St John's College MS 188
Scientific and medical miscellany
Physical Description
Binding
Brown leather over bookboard, s. xvi, with a blind-stamped border, partly restored in the upper corner, perhaps suggesting a chain fitting removed. The rolls are Oldham MW.d (10) (no. 872, plate LI), used alone by an Oxford binder 1560–1613. Sewn on four thongs. Gold ‘188’ at the head of the spine, very indistinct in black ink on the leading edges. All three edges reddened. Pastedowns old vellum, a College bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, three vellum flyleaves from manuscript (the first has been used as a pastedown in an earlier binding, and the second and third are a bifolium); at the rear, a single vellum flyleaf from manuscript (iv).
History
Provenance and Acquisition
‘Carrius me possidet’ (fol. 114, upper margin, s. xv/xvi) and ‘Christoferus Carieus 20 Aug Cxo’ (partly cut off, fol. 114v, the first inscription repeated below in italic, s. xvi ex.); the same italic hand has added other pen-trials, and there are accounts for May and June of an unspecified year (s. xvi). For discussion, see Andrew G. Watson, ‘Christopher and William Carye, Collectors of Monastic Manuscripts, and “John Carye”, The Library 5th ser. 20 (1965), 135–42 at 136–7, 142.
‘Nicolai Lynneby Ioann Oxon’ (fol. 1, upper margin; and fol. 24).
‘Liber Collegij Sanctj Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Nicolaj Linnebye socij 1605’ (fol. iiiv).
MS 188 - flyleaf
Flyleaf texts:
Contents
Language(s): Latin
the contents leaf from a legal MS, mounted upside down. The recto gives chapters from a text: ‘Capitulum primum Quod sancta Ecclesia libera sit Capitulum secundum De heredibus per seruit’ militar’ tenentibus Capitulum tercium De modo eorundem faciendi homagia’. The verso starts with statutes, running from Magna carta to Winchester, then has the standard tracts: Curia baronis, both Henghams, Cadit assisa,… de Bastarda, ends with Assizes of Bread and Beer, Fet aseuer, and the Register of Writs. s. xiii/xiv with some added notes, mounted upside down.
drawings of faces and notes
two sets of verses ‘Gnosia fecisset inopem sapienter amassos’ and ‘Si potes et ceras remoue quam ymagine muta’ (OVID, Remedia amoris, 745–9, 723–34, the latter written in the same hand as the material on fol. 114). A diagram of concentric circles between the two sets of verses.
In the hand of fols. 40 (in the same double column format with red paraphs) and 107v.
a diagram of the eye, its parts, and their connection to the brain (?).
apparently from a legal text, anglicana s. xiii/xiv.
Manuscript 1 = Fols. 1–16
Contents
Language(s): Latin
ed. Lynn Thorndike, The Sphere of Sacrobosco and Its Commentators (Chicago, 1949), 76-117.
Six verses (not in Walther).
Fols. 15–16v are blank but ruled.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 125 × 38 mm. , with 8 mm between columns, in 44 lines. Prickings; bounded and ruled in brown ink.
Hand(s)
Written in a small gothic textura quadrata of a university type, s. xiii2. Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus.
Decoration
Headings in red.
Texts headed by 2-or 3-line blue lombards on red flourishing; within texts, similar capitals alternate with red ones on blue flourishing, and red paraphs are used to break the texts.
History
Manuscript 2 = Fols. 17–23
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Three sets of further mathematical verses (Walther, no. 17974, where they are tentatively viewed as a continuation of item 6).
Verses on the use of calendar tables (Walther, no. 6774), citing seven copies, two in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College MS 136. A concluding line added later: ‘Vt uideas quantum bisexti distet ab anno’. Fols. 19vb–20rb are blank.
Walther, no. 6236, also in CUL, MS Mm.iv.41, fol. 105. Fols. 21rb–23v are blank; fol. 22 is ruled.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 126 × 46–8 mm. , with 7 mm between columns, in 45 lines to the column. Prickings; bounded and ruled in black ink.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura semiquadrata, s. xiii2, perhaps a continuation of the previous MS, very similar in page format, although the hand differs. Punctuation by point at the line ends.
