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St John's College MS 97

Roger de Hoveden, Annales

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. Fols. 1ra–13rb:
an index to the following work,

written in rough double columns in informal anglicana, s. xvi in.; fols. 13v–16v are blank save for two later additions. In the margin below the final entry the note: ‘factus die 29 Novembris Anno domini 1532 per fratrem T. SWALWELL’. For him, see Sharpe, no. 1839 [684]), where this stint of annotation is unnoted; and A. J. Piper, ‘Thomas Swalwell: monk of Durham, archivist and bibliophile (d. 1539)’, in James P. Carley and Colin G. C. Tite (eds.), Books and Collectors 1200–1700; Essays Presented to Andrew Watson (London, 1997), 71–100.

2. Fols. 17–96v:
Rubric: [the rubrics provided s. xv med. and xiv/xv respectively] Cronica ROGERI HOUEDENE Cronica Regum Northhanhymbrorum de comuni libro monachorum dunelm’
Incipit: ⟨I⟩n exordio huius operis genealogiam regum northanhimbrorum libet demonstrare ne ad eorum tempora
Explicit: debiliores efficiebantur Pars autem eorum maxima uenerat ex anglia
Roger de Hoveden, Annales

Sharpe, no. 1571 (591), , ed. William Stubbs, RS 51.1 (1868), 3–210, , breaking off at 1148. Stubbs provides a description of our MS at pp. xxxviii–xxxix. The text incorporates an earlier Durham chronicle; see Michael Lapidge, ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Early Sections of the Historia regum attributed to Symeon of Durham’, Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1982), 97–122 (a reference to our MS at 122 n. 80)., Half of fol. 96v and fols. 97–8 were originally blank (ruled to fol. 98). The ruled leaves now bear a continuation, ‘Rogerus Hovedenus hic addit plura’, in italic, s. xvii. The text is not Roger of Hoveden, but HENRY OF HUNTINGDON’S Historia Anglorum to the death of Stephen (1154) (Sharpe, no. 461 [171–2]), ed. Diana Greenway (Oxford, 1996). Stubbs tentatively identifies the hand (p. xxxix) as that of Brian Twyne.

There are extensive marginalia and comments, including regnal names and other finding devices in the upper margins. These have been provided in hands ranging from s. xiv in. through those of Swalwell and Twyne. There is also a fair number of corrections, apparently by the original scribe.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: Arwyn’ (fol. 2)
Secundo Folio: -tione sua (fol. 18)
Form: codex
Support: Paper (fols. 1–16) and vellum (fols. 17–98) (HSOS/HFFH). The paper leaves form a regular quire of eight sheets folded in folio. The watermark, Einhorn/Licorne, most closely resembles Briquet, no. 10309 (1525 × 1526), but the chain here runs through three of the legs, not through the horn. Compare also no. 10308 (1524), more distantly no. 10306 (1516 × 1519), all papers recorded from Normandy.
Extent: Fols. iv + 96 + iv (numbered fols. 97–8, v–vi)
Dimensions (leaf): 258 × 163 mm.
Dimensions (written): 190–5 × 125 mm.
Foliation: two accurate medieval foliations, an older one in brown crayon, a second, often over it, in black and brown ink, in which fols. 17–97 = 1–81.

Collation

[fols. 17–96 only] 1–108. No catchwords; signed with a roman numeral at the centre of the lower margin on final leaves of quires, quires 3–10 = iii–x (just the top of a signature ‘ii’ appears on fol. 32v, the remainder cut away).

Condition

A number of rather oddly shaped leaves, often lacking large stretches of the lower margin, e.g. fol. 91.

Layout

In long lines, 35 lines to the page. Prickings; bounded and ruled in pencil and in brown ink.

Hand(s)

Written in gothic textura prescissa, above the top line. Punctuation by low and medial point and punctus elevatus.

Decoration

Thoroughly unfinished; there are spaces for 1- and 2-line capitals and for headings, none filled.

Binding

Brown leather over millboards, with a simple gold fillet, s. xvii. Sewn on five thongs. Black ink ‘97’ on a paper lozenge at the head of the spine, in black ink on the leading edges. Pastedowns old vellum, on the front one a College bookplate, various notes on both (see Provenance below). These date from a binding of s. xv, where the thongs were pegged two to a hole, as in Pollard’s figure 6. At the front, two modern paper flyleaves and two medieval vellum ones (the first, fol. iii, has some offset from the current front pastedown); at the rear, at least two modern paper flyleaves (v–vi). Fols. 97–8 appear to have been flyleaves in an earlier binding; they are extraneous to the quiring of the book, and their page rules differ from those elsewhere, a writing area 215 × 130 mm. in 35 long lines.

History

Origin: s. xiii in., with additions 1532 and s. xvii ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

From Durham Cathedral Priory: ‘k’ both precedes and is written above the title (fol. 1), identifying the book as ‘liber historiarum’ K in the 1395 catalogue. See [James Raine, ed.], Catalogi veteres librorum ecclesiae cathedralis Dunelm., Surtees Society 7 (1838), 56: ‘K. Cronica Regum Northumbriae, seu Regum Angliae. II fo., “cione sua.” In addition, on the front pastedown ‘Liber Sancti Cutberti’ (s. xv?) and a variety of imitative pen-trials, including ‘Cutbertus puer bo⟨nus⟩ indolis’ (an early modern imitation of medieval textura) (Ker, MLGB 75).

Pen-trials (fol. 17, lower margin; fol. 78v, lower margin, both s. xv; the rear pastedown, s. xvi).

The old College shelfmark ‘Abac: ij N. 37’ (the front pastedown and fol. 16v, where the number has been altered from 38, which is now cancelled).

A variety of more recent additions: a note ‘this booke was printed anno Domini 1596’ (the front pastedown); notes on the authorship of the chronicle – Hoveden or Simeon of Durham? (fols. iv, 17, s. xvii); a note by Stubbs, directing attention to the 1395 Durham catalogue, dated 23 December 1872 (fol. i); ‘This booke is by Shive (Shire?) called Liber Dunelmensis’ (s. xvii, fol. iii).

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.

Bibliography

    C-M Briquet, ed. Allan Stevenson, Les filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier des leur apparition vers 1292 jusqu'en 1600: A Facsimile of the 1907 edition with supplementary material contributed by a number of scholars, 4 vols. (Amsterdam, 1968)
    Diana Greenway (ed.), Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon: Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People) (Oxford, 1996).
    N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks. 2nd edn. (London, 1964), extended by Andrew G. Watson, MLGB: Supplement to the Second Edition. RHS Guides and Handbooks 15 (1987).
    Michael Lapidge, ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Early Sections of the Historia regum attributed to Symeon of Durham’, Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1982), 97–122.
    A. J. Piper, ‘Thomas Swalwell: monk of Durham, archivist and bibliophile (d. 1539)’, in James P. Carley and Colin G. C. Tite (eds.), Books and Collectors 1200–1700; Essays Presented to Andrew Watson (London, 1997), 71–100.
    Graham Pollard, 'Describing Medieval Bookbindings.' In J. J. G. Alexander and Margaret T. Gibson (eds.), Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to R. W. Hunt (Oxford, 1976), pp. 50–65.
    [James Raine, ed.], Catalogi veteres librorum ecclesiae cathedralis Dunelm., Surtees Society 7 (1838).
    Richard Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540. Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 1 (Turnhout, 1997).
    William Stubbs (ed.), Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, The Rolls Series (Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores) 51.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1868).
    Andrew G. Watson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of All Souls College Oxford (Oxford, 1997).

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

2022-05: First online publication

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