MS. Laud Misc. 255

Summary Catalogue no.: 885

Vitalis de Furno (attrib.), Speculum morale totius Sacrae Scripturae

(fols. 1ra–vb)

Table of contents to the volume (keyed to the medieval foliation), preceded by a brief note on the use of the volume.

Incipit: Sciendum est quod per .a. designatur prima facies per totum istum librum. Item per .b. designatur secunda facies.

Rubric: Incipiunt rubrice huius liber per ordinem in generali

Incipit: Quibus modis deus apparuit sub signis uisibilibus et quid significent ille appariciones. i.a.

Explicit: De Xpo, cccxxxix.a.

(fols. 1vc–13ra)

Alphabetical subject index to the volume, keyed to the medieval foliation: Abies, absondere, absoluere, de abstinentia, accidia ... Wlpes, De Xpo, Xpm sequi, Xps loquitur, Xps queritur, Xps inuenitur, Zona.

Incipit: Abies .cxlij.b. ccxxxi.b.

Explicit: Zona. ij.a. cccxxij.b.

Final rubric: Explicit ista tabula generalis

Rest of fol. 13ra-c blank.

(fols. 13va–32ra)

Index of subjects by biblical book, keyed to the medieval foliation

Rubric: Iste figure sunt exposite de Genesi

Incipit: Apparuit dominus in lucta Iacob .i.a. iij.a. xxvj.a. liiij.b. xxvi.b. ccxiiij.b.

Explicit: Veni domine Ihesu. cccxlvij.a.

Final rubric: Expliciunt auctores biblie exposite in hoc libro

Rest of fol. 32ra-c blank; fol. 32v blank.

(fols. 33(I)ra–386(CCCLIIII)r)

Rubric: Incipiunt figure exposite de diuersis materiis biblie acceptis de omnibus libris sacre scripture. Primo Quod deus diuersis modis diuersis personis apparuerit sub signis visibilibus [added, s. xiv/xv?]

Incipit: Notandum, quod in triplici specie uisibili apparuit dominus

Explicit: (fol. 381va) pondus tribulationum et persecutionum

The table of contents (fol. 1rb), the other manuscripts, and the edition of 1513 indicate that the work originally ended with the section 'De Christo' beginning at fol. 371(CCCXXXIX)r. This is followed by various sections marked for insertion at earlier points in the manuscript. One such section ends (fol. 386vb) 'in furore meo etc.', which are the final words of the printed editions, and the explicit given by Stegmüller. The final section in the present manuscript (also in BnF Latin 3148) is:

Incipit: (fol. 385vb) Hieronymus in sermone ... Ex persona supernorum

Explicit: (fol. 386ra) gratiam obsequentes

Final rubric: Expliciunt quedam figure biblie et moralizationes eorundem

Fol. 386v blank except for a contemporary illegible note at the top.

ed. Lyon, 1513 (USTC 144214), etc.

For the author see Weijers, s.n. (with references); Lexikon des Mittelalters 8, cols 1764-1765; P. Godefroy, ‘Vital du Four,' Dictionairre de Théologie Catholique XV (Paris, 1950), 3102-3115; this work does not seem to be attributed to him prior to the edition of 1513 but is accepted as reliable in modern scholarship, in which the work is dated c. 1305 (Godefroy, 3103, 3109-10).

Bloomfield 0459; Stegmüller 8309. Stegmüller lists three other manuscripts: Paris, BnF, Latin 3148; Bamberg, Staatsbibl., Msc.Bibl.153; Gdańsk, PAN, Biblioteka Gdańska, Ms Mar. F 16; Mirabile adds La Verna (Arezzo), Biblioteca del Convento della Verna, Ant. C.3.20

Latin 3148 has the appearance of a working copy, rapidly written and with numerous marginal additions made at various times: it is from this copy that our manuscript directly or indirectly derives. Because the work was indexed by folio rather than section the disposition of the text across each recto and verso, to which the indices refer, had to be closely followed. For this reason, although the present manuscript is regularly ruled for two columns of 42 lines, the layout of individual pages is frequently irregular, with more or fewer lines used, and with the marginal additions of Latin 3148 with few exceptions (e.g. 'Ambitio dicitur stella...', fol. 37(V)r) copied (usually in one column) toward the bottom of relevant pages.

Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: parchment (numerous irregular edges, a few flaws in the text area, some medieval repairs)

Extent: i + 386 + i leaves

Dimensions (leaf): 295 × 210 mm.

Foliation: Fols. 33-386 with contemporary foliation in red roman numerals, I-CCCLIIII, top centre (also earlier trial foliations, top left, erased).

Collation

Too tightly bound to collate with certainty: catchwords suggest 1(10)-2(20), 3(12)(fol. 21-32) | 4(10)-5(10) (fols. 33-52), 6(8) (fols. 53-60), 7(10)-14(10) (fols. 61-140), 15(8)-17(8) (fols. 141-164), 18(10)-21(10) (fols. 165-224), 22(8) (fols. 225-232), 23(10)-37(10) (fols. 233-382), 38(four)(fols. 383-6).

Layout

Main text ruled in ink for 2 cols. of 42 lines, ruled space 210 × 140 mm. (scribe C: 210 × 155 mm. ) with 13mm. between columns, columns also ruled in the inner and outer margins for keywords. The written area varies considerably, and is often partly in one column, for the reasons explained above.

Hand(s)

Textualis libraria by three main scribes: (A) fols. 1r-80v (B) fols. 81r-130v, 141r-174v, 195r-381r (C) fols. 131r-140v, 175r-194v.

Fols. 381v-386r, cursiva antiquior, perhaps also by scribe C. Scribe A's marginal keywords in cursiva antiquior.

Decoration

2-line coloured red initials on fols. 1r-32r (some left blank); 2-line coloured red initial, fol. 33r.

Otherwise spaces left by scribes A and B for 2-line initials and rubrics, not filled in.

Scribe C: quotations underlined in red; majuscules slashed with red; rubrics (some in black, marked 'R.'), spaces not left for initials.

Additions: Numerous manicula, presumably mostly scribal, in sections written by scribes 1 and 3; an elaborate example, fol. 174v.

Binding

A standard binding of the Laudian collection, c. 1638-9.

History

Origin: 14th century (first half) ; Germany

Provenance and Acquisition

Eberbach, Cistercian abbey: mark of the chain-staple of the Eberbach libraria major on fol. 386v (cf. N. Palmer, Zisterzienser und ihre Bucher (1998), 182-3), and identifiable as C 7 in the Eberbach catalogue of 1502 ('Quedam figure biblie et moralizationes earundem Initium Sciendum quod per a designatur etc. Scripte pergameno') (Palmer, Zisterzienser, 234, without reference to the present manuscript).

William Laud: acquired 1638 (ex libris, fol. 1r) after the disperal of the Eberbach library in the Thirty Years' War.

Part of his third donation to the Bodleian, 1639.

Record Sources

Description by Matthew Holford, November 2023. Previously described in the Quarto Catalogue (H. O. Coxe, Laudian Manuscripts, Quarto Catalogues II, repr. with corrections, 1969, from the original ed. of 1858–1885).

Quarto Catalogue, col. 216

Quarto Catalogue, p. 554

Summary Catalogue, vol. 2, part 1, p. 37