Exeter College MS. 115
Yearbooks, in French, English, and Latin; London?, England, s. xvex
Contents
Language(s): French, Middle English, and Latin
Pr. London, Wight, 1605 (STC 9610), etc. Morys, who has not been traced elsewhere, wrote items 3–5 below. At the foot of fol. 1r is ‘lyber frauncysci Stradlyng’: on him see History below.
No. 288 in E. Langlois, ‘Anciens proverbes français’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 60 (1899), 369–901; F33 in J. W. Hassell, Jr., Middle French Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases. (Subsidia Mediaevalia, 12; Toronto, 1982). The first four lines appear as two long lines in A. J. V La Roux de Lincy, Le Livre des proverbes français, i (Paris, 1842), 146, derived from the 16th-century collection Adages françois.
[2 lines]
Fol. 76v is blank.
Pr. London, Pynson, 1510 (STC 9631), etc. Our text ends at edn. fol. 51v31, omitting Pynson’s last case. Fols. 127r–30r are blank. On fol. 130r are three pen-trials, the first two insignificant, the third ‘stradlyng of llyn here begynneth.’ For Stradlyng see History, below. Llyn, meaning lake, is a common element in Welsh place-names.
Pr. Redman, London, 1527? (STC 9686). On fol. 131r is ‘Stradlyng’: on him see History, below. Fol. 186v is blank.
Pr. Tottyll, London, 1584 (STC 9623), etc. The stub of the last leaf, fol. 187, bears only a few fragments of words and our text ends abruptly at edn. fol. xxxvv, last line.
Items *6–*8 are three leaves which were loose in the manuscript until 1996 and are now preserved in a folder.
List of receipts of money by an unnamed recipient whose father lived in Bristol. Although no member of the Stradling family is mentioned and the neat handwriting has no resemblance to Francis Stradling’s vile hand, it is tempting to connect this document with *7 and *8 following and with the owner of this book, in which it has lain for years. It may be, indeed, that the very vileness of Stradling’s hand was the reason for the provision of this fair copy. On him see under History, below.
Fols. 218v–19v are blank.
Items *6–*8 are three leaves which were loose in the manuscript until 1996 and are now preserved in a folder.
A pen-trial of the Gospel of St John I. 1–2 in a good legal hand. The names, from ‘Ffraunces’ to ‘Strond’ are repeated in Stradlyng’s own poor hand. Strand Inn was an Inn of Chancery and all three men will have been students there, presumably in the 1490s (and perhaps later at the Middle Temple, to which Strand Inn was later attached, but their names are not in the published records of that body). Fol. 220v is blank.
Items *6–*8 are three leaves which were loose in the manuscript until 1996 and are now preserved in a folder.
A legal note, of c. 1500? Considering the Stradling family’s connection with Bristol, this fragment may well relate to some action of theirs.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
1–5: One column, c. 40–47 lines. Frame ruled in crayon.
*6: 21 lines, written in one column.
*7 and *8 each: 5 lines.
Hand(s)
A legal script by one variable hand; unpunctuated. Item 5 is much neater than the rest.
Decoration
None. Spaces left for coloured capitals and headings remain empty.
Binding
The cover is a limp parchment sheet, virtually all doubled by folding and crudely sewn to the quires by knotted strips of parchment. There are the remains of two green ties on front and back covers. Reinforcing strips are mostly fragments of late medieval documents (all eight in item 1 are from the same document) but some are coarser membrane which had never been used for documents.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Written by the unidentified John Morys who was probably a professional writer of such books, presumably in London judging by the several ex libris inscriptions by Francis Stradling, whom the list of payments in item *6 probably shows to have gone to London in 1491 and whom item *7 shows to have been living at Strand Inn, a Chancery Inn, presumably c. 1491. Stradling may have been the first owner, having bought the various sections separately: his name occurs on fols. 1r, 130v, 131r and again on fol. 216v, 'fraunces Stradlyng of [blank] ys The verr…yht(?) hon^ne^r of This Bouke Vytnestt m. Richard Bythemore and m. gill(?)s Dodyngton Gentilmen.' (These men have not been identified.) Unless he is the Francis Stradling who leased a plot of land belonging to the Bristol Blackfriars in January 1537/8 (see Trans. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeobgical Society, 55 (1933), 156) the only certain fact known about his family is that his father lived in Bristol (see item *6). But item *8 also suggests a connection with Bristol, as does another payment to him in item *7, from the prior of ‘Farleygh’, i.e. the Cluniac priory of Monkton Farleigh, Wilts., four miles east of Bath, and there can be no doubt that he was one of a family that was prominent for many centuries in that area.
After Francis Stradling's period the book has no known history until it appears in CMA ii. 49–54, no. 1955. 31, as part of the library of Sir William Glynne, with the majority of whose manuscripts it came to Exeter by bequest of Joseph Sandford: see MS 87, History. On the spine is a small round label with Glynne’s number '31' printed on it, and 'N.31' is also on the back cover.
Exeter library identifications are, inside the front cover, the Exeter book stamp and 'MS 115'. (pencil). On a square paper label on the cover is 'CXV' (pencil) and on the spine 'CXV' in ink.
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