Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex containing devotional texts in English and Latin written in England at the turn of the 15th/16th century.
Parchment, smooth; flesh- and hair-sides indistinguishable), all edges cropped. Leaves at start and finish soiled, etc., and f.80 also damaged by water.
foliated i, 1-81.
18, 28 + 2 leaves (f.18-19) after 8; 3-98,106 lacks 5, +1
Pricking in outer margins, largely cropped away. Written space 112-117 x 72 mm; ruled in softish pink. 19 or, quires 3-8 and 10, 18 or, quire 9, 17 long lines.
Written in textura, expertly, well punctuated, with gospel verses of item [f.20 seq.] generally smaller, in black ink. English rubrics in red in both parts, very lengthy in (4).
Text-capitals in black filled with pale yellow. Paraphs, to rubrics, in blue. Line-fillers in red and blue. Initials: (i) to psalm verses, etc., 1-line, blue with red flourishing or, in (1)-(3) and f.66v, red with ink flourishing; (ii) 2-line, red with distinctive slashed-effect infilling and flourishing. Running titles. To item (2) [f.20 seq.], in red, giving day of the week.
Tuckett binding, mid 19th century, hard-grained brown morocco (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century), titled SAWTER OF MERCY. Stains from turn-ins of previous binding on f.ir and 81v.
Written in England, 15th/16th century.
Written in England, apparently for a woman, see items [f.16r] (3g) “ancilla”, “misera peccatrice” (f.24r); Katherine of Siena, item (3h), may indicate a Dominican connection. Elizabeth Cressener, cf. author of item (1), was prioress of Dartford, the only English house of Dominican nuns, 1487-1536. The English translation of St Catharine of Siena's revelations, however, under the title Orchard of Syon, was printed from a copy found at Syon Abbey in 1519 at the expense of its lay steward, and was probably meant as much for the Brigittine as the Domincan nuns. Accents, in red, like modern circumflexes, over stressed vowels of Latin text, f.23v-24r, perhaps to assist reading aloud, as in some manuscripts made for the Syon sisters (e.g. Syon Abbey 6. MMBL iv, 346). “<Clemence> Tressham”, f.2r, a junior nun of Syon abbey in 1518, member of the refounded community in 1557 and abbess from 1559, died 1567 at her family home in Rushton (Northants.), see G. J. Aungier, The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, (London, 1840), p.81-2, 97, 100, *108; A. Butler, "Clemence Tresham, of Rushton and Syon", Northamptonshire Past and Present 5 (1974), 91-93. Her name is written by the same hand in a copy of Thomas a Kempis, Opera (Paris 1523) (formerly belonging to A. I. Doyle, now DULASC SB+ 0903). The front flyleaves relate to Northamptonshire, where Sir Thomas Tresham (died 1605) enjoyed considerable property, see G. Isham, "Sir Thomas Tresham and his buildings", Northamptonshire Antiquarian Society Journal 65 (1966), 1- 35. Note of contents, by George Davenport, 1660s, and ex-libris by Thomas Rud, 18th century, f.iiv. Supposed date of author by Davenport on f.81r.
Part of document, single-sided, folded as flyleaves, concerning a lease for twenty-one years to Sir Robert Constable of property in Furtho, Cosgrove, Y[ardley Gobion?], etc., Northamptonshire, purchased from the late Queen [Elizabeth?], and the subject of indented letters of assignment. Property in Yardley Gobion and the manor of Cosgrove, both near Stony Stratford, came to the Crown in 1487 from Anne, Countess of Warwick, and the manor of Cosgrove was the subject of a fine between Sir Francis Carew and William Throckmorton in 24 Elizabeth, 1581-2. Whether any property in neighbouring Furtho was involved is not clear.
