Add MS 41490

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, in Latin, viz.:-

(1) Fragment of a prose tract on rhetorical figures, similar to the more elaborate treatise in Cotton MS. Cleopatra B. vi, f. 33 (beg. 'Tria sunt circa quae cuiuslibet'). The present fragment contains 23 lines from the section on 'Permutatio', ending 'compositum nuncupemus. Explicit'. f. 1.

(2) Bernardus Silvestris, De Mundi Universitate, in prose and verse. The work, also called Cosmographia (cf. Cotton MS. Cleopatra A. xiv), comprises two books (Megacosmus and Microcosmus), with a prefatory epistle, beg. 'Henrico (sc. Terrico) ueris scienciarum'. Book I beg. 'Congeries informis'. The chief differences from the edition (Bibliotheca Philosophorum Mediae Aetatis, vol. i) by C. S. Barach and J. Wrobel are:(a) the omission (with Cleopatra A. xiv) of the preliminary synopsis or breviarium (op. cit., p. 5);-

(b) the omission of the complete poem beg. 'Perspice mente' (op. cit., p. 51). In the latter omission the MS. agrees with Cleopatra A. xiv, Royal MS.

15 A. xxxii and Harley MS. 3234, but not with Sloane MS. 2477. The breviarium occurs alone in Add. MS. 23892, f. 29b, and another epitome is in Cotton MS. Titus D. xx, ff. 112b-117b. ff. 1-13b.

(3) 'Liber de spirituali gratia monialis cuiusdam Meltildes nomine monasterii Sielpede (sic) in Theothonia': the Liber Specialis Gratiae of St Mechtild of Hackeborn (d. 1298 or 1299), a nun in the convent of Helpede or Helfta, in Saxony. The text exists in two recensions. The longer was edited by the Benedictines of Solesmes in Revelationes Gertrudianae ac Mechtildianae, ii, 1877, where an account of the MSS. and printed editions is given. The present text in five books belongs to the shorter version. Beg. 'Benignitas et humanitas saluatoris'; ends 'meliores erunt' (pt. v, ch. xxx of the Solesmes ed.), followed by a table of rubrics. Extracts occur in Sloane MS. 982, ff. 54- 60b, 61, and a complete English translation of the 15th cent. is contained in Egerton MS. 2006, with the title 'The Book of Ghostly Grace'. ff. 13b-57b.

(4) 'Incipiunt meditationes venerabilis Anselmi': Prayers of St Anselm. The Prologue, beg. 'Orationes sive meditationes', is followed by Prayers ix, xx, x and ii (combined), as numbered in Migne, Patr. Lat., clviii. Imperf. at end. The textual problems are discussed by Dom Wilmart in his introduction to A. Castel's Méditations et Prières de St Anselme, 1923, and in a number of articles reprinted in Auteurs Spirituels et Textes Dévots, 1932. Cf. also the critical ed. by Dom Wilmart in F. S. Schmitt, S. Anselmi Opera Omnia, iii, 1946. ff. 57b-60b. Vellum; ff. iii + 60. 11 5/8 in. x 8¼ in. xiv cent. Perhaps of Southern French execution (cf. Add. MS. 41491, with which it was formerly bound). Gatherings of twelve leaves, with catchwords. Double columns of fifty-one lines. Flourished pen-work initials in red and blue. Belonged to Lt.-Col. E. G. Troyte-Bullock (Sotheby's sale-cat., 27-29 June 1927, part of lot 512).