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

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17

Summary Catalogue no.: Not in SC (late accession)

Guardbook of liturgical fragments acquired 1976-2021

Physical Description

Form: guardbook
Extent: 12 folios
Foliation: 1, 2a-b, 2c-d (modern photostats), 3, 4, 5a, 5b (photostat), 6+7 (formerly separate, joined 1998), 8, 9, 10-11 (modern), 12

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17, fol. 1

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Leaf from a Sarum (?) missal
(recto)

Masses for the dead: prayers, secrets and postcommunions 'pro femina defuncta', 'pro familiaribus feminis', 'pro quiescentibus in cimiterio', 'pro omnibus fidelibus defunctis'. As printed The Sarum Missal, ed. J. W. Legg, 440.30-442.14.

(recto-verso)
Rubric: Ita sunt misse que debent celebrari pro anima defuncti ut soluetur a penis purgatorii cum oracione et secreto et postcommunione subsequenter et debent dici cum prima oracione secreta et postcommunione de die ab illo […] de natiuitate beate Marie .iij. misse. Et debent dici per singula sicut in die cum sequentiis credo et prefac. communicantes et hanc igitur Amen
Incipit: Deus qui es nostra redempcio qui terram
Incipit: Secretum. Omnipotens et misericors deus redemptor animarum saluandarum
Incipit: Postcommunio. Deus |mortem qui es uita uidencium

Rubric, prayer, secret and postcommunion for the 'Trental of St Gregory' (see R. Pfaff, 'The English devotion of St Gregory's Trental', Speculum 49 (1974), 75-90 esp. 82-4)

(verso)
Rubric: Missa in honore et ueneratione huius sancti nominis Ihesu contra infestationes demonum. Officium.
Incipit: In domine Ihesu omne genu flectatur

Mass for the Name of Jesus, as pr. Missale secundum vsum ecclesie Sarum (1497; ISTC im00721000), fol. cxcij v

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: one leaf, with the stub of a conjugate leaf, most of the written area preserved
Dimensions (fragment): 375 × 282 mm.

Layout

Ruled in ink for 2 cols. of more than 39 lines (perhaps originally 41 lines); width of the ruled area 177 mm. with 15 mm. between columns.

Hand(s)

Gothic bookhand (textualis formata)

Decoration

2-line blue initials with penwork flourishing in red.

History

Origin: 15th century ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

Given by N. R. Ker in or before 1976. Former shelfmark MS. Lat. liturg. a. 8 fol. 66.

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 19, fols. 2a-b

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Fragments from a Gregorian sacramentary

The leaf with parts of weekly votive masses De trinitate and De sapientia (feria ii); the strip with parts of masses for Quinquagesima and Lent.

Fols. 2c-d are photostats of the strip and leaf when still pasted together, July 1993.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: part of one leaf (a), preserving the written area, and a strip (b)
Dimensions (fragment): 238 × 172 mm.
(the leaf)

Layout

1 col., 21 lines; ruled with a hard point with double vertical bounding lines. Ruled space 185 × 115 mm. (125 mm. to the outer vertical bounding lines).

Hand(s)

Late Caroline minuscule

Decoration

Coloured initials.

History

Origin: 11th century, second half, or early 12th century ; Germany

Provenance and Acquisition

From a binding.

Given by N. R. Ker in January 1977. Previous shelfmark MS. Lat. liturg. e. 38.

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17, fol. 3

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Leaf from a legendary (?)

Lections v (part), vi-ix for the Invention of St Stephen (3 Aug.), ‘⟨de⟩uotionem eius et credens me partem cum eo ... omnia que mihi mandasti dictaturus’

BHL 7853, as pr. PL 41.810, 812, 814, beginning in c. 3, ending in c. 5

Followed by part of the first lection for St Oswald king and martyr (5 Aug.), beginning:

Incipit: Venerabilis et merito precandus rex Oswaldus mox ut regnum suscepit desiderans totum cui preesse cepit
Cf. BHL 6362, c. 2 (AASS August II.96)

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Dimensions (leaf): 319 × 203 mm.

Layout

Ruled in plummet for 2 cols. of 32 lines. Ruled space 235 × 155 mm. with 10 mm. between columns. The ruling is too faint to determine whether the text is written above or below top line.

Hand(s)

Protogothic

Decoration

Two-line initials alternately in red and blue with penwork flourishing in the contrasting colour.

History

Origin: 13th century, first half ; England

Provenance and Acquisition

Formerly a pastedown in a binding; according to a pencil note on the fragment, from a copy of Ovid, Opera, in an English (?Oxford) binding.

Bought from Maggs Bros., Cat. 982 (1977)

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17, fols. 4-5a

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Leaves from a homiliary
(fol. 4)

part of Gregory the Great, Hom. in evangelia, 2.33: ‘]lapsi non sumus. Et si censura ... non didisti. Hec autem[’

(fol. 5a)

recto: part of Haimo of Auxerre, Hom. de tempore, hom. 125 (PL 673C-674B)

verso: end of hom. 125 (PL 118.674CD) and beginning of hom. 126 (PL 118.675AB)

Fol. 5b is a photostat of fol. 5a with the present fols. 6-8 still attached.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: parts of two leaves, preserving the full width of the written area

Layout

Ruled in plummet for 2 columns of more than 26 lines; width of the ruled space 240 mm. with 37 mm. between columns.

