Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex made up of three parts: (A) f.1-65 - Gospel of John, glossed; Bede, In Tobiam; Lections for Palm Sunday; (B) f.66-109 - Augustine, In Genesim ad litteram; (C) f.110-133 - Glose super Cantica canticorum et sapientie. The presence of (B) as an individual item on the late 12th century booklist shows that it was still separate at that point; while the list of content on f.2r proves that the three parts had been brought together by 13th century. The extra weathering observable on the first and last pages of each of the three parts, along with the fact that the mould/damp damage that is pronounced throughout (C) is otherwise largely confined to the final leaf of B (the result of contamination from C?) suggests protracted independent use. Further, the evenness of the discolouration of the first leaf of (A) suggests that the medieval flyleaf (f.1, which is significantly smaller in size than the rest of the volume: 215 x 145 mm) did not prefix it until, at the earliest, the time when all three parts were joined.
Modern pencil foliation
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)
Inscription: Evvangelium Iohannis Glo. Augustinus super genesim ad literam. Glose super cantica canticorum, f.2r, top left, 13th century.
Inscription: liber sancti Cuthberti de dunelm \de le splendement/, f.2r, top right, 14th century
Pressmark: G, f.2r, top, inner margin, 14th century.
Inscription: G augustinus super genesim ad literam ¶communis libraria dunelm. In le Spendement, f.3r, top, 15th century. Listed in
1392 Spendement catalogue.
Parchment. Arranged HF, FH.
I-VIII8 Item (a) finishes on the second recto of the final quire (VIII); items (b) and (c) were evidently sequential additions to the remaining leaves of this quire.
Written area. Item (a) biblical text: 159 x 63 mm. Item (b): 208 x 140 mm. Item (c): 188 x 115 mm.
Lines. Item (a) biblical text: 20 (space, 9 mm; height of minims, 2 mm). Item (b): 51 (space, 4 mm; height of minims, 1+ mm). Item (c): 24 (space, 8 mm; height of minims, 2-3 mm).
Pricking: knife and awl; survives in all three margins. The pricking done for item (a) also sufficed for item (b), but new pricking to guide 24 horizontal lines was applied to fols. 63-65 for item (c).
Ruling. Item (a): ink (for main grid); ink or lead (for 
gloss 
). First phase glossed-book design with biblical text in an unvarying central column, defined by double verticals; the number of horizontals extended varies but is often the bottom one or two, sometimes the first one also. Some of the horizontal ruling, particularly in the earlier pages, is double - i.e. with two lines for each line of script, guiding the head as well as the base of minims (ensuring space for interlinear glosses ). Extra horizontals for the gloss were supplied in the side margins and between the lines as required, unsupported by any pricking. Item (b): ink, very faint; single vertical bounding lines; it is difficult to see whether any horizontals were extended. Item (c): lead, very faint; single vertical bounding lines; it is unclear whether any horizontals are extended.
1. f.2v-17v; 26r-59r (item (a)): Protogothic, akin to Kentish prickly script. The same hand was probably responsible for the original apparatus on these pages. 2. f.18r-25v (quire III) (item (a)). Protogothic, less prickly than that of Scribe 1. The same hand was probably responsible for the original apparatus on these pages. The elaborate extension of letters in the biblical text on f.24v-25v to make it reach the end of its quire indicates that the scribe was working either concurrently with, or after Scribe 1. 3. f.60v-62r (item (b)). Protogothic, written to a small gauge. 4. f.62v-65r (item (c)). Romanesque Caroline minuscule, relatively spacious. Though its aspect would most naturally suggest a date of earlier 12th century, its context here, necessarily postdating the work of 1-3, shows than it can hardly be earlier than mid 12th century.
(a) is headed by a 10-line-high “I” done in blue and green with a touch of red. The only other coloured initial is a plain green “A”, 1 line high, for Ante diem autem festum pasche (John 13.1). All other chapters are headed by ordinary sentence capitals. Item (b) is headed by a plain green “L”, 3-4 lines high. In item (c) the quotation from Scripture and the first two lections are headed by a plain, orange-red capital, 2 to 3 lines high; the space reserved for the same heading the third lection remained unfilled.
Written in Southern England or Northern France, early 12th century.
Most of the original apparatus appears to have been written by the scribes of the main text. A different broadly contemporary hand contributed three entries on f.53v, the longest of which was subsequently erased. Further glosses were added intermittently to folios up to f.36v (above all on f.3r, and 8r-9r) in ink or lead, 12th/13th century. Often this took the form of further commentary on the biblical text. Sometimes, however, the original apparatus itself was glossed (e.g. f.13r where references to Augustine etc. were added to the original stratum of gloss ). When the available space for such supplementary glosses was more distant from their lemmata, sigla and/or ink lines were used to key them into place (see, e.g. f.8v-9r). The ink and lead lines that join some of the original glosses to their biblical texts (e.g. on f.33r) may have been added during this phase of work.
