Christ Church MS. 99
Historical miscellanies, including Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, the Secreta secretorum etc; Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio; England, s. xiiiex (I); s. xiii / xiv (II); s. xivin (III); s. xiv2/4 (IV); s. xiiiin (V)
Physical Description
Collation
Binding
White leather over wood, the leather much torn, s. xiv. Sewn on four thongs taken straight into the board, as in Pollard’s Figure 4. Four grooves in both boards for straps and clasps, the two central ones longer; also, at the centre of the leading edge of the upper board, a recess for a decorative strap seating; two nail holes left by its clasp at the centre of the lower board. Stubs of nails, 25mm apart, from a chain staple in Watson’s position 4: there is no close parallel for such a staple among the institution’s other manuscripts, suggesting that this is evidence of its existence prior to arrival (see Appendix I). A ChCh bookplate on the original front pastedown, of medieval parchment, now raised (fol. i). This leaf, but not the rear pastedown, is reused, with accounts (s. xiv1) covering the recto, and (arranged by day) at the centre of the verso; the recto is much rubbed.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
All five parts were clearly bound together early, and this is confirmed by the presence of one early reader’s large annotating script (s. xiv) written in pencil in both the third and the fourth sections (fol. 95v and fol. 188v). The volume appears to have been in an institutional collection: as the chain-staple mark is not in a ChCh style, it is presumably medieval. The only other indication of the earlier history of the manuscript is ‘Thomas Paine’ (or ‘spaine’), with a few pentrials and three lines of notes on the calendar (the raised rear pastedown, s. xv). There are also two erasures, one at top of fol. 137v, and the other in the outer margin top of fol. 191v; they are not fully recoverable under UV but were clearly written by the same person using a secretary script and writing in English.
As this manuscript was not included in Thomas James’ Ecloga, it presumably arrived after that work’s publication in 1600 but it was certainly in the collection by 1676, when it is listed in the catalogue as ‘A.4’ (see Appendix I); that shelfmark which appears in the volume itself, at the verso of the opening flyleaf. That the volume seems not to have been chained at ChCh suggests it arrived after the practice of chaining manuscripts stopped, that is, after the 1630s. It is not clear whether the seventeenth-century annotations that appear in the first half of the manuscript, showing antiquarian interest particularly in the Historia ecclesiastica (fol. 1v, 11v, 20, 21, 22, 26v-27v, 62, 71 – 73, 77, 80, 81, 82, 84, 117, 118, 135v, 137, 143v), predate the volume’s arrival at Christ Church, though it must be said that they do not seem to relate to marginalia in other ChCh manuscripts.
The 1676 shelfmark is now cancelled and replaced with ‘F.16’, entered in Edward Smallwell’s hand, thus relating it to the New Library Catalogue though, in fact, it does not have an entry there (see Appendix IV).
Manuscript I = fols 1–42
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Sharpe no. 334 [127], ed. Michael D. Reeve, with translation by Neil Wright (Woodbridge, 2007). The manuscript has been previously described, Julia C. Crick, The Historia regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth 3 A Summary Catalogue of the Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1989), 249–51 (no. 160); its place in the tradition is outlined by Reeve in his edition (xlv, and cf. xl).
Fol. 42 has been cut down to the single column width, its verso blank.
Added text, in anglicana, s. xiv in.:
An exemplum (?) in which a master attempts to regulate a king’s eating habits (fol. 42, in the blank page foot, running across the full leaf, now half cut away and expunged at the opening).
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 190 × 65+ mm. mm, with 9mm between columns, in 40 lines to the page (below top line).
Some signs of full pricking; bounded and ruled in brownish ink or crayon, the lines crossing the central reservation but not extending into the margin, and bounding lines extending to the edge of the page.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura quadrata.
Punctuation by low point and punctus elevatus.
Decoration
On the opening leaf, three blue lombards, unflourished; that for the incipit six lines, with a crude added face inside. In the first few leaves, the text is divided by some red paraphs and red-slashed capitals, along with alternate one-line red and blue lombards. Thereafter the blanks for these (and all blanks for headings) are unfilled.
History
Manuscript II = fols 43–50
Contents
Language(s): Latin
More or less identical with the text in BodL, MS Lyell 17, fols 54va-58vb; and BL, MS Arundel 220, fols 266va-76vb; cf. the similar texts ed. Aubertus Miræus, Notitia episcopatvvm orbis Christiani (Antwerp, 1613), 65–93; and Henry R. Luard, Matthaei Parisiensis . . . Chronica majora, RS 57/6 (1882), 449–61. From the foot of the first page, presented as five-column lists of churches.
Kaeppeli no. 2974 [3:114, 118–23], ed. Ludwig Weiland, MGH scriptores 22 (1872), 397–405, breaking off in a.u.c. 602, and more fully as item 11 below (from a different MS).
