Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex containing Guido de Colonna, Historia destructionis Troiae, the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle and some shorter pieces, written in England at the start of the 15th century. It appears to have been in East Anglia in the 15th century, before being acquired by George Davenport and given by him to Bishop Cosin's Library around 1670.
Parchment, some flaying edges and flaws; quires with flesh-side outermost. Lower outer corner of f.125 torn off.
foliated 1-149, with 137 repeated.
18 wants 1 before f.3, 2-98, 108 wants 4-5 after f.76, 11-128, 138 with 3 + 6 misbound inside 4 + 5 (i.e. recte f.99, 98, 101, 100), 148 wants 6-7 after f.108, 15-188, 198 wants 2 after f.141. Inner 2 endleaves, front and back, conjoint medieval pastedown and flyleaf
No visible pricking for lines inside frames. Written space 177-182 x 111-114 mm; framed in sharp brown. 39 unruled long lines.
Written, including chapter-rubrics, in anglicana formata expertly, with short r and kidney-shaped final s, by one hand, probably in three stints, the second starting at f.109r (148) in darker ink and with descenders of bottom line extended, and f.2v as an afterthought.
Paraphs, in red or blue alternately, in text, to sidenotes of items (2) and (5) and to catchwords on quires 1-3, 6, 11-12.
Initials: (i) to chapters in list in item (4e), 1 line, blue or red alternately; (ii) to books and chapters, 2 or 3 line, in blue, with red infilling and flourishing occasionally including a grotesque profile (f.6v, 78r, 111v, 118r, 125v). Illuminated initials and borders probably lost with the beginnings of items (2)-(5): a small fragment of blue foliage remains on f.125v.
Correction over erasure, by the copyist. Sidenotes by the copyist in items (2) and (5).
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). . Marks on front and back pastedowns (raised as f.1 and 149) of six bands, VVV, and turn-ins.
Written in England ?, start of the 15th century.
Inscription: “In custodia domini Iohannis Attleburgh monachi norwicy”, f.1v, later 15th century; “Attleburgh”, f.149r. Dan John Attylburgh, who died in 1505 or 1506, is mentioned in 1463 in the will of John Baret of Bury (Tymms, p.16, 40); Greatrex, p.479; Alumni cantabrigienses, i, p.23.
Inscription: “Geo. Davenport. | 1664.”, on paper slip from previous binding, stuck to front paste down; his note on item 3, f.109r; his list of contents, f.2r, below a title in a 16th/17th century hand found in Cosin MS V.ii.11, etc. Ex-libris and shelf-numbers by Thomas Rud at head of f.3r.
f.1-2v was originally blank, save perhaps for an early drawing of a thorny braid at the lower right corner of f.1r.
(a) [A]d omnia que insurgunt vicia. disce remedium aliquid habere. Cum corpore deprimeris: cogite quia hodie operam licet ... ... quod vas sanctorum est esca vermium mox futurum. On the four humours.
(b) [H]ora est .xxiiijta. pars diei. Dies est vijma pars ebdomade ... ... omnes planete debent reduci in punctum quo create fuerunt inde irreuocabiliter remansure. Divisions of time.
c) [L]argus amans hilaris ridens rubeique coloris. Sanguineus ... ... Non expers fraudis luteique coloris. Melancolicus. Versus de quatuor complexionibus
Beginning and final 36 lines lost. The division into books in this copy diverges from the edition: here Book 3 begins at ed. IIII para 2 (p. 34/26); ed. V is divided in two (p. 50/29); VI-XX are 6-20 here, with XXI and XXII part of 20, and XXIII-XXXI numbered 21-29 here; the next number given is 33, for ed. XXXIIII, followed by “vltimus”. This copy is considerably more corrupt than the six used for the edition, but in its reading “a duobus dromedarijs” (f. 53v/6-7) it preserves, where they do not (ed. p.129 note 30), the original source (as does the Middle English "Gest Hystoriale" of the Destruction of Troy: this copy also has “Pendracum” (f.48/12) for “Pandarus” (p.115 note 23), which is closer to the Middle English ”Pendragon” (line 5436) than the usual “Pandratum”. The text lost at the beginning amounts to some 76 lines, the equivalent of one folio; 170 lines are lost between f.76 and 77, the equivalent of two folios. Two bifolia, folios 98/101 and 99/100, were misbound in reverse order at an early date, so that the text runs 99, 98, 101, 100, without loss; direction notes were supplied in the 15th century to assist the reader.
