Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Decretals of Boniface VIII, written in France or England in late 13th or early 14th century, with additions of related material.
Parchment, some natural flaws, repaired e.g. f.5 or 28 (stitches gone); hair and flesh sides indistinguishable. All edges cropped; both corners cut away, f.1-8, and lower corner, f.9-15, also most of the margins of f.1; Front leaves stained, soiled, distorted and brittle from damp.
Foliated, ii, 1-62.
1-38, 4-612; 74 (1-2 stubs of cancels).
Little pricking remains except for vertical and top lines; on f.58-62, for alternate lines of the text. Written space 190 x 130 mm.; clearly ruled in soft brown. Two columns, 37 lines.
Running titles: (1) only - books, tituli and topics, added in ink in top margins and corners, in 14th century.
Written in textura, expertly, with only a few rubrics;
(2) in incipient anglicana of a documentary type;
(3) in anglicana.
Names of popes touched with red, f.19 and 41. // marks for paraphs in text, not implemented. Paraphs, f.59-60 to rules, in alternating blue and red.
Initials: (i) to tituli and capitula, 2-line, in alternating blue and red; (ii) to (1), top missing, 3-line, in blue and red, with red and blue infilling. 3-line initial space to (2) unfilled. One initial cut out from f.1.
Corrections by the copyist, interlinear, e.g. f.4v, 36v; marginally f.20, 28-30, 54. A few slightly later corrections, e.g. f.11, 54ra (over erasure), 15th century. Considerable small neat early annotations, f.1-33v, in a script of notarial type, cf. (2); perhaps in the same hand as distinctive marginal signs (cc within four dots as cross), f.10-17v, 20v-24, 28r-v, 43v, 57v, etc., cropped at top. Marginal note, cropped, on f.38, 14th century, “De fratribus predicatoribus & minoribus”, corresponding with insertion in contents list on f.62.
Inscription: “Hoc scio pro Certo quod si cum Stercore Certo siue vinco siue vincor tamen ipse maculor”, 16th/17th century, f.34r top.
Brown calf, blind tooled with Hugh Hutchinson's rolls A, and D on board edges, 17th century; spine,mid 19th century, gilt title and shelf-numbers and 1 clasp.
Written in France or England, late 13th or early 14th century.
(2) presumably copied in 14th century from a document in Durham Cathedral Priory archives; (4) added by Thomas Swalwell, monk of Durham (c. 1483-1539). Top of f.1 lost, taking any ex libris there; “Clementine”, f.1r foot, 15th century. “Th...”, f.62v, 15th century.
“Geo. Davenport. 1663.”, on older pastedown, hidden by later pastedown; his note of contents, f.iiv.
Ex-libris and shelf-numbers by Thomas Rud on f. iiv.
Corpus Juris Canonici ii,933 1124; here, as often, V,xii,3 (CIC ii,1109 1121) is omitted. Two capitula are divided in two: I,xiv,4 (CIC ii,979) at “Cum autem delegatus” (f.16); II,xvi,1 (CIC ii,1053) at “Sane ut hoc salutare” (f. 39). The rubrics to the tituli are original.
Presumably derived from the lost original with full anathema, which was Durham Cathedral Archive 3.2.Pap.8, copied in Durham Cathedral Archive Cartulary I f.17v-18v, Durham Cathedral Archive Cartulary III f.186-187, and Durham Cathedral Archive Misc. Ch. 7140.
Clauses of papal indulgence, not traced, with notes inserted by the scribe, “Lacuna” and “dorsa vertens” (60vb lines 4, 11); the latter indicates that the exemplar was written on both sides, and hence was not the original document.
Les registres de Boniface VIII 
, ed. G. Digard, M. Faucon, A. Thomas & R. Fawtier, (Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 2nd series 4; 1907-1934)
Corpus iuris canonici (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1879-81)
Records of Antony Bek , ed. C. M. Fraser (Surtees Soc. 162) (Durham: Published for the Society by Andrews & Co., 1953)
Fraser, C.M. History of Antony Bek (Oxford: OUP, 1957)