St John's College MS 265
Breviary (Premonstratensian Use)
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Fifteen benedictions.
Calculations of the date of Easter for a full nineteen-year cycle.
Ker says this example resembles that in the Breviary from the Premonstratensian abbey of Parc, Belgium, National Library of Wales, MS Add. 495, including ‘Norberti episcopi fundatoris nostri ordinis’ (29 December). Christina has been added (6 June and 24 July), as also in the NLW MS.
Psalms 1–108.
Fol. 43rv was originally blank, now with an added text in the original hand:
The Temporale, with a folio of daily prayers, followed (fol. 45ra) by the services from Advent to the 25th Sunday after the octave of Pentecost; the lessons for Sundays after Pentecost begin at fol. 198vb. Fol. 271rb has only eleven lines, and fol. 271v is blank, but bounded; homilies on the Gospels for the twenty-five Sundays after the octave of Pentecost begin at the head of a new quire, fol. 272ra which is in fact a new booklet.
Service for the dedication of the church; following the explicit at the blank foot of the column a correction, with signe de renvoi ; fol. 290vb is blank.
The Sanctorale, running from Katherine to Clement. There are only thirteen written lines in the final column, the remainder blank.
The common of saints.
A series of extra lessons, after fol. 410 not rubricated; followed by added texts in later hands:
‘Deus caritas est et qui manet in caritate in deo manet et deus in eo et ipse caritas nos benedicat Amen \Prelatus [later]/ Et nos maneamus cum ipso’
A note added slightly later.
Four extra selections, perhaps by the scribe of the main text.
A final addition resembling the preceding one.
Physical Description
A: an enthroned king, not in Briquet; the sole stock of quire 1 (one full sheet, an unwatermarked half-sheet, and a single leaf with half the mark).
B: Pot: resembles Briquet nos. 12497, 12499 (our mark lacks the double wire at the foot), a type widely dispersed through northern France, the Low Countries, and western Germany, 1488 x 1508; the sole stock of quires 2, 18–23, 26–34, and the two outer sheets of quire 35 (fifty sheets total).
C: Krone/Coroun: not in Briquet, or Piccard, a simple tiara with three peaks above a heart and the initials ‘d s’; the sole stock of quires 3–4, 10–11, 24, and the inner sheet of quires 7 and 35 (seventeen sheets total).
D: Buchstabe/Lettre P: perhaps two different marks, of Piccard IV 1, Type II, a stock common from the 1490s until c.1530; the sole stock(s) of quires 5–6, 8, and the two outer sheets of quire 7 (eleven sheets total).
E: Armoiries Bande: resembles the general type Briquet, nos. 1038–42, frequent in the same areas as B, mainly 1461 x 1485, but variants cited as late as 1518; the sole stock of quire 9 (three sheets total).
F: Sphere: a T/O map surmounted with small Greek cross, not in Briquet (but cf. nos. 14012, 14019, analogues of s. xvi ex.); the sole stock of quires 12–17, 25 (twenty-one sheets total).
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 142 × 45 mm. with 5 mm between columns (in some portions, the leading edge column significantly wider than the gutter one), in 31–9 lines to the page. No prickings; bounded in pencil, no rules.
Hand(s)
Written in textura, described by Ker as ‘a set hybrida with split strokes at the top’. Punctuation by point and double point.
Decoration
Headings in red.
At the head of text 4 (fol. 8), a 9-line blue capital, with gold leaf worked in a floral design in red, with a penwork vinet in red and purple ink, with vine designs and animals (deer, rabbit).
A second level of initials at the heads of the nocturns and of Psalms 51 and 101: 5- to 8-line red lombards with some infilled designs.
Smaller 2- and 1-line red lombards, the first at heads of psalms/sections, the second to mark verses and heads of individual prayers.
Red slashed capitals to divide texts.
See A1 no. 819 (82).
Binding
Brown leather (calf), s. xviii, gold-stamped with lilies of the abbey of Parc, within a lozenge, on which appears ‘parchensis bibliothecae’; on the armorial stamp, in the smaller size, see Emile van Balberghe, ‘Les critères de Provenance des manuscrits de Parc’, Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique, numéro special 11 (1974), 525–42 at 528 and plate 4. Sewn on five thongs. In the upper spine compartment on a red leather tab, the gold-stamped title ‘Breviarium ordinis Premonstrate’. Gold-stamped floral designs on the spine. On a paper lozenge at the head of the spine ‘i 2’. All edges red-speckled. Pastedowns modern paper, on the front one a College bookplate. At the front, one modern paper flyleaf at the rear, one modern paper flyleaf (ii).
History
Provenance and Acquisition
The arms of the abbey of Parc stamped on the binding; and the pressmark ‘I. theca XI.’ (the front pastedown). The adjacent volume in the library of Parc, ‘I. theca XII.’, is now BL, MS Additional 39678. On the initial dispersal of the MSS, see further van Balberghe, ‘Sylvan Van de Weyer et la vente des manuscrits de Parc en 1829’, Archives 43 (1972), 108–30.
The old shelfmarks ‘Arch. B.68’ and ‘b.1.14b’ (the front pastedown).
‘E libris Collegii Divi Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ Donum Dedit Georgius Hart Morley Ejusdem Collegii Commensalis 1831’ (fol. 1, lower margin). Ker suggests, following a note on British Museum stationery stuck inside the front cover, that the MS came to Morley in the sale of John Peckham of Slough, by Wise, in Oxford, 5–9 May 1831, which included Parc mss. [‘perhaps lot 121’]. The NLW MS was probably lot 82 in the sale, the British Museum note continues, and BL, MS Additional 39678, also from Parc, had belonged to Philip Bliss, a fellow of St John’s from 1809 (and Bodley’s sub-librarian 1822–8).
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
2023-11: First online publication