MS. Bodl. 554

Fol. i is a parchment flyleaf, mostly blank.

In the biblical order, written as prose, with English titles in red and numbers as part of titles. Latin incipits are written in red in the margins or on lines containing the titles up to fol. 21v, and immediately preceding the English opening words of each psalm afterwards. Psalms 1–43, therefore, have English initials, whereas psalms 44–150 have initials of their Latin incipits. Some incipits have errors (e.g., ‘D(omi)ne est t(er)ra’ for ‘Domini est terra’, fol. 10v). There are textual divisions at psalms 26, 38, 52, 68, 80, 97 and 109 (see Decoration). Subdivisions within psalms are not indicated, apart from psalm 118, subdivided into twenty-two 8-verse units. The seven Penitential Psalms are marked with Roman numerals in the margins in a medieval hand. Punctuated throughout with punctus used to mark the ends of verses and minor pauses, and punctus elevatus used to mark metrum . Extensive glosses in English in the margins throughout, including glosses on the titles, glosses explaining difficult readings and giving spiritual, moral and literal interpretation of psalms. Some glosses comment on the differences between the Latin and Hebrew texts. The glosses (apart from the title glosses which appear in the margins at the beginning of psalms) are linked to their lemmata by special signs, placed at the beginning of the gloss and above the word on which it comments (red circles with a stroke and similar). Most glosses derive from Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilles , but some from Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, Jerome and Cassiodorus, often cited through Lyra, as well as from the ‘comun glos’ or Glossa Ordinaria (Kuczynski (1994), p. 24; Dove, M., The first English Bible: the text and context of the Wycliffite versions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 161 n. 144). The sources of most glosses are stated at their end (e.g., ‘lire here’, ‘austin here’ in red ink). MS. Bodl. 554 preserves the Wycliffite psalter glosses better than any other manuscript (Dove, M., The first English Bible: the text and context of the Wycliffite versions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 161). Most the Later Version of the Wycliffite Bible manuscripts include title glosses (that serve as prologues of psalms) as far as psalm 72, and a few include such glosses afterwards; MS. Bodl. 554 includes such glosses for all psalms (Dove, M., The first English Bible: the text and context of the Wycliffite versions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 156).

Glosses in the margins.

With references to their Old Testament sources in the margins in the hand of the original rubricator. Each is preceded by a Latin incipit, some with errors (i.e., ‘domino’ for ‘domini’, ‘ira’ for ‘iratus’ in Confitebor ). Glosses in the margins of Confitebor and Ego dixi, fols. 81v–82r, derived entirely from Lyra (Dove, M., The first English Bible: the text and context of the Wycliffite versions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 161 n. 144).

Followed by a rubric ‘⟨t⟩e deum laudamus’ in red, apparently in the hand of the original rubricator, but the initial is not filled in and the rest of the page is blank.

Extract added in the third quarter of the 15th century in a mixed Anglicana/ Secretary hand. The extract is partly a copy and partly a summary of chapters 122, 123 and 128 (Douteil (1976), cols. 128–130), telling stories about the introduction of letania maior by Gregory the Great during an epidemic in Rome, and of the institution of letania minor by St Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, during the earthquakes and other disasters at the end of the fifth century (published by Solopova (2012)).

An extract, added probably in a different 15th-century hand, from chapter 6, consisting of a list of the sins of thought, word, deed and omission (published by Kuczynski (1994)).