Brasenose College MS. 18

Language(s): Latin

Some scholia. The text demonstrates this is part of the γ class of manuscripts, this manuscript is identified as English and "pre-Conquest" by Helmut Gneuss. Only extant copy of Terence from Anglo-Saxon England. A 'saddlebag' manuscript, designed as a travel book, easy to handle etc.

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Parchment

109 leaves [+2 parchment, 2 paper front flyleaves, 2 back flyleaves]

Dimensions (leaf): 165 × 110 mm.

Layout

Written space 130 × 65 mm. , brown ink, ruled in blind, single column, capitals and new scences with characters, characters speaking marked in margins, marginal prickings.

Decoration

Fine decorative capital 'S' at beginning.

Comic marginal face on leaf 21r, finely executed pointing fingers on ff. 9v and 54v,

Binding

17th century red goat over boards; intricate gold tooling.

History

Origin: First half of 11th century ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

Acquired in Venice in 1632 from Cardinal Bembo (d. 1547) by Sir Henry Wotton (who purchased it from Bembo's heirs) and William Hacwell.

Bookplate of Robert Shippen on inside of lower board. Given by Robert Shippen, Principal, to BNC 1738.

Record Sources

Description by Sophie Floate. Previously described in H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum mss. qui in collegiis aulisque oxoniensibus hodie adservantur, II (1852) [sections separately paginated], Brasenose, p. 6

Bibliography

Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: a bibliographical handlist of manuscripts (Toronto, 2014), no. 669.6

Alexander & Temple, no. 876

Helmut Gneuss , 'Bücher und Leser in England im zehnten Jahrhundert', in: Tristram, Hildegard L. C. Medialität und Mittelalterliche Insulare Literatur. Tübingen: Narr, 1992.

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2023: First online publication.

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