Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, written in Normandy and given to Durham Priory by William of St Calais, bishop of Durham (died 1096)
Parchment
Late medieval ink foliation of main book (Arabic numerals) runs 1-209, 220-246, the ‘jump’ being a numbering error. The modern pencil foliation (used here) runs continuously from 1-244.
3 singletons, I-XXIX8, XXX6 (outer two bifolia here, f 233 & 238 and 234 & 237, were initially arranged so that what are now their second halves, 237 & 238, came first (and in that order), but were then rearranged so as to start with the conjoint other halves, the current 233 & 234).
39 lines
Written in Protogothic by a single scribe also found in DCL MS B.III.1 and manuscripts owned by Exeter, Jumièges, and St Albans.
Decorated initials, 25 lines high, head the Preface and Book I of (c). Arabesque initials, 10 lines high, in red, green, yellow and blue (the main letter-shape in one colour, with detailing and or shading in the others) head each subsequent Book of (c).
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 Normandy, before 1096.
Given to Durham Priory by William of St Calais.
Inscriptions: pressmark “.C.”, later 14th century; title “C Prima pars moralium gregorii pape De communi libraria monachorum dunelm”, early 15th century, f.1r, upper margin.
Fragment of breviary, possibly written in Durham in a Protogothic, spiky hand: Sanctorale for end of June to start of July. Reused at later date as flyleaf.
Single leaf, possibly a rejected sheet written in Durham in a Protogothic hand. End of Homily I.4. Reused at later date as flyleaf.
Books 1-16.
A rejected start to quire XXX.
Fragment of Sermon 70. Probably a bifolium, currently reversed and with another bifolium (f.240-1, blank bar s. 12th-13th century jottings) interposed between them. Part of the same book as DCL MS B.III.16, f.159-160.
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]).
Gullick, Michael, "The scribe of the Carilef Bible: a new look at some late-eleventh-century Durham Cathedral manuscripts" in Brownrigg, L. L., ed., Medieval book production: assessing the evidence. Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988 (Los Altos Hills, Calif.: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), 61-83
Mynors, R.A.B., Durham Cathedral
manuscripts to the end of the twelfth century. Ten plates in
colour and forty-seven in monochrome. With an introduction
[including a list of all known Durham manuscripts before
1200] ,
(Durham: 1939)