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

MS. Laud Misc. 391

Summary Catalogue no.: 950

Isidore of Seville, Sententiae (incomplete); Germany, 11th century

Contents

Language(s): Latin

1.
Isidore of Seville, Sententiae (incomplete)
Rubric: \lib(er)(?) ysidori de summo bono/ (13th(?)-century)
(fols. 1r–2r)

Numbered list of chapters

Rubric: Incipiunt
Incipit: I Quod deus summus et incommutabilis sit
Explicit: LXIII. De breuitate huius uitę
(fols. 2r–75v)
Rubric: Incipit liber sentenciarum Primus a domno Ysidoro Ispalense editus. Quod deus summus et incommutatabilis[sic] sit
Incipit: Summum bonum deus est, quia incommutabilis est
Explicit: quanta ualuerit exortacion conpescitur.

The text ends approximately 150 words from the end of Book III; the scribe wrote the final word in majuscule letters touched with red, and left the rest of the line blank: this suggests that he had reached the end of his exemplar, which lacked its final leaf.

2. (fol. 76v)

The seven rules of Ticonius, in leonine verse

Incipit: Fert animis usum. quod habet scriptura reclusum
Walther, Initia, no. 6436 (this ms. only)
(fols. 57–64, lower text)

Fols. 57–64 are palimpsest, the lower text unidentified. Fols. 65–72 with earlier ruling in hard point for writing 'across' the page.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: (fol. 2r) in his
Secundo Folio: (fol. 3r) mouetur
Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: ii (paper) + 75 + i (medieval parchment, fol. 76) + ii (paper)
Dimensions (leaf): 240 × 145 mm.
fols. 35–38, 43–46, 51 and 54 are formed of shorter leaves, or else their lower margins have been excised

Collation

1–7(8) (fols. 1–56), 8(8) (fols. 57–64, palimpsest), 9(8) (fols. 65–72), 10 (three) (fols. 73–75); quire signatures on first rectos of the first 7 quires, I–VII, the numerals preceded by a paraph mark

Layout

Ruled in drypoint for 35 lines per page. Written space 190–200 × 95–100 mm.

Hand(s)

Caroline minuscule. A second scribe starts at fol. 58r, and often leaves space to indent the coloured initials.

Rubrics sometimes in Rustic Capitals

Musical Notation:

The outer margin of fols. 67v–68r with added neumes.

Decoration

Initials in plain red-orange; typically 2- or 3-line for chapters, larger for books (fols. 2r, 20v, 44r).

Binding

Sewn on four bands and bound in 17th-century brown leather over pasteboards, with the (added?) gilt arms of archbishop Laud in the centre of each cover. The spine with vestiges of a handwritten title on a paper label. Vestiges of two ties.

History

Origin: 11th century ; Germany

Provenance and Acquisition

15th-century French(?) pen-trial inscription (fol. 76r, effaced)

Attributed with query by Sigrid Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters (1989), II.735 to the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim, on uncertain grounds.

William Laud, 1573–1645, 1638 (inscription fol. 2r, lower margin).

Part of his third donation to the Bodleian, 1639. Former Bodleian shelfmarks: ‘E.27’ and ‘Laud 391’ (front pastedown), the spine with a printed paper label ‘Lau[d] | E | 27.’

Record Sources

Summary description (Feb. 2021) by Peter Kidd, edited by Matthew Holford. 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).

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)

Bibliography

Last Substantive Revision

2020-02-15: Revised description for Polonsky German digitization project.