Add MS 16964

This manuscript is made out of two parts (part 1: ff. 1-167; part 2: ff. 168-248) that were produced separately at the Benedictine abbey of Stavelot (Wallonia) in the last quarter of the 12^th century and were joined there as well. The resulting manuscript contains complete copies of De Institutis Coenobiorum (On the Institutes of Cenobitic Monks) and Collationes Sanctorum Patrum (Conferences of the Desert Fathers), works about the monastic life, by John Cassian (b. c. 360, d. 435). The manuscript also contains one of the earliest extant copies of the office for the feast of St Thomas Becket (d. 1170) that were composed at Christ Church in Canterbury, where Becket’s feast was celebrated for the first time in 1173. Stavelot’s access to the office shortly after its composition suggests that there was active textual transmission between the Continent and England at this time.

Contents:

f. 1v: A commentary on John Cassian by Gennadius of Marseille (d. c. 496), beginning ‘Gennadius in libro de viris illustribus’.

f. 1v: A commentary on John Cassian by Prosper of Aquitaine (b. c. 390, d. c. 455), beginning ‘Item in eodem’.

ff. 1v-4r: A letter of Bernard, abbot of Auch, to the Palatine Frederick, in response to criticism of Cassian, beginning ‘Epistola bern abbatis Augiensis ad fridericum Palatinum’.

ff. 4r-5r: An office for the feast of St Thomas Becket, beginning ‘Passio sancti thome archiepiscopi et martyris’.

ff. 5v-62v: John Cassian, De Institutis Coenobiorum (Books I-XII), beginning ‘Incipit prefaetio librorum cassiani’.

ff. 62v-167r: John Cassian, Collationes Sanctorum Patrum (Collationes XI-XVII), beginning ‘Incipit Prologus Cassiani In septem collationes sanctorum Patrum Cheremonis . Nesterotis et Joseph’.

ff. 114r-167r: John Cassian, Collationes Sanctorum Patrum (Collationes XVIII-XXIV), beginning: ‘Incipit Prefacio Cassiani in septem Collationes Sanctorum Patrum’.

ff. 168r-248r: John Cassian, Collationes Sanctorum Patrum (Collationes I-X), beginning ‘Incipit Prefatio Cassiani In Decem Collationes sequentes’.

The manuscript contains a number of additions:

f. 1r: Excerpts from Theodulus, Cato, Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Lucan, added in the 12^th or 13^th centuries.

f. 248v: Excerpts from Matthew 12.34, Ovid, Augustine, and Seneca, added in the 12^th or 13^th centuries.

f. 248r: Psalm 113:9: ‘Non nobis domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam’, added in the 15^th century.

f. 54r: a 17^th-century note ‘Plenevaulx’ in the lower margin, possibly a reference to Wenceslaus de Plenevaulx (d. 1621), a Carthusian monk and writer from Delft and Arnhem.

[f. 167v is blank].

Decoration:

1 large initial in black ink with foliate decoration added in the ?15^th century on f. 25v. Large and small initials in red throughout the manuscript, some with patterns in the initials or minor penwork decoration. A 12^th- or 13^th-century drawing of a lobster in brown ink and a 15^th-century drawing of a plant and a sheep (?) in brown ink on f. 248v.