MS. Add. C. 15

Provenance and Acquisition

Dating and localization after Bischoff. J. Autenrieth (see below) suggested the Lake Constance area.

Constance, cathedral church: annotations on the opening folios were attributed by Autenrieth to 'Konstanzer Anonymus A', active in the second half of the 11th century, whose annotations are found in a large number of manuscripts from the cathedral library: J. Autenrieth, Die Domschule von Konstanz zur Zeit der Investiturstreits (1956), p. 83 and passim.

Reichenau, Benedictine abbey (?); perhaps later at Murbach, Benedictine Abbey: the evidence is complex and not definitive.

In 1846 Jean-Baptiste-François Pitra examined two manuscripts of Cyprian in the possession of Louis Maimbourg of Colmar. The first he described as 'S. Cypriani opera. Codex membr. vetustissimus, caractere unciali interdum merovingico, saec. circ. VIII. Continentur in eo : 1o epistolae ad diversos, quarum VII ad Cornelium, ex quibus duae inscribuntur ad Cornelium pseudo-episcopum. 2o opuscula tria litteris intermixta, nempe ad Quirinum libri tres, de vanitate idolorum, sententiae LXXXVII episc. In fine legitur nota, ipsiusmet celeberrimi Bartholomaei subscriptio : orate pro Bartholomaeo abbate Murbacensi. Textus nitidus, accurate manu coaeva correctus; ex modo recitata subscriptione constat hunc librum ad insignem abbatiae Murbacensis librariam pertinuisse' (A. Souter, 'Further Notes on the John Rylands Library Latin Manuscript No.15 (St. Cyprian)', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 5 (1919) 392-393). This manuscript was subsequently in the sale of Guglielmo Libri, 1859, lot. 298, and is now Manchester, John Rylands University Library, Latin MS 15.

The second manuscript Pitra described as 'S. Cypriani opuscula et epistulae quaedam. Cod. membr. praecedente paulo recentior; caractere unciali carolino eleganter scriptus ... codex cum impresso Pameliano, ut videtur ex notis recentibus margini appositis, fuit collatus'. Binding waste in the manuscript comprised, according to Pitra: (1) a fragment of a Latin-German glossary (2) 'index miscellaneorum misere deperditorum inter quae recensentur plura carmina poetarum christianorum, chronica strictim verbis composita, glosae super canonem ac regulam sancti Benedicti, libellus Plinii secundi' (3) 'versus s. Cypriani de resurrectione carnis' (4) 'versus de resurrectione Domini, tunc de infantibus baptizandis sententiae episcoporum'. (A copy of Pitra's description is fol. iv of our manuscript.) The fourth item was also seen in situ by F. J. Mone (Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters I (1853) 186). This is to be identified with the present manuscript.

The fragments described by Pitra seem to have been removed by Guglielmo Libri (see below) and combined with a fragment removed from the present Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin/Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. theol. lat. oct. 159, to form a separate manuscript, which was lot. 1112 in the Libri sale, 1859; subsequently Thomas Phillipps MS. 18908; afterwards Berlin, MS. Lat. qu. 676; now Krakow, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, 825. The Berlin fragments were described in detail in H. Degering, Neue Erwerbungen der Handschriftenabteilung, II. Die Schenkung Sir Max Waechters 1912, Mitteilungen aus der Königlichen Bibliothek Bd. III (Berlin, 1917), where Pitra's (1)-(4) are items 1-8, and recently in Bischoff, Katalog, nos. 387-8 and 389. Degering believed that all the fragments belonged together and had been removed from John Rylands Latin MS. 15 (Libri 298) - an interpretation repeated at BStK 44(I) and 44(II) - but Pitra's description shows this to be incorrect. That MS. Lat. qu. 676c (Phillipps 18908/1) was originally part of MS. theol. lat. oct. 159 was established by H. Mayer in 1974 (see BStK 59 and Manuscripta Mediaevalia. All the fragments were written at Reichenau in the 9th century.

Our manuscript's explicit evidence of provenance is the damaged (partly excised?) inscription on fol. 2r, ‘Liber ⟨............⟩is . epistole Cypriani’. Bischoff interpreted this as a Reichenau ex libris; there is a resemblance to the late medieval ex libris in some Reichenau manuscripts in the form 'Lib(er) mon. augie maioris' (Karlsruhe Cod. Aug. perg. 181 fol. 1r, Cod. Aug. perg. 57 fol. 1r, etc.), although in those cases 'Liber' is typically abbreviated, and the ex libris is not accompanied by a note of the contents. The volume is perhaps identifiable in a Reichenau booklist of the second half of the ninth century, 'Cyprianus epistolarum volumen I' (Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz I.265 l. 25). It is not identifiable in the earlier booklist (Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz I.246), pace Die Reichenauer Handschriften: Zeugnisse zur Bibliotheksgeschichte, ed. Karl Preisendanz (1917), p. 74. Nor has it been identified in later Reichenau catalogues: the identification of our manuscript with 'Cypriani Expositiones Orationis Dominicae' mentioned in 1688-91 by J. Pregitzer (Die Reichenauer Handschriften, ed. Preisendanz, p. 52) is very doubtful, since Pregitzer probably refers to the present Karlsruhe Cod. Aug. perg. 18.

By the mid 19th century, as we have seen, our manuscript was in the possession of Louis Maimbourg of Colmar (1773-1854), priest and collector. It is possible that he acquired our manuscript, in common with the other Cyprian manuscript in his possession, from Murbach Abbey, and this has indeed frequently been assumed, but there is no positive evidence. As Beate Braun-Niehr suggests in her description of Berlin Ms. theol. lat. oct. 159, Maimbourg may have acquired our manuscript together with the Berlin manuscript during his travels in Switzerland. (It has not been possible to consult M. Schickelé, Le curé L. Maimbourg, 1773-1854 (1912), or Nouveau dictionnaire de biographie alsacienne 25 (1995), 2489f.). The manuscript is not identifiable in the Murbach 'booklist' from the 9th-century, contrary to H. Bloch, 'Ein Karolingischer Bibliotheks-Katalog aus Kloster Murbach', Strassburger Festschrift zur XLVI. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner (1901), 262 and 277. (The more recent edition of the booklist makes no reference to our manuscript: W. Milde, Der Bibliothekskatalog des Klosters Murbach aus dem 9. Jahrhundert, 1968.)

After Maimbourg's death the manuscript passed to his heir, Henri Chauffour (1824-1868): a paper fragment in the manuscript reads '3. M. Henri Chauffour a Colmar' in ink; underneath '424 R' in pencil.

Maimbourg sale, Paris, Salle Silvestre, 6 or 7 March 1858, lot 139: see Archives de bibliophile 1 (1858), 26; the description refers to the manuscript's poor state of conservation and to damp damage in the upper margin. Apparently purchased by:

Guglielmo Libri (1803–69)

His sale at Sotheby's, 28 March 1859 and seven following days, lot 299. The account of the sale in Archives de bibliophile 2 (1859) 218 states explicitly that lots 298-9 were lots 138-139 in the Maimbourg sale.

Bought by the Bodleian. Previous shelfmark Addit. Bodl. T. B. 15.