Presented as continuous text.
Gospel texts, then the greater part of Haymo Homily 63 for Dominica palmarum divided into three lections, the third lacking its rubric and initial. f.65v is blank bar the name Iohannes jotted upside-down in relation to the rest of the book, 12th century hand, plus another much fainter word which may be matrem.
Parchment. Modest quality with yellow, often follicle-marked H sides and several edge-cuts. Arranged HF, FH.
I-II12, XI-XII10
Written area: 176 x 122 mm. Lines: 35 (space, 5 mm; height of minims, 2 mm). Pricking: awl - the pricking for the horizontal rulings was applied to both side margins. The prickings generally survive in all four margins. Ruling: ink or lead; generally faint. Single vertical bounding lines; where visible, the first, third, last and antepenultimate horizontals appear to have been extended.
1a. f.66r-71r/line 6. Romanesque Caroline minuscule, bold and formal
1b. f.71r/line 6-107v. Less formal, smaller, intermittently almost semi-cursive version of the same: it is difficult to be certain whether this is a lower-grade/hastier writing by Scribe 1, or the work of a different hand which at its most formal approaches that of Scribe 1.
2. Annotations throughout: Symeon of Durham.
The spaces reserved for enlarged initials and perhaps rubric remained unfilled. That at the start of the text (f.66r) is 6+ lines high, the others 2 lines high.
Written in England, ?Durham, start of 12th century.
This is the copy recorded on the early 12th century booklist, where noted as incomplete ( ex parte), and the Augustinus super genesim ad litteram in iv quaternionibus on the late 12th century booklist.
Incipit liber Augustinus in genesim ad litteram guide words added in upper margin by Symeon of Durham. Books I.1 to VI.3 (start) only. Guide words, Nota marks and annotations throughout by Symeon of Durham.]
Parchment. Much degraded by damp. Arranged HF, FH. Areas of f.116 and f.131 are original repairs.
I8, II10 (leaves 5 and 6, f.122 and 123, are singletons), III6 (structure uncertain, seemingly 8, lacking leaf 6 [after f.132] and either leaf 7 or leaf 8).
Written area: 92 x 122 mm. Two columns (width: 58). Written above top line. Lines: 35 (space, 4-5 mm; height of minims, 1.5+). Pricking: awl and knife. Pricked in both side margins. Prickings generally preserved in all four margins. Ruling: ink. Double verticals flank both columns (three in total in the intercolumnar space). The number of horizontal extended varies: up to four at the top and up to three at the bottom; all the horizontals run across the intercolumnar space.
1. f.110r-132v (e) and (f), Textualis libraria, rectilinear matrix, relatively compressed; the descenders of letters in the bottom line regularly extend into the lower margin.
2. f.133r (g) Textualis libraria with elements of documentary script.
3. f.133v/col. i/ lines 1-32 (h)1. Similar type to 2.
4. f.133v/col. i/lines 33-39 (h)2. Similar type to 2.
5. f.133v/col. ii (h)3-4. Similar type to 2.
The spaces that were reserved for initials at the beginning and at the start of the commentary proper in (d) and at the beginning and at the start of the commentary in (b), (4, 13, 3 and 10 lines high respectively), remain blank. Spaces left for initials within the texts likewise remain blank. Quotations were underlined in red and sentence capitals stroked in red in quire I and II but not in III.
Written in England, end 12th century.
Passages within text are underlined in red; for many (though not all) of them, a space was left presumably for a coloured initial that was never supplied. Rubrics within the text on f.112v and f.119v credit passages to Gregorius and on f.112v to Matheus. Regular marginal “Nota”s seemingly copied as part of the original transcription.
Breaks off incomplete in gloss on Sapientia 14.28. Up to f.127v (the end of quire II), scriptural quotations within the text are underlined in red. Throughout a space was left so that they could be headed by a coloured initial that was never supplied. Rabanus is regularly cited as the authority/source. “Nota”s were copied as part of the original transcription.
Parts of the last few lines lost or illegible owing to damp damage.
Four pieces.
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]).
de Hamel, Christopher, Glossed books of the Bible and the origins of the Paris book
trade , (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Boydell Press,
1984)
Gullick, Michael, "The hand of Symeon of Durham: further observations on the Durham Martyrology scribe", in Rollason, David, ed., Symeon of Durham: historian of Durham and the North (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 1998), 14-31
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)
Stegmüller, Friedrich, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi , (Madrid: 1950-1980)