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St John's College MS 257

Statutes of England

Contents

Language(s): French, Latin, and English

1. Fols. 1–63:
Incipit: accusacions Nvll soit attache par ao corps ne sez biens ne terrez seisez
Explicit: fuist fete pur’ Wurstede a durer pur trois ans Anno xxo. H vjti. Capitulo x.
An alphabetical index by topic to statutes Edward III–Henry VI,

cf. Ker, MMBL 1:18, 190. Fol. 63v is blank but bounded and ruled.

2. Fols. 64–85:
Rubric: Incipit statutum apud Buri sancti Edmundi editum anno xxvto
Incipit: Nostre senur le Roy a son’ parlement tenuz a Bury seint Edmond’ en la feste de seinte Scolast
Explicit: suorum sibi dissensorum quia sit lex istius terre vult quod tunc ipsi haberent
Final rubric: Expliciunt statuta Regis henrici sexti

Statutes of 25, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 39 Henry VI, ed. Statutes of the Realm, 2:344–79. Fol. 85v is blank except for the rubric to item 3.

3. Fols. 85v–142v:
Rubric: Incipiunt statuta Regis Edwardi iiiiti.
Incipit: | [fol. 86] Edward’ par la grace de Dieu Roy Dengleterre et de Fraunce et senur Dirlond’ puis la conqueste quart al honour de Dieu et de seinte Eglise
Explicit: maner’ chose luy apparteignant ou en ascun’ maner’ fourme regardaunt
Final rubric: Expliciunt statuta Regis Edwardi quarti’
Statutes of Edward IV,

ed. Statutes, 2:380–476. Fol. 143 is blank.

4. Fols. 143v–54:
Incipit: Richard par la grace de Dieu Roy Dengleterre et de Fraunce et segnur Dirland’ puis le conquest tierce al honour de Dieu et de Seint Eglise
Explicit: tout oustrement descharge et acquite deschargez et acquitez pur toutz iours
Statutes of Richard III,

ed. Statutes, 2:477–98. Fols. 154v–5v are blank, fol. 155 bounded and ruled.

5. Fols. 156–68
Incipit: Henry par la grace de Dieu Roy Dengleterre et de Fraunce et segnur Dirland’ au parlement tenuz a Westmonstier le septisme jour de Nouembre
Explicit: terres et tenementes soient donqes tout outrement voidez et de null effette
Statutes of 1 and 3 Henry VII (in French),

ed. Statutes, 2:499–506. Fol. 168v is blank.

6. Fol. 169–221:
Incipit: To the worship of God and of all holy Chirche And for the comen wele and profit of this Reame of Englond Our Souereyn’ lord Henry
Explicit: to be as wel of the Deynzenis as of foreyns and Straungers
Statutes of 4–11 Henry VII (in English),

ed. Statutes, 2:524–79 (Ker describes the text as ‘peculiar’ and like BodL, MS Hatton 10).

Fols. 221v–4v are blank, but bounded and ruled. Fols. 225–50 are ruled as the preceding booklet through fol. 242, usually in brown crayon; in the final quire, the same page format has usually been imposed in stylus. Originally blank, now with added memoranda; after fol. 243 the pages show much heavier signs of wear than elsewhere.

Added text (see also Provenance below):

fols. 243–6:
Rubric: Herafter do insue the good ordinaunces and Rules made as well by the kynges Iustices of this said Courte of the comen place in tyme past […]
Incipit: Ordinaciones sequentes irrotulantur Termino sancte Trinitatis Anno Regis Henrici vjti. post conquestum xxxvto.
Explicit: [fol. 243v] after discression of the Iuges where any suche defaute shall happen to falle |
Incipit: [fol. 244] Prothonatoryes for Entrees of plees and Iugementes In primis for euery comyn declaracion comen plee in barre comen replicacion
Explicit: they can no thyng aske of dutie but of Curtesie at the pleasure of the partie

Ed. Margaret Hastings, The Court of Common Pleas in Fifteenth Century England (Ithaca, NY, 1947), 249–55 (ending in the section on ‘Cryours’), from a MS in the Public Record Office. Hastings refers vaguely to three copies of this text, none of them our MS. Added in a hand of s. xvi/xvii.

Physical Description

A full description at Ker, MMBL 3:701–2.
Secundo Folio: Anno secundo (fol. 5)
Form: codex
Support: Vellum (FSOS/FHHF).
Extent: Fols. xix + 250 + xx (numbered fols. 251, xx–xxxviii).
Dimensions (leaf): 217 × 180 mm.
Dimensions (written): 173 (165–8 after fol. 169, the head of quire 23) × 115 mm.

Collation

18 (–2; fols. 1, 4–9; fols. 2–3 misbound here from quire 5) 28 (1 and 2 reversed in binding; fols. 11, 10, 12–17) 3–48 (fols. 18–33) 58 (fols 34–6, 2–3, 37–9) 6–88 [fol. 63, a booklet boundary] | 9–108 116 [fol. 85, a booklet boundary] | 12–198 206 [fol. 155, a booklet boundary] 218 228 (–6, –7, –8, cancelled blanks after fol. 168) [fol. 168, a booklet boundary] | 23–298 [fol. 224, a booklet boundary] | 306 318 3212. No catchwords or signatures.

Condition

The lower margins of fols. 5–7 cut away, no text loss.

Layout

In long lines, 34 and 35 lines (fols. 207–21, in quires 26–9) to the page. No prickings; bounded and ruled in lead.

Hand(s)

Written in legal anglicana (‘court hand’); in his unsubmitted Oxford D.Phil. thesis, the late Jeremy Griffiths identified our scribe with the hand of BodL, MS Hatton 10 and more than twenty other copies of the New Statutes. Punctuation by occasional point.

