Works of Ambrose, one of the manuscripts given by William of St Calais to Durham Priory before his death in 1096.
Parchment
Medieval flyleaf (f.i) a singleton now glued in; I-X8; XI6 (= 8 with leaves 7-8, blank, cancelled)
f.1r-78r (items (c)-(k)). Romanesque Caroline Minuscule of Norman type. The hand (identified as William by a colophon in B.II.14) also appears in B.II.14, B.II.35, BL, Cotton Domitian [Liber Vitae], fol.45r-v (names of early Durham monks), and perhaps also B.IV.12, fol.55r, lines 1-9: see Gullick, ‘Scribe of the Carilef Bible’, pp.68-9
f.79r-81r(start of item (l)). Romanesque Caroline Minuscule, compact. The scribe may have taken advantage of blank leaves at the end of quire X to append this item, a short extra quire (XI) being added to complete it.
f.81r, column i, line 7-85r (item (l) end, plus item (m)). Transitional between late Caroline and early ProtoGothic. This hand also appears in B.II.6, B.II.21, B.IV.7, B.IV.12, B.IV.14 and Hunter 100.
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 or England, Durham, before 1096.
Listed amongst books donated by William of St Calais and in the library catalogues
Inscriptions: Liber BEATI CUTHBERTI De dunelmo , later 12th century, f.1r, top left (by the hand of item (a))
.
liber Sancti Cuthberti, 14th century, f.ir, top left.
Pressmark .E., later 14th century; E’, 14th/15th century
Ambrosius de patriarcha Ioseph de communi libraria monachorum dun, early 15th century, f.1r, top right.
Pressmark
2a 2i Q, 15th century, f.1r, top right.
2a 2i Q and contents list (item (b)), 15th/16th century by Thomas Swalwell, monk of Durham, f.iv.
Lists items (c)-(l). No initials were supplied. The same hand wrote a Durham ex libris (also without its initial) on f.1r. Folio references were added by the early modern hand responsible for the foliation
Lists items (c)-(m)
Text ends half-way down f.13v, column 1; the rest of the page left blank.
Text stops incomplete, leaving rest of 61 and 62 blank
Book I
Sermon 9
Extract (Book I, chapter 4)
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]).
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)