Royal MS 11 A X

EPISTLES of S. Ivo, Bishop of Chartres (1090-1115), with select letters of his predecessor S. Fulbert (1007- 1029). Prefixed is a full table of subjects. Contents:-

1. 'Prima (-undecima) distinctio epistolarum Ivonis Carnotensis episcopi': the eleven distinctions containing altogether 266 letters, to which another is added at the end, but six letters are repeated and two are not by Ivo, so that the true total is 259, all of which will be found among the 288 in Migne, Patr. Lat. clxii. Roughly the order of the letters agrees with the edition in distt. i-v, ix-xi, but differs widely in distt. vi-viii, and does not resemble 6 B. VI, art. 5, Harley MS. 3021, or Add. MS. 18333. The collection begins 'Urbanus episcopus ... Nos quidem tum pro beate'. The two letters by other writers occur at the end of dist. viii. They are both addressed to William Rufus, and are printed in Engl. Hist. Review, April, 1897, p. 290, viz.:-

(a) Hugo, Archbishop of Lyons (1083?-1106), appealing for the restitution to Anselm of the see of Canterbury, n.d. [post July, 1099]. Beg. 'W. uictorioso Anglorum regi . . . Regalis gratie'. f. 119 b;-(b) Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans (1097-1125, Archbishop of Tours 1125-1133), On the indignation caused by the king's order for demolishing his cathedral towers (see Freeman,

William Rufus, ii, ch. vi and appendix), n. d. [1098- 1100]. Beg. 'W. dei gratia ... Cum uiderit litteras meas dominus meus'. At the end of this letter is written the name of Goiffridus Malaterra-whether a reference to a lost work by the historian of the Sicilian war or not is not clear. f. 120 b.

2. 'Exceptiones de epistolis Fulberti Carnotensis episcopi' : originally fifteen selected letters, but leaves are lost at the end. All are included in Migne, cxli. Beg. 'Venerabili Bituricensi.... In litteris quas mihi nuperrime'. Broken off in ep. xiii, 'Niceni concilii capitulum iiii et Antio'. . . . f. 167. On the fly-leaf (f. 1 b) are remains of particulars of a taxation including the church of S. Owen at Gloucester, in a 13th cent. hand. Vellum; ff. 172. 81/2 in. x 5 in. Late XII cent. Sec. fol. 'credimus diuino'. Initials in red, and grotesque ornament to catchwords. The MS. is much blackened-by the fire of 1731. belonged to the Priory of New Lanthony, which held the church of S. Owen (see above). In the Lanthony catalogue, Haricy Ms.

460, f. 6 b, is 'Epistole Yuonis mediocre uolumen' (cf. Omont in Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Leipzig, 1892, p. 214, no. 201). Apparently not in the old Royal catalogues.