Exeter College MS. 26
John Lathbury, OFM, Alphabetum morale; England, s. xvmed
Contents
Language(s): Latin
unprinted; Stegmüller, Bibl., 4758. On the nature of the text see Smalley, Friars, 374–5. Our copy has marginal notes and corrections in the hands of the text scribes. On Lathbury see Sharpe, Latin Writers.
Fol. 215v is blank.
Two inscriptions, s. xv, the second no more than a pen-trial: (1) ‘tot levre mult laroit a lui que voet auer lentent de lui’ and ‘Beatus vir qui non semita impiorum et(?) tempore con’.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Two columns, 31–37 lines. Ruled in crayon.
Hand(s)
Fols. 1–88v are in one secretary hand, sparsely punctuated by low point.
The rest of the book is in several bastard secretary hands, sparsely punctuated by low point and double virgula. A book script varying between rotunda and semiquadrata is used for headings.
Decoration
On fol. 1 is a 9-line red-and-blue lombard which is extended to form a bar-frame border. Lombards throughout are otherwise 3/4-line and there are red and blue paraphs.
Binding
Sewn on five bands, between millboards covered with reversed calf, with three blind fillets round the edges, s. xvii. The spine, label, and endpapers are new, replaced by Maltby of Oxford in 1979. On fol. III (see above, Structure) towards each corner, are four sets of three holes, one with a trace of green staining, which suggests that an earlier cover had four bosses. Fols. V–VI are another former flyleaf, a leaf and its turnover from a printed (probably incunable) copy of Gratian’s Decreta, as in MSS 28, 30, and 43, which are bound in the same 17th-century style and were probably added by the 17th-century binder rather than being taken over from an earlier binding.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Although the book was probably at Exeter c. 1600, Ecloga does not record it unless it is no. 27, ‘Lathbury in threnos’ (the only other Lathbury, MS Exeter 27, being identifiable as Ecloga, no. 23 by the citation of its incipit). MS 26 may also be CMA 20 (‘Johannes Lathbury … Loci Communes’).
Exeter library identifications are, on the front pastedown, bookplate 1, ‘E 1–14’ and ‘Q8–6 Gall’ (both deleted), ‘173. F.18’ altered from ‘17⟨2. G. 6⟩’ (deleted), ‘173 F 18’ (deleted), ‘171.I.8’ and ‘Coxe Cat. no. xxvi’.
Record Sources
Availability
For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact Exeter College Library.
Funding of Cataloguing
Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Rector and Fellows of Exeter College.
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2020-04-29: First online publication