Manuscript, on vellum, in a single hand, of this unique English prose version of the twelfth-century Latin treatise Secretum secretorum, itself a translation of the Kitab sirr al-asrar. In addition to this text, the volume also includes a short astrological text in Middle English, headed "secreta." The opening leaf is not present; the introduction by the translator praises Sir Miles Stapleton as his patron
Alternative Title:
Secretum secretorum
Description:
In Middle English and Latin., Several verses and aphorisms in a sixteenth?-century cursive hand on blank leaves and in margins., Layout: single columns of 21-23 lines., Script: English bookhand., Decoration: numerous initials in gold or in blue with contrasting penwork., and Binding: fifteenth-century blind-stamped calf over wooden boards; remains of clasps.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Johannes, de Caritate.
Subject (Topic):
Astrology, Astronomy, Astronomy, Medieval, Education of princes, English prose literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, Medicine, and Medicine, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment of 1) Psalter in English, in the 8-part liturgical division, beginning defectively. Text is the later version of the Wycliffite translation of the Psalms. 2-7) Book of Hours, use of Sarum. 8) St. Jerome's Psalter, with introductory prayer and text followed by a suffrage to the Virgin. With Notes on Historia, Alegoria, Anagogia, Tropologia
Description:
In Middle English and Latin., Script: Written in small, well formed gothic bookhand., Five 6- to 5-line initials at the liturgical divisions of the Psalter (Psalms 26, 52, 68, 80, 97; initials for Psalms 1, 38, and 109 missing, offset initials on ff. 35v, 109r, and 156r), pink and blue with white highlights against cusped gold grounds, filled with brown, blue, and pink foliage with curling foliate serifs; pink, blue and gold bar border in outer margin with foliate shoots, terminals and horizontal extensions full across in upper and lower margins. Eleven 5- to 4-line initials (ff. 139v, 158v, 161r, 162r, 163r, 163v, 164r, 165v, 168r, 169v, 176v), gold, edged in black against a cusped ground, quartered in blue and pink, with white highlights and floral hair-spray. 3-line initials, blue with red penwork throughout. Capitals alternating red and blue. Rubrics throughout. Red and blue line-fillers in litany., and Binding: 19th-20th centuries. Brown leather case, blind-tooled. Red edges. Smells like a Middleton binding.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Books of hours, Devotional literature, English (Middle), Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Psalters
Manuscript document, on parchment, in a single hand, containing a quitclaim by John Burgh, parson of Huish Champflower in Somerset, releasing his rights in the lands and tenements of John Badyngton of Somerset
Description:
In Middle English., Layout: single column of 9 lines., and Script: secretary script.
Subject (Geographic):
England, Connecticut, New Haven., and Somerset (England)
Manuscript, in two unidentified hands, on parchment, including a Latin Chronicle (imperfect beginning, ends with Henry VI; ff. 1-5), and a collection of medical recipes and remedies in Middle English (ff. 16-65). The manuscript ends with a number of miscellaneous 16th century notes and inscriptions (ff. 63-80).
Description:
In Latin and Middle English., Title from manuscript note on front pastedown., Script: gothica cursiva., Decoration: 4-line red and blue initials. Rubrication., Layout: 1 column of about 25 lines., Binding: original sheep leather binding, with vestiges of two strap-and-pin clasps, fastening from the upper to the lower boards., and Also available on microfilm.
Subject (Topic):
Medicine, Medieval, Medicine, Manuscripts, and Recipes
Manuscript on paper of 1) Thomas Hoccleve, Complaint. 2) Hoccleve, Dialogue with a Friend. 3) Hoccleve, Tale of Jereslaus' Wife. 4) Prose moralization of the text in art. 3, preceded by a prologue in verse. 5) Hoccleve, How to Learn to Die. 6) Hoccleve, The Joys of Heaven, in prose, preceded by a prologue, in verse. 7) Hoccleve, Tale of Jonathas, preceded by prologue. 8) Prose moralization of the tale in art. 7. 9) John Lydgate, Dance of Macabre. 10) Hoccleve, Regiment of Princes
Description:
In Middle English., Script: Written in a current mixed hand, Anglicana with Secretary forms, by a single scribe who wrote in a more cursive and compressed style of script for the prose sections of text., Blue initials, 6- to 2-line, for major text divisions, with several distinct styles of red flourishing. Headings and marginal notes in red; paragraph or stanza marks alternate red and blue. Written by a scribe who paid careful attention to the presentation of the text: stanzas are divided by red lines that extend width of written space; metrical arrangements are marked by brackets in red; notes are added, in red, in outer margins and preceded by blue paragraph marks that are often joined together to form a vertical wavy line. In addition, the scribe has also paid attention to minor ornamental features: decorative flourishes, mostly in red, have been added to many lower margins; ornamental ascenders in top line of text extend into upper margin and are often decorated with red., and Binding: Twentieth century. Tan pigskin, blind-tooled, with title, in gold, on spine: "Hoccleve/ Manuscript/ XV Cent." Edges spattered red.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Hoccleve, Thomas, 1370?-1450?
Subject (Topic):
English literature, English poetry, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment (thick) of 1) List of relics in an unidentified church of St. James, probably in Spain. 2) Indulgences for various prayers, masses, etc. when visiting the church of St. James. 3) Unidentified Middle English devotional text. 4) Unidentified prayer, probably a form of absolution related to indulgences in art. 2. 5) Ps.-Augustine, Ps.-Bernard, etc., and wrongly attributed to Richard Rolle, Speculum peccatoris, ending imperfectly. 6) Richard Rolle, De emendatione vitae. 7) Richard Rolle, Oleum effusum (final four sections of the Comment on the Canticles). 8) John of Peckham, extract from Constitutiones. 9) The Five Wiles of the Pharaoh in Middle English
Description:
In Latin and Middle English., Script: Arts. 5-7 written by a single scribe in anglicana bookhand. Other texts by contemporary scribes in less careful bookhands, with art. 4 in a less formal hand., Flourished initials of good quality, 4- to 2-line, blue with red penwork designs incorporating leaf motifs and marginal extensions. Headings in red. Paragraph marks in blue., and Binding: Fifteenth century, England. Original, caught up sewing with very heavy thread on four tawed skin, slit straps laced from out to inside beech boards and pegged in channels which are filled with gesso (?). Green and gold, beaded endbands are sewn on cord cores laid in grooves in the outside of the boards. Spine lined with tawed skin. Covered in tawed skin, originally pink, with two fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the upper one cut in for brown leather straps. Spine covering disintegrating, thus exposing sewing. Covers much worm eaten.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Rolle, Richard, of Hampole, 1290?-1349.
Subject (Topic):
Christian literature, English (Middle), Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern), Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Indenture, on parchment, in a single hand, containing a sale and quitclaim deed by Thomas Hatfield of Steeple Morden, Cambridgeshire, "Squyer" of all rights, title, rents and service from lands in Reddreth in Guilden Morden to George Nicholl, "cytezen and Scryvaner of London."
Description:
In Middle English., Indented at head of document with chirographic letters., Signed: document signed by the scribe, Gardyner., Layout: single column of 25 lines., and Script: secretary script.
Subject (Geographic):
England, Connecticut, New Haven., and Cambridgeshire (England)
