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Ancient manuscripts summary listing 301 - 350

March 2014: the descriptor [good/fair/poor/unusable] in square brackets following a manuscript's title indicates its current physical condition as assessed by Oxford Conservation Consortium in January-July 2014. Those in poor condition will not normally be produced for researchers, and those rated unusable not produced at all, until conservation treatment has been carried out in order to prevent further damage during consultation. Poor or unusable manuscripts may also not be fit to photograph safely, including by staff. If you do want to consult or request images from a manuscript that is not currently in a state to produce or photograph safely, please let us know - active research interest is of course a key factor in determining our conservation priorities.

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Digital images of the college's medieval manuscripts are placed online as they are created, usually on demand. Images are linked to from individual entries on these catalogue pages. The digitisation programme is shaped by researchers' requests rather than e.g. starting with MS 1, so if you require images for your research from a manuscript only partially photographed or not yet represented in the Flickr collection, please get in touch to have it added to the 'to-do' list.

301. Bonifacius VIII, Liber Sextus Decretalium; Constitutiones Provinciales (C14) [condition: fair]

images online here

14th century (183-198 are 15th century). 198ff. 16 x 10 1/4 inches. 2 colums; 3-182 with a varying amount of text and about 80 lines of gloss, the remainder with 45-55 lines. Collation: 2 leaves, i-xiii8 xiv-xv6 xvi2 | a-f8, no g, h8 o6 | i-ii8, the rest lost. Catchwords, and sometimes signatures. Several fairly good bookhands, in part using orange-brown ink, with red headings, and blue capitals flourished in red. Numerous small initials with part-borders (on 3 a full-page border) of fairly good work in gold and colour; 3 had a large initial (cf. 121), now removed with most of the text.

2o fo. (Text) suffragante; (Gloss) vel ita.

3-117v. (I) [BONIFACIUS VIII, Liber Sextus Decretalium (beginning lost), with the gloss of Johannes monachus, beg.] In dei nomine amen. Secundum philosophum… rem per causam cognoscere… Ends (text): contra legis nititur voluntatem. Explicit textus sexti etc. (gloss) : et xiiij w. iij plerique. Explicit apparatus sexti libri decretalium per dominum  Johannem Monachum compositus.

On the following leaves, under the heading Nove constituciones, are added in a contemporary hand: (118) Extrav. Commun. V. x. 2 Provide attendentes, with gloss: Provide quod minus nomine suo pro suo interesse; (118v) Extrav. Joan. XXII i.2 Suscepti regiminis, surrounded (as though by a gloss) by iii Exsecrabilis. Then (119): Declaraciones super dicta constitucione. Circa constitucionem de pluralitate dignitatum personatuum – per attemptatcionem secundorum. Explicit etc. Amen; (119v) Two canons on the obligations of parishioners: Inprimis statuit et decrevit, ascribed to Wynchelce on visitation in Winchester diocese AD 1305, but here abbreviated, and: Ad doctrinam, ascribed to an unnamed archbishop of Canterbury on visitation – cf. CR Cheney in EHR 1 (1935) [ = C] 411-413; an epitaph in 8 rhyming hexameters on Tancred the canonist (Si more offendi vel lite vel arte loquendi…); and, without title, Archbishop Meopham’s London constitutions of AD 1328 (Zelari oportet – arbitrio moderandum) as printed in Wilkins’ Concilia [=W] ii.552-554. 120v is blank.

121-182. (2) Incipiunt Constituciones domini OTHONIS quondam apostolice sedis legati edite London’. Quoniam decet… 149v. Hic incipient Statuta domini OCTOBONI etc. Mandata dei…,  both with the Apparatus Johannis de Aton’, as in MS 158. 182v is blank.
183-198v. (3) CONSTITUCIONES PROVINCIALES (cf. MS 158)
183-186. Stephen [Langton]. Oxon. [AD 1222]. C. 391, note 3.
186. De provisione pacis et utilitatis ecclesie Anglicane apud Westmonasterium post dictas constitutions promulgates. Sciendum quod in a.d. millesimo ducentesimo quadragesimo octovao… et Lincolnensi consimile.
186-189. Bonefacius. Lamheth [sic] [AD 1261?]. Preface in W.i.746; text partly i. 736-40, partly ii.278-8; C. 402-6.
189v-191. R. de Kywerbi [Pecham]. Reding [AD 1279]. W.ii.33-36, with chapters in the order 4, 5, 1-3; C.408.
191-196. Johannes de Pekham. Lamheth [sic] , 6 id. Oct. AD 1281. W.ii.51-61.
196-197. Simon de Mepham. London, feb. AD 1328 (as above).
197-198v. Constituciones synodales Norwicensis diocesis. Debentes de nobis rationem bonam redder… Breaks off imperfect: citra incinium septembris singulis (annis). CF. CFR Cheney, English Synodalia of the Thirteenth century (Oxford, 1941) 125-136.
Art. I has some marginalia in a late 15th century hand (cf. 19, 87, 106). The donor is unknown . On 2v is a list of contents in the hand of Nicholas Crouch (see MS 334). More about the MSS of Nicholas Crouch.

