MS. Bodl. 603
Summary Catalogue no.: 2394
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Physical Description
Collation
i6 (formerly i8, lacks 1–2 after writing), ii8–viii8, ix6(formerly ix8, lacks 1 and 6 after writing), x8-xv8 xvi3/xvii8–xviii8, xix10. Quire xvi consists of two leaves (fols. 117-118) and an extra leaf (fol. 117B) discovered by Neil Ker. The original fly-leaves were removed in 1923 and now form part of Bodleian MS. Lat. misc. d. 48. There are no catchwords. Quires are numbered on the last verso leaf of each quire to the end of quire ix (fol. 68v).
The manuscript consists of three sections: I (a) fols. 1–46; I (b) fols. 47–118; II fols. 119–144. The division between Parts I (a) and I (b) is not certain, but poem No. 11 ends incomplete (two lines are left blank at the foot of fol. 46v), and the writing on fol. 47r appears to mark a new beginning. Part II, which lacks the red border, is clearly separate: fol. 118v was originally blank, until the scribe used it for the prologue to No. 30 (perhaps at the time the manuscript was finally assembled). Otherwise, entries seem to have been made consecutively, except that Nos. 3 (on fol. 7v) and 21 (fol. 6lr) were perhaps written together after the other entries. The gap on fols. 45v–46r may have been left for another poem on Becket.
Layout
Mainly written in long lines, or occasionally two columns; 32 lines per column or page. Squared and ruled, with an outer frame of double lines-, a red outline, encompassing the top line of writing, is provided throughout Part 1 but is absent in Part II: writing is above the top ruled line. Verse punctuation at the edge of the frame. Written area 163 × 107 mm.
Hand(s)
Written about 1200 by a single scribe in two (possibly three) sections.
Decoration
Red and green initials alternate.
Headings in red, initials touched in red.
Binding
Brown tanned calf over laminated pulpboard. Stations for cloth ties, removed.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Neil Ker discovered an extra leaf (fol. 117b) in the binding of an All Souls College manuscript, later returned to this volume: see ‘Fragments of Medieval Manuscripts in Bindings’, Bodleian Library Record 3 (1950–51) 6.
Presented to the Bodleian Library by Cuthbert Ridley in 1601. The original endleaves were removed in 1923 and now form part of Bodleian MS. Lat. misc. d. 48.
MS. Bodl. 603, fols. 1–46 – part I (a)
Contents
Language(s): Latin
PL 210.269–80 (the Bodley 603 fragment begins on col. 273). The first two leaves of the quire have been lost.
8 lines
WIC 6238. Also in British Library, Cotton MS. Titus D. xxiv (see A.G. Rigg, ‘Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies (I)’, Mediaeval Studies 39 (1977), 283), where it has 32 lines, of which Mozley (p. 40) prints the first six.
BHL 164; WIC 696. Ed. J. Werner, Beiträge zur Kunde der lateinische Literatur des Mittelalters, 2nd edition (Aarau, 1905), pp. 67–74 (see Rigg, ‘Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies’, I, 284)
16 lines
BHL 8221 (with the incipit ‘Anima carissimi patris’); WIC 28.
Ed. Giles (cf. MS. Digby 166 No. 39), pp. 114–33; E. du Méril, Poésies populaires latines du moyen âge (Paris, 1847), pp. 70–93, from an Evreux MS.
Cf. WIC 1165, 1267: there are three popular versions of the epilogue, a quatrain beginning ‘Annus’ and ending ‘esse poli’, a couplet beginning ‘Annus’ and ending ‘ense Thomas’, and a couplet ‘Anno … ense Thomas’.
WIC 20857. Line 6 was left blank.
Ed. J.C. Robinson, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket (RS 67.7; London, 1885), Epistola 783, pp. 544–45, from this manuscript. In the margin of fol. 45r is the date ‘Anno M C LXXIIIº Nono Kalendas Marcij, Anno pontificatus nostri xvº'. The remainder of fol. 45v (after line 3) and the first six lines of fol. 46r are blank.
WIC 6325. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 11: in Bodley 603 only.
MS. Bodl. 603, fols. 47–118 – part I (b)
Contents
Language(s): Latin
WIC 18646 (inc. Stulti cum prudentibus). Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 4. The titles for this and succeeding poems are written vertically in the margin.
WIC 11390. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 5.
WIC 5115. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 14.
WIC 19018. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 1.
WIC 16068. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 15. Title precedes ‘Totus huius temporis'.
WIC 8902. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 3.
WIC 14838. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 2; Hilka-Schumann, Carmina Burana No. 41 (1/1.65–76). Bodley 603 has only stanzas 1–11 and 25: see No. 20 below.
WIC 7693. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 7.
WIC 2047. Ed. Strecker, Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 12. After stanza 22, Bodley 603 continues with Moralisch-Satirische Gedichte No. 2, stanzas 28–29, omitted in No. 18.
WIC 8. Each line describes the numerical equivalent of the letters of the alphabet, concurring with the list in A. Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane, 6th edn (Milan, 1973), pp. 413–21, except for K, S, and T (which are respectively 150, 7, and 150 in Bodley 603, but 151,70, and 160 in Cappelli). At the foot of fol. 61 r a contemporary hand has written ‘se protrahat uno’ (referring to K?).
