Add MS 41258

"HENR[ICUS] DE BRACTONE" (16th cent. title), De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae. A comparison with the collated passages in G. E. Woodbine's Bracton: De Legibus (Yale Univ. Press), i, pp. 113-184, suggests that the MS. belongs to "Group II," the group textually most remote from the original. It appears to be impossible to establish continuous relationship with any one of the MSS., over forty in number, used by Woodbine. On 11. 37-38 (f. 68 b of the edition of 1569) are interpolated the non-Bracton drawing of the "arbor consanguinitatis," and two treatises, the first very brief, on affinity and consanguinity. These, which are not identical with any of the discourses inserted at the same place in Bodl. MS., Rawlinson C. 160, and Harley MS. 653, and prefixed to Bracton in Cambr. Univ. MS., Dd. vii, 6 (cf. Law Quarterly Rev., ii. pp. 278-279), begin: "Affinitas est regularitas personarum ex carnali copula & consanguinitate proueniens" (f. 37 b) "Sciendum est quod circa personas matrimomo copulandas" (f. 38). The text of Bracton is resumed on f. 39 b, f. 39 being left blank. At f. 50 the MS. omits most of the contents of ff. 87, 87 b of the edition of 1569 (Rolls Ser., ed. Sir Travers Twiss, ii, pp. 10-15). The last four lines of f. 152 b, col. 2, and most of the succeeding column, which should contain the text in Twiss, iv, p. 180, 1. 29-p. 184, 1. 3, are blank. The Action for Dower (Twiss, iv, p. 450-end), not found at the usual place (f. 172 b), is added at the end of the MS. (ff. 255- 268 b). Another extensive omission (Twiss, vi, pp. 440-464) occurs at ff. 250 b-251 b, which are blank; while at the foot of f. 252 most of the contents of Twiss, vi, pp. 470-478 are missing. The MS. abounds in addiciones which Woodbine considers to be no part of the original work. In one place only (f. 17, col. 1 = f. 32, 11.5-31 of the edition of 1569 ; cf. Woodbine,. i, p. 377) is such an interpolated passage distinguished in the text by the word "additio"; though a hand of the early fourteenth century has noted "Addicio noua" against the "Casus de Jordano Vauasore," 16 Edw. I (cf. Woodbine, i, pp. 82, 83), which is an integral part of the text of f. 79. Among other marginal annotations by the same, or a similar, hand are the following : "Miror si ius scriptum hoe dicat" (f. 33 b), "Nota pro Dauid" (f. 36 b), "pro illis de Kildare" (f. 45 b), "pro me ipso," referring respectively to Reliefs and Dower (ff. 48 b, 54 b), Wellynton." (f. 85), "De hoe habes in statuto de Merton - c . iij - Et de Marleberge - c - vij. Et in secundo Westm. c. xxvj. &. xxvij." (f. 139), "Hodie dicunt contrarium multi" (f. 143 b). There is no scheme of book division, the text being arranged in tituli, tractates, etc., indicated by more prominent initials. At the end is an incomplete index of the 14th cent., with a few later additions (f. 272 should follow f. 274); the references in it are to a contemporary foliation, from which the numbers xiiii, ccli-cclix have been omitted and xl cancelled. Vellum; ff. iv + 274 (f. 269 a stub). 14 in. x 9½ in. Double columns of 44-46 lines to a page, in several hands. Circ. A.D. 1300. Gatherings of 12 leaves, with catchwords; iv^4 (3 cancelled), v has 1 cancelled, xiii^10, xviii^8, xxiii^6, xxiv^14, last^6 (composite). At the end of vii (f. 74 b) is the note "examinitur (sic) per capitula." See. fol. "uel pro eo." Initials in red and blue, with penwork (those on ff. 1, 68 in gold). The two vellum fly-leaves are from a late 13th cent. copy of the Digest, containing parts of lib. xlvii, tit. xv-xxi (f. ii) and lib. xlviii, tit. v-viii (f. iii). Among the scribbling at the end is a partially erased inscription of the end of the 15th cent., "Thomas Whytyng est Bonus legista" (f. 274). Binding of bevelled oak boards covered with brown leather (16th cent.). Intersecting vertical and horizontal blind rolls form a large central panel, rectangular in shape, filled with impressions of the same roll (cup, etc., in the Renaissance manner) alternating with another (Tudor emblems). Lot 78 in an unidentified sale. Bookplate of B[roughton] B[enjamin] Pegge-Burnell, f. i. Presented by Major E. A. Pegge-Burnell-Smith- Milnes.