MS. Bodl. 408
Summary Catalogue no.: 2301
Conrad Holtnicker, Sermons, etc.; Germany (lower Rhine?), late 13th or early 14th century
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Part of a Florilegium; perhaps moved from the end of the volume; see below, art. 8, fol. 201v.
Added in margins next to the beginnings of the sermons for Dominica XV–XVIII. The same scribe added a note next to the sermon for St. Michael (fol. 176).
Items added on pages originally left unwritten:
A list of things and people (to pray for, during the Western Schism?)
‘Item pro ecclesia sancta katholika, Item pro domino papa, Item pro uniuersis ordinibus, Item pro reparatore, Item pro kathecuminis, Item pro quacumque tribulacione, Item pro hereticis et scismaci, Item pro Iudeyis, Item pro paganis’
Rest of rol. 125r blank. Fol. 125v ruled, otherwise blank; fol. 126 is the start of a new quire.
From St. Andrew to St. Katherine (30 Nov. – 25 Nov.)
Schneyer, i, pp. 765–70 nos. 258, 259, 261, 264, etc., ending with nos. 353–355.Continuing straight on from the Sanctorale; eight for an apostle, nine for a martyr, two for the dedication of a church.
For the Nativity of the Virgin, Assumption, St Mark, and All Souls. The first is like Schneyer, vii, p. 637 no. 352 (from Munich, BSB, Clm 5528); that for St Mark is like Schneyer, v, p. 595 no. 208, by Thomas Aquinas.
Apparently continuing on fols. 1r–2v:
A considerably longer 13th-century copy (with 99 chapters occupying 90 leaves) is Leiden, University Library, MS. d’Ablaing 36 (see P. C. Boeren, Catalogue des manuscrits des collections d’Ablaing et Meijers (Leiden, 1970), pp. 136–41); a copy was perhaps also in the library of The Queens’ College, Cambridge, in 1472, if ‘Gregorius super ultimam partem Ezechielis’ in the catalogue was the incipit, rather than the title as proposed by P. D. Clarke, The university and college libraries of Cambridge, Corpus of British medieval library catalogues, 10 (London, 2002), p. 576 no. 146. The Leiden MS. ends with the same compotus material and annals as in the present MS., suggesting that the latter may be copied from the former.
From the sources used in the Leiden MS. (including Anselm, Bernard, Hugh and Richard of St-Victor, and Richard of Saint-Laurent) the compilation can be dated after c.1240 (perhaps c. 1254, the date mentioned in the compotus material, or during the 19-year Metonic cycle following; see below), and attributed to a Cistercian milieu (to judge by the importance given to Bernard here and in the annals), in Germany (to judge by the spelling ‘Bernhardus’ and the emphasis on Germany in the annals).
Four columns at the left give the ‘littere pascales’, ‘b.’–‘v.’ and ‘.a’–‘.q’, representing 22 March – 25 April; and the corresponding ‘littere dominicales’, a–g; ‘ebdomade’ of the year, vi–xi; and ‘dies’, i–vi, with spaces blank in place of ‘vii’.
Eight-line verse:
Note on the table called ‘fnugo’
Note on the verses above
‘Nota quod anno domini mº.ccº.lº.iiiiº. inceperunt versus. Rex furit &c in radice digiti auricularis.’
The other annals record the drowning of Emperor Frederick (Barbarossa) in 1190; the killing of King Philip (of Swabia) in ‘Babenberg’ in 1208; the arrival of Emperor Frederick (II) in Germany and the Children’s Crusade, in 1212 (but written as ‘.mº.c.xi.’).
Discussed by Jean-Philippe Meyer, ‘La fondation d’Obersteigen en 1213 d’après le fragment annalistique d’Oxford’, Pays d’Alsace, 207 (2004), 61–64.The Leiden MS. cited above also has the date 1107 for the first annal, but it is perhaps an error and should refer to Bernard preaching the Second Crusade in 1146.
Added in the lower margin:
‘Augustinus O cherubin o seraphin o angeli o archangeli dimisso wltu et inclinat⟨o capite⟩ …’
Fol. 209v ruled, otherwise blank.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Ruled in ink for 2 columns of 27 lines. Ruled space 200 × 140 mm. , with 13-14 mm. between columns.
Hand(s)
Gothic textura; fols. 1r-2v, 201v-208v in another hand; fol. 209r a third hand (?).
Decoration
Initials in plain red.
Binding
Post-medieval. Sewn on four bands laced into pasteboards covered with speckled brown polished leather, each cover framed by a single blind filet. The unrounded spine with gilt former shelmark ‘NE.E.4.9’, and ‘408’ in white paint.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Perhaps owned by the Augustinian monastery at Obersteigen, Alsace, to judge by the record of its foundation among the annals (fol. 209r).
Early reader(s): annotations in faint ‘crayon’ throughout.
Rev. Clement Burdett (d. after 1577?), inscribed with his name, 16th century (fol. 1r), on whom see Alan Coates, English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Collections from Foundation to Dispersal (Oxford, 1999), pp.131–33, 136–41, citing the present MS. at 139; thence to his nephew:
William Burdett, of Sonning, Berkshire:
presented as part of a group of 34 MSS in 1608 to the Bodleian Library. Former Bodleian shelfmarks: ‘T(?).5.11.9’ (fol. ii verso); ‘Th | J 7.10’, cancelled by encircling; and ‘NE.E.4.9’ (fol. ii verso, cf. 1r and spine).
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2021-05-19: Description fully revised for Polonsky German digitization project.