MS. Rawl. D. 263
Summary Catalogue no.: 15536
Life and Miracles of St Dunstan
Physical Description
Collation
Binding
18th century, leather over pasteboard with stamped floral border
History
Provenance and Acquisition
James West: gave to Thomas Hearne on 1 January 1726. Inscribed, ‘|To Mr Thomas Hearne of Edmund Hall in Oxford. |January 1st 1726 |Felices multos tibi Juppiter augeat annos! |Sic optat sic precatur. |Vester. J.W. ’
Thomas Hearne. Inscribed, ‘|Suum cuique Tho: Hearne Febr. 7. 1726. |Ex dono amici ornatissimi Jacobi West, A. M. |e Coll. Ball.’
Bequeathed to the Bodleian in 1755
MS. Rawl. D. 263 – Part 1
Contents
Physical Description
Layout
21–24 lines; frame and lines ruled in red. 160 × 117 mm.
Hand(s)
Gothic textura; at least three hands, with new stints beginning at fols. 17r, 25r.
Corrections and annotations in a humanistic cursive script.
Guide letters for coloured initials added in an italic script from fol. 18r onwards, corresponding with a shift in colour from blue to green. The Gothic production phase likely left the coloured initials unfinished after fol. 16v, with them being filled in during the copying of the second book. The letters may have needed conjecture, as suggested by the change at fol. 32v from a green M to a red V.
Decoration
Five-line blue initial with red penwork (fol. 1r).
Seven-line initial in gold leaf on a patterned maroon and blue background (fol. 3r).
Coloured initials, alternating between red and blue for the first two quires (fols. 1–16); red and green in the third and fourth (fols. 17–33, continued in fols. 34r–36v). First letters of new sentences touched in red (fols. 1r–3r, 11v–16v, 33v), yellow (fols. 3v–11v, 17r–24r), or green (fols. 24v–31r).
Opening rubric; line fillers generally alternating between blue and red.
History
MS. Rawl. D. 263 – Part 2
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Concludes with a couplet: ‘ Hactenus exscripsi tanti miracula patris scribat et ipse sui me, precor, esse gregis ’
Physical Description
Layout
17–19 lines; frame-ruled in red. Fols. 59–65 and 82–83 are framed more tidily and in a brighter shade of ink, and might have been made for the original Gothic production phase. 170 × 117 mm.
Fols. 66–81 were added after fols. 34–65: frame blind-ruled, 19–21 lines per page. (Fol. 65v was presumably blank initially, with fols. 82–83, frame-ruled in red likely at one time following as further blank pages.) 170 × 120 mm.
Hand(s)
Italic script: Albinia de la Mare judged it to be English of the sixteenth century. This notably uses a different style of punctuation and capitalization from the Gothic script of fols. 1–33. Rodney Thomson alternatively proposes: ‘The same red and green initials are found in both parts, and in both corrections and marginal notes were made in two humanistic cursive hands, which look to be fifteenth- rather than sixteenth-century. We may conjecture, then, that this book was made for a member of the Glastonbury community, the second part perhaps during a stay in Italy, and that it is to be identified with the copy seen at Glastonbury by John Leland.’ Michael Winterbottom and Rodney M. Thomson, William of Malmesbury: Saints’ Lives, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), p. 159.
Corrections and annotations in a humanistic cursive script.
Decoration
Fols. 34r–37v: alternating red and green initials, continuing from the previous part; guide letter for incomplete initial at fol. 37v written in a Gothic style.
Fols. 38v–83r: enlarged capitals in black, some with simple penwork decoration.
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2020-03-13: Andrew Dunning: new description.