Decoration
Headings in red, red-slashed capitals at the head of each line.
History
Manuscript 3 = Fols. 24–40
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Sharpe, no. 865 (306), , ed. Libellus de anni ratione seu ut uocatur uulgo Computus Ecclesiasticus (Paris, 1550), fols. 5-53., Preceded by ‘Versus contra inuidos Inuide quid laceras prosunt que carmina cunctis […] ’ (Walther, no. 9540, four lines). In describing this MS, I have not cited readings from the glosses.
TK 1448, also in CUL, MS Kk.i.1, fol. 105rv. Fol. 40vb is blank.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Item 10 in double columns, each column 125 × 38 mm. , with 8 mm between columns, in 44 lines to the page. Prickings; bounded and ruled in black ink.
Item 11 writing area 125 × 65 mm. . In long lines, 15–21 lines to the page, with variable spacing for an interlinear gloss. No prickings; bounded in brown ink, no rules.
Item 12 in double columns, each column 125 × 38 mm. , with 9 mm between columns, in 45 lines to the column. No prickings; bounded in lead, no rules.
Hand(s)
Item 10 written in gothic textura semiquadrata, s. xiii med. or xiii2, with extensive glosses in a tiny hand of s. xiii ex. (a few in a hand of early s. xv?). Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus.
Item 11 written in another gothic textura, s. xiii med.
Item 12 written in gothic textura semiquadrata, which resembles the late glossing hand of text 8 (possibly s. xv).
Decoration
In text 10, headings in red, many unfilled.
Alternate red and blue lombards on flourishing of the other colour, 4-line at the incipit, 2-line for internal divisions.
The text divided by red paraphs.
Frequent diagrams in red, green, and black, one illustration (fol. 28ra) of the ‘serpent of the year’.
In text 11, a heading in red, red-slashed capitals at line-openings, a few of the glosses in red.
History
Manuscript 4 = Fols. 41–50
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Followed (fols. 42–9v) by the tables and a calendar (fols. 44ff), the latter with Oxford additions, s. xv (14 January noted as the start of Hilary Term, 12 February as the ‘translatio sancte fredeswyde’ and 15 May her invention). Ed., in part, John R. Magrath, The Obituary Book of Queen’s College Oxford, Oxford Historical Society 56 (1910), 121–6; see the further discussion in Charles Wordsworth, The Ancient Kalendar of the University of Oxford, Oxford Historical Society 45 (1903–4), 33–8, 230–43. Since the author of these additions identifies 20 October with ‘Dedicatio colegij marie magdalene’, he has been taken to be attached to that college. Fol. 50rv is blank.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 128 × 38 mm. , with 8 mm between columns, in 44 lines to the page. No prickings; the text bounded and ruled in lead, the tables and calendar in red ink.
Hand(s)
Written in another contemporary textura, with later additions in the calendar.
Decoration
Red arabesque capitals at textual divisions, red paraphs for subsidiary units.
The table and calendar in red and green inks, entries headed by 1-line red, blue, and green lombards.
History
Manuscript 5 = Fols. 51–7
Contents
Language(s): Latin
ed. Ernest A. Moody and Marshall Clagett, The Medieval Science of Weights (Madison, Wis., 1952), 64–74, where our copy is unnoted (and not very similar). A text on balances, with a gloss; only two text and three gloss lines on fol. 53, the verso probably originally blank.
[an added text?]: a table for equivalent measures, ‘Nomina Minutiarum Quot vncias habet etc.’, with verbal explanation of equivalents at the foot: ‘Denarius stater et siclus unum et idem sunt Denarius enim constat ex 10 nummis Stater ex 20 obulis […] ’
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Writing area 128 × 78 mm. , with a 35 mm leading-edge column for diagrams. Written in long lines, about 27 text lines to the page, the gloss line half that of the text. No prickings; bounded and ruled in brown crayon.
