Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Old Testament, Leviticus and Numbers, glossed
Parchment
Modern pencil foliation of the main body of the book runs: 1, 1*, 2-24, 24*-198.
Bifolium, singleton glued on, (A) I-X8, XI6; (B) XII-XXV8
Number of columns varies in number (1-3) and width, page by page. 45 lines per page: the biblical text is written on every other line, up to a maximum of 22 lines per page. The gloss is written on every line, up to a maximum of 45 per page (i.e. starting above top line).
Written in Textualis semi-quadrata, upright and neat; more compressed in the gloss but still regular and clear by one scribe, who probably also wrote DCL A.III.17 and York Minster, XVI.Q.5. A contemporary correcting hand that noted corrected readings in the margins (some of which were indeed subsequently introduced to the main text by Scribe 1) and added expunctuation etc. to the main text. Also appears in the same capacity in DCL A.III.17, A.III.19, and A.III.24, plus York XVI.Q.5.
Channel-style decorated initials.
Reworked and rebacked by Tucketts in 1845, with the Romanesque blind-tooled covers (nearly complete for the front, partial for the back) laid onto the modern leather ones; protected by a decayed modern leather chemise, over wooden boards. The design on the blind-tooled front is dominated by a cruciform pattern formed from a central roundel surrounded by four half-roundels. The figural motifs are the Agnus Dei (at the centre of the central roundel), St Peter (repeated four times above, four times below the central roundel), and a horseman (repeated in a continuous line at both the top and the bottom of the panel as a whole). The figural motifs on the back are the Virgin and Child (central), David playing the harp (central, below the Virgin and Child), and a kneeling king (repeated in a continuous line towards both the top and the bottom). G. Hobson, English Binding before 1500 (Cambridge, 1929), no. XIII (the ‘Vich’ binder); F. A. Schmidt-Künsemüller, Die abendländischen romanischen Blindstempeleinbände (Stuttgart, 1985), no. 47 (gr. 4: said to be Paris 1170/75); de Hamel, Glossed Books, ch. 6, esp. p. 86.
Written in Northern France, late 12th century. Two contemporary parts (A) f.2-86 (Leviticus), and (B) f.87-198 (Numbers) – that were made separately (each has its own series of quire signatures) but by the same scribe to the same specifications and which were brought together almost immediately. The probable date of the blind-stamped cover (see below) indicates that the whole volume was assembled very shortly after the two parts were written.
¶Liber Sancti Cuthberti de Dunelmo de dono Magistri Roberti de Adigton ¶Leuiticus Liber numeri, early 13th century, f.1r, top; all in one hand, probably the same as that making parallel entries in A.III.19 f.1r and A.IV.4 f.1v.
.C. , mid 14th century, f.2r, outer margin, top; C .C. , 14th/15th century, f.1r (inserted to the left of the Adington inscription); C leuiticus et numeri glosati De communi dunelm′ In le Spendment, early 15th century, f.2r, top. Spendement catalogue 1392: Levitici, Numeri, glo. ii fo, vocavit autem) and Spendement catalogue 1416.
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)
Hobson, G. English Binding before 1500 (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] ,
(Durham: 1939)
Schmidt-Künsemüller, F. A., Die abendländischen romanischen Blindstempeleinbände (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1985)