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Writing area: 210 × 115 mm. , except for fol. 43v-46, where the list, arranged in five columns, has maximum width of 145mm. 49 lines to the page, usually (apart from fols 43v-46) in long lines.
Signs of full pricking throughout; the bounds and rules have faded away.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura semiquadrata.
Punctuation by point, punctus elevatus, and virgula..
Decoration
At the opening of item 2, a large blue lombard with red flourishing, extended into a demivinet of red penwork with blue highlights. At the opening of item 3, a five-line red lombard with a dog inside in black penwork and with ochre wash. The text is divided by red paraphs; two-line unflourished red lombards introduce index entries. Chapter numbers in text ink in the margins, and two-line unflourished red lombards at chapter openings.
History
Manuscript III = fols 51–115
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Ed. by Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), 2–570, with a final paragraph displaced from the end of the preface (ed. cit. 6), marking it as a member of a group within the c-family of manuscripts, the group being discussed by the editors at lvii-lix (our manuscript at lviii). Between the prologue and text, a table of the chapters in Book 1 (fols 51ra-52ra), as at the openings of the other books.
Sharpe no. 212 [94], ed. Colgrave and Mynors, 580–86, the explicit a sentence before the end of the full text. Space is left for the rubricated title at fol. 114ra, with the required wording provided at the lower edge of the page, in anglicana, contemporary with text: ‘Incipit epilogium de obitu eximi doctoris bede qui girwmensis monasterij presbiter extitit doctorque precipuus’.
With annals of the Kentish royal family preceding the menologium, a Latin translation, probably made at St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, s. xi med., from the Old English text now fully extant only in Cambridge: Corpus Christi College, MS 201, pp. 147–51; see Des Heiligen Englands. Angelsächsisch und Lateinisch, ed. F. Liebermann (Hanover, 1889), 2–20 (even pages). The scribe represents w by the Anglo-Saxon letter wynn. Space is left at the top of fol. 115rb for the rubricated title, with the required wording provided at very top edge of the page: ‘He sunt notaciones de sanctis in anglia p[at]ria requiescunt’.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 200 × 68 mm. , with 9 mm between columns, and 42 lines to each column.
Pricking visible in the final quire only; bounded and ruled in brown crayon (occasionally in black ink); bounding lines extend to the edge of the page.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura semiquadrata, by two scribes, the second taking up at fol. 80va, and the first filling blank leaves at the end of the book with items 5–6.
Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus (both scribes).
Decoration
Headings and chapter numbers in red. All spaces for initial capitals unfilled. The text is divided by red-slashed capitals (none after the chapter index for book 3, fol. 71va, and thereafter only sporadic blanks filled). On fols 57–63, a patch of unflourished blue two-line lombards at chapter openings and alternate one-line red and blue lombards with additional red-slash on following capitals at sentence openings.
History
Manuscript IV = fols 116–225
Contents
Language(s): Latin
PAL no. 81 [54–75], this copy unnoticed; see Hiltgart von Hürnheim Mittelhochdeutsche Prosaübersetzung des “Secreta Secretorum”, ed. Reinhold Möller (Berlin, 1963) 1–2, 14–164. A table of contents appears between the second prologue and the opening of the text proper on fol. 116v. On the text, see M. A. Manzalaoui, ‘Philip of Tripoli and his Textual Methods’ in W. F. Ryan and Charles B. Schmitt ed., Pseudo-Aristotle, The Secret of Secrets: Sources and Influences (London, 1982), 55–72.
6.7.1–12.1/5, ed. I. Ronca, CCCM 152 (1997), 203–18. Ronca refers to our manuscript at lxi, following its notice by A. Vernet, ‘Un rémaniement de la Philosophia de Guillaume de Conches’, Scriptorium, 1 (1946–47), 243–59 at 256; succeeded, without break (at ‘Naturaliter Mulier’ above), by an additional paragraph, Isidore of Seville, Etymologiæ, 11.1.141–42, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols (Oxford, 1911), unpaginated.
With corrections at PAL no. 79 (54); discussed and partially translated from Oxford: St John’s College, MS 178, fols 39–41v, by Lynn Thorndike, ‘De Complexionibus’, Isis, 49 (1958), 398–408 at 406–8.
Cf. the similar Anglo-Norman example for this popular salve, Tony Hunt, Three Receptaria from Medieval England, Medium Ævum Monographs ns 21 (Oxford, 2001), 69.
See item 3 above, ed. Ludwig Weiland, MGH scriptores 22 (1872), 397–482. At fols 149v-50, the text splits into two parallel portions, the popes presented on the versos, the emperors opposite on the rectos, with a catchword at the foot of each page to connect the texts. The emperors end at fol. 194 (with bottom half of folio blank), and the text includes the ‘Continuatio pontificum’ to Honorius IV in 1285.
