MS. Ashmole 396
Summary Catalogue no.: 6884
Composite manual of prognostic, astrological, and moral texts in two parts - xv; English
Physical Description
Binding
Late seventeenth-century calf binding over pasteboards, typical of Elias Ashmole's style. The edges of both boards are decorated with concentric tool framing. There are two clasps anchored to the upper board with three pins, on leather fore-edge flaps which are reinforced with parchment. Each clasp contains Ashmole's coat of arms. The facing catch plates are anchored to the lower board with three pins. The board edges are tooled with a repeating zig-zag pattern, also typical of Ashmole's bindings. The sewing supports are laced into the boards using shortened single-hole lacing without channels.
The spine shows five raised sewing supports covering thick cords, without end bands. The binding has been rebacked since entering the Bodleian's collection, and only the second spine panel (containing Ashmole's coat of arms with gold tooling around the margins) remains, now adhered to the spine covering in the same place. The spine is now covered in a separate piece of leather from the boards, of the same colour, that extends under the board-covers. The panels on the spine are decorated with the same style of concentric tool framing as the boards. The shelf mark ‘ASH. 396’ is embossed on the third spine panel, in a typeset that is similar, but not identical, to Ashmole's typeset (varying in the height of letters and thickness of vertical strokes in characters ‘A’ and ‘9’). The signature ‘W 2.2.57’ is recorded on the inside of the lower board, the date of rebacking and initial of the bookbinder.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
The two composite parts were likely joined together soon after their production, as a single set of medieval leaf signatures is visible across all three parts.
The composite parts were likely bound with the recycled end leaf by Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), who is responsible for the current binding of the manuscript. This selection was likely made based on the size of the codicological units, rather than the relevance of their content.
Ashmole collected astrological material, especially treatises with tables of lunar phases or relating to the zodiac, such as MS Ashmole 6, 8, 186, 188, 191, etc.
Ashmole bequeathed the manuscript in its current condition to the Ashmolean Museum in 1692, in one volume, as part of his donation of 1,100 printed books and 600 manuscripts.
The manuscript was kept in the Ashmolean until 1860, when the collection was transferred to the Bodleian Library.
MS. Ashmole 396 - end leaves (i)
Contents
Language(s): English
The front flyleaf of the volume is a recycled parchment indenture dated 1608. It relates to a William Treng… of London and Robert Danvers, gentleman, and describes an agreement which has passed down from Danvers father, William Danvers. It relates to lands called Lavermore and Maidenheth in Cookham, Berkshire, and the Manor of Ives. (See Key, The history and antiquities of the hundred of Bray, in the county of Berks.)
Physical Description
History
Provenance
Owned by Elias Ashmole (1617–1692). In volume 3 of his Antiquities of Berkshire, Ashmole records that the estate of the manor of Ives includes these lands (p. 80, 1719) - this indenture is possibly his source for this information. It is unclear when this flyleaf was added to the volume, but it was certainly before 1692.
MS. Ashmole 396 || Part A || (fols. 1r-56v; 70r-203v)
Secreta secretorum and a collection of arithmetic, prognostic, astrological, and moral texts, xv3-4.
Contents
Refered to as ‘Ashmole’ in Manzalaoui's 1977 study.
This copy opens with list of chapters, akin to a table of contents, on folios 2r-3r, with alternating red and blue initials. Thereafter chapters are signalled with a three-line blue lombard with red flourishes and a rubricated title, matching the table of contents.
Printed from this manuscript in Mahmoud Manzalaoui, Secretum Secretorum: Nine English Versions, Early English Text Society o.s. 276 (Oxford: OUP for EETS, 1977), pp.18-113.
IPMEP 63
English translation of the Algorismus communis by Johannes de Sacro Bosco. Edited from this manuscript in ‘The Art of Nombrynge’, The Earliest Arithmetics in English, ed. Robert Steele (1922).
IPMEP 115.
Table of numbers from one to nine hundred thousand thousand, in arabic and roman numerals.
Incomplete, lacking the last leaf which contained the end of the twelfth hour. The text is divided into twelve parts, each representing an hour. Translates excerpts from John of Seville's Latin version of Albumasar's Great Introduction to the Science of Astrology
A later but near contemporary hand has numbered the paragraphs of the text from 1 to 147.
IMEP IX.
Imperfect, lacking at least one leaf at the end of the text. The text is divided into seven parts with large rubricated headings in a more ornate display script. The headings are ‘Sanguinnius’, ‘Flemnaticus’, ‘Melancolicus’, ‘Colera rubia’, ‘Sanguinneus niger’, and the final heading ‘Alle the 3 signes that ben of oone | accordaunce thei maken oon triplicitee’.
IMEP IX.
