Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Manuscript codex containing Latin translations of Homilies of Origen on books of the Old Testament, written in Normandy and among the books given to Durham Priory by William of St Calais before 1096.
Parchment: fairly even toned but some hair sides with prominent follicle marks (e.g. f.51v+52r, 81v+81*r, 120v+125r). Arranged HF, FH. Parchment tab, inscribed with an “X” attached to f.96.
Modern foliation of medieval leaves: i-iii, 1-44, 44*-81, 81*-134, 134*-202 (a first foliation in ink in Arabic numerals was started on the first leaf of the text proper and overlooked three leaves now indicated with *; the omitted leaves were subsequently foliated in pencil.
Preliminaries (f.i-iii)3 (singleton, followed by a bifolium), I-XXV8, XVI5 (6 with leaf 6, probably blank, lost or cancelled).
Written area: 270 x 175 mm. Two columns (width: 75 mm). Lines: 39, except the capitula lists, f.ii-iii, where 40 (space, 6-7 mm; height of minims, 2 mm). Pricking: awl (generally only survives in the lower margin). Ruling: hard point on each hair side. Double verticals flank each column (three in total in the intercolumnar space); first, third, last and antepenultimate horizontals extended. In the Capitula lists (f.ii-iii): verticals as in main body of book, but first three and the last one (f.ii) or two (f.iii) horizontals extended.
All the original text (f.iiv-202r: items (a)-(l)) is by a single hand, writing an early Protogothic of Norman type. The same scribe wrote DCL MS B.III.10 and also appears in MSS destined for Jumièges, Exeter and St Albans. Neat corrections by a contemporary hand that also corrected DCL MS A.II.4 and DCL MS B.III.16. Item (m), transitional Protogothic-Textualis libraria. Running headings added to many of the rectos in late medieval hands.
Decorated initial, 27 lines high, heads (b): letter-shape formed from interlace and foliage, with beast-head terminals and a beast mask straddling the stem; done in red, green and black against a blue ground. The same artist reappears in DCL MS B.III.10. Individual homilies within (b), the incipits of subsequent items (including the fragmentary (l)), and the main subdivisions within them are all headed by an arabesque initial, 5+ lines high. Their basic letter shape is generally defined in a single colour (red, blue, or green) with simple embellishment in the other two colours. The rest of the first line of text is normally written in Rustic Capitals in ordinary ink, the letters stroked in red, yellow and green. The very small space reserved for the initial at the start of (m) was never filled.
Standard Tuckett binding, mid 19th century full brown calf over thick wooden boards (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham Manuscripts in the 19th century)
Written in France, Normandy, before 1096.
Inscription: “.Liber sancti Cuthberti de Dunelmo”, later 12th century, f.1r, top right. “Origenes super uetus testamentum -?-”, very heavily cropped, start 15th century, f.1r. “P.Q.”, very heavily cropped, 15th century, f.1r, top right. 15th/16th century additions to original contents list, f.iiv-iiiv, ?by Thomas Swalwell, monk of Durham c.1483-1539. One of the books given to Durham Priory by William of St Calais. Cited in list of books donated by St Calais, in mid 12th century catalogue and Cloister catalogue.
The capitula for each of the texts to In Jeremiam are by the main scribe of the book - with several original corrections in rasura; “Super Ezechielem” was appended by a late medieval hand. The folio on which each section starts was inserted by the hand responsible for the ink foliation, which also added “homiliae duae p. 196” to the appended entry “super Ezechielem”.
16 numbered homilies
13 numbered homilies. The first homily (f.30v-35v) is a composite from Ps.-Origen, Homelia XVII In Genesim, Rufinus,De benedictionibus patriarcharum, and Origen, In Exodum homelia I
16 numbered homilies. in Homily 14, the text “Verum quoniam sentetiam apostoli proposuimus … secundum isaie uerbum et inquinamenta oris incurrunt” (the equivalent of a column and a third on f.100v) has been boxed round in red. f.106 blank.
Rufinus’s Prefatory Letter to Chromatius and 26 numbered homilies.
8 numbered homilies.
Numbered as a continuation of item (f).
2 numbered homilies
9 numbered homilies.
14 numbered homilies only
Homily I (f.196r-200v) complete; Homily II (f.200v-202r) breaks off unfinished.
Starts following a two-line gap for rubric (not supplied) immediately after the imperfect end of (k), written in the same hand and headed by an arabesque initial.
Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis
dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at
various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including
catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.
,
Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).
Mynors, R., Durham Cathedral
manuscripts to the end of the twelfth century. Ten plates in
colour and forty-seven in monochrome. With an introduction
[including a list of all known Durham manuscripts before
1200] ,
(Durham: 1939)
Stegmüller, Friedrich, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi , (Madrid: 1950-1980)