MS. Rawl. G. 127

Summary Catalogue no.: 14852

Psalter in Latin with French and English additions; England, late 13th or early 14th century

Psalter (mutilated and incomplete)

[items 1–3 occupy quire I]

1. (fols. 1v–2v)

Recipe in English ‘ffor þe pestelince’ (16th century), names (see ‘Provenance’), pen trials.

Language(s): Middle English

2. (fol. 3r)

A copy of a letter in French, predicting miracles and troubles in 1357, beginning ‘A touz bons chrestiens en qel lieu qils sount Mestre Miles de Tollet & les autres mestres du grace dieux perdurable saluz de tote humene lygnage nous conseilloms que touz nous deuygnoms tout contrit & bien confessez qen lan M.CCC.lvij aueroms tantz dolerous merueils al mound ...’.

Language(s): Anglo-Norman

3. (fols. 3v–4r)

‘Virtutes psalmorum’, a version of Bruyne, 26. Aug (pp. 77–8), beginning ‘⟨C⟩anticum psalmorum . Carmen electum est apud deum animas decorat ...’. Fol. 4v originally blank.

[items 4–11 occupy quires II–XIX]

4. (fols. 5r–149v)

Psalms [1]–150, starting with a single leaf, containing psalms 13: 1–14: 3 (‘qui faciat bonum ...’ to ‘suo malum & ob ...’). The next quire starts at psalm 24: 6 (‘mine & misericordiarum tuarum ...’, fol. 6). The following text is also missing, because leaves which originally contained illuminations at the beginnings of psalms 26, 38, 51, 52 (?), 68, 80, 97, 101 and 109 were removed:

– one leaf is missing after fol. 6 (missing text 24: 20–26: 1);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 23 (missing text 37: 21–38: 8);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 38 (missing text 51: 1–52: 1);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 54 (missing text 67: 26–68: 3);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 74 (missing text 79: 8–80: 3);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 93 (missing text 96: 11–98: 1);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 94 (missing text 99: 5–101: 3);
– one leaf is missing after fol. 110 (missing text 108: 31–110: 4).

Psalms are in the biblical order, laid out with each verse starting on a new line, without titles. Psalm numbers are added in a post-medieval hand. Subdivisions within psalms are not marked, apart from psalm 118, subdivided into twenty-two 8-verse units. Punctuated throughout, with punctus used to mark the ends of verses and minor pauses, and punctus elevatus used to mark metrum.

5. (fols. 149v–160v)

Weekly canticles, without titles:

(1) Confitebor tibi domine (Isaiah 12);
(2) Ego dixi (Isaiah 38: 10–21);
(3) Exultauit cor meum (1 Samuel 2: 1–11);
(4) Cantemus domino (Exodus 15: 1–20);
(5) Domine audiui (Habakkuk 3);
(6) Audite celi (Deuteronomy 32: 1–44).

6. (fols. 160v–167r)

Daily canticles, prayers and creeds, without titles:

(1) Te deum laudamus (fol. 160v);
(2) Benedictus dominus deus (fol. 161v);
(3) Benedicite omnia opera (fol. 162v);
(4) Athanasian Creed (Quicumque uult ...) (fol. 164r);
(5) Magnificat (fol. 166v);
(6) Nvnc dimittis (fol. 167r).

7. (fols. 167v–172v)

Litany, including Alban, Oswald and Edmund (last) among the martyrs; Dunstan, Edmund, Hugh (bishop of Lincoln (?)) and Cuthbert among the confessors; and Balbina and Frideswide last among the virgins. Followed by collects with rubrics ‘oracio’ (fols. 171r–172v):

(1) Deus cui corda fidelium sancti spiritus illustratione docuisti ...
(2) Deus cui proprium est misereri semper et parcere suscipe ...
(3) Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui facis mirabilia magna solus ...
(4) Pretende domine famulis et famulabus tuis dexteram celestis auxilii ut de toto corde ...
(5) Ecclesie tue domine preces placatus admitte ut destructis aduersitatibus et erroribus uniuersis ...
(6) Deus a quo sancta desideria recta consilia et iusta sunt ...
(7) Animabus quesumus domine famulorum famularumque tuarum oracio proficiat supplicancium ut eas ...
(8) Deus qui es sanctorum tuorum splendor mirabilis atque lapsorum subleuator ...

8. (fols. 172v–184v)

Office of the Dead, use of Sarum, with musical notation (square notation on staves of four red lines). Responsories correspond to nos. 14, 72, 24, 32, 57, 28, 68, 82, 38 in Ottosen (1993).

