MS. Bodl. 738
Summary Catalogue no.: 2731
Nicholas Trevet on the Psalms
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Lemma: In psalt(er)io decacordo psallam t(ib)i ps(alm)o .cxliij.
Portions of textus , in larger script, alternate with the commentary within a column. In the commentary the textus is referred to by lemmata, underlined in the same ink.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
342 (28+239+75) × 220 (28+65+13+63+51), written lines: 15 ( textus ) + 20 (comm.) in col. a, 42 (comm. alone) in col. b (fol. 31r, central bifolium of the quire III). Ruling in lead point, barely visible. Text begins below topline. As the textus in larger script alternates with the commentary, the number of written lines varies from column to column. It seems that the pages were provided with a constant ruling for lines (5 mm apart), while the sections of a column destined to host the textus were provided with additional ruling running through the middle of the space determined by standard ruling (see fol. 68vb). Two columns.
Hand(s)
Northern littera textualis by one hand. The use of straight d, alongside the round-backed form, decreases the probability that the copy was written later than the 1320s. Manuscripts described and reproduced in Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, shows that the straight d, still found during the first three decades of the fourteenth century, becomes very rare afterwards (as an example of its late, and apparently already sporadic use, see London, British Library, Royal MS 10 E. iv (c. 1330–c. 1340), fol. 3r, l. 8, ‘edificandis’ (vol. 1, il. 258, cf. vol. 2, catalogue, No. 101, pp. 111–12).
Decoration
All major divisions of the text (dedicatory letter, prologue, Jerome’s letter, and individual psalms) are marked by painted initials, in gold and colours, and provided with painted marginal extensions in the form of blue and rose bars, decorated with ivy and oak leaves, squiggles and drolleries. Two are historiated initials: R(euerendo), fol. 1ra, represents a Dominican friar, with an open book on a lectern, teaching a group of three students, apparently also Dominicans; B(eatus), fol. 4vb, represents King David playing a harp. Other initials present human busts, en face , en trois quarts , or profiles, mostly male, bearded or beardless, sometimes distinguished by a halo (if cruciform then to be identified with Christ, see e.g. D(ixit), fol. 24va), royal crown (e.g. Q(uare), fol. 6ra), papal tiara (e.g. C(ustodi), fol. 26rb), bishop’s mitre (e.g. D(ixi), fol. 71va), or doctor’s cap (e.g. D(omini), fol. 45ra: see M. Scott, Medieval Dress and Fashion, London, 2007, pp. 84–85, 116, and fig. 66); rarely female (L(audate), fol. 201ra, C(um), fol. 201va: Evans, Pattern, seems to be the only one to have noticed this gallery). Other painted initials include only floral or geometric motifs.
Minor divisions are marked by red initials with violet flourishing or blue with red. Psalm 150 (fol. 250ra–va) is illustrated with representations of musical instruments. Apart from the two forms of tuba , put into the mouths of fantastic creatures (fol. 250ra), the other six are presented as being played by human figures, in square vignettes within text-columns.
Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander date this manuscript to c . 1320–1330 and attribute its decoration to ‘one of the hands of Christ Church, Oxford, MS. 92’. The latter is a presentation copy of Walter of Milemete’s Liber de nobilitatibus, sapientiis et prudentiis regum, prepared for Edward of Windsor, son and heir of Edward II. It is probable that the production of that manuscript had begun before the deposition of Edward II, but it was dedicated to his son as King Edward (III) at the beginning of his reign (crowned on 1 February 1327). MS. Bodl. 738 is therefore usually dated to the turn of 1326 and 1327. The illumination (unfinished) has been attributed to a group of artists working in London. Regrettably, Pächt and Alexander did not specify which of the artists was responsible for the decoration of the manuscript (the faces, at least, resemble those by Hand V in Milemete’s manuscript), or whether the entire decoration was done entirely by the same artist. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, vol. 2, No. 84 (pp. 91–93) identifies Hand V with the major artist responsible for the manuscripts Oxford, All Souls College, 7 (ibid., No. 90, pp. 89–90) and Dublin, Trinity College, 35 (ibid., No. 83, pp. 90–91). In a letter of 8 March 2020, Lucy Sandler defined the style of the manuscript as ‘East Anglian’, which does not necessarily mean that it was produced in East Anglia instead of a cosmopolitan London (cf. M. A. Michael, ‘Oxford, Cambridge and London: towards a theory for ‘grouping’ Gothic manuscripts’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 130, No. 1019, Special Issue on English Gothic Art (February 1988), pp. 107–15). It is worth adding also that the representations of the harp, the bagpipe, and the organs in the manuscript share some details with images of the respective instruments in Christ Church MS 92. Besides the companion volume of Milemete’s treatise (London, British Library, Add. MS 47680, the pseudo -Aristotelian Secretum secretorum, also destined for Edward III) and MS. Bodl. 738, the same artists, together or separately, have been recognized in a number of manuscripts datable to the third decade of the fourteenth century, some of which are associated with Oxford. (M. A. Michael, ‘Urban production of manuscript books and the role of the university towns’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 2: 1100–1400, ed. by N. J. Morgan, R. M. Thomson, Cambridge, 2008, pp. 168–94, at 180–83.) The use of violet ink in the penwork decoration does not contradict the localization based on the painted decoration. The manuscript awaits a detailed art-historical analysis.
Two layers of later glosses:
- Annotations by Grandission (see below, Provenance).
