Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 164: Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon. Biblia pauperum etc
Description
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- CCCC MS 164 contains several distinct elements, an incomplete copy of Ranulf Higden OSB (d. 1364) Polychronicon, dating to the late fourteenth century, a number of works of Hugh of Fouilloy OSA (d. c. 1172/3) (including De columba, De rota praelationis and Auicularius) and a number of sermons all in various thirteenth-century hands, and an early fifteenth-century Biblia pauperum, the illustrated version of the Life of Christ parallelled by their Old Testament types. This Biblia pauperum is illustrated by drawings and was probably made in the Netherlands. It is an unusual version very iconographically close to a fully painted version, London, BL MS King's 5, made in the North Netherlands c. 1400-1410. The later provenance of this manuscript is partially attested by a record of the purchase of the book in 1492 by John Gunthorpe (d. 1498), dean of Wells cathedral and Richard III's Keeper of the Privy Seal, from 'David Lyenel' for 4s 4d. Gunthorpe donated some of his manuscripts to Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1496 and much of the rest of his library was left to Wells cathedral, but exactly how this manuscript came into Parker's collection is unknown.
- Contents
- Polychronicon (incomplete) -- Auicularius (De auibus) -- De dominica oratione -- De rota praelationis -- Sermons -- Biblia pauperum -- Moralia siue Liber de uirtutibus (excerpt)
Bibliographic information
- M.R. James Date
- xiv, xiii, xv
- Downloadable James Catalogue Record
- https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:dj979vn4120/MS_164.pdf
- Superseded Interim Catalogue Record
- https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:dp734zk1719/164.pdf
- Contains
-
- Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon (incomplete). 1r-42v
- Nasmith
- Ranulphi Higdeni polychronici Lib. I. et pars 2ndi. 1r-42v
- Author
- Ranulf Higden OSB
- Note
- Prologue to Higden's Polychronicon
- Incipit
- (1r) Post preclaros arcium scriptores
- Note
-
(4r) This page is left blank for a large circular diagram of the world
(25r) The poem on Wales is in triple columns
Liber II begins f. 37v; ends f. 42r with ch. vi - Explicit
- (42r) Ninus et Semiramis ampliarunt
- Note
-
Rolls ed. II 250
(42v) blank: pencil note: numerus fo. script. 41 (xv)
(42v) A sketch of a ship drawn with dry point
- Hugh of Fouilloy OSA, Auicularius (De auibus). 43r-50v
- Nasmith
- Moralizationes avium. 43r-50v
- Author
- Hugh of Fouilloy OSA
- Note
-
In hoc tractatu spatia ubique occurrunt vacua figuris avium ut videtur designata
2a
Begins with a portion of an imperfect tract: about the Fall, and origin of Evil - Incipit
- (43r) Quod quia falsum est a deo hoc esse necesse est. Nam quia ab alio hic sit quam a solo deo cum ex ipso auctore operis mali non sit
- Note
- (43v) Ending unfinished
- Explicit
- (43v) cui omnis est subiecta ratio nature quam ut aiunt in muliere. hoc
- Note
-
Change of hand
2b
(43v) Libellus cuiusdam ad Rainerum de tribus columbis: no title - Incipit
- (43v) Desiderii tui karissime peticionibus satisfacere cupiens columbam cuius penne etc.
