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

MS. Bodl. 940

Summary Catalogue no.: 27692

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1. (fol. 3)
Register of writs

Collected under 118 headings. The first are ‘De recto’, ‘De recto de rationabili parte’, the last is ‘De forma donacionis’

‘Kalendarium’ added, 15th century, fol. 230v.

2. (fol. 123)
Statutes of England (statuta vetera)

Magna Charta, de Foresta, de Merton, de Marlebergh, first of Westminster, de Gloucester, with Explanaciones, second of Westminster.

Lists of chapters at fols. 1, 226v.

3. (fol. 202v)
Statutes of England (statuta vetera)

A collection of fourteen minor statutes, beginning with the 'Statutum de Medijs' (Quia emptores), Quia fines, De religiosis, Circumspecte agatis: and followed by the Statutum Wynton (fol. 221v) and 'Officium coronatoris' (fol. 224v).

On a fly-leaf, notes of (1) a complaint by John de Arundel, warden of the royal chapel of Tickhill, about a raid on the tithes of Harworth made by men from Nostell Priory (?1326); (2) weights and measures.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: ii + 2 + 230 + 2 fols.
Dimensions (leaf): 187 × 120 mm.

Layout

1 col., 27 lines, written space 140 × 75 mm.

Decoration

Good penwork initials. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 613)

Pen sketches added, 15th century. (Pächt and Alexander)

Rubrics.

Binding

Blind-stamped leather over pasteboards, Oxford, late 16th or early 17th century.

Roll with initials ‘N.S.’: Oldham, Panels, MWa

History

Origin: 14th century, second quarter (after 1310); added decoration, 15th century ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

The first writ is dated 1310 (not here dated, but cf. texts in MS. Rawl. C. 246 and MS. Rawl. C. 310).

‘Johannes Paston est verus possessor istius libri’ in mirror writing; ‘Johannes Paston’; fol. i, 15th century: John Paston I, d. 1466 (cf. C. Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century II: Fastolf's Will (1996), p. 29).

Cursson’ Gregorius dominatur codicus huius’, fol. 232v, early 16th century.

Presented in 1736 by Nathaniel Crynes M.A. of St John's College, Oxford.

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. 123 [physical description, origin]
Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, III (1973), no. 613 [decoration, date]
Summary Catalogue (1905) [contents, acquisition]

Last Substantive Revision

2024-09: Include fuller details of statutes from Summary Catalogue.