Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

MS. 13
Historia Scholastica
Contents:
  1. Historia Scholastica
  2. Fourfold interpretation of the Arc of the Covenant
  3. On the Destruction of Jerusalem
  4. On Sin
  5. Sermon on the Passover
  6. On the antiphons of St. Gregory
  7. Passion of St. James
  8. Historia Scholastica
Date of origin:13th century.
Place of origin:Paris, France

Support: Parchment codex.
Foliation: Every folium is numbered on the recto in the top-right corner in lead in a modern hand.
Dimensions:232mm x 170mm (leaves), 190mm x 117mm (ruled space)
Collation:1-148 154 Catchwords are present in 6 of 13 occasions and correspond appropriately with the text on the following folium; signature numbers (or pecia marks?) are present on 4 occasions, and the numerical sign at the end of quire 1 is identical to that at the end of quire 8
Script:Written in a littera gothica textualis media. The bookhands for these texts are consistent with the "parisiensis" variety of textualis scripts. There are three main hands in the book. Hand #1 goes from f. 1r-35v, col. 1. Hand #2 starts on f. 35v, col. 2. Hand #3 is present from f. 36v to 54r. Hand #4 appears briefly from f. 54r-56v. Hand #5 picks up on f. 57r and finishes the manuscript to f. 116v. The change in hands is consistent with the change in layout.

Binding:Contemporary parchment on wooden boards. On the insides of the front and back covers, remnants of pastedown texts can be seen. These texts are inverted, but with a mirror, fragments can be deciphered. All are associated with mass propers or bible lections. The hand is a clear example of a Caroline minuscule. The binding was reinforced in 1988.
Additions:Glosses and commentary appear throughout the text in the margins. In most cases, the rubricator boxes these glosses (which are in Hand #1, even after the main hand changes), and a symbol or siglum associated with the gloss is inserted into the body indicating to what text that comment pertains. One annotative hand is in a fading ink and often draws faces and hands with pointers to signal particular passages of interest (see f. 2r for an example). Corrections are occasionally made in the margins (e.g. 36v, bottom of column 2). A later Gothic cursive hand appears in the bottom-left corner of the last folio (116v) and has written "Estorie scolastice". There are also what appear to be pen-tests on the right-side of the last folio, where a column would be if the text had continued. Just above this, a text of some three or four lines appears to have been rubbed out. Some letters are distinguishable with the help of ultraviolet light, but nothing is legible. The hand appears to have been a later gothic cursive, possibly the same one that wrote the book's title below.