- Note
-
Another copy, illustrated, is at Sidney Sussex College, no. 100 in my Catalogue: another at Sion College, London. The tract not infrequently accompanies Bestiaries
Printed with the works of Hugo de S. Victore II 394
Spaces are left here for 28 pictures
Ends with a section on the eagle - Incipit
- (50r) Aquila uocata ab acumine oculorum
- Explicit
- (50v) dum se ipsum christo per bonam operationem conformem reddit
- Note
- As in the copy at Sion College
- Cyprian of Carthage, De dominica oratione. 50v-50v
- Author
- Cyprian of Carthage
- Note
- 2c
- Rubric
- (50v) Ex tractatu beati cipriani martiris de oratione dominica
- Incipit
- (50v) Sit orantibus sermo et disciplina
- Note
- Followed by extracts from Jerome, Augustine, Gregory
- Hugh of Fouilloy OSA, De rota praelationis. 50v-54r
- Nasmith
- Tractatus de rota fortunae; cum duabus illuminationibus ipsius rotae fraterculis circumdatae, omni venustate denudatis. 50v-54r
- Author
- Hugh of Fouilloy OSA
- Note
- (50v) Prologue (no title)
- Incipit
- (50v) Sicut comperi non est tibi frater honerosum diu fuisse discipulum
- Explicit
- (50v) rotam prelationis in capite presentis opusculi pingam
- Note
- (51r) List of capitula (18). (1) de pictura rote; (2) de hiis que sunt in rota; (3) de axe; (4) de modiolo etc.; (18) qualis debeat esse prelatus teste beato Gregorio
- Incipit
- (51r) Uiri religiosi uita sicut rota uoluitur
- Note
-
(51r) Half the page is occupied by a picture of the wheel of Prelacy. At the top is throned the Abbas with crosier: on each side is a monk turning the wheel by the tyre. At bottom sits another with book on desk. All are in black habits. Many inscriptions in red explain the picture. The twelve spokes of the wheel, and its other parts, symbolize virtues
(52v) The first part ends - Explicit
- (52v) si culmen prelationis ascendere contradicat
- Note
- (52v) Part II
- Incipit
- (52v) Post rotam uere religionis locuturi sumus frater de rota simulationis iob
- Explicit
- (52v) a legente facilius intelligi possint
- Note
-
(52v) Capitula (14). (1) de pictura rote...; (14) de circuitu rote
(52v) Half the page is occupied by a picture of the same character as before. Abbot at top, monk in brown on L. in black on R., one at bottom sits dejected. These four are respectively Honor possidentis, labor adquirendi, dolor amittentis, pudor nil habentis. The parts of this wheel symbolize vices
The edges of 2 leaves following f. 12r are intrusive, apparently
Text - Incipit
- (53r) (S)tatura rote similitudinem designat ypocrite
- Explicit
- (54r) Et hoc iterum de predictis rotis sufficiat donee de his aliquis potiora dicat
- Note
- This text occurs, without the prologue, in Bodl. MS. Digby 171 f. 71
- Sermons. 54v-60v
- Nasmith
- Sermones in diversos festos. 54v-60v
- Note
- (54v) Sermons
- Incipit
- (54v) Sufficit tamen de una uirgine loqui uerum
- Note
- Treats of various classes of feasts
- Incipit
-
(56v) Sapientia edificauit sibi domum
(59v) Adorna thalamum
(60r) Septuagessima in alterius rei memoriam
(60v) Vi(n)centi dabo manna absconditum - Note
- (60v) Pencil note. Numerus fo. script. 18
- Biblia pauperum. 61r-94v
- Nasmith
- Delineationes historiarum veteris et novi testamenti numero XCVII haud inelegantes, coloribus leviter tinctae. 61r-94v
- Note
-
The pictures (lacunae excepted) exactly coincide with a set in British Museum (King's MS. 5) of Flemish (Dutch) work, very finely coloured. The arrangement in the copy before us is peculiar. The two types are on the Left page one above the other; the antitype on Right page with four busts of prophets bearing scrolls:
The text on the Left page is a brief explanation of the type, beginning: Legitur [Gen. cap. xxixo] quod...
On the Right page are usually three verses, e.g. for Epiphany
(63r) Plebs notat hec gentes christo iungi cupientes.Christus adoratur aurum thus mirra letatur.Hoc tipice gentem notat ad christum uenientem,
of which the 1st and 3rd refer to the types and the 2nd to the antitype
A reduced facsimile of two pages is given in Camb. Ant. Soc. Proceedings Vol. VII, pi. xii
The British Museum MS. has its pictures arranged as a series of triptychs
I give a list of the subjects, with notes from the British Museum MS., which I will call k
(93v) On this page a pencil note. Numerus fo. pict. 33. Numerus fo. script, et pict. totius libri 92
ff. 34r-34v blank
- François de Meyronnes OFM, Moralia siue Liber de uirtutibus (excerpt). iir-iiiv
- Nasmith
- Fragmentum sermonis. iir-iiiv
- James
- The Moralia of Fr. de Mayronis, imperfect. iir-iiiv
- Author
- François de Meyronnes OFM
- Incipit
- (iir) Auditu auris audiui te etc. quia uero audicio diuina pertinet etc.
- Note
- See MS. Merton College, Oxford 201. 1
- Ranulf Higden OSB, Polychronicon (incomplete). 1r-42v
- TJames
- 98
- Stanley
- I. 4
- Location
- https://purl.stanford.edu/fz541vq7367
- MS 164
- Repository
- UK, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Parker Library
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction:
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- License:
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).