Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 6190

Treatises on the soul

Contents

Introduction: This manuscript offers an object lesson in some of the complexities that arise in the interpretation of evidence of origin and provenance. It opens with a series of Quaestiones, or discussion points, on Aristotle's treatise on the soul, De anima. These were composed in the early 14th century by Jean de Jandun (c. 1285-1328), a French scholar and theologian who studied and taught at the University of Paris. There then follows a translation of De anima itself, composed by the Greek philosopher and humanist, George of Trebizond (1395-1486), who was born in Crete and later settled in Italy. A colophon at the end of the Quaestiones appears to record that it was written out at Oxford in 1441 by a Thomas Clare, who identified himself as a monk from the abbey of Bury St Edmunds. The remaining portion of the manuscript is written by the same hand, in a similar script. The quires were formed from the same paper stock and likewise use sheets of parchment for the inner and outer bifolia. The pages were prepared for writing in the same way and indeed the Quaestiones end and De anima begins in the middle of the same quire. All of this points to the second text having been copied in near succession to the first - and for many years the manuscript was considered to be, according to Albinia de la Mare, a candidate for the status of 'the earliest dated English manuscript in humanistic script'. However, John Monfasani has shown that there is evidence that one of the prefaces to George of Trebizond's translation was completed only in late 1446 or early 1447, and the entire work is unlikely to have circulated in England until later. '[T]he possibility must be considered,' Antonia Gransden concluded, 'that the volume is not written in Clare's hand at all, but is a copy made by another, rather later scribe of a (now lost) exemplar containing Clare's transcription of the Quaestiones, and that this scribe simply copied Clare's colophon.' Recent palaeographical analysis by David Rundle lends further weight to this judgement: the script contrasts markedly with other English engagements with humanistic handwriting reforms in the 1440s, its 'combination of features [being] reminiscent of English adoption of humanist cursive as seen in Rome and elsewhere from the later 1450s'. He suggested that the colophon could also have been a mistake, with '1441' written in error for perhaps '1471'. Orietta da Rold's research into paper stocks used in Cambridge University Library manuscripts of English production likewise points to later production: paper bearing a closely similar or possibly identical watermark is known to have been of French origin, and circulated between 1470 and 1482, with examples found in England in the third quarter of the 15th century. Ruling out Thomas Clare as the scribe of this volume, and proposing a later date of production, allows other connections to be suggested, however. A Thomas Clare inscribed his name in a copy of Robert Holcot's Moralitates (now Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS 8431 B), which was made in the mid-15th century and not later than 1477. This Thomas Clare identified himself in different places in NLW MS 8431 as 'dompnus' and 'monachus', but unfortunately part of one of these leaves has been torn away, and perhaps with it any evidence of his native house. He could perhaps have been the copyist of the exemplar from which MS Add. 6190 was made, but cannot have been the copyist of MS Add. 6190 itself: the hand in the inscription and in the text of the Holcot manuscript are very different to that found in the one shown here. There is an earlier Thomas Clare, who was ordained deacon in 1387 and become Doctor of Theology at Oxford in March 1414, and was also a monk at Bury, but he lived probably too early to have been copying the exemplar manuscript in Oxford in 1441, and seems in any case to have returned to the abbey by at least 1429, at which date he was involved in the election of a new abbot. There is a later Thomas Clare, recorded in the early 16th century, but nothing connects him to Bury. The manuscript has been discussed among the books owned by the abbey at Bury St Edmunds and at the time of writing (2024) continues to be listed as belonging there in the most recently updated, online version of N.R. Ker's Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (MLGB3). There was never any explicit evidence of MS Add. 6190 having been physically located at Bury - though, strictly speaking, property in the hands of monks belonged not to them but to their house, wherever the monks themselves might have moved (as Ker explained in his second preface to MLGB, p. xxvi). If we conclude that the colophon was merely copied from the lost exemplar, then the elimination of Thomas Clare as the copyist of this manuscript must lead in turn to the rejection of MS Add. 6190 as a Bury book (though the exemplar itself, ceteris paribus, would have been a Bury book, under the terms of monastic ownership explained above, and may also have been at the abbey at some point). If we conclude that the colophon was written in error, though, and should have read '1471', then MS Add. 6190 may tentatively remain linked to Bury. Dr James Freeman| Medieval Manuscripts Specialist| Cambridge University Library
1. 1v-110v
Jean de Jandun, Quaestiones on Aristotle, De anima
Language(s): Latin

Second recension of the text.

