Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex made up of two parts, the first containing Peter Aureoli's Compendium sensus litteralis tocius divine scripture and the second part of the Fransiscan patristic reference work known as the Tabula septem custodiarum (incomplete at end and only containing the New Testament part), both written in England at the turn of the 14th/15th century. Owned by Thomas Clare, monk of St Albans and subsequently by George Davenport, by whom it was given to Bishop Cosin's Library in about 1670.
Parchment, flesh side outermost, outer pricking cropped.
foliated 1-237, with 101 repeated
Written space 195 x 115 mm; ruling brown, with writing lines apparently rubbed away on all save blank leaves (f.95-6); three verticals for outer margin, and two, or sometimes one in (B), for inner margin. 42 long lines.
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). Marks on former pastedown (f.1) of 5 bands, pattern VIV. Disused holes visible under present sewing.
Written in England, 14th/15th century. Most of (B) perhaps written by Fredericus Naghel of Utrecht who copied philosophical tracts at Oxford in 1423, see Watson 1984, no. 781 (Corpus Christi Coll. MS 243), plate 309).
Inscription: “De empcione Magistri thome clare cuius anime propicietur altissimus amen <iij li. over erasure>”, f.2r, and “de empcione Thome Clare”, f.97r, both in the same early 15th century hand and ink, an expert English secretary (with long r) also responsible for the corrections in (A); this is not the hand of Cambridge University Library MS Add. 6190, written at Oxford in 1441 by Thomas Clare, monk of Bury, see Robinson 1988, no. 106 and plate 237, but most probably his older namesake, also a monk of Bury, who was a doctor of divinity of Oxford by 1414, see Emden i,425. The phrase “De empcione” was common at Bury, but “so far as we know was not used elsewhere” (Registrum, p. cliii). The first inscription implies a gift and the shortness of the second suggests that the two parts were already bound together: “prec. ij marc.” erased in the top outside corner of f.97r and the larger price over an erasure at the front of the volume suggests that the latter is an inclusive sum. The volume probably passed to the Benedictine abbey of Bury, but Gloucester College Oxford, the Benedictine study house, is also possible.
Inscription: “H.H.”, f.2r, 16th/17th century, with some small illegible writing above, perhaps of the same period.
Inscription: “[G.] Davenport. 1664.” on piece of paper (from previous flyleaf or pastedown) stuck on front pastedown; contents list on f.1v in his hand. Ex-libris and shelf numbers by Thomas Rud at top of f.2r.
1-712, 812 wants 10 (blank ?) after f. 94
Written in English textura, proficiently
Paraphs, in red or blue, generally alternating. Initials: (i) to divisions, 2 line, in blue, with foliate infilling and flourishing in red; (ii) to opening, 5 line, red and blue parted, with red foliate infilling, surrounds, and flourished extensions from bipartite "J-border". A note in red, “in istis 4or quaternis ixCd' de R. (?) L. (?)”, f.49v foot, cropped, more probably refers to the number (950) of red and blue paraphs up to this point, rather than that of rubricated letters (“rubricis litteris” ?). A note at the end of (A) in soft brown, “In isti 8o quaterni sunt de litteris cum paraffis xxj C”, f.96r (812) foot, perhaps in the hand of the signatures in (A) or of the larger ones in (B). Running titles generally on versos only, naming Biblical books.
Numerous neat small corrections in the text and marginal corrections, in the hand responsible for Thomas Clare's inscriptions (f.2r, 97r); these supply many omissions of words, phrases and longer passages, some clearly correcting errors by homoteleuton, e.g. 77r-78v. “Nota argumentum contra peccatum originale”, f.43v, the only note by the correcting hand, possibly therefore taken from the exemplar.
77 rubrics: 5 in Prologue; 1 for each of the groups Pentateuch, Joshua Maccabees, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, Gospels, Epistles; 1 for each book of Psalms-Apocalypse, 5 more in Lamentations and 9 more in Apocalypse. f.95-96 ruled but blank.
1-1112, 1212 wants 11-12 (with text) after f. 237
Written in smallEnglish secretary, with a short r of somewhat Continental appearance, expertly, in brown ink, with virgula, punctus and elevatus; by one or two hands: (i), up to f.217r, with rubrics giving names of authors and book titles in a tall narrow anglicana formata, copied from wording by a minute version of the main hand in preceding spaces; (ii) from f.217v to the (defective) end, generally very similar to (i) and increasingly resembling it, but with anglicana a (gradually diminishing in favour of simple a), long r and final 6 shaped s consistently, more uneven lines, and with no rubrication.
Biblical books and chapters in outer margins in ink by the main hands underlined in red; similarly in text authors' names and works from f.218r onwards. Scriptural lemmata underlined in red, with red paraphs. Initials: (i) to each work, 2 or 3 line, in blue, with foliate infilling and flourishing in red; (ii) to each author (except Bernard, f.222v, as i), 4 (f.205r, 207v), 5 (f. 214v), or 6 line, as (i); (iii) to opening, 6 line, in red and blue parted, with red foliate infilling and flourished extensions. Running titles: author's name, in red, on first page only of relevant portion.
Omissions supplied by both copyists, but more by (i) than (ii), and some by (i) in (ii)'s stint (f.233v and 235r in light ink).
Ends imperfectly. Patristic tabula, comprising citations relating to New Testament texts from works by Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory, Origen, Haimo, Hugh of St Victor, Bede, Bernard, Damascenus, Rabanus, Cassiodorus, Anselm. Each work is taken separately and the citations are arranged in accordance with the standard order of the New Testament texts to which they refer. This is the only identified substantial survival of what must have been the second stage in compiling the Tabula septem custodiarum - only the New Testament is covered in this instance. This was produced by the Oxford Franciscans, probably by 1309.
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]).
Compendium litteralis sensus totius diuine scripture, ed. Seeboeck, P. (Quaracchi: College of St. Bonaventure, 1896) https://archive.org/details/compendiumsensus00aure/page/n8/mode/2up
Emden, A. B., A biographical register of the University of Oxford to 1500 (Oxford: OUP, 1957-59)
Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum , ed. Rouse, R. H., Rouse, M., Mynors, R. A. B. (London: British Library, 1991)
Robinson, P., Catalogue of dated and datable manuscripts c. 737-1600 in Cambridge libraries (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1988)
Stegmüller, Friedrich, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi , (Madrid: 1950-1980)
Watson, A. G., Catalogue of dated and datable manuscripts c. 435-1600 in Oxford libraries (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1984)