Hand(s)

Late Caroline minuscule.

Decoration

4-line initial Q in green, blue, yellow and red with vine-scroll decoration, fol. 5v.

History

Origin: 12th century ; Italy, probably Tuscany

Provenance and Acquisition

Given by N. R. Ker in April 1978.

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17, fols. 6-8

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Small fragments from a chant manuscript

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: two fragments (formerly three fragments; fols. 6 and 7 were joined in 1998).
Dimensions (fragment): 92 × 56 mm.
(larger fragment)

Hand(s)

Protogothic

Musical Notation:

Notation on staves of fourlines.

Decoration

Coloured initial.

History

Origin: 12th century (?) ; Italy (?)

Provenance and Acquisition

Given by N. R. Ker in April 1978; formerly attached to fol. 5a, and removed c. 1993.

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17, fol. 9, with fols. 10-11

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Altar card

Fol. 10 is labelling cut from the former mount of fol. 9; fol. 11 is a xerox of the backing of the mount, showing numbers '42' and '252'.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Dimensions (leaf): 220 × 174 mm.

Layout

24 lines of text beneath two lines of musical notation; the verso with 2 lines of musical notation and heraldry underneath.

Hand(s)

Southern textualis

Musical Notation:

Square notation on staves of 4 lines.

Decoration

Historiated initials: one with landscape, two others with angel and human figure.

(verso) heraldic arms: party per pale gules and sable, a lion rampant or.

History

Origin: 16th century ; Spain

Provenance and Acquisition

Otto Ege (see Scott Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts (2013), HL134.

Sotheby's, 26 Nov. 1985, part of lot 81; purchased by the Bodleian.

MS. Lat. liturg. b. 17, fol. 12

Contents

A leaf from the summer portion of a Breviary, with liturgical directions in German.,

recto: ‘desolationis que dicta est a Daniele propheta […] O(melia) Ieronymi. Quando ad intelligentiam […] lectio ii. […] lectio iii […] Ad matutinas. Antiphona. Amen dico uobis […] sol das wissen. ob die kalenda. an dem |alder an dem after mœntag […] alle wege nach sex. kalendo d

verso: ‘haizzer decemb’. an der næhesten do|sol man began. ¶ An den samstag |heste der kalende der Ogeste. Ad matutinas. […] ¶ An der dominic der næhsten |⟨ka⟩lenden. Ogestenso vahet man an div […] Septembris. lectio prima. Parabole salamonis filii Dauid regis Israhel […] lectio ii. […] lectio iii. […] lectio iiii. Pedes enim eorum in malum currunt […] in capite turbarum’

The verso has the beginning of the summer ‘historie’, with readings from the biblical book of Wisdom (Sapientia).

Language(s): Latin and Middle High German (Eastern Alemannic, diocese of Augsburg, ex inf. Nigel Palmer and Christoph Mackert, ‘aftermontag’ = Tuesday)

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: a nearly complete leaf, the right (recto) or left (verso) side of one column cropped.
Dimensions (fragment): c. 375 × 230 mm.

Layout

Ruled in plummet and written in two columns of 36 lines, column space 290 × 95 mm. ; space between lines 7mm.

Hand(s)

Gothic bookhand, the main Latin text written in two sizes according to liturgical function, with Latin rubrics in red; the other liturgical directions, in German, are underlined in red. The script is fully Gothic with fusing of adjacent round letters such as ‘be’, ‘bo’, ‘de’, ‘dd’, ‘oc’, ‘pe’, ‘po’, and ‘pp’, ‘d’ is always sloping, not upright, round ‘s’ is 8- shaped, but tall ‘s’ is also present, even at the beginning of words.

Decoration

One cropped ‘puzzle’ initial in blue and red, with penwork ornament in both colours.

Two-line initials and paraphs are alternately blue or red.

History

Origin: 14th century, first half (perhaps c. 1320) ; Germany

Provenance and Acquisition

Almost certainly made for a community of female religious; a rare survival of a large-format liturgical book for communal use with a significant quantity of vernacular text.

From a binding. All four corners are cut away, so that when folded over they do not overlap and can instead be mitred; the four outer folds are clear; the folded-over parts, that would have acted as turn-ins, are less dirty than the parts that remained on the outside of the volume; there are pairs of slits near what would have been the fore-edges, through which ties would have been threaded; the pair of central horizontal creased demarcate an area that is especially darkened because this was the outward-facing spine of the volume; if turned 90 degrees it can be seen that the spine was initially volume “100” is a series, but this number was later crossed-through and replaced with “627”; the other side, which would have been the inner face, has an all-over brown colour caused by the glue used to attach the leaf to the pasteboards of the binding, of which a few very small traces survive.

Sotheby's, 8 July 2014, lot 4, part of item (d).

Stephen Butler Rare Books and Manuscripts, Catalogue Spring 2021, lot 20.

Purchased by the Bodleian.

Record Sources

Adapted from the description by Peter Kidd for Stephen Butler Rare Books and Manuscripts (Catalogue, Spring 2021, no. 20), with additional information on date and language contributed by Nigel Palmer.

Additional Information

Record Sources

Description of fols. 1-11 by Matthew Holford, July 2021, drawing on notes by A. C. de la Mare and B. Barker-Benfield; for fol. 12, q.v.

Last Substantive Revision

2021-09-30: Corrected 'aster mœntag' to 'after mœntag'