Add MS 40143

POEM on the mystical marriage of St. Catharine of Alexandria, in 869 octosyllabic lines rhyming in couplets. Fr. The poem, after a prologue in praise of God, deals with the birth and education of the saint and the effect of her mother's inconsolable grief upon her. She resolves never to marry any but an immortal spouse, and a hermit from the desert., instructed by the Virgin, brings her to his cell, which is changed into a palace where she is baptized and the marriage with Christ celebrated. After a week's instruction in the Christian faith she returns to Alexandria, where her place has been miraculously filled, and the rest of her life is dismissed shortly without details. The poem is based on a Latin original ("Sicome en latyn trouay eserit / Translate ay hors de clergie"), which must have resembled the Latin "Tractatus de conversione sancte Katherine" printed from Munich MS. lat. 7954, f. 313 b (written A.D. 1337) by H. Varnhagen, Zur Geschichte der Legende der Katharina von Alexandrien, 1891, p. 18, but there are many important differences of detail. Beg. : "A loenge lui gloriose pere Qe tout le mounde ert fesere." Vellum; ff. ii + 6. 8 7/8 in. x 6 in. Written in England, middle of xiv cent. Two gatherings of 2 and 4 leaves. In two columns, 35 to 38 lines to the column. See. fol. "De haut parround." Binding of brown morocco by Bedford. Belonged to Sir Henry Hope Edwardes, Bart. (Christie's sale-cat., May 1901, lot 404). Bookplate of F. W. Bourdillon (f. i). The seventh article in the MS. described under Add. 40142.