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

Exeter College MS. 14

Thomas Hanney, Memoriale juniorum; Disticha Catonis; England, s. xv

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. (fols. 1r-174r)
Thomas Hanney (de Hannega), Memoriale juniorum (Liber grammaticus de octo partibus orationis)
Incipit: In qualibet arte diffusio fastidium procreat ... primum agendum est de voce.
Incipit: Vox est arer[sic] tenuissimus
Explicit: hic autem opusculi mei facio finem.
Final rubric: Explicit liber [written over an erasure Tolosani].

Unprinted; Glorieux, Arts, 447; Bursill-Hall, 193. 2; R. W. Hunt, Oxford Studies presented to Daniel Callus, OHS, NS 16 (1964), 175 n., records other copies; also Sharpe, Latin Writers. Copies were formerly owned by the Leicester Augustinians (The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, ed. T. Webber and A. G. Watson (CBMLC 6, 1998), A 20.1024a, and Evesham, English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. R. Sharpe, J. P. Carley, R. M. Thomson, and A. G. Watson (CBMLC 4, 1996), B 30.7a, anonymous.

2. (fols. 174v-195v)
Disticha Catonis
Incipit: (prol.) In principio pater spiritualis generalem causam innuit quare tractatum istum suscepit describendum
Explicit: (fol. 175r) cui totum benefactum elapsum est
Incipit: (text) [Epistula] Cum animadverterem quam plurimos homines grauiter errare in via morum
Explicit: negligere est.
Incipit: [Prose sententiae] Ita deo supplica
Explicit: [fol. 175v] Qui amat rem non amantem de seipsum perdit et amorem suum. Explicit. Peti Caton.
Incipit: (comm.) [Comm. on prologue] Cum est equiuocum …
Explicit: [fol. 176v] transgulacio[sic] finendo[sic] cibis.
Incipit: [Lib. 1] Si deus est animus
Explicit: Miraris nudis versis me scribere verbis. Hec breuitas sensus fecit coniungere binos.
Final rubric: Explicit hic Cato dans dogmata plurima nato.

ed. Æ. Baehrens, Poetae Latini minores, iii (Leipzig, 1879), 214–35; J. W. and A. Duff, Minor Latin Poets (London and Cambridge, 1934), 592–620; M. Boas and H. Botschuyver (Amsterdam, 1952); WIC 3551. Our prologue is not in the editions or, apparently, in any of the manuscripts listed by R. Hazelton, ‘The Christianization of “Cato”: the Disticha Catonis in the light of late mediaeval commentaries’, Mediaeval Studies, 19 (1957), 157–73. On the text see R. Roos, Sentenza e proverbio nell’antichità e i ‘Distici di Catone’ (Brescia, 1984), 187–228. The accompanying commentary is unidentified. For bibliography and other manuscripts see B. Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux xiᵉ et xiiᵉ siécles, 3 vols. in 4 (Paris, 1982–9), i. 61–86; also Hazelton, 157–8.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: pio faciens.
Form: codex
Support: parchment HFFH
Extent: 195 leaves
Dimensions (leaf): 283 × 183 mm.
Dimensions (written): c. 190–97 × 120 mm.
An unsophisticated example of book production, some leaves, from c. fol. 161, are of an inferior quality, blemished, poorly prepared, and badly trimmed.

Collation

1–248 254 (wants 4, blank). Catchwords are on nearly every leaf of quires, in the scribes’ hands, and most quires have ‘cor’ on the final page. There are quire letters in scribes’ hands on most final pages of quires and quire numbers in pencil on first pages, inserted by the 18th-century binder.

Layout

One column. Mostly 27 lines but some pages have as many as 44. Frame ruled, variously in crayon and pencil.

Hand(s)

1, anglicana formata and secretary in a number of hands;

2, a single mixed anglicana and secretary hand which becomes very untidy. Virtually unpunctuated, with only occasional use of low point and positurae.

Decoration

Red initials with rather crude flourishing, red paraphs, and stroking.

In 2 lemmata are underlined in red.

Binding

Sewn on five bands. Standard Exeter binding: simple and quite elegant, calf over millboards, the calf bearing blind decoration of a floral type, early 19th century.

History

Origin: s. xv ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

Fol. 195v, ‘Liber Willelmi Elyot clerici quem habuit de Johanne Cobethorne nuper eius Clerico pro debito iiij libras quas eidem Willelmo ex debito debuit. ex mutuo etc.’ On Elyot see BRUO. Fol. 2r, ‘Liber Willelmi Elyot Clerici Rectoris de Aveton Gyfford [Devon] quem librum idem Willelmus emit de executoribus testamenti Johannis Cobethorne nuper servientis eius’, and ‘Hunc librum Willelmus Elyot clericus Magister domus Dei de Portesmouth’ Wintoniensis diocesis in Comitatu Southampton’ olim Registrarius bone memorie Edmundi lacy Exoniensis Episcopi dedit Collegio Exoniense in Oxon’ ad vsum Magistrorum Sociorum ac eiusdem Collegij Scolarium quamdiu durauerit ibidem remansure[sic] in libraria quartodecimo die mensis Julij Anno Regni Regis Ricardi Tercii primo [1483] legauit et in Vita sua naturaliter disposuit. Et si quis seu qui hunc librum a collegio predicto contra predict’ dantis et disponentis voluntatem alienare remouere seu subtrahere presumpserit Ve presumpserint se nouerit seu nouerint indignacionem dei omnipotentis ac eius malediccionem incurrere.’ On Lacy see BRUO.

Recorded at Exeter c. 1600 as Ecloga, no. 8, then in CMA, no. 37. Watson's Plate 3(a) reproduces ex libris and ex dono inscriptions on fol. 2r.

Exeter library identifications are on the front pastedown: ‘Ex: Coll: Oxon’, ‘Q 7—7 Gall’ (deleted), ‘172–G–15’, the book stamp and ‘Coxe Cat. no. XIV (pencil). ‘15’ is on a round paper label at the top of the spine.

Record Sources

Andrew G. Watson, A descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts of Exeter College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2000.

Availability

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

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)

Funding of Cataloguing

Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Rector and Fellows of Exeter College.

Last Substantive Revision

2020-04-29: First online publication

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