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

Brasenose College MS. 7

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Cicero
(fol. 1)
De officiis
Incipit: || principio generi animantium
(fol. 88)
Liber de Amicitia
(fol. 111)
Liber de Senectute
(fol. 134v)
Epistola Lentuli
(fol. 135)
Fabricii et Aemilii ad Pyrrhum epistola super proditione

Marginal inscriptions decrying the Abbot of Godstow (i.e. Osney) dated 1528 (folio j¹v)

Language(s): Middle English

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Parchment;
Extent: ii + 139 leaves
Dimensions (leaf): 273 × 195 mm.

Collation

a⁵⁽⁶⁾, b-o⁸, p⁷⁽⁸⁾, q-r⁸, s⁶

Condition

Lacking two leaves (a⁶ and p⁴)

Layout

double column, 24 lines, written space 166 × 125 mm.

Hand(s)

Written in dark brown ink in a cursive gothic bookhand.

Decoration

2 very large illuminated initials in gold and colours on e⁷r. and h⁵v

Initials with illuminated bar extensions fitting the writing area with flowery tendrils

calligraphic ink extensions into some borders

Paragraph markers in red and blue, decorative cadels in red and blue

Binding

18th/19th century calf over boards; blind tooled panel design.

History

Origin: last quarter 15th century ; Northern France

Provenance and Acquisition

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. 2

Availability

This manuscript is held at Brasenose College. Please direct any enquiries to Brasenose College Library.

Bibliography

    Mellor, Katherine. “Epistle of Lentulus.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha
    Edward Wilson, A ‘Damned F…in Abbot’ in 1528: The Earliest English Example of a Four-Letter Word, Notes and Queries, Volume 40, Issue 1, March 1993, Pages 29–34, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/40.1.29

Last Substantive Revision

2023: First online publication.

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