St John's College MS 143
Hebrew biblical books with the Vulgate and Latin glosses
Contents
Language(s): Hebrew and Latin, with some Anglo-Norman glosses
ed. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgantensia (Stuttgart, 1983), unpaginated.
the presentation customary through the entire volume. In addition, throughout there are occasional marginal glosses, a few in French. See the discussion in S. Berger, Quam Notitiam Linguae Hebraicae habuerunt Christiani medii aevi temporis in Gallia (Paris, 1893), pp. viii, 37, 44, 49, etc. Fol. 74v is blank. Our MS is described in Raphael Loewe, ‘Latin superscriptio MSS on portions of the Hebrew Bible other than the Psalter’, Journal of Jewish Studies 11 (1958), 62–71 at 64–6.
On the front pastedown, M. M. Colvin’s note: ‘The folio numbered 1 was found to be the missing folio of a Hebrew Psalter in Lambeth Palace Library [435] which had been bound up with the MS at some time subsequent to 1667; see Raphael Loewe, Hebrew Union College Annual 28 (1957), 205ff. It was reunited with the Lambeth MS in 1954.’ This leaf seems actually to have been paginated 1–2, since, in a nineteenth-century foliation, the MS now begins with page 3.
Books of this sort with the Psalter were prepared in the circle of Robert Grosseteste (Loewe, 1957), and a volume like this may have similar origins. Loewe, 1958 mentions a list on fol. 2v, perhaps a reference to the leaf now at Lambeth, since it is no longer in our MS, which implies that the volume was once bound with a copy of Proverbs.
lacking 5:30–7:23, in a lost quire.
172v is blank.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
A main column for the Hebrew text and its interlinear (or ‘superscriptio’) Latin gloss, 140 × 66 mm. ,
with a gloss column 28–9 mm wide, separated by 5 mm, along the leading edges. With 17 lines to the page in the main text column, 31 lines in the gloss column. Prickings; bounded and ruled in brown crayon (the Hebrew text) and black ink (the gloss column).
Hand(s)
The Hebrew has been pointed by one of the Latin hands; the marginal translation written in textura semiquadrata, s. xiii med.; the interlinear translation written in textura prescissa with occasional anglicana letter forms, s. xiii ex. Punctuation in the marginal translation only by medial point. Although the Hebrew text reads right to left, as is customary (and the interlinear gloss must be read in the same direction), the book opens as a normal western one and reads from front to rear.
Decoration
Blanks for initial capitals unfilled.
Running titles for books frequently supplied in a hand resembling the one that wrote the interlinear gloss.
Binding
Brown leather over millboards, s. xvii?, with stamped centre rectangle with fleur-de-lis at corners. Sewn on five thongs. Gold ‘143’ at the head of the spine; in black ink on the leading edges. Pastedowns modern paper. No flyleaves at the front; at the rear, a single modern paper flyleaf (i).
History
Provenance and Acquisition
‘Liber Collegii Divi Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ Ex dono Edvardi Bernardi Socii 1667’ (fol. 1, upper margin).
Record Sources
Availability
For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact St John's College Library.
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
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
2022-11: First online publication