9. (fols. 185r–187r)

Added prayers (15th century?), the first for the use of a woman whose name begins with ‘M’ (‘Et michi . M . famule tue .’, fol. 186r): ‘Obsecro te domina sancta maria mater dei pietate plenissima ...’, followed by a versicle and a response; ‘⟨O⟩mnipotens sempiterne deus qui gloriose uirginis et matris marie corpus et animam ...’.

10. (fols. 187v–188v)

Devotion of the Seven Last Words (‘Incipit oratio venerabilis bede presbyteri ...’) in the same hand as the prayers on fols. 185r–187r, beginning ‘Domine ihesu christe qui septem verba die ultima vite tue in cruce pendens dixisti ...’, followed by a prayer ‘Precor te piissime domine ihesu christe propter eximiam caritatem ...’, incomplete, probably unfinished, at the end.

11. (fol. 189r–v)

Fol. 189r, ruled but originally blank, contains an erased inscription in a 16th- or 17th-century hand. Fol. 189v contains recipes in Latin in a 15th-century hand. Fol. 190 is blank.

Language(s): Latin; additions in Anglo-Norman and Middle English

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: solicitudo est (fol. 4r)

Form: codex

Support: parchment; paper fly-leaves

Extent: 190 leaves

Dimensions (leaf): c. 270 × 180 mm.

Foliation: modern, in pencil; 1–190.

Collation

Layout

Ruled in plummet with single vertical and double horizontal bounding lines extending the full height and width of page; written below the top line; 18 lines per page; written space: c. 165 × 95 mm.

Hand(s)

Large formal Gothic book hand; black ink.

Musical Notation:

Square notation on staves of four red lines.

Decoration

4-line pink initials on gold and blue backgrounds, decorated with foliage, at the beginnings of psalm 119 (fol. 127v) and the first canticle (fol. 149v).

2-line blue and pink initials on gold backgrounds, decorated with foliage, human and animal heads, and grotesques, at the beginnings of psalms, canticles, litany, prayers and sections of the Office of the Dead.

1-line alternating blue and gold initials, with contrasting red or blue penwork, usually extending into the upper and lower margins, often with human faces, dragons, etc., at the beginnings of verses and periods.

Line-endings in gold, red and blue.

Rubrics in red ink in prayers, Office of the Dead and the Devotion of the Seven Words.

Binding

Red leather over pasteboard, 19th century. Blind fillet border round the outer edge of both covers. Six raised bands on spine. Gilt lettering on spine: ‘PSALTERIUM.’ and ‘RAWL || 127’. Marbled paper pastedowns. Red leather turn-ins with blind fillet border. Fol. 1 was a pastedown of an earlier binding. Evidence of two clasps at the fore-edge.

History

Origin: late 13th or early 14th century ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

Owned by a woman named ‘M ...’ in the 15th century (fol. 168r).

‘Pertinet Willelmo ffyssher’, 15th century (?) (fol. 1v).

‘Pertinuit sed nunc pertinet domine Katherine vaux’, added immediately above the Fisher inscription, 16th century (fol. 1v).

‘John Blaney’, ‘Thomas Basse’, ‘Richard Perkins’, the first name three times, the others twice each, perhaps all by the same hand (fol. 2r); Blaney’s and Basse’s names with numbers and dates ‘24’, ‘27’, ‘1620’, ‘34’ and ‘June 27’ (fol. 2v).

‘No: 8’, 18th century (?) (fol. 2r).

Francis Pole of Park Hall, Chesterfield (d. 1750): no. 1416 in the auction catalogue of his library, March 1752, London, described as ‘Missale Romanum’ (see fol. 2v).

Richard Rawlinson (1690–1755), see ODNB: ‘684’ (fol. 1v); ‘1416 Pole’ (fol. 2r).

Bodleian Library: bequeathed by Rawlinson; accessioned in 1756. Former shelfmark: ‘Auctarium Rawlinson G. 127’ (fol. 1r).

Record Sources

Elizabeth Solopova, Latin Liturgical Psalters in the Bodleian Library: A Select Catalogue (Oxford, 2013), pp. 132–6. Previously described in the Summary Catalogue.

Summary Catalogue, Vol. 3, p. 364

Bibliography

Select bibliography:

Summary catalogue, vol. 3, no. 14852.

Frere, no. 142.

Anstruther, G., Vaux of Harrowden, a recusant family (Newport, Mon.: R. H. Johns, 1953), p. 10 n. 53.

S. J. P. van Dijk, Latin Liturgical Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol. 2: Office Books (typescript, 1957), p. 51

Pächt and Alexander (1966–73), vol. 3, no. 570.

Western manuscripts and miniatures, Sotheby’s, 18 June 1996, lot 56 (Bible owned by William Fisher).

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2024-05: Encode full description from Solopova catalogue.

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