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

MS. Laud Misc. 263

Summary Catalogue no.: 1000

Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali; Excarpsus Cummeani; Mainz (?), c. 800 & Mainz, s. ix.

Contents

This description is abbreviated from Daniela Mairhofer, Medieval Manuscripts from Würzburg in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: A Descriptive Catalogue (Oxford, 2014), pp. 565–79. For purposes of scholarly citation, reference to the printed catalogue is requested.

1. (fol. 1r-v)

Additions in Carolingian minuscule

Language(s): Latin
1.1. (fol. 1r-v)
Breviarius de Hierosolyma (CPL 2327) (likely) Mainz, s. ixex
1.2. (fol. 1r)
‘Nam sicut exaltantur celi …’, with neums (likely) Würzburg, s. ix/x
1.3. (fol. 1v)
Formulas for Prayers for the Francs and their emperors

Corpus Orationum 3.2177, 2.1235, 9.5748b-c, 3.2019.

(likely) Mainz, s. ixex
2. (fols. 2r-65v)
Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali (incomplete)

Between fols 16/17 three quires are missing, with loss of text; fragments of these missing quires are preserved in Würzburg, UB, M.p.j.f.7.

Language(s): Latin
Glosses

Added 9th or 10th century, probably in Würzburg; three interlinear and one marginal pen glosses and several scratch glosses in Old High German, and other glosses in Latin.

Language(s): Old High German (Rheinish (?) or East Franconian (?)), and Latin
3. (fol. 65v)
Trilingual glossary for (nine) theological terms

Added in a hand s. ixin. The glossary in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (in roman alphabet), laid out in three unruled cols.

Several pen trials by a Carolingian hand s. xex.

Language(s): Latin, Greek, and Hebrew
(fols. 65v-66r)

Added antiphon and prayers, s. ix or x

4. (fols. 66r-81r)
Excarpsus Cummeani

Added in Maintz in Carolingian minuscule in s. ixin. Redemption texts, fol. 77r between (ed.) c. 11 & 12.

Language(s): Latin

Various interlinear and marginal notes and pen trials in Carolingian minuscule by several hands s. ix–x throughout the volume.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: ii (17th-cent.) + 81 + ii (17th-cent.) leaves
Dimensions (leaf): 315–26 × 205–15 mm.
The margins trimmed (affecting a few marginalia; the lower margins of several leaves excised. Between fols 16/17 three quires are missing, with loss of text; fragments of these missing quires are preserved in Würzburg, UB, M.p.j.f.7.
Foliation: i–ii, 1–83

Layout

Ruling in hard point; one column of mostly 27 lines. Ruled space c. 249–60 × 153–57 mm.

Hand(s)

Fols. 2r–65v: German Anglo-Saxon minuscule, c. 800. Written by 'Willibaldus diaconus', fol. 65v, probably at Mainz c. 800. Other leaves of the MS. are in the Universitätsbibliothek, Würzburg. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 5, pl. 1).

Fols. 1r-v, 65v & 66r–81v: Carolingian minuscule of the early and later 9th century.

Musical Notation:

Neums, fols. 1r and 81v.

Decoration

A large Insular initial P on fol. 2r. Monumental capitals, occasional initials, red rubrics in uncials.

Fols. 2r-65v: initials in the ink of the text.

Fols 66r-81v: initials in red or the ink of the text.

Fols 66r-81v: rubrics

Pen drawings on fol. 81r of a hoofed animal, a face of a man, and a bird (?).

Binding

Brown tanned calf over laminated pulpboard for Abp. Laud, 1637–1639.

History

Origin: c. 800; additions, 9th century ; Germany, Mainz

Provenance and Acquisition

Fols 2r–65v: Written in an Anglo-Saxon centre in Germany, most likely at Mainz, around 800, by ‘Willibaldus diaconus’; the manuscript was certainly at Mainz early in the 9th century, as is shown by the script of the additions.

The glossary (fol. 65v) and the Excarpsus (fols. 66r-81r) written in a Carolingian minuscule typical for Mainz, s. ixin, by two hands.

Würzburg, Domstift St Kilian, the change of location from Mainz to Würzburg probably took place around 900: a 15th-cent. shelfmark of the Domstift, fol. 1r.

William Laud, 1573–1645: his ex libris, 1637, fol. ii verso.

Given to the Bodleian as part of his third donation, dispatched on 28 June 1639.

Record Sources

See above. 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).

Availability

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Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Last Substantive Revision

2019-07-05: Description revised for Polonsky digitization project to include additional information from Mairhofer catalogue.