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

MS. Digby 26

Summary Catalogue no.: 1627

Physical Description

Composite: fols. 3–7 || fols. 8–19 || fols. 20–28 || fols. 29–64 || fols. 65–75 || fols. 76–136 || fols. 137–40

History

Provenance and Acquisition

Kenelm Digby, 1603–1665

Donated to the Bodleian, 1634.

MS. Digby 26 – Part 1

Contents

1.
Grammatical treatise
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

Decoration

Fleuronnée initials, fols. 1–28, 76–136.

History

Origin: 14th century

MS. Digby 26 – Part 2

Contents

1.
Grammatical treatise
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

History

Origin: 14th century ; Portuguese

MS. Digby 26 – Part 3

Contents

1.
Facetus
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

History

Origin: 14th century ; Portuguese

MS. Digby 26 – Part 4

Contents

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

History

Origin: 14th century ; Portuguese

MS. Digby 26 – Part 5

Contents

1.
Grammatical treatise
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

History

Origin: 14th century ; Portuguese

MS. Digby 26, fols. 76–82

Contents

1.
Grammatical treatise
Language(s): Portuguese

Although this treatise has been previously labelled as Spanish, the verbs present as Galician (e.g. ‘dizemos’ and ‘fazer’, fol. 76r, rather than ‘dizíanos’ and ‘hacer’); the text uses ‘no’/‘na’ prepositions rather than ‘en a’/‘o’; and there is a tendency towards spellings with u/v rather than b in nouns (e.g. ‘caualo’, fol. 76r). See Gonçalo Fernandes, ‘Vernacular and Language Teaching in the Portuguese Middle Ages: the ms. Digby 26 and the Reglas para enformarmos os menỹos en latim’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, 23:1 (2013), 55–70.

2.
Disticha Catonis
Language(s): Latin
3.
Poems
Language(s): Latin
4.
Aesop, Fabulae
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

Hand(s)

D. Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of Middle English Grammatical Texts (New York, 1979), 268–76, locates the scribe to Portugal.

History

Origin: 14th century ; Portuguese

MS. Digby 26 – Part 7

Contents

1.
Miscellaneous notes
Language(s): Latin and Middle English

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

History

Origin: 14th century

Additional Information

Record Sources

Summary description abbreviated from the Quarto Catalogue (W. D. Macray, Bodleian Library Quarto Catalogues IX: Digby Manuscripts, repr. with addenda by R. W. Hunt and A. G. Watson, 1999). Addenda by Charlotte Ross (2021).

Last Substantive Revision

2022-03-10: Andrew Dunning Corrections from Charlotte Ross.