Ends imperfectly at the end of a quire.
A note on the zodiac signs that are in trine with each other.
This text is in a different hand to the previous and following texts, although the rubrication appears consistent with the preceding text. IMEP considers this a different text, unlike Black's catalogue.
IMEP IX.
The only known Middle English translation of Ashendon's Summa de accidentibus mundi. The text establishes the qualities and natures of the planets and zodiac signs through which accidents are determined (in four chapters, fols. 92r-100v), followed by an electionary (101r-125v). It is split into seventeen parts with three-line blue lombardic capitols with red flourishes, occasionally accompanied by a rubric (see ‘Decoration’). The second part contains nine integrated tables and one full-page table (fol. 109r). The same hand as item 8 has numbered the paragraphs and tables from 1-29. On this text in MS Ashmole 396, see Means (1992).
IMEP IX.
The text opens with the debate over the precise start of calculations, either from conception or birth. A translation of books III and IV of Ptolomy's Quadripartitum.
The same hand as items 8 and 11 has numbered the paragraphs from 1-156. On this text in MS Ashmole 396, see Means (1992).
IMEP IX.
Four full-page tables listing the stars, their positions, longitudes, and planetary characters with the symbols of the zodiac. The same hand as items 7, 10, and 11 has numbered the margins from 1-10.
IMEP IX.
Middle English translation of De intentionibus secretorum, lacking the preface.
IMEP IX.
The mansions relate to the position of the moon as it circles the Earth. This text presents twenty eight mansions, each with a rubricated heading and a note on the properties of each mansion.
IMEP IX.
Covering the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.
IMEP IX.
A series of tables on various topics. The last two pages contain the nine distinctions.
IMEP IX.
Physical Description
Collation
Second half, folios 70-203: 1-28 (fols. 70-85), 310-3 (fols. 86-91, fourth and seventh leaves excised with loss of text, sixth leaf excised without loss of text), 4-78 (fols. 92-123), 86 (fols. 124-129), 9-118 (fols. 130-153), 126 (fols. 154-159), 13-168 (fols. 160-190), 174-2 (fols. 191-192, third and fourth excised without loss of text), 1814-3 (fols. 193-203, third and fifth folios excised and fourteenth folio mostly excised, all without loss of text). Catchwords present in quires 4-16, in decorated scrolls or frames, and otherwise absent. Leaf signatures visible in quires 1, 3, 4, 8, 12, and 15, continuing the sequence from the first half of composite part | A | and from composite part | B |.
Condition
Layout
One column of prose throughout. Between 30 and 32 lines per page for scribe 1, between 32 and 33 for scribe 2, and 28 for scribe 3. Frame ruling only. Glosses to item 1 are written outside of the frame, unruled. Written space: 205 × 145 mm.
Hand(s)
In the first half, fols. 1-56: one hand, writing in a neat secretary script with typical single-compartment a, short r sitting above the line, kidney-shaped s, and g with its head closed by a separate line and its open tail curling to the left.
In the second half, fols. 70-203: for the majority of the codicological unit, the hand is the same as the first half of the codicological unit. Scribe 2 appears only on fols. 89v-91r to copy part of item 7 Treatise on the four humours. This hand writes in a more compact secretary with distinctive thick downstrokes on the letters f and long s. Scribe 3 appears only on folio 91v to copy item 8, Notes on the zodiac signs. This hand writes in a smaller and more ornate secretary script with more broken strokes, and underlines the zodiac lines in red. This text is corrected by Scribe 1.
Decoration
Item 1, Secreta secretorum, opens with a four-line illuminated initial on a red and blue ground with white detailing, with spraywork extending along the horizontal and down the vertical margin (fol. 1r). The rubric for this item is rubricated. The table of contents on folios 2r-3r opens with a three-line blue lombard with red flourishes, and each item begins with an alternating red and blue initial. Each chapter thereafter opens with a similar three line blue lombard with red flourishes and a rubricated running title. Top line ascenders are occasionally flourished throughout the text.
Item 2 (Treatise on arithmetic) opens with the same style of blue lombard with red flourishes of between three and four lines; thereafter three-line initials of the same style appear throughout the text at moments of textual division, sometimes accompanied by a rubricated running title.
Tables in item 2 are rubricated and drawn in-line with the text.
In the second half: Items 6 (Astrological treatise on the effect of eclipses), 9 (Middle English translation of Summa de accidentibus mundi), 10 (Treatise on the judgement of nativities), and 12 (Treatise on the judgement of horary questions) open with blue lombards with red flourishes of between three and four lines; thereafter three-line initials of the same style appear throughout the texts at moments of textual division, sometimes accompanied by a rubricated running title.
