Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum

F-ar6c

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashm. 463

Remarks by the Editor

Summary:

Bod-Inc. A-154 et al. Fragm. I and II. In situ pastedowns glued to the inner surfaces of the upper and lower boards of an incunable Sammelband most likely bound in the 1490s, originally hooked around the endleaves.

General Information

Material Parchment
Place of Origin England
Date of Origin c. 1300
Script, Hands

A tidy and compact English cursive book hand (Anglicana) with split and looping ascenders pointing to a date c. 1300 (ex inf. Ralph Hanna), with many abbreviations. No rubrication.

General Remarks

Function in host volume:

Fragm. I serves as the pastedown to the upper board and was originally hooked around the front endleaves (fols 1-2).

Fragm. II, pasted over a leaf of blank paper supplied by a nineteenth-century conservator, is the pastedown to the lower board, with a conjugate hook wrapped around the blank paper endleaves (a bifolium).

Original Condition

Page Height at least 200 mm
Page Width at least 150 mm
Height of Written Area 177 mm
Width of Written Area 115 mm
Number of Columns 2
Width of Columns 55 mm
Number of Lines 43
Ruling Plummet or hardpoint.
Numbering

Fragm. II foliated 85/86 (visible on the hook).

Current Condition

More about the Current Condition

The written area is intact. There is, however, some tearing of the outer margins, incurring small losses of text.  

Dimensions: 

Fragm. I: 200 x 145-50 mm. Written area: 177 x 115 mm. Width of one column: 55 mm. Inner (right-hand) margin: 15-20 mm. Upper margin: 15 mm. Outer margin: 15 mm. Lower margin: 12 mm. Intercolumnar space: 8-10 mm.

Fragm. II: 200 x 110-130 mm. Written area: 177 x 115 mm. Width of one column: 55 mm. Inner (left-hand) margin: trimmed. Upper margin: 12 mm. Outer margin: 15 mm. Lower margin: 10 mm.

Content

  • Content Item
    • Text Language Latin
    • Title Sermones Fratrum Minorum: Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum
    • Content Description

      Two leaves (Fragm. I and II) from the same English manuscript, evidently a collection of sermons containing material identified in Schneyer’s listing in Repertorium, vol. 7, pp. 1-11 of the de tempore cycle of the Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 7932, fols 123r-170v, a widely circulated set of Franciscan sermons from the thirteenth century, most likely of French origin.

      Fragm. I is the pastedown to the upper board. It was lifted when the host volume was repaired and rebacked, probably in the second half of the nineteenth century, and pasted down again in a slightly different position. It was originally hooked round the endleaves (fol. 1-2). Fragm. II is hooked round the endleaves at the back of the book (a blank paper bifolium) and serves as the pastedown to the lower board. It remains in its original position, but was lifted and pasted over a blank paper leaf during the nineteenth-century repairs.

      Fragm. I (pastedown to the upper board):

      Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum no. 92-94

      ‘](col. a) [:::] oportuit christum pati et sic intrare in gloriam su| [:::] [Lc 24:26] Mt .7. beati qui persecutionem  [Mt 5:10] ... (col. b) ... ¶ Hanc conturbationem sequitur conturbatio pene eterne [::] eze .7. conturbatio super conturbationem veniet. [Ez 7:26] a qua nos liberare dignetur etc. | <N>isi habundauerit iustitia vestra plusquam scribarum et phariseorum non intrabitis in regnum celorum Mt 5 [Mt 5:20] In hoc verbo tanguntur duo. primum est perfectio vite spiritualis ... circa secundum quales intrent in regnum celorum et quales non: require in sermone sanctorum Innocentium. | <S>i mortui sumus cum christo: credimus quia simul [ [Rm 6:8]’

      Originally a verso. The recto of this leaf is pasted to the inner face of the upper board and cannot be inspected.

      Three sermons, the first of which is listed by Schneyer as Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum, no. 92 on I Pt 3:14 ‘Si quid patimini’ (the epistle for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost), here wanting the beginning (Fragm. I cols a-b), the second on Mt 5:20 ‘Nisi abundaverit’ (the gospel for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost) identifiable as no. 93 of the same collection (Fragm. I col. b), whereas of the third (no. 94 in the Collectio generalis), on Rm 6:8 ‘Si mortui sumus’ (the epistle for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost), only the lemma is preserved (Fragm. I col. b). See Schneyer, Repertorium, vol. 7, pp. 7-8. The Munich manuscript Clm 7932, fol. 157vb-158rb, has subject headings for the individual sermons which are not included in the Oxford fragment.