Printed by Franciscus Renner and Nicolaus de Frankfordia (Venice, 1473) (Hain-Rechling 7458)
McLintock (1956), p. 121
1.1. 1r
List of Quaestiones
Language(s): Latin
1.2. 1v-2v
Prologue
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: (prologue) 1v: [I]nest enim mentibus hominum veri boni
Explicit: (prologue) 2v: Alberti primo de generacione
Final rubric: 2v: Explicit prologus quod Clare monachus

See Summary for further discussion relating to Thomas Clare.

1.3. 2v-110v
Text
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 2v: [O]missis autem omnibus partibus philosophie
Explicit: 110v: probabilia no diffido ad laudem de [sic] beatissime virginis Marie. Amen
Final rubric: 110v: Expliciunt questiones domini Iohannis de Ianduno super tres libros de anima Aristotelis perscripte Oxoniis per dompnum Thomam Clare monachum monasterii sancti Edmundi de Bury. Anno domini MCCC41o

Book 2 begins on f. 18v, Book 3 on f. 56v

See Summary for further discussion relating to Thomas Clare.

2. 111r-126r
De anima (translated by George of Trebizond) Aristotle
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 111r: [C]um honorum atque honorabilium cognitionem esse arbitremur
Explicit: 126r: Auditum uero ut sibi ipsi et linguam ut alii aliquid significet
Final rubric: 126r: Georgii Trapezuncii librorum Aristotelis de anima translacio lucidissima finit feliciter . deo gracias

For George of Trebizond's translations of Aristotle, see J. Monfasani, George of Trebizond: a biography and study of his rhetoric and logic (Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 54-60. The colophon at the end of Jean de Jandun's Quaestiones (see f. 110v) provided the terminus post quem non for the composition of the work and is cited as such by Humphrey Hody/Hodius, De Graecis Illustribus (Londini: impensis Caroli Davis..., [1742]).

Folios 126v-130v blank and partly cut away.

3. 112r
Opiniones philosophorum de anima
Language(s): Latin
Incipit: 112r: Sic sunt ponentes animarum pristi sapientes

Eight hexameter lines.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: 2r: Et ista erronea
Form: codex
Support: Paper, folded in folio, with the outer and inner bifolia of each quire formed of parchment. The leaves of parchment are typically smaller than the leaves of paper and are often of irregular size and shape. Watermark: arms of France, with pendant, ( 80 × 34 mm. ) in the centre of the folio, comparable to Briquet 1741.
Extent: Codex: ii + 130 + v leaves. This does not count the loose sheet of paper inserted before f. 1 (see Accompanying Material for further details). 385 × 275 mm.
Foliation:

20th-century foliation

i-ii + 1-130 + iii-vii

Written in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the rectos.

Collation

Ten quires of either 14 or 12 leaves each.

  • Quires 1-314 (ff. 1-42)
  • Quire 412 (ff. 43-54)
  • Quire 514 (ff. 55-68)
  • Quires 6-912 (ff. 69-116)
  • Quire 1014 (ff. 117-130)

1-314 412 514 6-912 1014

No leaf signatures.

No quire signatures.

 Catchwords, sometimes on the outer verso of every leaf of the quire.

Condition

Fore-edge of the leaves at the front of the volume damaged, with loss of text on f. 1 and partial loss of marginal notes thereafter. Similar damage at the end of the volume. Edges and corners of the leaves have been repaired. Staining along the upper and fore-edge at the front of the volume, becoming confined later to the upper outside corner.

Layout

270-290 × 190-200 mm. Paper leaves ruled in hardpoint (ff. 2r-60v) and in crayon (ff. 63r-129r). Parchment leaves ruled in crayon throughout. Two columns, frame ruling only. 31-64 lines to the page, written variably above, below and on the top line.

Hand(s)

Written in a cursive script with some humanistic features, using pale brown ink. See Rundle (2019), p. 287, for a detailed description.

Decoration

Spaces left for initials, two to four lines in size; not filled in.

Additions

Marginal content markers throughout, with more extensive notes on f. 111r.

Binding

Bound in original oak boards to five bands, of which only the upper board remains.

Lower board replaced with millboard and the volume rebacked and half-bound in pigskin, with other repairs. Binding described as 'broken' in 1908 sale catalogue (see Provenance), so repairs must post-date this.