A list of definitions in item 6, Astrological treatise on the effect of eclipses, is demarcated by a row of alternating lombardic initials in red and blue (fols. 75v-76r). The same style of initials appear in the following discussion of the twelve hours, and occasionally in item 16.
Item 7, Treatise on the four humours, opens with a three-line gap for an initial ‘a’ that has not been executed (fol. 89r). The first five sections open with similar gaps for unexecuted initials, though the rubricated running titles have been added.
Tables in items 9 (Middle English translation of Summa de accidentibus mundi) and 16 (Treatise on Ptolemy, Plato, and Pythagoras) are drawn in the same dark ink as the main text.
A three-line initial is missing from the opening to item 13, Treatise on the mansions of the moon (193r). The ascender of the first initial on folio 193v is flourished and decorated.
Item 16 opens with a two line initial in the same ink as the main text, possibly added later (fol. 200r). The text alternates between prose and tables with some rubricated items.
See Pächt and Alexander iii. 980.
The same hand annotates the explanatory text of item 6, with a note on the meridian of Oxford (fol. 68v); item 8, with a note on Aschenden's book (fol. 93r); and item 9, with a note ‘de matromonius’ (fol. 152v) and others.
Chapter numbering throughout both halves of composite part | A |, in the outer margins of the page and in a pale ink, perhaps medieval due to the numerals used.
History
Provenance
Ownership before Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) unknown. The handwriting of the marginal annotations in this first composite part may be by Ashmole, when he owned the volume before 1692. For samples of Ashmole's writing, see e.g. MS. Rawl. D. 864, fols 201r–201v; and MS. Ashmole 1790, fol. 68v.
An erased inscription on folio 203v (illegible under UV) may have been an ownership mark.
MS. Ashmole 396 || Part B ||
Planetary tables and explanatory notes, xv1-2.
Contents
The first leaf, containing the day-part of January, is missing. The surviving material comprises 23 tables showing when each planet begins its dominion, day and night, for every month of the year.
The tables are followed by an explanatory text or canon on folios 68v-69r which explains that ‘This table is ordeyned for þe meridian of Oxenford . where þe moder of v(er)tues haþe ordeyned hir to dwelle & to teche her chosen childer in what man(er) þe .7. sciens buddis & flowris to brynge forþ þe frutes of vertu’, and which gives the 13 June 1429 as an example.
IMEP IX.
Physical Description
Collation
Condition
Layout
Ruled for 40 lines of text. Tables written space: 205 × 150 mm. Explanatory text in a single column, written space: 205 × 150 mm.
Hand(s)
One hand for both the tables and explanatory notes, in a neat anglicana formata. Notable features are the two-compartment a, anglicana w, and zetoid r.
Decoration
The explanatory text of item 1, Planetary tables, opens with an eight-line blue lombard with red flourishes that extend up and down the vertical margin (fol. 57r). The text is divided thereafter by alternating paraphs in red and blue, with a singular two-line blue lombard. Blue scrolling line fillers appear at the end of the text.
See Pächt and Alexander iii. 980.
The blank folio 69v has been annotated in a sixteenth century hand with a note in Latin on the astrological date and time of the birth of the son of Lord John Zowche on 10 December 1564 (see ‘Provenance’).
A late fifteenth or early sixteenth century hand annotates item 9 with a single note ‘of tresor hid’ (fol. 123v) and item 5 with eleven notes, for instance to the ‘authour of this booke’ (fol. 180r), ‘de maritis’ (fol. 181r), and ‘who ther on shall be ryche or no’ (fol. 181v). The same hand leaves one note in items 12 (fol. 191r) and 13 (fol. 193r-v), and throughout item 8.
Calculations are made in the margins of folios 53r, and on the stub after folio 103.
Erased and smudged annotations on folio 147v.
A later hand has copied part of the indenture from the front flyleaf onto the back flyleaf.
History
Provenance
The name ‘Robert Bacown’ is recorded in the margin of fol. 65v.
This composite part was possibly in the possession of Sir John Zouche, or someone related to him, in the mid sixteenth century. The blank folio 69v has been annotated in a sixteenth century hand with a note in Latin on the astrological date and time of the birth of the son of Lord John Zowche on 10 December 1564. This likely refers to John Zouche of Codnor, Derbyshire (1564-1610), who was Justice of the Peace for Derbyshire by 1594-5. He was the son of Sir John Zouche II of Codnor, Derbyshire (1534-86). His will of 1585 does not mention and item that resembles this codicological unit (TNA PROB 11/68/364).
As with composite part | A |, a seventeenth century hand, perhaps belonging to Elias Ashmole, has annotated the explanatory notes on folio 68v.
Additional Information
Record Sources
Printed descriptions:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2024-10-25: Charlotte Ross Revised with consultation of original.