MS. Hamilton 37
Summary Catalogue no.: 24467
Sermons and sermon-materials; Germany, 15th century
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Table of contents, with folio numbers, added after parts A and B were brought together.
Temporale, Advent to Lent
Temporale, Ash Wednesday to Easter
Sermons for the Sanctorale and on other subjects, arranged alphabetically in groups, A–V
From De avaritia, De animalibus, and De annunciatione Marie, to In vigilia ascensionis and In vigilia nativitatis Christi.
Physical Description
Collation
Binding
Medieval binding. Sewn onto four double bands and bound into uncoloured pigskin over wood boards, blind-tooled with a lattice pattern, a flower in each of the interstices. Vestiges of two clasps. The front cover with two paper labels, one with a title (almost illegible), the other with the Erfurt shelfmark ‘O.21’. Pink leather and other tabs at the fore-edge. A loose alum-tawed? bookmark follows fol. 242.
Accompanying Material
Narrow reinforcement strips are from a 14th-century manuscript of Dante's Monarchia, with the commentary attributed to Cola da Rienzo; more substantial fragments of the same manuscript are in MS. Hamilton 13, q.v.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Erfurt (Carthusians), their O.21; catalogue, ed. P. Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, II (München 1928) 494, ‘Mistici sermones de tempore et sunt iidem cum precedentibus, licet non habeantur hic integre, quia in principio est defectus et forte eciam alibi non ordinate hic ponuntur sicut in precedenti volumine. Sermones boni de sanctis, sed non ita misticati sicut illi de tempore. Quadragesimale. Passio Domini multum prolixa. Alii multi sermones de variis materiis, de certis temporibus, de certis sanctis et festivitatibus, de s. Elizabet, Katharina, Johanne evangelista etc., de novo sacerdote, de sinodo, de elimosina, de penitencia, oracione, anathemate, de capite ieiunii, dedicacione etc. De concepcione b. Marie sermo Heinrici de Oyta, item alius de eadem, de nativitate b. virginis, purificacione, annunciacione etc.’
Friedrich Gottlieb Julius von Bülow, 1760-?1831 (?), perhaps identifiable as 101 in the catalogue of part 3 of his sale, 10 Oct. 1836 (‘Sermones mystici de tempore, una cum aliis sermonibus’)
Sir William Hamilton, 1788–1856
Presented to the Bodleian Library by his sons and received in 1857. Former Bodleian shelfmarks: ‘Addit. Bodl. MSS. III.D.4.’ (front pastedown)
MS. Hamilton 37 – Part A (fols. 2–114)
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Numbered 1–46, 50–1; for nos. 47–9 see fol. 40r (cross-referenced on fol. 30r). Including several sermons from the collection of Jordanus de Quedlingburg (Schneyer, III, pp. 804–10).
Including Guilelmus Bernardi de Narbonne OP 349, 351, 352, 353, 322, 323 (Schneyer II.444–447); a cross-reference at the end to the continuation of the text on fol. 204v below.
Numbered 47–49, 52–133; a cross-reference on fol. 43v to fol. 30r, nos. 50–1. The first is Jordanus de Quedlingburg (Schneyer, III, pp. 811 no. 49), but then the series diverges.
Alphabetical index
With a gap from Oratio to Verbum due to the loss of a leaf after 113. With added entries in the margin; both the main and added entries struck through.
Physical Description
Layout
Written in two columns of about 54–61 lines. Frame-ruled in ink (sometimes verticals only), ruled space 255–70 × 165–70 mm.
Hand(s)
Informal bastarda
Decoration
Initials in plain red.
History
MS. Hamilton 37 – Part B (fols. 115–258)
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Schneyer, Wegweiser, p. 112 (citing Braunschweig, StB 85 fol. i r)
The final 'sermon' is distinguished:
Wrongly identified as Robert Holcot’s Conuertimini by Schneyer, Wegweiser, p. 81 (citing only the present manuscript) and by Sharpe, Latin Writers, pp. 554–55 (citing the present MS. and 13 others); cf. Bloomfield 969, Welter, L'exemplum, 366–7 n. 63, and Kaeppeli 3503; and for Holcot's work itself see Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the ... British Museum, III, 1910, pp. 116ff. In fact only the first item here seems to be the first chapter of the Conuertimini; the text as a whole is a collection of sermons and sermon materials, prinicipally for saints and major feasts of the temporale, in somewhat haphazard arrangement. Aptly described in the Erfurt library catalogue as 'Alii multi sermones de variis materiis, de certis temporibus, de certis sanctis et festivitatibus'
Nos. 19, 31, 38, 2, 22 in the Basel edition of 1586 followed (fol. 185va) by unidentified texts or sermons 'de confessione', 'de satisfactione', 'item de penitentia et confessione', 'de avaritia', 'de elemosina'
Sermons: 'De corpore christi sermo', 'de nativitate marie', 'de sancto michahele', 'de sancto paulo', 'item de sancto paulo in sua conversione', 'de sancto thoma apostolo', 'de sancto iohanne ewangelista', 'de animabus' (two sermons), (fol. 200va) 'de conceptione marie', (fol. 201vb) 'sermo magistri Henrici de Euta' [i.e. Heinrich Totting von Oyta, who started his career at the studium generale in Erfurt], 'de circumcisione', 'in die epyphanie'. Note on fol. 197v, 'nota exemplum qualiter incepit ordo carthusiensium'
At fol. 204va is the ending of a sermon continued from fol. 39v (marginal note: 'hic continuantur sermones de sanctis qui superius folio 39 intercepti per sermones de tempore et quadragesimales'); then 'de eodem scilicet ascensione', (fol. 205rb) 'de sancto barnaba uel alio', 'in die pentecostes' (three sermons), 'in die trinitatis ...' (two sermons), 'de corpore christi sermo' (two sermons), 'de nativitate sancti Johannis Baptiste', 'de sancto Petro apostolo', 'de sanctis Petro et Paulo apostolis', 'de sancto Margareta', 'de maria magdalena', 'de sancto Jacobo maiore', 'de beato Petro ad vincula', 'de sancto Dominico confessore', 'de sancto Laurencio', 'de assumpcione Marie' (two sermons), 'de sancto Bartholomeo', 'de sancto Augustino', 'de nativitate Marie' (two sermons), 'de exaltatione sancte crucis', 'de sancto Matheo ...', 'de sancto Michahele ...', 'de sancto Francisco confessore', 'de sancto Luca ...', 'de omnibus sanctis sermo', 'in commemoracione animarum', 'de sancto Martino ...', 'de sancto Katherina', (fol. 235vb) 'de nouo sacerdote sermo' (two sermons), 'de consecratione ecclesie et etiam dedicatione', 'in vigilia nativitatis Christi vel in die', 'in die nativitatis ...', 'in die circumcisionis', 'in die epyphanie', 'in die purificationis Marie', 'in die annunciationis ... ', 'in die Pasche' (two sermons), 'De beato Petro martyre uel alio si placet', (fol. 245ra) 'pro synodo sermo', 'pro synodo octobris', 'de commemoratione omnium fidelium animarum', 'de sancto Martino ...', 'de sancta Elizabeth vidua', 'de sancta Katherina virgine'
Sermons for select occasions: the Nativity of the Virgin, Corpus Christi, a new priest, a synod, and the dedication of a church.
Physical Description
Layout
Written in two columns of about 59–64 lines. Frame-ruled in ink (sometimes verticals only), ruled space 255–75 × 165–75 mm.
Hand(s)
Informal bastarda
Decoration
Initials in plain red, many spaces left blank.
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
Online resources:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2021-03-05: Description finalized: additional physical description, revised structure.