Citations:

• Cheney, C. R. "Legislation of the Medieval English Church (Continued)." The English Historical Review 50.199 (1935): 385-417.
• Cheney, C. R. "The so-called Statutes of John Pecham and Robert Winchelsey for the Province of Canterbury." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 12.01 (1961): 14-34.
• Steiner, E. "Response Essay: Chaucer's Inquisition." The Culture of Inquisition in Medieval England 4 (2013): 164.

302. Duns Scotus (C14) [condition: fair]

images online here

• Richter, Vladimir, SJ. "Zur Texttradition von Duns Scotus' Ordinatio.(A propos de la tradition textuelle de l'Ordinatio de Duns Scot)." Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie Wien 103.4 (1981): 446-456.
• Cress, D. A. "Toward a Bibliography on Duns Scotus on the Existence of God." Franciscan Studies 35.1 (1976): 45-65.Project MUSE. Web. 18 Aug. 2016. <https://muse.jhu.edu/>.

303. Duns Scotus (C14 1st half) [condition: fair]

304. This number is now void - formerly occupied by MS 173B.

305. Adam Squire - Sermons. (1571-2) [condition: good] images online

306. Boethius (C10 and 12) [condition: fair] images online here

307. Excerpta Theologica (C12, not late) [condition: good] images online here

308. Italian: Relatione dello stato dell'Imperio, et della Germania per tutto l'Anno 1628. (C17) [condition: good]

309. Italian; Spanish. C17. Content similar to 308. [condition: good]

310. Leonardus Aretinus (1449) [condition: fair]

311. Thomas Aquinas etc (late C13) [condition: fair] images online here

312. Thomas Aquinas etc (early C14) [condition: good]

313. Thomas Aquinas; Adam Bucfield (C13/14) [condition: fair]

Citations:

• Thomson, Samuel Harrison. “A Note on the Works of Magister Adam de Bocfeld (Bochermefort),” Medievalia et Humanistica 2 [1944], 56–87.

314. Robert Parsons (late C16) [condition: fair]

315. Opuscula Humanistica (Oxford 1442) [condition: good] images online here

316A. Walton's Boethius [condition: good] images online here

Citations:

• Hennessy, MV. 'The Disappearing Book in The Revelation of the Hundred Pater Nosters.' Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life ed. by Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry, Medieval Church Studies 31 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014) pp. 243–266.
• Takala, Aapo. "A Curious Harpour in Helle: An Edition of the Commentary on the Orpheus Metre of De consolatione philosophiae in Manuscript Thott 304 2º."Fund og Forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks Samlinger 50 (2015).
• Edwards, A. S. G. "Reading John Walton’s Boethius in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries." Spaces for Reading in Later Medieval England. Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016. pp. 35-49.

316B. Walton's Boethius [condition: good] images online here

Citations:

• Ogilvie-Thomson, Sarah J. The Index of Middle English Prose Handlist VIII: Manuscripts Containing Middle English Prose in Oxford College Libraries. Vol. 8. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2007.
• Edwards, A. S. G. "Reading John Walton’s Boethius in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries." Spaces for Reading in Later Medieval England. Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016. pp. 35-49.

317. Boethius [condition: fair] images online here

318. Disputations (in Latin) on Aristotle's de Ortu et Interitu, de Anima, and Metaphysics. (late C17) [condition: good]

319. Tractatus in inversam Aristotelis Logicam sub Reverendo nec non Eruditissimo Domino Roberto Jones illius Professore dignissimo a Georgio Browne eiusdem quidem studioso licet indigno Feliciter Aspirante Deo scriptus atque perlectus Anno a Partu Virginaeo MDCLXXVI. (late C17) [condition: good]

320. Gesta Romanorum etc (1st half C15) [condition: good]

321. Collectarium Herefordense (C14, with some later additions) [condition: fair] images online

322. Liber Brevium, beginning with a few English precedents and a list of Nomina citatum et villarum in England and Wales; then Attachiamenta. Carolus etc. vic. W. salutem. Precipimus tibi quod attach. WB ita quod sit coram nobis... (ca 1675-85) [condition: poor]

323. Turkish Imād al-Islām (the old title is: The Pillar of Islam, or The Faith; an Explication of the Faith and Religious Rites of the Turks).(AH 979 = AD 1571/2) [condition: fair]

