Medieval Manuscripts

These manuscripts are fragments of leaves from a fifteenth-century copy of the Middle English Brut chronicle. The original manuscript was written in anglicana script in two columns, with decorated initials. The text on the fragments concerns King Constantine and King Vortyger (Fragment A); King Engist and King Vortyger (Fragment B); and Godwin, Earl of Essex, and Edward the Confessor (Fragment C).

This late fifteenth-century manuscript, written on paper, contains a compilation of alchemical texts assembled and copied by Arnold of Brussels. For the most part, it was made in Naples between 1472 and 1490, as often noted at the end of works (for example, fols. 149r, 182v, 196v). A group of works in the middle of the volume appear to be in a different, possibly German, hand (fols. 79-101). As well as lists of philosophers, recipes, and key alchemical terms, it contains a number of texts and treatises of historical importance.

Three maritime charts bound in contemporary parchment over paper board. The first chart shows the 26th to the 51st northern gradations, the coasts of England and Ireland south to Madeira and the Canary Islands, including the coasts of Spain and France. The second chart shows the whole of the Mediterranean, including the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean and Northern Africa. The third chart shows the Mediterranean from the Meridian of Gallipoli (Italy) to Dakar, Africa, including part of the Atlantic Ocean and the coasts of Spain and Portugal.

This Book of Hours for the Use of Rome was most likley produced in Tours in the decades around the year 1500. It contains a calendar with numerous Tours saints (fols. 1r-6v), followed by the Gospel Lessons, Obsecro te, and O intemerata (fols. 7r-17r). The central section is composed of the Hours of the Virgin for the Use of Rome (fols. 19r-86v), with the Hours of the Cross and Hours of the Holy Spirit intercalated (these begin on fols. 42r and 43v respectively).

This Book of Hours for the Use of Paris was produced in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. It begins with a calendar (fols. 1r-12v), which is followed by the Gospel Lessons, Obsecro te, and O intemerata (fols. 13r-24v); a bifolio with suffrages to the Holy Spirit, Trinity, Saint Nicholas, All Saints, and Saint Catherine, in a different hand (fols. 25r-26v); the Hours of the Virgin with multiple pages missing (fols. 27r-84v); Penitential Psalms, Litany, and Prayers (fols. 85r-99v); Hours of the Cross (fols. 100r-103v) and Hours of the Holy Spirit (fols.

This manuscript is a partial leaf from a twelfth-century liturgical manuscript, probably written in Italy. The text on this leaf is from Reginold von Eichstätt's Historia of Saint Nicholas, a series of antiphons and responsories designed to be sung in the canonical Office on the feast of Saint Nicholas. Shortly after the composition of the Historia in the second half of the tenth century, lections were added, which were included in the source manuscript of this fragment. The responses, versicles, and antiphons are marked with neumes for chanting.

This manuscript is a bifolium (non-consecutive leaves) from a twelfth-century copy in protogothic script of Augustine's De civitate Dei, probably copied in France. The text is from Book 22, on the first leaf from Chapter 24 and on the second leaf from Chapter 30. There are two marginal notes in an early hand on the leaf from Chapter 30 (fol. 2r). The bifolium was re-used in a binding.

The Latin text on this parchment roll written in England in the fifteenth century is based on the text on a roll presented by Carmelite friar Roger of St. Albans to Henry VI, tracing the genealogy of kings from Adam to Henry VI. On this roll the genealogical diagram has been extended to include the reign of Edward IV but does not record his wife, so it was made after his coronation in 1461 but before his marriage in 1465.

This manuscript is a fragment of a leaf from a twelfth-century devotional text, previously used in a binding. Written in protogothic script, probably in Italy, it is perhaps from a life of Saint Nicholas of Myra, as the text contains references to agios Nicolai and urbs Varensis (Bari).

This manuscript is a compilation of several anonymous writings on astronomy and astrology. It contains a number of tables, diagrams, and shorthand annotations. Often the compiler has made notes on a text rather than transcribe it, or has abbreviated what transcriptions he has made.

This is a thirteenth-century compendium of moral and didactic writings, with a colophon dating the manuscript to 1268. The book contains a varied collection of texts, ranging from Roman Seneca in the 1st century, through the North African apologist Fulgentius in the sixth, to the near-contemporary sermons and the recent Moralitates of the learned Englishman Holcot. The manuscript is a good example of a late medieval compendium, and contains a variety of authors known all across Europe.

This book is a fourteenth-century copy, in Dutch, of Joannes Cassianus' Collationes patrum.

This Book of Hours of the Use of Rome was produced in France, likely in Lyon, in the second decade of the sixteenth century. The miniatures are similar in style to those of the Master of the Entry of Francis I, named after a manuscript now in Wolfebüttel (Cod. Guelf. 86.4 Extrav.). The calendar (fols. 1r-12v) is illustrated with twenty-four bas-de-page vignettes showing the labors of the months and the zodiac. This is followed by the Passion According to Saint John (fols.

This Book of Hours of the Use of Rome appears to have been produced in Flanders for a member of the Ayala family in Spain, as it contains a coat of arms identifiable with this Spanish family (fol. 3r: Argent, two wolves passant sable in pale, a bordure gules charged with eight saltires or), as well as Spanish rubrics for a series of fifteen unusual prayers that appear to be associated with Giles of Rome (fols. 109r-188v, beginning lacking), and an inquisition verification inscription on fol. 181v, dated to 1573.

This document is a deed of release recording that William Pyx, Nicholas Bocher, Thomas Kingsnoth relinquish their claims to land called Stacys in Plickle or Pluckle (possibly Pluckley, in Kent) to John Hert de Hothfeld (Hothfield, also in Kent). The deed was issued at Pluckley in the first regnal year of Richard III (30 May 1484). The Latin text is written in Gothic cursive script. The lower edge of the document is folded and has three parchment tags, two with small wax seals and the third with remnants of wax.

This manuscript is a calligraphic copy of Veterinariae medicinae libri ii by Jean Ruel, physician of Francis I. Ruel translated Greek veterinary texts by authors such as Apsyrtus, Hierocles, Pelagonius, Theomnest, Eumelus, Anatolius, and Hippocrates into Latin and compiled them into a single work. The manuscript was likely copied from the edition printed in 1530, even though it is divided into three books rather than two as in the printed edition.