Decoration

Five-line champes, including some of a greenish tinge, with floral pattern and flower, leaf, and bud sprays at the head of each parliament. Leaf patterns but no green in Statutes of Edward IV, becoming a bit crude near the end; in the first part of Statutes of Henry VII, the champe hand of Edward IV returns, but part 2 of Henry VII in a different hand, using extensive gold leaf and often rather minimal blue/violet, with white-shaped leaf outlines. The border sprays here also appear to be by a different hand than earlier.

Headings in decorative textura.

Chapters of the statutes are divided by blue paraphs, with the chapter number, headed by a red paraph, in the leading edge margin.

Running titles (preceded by red and blue paraphs) to identify the regnal year and monarch.

At the head of the index, a 5-line champe with leaf and bud sprays to form a demivinet.

Alternating red and blue paraphs to separate topics and the subordinate entries.

Five-line champes with floral sprays at the head of each alphabetical letter.

Fully illuminated pages at the head of each reign. Scott discusses the prolific London illuminators and border artists associated with a group of apparently mass-produced Statute MSS c.1470–86, of which this is but one example, at 2:319, 329, 345.

Ker cites Hunt Exhib, fig. 74 (102; Hatton 10, fol. 290) and Scott’s discussion there. The illuminations include:

Fol. 86, a 12-line historiated initial: Edward IV enthroned between lords spiritual (on the left) and temporal, within a full vinet of leaves, vines, and flowers; at the page foot in the border the royal arms, England quartering France modern.

Fol. 143v: a similar depiction of Richard III, with royal arms (a different set of artists, for both the border and the miniature).

Fol. 156: a similar depiction of Henry VII, in a red robe, with royal arms (resembling the Richard III artists).

See AT, no. 621 (61), saying Harvard University Library, MS Richardson 40 ‘is closest in script and illumination’, and plate xxxvi (fol. 86).

Binding

Brown leather over millboards, s. xviii; with a stamped gold achievement of arms (no supporters); see Provenance below. The spine has been rebacked. Sewn on five thongs. Gold ‘257’ at the head of the spine; red and black speckles on all edges. Pastedowns are modern paper, a College bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, nineteen modern paper flyleaves; at the rear, a vellum flyleaf (probably a former pastedown) and nineteen further paper flyleaves (251, xx–xxxviii).

History

Origin: s. xv/xvi ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

‘Pascha xxvjto. henrici viijui. Ro S lxxxij. viij. li’ (fol. 251).

A memo indicating ownership by someone responsible for royal records c.1544: ‘Memorandum that there ys owyng to Thomas grene of Audenham for the Caryage \of the kinges recordes/ From seynt albons to Westm’ after the terme of saynt Michell anno xxxvto. henrici viij. there holden and fynysshid xj. s viij. d’ (fol. 249v).

‘Anno secundo Edwardi quarti nuper Regis Angi’ etc.’ (fol. 97v, upper margin; s. xvi?).

‘Iacobus Dyer Miles Capit⟨a⟩lis Iustic’ domine Regine Elizabeth uiuit duodecimo etc.’ (fol. 241v, partly cut away; court hand, s. xvi ex.). For James Dyer (d. 1582), speaker of the House of Commons in 1553 and justice of the king’s and queen’s bench from 1558, see BRUO 1501–40, pp. 180–1.

A list of legal books (s. xvi ex.), with three older inscriptions below (fol. 251); see Ker for details.

Termino sancti Michaelis anno regni domini Iacobi […] quartodecimo et Scocie quinquagesimo etc. CC xlijo. Memorandum quod dominus Rex nunc predicto vicesimo quinto die Novembris isto eodem Termino mand’ Iustic’ suis hic litteras suas’, with a text of the writ in English (fol. 238v; court hand, s. xvii in.).

Below two erased signatures, one partially legible as ‘Lawrence ⟨.....⟩’: ‘Wyllyam Iohns’ twice; and a distich: ‘Tria sunt que non paciuntur iocum Oculus Fama Pecunia Oculus ne ledetur Fama ne denigretur Pecunia ne auferetur’ (fol. 247v; court hand, s. xvii).

The proverb ‘Multi famam consienciam paucivorentur’ (s. xvi ex.) and near the page foot (s. xvii italic) ‘⟨...⟩ius legis cristus omni credenti’ (fol. 249v).

Accounts: ‘Paid vnto Master’ Hall Item for iij. quarters of a C. of [spot]elyn borde for the Wyndowe in the Tresor hows […] ’, below a set of entries for ‘The Comon’ place’ (fol. 250v, s. xvii?).

On the binding, the arms of Francklin (of Gonalston, Notts.); Sr John Francklin’ and ‘Dorothea Francklin’ (fol. 1, upper margin; s. xix).

The old shelfmarks ‘A.10.14’ in red, corrected to ‘9.16’ (on the bookplate, front pastedown).

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.

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)

Bibliography

    Alexander, J. J. G. and Elźbieta Temple, Illuminated Manuscripts in Oxford College Libraries, the University Archives and the Taylor Institution (Oxford, 1985).
    Hastings, Margaret (ed.), The Court of Common Pleas in Fifteenth Century England (Ithaca, NY, 1947).
    Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries. 4 vols. (Oxford, 1969-92).
    de la Mare, A. C., and B. C. Barker Benfield (eds.), Manuscripts at Oxford: An Exhibition in Memory of Richard William Hunt (1908-1979) (Oxford, 1980).
    Scott, Kathleen L., Later Gothic Manuscripts, 1390–1490. 2 vols. (London, 1996)
    The statutes of the realm... volume 2 (1816, repr. 1963).

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

2023-09: First online publication

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