With medieval interpolations, the original text ed. Wilhelm Meyer (Leipzig, 1880), 17–59. In at least two copies, where the text is (as very frequently) ascribed to Seneca, rubrics claim that ‘Ebrardus versibus explet’ and thus associate this version with Évrard de Bethune. See Max Manitius, Geschichte des lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 2nd edn, 3 vols (Munich, 1973), 3:751, 1070. For some other English copies, see Oxford: All Souls College, MS 3, fol. 10v (Watson, All Souls, 6 [*B (vii)]); BL, MSS Royal 7 A.iii, fol. 113; and Royal 8 E.xvii, fol. 26 (followed, as in our MS, by other proverb collections); Cambridge: Pembroke College, MS 103, fol. 61 (the fragmentary explicit only). In double columns, as are the following two texts.
A group of proverbs/sententiæ from various authors. It follows immediately on from item 12 and item 14 follows it with no break.
Another set of proverbs, this set arranged alphabetically, with seven further examples, out of alphabetical order at end.
Ed. H. C. Kim, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 2 (Toronto, 1973), 13–50.
Ed. Ernst von Dobschütz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende, TU 18/2 (1899), 163**-89**. Cf. the descriptions of the French translations/derivations, Alvin E. Ford, La vengeance de nostre-seigneur: The Old and Middle French Prose Versions: The Cura Sanitatis ..., Studies and Texts 115 (Toronto, 1993), 7–18, 27–34. This item follows the preceding without even a line break. The lower third of fol. 211v is blank.
A series of thirty-three miracles of the Virgin, with cropped titles in the margins. The great majority are probably taken, in text order, from Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale 7.81–118, ed. Speculum quadruplex, 4 vols (1624, rep. Graz, 1964–65), 4:250b-65b, and most listed in Albert Poncelet, ‘Miraculorum B. V. Mariae quæ sæc. VI-XV latine conscripta sunt index postea perficiendus’, Analecta Bollandiana 21 (1902), 241–360 (where, for example, our first miracle is no. 875). The contents are not entirely dependent upon Vincent, however, and may derive, as do several other collections, from the ‘magnum Mariale’ he cites as his source. Cf. the exhaustive descriptions of Reims: Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1400 at Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France 39, 2, i (1904), 558–62, and of BL, MS Additional 15723 at H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in . . . the British Museum 2 (London, 1893), 624–34. The blank foot of the final leaf now is filled with notes on calendar dates (esp. of biblical events) and medical recipes, in a contemporary, but less formal, anglicana.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In long lines, 38 lines to the page (for items up to and including 14, above top line).
Full pricking visible in the earlier quires; bounded and ruled in lead, with double horizontal bounding lines, the height of the top two lines, extending to the edges of the page.
Hand(s)
Written in anglicana (frequent textura r), by a scribe called ‘Syrg[en]ham’: the name is written, rubricated, at fol. 139, below the last line of text of item 8 and above the title of item 9; it is lightly erased but partially recoverable under UV.
Punctuation by point only, unfilled double virgulae left as instructions for a parapher.
Decoration
Headings in red. To item 8, at the openings of the texts and their parts, two- and three-line unflourished red lombards. The texts are divided by red paraphs. From item 9, only marginal instructions for headings, spaces for two-line capitals unfilled.
History
Manuscript V = fols 226–60
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Ed. PL 217:773–916. At fol. 256ra an exposition of the Pater Noster, cited separately as Bloomfield no. 8386. Fol. 260rb-vb was originally blank.
Added text, in textura, s. xiii med.:
Sharpe no. 94 [47–48]; WIC 10062, unprinted. The prologue as presented here continues beyond that provided at Cambridge: Corpus Christi College, MS 83, fol. 9–10v; the explicit also differs in York Minster, MS XVI.Q.14, fol. 55v.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
In double columns, each column 213 × 55–60 mm. , with 12mm between columns, in 54 lines to the page.
Prickings visible at very edge of folios; bounded and ruled in brown crayon (a few leaves lead); triple horizontal bounding lines for top and bottom lines, and all bounding lines extend to the edge of the page.
Hand(s)
Written in gothic textura quadrata (above top line).
Punctuation by point and punctus elevatus.
Decoration
Headings in red. At textual divisions, two-line alternate red and blue lombards, with flourishing of the other colour, only in quire 27; in quire 28, the lombards are alternate red and green and unflourished. Inconsistent use of red ink for liturgical lemmata, and some columns divided in two to enable glossing of the texts cited.
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact Christ Church Library.
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2017-07-01: First online publication.