Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Parchment: low quality, with numerous holes, flaws, edgecuts, a pronounced H/F contrast.
Modern pencil foliation
Former pastedown and flyleaf (f.1) are a bifolium, I-X8, XI4, XII4 (probably 6 with leaves 4 and 6 lost or cancelled; the leaves now glued together at the gutter).
Text-block. Quires I-X: 258 x 145 mm; two columns (width, 72 mm). Quire XI: 245 x 155 mm; two columns (width variable, 67-80 mm). Quire XII: 260 x 180 mm; two columns (width variable, 80-95 mm).
Lines. Quires I-X: 60 (space, 4.5+; height of commentary minims, 1.5-2 mm; height of lemmata minims in items (a) and (b), 3 mm). Quire XI: 59 (space, 4.5+; height of minims, 1.5 mm). Quire XII: 67-69 lines (space, 3.5 mm; height of minims, 1 mm).
Pricking: awl. Pricking for horizontal rulings were done in the outer margin only in quires I-III and XI-XII; in both inner and outer margins in quires IV-X. Prickings sometimes survive in all three (or four) margins, sometimes only in one or two.
Ruling: ink in quires I-IV; ink and crayon in quires V-VI, ink and lead in quire VII, lead in quire VIII-XII; the lines often now very faint. Single verticals flanking columns; first two and last two horizontals extended. In quires I-XI, all horizontals run across the intercolumnar space and project irregularly into the margins; in quire XII they are confined within the text columns.
Scribe 1 (f.1-84v)Textualis libraria; scribe 2 (f.85v-87vAnglicana formata.
Red and blue initials with stem and leaf patterning reserved as areas of plain parchment, 4+ lines high, flourished in red, head item (a) Books I and II. A 3-line-high blue initial, flourished in red heads Book III. Blue initials, 2+ lines high, flourished in red, mark every subsection - both lemmata and commentaries - in (a), the start of (b), (c), (d) and (e), as also their principal divisions. The spaces reserved for initials in item (f) remain unfilled.
One correcting/annotating hand, 14th century, appears throughout to f.84v; other more casual annotating hands in item (a) only.
Early 18th century binding by Waghorn in Durham; full brown calf over pasteboards, 1 re-used clasp. Rust stains on, and holes in the unnumbered former pastedown and f.1 from the metalwork of an earlier binding: at the fore-edge, from the fixtures for a pair of clasps; near to the spine, from a series of pins where five cords were secured into the boards (each of these corresponding to stains from the channels in former boards).
Written in England, before December 1325.
Pledged as surety at Oxford, in 1325 and 1327: “Caucio ... exposita in cista cicestrie. die sabati proxima post festum Lucie uir[ginis] [i.e. 13 December] ... Anno domini Mo CoCoCo vicesimo quarto”, unnumbered final leaf, verso, top; parts obliterated. “Caucio \Iohannis/ de ?Colby [exposita in antiqua cista] ... apostolorum philippi et Iacobi Anno domini Mo CoCoCo vicesimo septimo [et tradatur ?M ?Ncs de ?l]” unnumbered final leaf, verso, immediately below the previous entry; large portions obliterated. The individual named in the final clause is conceivably Nicholas of Lusby, Oxford scholar and later monk of Durham approximately 1328-1349.
Ex libris: “Liber Sancti Cuthberti ex procuracione fratris Iohannis de Castro monachi Dunelm'”, early 14th century, f.Iv, top. John de Castro is possibly to be identified with one of two monks of Durham called John of Barnard Castle (the earlier active c.1294-1311, the latter c.1351-1381) or with the John of Newcastle who was at Durham c. 1341-44/5, before transferring to Stamford.
Contents list, noting every text, 14th century, unnumbered final leaf, verso.
Contents list, noting every text, end of 14th century, f.Iv, top centre; corrected 15th/16th century by Thomas Swalwell, monk of Durham.
Pressmark: “K” in red, 14th century, f.1r, top centre. “k Comentum super libros de Anima cum alijs quinque De communi libraria monachorum dunelm'”, early 15th century, f.1r, top; the “k” has been struck through.
Pressmark: “1a 10i E”, 15th century, f.1r, top right. “1a 10i E”, 15th century, f.Iv.
Averroes, translated by Michael Scot, Commentarium magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros; In De generatione et corruptione; Compendia in Parva naturalia Aristotelis; etc., written in England and in use at Oxford by 1325.
Set out with the Aristotelian lemmata written every other line in larger script, followed by the commentary written on every line in smaller script. Section numbers are placed beside the start of each portion of commentary. Book II, c. 23 was omitted in whole or part by the original scribe; a different hand subsequently supplied the Aristotelian text in rasura at the end of commentary 22, adding commentary 23 in the lower margin. Light but persistent annotation, slightly more intense between f.47r-58r; passages of text braced, the braces often punctuated by pairs of short horizontal lines, sometimes also by integral pointing hands.
The short lemmata are embedded within the text-block, written on every line like the commentary but to a larger gauge; some are flagged by a paraph; most have been underlined by a subsequent annotator. Light but persistent early annotation with many passages flagged by wavy lines, pointing fingers (often associated with the wavy lines) and ‘Nota’s; the annotation included adding beside some chapter numbers a brief note summarising the subject of the chapter in question. Added running heading in ink.
A few early textual corrections; numerous sentence breaks and some paraphs added in ink on f.77r; none on f.77v. Undatable nota crosses beside several lines. Several lines of faint, possibly erased, jottings in the lower margin of f.77r, seemingly a continuation of comparable jottings in the lower margin of f.76v.
Divided into 5 Books, the first subdivided into 5 chapters. Lemmata undifferentiated. Original paraph divisions. Vertical lines inserted by an annotator to enhance sentence and clause division; textual corrections in the same hand.
Liber sensu et sensato; Liber de memoria et reminiscentia; Libri de sompno et uigilia. Carefully corrected; added vertical lines to strengthen sentence and clause divisions.
Divided into 11 sections by spaces for initials; lemmata undifferentiated. Occasional small spaces left within the text. No corrections. No annotations.
Averrois Cordubensis Compendia librorum Aristotelis qui parva naturalia vocantur 
, ed. E. L. Shields and H. Blumberg, Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem versionum Latinarum VII (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1949)
Averrois Cordubensis Commentarium Magnum in Aristotelis De anima libros , ed. F. S. Crawford, Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem, Versionum Latinarum VI.1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953)
Averrois Cordubensis Commentariorum Medium in Aristotelis De generatione et corruptione libros , ed. F. H. Fobes and S. Kurland, Corpus Commentarium Averrois in Aristotelem, versionum latinarum IV.1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1956)
G. Lacombe, Aristoteles Latinus Codices (Leiden: Brill, 1957)