WIC 15903. This is a continuous series of ten interconnected rhythmical poems on various religious and moral themes; although each poem begins with a 2-space initial, the sense is more or less continuous. The rhythms are: (i) 3 (7pp 6p) rhyming ababab; (ii)–(vii) various combinations of 8p and 6p: e.g., 4 (8p) 1 (6p) 3 (8p) 1 (6p) – 4p4p is often substituted for 8p; (viii)–(ix) 2 (8p) 1 (7p) 2 (8p) 1 (7p), rhyming aabaab or aabccb, with the substitution of 4p4p as in the preceding poems; (x) 2 or 4 (8p), rhyming in couplets or quatrains.
The first and sixth leaves are missing from quire ix: the last three lines of poem (ii) are squeezed into two lines of text, and the next leaf is missing; poem (iii) begins in the middle of a stanza; poem (x) ends in the middle of a stanza.
WIC 3912, 8535, 13854. Ed. E. Schröder, ‘Ein niederrheinischer “Contemptus Mundi" und seine Quelle’, Nachrichten von der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse (Berlin, 1910), pp. 335–74, text on pp. 346–54. The poem is usually preceded by a prologue ‘Cartula nostra tibi portat Rainalde salutem’ (WIC 2521), which was probably on the lost leaf preceding fol. 67. See also: Manitius, 3.782–83; A. Wilmart, Revue bénédictine 45 (1933) 249–54; M. Dulong, ‘Etienne Langton versificateur', Bibliothèque thomiste 14 (1930) 183–90; E. Ph. Goldschmidt, Medieval Texts and Their First Appearance in Print (Bibliographical Soc. Suppl. 16; London, 1943), pp. 29- 30. Also printed in PL 184.1308–14.
Not in Walther; unedited. Each couplet (after 1–2) may be read ‘retrograde’, and the punctuation (otherwise used in this manuscript only to indicate the caesura) shows where the couplet should stop. The double sense is also achieved by the placing of the negative particle.
WIC 11069 (Sprichwörter 14900)
WIC 16148 (Sprichwörter 25526)
WIC 2120, 16701, 1261. Ed. P. Lehmann, ‘Die mittellateinischen Dichtungen der Prioren des Tempels von Jerusalem Acardus und Gaufridus’, Corona quernea: Festgabe Karl Strecker zum 80. Geburtstage (Leipzig, 1941) = Schriften der Reichsinstituts für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 6.296–330. Lehmann’s edition (which subsumes all Walther’s references) is of book 1 only, but describes the whole work in full. Books 2 and 3 (b–d above) are continuations by Gaufridus, Acardus’ successor as prior of the Temple, and have not been edited. The Bodley 603 text may have been copied directly from MS. Laud Misc. 406 (see Rigg, p. 489).
10 lines
5 lines
12 lines
WIC 14885. Ed. J. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae Vrbis Romae 2.1 (Rome, 1888), Nos. 219–220, p. 449; M. Ihm, Anthologiae latinae supplementa: Damasi epigrammata (Leipzig, 1895), Appendix: Carmina Pseudodamasiana et alia, No. 63, pp. 66–67, and No. 1, pp. 1–3. The order in Bodley 603, which differs from that printed by De Rossi and Ihm (where ‘Psallere qui docuit’ is treated as a separate poem) follows a very old recension.
WIC 11749. PL 87.360.
WIC 19115; unique, unedited.
Fol. 118v originally blank: see Part II.
MS. Bodl. 603, fols. 119–144 – part II
Contents
Language(s): Latin
This composite poem consists of three ‘books’: 1, by Petrus Pictor; 2, by Hildebert; 3, fifteen short poems, some of which are by Hildebert. The same composite poem (which includes No. 31 below) is also found in Part II (s. xiii) of Vatican ms. Reg. lat. 270, described by A. Wilmart, Codices latini reginenses 2 (Vatican City, 1945), pp. 61–63: on the Vatican order for book 3, see below. According to Wilmart, the composite poem is also in Paris, BnF lat. 15149 and Valenciennes, Bibl. Mun. 249. The first two books have been supplied with glosses and marginal commentary, up to fol. 140r.
12 lines
WIC 16200, 13623; PL 171.1198–1212 (cf. 1193); Scott, MARS, pp. 76–77.
12 lines
WIC 1299; Hildeberti Cenomannensis episcopi carmina minora, ed. A. B. Scott (Leipzig, 1969), 39 I 7–8.
WIC 2061; Hildeberti Cenomannensis episcopi carmina minora 39 I (omitting 7–8 = a).
WIC 8479; Hildeberti Cenomannensis episcopi carmina minora 3911.
Not in Walther: a 4-line introductory stanza in Goliardic metre.
Not in Walther.
WIC 19311; Hildeberti Cenomannensis episcopi carmina minora 45; M. Hammond, ‘Notes on Some Poems of Hildebert in a Harvard Manuscript (MS Riant 36)’, Speculum 7 (1932), 533–34.
Not in Walther.
WIC 9015; Hildeberti Cenomannensis episcopi carmina minora 21; Hammond, ‘Poems’, 533–34.
The order in Vat. Reg. lat. 270 is: a–i, o, No. 31, j.
WIC 17100a; see Vat. Reg. lat. 270 (No. 30 above).
Additional Information
Record Sources
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2021-10-21: Andrew Dunning Revised description with consultation of original.