Add MS 61901

Description from the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts:

FOLCARDUS: Life of St John of Beverley, and Beverley Cartulary, England; late 14th cent. Latin. One of the most complete copies of Folcard's Life of John (died 721), the founder of Beverley Minster, composed before 1070; see Migne, PL, 147, cols. 1161-1178, and J. P. Raine, The Historians of the Church of York, I (1879), pp. 239-60. Transcripts of the Cartulary occur in Harley 560 and Cotton Otho C. XVI, ff. 65-102, in 16th cent. hands. Originally owned by the Collegiate Church of St John at Beverley, co. York., if not demonstrably made there (see N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 1964, p. 10). Owned by William Wraye of Ripon in 1586 (ex libris inscriptions, ff. 1, 61 and 69), perhaps Sir William Wray (1555-1617) son of Sir Christopher Wray (see DNB, LXIII, p.77). A pencil note on f. 1, possibly by Phillipps, reads 'Savile MS 23875' and the manuscript was lot 61 in the Sotheby's sale of the collections of the late 16th to early 17th century bibliophiles, Sir John Savile the Elder, Sir Henry Savile and Sir John Savile the Younger (see Sotheby's sale cat., 6 Feb. 1861, lot 61). MS. 23875 in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (label on spine). A circular label carrying the number 61 on the upper board resembles those found on a number of Phillipps manuscripts and has been tentatively attributed to the Ives collection. Belonged to H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, F.S.A. (d. 1965) (bookplate, f. i); afterwards on deposit at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, as BL. MS. 3 (see P. M. Giles, 'A Handlist of the Bradfer-Lawrence Manuscripts Deposited on Loan at the Fitzwilliam Museum', Trans. Camb. Bibl. Soc. VI, pp. 86-99). Purchased through Quaritch, March 1981.

Vellum; ff. i+90. Sec. fol.: 'verbum dei'. 375 x 255mm. Gatherings (12) of 8, except i8 (wants 1), iv8 (wants 5), xii8 (wants 5-8). Ruled (single bounding lines) in plummet for double columns of 28 lines. Text below top line. Written space 250 x 157mm. Script is a Gothic textualis quadrata by one scribe. Marginal pen trials (including couplets in English), 15th-17th cent. Catchwords, some decorated with grotesque heads. Some guide-letters and colour-notes in metal-point or ink (g, presumably for gold). Original binding of bevelled, rounded wooden boards covered with white leather. Sewn on 8 double cords, with red, green and blue endbands. Traces of 2 foredge clasps (lost) and of nails in lower board (perhaps for the attachment of a staple and chain). Offsetting from former pastedowns onto insides of boards. Straw used as a bookmarker at f. 67.

Contents:

1. ff. 1-60v. Folcardus, Life of St John of Beverley. Prologue beg. imperf. at '... nam semper' (Migne, 1166-1178).

2. ff. 60v-90. Copies of selected charters and privileges, royal, papal and episcopal, of Beverley, down to 1380. Ending imperf. Those on ff. 60v-69 are described as translations 'de anglico in latinum' made by Alveredus, sacrist; see G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (1958), no. 49.

Decoration consists of a major decorated opening at f. 60v, with major initials, a zoomorphic initial I and a decorated initial D, with full foliate bar border with foliate and knotwork corner-pieces, in gold and colours. A similarly embellished leaf may be seen, from offsetting, to have been excised following f. 27. Major decorated initials of 4-5 lines occur on ff. 1v and 10v, in gold and colours. 2-4 line minor initials occur at the beginning of sections, in gold on blue and red/brown particoloured cusped grounds embellished with foliate and tracery decoration in white. Some 1 line initials open rubrics. A minor initial V , f. 29, is inhabited by a bust of a Benedictine monk (probably either St John of Beverley or St Bercthun, Beverley's first abbot) and a minor initial E, f. 73v, is inhabited by a bust of Edward I. Some initials excised. On f. 81 is a diagram accompanying the laws of Pope Hadrian IV, consisting of a circle divided into 4 and inscribed with the names of Sts Peter and Paul and Pope Hadrian IV, circumvented by 'oculi mei semper ad dominum'