This copy belongs to Family A, and has the same divisions as the copy printed, with additional breaks at p.194 line xviii; 206,i; 222,iv; 224,i,iii,vi,xv; 225,iv. That copy has a similar collection of associated items to (4) in this manuscript, as do Rouen MS U.134 (12th-13th century, from Jumièges), and its copies, Rouen MSS Y.198 (12th-13th century, from St Ouen) and O.34 (13th century, from Jumièges), which are described as “Familles St. Denis- Anglo-normandes” (de Mandach, p.368). The amount of text presumed to be lost at the beginning is the equivalent of one folio.
Diverges from Meredith-Jones (p.344-7) by omitting the reference to Jerome et al. “que in primo codice habentur”, adapting the sentences concerning reading, omitting the section on liturgical observances, and having a final sentence referring to the Historia Karoli at the beginning of the codex.
The standard collection of twenty two miracles.
Incomplete
Two extracts: Book II,2 - [Qui igitur appetit vivere ac durare, studia adqui]rere que durabilitate quiunt [for conueniunt] et vitam conseruant ... est summa medicina.
Book IV,1-17 (de physionomia) - ¶Discipuli siquidem ypocratis sapientis depinxerunt formam eius ... ... declina semper ad meliorem partem et probabiliorem partem. ¶ Explicit liber Aristo[te]lis de Phisonomia. Completus est tractatus de signis ... monarcha in septentrione.
B.L. MS Royal 12.G.iv f.138v only accords with Cosin from “discipuli hypocratis ...”, and Cambridge Gonville & Caius MS 487(483) f.1-3 does not have the preceding passage either.
f.148-149 a bifolium, ruled for 30 long lines occupying 182 x 125 mm, blank save “Attleburgh” in middle of f.149r and half a line of 15th century music with C4 clef, 15 square and diamond notes on three lines at top of f.149v.
Alumni cantabrigienses: a biographical list of all known students, graduates and holders of office at the University of Cambridge from the earliest times to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922-54)
Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina antiquae et medii aetatis 
(Brussels, 1898-1901); Supplements (Brussels, 1911, 1986)
Bloomfield, Morton W., Guyot, Bertrand-Georges, Howard, Donald R. and Kabealo, Thyra B., Incipits of Latin works on the virtues and vices, 1100-1500 A.D. Including a section of incipits of works on the Pater noster (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1979)
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]).
Greatrex, J., Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories of the Province of Canterbury (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)
Historia destructionis Troiae, Guido de Columnis ed. Griffin, N. E. (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936)
de Mandach, A., Naissance et développement de la chanson de geste en Europe: i La geste de Charlemagne et de Roland , Publications Romanes et Françaises 67, (Geneva & Paris: Droz, 1961)
Meredith-Jones, C., Historia Karoli Magni et Rothlandi ou Chronique du pseudo Turpin, (Geneva: Slatkine, 1972)
Newhauser, R. and Bejzcy, I., A supplement to Morton W. Bloomfield et al. Incipits of Latin works on the virtues and vices, 1100-1500 A.D. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008)
Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ... Editionem secundam correctam et auctam auspiciis G. Wattenbach ... curaverunt S. Loewenfeld, F. Kaltenbrunner, P. Ewald (Leipzig: Veit, 1885)
Secretum secretorum: cum glossis et notulis. Tractatus brevis et utilis ad declarandum quedam obscure dicta fratris Rogeri , ed. Steele, R., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920)
Thorndike, L., "Unde versus", Traditio 11, (1955), 163-193
Thorndike, Lynn and Kibre, P., A catalogue of incipits of mediaeval scientific writings in Latin (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1963)
Tymms, S., Wills and Inventories from the Registers of the Commissary of Bury St Edmund's and the archdeacon of Sudbury , Camden Society 49, (London: Camden Society, 1850)
Whitehill, W. M., Liber sancti Jacobi: Codex Calixtinushttp://www.worldcat.org/oclc/892224624, (Santiago de Compostella: Instituto P. Sarmiento de Estudios Gallegos, 1944),