Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

MS. 11
Tractates of Jean Gerson, Pierre D'Ailly, et al.
Contents:
  1. De meditatione mortis
  2. A Condensation of Saint Bonaventure's "De exercitatione mentali"
  3. Sententiae
  4. Cordiale
  5. Meditatio ad concitandum timorem domini in se et de ultimo iudicio et de penis inferni
  6. Stimulus ardoris
  7. Manuale sancti Augustini
  8. Speculum peccatoris
  9. Excerpt from Jerome's Ad Eustochium virginem
  10. De morte sancti Eusebii
  11. Speculum monachorum attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux
  12. De perfecta sive ipsius cognitione
  13. Moral Precepts and Advice in Verse Form
Date of origin:15th century.
Place of origin:France

Support: Parchment codex.
Foliation: Every folium is numbered in the top right corner of the recto in lead in a modern hand.
Dimensions:173mm x 120mm (leaves), 123mm x 77mm (ruled space)
Collation:i 1-68 72 8-108 112 12-148 Catchwords are visible in 10 of 13 possible places; however,only 7 out of 10 times do they appear to be correct. Non-corresponding catchwords are found on ff. 40v, 50v, and 76v. In the cases of ff. 40v and 76v, one (or perhaps more) quire is missing because the texts on the verso do not correspond with those continuing on the recto. A second folium of the opening 2-leaf quire appears to have been cut out. The recto of the excised folium contains similar hair-side markings to that of the opposing verso, and writing consistent with the first hand is visible along the right edge of the remaining stub.
Script:Written in a littera gothica hybrida media and a cursiva media. Hand #1 is present in the first two quires, ff. 1r-16v. Hand #2, the main hand of the codex as it is now composed, appears on ff. 17r-76v. Hand #3 appears on ff. 77r-86r. Hand #4 begins on f. 86v and finishes the manuscript.

Binding:Blind-stamped brown calf, somewhat damaged. It is blind tooled and paneled with floriated columns in center panels. Assumed to be the original binding for the manuscript.
Additions:Marginal annotations appear predominantly from f. 18r onward, primarily in the side margins but also, on one occasion (f. 28r), in the bottom margin. This bottom marginal annotation is in a hybrid media hand and contemporary with the main scribal hands of the manuscript. On 16v, below the explicit, a later hand has written "1584...Sicut etiam ell[...?]". It is followed by a paraph and an illegible word. At the very end of the codex, two hands other than Hand #4 have inscribed additional comments. The first hand is another gothic hybrid and the second, copying the text of the gothic hybrid, looks like a humanist script (rotunda) with its Caroline "g" and dotted "i's".
Provenance:The French name (or word?) "Papillon" is written eight times in three different inks on the verso of the fly-leaf. This hand appears to be a gothic cursive and possibly medieval. On 1r, written vertically from bottom to top near the top-left margin is the number "105436A Ge[co?]."