Hand(s)
Each of the three texts in a different hand: two are gothic texturas, quadrata and semiquadrata respectively, the third an anglicana-tinged textura of s. xiii/xiv. Punctuation by point and occasional punctus elevatus in both text and gloss.
Decoration
History
Manuscript 6 = Fols. 58–61
Contents
Language(s): Latin
A commentary on GUIDO OF AREZZO, Micrologus (TK 760), presented as an introduction to item 18. Fols. 60v–1v are blank, fol. 60v partly ruled, but in a format resembling that of MS 5.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 125 × 46 mm. , with 9 mm between columns, in 51 lines to the column. Fragmentary prickings; bounded and ruled in brown crayon.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura semiquadrata, s. xiii2. Punctuation by point and occasional punctus elevatus.
History
Manuscript 7 = Fols. 62–96
Contents
Language(s): Latin
ed. Jos. Smits van Waesberghe, Corpus scriptorum de musica 4 (1955) 79–233, with a description of our MS at 44-6. A chapter table appears between the letter and the text.
ed. Gerbert, 2:25–34.
ed. Gerbert, 2:34–7.
ed. Gerbert, 2:43–50.
Two brief tracts, separated from the preceding one by only a painted initial; they also occur together in Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.15.22, fol. 138rv.
According to van Waesberghe, in part a discussion of the score printed in E. de Coussemaker, Scriptorum de Musica Medii Aevi Novum Seriem 2 (Paris, 1867), 87. See further Michel Huglo, Les Tonaires: Inventaire, analyse, comparison (Paris, 1971), 192.
the text also appears in Trinity R.15.22, fols. 126–8.
ed. van Waesberghe, Cymbala (Bells in the Middle Ages), Studies and Documents 1 (Rome, 1951), 54–5, also using the copy in Trinity R.15.22, fol. 131rv.
Identified by van Waesberghe as excerpts from a commentary on HUCBALD monachus ELNONENSIS, Musica Enchirialis, the text ed. Gerbert, 1:192–4.
Fol. 96v was originally blank.
Added text:
Proverbs from the Almagest (TK 263 cite the same incipit from Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS CLM 9683, fols. 62ra–5rb). In anglicana, s. xv med. or xv3/4, the same hand which wrote item 32 (fols. 109–10v).
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Writing area 130 × 74 mm. , a central text column between two gloss columns, the inner column 21 mm wide, the leading-edge one 32 mm wide. In 26 long lines to the page (the text; 51 lines for the gloss). Bounded and ruled in black ink.
Hand(s)
Written in textura semiquadrata, s. xiii med.
Decoration
Two- to 4-line alternate blue and red lombards on flourishing of the other colour (some flourishing not completed), frequent 1-line in-text lombards to break the texts.
Headings in red, but most blanks unfilled (all after fol. 72v).
History
Manuscript 8 = Fols. 97–104
Contents
Language(s): Latin
A further series of astronomical operations; a later s. xiv hand has numbered fols. 97–101va as 30 chapters, the succeeding section numbered ‘31 et 1’. The text may break here, or extend to fol. 102ra: ‘Capitulum 3⟨1⟩ in scienti altitudinis turrium et celorum talium que eleuantur—ipsum et radicem rei et quod exierit erit longitudo inter utrasque’.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 140 × 38–42 mm. , with 5 mm between columns, in 51 lines to the column (ample margins left for glosses). No prickings; bounded and ruled in brown crayon.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura semiquadrata, s. xiv in. Punctuation by point, medial point, and punctus elevatus.
Decoration
Blanks for capitals unfilled and no headings; diagrams in text ink.
History
Manuscript 9 = Fols. 105–8
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Physical Description
Collation
History
Manuscript 10 = Fols. 109–14
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In long lines, 42 lines to the page. No prickings; bounded in brown crayon but unruled.
Hand(s)
Written in anglicana, s. xv med., the same hand which added item (g) on fol. 96v. Punctuation by occasional point.
Decoration
Blanks for capitals unfilled; a red lombard and a red paraph in the first paragraph.
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact St John's College Library.
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
2023-07: First online publication