Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- [13 cent., first ¼] (Creation)
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
ii, 357 (ff. i-ii, 355-357 paper flyleaves of nineteenth century; ff. 353-354 fragmentary paper flyleaves, probably sixteenth century; ff. 1-55 (omitting f. 11) are foliated 7-60, perhaps fifteenth century) : Thin parchment ; 170 x 120 mm (written space c. 112 x 80 mm).
Bound in calf, blind-tooled, panels, red lettering pieces 'BIBLIA / M.S. VELLUM / SAE XIV / No. 18 / PORKINGTON / LIBRARY', [19 cent.] (after 1837), in the same style as Brogyntyn MSS II.3 and II.5.
Context area
Name of creator
Archival history
Written on the fore-edge is a title, in two words, illegible. The psalms are neatly numbered in arabic numerals, perhaps fifteenth century. Pentrials, (temp. Eliz. I), naming Amey[?] Osband and William Vaughan (ff. 353 verso-354). On f. 352 verso, in italic script, 'Hugo Evans'. The same signature occurs in Peniarth MS 12, ff. iv, v and 158, a manuscript partly written by this Hugh Evans; he is possibly Hugh Evans, dean of St Asaph (d. 1587). MS 20 in Thomas Phillipps's 1837 printed catalogue of the Porkington manuscripts; MS 18 on the spine and in the revised versions of Phillipps's catalogue; not mentioned in Second Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (London, 1874).
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
A Bible, written in France, [13 cent., first ¼]. Texts: 'Hic incipit epistola beati Ieromini ...' [Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi (Madrid, 1950-80) 284] (ff.1-2); Stegmüller 284 repeated (ff. 3-4); and The Bible (ff. 5-352). The OT, compared with the order established about 1230 in Parisian Bibles (see for instance N. R. Ker and A. J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries (Oxford, 1969- ), I, 96-97) lacks the Prayer of Manasses and 2 Ezra. The unusual NT order is: Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles and Apocalypse. For the OT, prologues are lacking for 2 Chronicles, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom (the Paris prologues for the latter two are added by another hand in the margin), that for Tobit is Stegmüller 349, while the series for the Minor Prophets, Amos to Machabees, is Stegmüller 512, 516, 522, 525, 527, 529, 532, 535, 540, 544 and 551. The only prologues in the NT are, for the Gospels, Stegmüller 590, 607, 615 and 624, for Acts 640; for the Catholic Epistles (James) Jacobus ecclesie ierosolimitane post apostolos curam et regnum suscepit ... uel inuisibiliter percutiat; and for the Epistle to the Romans, Stegmüller 662. The hand which added the prologues in the margin of the OT also added in the margin the standard prologues for the Pauline Epistles up to Philippians.
The text was corrected throughout, before decoration (see f. 104); it was annotated and further corrected by several thirteenth-century hands. Some of the larger omissions, neatly made good in the margin by the scribe, have their text otiosely repeated, in circles, by a contemporary hand. Between 2 Chronicles and Esther, chapter divisions were revised by one of the correcting hands, in conformity with the Paris Bible, most notably in Esther, where nine chapters become sixteen. The text is lightly glossed throughout, by pen and plummet, by the same thirteenth-century hands. Cited by glosses, apart from the Fathers, are Bede (ff. 281 verso, 323), Raban (f. 270), Hugh of St Victor (ff. 5, 245 verso, 258, 323 verso), Richard of St Victor (f. 160) and 'Ray[mund]' (f. 166).
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Access to the original manuscript by authorised permission only. Readers are directed to use surrogate copies.
Conditions governing reproduction
Usual copyright laws apply.
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Latin.
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Damaged by damp between sixteenth century and nineteenth century (ff. 353-4 are affected); cropped, with loss of headings and marginalia, probably when bound in sixteenth century.
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Available on microfilm at the Library.
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Original title.
Note
Formerly Porkington MS 18.
Note
[Produced in France.]
Note
Decoration: Full column borders on ff. 1, 3, 5; good 5- to 7-line 'white lion' initials in deep blue or pink on grounds of the contrasting colour, touched with vermilion or white (a green edging on f. 3), with extensions into the margin, for the openings of Books and for the liturgical divisions of the psalter; 2- to 4-line red or blue initials with delicate pen-work of the contrasting colour for the openings of the prologues and psalms. Running headings in alternate red and blue letters (many cropped).
Note
Secundo folio: Ne tocius (f. 2), -cariam et (f. 4).
Note
Ruled in crayon. Two columns. Normally 49 lines.
Note
Collation: 1 (ff. 1-2 only), 2 (12), 3 (12) (ff. 15-27, with one inserted leaf, f. 19?), 4-10 (12), 11 (12) (ff. 112-22, wanting one leaf, uncertain which), 12-13 (12), 14 (10) (ff. 147-156, preceding the psalter), 15-23 (12), 24 (6), 25-30 (12), 31 (10); the sewing is too tight to be sure of the structure of quires 3, 11, 24. The missing five leaves indicated by the early foliation, and the duplicated text of ff. 1-2, are puzzles. No signatures survive unless in the plummet marks on ff. 112 and 123.
Note
Preferred citation: Brogyntyn MS II.4 [RESTRICTED ACCESS].