MS. Ashmole 1282

Summary Catalogue no.: 8219

Portable Psalter; England, North (?); 13th century, end

Fols. i–ix are blank paper fly-leaves.

[item 1 occupies quire I]

1. (fols. 1r–6v)

Calendar, written in red, with major feasts in blue, laid out one month per page, not graded, approximately two-thirds full, with some additions and erasures. Includes Cuthbert (20 March) in blue and his translation in red (4 September), Richard of Chichester (3 April), Dunstan (19 May), Botulph (17 June), Augustine ‘magni doctoris et episcopi’ (27 August) and Edmund Rich (15 November) in blue. Also includes the feasts of Werburg (3 February), Milburga (23 February), Oswald, archbishop of York (29 February), Benedict (21 March) and his translation (11 July), Elphege (19 April), the translation of Edmund Rich (‘cantuar. Archiepi.’, 9 June), Etheldreda (23 June), Kenelm (17 July), Oswald (5 August) and Frideswide (19 October), all in red. Additions in at least four different 14th-century hands, including: Gregory (23 April), Wilfrid (24 April), the Visitation (2 July), Anne (26 July), Cosmas and Damian (6 September) and Francis (4 October, ‘Sancti francisci de ordine Minorum ffratrum’). Erasure (of an obit?) at 14 June. The feasts of Thomas Becket and the titles ‘pape’ are erased. Some months are headed by the verses on the ‘Egyptian’ days which correspond partly to Hennig’s (1955) set I and partly to set III.

[items 2–5 occupy quires II–XVIII]

2. (fols. 7r–174r)

Psalms [1]–150, imperfect at the beginning (starting at 2: 2), in the biblical order, without titles, written with each verse beginning on new line. The numbers of some psalms are added in a post-medieval hand. The following text is also missing owing to the loss of leaves:

– one leaf missing after fol. 37 (missing text 26: 1–7);
– one leaf missing after fol. 55 (missing text 37: 18–38: 5);
– two leaves missing after fol. 70 (missing text 50: 18–53: 5);
– one leaf missing after fol. 84 (missing text 67: 25–68: 3);
– one leaf missing after fol. 96 (missing text 77: 6–20);
– one leaf missing after fol. 101 (missing text 79: 10–80: 5);
– one leaf missing after fol. 105 (missing text 84: 13–85: 14);
– one leaf missing after fol. 117 (missing text 96: 2–97: 2);
– one leaf missing after fol. 119 (missing text 100: 1–101: 5);
– one leaf missing after fol. 128 (missing text 105: 3–18);
– one leaf missing after fol. 136 (missing text 109: 1–110: 5).

Punctuated throughout with punctus used to mark the ends of verses, and punctus elevatus used to mark metrum and minor pauses. A larger initial, indicating a textual division, survives only at psalm 101; originally there probably were decorated initials at psalms 26, 38, 51, 52, 68, 80, 97 and 109. Subdivisions within psalms are not indicated, apart from psalm 118, subdivided into twenty-two 8-verse units. Contains corrections in contemporary hands, e.g. fols. 77r, 78r, 138r.

3. (fols. 174r–183v)

Weekly canticles, without titles:

(1) Confitebor tibi domine (Isaiah 12);
(2) Ego dixi (Isaiah 38: 10–21);
(3) Exultauit cor meum (1 Samuel 2: 1–11);
(4) Cantemus domino (Exodus 15: 1–20), missing verses 14–end;
(5) Domine audiui (Habakkuk 3), missing verses 1–5;
(6) Audite celi (Deuteronomy 32: 1–44).

Canticles 4 and 5 are imperfect because of the loss of a leaf after fol. 177.

4. (fols. 183v–189v)

Daily canticles, prayers and creeds, without titles:

(1) Benedicite omnia opera (fol. 183v);
(2) Benedictus dominus deus (fol. 184v);
(3) Magnificat (fol. 185r);
(4) Nunc dimittis (fol. 185v);
(5) Te deum laudamus (fol. 186r);
(6) Athanasian Creed (Quicumque uult ...) (fol. 187r).

