Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex written in England at the turn of the 15th/16th century containing religious texts with strong Briggitine connections and associations with Syon Abbey. Owned by Geroge Davenport and given by him to Bishop Cosin's Library around 1670.
Paper, quarto (from Chancery size sheets, c. 430 x 280 mm), or, for outer bifolium of quires 3-6 and inner of quires 4 and 6, parchment. Watermarks: (1) quire 1, Unicorn, cf. Briquet, no. 10186 (1487) and others of 1490s; not in Piccard; (2) quire 2, the cuff of a hand or glove, resembling Briquet 11399 et seq. or Piccard XVII, 642-7 (15th/16th century), but no counterparts; (3) quires 3-6, 8, several types of gothic P with forked stem, without and with quatrefoil above, one of Piccard type XIII (from 1460s, mostly of 1480s, 1490s and early 1500s); (4) quire 7, Pot, cf. Briquet, nos 12477-8 (1476-81), and a specimen on paper of similar size to this, 1484; (5) quires 9-10, Serpent, cf. Briquet, nos 13735-8 (1483-91 and later printed books). Upper and lower edges cropped, except lower edge of f.50 (turned up), keeping deckle (215 mm in all).
(A): f.2-19: 116 wants 1 (blank ?) before f.2; 2 only three (f.17-19, with sewing between f.17 and 18, but not conjoint, part of watermark in f.17 not complemented in f.18), so wanting more than one before or after f.17. (B): f.20-118) 326 wants 2-6 (except fragments) before f.21, 428, 522, 628. (C): f.119-80) 7-824, 96, 108.
Written space 123 x 80-85 mm, or from f.41r, 130-135 x 90 mm, increasing to c. 150 x 105 mm; framed in ink or, from f.91r, in brown. 18-24, or, from f.40v. 25-27 unruled long lines. Running titles in set Secretary of the text f.3-18 on rectos, outside corner; in red textura, most versos and rectos, f.54-111.
Written in upright set secretary, with some loops and hooks f.3r-18v and 21r-28r, or, from f.32r onwards and item (3), perhaps by the same hand, rather larger and more akin to hybrida, but with 8 like (anglicana) g, and punctuation by psalm colon (punctus elevatus with single or double cross bar). Ink of f.175v-178r brown. Rubrics f.7v-17r and 50v-111r in textura; elsewhere by main hand in red; f.172r all red, inexplicably, and 175 capitula. Forma legendi (f. 50v) and marginalia of item (8) in textura quadrata; item (9) [f.118r-v] in round English Secretary.
Text capitals lined with red. Highlighting of texts, f.50v-51r, in yellow wash. A few red paraphs and line-fillers. Initials: (i) A[ngelus], M[aria], C[hristus], and E[vangelista] to persons in item (8a), f.57v-105, 1 line, red; (ii) 2 line, red, with infilling and flourishing by brown ink up to f.34r; (iii) on f.3r, 28v, 32r, 47r, 51r, 112r, 119r, 124r], between 3 and 6 line, red lombards or, f.47r and 69v, blue. Border in brown and red ink around text, f.14v, with pen-drawn head in profile, and penwork decoration like (ii). Initials not executed on f.175v-176r. The style of the penwork flourishing is not English standard, rather foreign (N. Europe), or amateur.
“Amen” and “Jesus maria” in textura in upper and lower margins of f.4v; three lines of notes at foot of f.7r by second main hand; “Jesu merci” upper outer corner f.36v (cf. f.47r). Notas in black and red by contemporaneous hands in margins, f.22r-24r, and elsewhere. Marginal note and trefoil sign, mid 16th century, f.147v, by same hand and pen as items (1) and (18) [f.180v]. Hand pointers and marginal notes in Latin, in good italic, 16th/17th century, f.35v, 36r, 37r-v, 39r, 44v, 125v-141r, 159v, 171v-172v, sympathetic to original texts. Trefoil by same ink and pen on f.8, 38, 39, etc.
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). Rebacked late 20th century.
Written in England, with connections to Syon Abbey, 15th/16th century.
Connections to Syon Abbey, to judge by items (1), (8) and (9), the last probably by Thomas Betson, brethren's librarian at Syon Abbey (d. 1516). Note of contents by George Davenport; ex-libris and shelf-numbers by Thomas Rud, f.1v.