Accompanying Material

The list of quaestiones on f. 1r has been copied in summary form by a 17th-century hand onto a loose sheet of paper, now kept with the manuscript at this same location.

History

Origin: Third quarter of the 15th century. ; England.

The manuscript was previously thought to be 'the earliest dated manuscript in humanistic script', copied at Oxford in 1441 by Thomas Clare, a monk of Bury St Edmunds. However, subsequent dating of the translation of Aristotle's De anima, together with palaeographical analysis and study of the paper stocks, points to a later date of production. The colophon may have been copied from the exemplar, thus eliminating Thomas Clare as the scribe and as Oxford as the location of this manuscript's production, or it may have been written in error, with '1441' instead of '1471'. The localisation of the manuscript's production to Oxford thus remains in doubt (see Provenance and Summary for further discussion).

de la Mare (1980), p. 98
Robinson (1989), no. 106
Emden, BRUO, p. 425

Provenance and Acquisition

1r: 'Iste liber pertinet dopmne [sic] Thome Wuly p[?ret']'. Not hitherto identified, but perhaps the Thomas Wulley recorded as chaplain at New College, 1452-53.

Emden, BRUO, p. 2098

If the date in the colophon was a mistake, with '1441' written in error instead of '1471', then Thomas Clare may still have been the copyist and it may still be possible to link the manuscript to Abbey of Bury St Edmunds (see Summary for further discussion).

On ff. 1r and 110v, 'Whiti et amicorum' (17th century). 'White' has not been identified, though it may be Thomas White (d. 1624)White, Thomas, approximately 1550-1624, founder of Sion College.

On f. 126r, 'Humfredus Wanley ejus liber 1689/90': Humphrey Wanley, scholar of Old English and librarian.

Given by Humphrey Wanley to Coventry Grammar School in 1689/90, together with other books, including a catalogue of the manuscripts at Sion College. See f. 32v of the School Library Donors' Book, now Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 4467. No. 15 in Wanley's catalogue of the School's manuscripts in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 1697), II, p. 34.

Lot 291 in the School sale (Hodgson), 11 November 1908, when sold for 5s to Leighton.

Presented to Cambridge University Library by Sir Stephen Gaselee on 29 September 1919.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This catalogue entry draws on Jayne Ringrose, Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library acquired before 1940 (Woodbridge, 2009), by kind permission of the Boydell Press.

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. 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

    Medieval libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books Royal Historical Society guides and handbooks, Ker, N.R. (London, Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1964) A new Chaucer manuscript PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Pace, George B.Doyle, Anthony Ian (83, 22-34, 1968) George of Trebizond: a biography and a study of his rhetoric and logic Columbia studies in the classical tradition, Monfasani, John (Leiden, Brill, 1976) Manuscripts at Oxford: an exhibition in memory of Richard William Hunt (1908-1979), Keeper of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library Oxford, 1945-1975, on themes selected and described by some of his friends, De la Mare, Albinia C.Barker-Benfield, B.C. (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1980) Collectanea Trapezuntiana: texts, documents, and bibliographies of George of Trebizond Collectanea Trapezuntiana Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, (Binghamton, N.Y., Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies in conjunction with the Renaissance Society of America, 1983) Some manuscripts in Cambridge from Bury St Edmunds Abbey: exhibition catalogue Bury St Edmunds: medieval art, architecture, archaeology and economy British Archaeological Association conference transactions, Gransden, Antonia ([S.l.], 228-285, British Archaeological Association, 1998) Catalogue of dated and datable manuscripts c. 737-1600 in Cambridge libraries, Robinson, P.R. (Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 1988) Their hands before our eyes: a closer look at scribes : the Lyell lectures delivered in the University of Oxford, 1999, Parkes, M.B. (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008) Privately-Owned English Urban Manuscripts, 1300-1476 (Urban Manuscript Project) Archaeology Data Service, Riddy, Felicity (2008, 2020-01-30T10:38:29Z, https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/ump_ahrc_2008/index.cfm) Summary catalogue of the additional medieval manuscripts in Cambridge University Library acquired before 1940, Ringrose, Jayne (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2009) The Renaissance reform of the book and Britain: the English Quattrocento Cambridge studies in palaeography and codicology, Rundle, David (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019) Paper in Medieval England: From Pulp to Fictions, Da Rold, Orietta (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020)

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