Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
A composite manuscript made up of two parts, written in France and Durham respectively and assembled before 1484. (A) Pseudo-Bernard of Clairvaux, Meditationes; Lothario dei Segni/Innocent III, De contemptu mundi siue de miseria conditionis humanae; etc. (B) Ps.-Robert Grosseteste, De lingua, Sermones, etc.; Peter of Limoges, De oculi morali.
Parchment
Main (?early modern) foliation in ink runs: 85-223, 223*-243, 245-319. A late medieval ink foliation of 1-125 on 245-318, 233-242, 85-125 indicates an earlier order in which the contents were once bound.
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)
A composite volume of two parts: (A) f.85-127 and (B) f.128-319. The summary list of content of s. xv/xvi on ii verso implies, and the fuller one of xv/xvi-xviin demonstrates, that the sections of the book were then arranged as they are now. Once in their present order, fols. 223-319 suffered (?fire) damage in the lower margin at the spine; the damaged areas were carefully excised.
Inscription, after 1484: “Iste liber assignatur nono armariolo in claustro ecclesie Dunelm per venerabilem patrem Magistrum Iohannem Awkland Priorem eiusdem ecclesie”, f. iiv, a third of the way down (John Auckland, prior of Durham 1484-94).
Inscription, 15th-16th century: “G 8.” and “Meditaciones bernardi et tractatus lincolniensis de oculo morali secundo fo bitare”, f. iiv, top.
A fuller list of content (itemising everything in the volume in its current order) was then fitted in between this and the John Auckland inscription, 15th-17th century.
Parchment
85-125
I-III12, IV7 (10 with leaves 8-10 [blank] cancelled)
Text-block: 193 x 135 mm. Two columns, 32 lines.
Written in bâtarde .
Written by a single scribe who also wrote the rubric.
Start of (a) and (b) indicated by 6-line initial, other two books of (b) with a 5-line initial. Chapters headed with 2-line initials.
Written in France, late 14th - early 15th century.
In 22 chapters
Parchment
I-VIII12, IX10, X11 (12 with leaf 12, blank, cancelled), XI-XVI12; XVII3 (probably 4 with leaf 4, blank, cancelled)
Text-block: 227-255 x 150-155 mm. Two columns, 47-57 lines.
Written in secretary with occasional textualis for emphasis
Written by a single scribe identified in the “E” of the Explicit on f.227v as Richard Bell (monk of Durham approximately1426-78, prior 1464-78, bishop of Carlisle 1478-95).
Start of (d) indicated by 5-line initial, the other works by a 4-line initial. Chapters headed with 2-line initials.
Written in England, Durham, mid 15th century. This collection is very similar to that in DCL MS B.III.19, an earlier volume written by a Durham scribe; however, there are sufficient small differences of detail within the incipits and explicits of the individual texts to suggest that that manuscript is unlikely to have been the exemplar for this one.
The same index (with variant spellings etc.) appears in DCL MS B.III.19, f.142-146
Attributed to Robert Grosseteste
Variously attributed to Robert Grosseteste, Hugh of Saint-Cher, Gérard de Liège, Guy of Rome. A chapter list at the end.
S. Bernardi abbatis primi Claræ-Vallensis opera omnia: post Horstium denuo recognita, aucta et in meliorem digesta ordinem, necnon novis præfationibus, admonitionibus, notis et observationibus indicibusque copiosissimis locupletata tertiis curis Joannis Mabillon 
, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina, 182-185 (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1854-1862)
Bloomfield, M.W., ed., Incipits of Latin works on the virtues and vices 1100-1500 AD including a section of incipits of works on the Pater Noster (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1979)
Lotario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III), ed. R. T. Lewis, De miseria condicionis humane (London: Scolar Press, 1980)
Thomson, S. H., The writings of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln 1235-1253 (Cambridge: CUP, 1940)