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

MS. Bodl. 585

Summary Catalogue no.: 2357

Physical Description

Composite: two volumes (fols. i, 1–47 || fols. 48–103), separately donated to the Bodleian in 1604 and united after that date.
Form: codex
Extent: i + 104 leaves

MS. Bodl. 585 – Part 1

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. (fol. 1)
Lives of SS. Alban and Amphibalus ( BHL 214)

Followed by notes and verses about St Albans on fol. 17.

(fol. 9v)
Matthew Paris, Vita duorum Offarum (extracts) (?)
Rubric: Excerpta gestorum duorum regum Merciorum quorum vterque vocabatur Offa

See Howlett in Trans. Cambridge Bib. Soc. 6 (1972–6), 195–200 at 198–9.

2. (fol. 18v)
John Whethamstede, Granarium (extracts)
Incipit: Anglia que secundum Solinum

The articles Anglia (fol. 18v), Animal (fol. 41v) and Cirus (fol. 45r): see Howlett, op. cit.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Dimensions (leaf): 210 × 145 mm.

Layout

1 col., 20 lines, written space 150 × 80 mm.

Decoration

Coloured initials, rubrics.

History

Origin: 1440 × 1448 ; English, St Albans, Benedictine abbey

Provenance and Acquisition

This section is a detached part of Cambridge, University Library, MS. Dd.6.7, which has ‘liber domini edmundi shenley ’ on fol. 152v and the ex libris of St Albans Abbey on fols. iii and 1. Presumably written after 1440 (when the Granarium seems to have been completed) and before 12 Dec. 1448 when Shenley migrated from St Albans to Wymondham.

Presented by Sir George More in 1604.

MS. Bodl. 585 – Part 2

Contents

1. (fol. 48)
Rule of St. Clare (Engl. tr., ‘Reule of Sustris Menouresses Enclosid’, IPMEP 797)
Language(s): Middle English

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

Decoration

Penwork. (Pächt and Alexander, Concordance and Addenda, p. 9)

History

Origin: 15th century, middle ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

For date see Pächt and Alexander, Concordance and Addenda, p. 9.

London, Abbey of St Mary the Virgin and St Francis, without Aldgate, of Franciscan nuns (?) : evidence of contents. (MLGB3: evidence from locally specific contents, including obits, scribbles, etc.).

Presented by Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, in 1604.

Additional Information

Record Sources

Description adapted (2019) from the following sources, with additional reference to published literature cited in the description:
A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c.435–1600 in Oxford Libraries (Oxford, 1984), no. 97 [part 1: contents, physical description, origin, provenance]
Summary Catalogue (1922) [part 1: acquisition; part 2]

Bibliography

Last Substantive Revision

2021-12-14: Add provenance information from MLGB3.