire 5), neat current cursiva. Ink oxidisation and smearing on f.14-15. Punctuation includes round brackets, e.g. f.1/last line, 13v/up4, but not the punctus flexus.
The manuscript may have been produced in haste, by nine scribes working concurrently on the individual quires or parts thereof (see the blank half-page at the end of quire 4 with the note “Hic nichil deficit”, f.41v); three scribes wrote individual bifolia in quire 2, where there is evidence of page-for-page copying, in the spreading of the text towards the bottom of f.20r and 21v, the half-lines at the end of f.15v and 20r, and the note “Hic nichil deficit” in the space remaining in the lower writing-area of f.20r. The tenth hand (a) may well be that of a supervisor, responsible for adding marginal apparatus etc. to large parts of the main item, (3), and also items (1*) and (4*); it has been suggested that this was possibly the author of items (1) and (3), the Carthusian Peter Dorland. By the late fifteenth century the complete absence of the punctus flexus as a mark of punctuation may not be good evidence against Carthusian production. John Blaer of Diest, the prior of St Jacques, Liège, who acquired the printed part of this volume in 1500/1, corresponded with Dorland (1454-1507) at the Charterhouse of Zeelhem by Diest, and also with Herben, rector of the grammar school of Maastricht, the author of item (2): see Monasticon Belgicum ii,i, 24 n. 2, and Balau, p.28-33.
Initials, red or, f.11-12, red over black, probably by scribes of the text: (i) to chapters, 2-line, f.4v-10v, 13-24, 33v-41v, or, f.42-49 (quire 5), 3-line; (ii) to dialogues 3 and 5-6, 3- or 4-line. Black outline initials, 2 and 4-line, f.25-32, unfilled f.29 and 32.
Corrections by main scribes, cancelling phrases in red or black, e.g. f.6r, 7r, 10v, 24v, 25r, 30v, 36v, 48r, and changing many single words. Many side-notes by original scribes. Headings added to (3) 15th-18th century.
Orange-brown sheep, with gilt tools of flowers and titling on the spine, both boards bordered with a double gilt fillet and alternating flower and foliage tools, and with a small gilt swag with ribbons in each corner. Scuffing of cover of front board skilfully repaired with goatskin, using slightly different tools. Joints and sewing repaired in 2003. Endleaves marbled in orange, blue, red and black, of later 18th century. Differs from bindings of other St Jacques manuscripts now at Maynooth College.
Written in the Low Countries, 1497. The manuscript section, dated 1497, is preceded by a printed work, Theologia viuificans ... (Paris: Johannes Higman and Wolfgang Hopyl, 6 February 1498) which has an ex libris of St Jacques' abbey O.S.B. in Liège, and note of acquisition on it's final leaf (117v) states that the book was acquired by Brother John of Diestemius Blaerus, Prior of this place [i.e. St. James of Liege] January 1500. “Hic liber {comparatus est} over erasure, perhaps of <emptus> per fratrem iohannem diestemium blaerum priorem huius loci in anno millesimo quingentesimo In ianuario” l.117v; “Liber monasterij sancto Iacobi leodien”, 15th/16th cenutry, f.iii, (i.e. title-page of printed work), the ex libris of the Benedictine abbey of St Jacques in Liège. “B38”, 17th/18th century, f.iii, amended by a subsequent “X30148 on it, in the same ink as “D.56”, 17th/18th century; the former is the pressmark for this book in the St Jacques library-catalogue by N. Bouxhon (1637-1703), see Balau, p.30. “GGY99”, 17th century (?), f. iv, perhaps a pressmark.
The first piece (1) is addressed to a monk of St Laurence, also in Liège. The earliest evidence that the two sections were together is in Nicolas Bouxhon's catalogue of the lower library of St Jacques, about 1667, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS. 13993, f.25.
“`RC Dionysii 858”, and other booksellers' notes, in pencil, 19th century, f.iv. Ink notes on contents of printed work by Dr M. J. Routh, of Magdalen College Oxford, f.iv; he died in 1854, bequeathing his extensive library of printed books to Durham University. “R.II.C.12”, later 19th century, in pencil, f.ii, the press-mark in the Routh collection at Durham; “Herdener Case B.6”, 20th century, in pencil, f.ii, a reserve DUL location. Former shelfmark S.R.3.A.4 (the location when stored in the Old Strong Room at Palace Green Library).
Peter Dorland, prefatory letter on the orthodoxy of the source. Not found in the printed editions of the Viola animae; attribution of the work to Peter Dorland is corroborated by the reference to it here in the words “ad dyalogos traxi”, his surname in the commendatory verses on f.1v, and the fuller attribution by a fellow-Carthusian in the edition of 1533. The date may be meant for the day after the feast of St John the Evangelist, i.e. 28 December, rather than that after the feast of St Luke, 19 October, each well after the completion of copying the text.
Commendatory verses on the work: 18 lines; the mention of “Dorlande” is in line 15.
Peter Dorland, Viola animae i-vi, lacking the seventh dialogue “de misteriis sacre passionis Christi”, and an appended hymn to St Anne. This copy may predate the printed title of the work: although “Theologia naturalis” in the colophon echoes Raymund of Sabunde, Theologia naturalis sive liber creaturarum, on which the work is based, items (1) and (4) both refer to it as “Elucidarium Christiane religionis”. The 1499 edition includes item (2), but with a preceding Epygramma of 19 lines: “Multiplices cernis iamiam studiose libellos ...” mentioning “candide dorlant”.
Balau, S., "La Bibliothèque de l'Abbaye de St Jacques à Liège", Bulletin de la commission royale d'histoire de Belgique, lxxi (1902), 1-61
Doyle, A. I. et al., Manuscript to print (Durham 1975), p.16-17
Doyle, A. I., "A manuscript of Petrus Dorlandus of Diest's Viola Animae" in J. Greatrex & J. Luxford (ed.), Studies in Carthusian Monasticism in the Late Middle Ages (Turnhout 2008), 155-62
Medieval manuscripts in British libraries. 2, Abbotsford-Keele 
, ed. Ker, N. R., (Oxford: OUP, 1977).