Merton College MS. 150

Former shelfmark: M. 3. 1

HUGH OF ST CHER; S. XV (before 1466)

Language(s): Latin

fol. iii blank; on the verso are titles in hands of s. xvi and xvii

(fols. 1–200; 200v blank)

HUGH OF ST CHER, Postills on Genesis-Ruth

Rubric: Exposicio Hugonis de Vienna super primum prologum Genesis.

Incipit: Principium uerborum tuorum. Veritas Deus pater immo et operum scriptum est

Incipit: (Exod., fol. 84) Isa. xix. Erant v. ciuitates in terra ...; v. ciuitates v. libri Moysi sunt

Incipit: (Levit., fol. 102v) Sicut in principio librorum aliarum facultatum

Incipit: (Num., fol. 122v) Pentateucus liber unus est ab uno auctore editus

Incipit: (Deut., fol. 140v) Est puer unus qui habet v. panes ...; Puer iste est Moyses qui dicitur puer

Incipit: (Ios., fol. 166v) Sexto loco inter libros ueteris testamenti ponitur liber Iosue

Incipit: (Iud., fol. 181) Post mortem Iosue Iob v...; Verba sunt Eliphat Temanites

Incipit: (Ruth, fol. 198) Ecc. xi. Breuis in uolatilibus apis et tamen magnus exoritur fructus tocius ecclesie

Explicit: et altiora disputare sicut Apostolus fecit. Deo gracias. Explicit liber Ruth.

Pr. Basel 1504; Stegmüller, Bibl. 3631, 3633, 3635, 3637, 3639, 3641, 3644, 3646.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: seu operacio

Form: codex

Support: Parchment

Extent: 205 leaves (iii + 202)

Dimensions (leaf): 405 × 280 mm.

Dimensions (written): 295 × 180 mm.

The head retrimmed.

Collation

A singleton, 1–25⁸; catchwords; the quires numbered at the end; also quire-signatures of the usual late medieval form, mostly cropped.

Layout

Ruled with fine pencil in 2 cols of 60 lines.

Hand(s)

Written in the elegant upright bookhand of the professional scribe Henry Mere, lemmata in larger script, its body occupying two lines of the gloss, with an intervening line for ascenders and descenders. At the foot of fol. 200v Mere has written ‘Item recepi pro istis septem quaternis xxiii s.’ M. B. Parkes, ‘A fifteenth-century scribe: Henry Mere’, BLR 6 (1961), 654–9; DHL, no. 101.

Decoration

Books open with handsome large initials, typical English professional work of the period: on fol. 1 9-line P with coloured foliage on a square gold ground, with 3-sided border; smaller initials in gold with white tracery on pink and blue grounds, sprays of green leaves and gold bezants in the margins (champes) on fols. 84, 102v, 122v, 140v, 166v, 181, 198. Blue initials flourished with red; red running heads on specially ruled lines, with blue paraphs; red underlining.

Binding

s. xix, sewn on five bands. Fols. i-ii and 201–2 are paper binding-leaves.

History

Origin: S. XV (before 1466) ; England(?); written by a professional scribe Henry Mere

Provenance and Acquisition

At the head of fol. iii^v is ‘Liber domus scolarium de Merton ex dono magistri Henrici Seuer sacre pagine professoris ac eiusdem domus custodis incathenatus ad communem usum sociorum in libraria studere uolencium anno Domini M. CCCC. lxvi’. For Henry Sever, warden 1455–71, see MS 6.

On the same leaf is ‘O. 5. 1. Art:’, s. xvii. Inside the front board is the College bookplate with ‘O. 5. 2’, canc. and replaced with ‘M. 3. 1 (CLI)’ in red. ‘1’ is inked on the foredge.

Record Sources

R. M. Thomson, A descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts of Merton College, Oxford (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer), 2009.

Availability

For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact Merton College Library.

Bibliography

Coxe, p. 63; Powicke, no. 947; Alexander & Temple, no. 584.

Funding of Cataloguing

Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Warden and Fellows of Merton College .

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2019-06-21: First online publication

A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges