Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript gathering containing a Lollard dialogue, written in English in the late 14th century, interleaved with a transcript by William Crashaw at the turn of the 16th/17th century. Presented by Crashaw to James I; in Bishop Cosin's Library by 1669
Parchment, flesh-side outermost (f.6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19 and 21) interleaved with 16th/17th century paper (watermarks: pot with initials BP, f.i; pot alone, f.ii; SI (?), f.1; pot, f.2; cartouche containing capitals ...OW and pendant ornament f.5-22; crescent and pot, f.23-24)
foliated in modern pencil i-ii, 1-24.
14 (folio paper); 218 (parchment8 interleaved with paper10 with chainlines and watermark in quarto position but latter reading horizontally), f.5 originally conjoint with f.22 but now on modern separate guard.
Parchment: no evidence of pricking. Written space 213 x 113 mm; framed in soft brown, with traces of line ruling. 40 long lines. Paper: prickings in inner margin of paper of quire 2. Written space 210 x 120 mm, or, item (2a), 225 x 140 mm; framed, and, f.2-3, ruled in ink. Up to 19 long lines, or, item (2a), 40.
Written in textura, somewhat unevenly, by one hand, with cc paraph and elaborated initial at the beginning of each response in the dialogue, and penstroke filling of empty part lines at the end of each, plain punctus within. Items (1) in Crashaw's current italic. Item (2a), in secretary of varying currency, with a few words in a more formal italic for emphasis; f.7r top half, more currently, resembling Crashawe's italic script.
Not executed; 3 line space to item (2b).
In item (2b) a little early correction; two repetitions inconspicuously struck through; one sentence more roughly struck out in different ink, “moni gode men of holi chirch haue bene sayntes & bene”, f.10v, which is not in item (2a), perhaps because it partly repeats an earlier sentence. Scriptural and canonical references in the outer margins by the original hand and ink. Polemical side notes in Crashaw's italic hand; “Finis” at the end in quasi textura probably by him or at his direction. In item (2a) some misreadings and more miscopyings corrected within the line by cancellation and rewriting, others interlineally.
Originally limp membrane wrapper, s. xvii (?), with holes for two ties, stiffened with modern paper pastedowns and repairs to outer edges of membrane leaves.
Written in England, end of 14th century.
Inscription: “Edward Robartsons Booke seruaunt to Sir Nicolas Shelley knight capten of [blank]”, f.21v, and some meaningless 16th century pen trials. Found by William Crashawe and presented by him to King James I. Perhaps passed directly to John Cosin by James I or by Charles I. Entered in the 1669 catalogue of Cosin's Library, f.94r. Thomas Rud wrote, f.3r, “it seems scarce so old” against Crashawe's statement “here is the very originall it selfe, which the strangenesse both of the hande, & of the phrase do discover to be written above 300 yeares agoe”. Usual ex-libris and shelf-numbers by Rud, on f.1r.
In Crashaw's current mainly italic hand
Crashaw reports how, in order to disprove Romish “bragg of antiquitye”, he has “imployed much of my poore stipend to procure, and of my time to peruse the antient Manuscripts that are to be had”, and that of those worthy the King's view he is beginning with the original of one. “The antient written bookes that are the keepers of these testimonyes, popishe malice seekes by all meanes either to corrupt & falsifye, or wholly to deface & extinguishe: & it is a worke worthy your Ma roiall care to prevent them, & to preserve in their safetye & integritye the antient records of truthe: which tho it will be both costly & laboriouse, yet if your Ma: will vouchsafe to heare me or to reade a fewe pages: I hope to demonstrate a waye, whereby your Ma: may atcheive that great & Honorable worke”. Crashawe was preacher at the Temple church in London 1605-13. In 1609 he sent Lord Salisbury a work which is probably BL MS Royal 17.B.IX, with a prefatory letter to the King in similar terms to that here, but enlarging a little on his proposal for royal support for the preservation of manuscripts, to be kept in the universities; the enterprise here is presumably somewhat earlier. f.1v and 3v-4v blank.
Dialgoue containing Lollard opinions about spiritual and secular dominion. According to edition, the dialect is more northerly than the normal Lollard Central Midland “fairly precisely to Derbyshire or eastern Staffordshire” but may have been copied previously in a dialect around north Cambridgeshire (Somerset, xlii-xliii).
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]).
Four Wycliffite dialogues: dialogue between Jon and Richard, dialogue between a friar and a secular, dialogue between Reson and Gabbyng, dialogue between a clerk and a knight , ed. Somerset, F., Early English Text Society os 333 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
Hudson, Anne. "A Lollard quaternion", Review of English studies, vol. 22, no. 88 (1971), 435-442.
Wallis, P. J., "The library of William Crashawe"” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, vol. 2, no. 3, (1956), 213-228