Added in the same hand as item (18). f.2v blank
Horstman, i, 427-428, prints another version from London B.L. MS. Arundel 507, largely written by Richard de Sedgebrook, monk of Durham (d.1396/7), where it is followed by (1d).
Horstman, i, 428 prints another version from London B.L. MS. Arundel 507, largely written by Richard de Sedgebrook, monk of Durham (d.1396/7)which follows (1c)
Sermons; with the exception of (2d) which is a summarised version of St Brigit's Revelationes. f. 19r-v blank but frame ruled. f.20r originally blank (see (3c). f.20v blank.
For Pentecost?
On the 5 signs of love.
a paraphrase of the complete version in English copies of St Brigit's Revelationes, BL Harley 612 and Bodley 346
Agrees at first and partly with Uppsala Univ.C.383, f.230v-231v.
Agrees largely with Uppsala C.383 f.229v-230v. That later 14th century manuscript was bought by a canon of Frauenburg (E. Prussia) and given to his cathedral, like others at Uppsala; there seems to be no link with the Brigittine mother house of Vadstena, whose manuscripts are mostly at Uppsala.
Agrees in opening with Trier 245/1380, 14th century (Schneyer, 9, 618 no.7) and other foreign manuscripts, but not throughout.
Apparent lacuna between f.6 and 17 of one or more leaves. Not otherwise known to Römer; it quotes Augustinus in sermone quodam.
Includes narrationes and a revelation about the 5 sorrows
De 5 doloribus B.V.M. The common series of the five sorrows: Symeon, Temple, Arrest, Crucifixion, and Deposition.
Story of nun who deserted her post for 20 years but the B.V.M. occupied it for her.
Added in top margin, probably by same hand as f.124-78.
Unidentified hymn or sequence, added in top margin, probably by same hand as f.124-78.
Originally blank, ink-ruled at top and left. “A prayer. Grace before meat”, possibly by same hand as on f.2r and 180v; “Grace ... meat” cancelled: “O loving god & most mercifull father ... we may attayne euerlasting life thorough Jesus christ. Amen”.
Five leaves torn away between f.20 and 21, with a little writing on two of the fragments surviving; the hand is the same as that continuing f.21. The missing portion of item (4) would not have required all this space (the 25 lines missing from the beginning would have occupied less than a page) so more is lost.
Unidentified
Added in space after item (5), in fresh ink.
Copied from a printed edition of the Opusculum etc., either that by G. Leeu, Antwerp, (3 March 1489), or by P. Drach, (Speier, 16 May 1491), both of which have the items here, in the same order, followed by an Epistola exhortatoria ad meditationem passionis christi by Jacobus Canter, Frisius, to a nun Ghebba; the colophons state that the Opusculum and Legenda were compiled in the Brigittine monastery of Teneramund, Cambrai diocese. “Iesu Marci” [i.e. Mercy], in red at top of f.47r
The added Forma legendi (f.50v) is not in the printed texts and is of Carthusian composition, presumably in England; it sets out use before and after the liturgical hours and for other daily readings, and mentions an unidentified book called "Laus diuinis operibus et regula de sacerdotibus".
The rubrics differ but the text is closer to Harley 612 than Bodley 346
The dates run to the confirmation of Brigit's canonisation by Martin V in 1419.
cf. Oxford, Balliol Coll. MS. 225 and Bodley 346
cf. Oxford, Balliol Coll. MS. 225 and Bodley 346
Added on blank final leaf of quire 6. Copy of a letter from one convent of nuns to another, accompanying some spiritual writings to be circulated therein and to be copied for neighbouring religious communities, also exhorting them to follow the ancient virtues and practices of religious life. The letter could have been composed by the spiritual director of a nunnery, and its style, invocation and script resemble those of Thomas Betson, brethren's librarian at Syon Abbey (c.1481-1516)
Ends after the start of the ninth virtue, incompletely? Uppsala University Library MSS C.159 (written by a brother of Syon, Clement Maidstone, d.1456, given by him to Vadstena), and C.631 (written after 1419 by Johannes Johansson, brother of Vadstena, who was in England at Syon 1415-16); these two have identical texts, close to Cosin and BL Harley 206 ff.116r-9v. The heading is in same textura as side notes and the Forma legendi of item (9a) above. f.123r-v blank and unruled.
This copy, by the distinctive wording of the opening rubric and that of the contents list, is probably taken from one of the Paris editions, c.1485/90-1500?; but not the scribal colophon.