324. Turkish 'Umdat al Hukkām, by Pīrī Effendī (the old title is : The Pillar of Government, being a Collection of the Laws and Customs of the Mohammedans). (AH 1112 = AD 1700/1) [condition: good]

325. Arabic (AH 1113 = AD 1701/2). al-Durr al-muntakhab fī tārīkh mamlaka Halab, an anonymous abridgement of Nuzhat al-nawāzir fī raud al-manāzir, a history of Aleppo by Abu 'l-Fadl Muhammad b. Muhammad b. al-Shihna al-Halabī (d.890/1485). [condition: good]

326. Turkish (AH 1026 = AD 1617). Tārīkh-i Muntakhab (the old title is: A Compendium of the Turkish History: beginning from Adam.) [condition: good]

327. Arabic (1 Ailūl 7086 of Creation = 1 September AD 1578.) Christian writings in translation: (1) Kitāb al-Burhān, an account of a conversion to Christianity, ascribed to Ya'qūb al-Yahūdi (Jacob the Jew); (2) The Twelve Testaments of Stomatathalassa to his disciple Theon. (3) Yuhannā al-Dimashqī (St John Damascene), Discourse on the Annunciation; cf Paris BN fonds arabe 151; (4) Prayers to the Virgin, followed by other prayers upon various occasions. [condition: fair]

328. Arabic (7050 of Creation = AD 1542) Psalter and Old Testament Chronicles, translated into Arabic.[condition: fair]

329. John Lydgate (C15) p.2 [condition: fair] images online

Citations:

• Robbins, Rossell Hope. "Medical Manuscripts in Middle English." Speculum 45.03 (1970): 393-415.
• Boffey, Julia, and A. S. G. Edwards. "Books Connected with Henry Parker, Lord Morley, and His Family." in Axton, Marie, and James P. Carley, eds. 'Triumphs of English': Henry Parker, Lord Morley, translator to the Tudor court: new essays in interpretation. British Library Board, 2000. [re book list on final folio]
• Mäkinen, Martti. "Between Herbals et alia: Intertextuality in Medieval English Herbals." (2006).
• Ogilvie-Thomson, Sarah J. The Index of Middle English Prose Handlist VIII: Manuscripts Containing Middle English Prose in Oxford College Libraries. Vol. 8. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2007.
• Chardonnens, László Sándor. "Mantic Alphabets in Late Medieval England, Early Modern Europe, and Modern America: The Reception and Afterlife of a Medieval Form of Dream Divination." Anglia 132.4 (2014): 641-675. article online accessed 23 September 2015
• Bridges, Margaret. "John Lydgate’s Last Poem."Trajectoires européennes du Secretum secretorum du Pseudo-Aristote (xiiie -xvie siècle) éd. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Margaret Bridges et Jean-Yves Tilliette Turnhout, 2015, (Alexander Redivivus, AR. 6) pp. 317-336. [329 incorrectly cited as Balliol MS 327]

330. Biblia Vulgata (C13) [condition: poor]

331. The Memorandum-Book of a country Justice under Charles I. (ca 1628-9) [condition: fair] images online

Mynors: About AD 1628-9. v + 44 ff. 8x6 in. Neatly written. Original vellum binding, formerly chained. The memorandum-Book of a country Justice under Charles I. On i verso The Rates of Wages in Easter Sessions 1627; ii-v list of Felonies examinable or inquirable before Justice of Peace by Statutes; 1-21 table of offences and their penalties, with references to the authorities; 26-44 notes of Statutes and miscellanea. 22-25 and 38-40 are blank. Origin and donor unknown.

A note found with the MS in 2017: 'This memorandum book would seem to have been compiled by a Devonshire JP. The rates of wages on f 1 verso can be compared with those surviving from the county for 1595 (Hughes & Larkin, 'Tudor Royal Proclamations' II p.150-1) and for 1654 (AHA Hamilton, 'Quarter Sessions records from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne' (1878) p 163-4). In both cases the form and order of items is similar, while many of the rates in the 1627 list are reproduced in 1654. I have made a collection of all the extant wage assessments from 1563-1725 for England and Wales, and have encountered no other assessing authority whose forms and rates so resemble the 1627 list as do those from Devonshire. The division of the year at Allhallowtide and Candlemas (cl 4) in particular is the kind of idiosyncratic feature by which the identification of the assessments is possible; and the use of this division for husbandry labourers alone is characteristic of Devonshire. - Michael F Roberts, Balliol College, 27 May 1976.' (MF Roberts, Balliol 1971)

332. In Logicam Aristotelis Annotationes etc. auctore religiosissimo in Christo patre THOMAS de AQUENA Sardo societatis Jesu sacerdote etc. Calari Anno Domini MDLXXV. Quaestiones on the Organon of Aristotle by a professor in the jesuit College at Cagliari, apparently copied from a printed edition, of which the title-page is facsimiled. Quaestiones on the de Anima and de Gen. et Corr. follow, with separate titles dated 1577. (C 16/17) [condition: fair]

