Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex containing part of a cycle of Sunday sermons, in English, found in this and 3 other manuscripts (Gloucester Cathedral MS 22, Lincoln Cathedral MSS 50-51, and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS e Musaeo 180) copied by the same scribe. The manuscript was owned by George Davenport and given by him to Bishop Cosin's Library around 1670.
Paper, quarto (watermark of hand and cuff with cinquefoil, not close to Heawood, no. 48, nor Briquet, no. 11154 etc., nor Piccard, all late 15th century), some outer edges deckle.
foliated i-iii, 1-75
1-28, 38 wants 6 after f.21; 4-58, 68 + 1 leaf (f.48 (after 8), 7-98
No evidence of pricking or line ruling. Written space 140 x 83 mm; framed in softish brown (ink?), 140 x 83 mm. 26-28 lines, the first on top frame-line.
Written in a distinctive squat anglicana formata, with unlooped d, or, for the first lines of each sermon, bastard textura, or, for the heading of each sermon, textura, proficiently, by the same hand as Gloucester Cathedral MS 22, Lincoln Cathedral MSS 50-51, and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS e Musaeo 180. The editor's analysis of the dialect of these manuscripts places the scribe around the Leicestershire - Staffordshire border, with indicators that the text had originated in East Anglia.
Text-capitals, especially exaggerated S, filled with orange, also used on heading to each sermon, virgules, and underlining. Initials, to each sermon, 2-line, orange.
Left unbound at some stage, to judge by soiling of f.1r and 72v. Bound in Durham by Hutchinson, sprinkled brown calf, with a double fillet along three sides and vertically 25 mm in from spine, roll G along hinges, and Hutchinson's roll B along board edges in gold. Rebacked 1977, replacing previous mid 19th century rebacking.
Written in England, mid 15th century.
Inscription: “Iste liber pertinet ad me Valintinum Guerad stefatibus (?) georgius suttun (?) et macuton stestin (?) In ludo literario cum magistro tynoe (?)”, 16th century, f.13r, upside-down. “John Simson”, 17th century, f.72v. Pen sketches of siren or mermaid, 16th/17th century, f.11r, and human head, f.27v. Some 15th or 16th century marginalia. Contents-list, in hand of George Davenport, f.iiiv. Ex-libris and shelfmark by Thomas Rud f.1r.
4 sermons. One leaf missing after f.21 presumably contained the continuation of the fourth sermon, and part at least of item (2).
Part of a sermon from the Trinity series, a group not present elsewhere in the Cosin manuscript. Since f.18 and 22 are conjoint, the item must stand at this point, perhaps through a mistake in copying, since the scribe was engaged, possibly simultaneously, on other partly parallel collections.
6 sermons. Most of f.65 torn away. “Moraliter” occurs only as a side-note, like “Exemplum” and “Nota”, not within the text. Sermons 1-2 are on quires 4-5; sermon 3 on quire 6; and sermon 4 on quire 7.
Original marginal “Nota” and “Exemplum”
C.-M. Briquet, Les filigranes: dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600 
(Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968)
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]).
E. Heawood, Watermarks: mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hilversum: Paper Publications Society, 1950)
Morrison, S., ed., A late fifteenth-century dominical sermon cycle Early English Text Society os 337-8 (Oxford: OUP, 2012)
Piccard, G., Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart: Findbuch (Stuttgart : Kohlhammer, 1961-97)