Extracts, not corresponding with the book and chapter numbers or readings in the first edition, Leipzig 1510, but with the text in J. Le Fèvre d'Étaples, Liber trium virginum, 1513.
Copied from the Antwerp editon 1485, sig. A7v; this passage is not in the previous editions of [1476?] and 1480.
7 lines, one for each vice and its animal equivalent
7 distiches, one for each vice alternating with “Mors”
22 lines, a dialogue between “Mors” and “Homo”, mainly in distiches, the first of which occurs in a macaronic miscellany of verses in BL MS. Lansdowne 762, f.99, printed T. Wright & J. A. Halliwell, Reliquiae antiquae, (London, 1845), I, 287-291.
4 couplets from the Regimen sanitatis attributed to the School of Salerno: S. de Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, (Naples, 1852-1859), lines 1696-7, 1702-3, 1708-9, 1714-5. To each couplet a third line is appended, of which there are various versions: Oxford, Oriel College MS. 79, (printed W. W. Skeat, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, (EETS 38, 1869), p.xix); Oxford, Balliol College MS. 354 (printed R. Dyboski, Songs, Carols and Other Miscellaneous Poems, (EETS es 101, 1907), 139-140); Ithaca, Cornell UL MS. B.60 (printed L. Thorndike, "Unde Versus", Traditio 11 (1955), 179). This copy is the same as the Oriel version except in the third “Sanguineus” verse: “Valet multum quia humidus gliscit nimis quia calidus”, which does not correspond to the other versions; Cosin differs in having “Flegmaticus” second, before “Colericus”.
Not in Thorndike & Kibre, but presumably from the Aphorisms of Mesue. Not in the De re medica of pesudo-Mesue, ed. Iacobus Sylvius (Paris, 1542). There is no obvious location in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, which does not include St John Damascene.
5 lines
The opening quotes Isidore of Seville, Sententiae, III, chapter 5, 24. Rolle is quoted from his Emendatio vitae (chapter 11, line 44-45).
5 line extract from Carmen paraeneticum ad Rainaldum (St Bernard, Works, Paris 1690 edition, vol. II, column 896, lines 6-10)
3 lines
Sancti Bernardi ... Volumen I. genuina sancti doctoris opera complectens (Volumen II. continens opera suppositicia & aliena) ... Post Horstium denuo recognita, aucta, & in meliorem digesta ordinem, necnon novis præfationibus, admonitionibus, notis, & observationibus, indicibusque copiosissimis locupletata & illustrata, secundis curis Johannis Mabillon 
(Paris: J. Guignard, 1690)
C.-M. Briquet, Les filigranes: dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600 (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968)
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]).
Chevalier, U., Repertorium hymnologicum: Catalogue de chants, hymnes, proses, sequences, tropes en usage dans l'église latine depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours, (Louvain: Imprimerie Lefever, 1892-1920)
Doyle, A. I., "A letter written by Thomas Betson, brother of Syon Abbey" in The medieval book and a modern collector, ed. Matsuda, T., Linenthal, R., Scahill, J. (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), 255-267.
Horstmann, C., Yorkshire writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole an English father of the church and his followers (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1895-96)
Isidore of Seville, Sententiae Isidorus Hispalensis ; cura et studio Pierre Cazier Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 111 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998)
Piccard, G., Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart: Findbuch (Stuttgart : Kohlhammer, 1961-97)
Römer, F., Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus. 2.2, Grossbritannien und Irland. Verzeichnis nach Bibliotheken (Wien: Böhlaus, 1972)
Schneyer, Johannes Baptist, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150-1350 , (Münster: Aschendorff, 1971-95)
Scott, A. B., ed., Hildeberti Cenomannensis Episcopi Carmina Minora (Leipzig: Teubner, 1969)
Thorndike, Lynn and Kibre, P., A catalogue of incipits of mediaeval scientific writings in Latin (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1963)
Walther, H., Carmina medii aevi posterioris latina 1. Initia carminum ac versuum medii aevi posterioris latinorum: alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Versanfänge mittellateinischer Dichtungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959-69)
Walther, H., Proverbia sententiaeque latinitatis medii aevi. Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anordnung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963-86)
Watson, N., ed., Richard Rolle. Emendatio vitae ; Orationes ad honorem nominis Ihesu, edited from Cambridge University Library MSS Dd.v.64 and Kk.vi.20 (Toronto : Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1995)