St John's College MS 116
Seneca, Epistolae ad Lucillium
Contents
Language(s): Latin
CPL 616, ed. Ernest C. Richardson, TU 14 (1896) 15.
Ed. Claude W Barlow (1938), rep. PL supp. 1:673–8, followed (fol. 2, as in MS 36, fol. 46) by: ‘Epitaphium Senece moralis C⟨v⟩ra labor meritum sumpti pro munere honores […] ’ i.e. HILDEBERT OF LAVARDIN, ed. PL 171:1446. Succeeded (fols. 3ra–6va by a table of rubrics for the moral essays; fol. 6vb has two rubrics, one for the epistles generally, the second for the moral essays.
Breaking off in 123.14 and also lacking 117.3–118 through lost leaves; ed. Friedrich Haase, Opera quae supersunt … vol. III (Leipzig, 1897), 3–412. In the lower margin of fol. 8, in an informal script, the note ‘Inceptus scribi 19. augusti 1385’. Sporadic (but on these occasions, intense) gloss material in the margins, in a tiny fere humanistica (omitted from Watson, DMO).
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 155 × 50 mm. , with 8 mm. between columns, in 37 lines to the column. Frequent prickings; bounded and ruled in black ink.
Hand(s)
Written by two scribes, one in gothic textura rotunda; the second (who copied fols. 1–6v, 75v–156v) in humanistic bookhand. Punctuation by point (many converted to virgulae), virgula, punctus interrogativus, and punctus elevatus (scribe 2) by point and punctus elevatus (scribe I).
Decoration
Headings in red.
Two initials with floral borders, 3 lines and 6 lines respectively, on fols. 1 and 7, the second with a picture of Seneca as a grey-bearded man holding a book and wearing a turban-like hat.
Elsewhere initia are 3-line alternate lombards, blue on red flourishing and red on violet flourishing.
See AT, no. 917 (95), the decoration added s. xv2/4, and plate lxiv.
Binding
Dark brown leather over millboards, stamped gold fillet, s. xvii. Sewn on five thongs. At the head of the spine ‘116’ on a paper lozenge; in black ink on the leading edges. The front pastedown is old paper (with extensive notes, s. xv ex., listing the works of Seneca, with some brief commentary); the back pastedown modern paper. At the front, two modern paper flyleaves and one of medieval vellum, with nail-holes and rust near the corners, perhaps from attachments for ties; at the rear, one medieval vellum flyleaf, perhaps an earlier pastedown, and one modern paper flyleaf (iv–v).
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Three erased inscriptions, one surely of ownership (fol. iiiv).
‘⟨......⟩ Me Tenet Teste Standlye’ above ‘vincte bono Malmy’ (fol. iv); cf. the signature ‘Stonslye’ in MS 139.
‘Hicson verus est possessor huius libri’ (fol. iii, s. xvi); he also appears in MS 139, which was eventually donated to St John’s by William Paddy.
The old shelfmark ‘Abac: ij. N. 83’ (fol. iii).
Record Sources
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