333. Of the Viscount Scudamore's Embassy in France and his sufferings in the Civil War etc. The first account I find of his Lordship's being designed for this Embassy - Lasting Benificence to the Church. laus Deo. Febr. 24. 1721/2. (1722) [condition: good] images online

334. Nicholas Crouch MD (Fellow of the College 1640-1690), a notebook Pharmacopoeia compiled by him from printed sources (eg Sennert, and Ray's Catalogue of Plants), analysed first under drugs and then under complaints. (C 17) [condition: good] Images online More about Crouch's MSS.

335. Nicholas Crouch, Ex Institutionibus Sennerti (editione ut dicitur postrema Witembergae anno MDCXXXIII impressa) Quaedam capit. et pagin. descripta. Notebooks (2 vols) (C17) [condition: good] 335A Images online 335B Images online

336. Nicholas Crouch, a notebook containing a few arithmetical data and a short alphabetical catalogue of medical books, later used (from the other end) to copy verses. (C17)

• condition: good
• Images online
• CELM entry for Katherine Philips texts
• Citations:
  • Coolahan, Marie-Louise. "'We Live by Chance, and Slip into Events': Occasionality and the Manuscript Verse of Katherine Philips." Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr (2003): 9-23.
  • Sant, Patricia M and James N Brown.'Two Unpublished Poems by Katherine Philips (text)*.' English Literary Renaissance 24.1 (Dec 1994), pp 211-228.
  • Tate, Rebecca Lynn. "Katherine Philips, a critical edition of the poetry." (1991).

337. Theological commonplace book, in alphabetical order, first English then Latin. The opening heads are Anabaptist, Adultery, Bishops. Most leaves are blank. (C17) [condition: fair]

338. [Anon, Quaestiones logicae] An Logica recte definiatur, aff. De natura logicae plurimum ambigitur; eius igitur naturam inquirere...(C17) [condition: fair]

339. Nicholas Crouch, an alphabetical Register of medical prescriptions (many leaves blank). (C17) [condition: fair] Images online

340. An Establishment or List containing all Payments to be made for Civil List Affairs from the 25 Day of March 1709 etc For the Kingdome of Ireland. Cf. MS 344. (mid C18) Images online here. [condition: good]

341. Autobiography of Sir Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork and Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, dated 23 June 1632. Images online here. [condition: good]

342. The Life of Dr William Thomas late Lord Bishop of Worcester. (1752) Images online. [condition: fair to poor]

343. Geography of a Short way [to] know the World. Question: What is Geography. Answer: It is a Science which Teaches a Description of the Natural Globe of the Earth etc. (early C18) Images online here. [condition: fair to poor]

344. The Full Pay, Subsistence, Poundage, Hospitall Pells, Agent, Cloaths and Clearings to Horse Dragoons and Foot according to the Irish Establishment. (C18) Images online. [condition: fair]

345. A Short Catechisme. Q.What is Catechising? A. It is an easy Instructinge especiali of the ignorant in the grounds of religion etc. (early C17) Images online [condition: unusable]

346. A Cautionary Discourse of Schism with a particular regard to the Case of the Bishops who are suspended for refusing to take the New Oath. (early C18) MS copy of a tract by Henry Dodwell (1641-1711), printed in 1691. Images online. [condition: fair]

347. A Winchester Copy-Book. (ca 1588-1595) Images online here. [condition: good]

348. Biblia Vulgata (C13) [condition: fair]

349. Dieta Salutis etc (C15) [condition: fair to good]

Citations:

• Galloway, Andrew. "The Rhetoric of Riddling in Late-Medieval England: The “Oxford” Riddles, the Secretum philosophorum, and the Riddles in Piers Plowman." Speculum 70.01 (1995): 68-105.

350. Domesday Book for Herefordshire (C12, ca 1160-70); Ranulfus de Glanvill (early C13); Britton (French law treatise, early C14) [condition: good]

This manuscript has been digitised in full; images are available here and here

Citations:

• Galbraith, Vivian Hunter, and James Tait, eds. Herefordshire Domesday: Circa 1160-1170; Reproduced... from... Balliol College Manuscript 350. Pipe Roll Society, 1950.
• Public Record Office. Domesday 1086-1986: an exhibition to celebrate the 900th anniversary of Domesday Book. London 1986.

• MSS 1-50
• MSS 51-100
• MSS 101-150
• MSS 151-200
• MSS 201-250
• MSS 251-300
• MSS 301-350
• MSS 351-400
• MSS 401-450
• MSS 451-475

- Anna Sander