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MS. Bodl. 862

Summary Catalogue no.: 2730

Contents

Psalter with gloss
Incipit: (prologue) Dauid rex Hebreorum librum Psalmorum composuit prophetans de Christo

The text, differing in some respect from the usual gloss, is catalogued in Stegmüller, Bibl. 4839 as by John of Pagham (but see below, Provenance).

Former endleaves containing music now kept as MS. Lat. liturg. d. 20, fols. 23–25.

Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: 2 + 202 + 1 medieval folios
Dimensions (leaf): 288 × 195 mm.

Layout

3 cols., column space c. 150 × 190 mm.

Hand(s)

Gloss and text in different hands: the former regarded by Thomson as French, the latter as English (R. Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066–1235 (1982), I.96).

Decoration

Fine initials. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 228, pl. XXIII) Attributed to the Simon Master (Thomson, op. cit.).

Coloured initials.

Rubrics

Binding

Boards, period 3 (c. 1230–1500), covered with black velvet (16th century) with brass clasp and corner pieces.

History

Origin: 12th century, second half (before 1157 (?)) ; English, Worcester (?)

Provenance and Acquisition

‘psalterium Johannis de pagah(am) ’, fol. v, 12th century (Watson) or c. 1300 (Pächt and Alexander): identified by Watson and others as John de Pagham, bishop of Worcester 1151–7, although some scholars have rejected the identification and argued for a later date for the manuscript (Carley, ‘Sir Thomas Bodley's library and its acquisitions’, 371; cf. Ker, MLGB).

Worcester Cathedral Priory: 14th-century Worcester litany, fols. 201v-202v.

Worcester Cathedral Priory: ‘Liber monasterij Wygnorie’, fol. 1, fifteenth century (Watson) or sixteenth century (Ker, MLGB).

Henry VIII: evidence of the binding.

Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham.

Presented by him in 1604.

Record Sources

Description adapted (May 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. 120 [physical description, origin, provenance]
Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford , III (1973), no. 228 [decoration]
Summary Catalogue (1922) [contents, acquisition]
Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 1, p. 518

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (5 images from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2019-05-10: Revised to incorporate all information in Watson, SC and Pächt and Alexander.