- A second set of annotations in a small, basically Anglicana glossing script, which Steele erroneously attributes to Grandisson; they are written later than those that are certainly Grandisson’s. They point to different emphases in commentary, such as ‘parabola’ (the outer margin of fol. 27r), ‘historia’ (the outer margins of fols 37r and 37v); spiritual topics (the outer margins of fols 1v, 101r, 155v, 171v, and 182r; the inner margin of fol. 197r, the outer margin of fol. 246r), natural phenomena (the outer margin of fols 45r, 179r–v, 180v, and 248v); definitions of figures of speech (the inner margin of fol. 66v); or names (‘Rabimosse’, the outer margin of fol. 177v).
Binding
Stamped white sheepskin (about 1602) on older sewing and boards, rebacked.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
John Grandison, bishop of Exeter: bequeathed to the Exeter chapter in 1365. Two notes written in Grandisson’s hand witness the donation. The first reads: ‘lib(er) J⟨ohannis⟩ de G⟨randison⟩. Exon’. Ep(iscop)i. que(m) dam(us) ip(s)i ecc(lesi)e’ (fol. 1r, upper margin). The second appears on the old flyleaf (fol. IV verso): ‘hu(n)c libru(m). cu(m) alio⹎ sup(er) psalt(er)iu(m). Scilicet. Nich(ola)i Tryueth: et aliu(m). Nich(ola)i de Lyra⹎ dam(us) cap(itu)lo n(ost)ro Exoniensi; manu mea .J. de .G. Exon’. Anno d(omi) ni mºcccºlxºvº. et officij mei .xxxºixº et etatis lºxxiiijº [the number repeated below as] septuag(esim)o. iiijº [a capite, with another pen] Et atte(n) de q(uod) s(e)c(un)d(u)m int(er)p(re)tat(i)o(ne)m lxx. exponitur no(n) iuxta textu(m) n(ost)r(u)m. [a capite, in yet another pen] Ego Joh(ann)es de .G. Exon’. †noui† [nouim Steele, 34] vtru(m)q(ue) [ a capite ] N(ota) Nicholau(m) [the following part is displayed on two levels] de lyra Minore(m) | et Tryueth p(re)di(ca) t(orem) | fr(atr)es.’ The problematic reading ‘noui’ has a diacritic sign above ‘i’ and rising abbreviation sign above ‘ui’. Steele’s reading offers a non-existent form. The word could be expanded as ‘nou(er)i(m)’, but then the use of the subjunctive would require explanation. Did Grandisson express a wish to know (or rather have known) both authors? As an alternative but not entirely satisfactory reading, Kujawiński proposes ‘no(mina) ui’, in the sense of ‘render renowned’. If, instead, the names of Lyre and Trevet referred to the bequeathed copies of their works rather than to the person of the authors, our word could be expanded as ‘no(ta)ui’, albeit a superscript cursive ‘a’ as a contraction would have been more in line with Grandisson’s writing habits. Despite this apparent irregularity, the reading ‘notaui’, which has been ingeniously suggested to me by James Willoughby, offers the best meaning: the bishop claims responsibility for the annotations in both books. The bequest is also confirmed by Grandisson’s will (1368): ‘Ita, tamen, quod Scripta Nicholai de Lira et Nicholai Tryvethe super Spalterium[sic], una cum melioribus originalibus que non habentur in libraria Ecclesie Exoniensis, remaneant ibidem in Archivis’. (The Register of John de Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1327–1369), ed. by F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, 3 vols, London, 1894, vol. 3, p. 1553; cf. Oliver, Lives of the Bishops, pp. 448–49; in the forthcoming Willoughby, Ramsay, Libraries of the Secular Cathedrals, SC21.17.) The glosses added by Grandisson are written in the same display script and indicate the first psalms sung at Matins of each day of the week and at Vespers on Sunday, according to secular usage. The annotations provide the day, liturgical hour, often repeated in different positions, and are sometimes accompanied by the incipit of the psalm; the respective folios are tagged by strings sewn into the margins:
- Feria II, Nocturnum II (Ps. 26, fol. 49va);
- Feria III, Nocturnum III (Ps. 38, fol. 71va);
- Feria IIII, Nocturnum IIII (Ps. 52, fol. 96ra);
- Feria V, Nocturnum V (Ps. 68, fol. 118rb);
- Feria VI, Sextum Nocturnum (Ps. 80, fol. 145ra);
- Nocturnum VII Sabbato (Ps. 97, fol. 171ra);
- Ad vesperas in dominicis (Ps. 109, fol. 197va).
Exeter, Devon, Cathedral church of St Peter. Registered in the library inventory of 1506 of Exeter cathedral among the books of ‘Decimus descus’, ‘in parte orientali’: ‘Glosa super Psalterium in exposicione literali Nicholai Treneth[sic], 2 fo., Quia ternarius’. (Oliver, Lives of the Bishops of Exeter, p. 373; Willoughby and Ramsay, Libraries of the Secular Cathedrals, SC35.519.)
The manuscript was presented to Sir Thomas Bodley by the Dean and Chapter of Exeter in 1602. (Oliver, Lives of the Bishops of Exeter, p. 377; cf. Erskine, ‘The growth of Exeter Cathedral library’, p. 49.)
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (3 images from 35mm slides)
Bibliography
Online resources:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2024-04-08: Andrew Dunning adapted new description by Jakub Kujawiński.