5. (fols. 189v–192r)

Litany, includes Alban, Oswald (‘Oseuualde’), Oswin (‘Osewine’), Edmund, Edward, Kenelm and Elphege among the martyrs; Benedict, Cuthbert, William (of York (?)) and John of Beverley among the confessors; and Hilda, Brigid (of Kildare (?)) and Amanda (last) among the virgins. Thomas Becket is erased. Followed by collects (fols. 192r–193v):

(1) Deus cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere suscipe ...
(2) Ecclesie tue domine quesumus preces placatus admitte ut destructis ...
(3) Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui facis mirabilia magna solus ...
(4) Pretende domine famulis et famulabus tuis dexteram celestis auxilii ut de toto corde ...
(5) Deus a quo sancta desideria recta consilia iusta sunt ...
(6) A domo tua quesumus domine spirituales nequitie repellantur et aeriarum discendat malignitas tempestatum ...
(7) Adesto domine supplicationibus nostris et uiam famulorum tuorum in salutis tue ...
(8) Animabus quesumus domine famulorum famularumque tuarum oracio proficiat supplicancium ut eas ...
(9) Deus qui es sanctorum tuorum splendor mirabilis atque lapsorum subleuator ...

Draft musical notation on fol. 193v. Fols. i–x are blank paper fly-leaves.

Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: Astiterunt reges (psalter, fol. 7r)

Secundo Folio: In autem domine (psalter, fol. 8r)

Form: codex

Support: parchment; paper fly-leaves

Extent: 213 leaves

Dimensions (leaf): c. 165 × 110 mm.

Foliation: modern, in pencil; i–ix + 1–68 + 69a + 69b + 70–128 + 129 (unnumbered stub) + 130–193 + i–x.

Collation

Layout

Ruled in plummet with single vertical and double horizontal bounding lines extending the full height and width of page; further sets of double bounding lines in all margins and single bounding lines in the outer and lower margins; written below the top line; 18 lines per page; written space: c. 95 × 65 mm.

Hand(s)

Formal Gothic book hand; dark brown ink.

Musical Notation:

Draft musical notation on fol. 193v.

Decoration

Blue KL monograms with red and blue penwork in the calendar.

Illuminated initials at liturgical divisions are all cut out apart from the partly damaged initial D(omine) (psalm 101) on fol. 120r. The initial is in a square frame, on gold background, decorated with tendrils and foliage. A dragon’s body with the head biting the initial forms the tail of D and part of foliate decorations extending into the left and lower margins.

Partial border, fol. 120r, see above.

2-line blue initials with red and blue penwork at the beginnings of psalms, canticles, litany and prayers.

1-line alternating red and blue initials with contrasting blue or red penwork at the beginnings of verses.

Penwork line-endings in red and blue.

Binding

Brown leather over pasteboard, 18th century (?). Double blind fillet lines round the outer edge of covers, and approximately 30 mm from the spine. Rebacked at the Bodleian with the original spine relaid. Four raised bands on spine; the second compartment stamped in gilt with a wreath enclosing a coat of arms of Elias Ashmole (quartered, single fleur-de-lis in the upper left corner). Gilt lettering on spine ‘Ash: || 1282’. Laid paper pastedowns and fly-leaves.

History

Origin: 13th century, end ; England, North (?)

Provenance and Acquisition

Saints venerated in the north of England in the calendar and litany. Localized to Chester by Morgan (1988), but Werburgh is absent from the litany (cf. the litany of MS. Tanner 169*, where she is invoked twice and is the third among the virgins after Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt) and is not particularly prominent in the calendar (only one feast is included and it is in red, whereas most major feasts are in blue; cf. MS. Tanner 169*). Localized to Chichester by van Dijk (1958), because of the prominence of Richard of Chichester in the calendar, whose feast is in blue, but Richard of Chichester is not in the litany.

Motto (?), ‘Nemo sine crimine vivit’, added in a post-medieval hand (fol. 96v).

Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), see ODNB.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: donated by Ashmole to Oxford University in 1677.

Bodleian Library: transferred from the Ashmolean Museum in 1860.

Record Sources

Adapted (March 2024) from Elizabeth Solopova, Latin Liturgical Psalters in the Bodleian Library: A Select Catalogue (Oxford, 2013), pp. 120–4. Previously described in the Quarto Catalogue (W. H. Black, A descriptive, analytical, and critical catalogue of the manuscripts bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole Esq...., Quarto Catalogues X, 1845).

Quarto Catalogue, col. 1043

Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 2, p. 1154

Bibliography

Select bibliography to 1988:

Black, W. H., A descriptive, analytical, and critical catalogue of the manuscripts bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., Windsor Herald, also of some additional MSS. contributed by Kingsley, Lhuyd, Borlase, and others (Oxford, 1845), col. 1043.

Frere, no. 452

S. J. P. van Dijk, Latin Liturgical Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol. 2: Office Books (typescript, 1957), p. 49

Pächt and Alexander (1966–73), vol. 3, no. 500.

Morgan (1982–88), vol. 2, p. 177.

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2024-03: Adapt full description from Solopova.

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