Reference book for letters and letter-writing kept by the Chancery of Durham Priory at the end of the 14th and the early 15th century.
Paper. No visible watermarks.
Modern pencil foliation, continuous. Medieval foliation starts with brown i-ii on f.21-22, then red iii-lvi on f.26-79, brown lvii-lxvi on f.80-89, brown 67-101 on f.90-124 (many of this last run rendered invisible by water damage). The roman numerals were written on both sides of each leaf, the Arabic on rectos only.
I18, II14, III18, IV14, V18, VI14, VII18, VIII14, IX5
Numerous broadly contemporary hands, writing versions of Secretary or Anglicana, or a hybrid of the two.
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)
Written in England, Durham, between 1381 and 1421 to judge by the contents.
Inscription: “.L. Registrum papireum diuersarum litterarum. de Officio Cancellarie Monachorum Dunelmie quondam Roberti de langchestr Cancellarij et postea Feretrarij dunelmie”, f.24r, upper margin.
Acephalus, alphabetical listing of Latin words, F-V surviving, classified under Nomina,Verba and Adverbia for each letter, with Latin synonyms and/or English definitions.
Thematic list of contents. Both parts by the same hand, with some additions to both (especially the second) in other hands.
Excerpts, at least in part, from the Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium – the first section from IV.47, the last from IV.56. f.102v blank
Short version.
Added incrementally by eight hands with blank spaces left after entries
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]).
Pantin, W.A., "Letters from Durham Registers" in H. E. Salter, W.A. Pantin and H. G. Richardson, Formularies which bear on the History of Oxford c. 1204-1420 (Oxford: Oxford Historical Society n.s. 4 (1942), 215-45
Polak, E.J., Medieval and Renaissance letter treatises and form letters. A census of manuscripts … (Leiden, 1994)