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

MS. Top. Glouc. d. 2

Summary Catalogue no.: Not in SC (late accession)

Contents

Language(s): Latin

Founder's and benefactors' book of Tewkesbury Abbey
(fol.2–5 line 8)

Extracts from a narrative cartulary giving an account of the abbey and its benefactors, beginning c.1000 and ending with the death of Isabel, wife of Gilbert de Clare [d.1239/40], followed (fol.5 lines 9–17) by two genealogical notes

(fol.5 line 18 – 5v, 42v–45v)

An overlapping set of extracts from the same source c.1000 to 1109, written in imitation 13th cent. script

(fol.6–7v)

Charter of William fitz Count, with his portrait

(fol.8–40v)

Chronicle of founders and benefactors, pr. from MS. Cotton Cleop. A. VII (Davis), another version with slight differences, in Dugdale Monasticon, II.59–65. There are 24 crude portraits with arms, including three pre-Conquest patrons and a continuous series of patrons from Robert fitz Hamon to Richard, earl of Warwick, with some ladies, and also Robert Chandos, founder of Goldcliff.

(fol.41–2)

Quartered arms of George, duke of Clarence, patron of the abbey followed by an illustrated explanation of the quarterings. On fol.1v is a note on properties once belonging to the abbey.

Described by C. H. Bickerton Hudson in Trans. Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc. 33 (1910), 60–6, with a facsimile of fol. 27. A direct copy of our MS., used by J. H. Blunt, Tewkesbury Abbey and its associations, London, 1875, is now British Museum MS. Add. 36985.

The Founder's Book. A medieval history of Tewkesbury Abbey. A facsimile of Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Top. Glouc. d. 2, ed. Julian Luxford with Adrian Ailes and Susan Powell (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2021)

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment

Collation

lost: the leaves have been guarded

Hand(s)

Several hands; one is a good secretary hand (fols. 6–7v, 12 (inserted slip), 22, 28, 37–40v); another imitates at 13th cent. hand (see under Contents)

Decoration

Good miniatures, arms. Copies of an earlier manuscript (?). (Pächt and Alexander iii. 1177, pl. CVIII). 22 half-page and two full-page portraits, many coats of arms.

Binding

19th cent. binding.

History

Origin: 16th century, beginning ; English, Tewkesbury

Provenance and Acquisition

Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, Benedictine abbey of St Mary the Virgin: Charters with historical notes, adorned with coloured drawings. Cf. Trans. Bristol and Glos. Archaeol. Soc. 33, with emendations in BLR 1 (1938), pp. 14–15 [by I. G. Philip]. (MLGB3: evidence from locally specific contents, including obits, scribbles, etc.).

Sir Edw. Grevell. Robert, Lord Spencer. Baron Wormleighton. Lady Fane. Baroness le Despencer. The Earls of Westmoreland. Bequeathed to Bodley by the late Rev. C. H. B. Hudson 1938. (MLGB3)

Johannes E⟨wis⟩ham hunc librum fecit fieri’ (fol. 1v). A man of this name received a pension as subchanter in 1540; see Mon. Angl. II.83.

‘Edward Grevell’: Sir Edward Grevell of Milcote (d. 1559) (fol. 1v)

Robert, Lord Spencer, of Wormleighton

Given by him to Mary, Baroness le Despencer (fol. 1v)

John Fane, 17th Earl of Westmorland (d. 1859) (bookplate)

C. H. Bickerton Hudson.

Bequeated by him, 1938.

Record Sources

Typescript description by Bodleian Library staff

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Digital Bodleian (25 images from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Last Substantive Revision

2021-12-14: Add provenance information from MLGB3.