St John's College MS 109

John Felton (?) Pera peregrini

Language(s): Latin

Fols. 1ra-244rb:

Rubric: Tractatus de pera peregrini Abscondere

Incipit: Quis actus suos nititur abscondere ante oculos suos qui testis est

Explicit: in alligacione nostri aduocati pocius totam spem et fiduciam ponamus gregorius super ezechielem omelia 7.

Final rubric: Explicit tractatus [the word repeated] de pera peregrinj

JOHN FELTON, Abstractus libri Pera Peregrini (Sharpe, no. 689 [243–4]), unpublished; for discussion of the Felton ascription (see Provenance 1 below), and the plausibility of Felton’s having made an abridgement for pulpit use, see Alan J. Fletcher, ‘Magnus predicator et devotus. A profile of the life, work, and influence of the fifteenth-century Oxford preacher, John Felton’, Mediaeval Studies 53 (1991), 125–75 at 127–8, and more distantly, 136, 137 n. 38, 146. The text is followed by a chapter list (fols. 244rb–7ra), headed by instructions on its use, the remainder of fol. 247 blank but the verso ruled.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: corda

Form: codex

Support: Vellum.

Extent: ii + 247 + ii (numbered iii–iv).

Dimensions (leaf): 250 × 170 mm.

Collation

1¹⁰ 2–20¹² 21¹² (–10, –11, –12, all in a collection of stubs following fol. 247; at least one of the stubs is the conjoint of the rear flyleaf, fol. iii). Catchwords, frequently in interlaced boxes, often red-slashed. All leaves in the first half of each quire signed to quire 16, with a letter and an arabic numeral; in this system, quires 1–16 = a–q.

Layout

In double columns, each column 187 × 55 mm. , with 9 mm. between columns, in 50 lines to the column. No prickings; bounded and ruled in lead and brown crayon (on some pages, rules later extended to the page foot).

Hand(s)

Written in anglicana (universal secretary a).

Decoration

No headings; entries are headed by the lemma in textura quadrata.

Fol. 1 has a crude bar border in blue, red/ violet, and gold leaf with flower and leaf clusters.

Fol. 1, 4-line champe in red-violet and blue.

Individual items are introduced by 2- and 3-line blue lombards on red flourishing; the text broken by red paraphs and occasional red-slashed capitals.

Each section is numbered, marginally in arabic in the text ink, to 564 sections.

See AT, no. 429 (43), dating s. xv^1/4.

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on six thongs. At the front, a marbled paper leaf and one modern paper flyleaf, at the rear, a medieval vellum flyleaf (probably a former pastedown) and another marbled paper leaf (iii–iv).

History

Origin: s. xv ¹ ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

‘Orate pro fratre Iohanne holbech quondam priori Oseneye [Ker, MLGB 141, 287] qui istum librum ecclesie [over eras.] emit et soluit pro eodem libro xiij. s iiij. d qui vocatur abstract⟨us⟩ libri peregrini quem composuit Dominus Iohannes Felton’ quondam bonus vicarius ecclesie parochialis sancte Marie Magdalene \Oxon/ Magnus predicator et deuotus et a quibusdam et multis vocatus sanctus qui iacet in eadem ecclesia et est sepultus’ (fol. iii; anglicana, s. xv). At the top outer margin of fol. 1 is ‘M’, probably the Osney shelfmark.

‘liber Richardi Latewarr quem dedit ei Thomas Hollandus Sanctae Theologiae ⟨P⟩rofe⟨ssor⟩ Regius Oxon et Collegii Exoniensis ⟨R⟩e⟨c⟩tor’ (fol. iii, below the preceding, now erased).

‘Pera Peregrini authore Joanne Felton’ (on a vellum tab pasted to the front pastedown, s. xvii).

‘Liber Collegij Sancti Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ Donum Richardi Lateware Doctoris Theologiae huius Collegij Socij Junij xxi^o. MDxcviii’ (fol. 1, lower 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