A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges

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MS. Bodl. 240

Summary Catalogue no.: 2469

Contents

Language(s): Latin

(pp. xli-xliii)
Prayers, etc.

Added, fifteenth century.

1. (pp. 1–582)
John of Tynemouth, Historia aurea

Part II, books 14–21. Index, pp. vii-xxxix.

2. (pp. 582b-902)

‘A miscellany of lives of Saints, local documents and even poetry’, including:

(p. 582)
Rubric: De fortuna Anglie
Incipit: An. Do. mil. ter. c. sex. no. sunt ista reperta

Verses on the events of 1369.

(p. 582)
Rubric: Conclusio Mortis pro omni genere hominum dicens Vado mori
Incipit: Gloria mundana sic est

Imperfect.

(p. 602)
Verses on Ramsey Abbey
Incipit: Insula iocunda Rameseie cincta marisco
(p. 624)
Rubric: Vita et passio cum miraculis sancti Edmundi regis et martiris
Incipit: Erat quondam in Saxonia
(p. 723)
Augustine, Sermons

Twenty-six sermons

(p. 765)
Treatise on monastic discipline
Incipit: Primorum parentum rubigine
(p. 848)
Document relating to the sermon of Nicholas de Hereford at St Frideswide’s cemetery, Oxford, 15 May 1382. Ed. S. Forde, in Medieval Studies 51 (1989), 205–41.
(p. 856)
Speculum humanae saluationis
Incipit: Expediens videtur & vtile
Incipit: In hoc Speculo potest homo considerare
(p. 894)
Treatise on music
Rubric: Commedacio artis Musice secundum quendam Gregorium libro suo primo capitulo secundo
Incipit: Ars musica omnes artes excedit
Ed. Matthias Hochadel, ‘Commentum Oxoniense in musicam Boethii: Eine Quelle zur Musiktheorie an der spätmittelalterlichen Universität’, in Veröffentlichungen der Musikhistorischen Kommission 16 (2002), München, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp. 414–432

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: xliv + 900 + ii pages
Dimensions (leaf): 360 × 245 mm.

Layout

2 cols., c. 50–65 lines, column space 245–60 × 80 mm.

Hand(s)

Several hands.

Decoration

Initials. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 670)

Coloured initials, rubrics.

Binding

Stamped brown leather on boards, Oxford work by G. K. about 1610.

Accompanying Material

pp. i-vi, 899–902, and the inner cover at each end are seven leaves of a 14th-century Latin treatise on canon law.

History

Origin: 1377 ; English, Bury St. Edmunds, Benedictine abbey

Provenance and Acquisition

p. xli: ‘Liber monachorum sancti edmundi in quo continetur: Secunda pars historie auree quam scribi fecit dompnus Rogerus de huntedon’ sumptibus graciarum suarum Anno domini Mº.CCCº.lxxvijº’.

Bury St Edmunds pressmark, p. xli, ‘H. 55’.

Sir John Prise (1502?-1555): annotated by him.

His son, Richard Prise (Ker, ‘Sir John Prise’, p. 22, citing a note in Cambridge, Corpus Christ College, MS. 5).

Thomas Prise (probably grandson of Sir John, son of his son Gregory: Ker, ‘Sir John Prise’, p. 22): ‘Thomas Price possidet’, p. xli (16th century, second half).

Acquired between 1605 and 1611, probably in 1607.

Record Sources

Description adapted (2018) from the following sources, and from published literature cited in the text:
A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c.435–1600 in Oxford Libraries (Oxford, 1984), no. 73 [physical description, origin, provenance]
Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford , III (1973), no. 670 [decoration]
Summary Catalogue (1922) [contents, acquisition]
Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 1, p. 384
Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 1, p. 385

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (2 images from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2022-04-04: Add binding information from Summary Catalogue.