      Fragm. II (pastedown to the lower board):

      Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum no. 97-99

      ‘](col. a) ro .9. voluntati eius quis resistit [Rm 9:19]. ¶ 8m. est eterna re|muneracio ... ¶ Qui autem in regnum intrent et qui non: require in sermone Innocentium. | ¶ <S>i filii et heredes. ro .8. [Rm 8:17] In proposito uerbo duo principaliter atendenda [sic] sunt. ... ¶ Quales autem hanc hereditatem accipiant: require supra in primo sermone dominice prima octaua Natalis. | <F>ilii huius seculi prudentiores sunt filiis lucis in generatione sua. lu .16. [Lc 16:8] In proposito uerbo saluator noster tria specialiter agit ... (col. b) ... multipliciter ab die primo perdam sapientes de ydumea.’

      Originally a recto. The verso of this leaf is pasted to the inner face of the lower board and cannot be inspected.

      Three sermons, the first of which consists of the ten concluding lines of Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum no. 97 (Fragm. II col. a) for the seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the second no. 98 on Rm 8:17 ‘Si filii et heredes’ (the epistle for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost) (Fragm. II col. a), and the third, which is imperfect, no. 99 on Lc 16:8 ‘Filii huius seculi’ (the gospel for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost) (Fragm. II cols a-b). See Schneyer, Repertorium, vol. 7, p. 8.  Here too, Clm 7932, fol. 159rb-vb, has subject headings not included in the Oxford fragment. The lemmata for the sermons in both fragments, which correspond to standard readings for the Sundays after Pentecost, are those used in the Roman rite, which was followed by the Franciscans. The proximity of the feasts on which the sermons in Fragm. I and II were to be preached suggests that the two leaves derive from a single sermon collection, and that they may have followed on one after one another in the lost codex discissus.

    • Bod_Ashm_463_a
    • Glosses and Additions Alphabetical section markers in the outer margins, perhaps relating to a register of the contents of the codex discissus. This system is not employed in Munich Clm 7932.

History

Origin

The early provenance of the fragment is not known, but the presence of a handwritten table of contents, to which additions were subsequently made, and the inscription ‘Astronomia et Cosmographia’ on the tail edge of the host volume suggest that the incunable Sammelband formed part of an institutional collection such as an Oxford college.

Provenance

Host volume: 

1. Elias Ashmole (1617-1692).

2. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1692.

3. Transferred to the Bodleian Library in 1860.

Persons and Institutions Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Host Volume

Title Astronomical Sammelband.
Date of Origin/Publication 1494-1534
Place of Origin/Publication Printed in France, Italy, and Germany; bound in England.
Shelfmark Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashm. 463
Remarks

Contents: 

Six incunabula in chancery quarto, dated 1478-1494, with manuscript notes at the beginning.

fol. 1v-2r: Manuscript (2 paper leaves), the original flyleaves. Notes on the Signs of the Zodiac and the Seven Planets (fol. 1v-2r). Table of contents (fol. 2v).

1. Johannes de Sacro Bosco, Sphaera mundi. Paris: Félix Baligault, 1494. (Bod-Inc. J-186; ISTC ij00412000; GW M14597). 12 fols.

2. Johannes de Sacro Bosco, Sphaera mundi; Johannes Regiomontanus, Disputationes contra Cremonensia deliramenta; Georgius Purbachius, Theoricae novae planetarum. Venice: Guilelmus Anima Mia, Tridinensis, 1491. (Bod-Inc. J-185; ISTC ij00410000; GW M14644). 48 fols.

3. Albumasar, Flores astrologiae. Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, 18 Nov. 1488. (Bod-Inc. A-154; ISTC ia00356000; GW 837). 20 fols.

4. Petrus de Alliaco, Vigintiloquium de concordantia astronomicae veritatis cum theologia, Concordantia astronomicae veritatis et narrationis historicae, and Elucidarium astronomicae concordiae cum theologia et historica veritate. Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, 1490. (Bod-Inc. A-210; ISTC ia00471000; GW M31932). 55 fols (thus wanting the last leaf).

5. Pomponius Mela, Cosmographia, sive de situ orbis. Venice: Franciscus Renner, de Heilbronn, 1478. (Bod-Inc. M-178; ISTC im00450000; GW M34879). 48 fols.

6. Marcus Antonius Sabellicus, De vetustate Aquileiensis patriae. [Padua]: Antonius de Avinione, between 1481 and 1483. (Bod-Inc. S-002; ISTC is00010000; GW M39270). 50 fols.

Binding: 

Contemporary English blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, from an English workshop attested between c. 1494 and 1534 (Hobson, Bindings, 46 no. xiv; cff.  Oldham, English Blind-Stamped Bindings,  pl. x no. 20-24).

Bibliography

  • Bod-Inc. Alan Coates et al., A Catalogue of Books printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library, 6 vols (Oxford, 2005), vol. 1, p. 113.

  • G. D. Hobson, Bindings in Cambridge Libraries (Cambridge, 1929).

  • J. Basil Oldham, English Blind-Stamped Bindings, Sanders Lectures, Cambridge 1949 (Cambridge, 1952).

  • Johann Baptist Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150-1350, 11 vols, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 43, 1-11 (Münster 1969-1990), vol. 7.

  • Sermones Fratrum Minorum, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 7932.