A catena of psalm-verses arranged for devotional use; the son and heir of one Sir John Cressener is buried at Crostwight (Norfolk), while there are references to Sir John holding property in Doughton and Talerford [c. 1505] (Holkham Hall misc. deeds 622) and in Crigge Hundreel in 1514 (Tittleshall Register 365). John Cressener, born 1484 (son of John, d. 1497), was knighted in 1513 (Shaw, ii, 420 and died in 1536 (P. Morant, Essex, II, 264, 266-7. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Roger Townshend, a distinguished lawyer (d. 1493), whose other children included Agnes, a nun of Barking. (P. Lee, Nunneries, Learning and Spirituality in Late Medieval English Society (2001), p.61. His aunt (but possibly sister) was said to be Elizabeth, prioress of Dartford (the only Dominican nunnery in England), 1487-1536. The date of the knighthood would make the rubric retrospective. Sir, for Dominus, however might be for a secular priest and the bracketed lacuna could be for "law". The psalm verses are Sonday: Pss 50:3a; 12:5b-6a; 16:7; 17:51; 23:5. 6:5; 24:6,7b,10; 25:3. 25:11; 26:7; 29:11; 31:10; 32:5. Monday: Pss 4:2b; 32:22,18 (timentes for metuentes); 35:6,7b-8a. 35:11; 39:11b,12; 40:11; 41:9a. 47:10; 50:3b; 56:4b-5a,11; 58:10-11a. Tewysday: Pss 6:3; 58:17a,18; 59:3; 60:8. 66:2; 68:14b; 65:20; 62:4; 61:12. 68:17; 76:10,9; 78:8; 83:12. Wednysday: Pss 9:14; 84:8; 85:5,13; 84:11. 88:2a,3,15b; 85:16,15. 88:50,29,34,25; 89:14. Thursday: Pss 30:10; 91:3,11; 97:3a; 98:8. 99:4b; 100:1-2; 101:14,15; 93:18. 102:8,6,11,13- 14a,17a. Fryday (Pss 55:2; 105:7a,45,46; Luke 1:78 (i.e. Benedictus v 11). Pss 105:1; 106:8/15/21/31; 107:5; 108:21,26. 110:4; 111:4; 114:4b-5; 113:ii2; 116:2. The seuynth nocturne for Saturday: Pss 122:3; 118:41,76,77,88. 118:64,124,132,149,156. 118:159; 122:2b; 140;5a; 137:8 ; 142:11b-12a. The viij nocturne after euensong: Pss 56:2a; 117:1; 135:1,3; 129:7. 117:4,2,3; 142:8a; 137:2b. 144:8; 143:2a; 146:11; 144:9; 85:3-4; Gloria patri.
Prayer to the wounds of Christ mentioned in the preceding rubric as betokened by the five verses of each psalm in each nocturn of item (1).
Beginning with B.V.M. The pattern varies from one to another, but generally approximates to a memoria, as found in books of hours. f.18v-19v blank but ruled.
7 forms, the first a farced version of RH 2070, the third RH 6757; for the last see Les livres d'heures, ii,125/7.
2 forms (see also d): the first ed. Wilmart, p. 555, from BL Harley 211 (s. xv. Carmelite, east Anglian); both in Syon Abbey 2 (article 26d-e) and 4 (art. 9), see MMBL iv, 341, 344).
(c) 5 forms, for the first cf. Leroquais, i, 39; for the third see Wilmart, p.582 n.1; for the last, Bruylants, Oraisons, ii, 387, and Sarum hours printed 1494, et seq. (Hoskins no. 7).
1 form
7 forms, the first RH, 6895; the last Sarum hours 1494 et seq.
5 forms, for the last, Bruylants, Oraisons, i, no. 395 and Sarum hours 1494 et seq.
4 forms, the first not in RH.
Devotional exercises for each day of the week, closely based on the Meditationes de vita et passione Ihesu Christi, attributed to Jordan of Saxony, printed by Gerard Leeu at Antwerp, 1485, etc., but expanded from his Articuli: see J. T. Rhodes, "Prayers of the Passion, from Jordanus of Quedlinburg to John Fewterer of Syon", Durham University Journal 85 (n.s.54, 1993), 27-38. Twelve articles per day, except Thursday 37-47, Friday 48-60 and, after meat, 61-65, with dinner called “mete” on Tuesday - Friday and supper “collacion” on Friday. Includes “the houres of the sorowes of oure blyssed lady to be seyde on Saturdayes which pope Clement made and graunted to all that sey them xviij thousande dayes of pardon they mey be seyde also euery day in the ende of euery exercise. Matutino tempore Marie nunciatur quod a Iudeis perfidis Christus captiuatur ... ... ereptam me constituas in dextera cum latrone. Amen” (f.73r-74v), as in the Latin of BL Add.27913 (Cologne hours post 1484). For Sunday there is one long prayer in place of articles, Domine Ihesu Christe qui per beatissimum diem gloriosissime resurrectionis tue ..., and an unfilled space for the supper prayer (f.79v), after which at least one leaf is presumably lost, containing almost all the rubric recording Pope Sixtus IV's grant of indulgence of “xlvj thowsande yere and xij and xl dayes” prefaced to the Seven prayers of St Gregory, O domine Ihesu Christe adoro te in cruce pendentem ..., pr. Les livres d'heures, ii,346, here with the third prayer last. English texts, as well as directions, are written in red.
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]).
Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum , ed. Rouse, R. H., Rouse, M., Mynors, R. A. B. (London: British Library, 1991)
Stegmüller, Friedrich, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi , (Madrid: 1950-1980)
P. Whalley, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire. Compiled from the manuscript collections of the late learned antiquary J. Bridges, Esq. , (Oxford: T. Payne, 1762-1791)