MS. Laud Misc. 391
Summary Catalogue no.: 950
Isidore of Seville, Sententiae (incomplete); Germany, 11th century
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Numbered list of chapters
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.
The seven rules of Ticonius, in leonine verse
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
Collation
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
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
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
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2020-02-15: Revised description for Polonsky German digitization project.