Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Glossed books of the Old Testament, Kings - Maccabees
Parchment
Modern pencil foliation, 2-50, 50*-280 (re-done in ink on 267-280); 281 added in 20th century.
I-XI12; XII2; XIII-XXIII12; XXIV14
The top of all leaves damaged by damp (resulting in regular offsets on facing pages from the rubrication), with more extensive damp damage to f.1, 113-114, 173-7 and 184-7.
Up to three columns; up to 32 lines of biblical text; up to 62 lines of gloss
Quire structure and leaf numbering show that the volume was made in two matching parts: (A) f.2-134; (B) f.135-280. These were brought together at an early date (indicated by the 13th century list of contents on f.2r). It is closely comparable overall to DCL MS A.II.14.
Written in Textualis semi-quadrata, probably a single scribe writing both text and gloss.
All biblical incipits except that of (g) are headed by a red and blue initial, 5-30 lines high, flourished in both colours, (a) being the largest. Prefaces to (a), (e), (h), (j), (k), (n), (p) and (q) are headed by 4- to 8-line high initials of the same style. A large (30 lines high) and elaborate ‘L’ was sketched in lead at the start of the Preface to Esther (item (l)1) but not completed.
Standard Tuckett binding, mid 19th century full brown calf over thick wooden boards (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century). Rust stains on f.2 and 3, lower fore-edge, from the metalwork of a clasp and possibly a chain fixture on an earlier binding.
Written in France, later 13th century.
List of contents registering (a)-(e), (h)-(q), later 12th century, f.2r, outer margin, top.
Pressmark: Pi .B., 14/15th century, f.2r, upper margin, left. de libraria dunelm′, 15/16th century, in the hand of Thomas Swalwell, monk of Durham, f.2r, upper right margin.
Catalogi veteres, p. 12A and 87A identifies this book with the entry A Glosa super quatuor libros Regum in uno quaterno. ijo fo Fuit uir although this is questionable given the size of uno quaterno.
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]).
de Hamel, Christopher, Glossed books of the Bible and the origins of the Paris book
trade , (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Boydell Press,
1984)
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] ,
(Durham: 1939)