Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 237
Compilation of sermons in Middle English
Contents
Does not correspond to what follows.
One of four copies containing all of sets 1-5 of the sermons.
For a complete but abbreviated list of the sermons, see: Rand (2006), pp. 6-35.
Articles not in the series, and references to their corresponding editions, are given below.
This version of 'Sixteen conditions of charity' (no. 300, ff. 217r-220r), unprinted.
Physical Description
21st-century foliation:
[a-c] + i + ii-v, 1-202, 202a, 203-223 + 224 + [d-f]
Numbering in pencil.
Collation
A mixture of quires of various sizes, ranging between 6 leaves and 14 leaves. Quire A a gathering of four leaves added before Quire 1.
- Quire A4 (ff. ii-v)
- Quires 1-212 (ff. 1-24)
- Quire 310 (ff. 25-34)
- Quire 48 (ff. 35-42)
- Quires 5-812 (ff. 43-90)
- Quire 914 (ff. 91-104)
- Quire 1012 (ff. 105-116)
- Quire 1110 (ff. 117-126)
- Quire 128 (ff. 127-134)
- Quire 1310 (ff. 135-144)
- Quire 148+1 (ff. 145-153: 9th leaf, f. 153, inserted)
- Quire 1512 (ff. 154-165)
- Quire 1610 (ff. 166-175)
- Quire 176+1 (ff. 176-182: 7th leaf, f. 182, inserted)
- Quire 1812 (ff. 183-194)
- Quire 1912+1 (ff. 195-206: 9th leaf, a slip, f. 202a, inserted)
- Quire 208 (ff. 207-214)
- Quire 2110-1 (ff. 215-223: 10th leaf, after f. 223, excised, probably blank)
Leaf signatures in red at first (Quires 1-3, ff. 1r-34v), followed by signatures in the usual late medieval form. No leaf signatures in Quire A
Framed catchwords.Layout
215-220 × 160 mm. ff. 1-223: Two columns of 37-45 lines (mostly 44 or 45), ruled in crayon, frame and line, written below top line.
Running headers framed in blue in the upper margin provide a brief quotation of the Bible in Latin, which forms the subject of the sermon commencing on that page.
Hand(s)
Written in anglicana formata, most, if not all, by one scribe.
Decoration
At the opening of the text, a three-line initial in blue, with infill and marginal flourishing in red, with rectilinear borders in red and blue in the left-hand margin (f. 1r).
In the rest of the manuscript, three-line initials in blue, with infill and marginal flourishing in red.
Spaces for three- and four-line initials, unfilled (ff. 86v-116v).
Paraphs in blue.
Additions
Pen trials on f. 224r.
Binding
19th-century binding, full polished brown calf over pasteboards, classmark and title tooled in gold on the spine. Not stamped, but in the style of Stoakley and Son.
Folios i and 224 formerly the front and rear pastedowns in the medieval binding, both now lifted.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
i verso: 'Robertus Harton' (15th century). Harton is on South Tyneside, near South Shields.
Pembroke College bookplate, dated 1879, but probably in the collection earlier (title inscribed on f. v verso by 17th-/18th-century hand also found in other Pembroke manuscripts). First noted as part of the collection of Pembroke College by H. Schenkl, Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Britannica, II/2 (Vienna, 1898), p. 26.
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
Researchers should note that Pembroke College's western European medieval manuscripts are housed at Cambridge University Library. Scholars who wish to consult Pembroke College manuscripts should contact the Special Collections Reading Room to arrange their visit; all University Library admissions procedures will apply. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library. For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.
Bibliography
-
The English works of Wyclif, hitherto unprinted Early English Text Society / Original
series, (London, Trübner for the Early English Text Society, 1880)
A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Pembroke College, Cambridge, James, M.R. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1905)
English Wycliffite sermons Oxford English texts, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983)
Lollard book production Book production and publishing in Britain 1375-1475 Cambridge
studies in publishing and printing history, Hudson, Anne (Cambridge, 125-142, Cambridge University Press, 1989)
Manuscripts in the library of Pembroke College, Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam Museum
Index of Middle English prose, Rand, Kari Anne (Woodbridge, Brewer, 2006)
Observations on the 'Wycliffite Orthography' Pursuing middle English manuscripts and
their texts : essays in honour of Ralph Hanna, Hudson, Anne (Turnhout, 77-98, Brepols, 2017)
A descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Thomson, Rodney M. (Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2022)
Funding of Cataloguing
Anstruther Trust (digitisation)
Digital Images
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
