Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 005: John of Tynemouth, Historia aurea, Part I

purl.stanford.edu/hm064tb2963

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 005: John of Tynemouth, Historia aurea, Part I

Alternate Title:

Ioh. Tynemouth. Historia Aurea I

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 284 + 14 + 4

Dimensions:

515 Height (mm) and 360 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1400 - 1499]

Provenance:

The volume, with MS 6 and MS 7, belonged to St Alban's Abbey. On f. 1r of text, at top of col. 1, in large red letters is: Hic est liber S. Albani de libraria conuentus. At the bottom of the page in a large hand is: Uir uenerabilis dominus Willelmus Wyntresshull quondam huius Monasterii monachus inter plurima beneficia quibus honorem huius ecclesie multipliciter ampliauit. Hanc historiam que dicitur Aurea, et in partes duas diuiditur. non sine magnis sumptibus fecit conscribi: quod opus in libraria conuentus ad opus claustralium voluit remanere. Cuius donum auctorizando confirmauit reuerendus in Christo huius Monasterii pater et Abbas dominus videlicet Johannes Whethamstede sacre theologie professor predictumque librum in duobus voluminibus ut predicitur diuisum ad opus sui Conuentus pro futuris temporibus perenniter stabiliuit. Wyntreshull was among other things Almoner of the Abbey, and died perhaps about 1424. (See Horstmann, Nova Legenda Angliae, Oxford, 1901, I xlviii.)

Table of contents:

Historia aurea, Part I

Description:

CCCC MS 5 is the first of a two-volume copy of the Historia aurea of John of Tynemouth (fl. c. 1350), dating from c. 1420-40, the second volume being in CCCC MS 6. This manuscript of the Historia contains a history of the world from creation to the death of Vespasian, but also includes a description of the world based on the writings of Marco Polo and the versified Itinerarium Cambriae. CCCC MS 5 was one of several manuscripts (others include CCCC MSS 6 and 7, BL MS Lansdowne 375 and Cambridge UL MS Ee.4.20) owned and, in some cases, commissioned by William Wintershill (d. c. 1435) the almoner of the Benedictine Abbey of St Albans in Hertfordshire. An inscription in this manuscript relates how Wintershill donated CCCC MS 5 and its companion, now CCCC MS 6, to the Abbey at his death.