St John's College MS 67

Peter the Chanter, Verbum abbreviatum

Language(s): Latin

1. Fols. 1–211:

Rubric: Commendatio breuitatis in sacra pagina

Incipit: Uerbvm abbreuiatum fecit dominus super terram Si enim uerbum de sinu patris

Explicit: ad eas claustrales accedebant Modo autem sunt uindicie et empticie

ed. PL 205:53–370, in 131 numbered chapters. Substantial marginalia of s. xii/xiii, mainly identification of biblical passages; early on (extensively in the first three quires) and in sporadic later patches (e.g., in quires 11 and 15), marginal identification of topics etc., s. xvii.

2. Fols. 211–214:

Rubric: Contra negotiatores Ecclesiastico clxxi.

Incipit: Due species difficiles et periculose michi apparuerunt Difficile exuitur negotians

Explicit: nichil est appetimus Sicut homo delirat in seruo suo sic mundus in suo

The incipit corresponds to STEPHEN LANGTON, Summa de uitiis et uirtutibus, 123, in Amiens, BM, MS 272 (Sharpe, no. 1669 [624—32] at 631). This series of five additional texts follows straight from the preceding, as if they were its chapters 132 – 36. The item is followed by a table of chapters in double columns, which fills the remainder of fol. 214 and the entire verso. For an account of the unpublished Langton work and its fourteen MSS, none preserved in England, see Riccardo Quinto, Doctor Nominatissimus: Stephano Langton (+1228) e la tradziione delle sue opere (Munster i. W, 1994), 77–90.

Added texts:

a. Fol. 150:

‘Dicitur egiptus caruisse iuuantibus arua | Ymbribus atque annis…’ (six lines; in the margin, s. xii/xiii or xiii in.), not in Walther.

b. Fol. 203v:

‘Omnibus incertis nichil est incercius Hora | Mortis Morte nichil cercius esse potest’ (a different hand of about the same period), Walther, Sprichwörter, 20154.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: Item idem

Form: codex

Support: Vellum (HSOS/HFFH).

Extent: iii + 214 + iii (numbered iv–vi).

Dimensions (leaf): 295 × 205 mm.

Dimensions (written): 197 × 110 mm.

Collation

1–26⁸ 27⁸ (–7, –8, probably both blank). Catchwords in the gutters (often cut away). No signatures.

Layout

In longlines, 28 lines to the page. Frequent prickings; bounded and ruled in black and brown ink.

Hand(s)

Written in protogothic bookhand. Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus.

Decoration

Headings and roman chapter numbers in red (the latter added later?).

At the head, a 6-line high green arabesque capital with red flourishing. At chapter openings, 2-line alternating red and green arabesque capitals with flourishing of the other colour.

Alternate red and green 1-line rustic capitals to introduce items in the table of chapters.

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on five thongs. At the front, a marbled paper leaf and two modern paper flyleaves; at the rear, two modern paper flyleaves and another marbled leaf (iv–vi).

History

Origin: s. xii 2 ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

'Liber Collegij Sancti Johannis Baptistae ex dono Thomae Walker in artibus Magistri et eiusdem Collegii Socij’ (fol. 2, upper margin).

Record Sources

Ralph Hanna, A descriptive catalogue of the western medieval manuscripts of St. John's College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Availability

For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact St John's College Library.

Funding of Cataloguing

Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Thompson Family Charitable Trust.

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2020-11: First online publication

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