The Medieval Manuscripts at Maynooth the Russell Library, Oil on Canvas Painted by Thomas Ryan RHA, S.Xxmed
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the medieval manuscripts at maynooth The Russell Library, oil on canvas painted by Thomas Ryan RHA, s.xxmed. the Medieval Manuscripts at Maynooth Explorations in the Unknown peter J. lucas and angela m. lucas Four courts press typeset in 10.5 pt on 13 pt Garamond by carrigboy typesetting services for Four courts press ltd 7 malpas street, dublin 8, ireland www.fourcourtspress.ie and in North America for Four courts press c/o isBs, 920 ne 58th avenue, suite 300, portland, or 97213. © the authors and Four courts press 2014 a catalogue record for this title is available from the British library. isBn 978–1–84682–534–7 all rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and publisher of this book. printed in spain by castuera, pamplona To the memory of our parents rose and victor lucas angela and Walter tyrrell Curavimus volentibus legere [2 macc 2.26] ‘We have taken care for those who are willing to read’ contents Frontispiece The Russell Library, oil on canvas painted by thomas ryan rha ii ForeWord by hugh connolly and cathal mccauley xi preFace and acknoWledGments xv illustrations xix aBBreviations xxiii Form oF entries xxv introduction 1 the manuscripts The Liège connection 15 1 rB16 engelbert (poetsch) of admont osB: Commentarius in Psalmum CXVIII 20 2 rB45 “exodus”, accompanied by the Glossa Ordinaria 27 3 rB46 Bruno of segni: Commentarius in Exodum 33 4 rB47 miscellaneous works: ps.augustine: De spiritu et anima; ambrose: De Conflictu vitiorum et virtutum; ps.Bonaventure, Instructio Sacerdotis ad se praeparandum ad celebrandum Missam; extract from vincent of Beauvais on the Vision of Tundale; “song of songs”, accompanied by the Glossa Ordinaria; Cantica Canticorum [Beate Marie] Versificata; excerpt from the Summula Raymundi Versificata, an abridged version in verse of the Summa of raymund de peñafort op, by (?)adam of adersback; excerpts from a formulary of papal letters relating to margaret, countess of Flanders and hainault; seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (excerpt); record of conciliar events in the diocese of reims 991 38 5 rB54 missal 1529 56 Liturgical and devotional books 85 6 rB31 Breviary 87 7 rB36 psalter 97 8 rB37 Book of hours 103 vii viii The Medieval Manuscripts at Maynooth 9 rB38 Book of hours 116 10 rB39 Book of hours (printed 1526 with hand-painted illuminations) 133 11 rB519 psalter, canticles, litany, office of the Blessed virgin mary 146 Canon law, doctrine and theological discourse 152 12 rB29 miscellaneous works: extracts, including two from virgil; papal decretals; Decreta Versificata; Petri Lombardi Sententia Metrice Digestae 153 13 rB71 augustine: De diversis quaestionibus lxxxiii, Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum, De consensu evangelistarum, De pastoribus, De ovibus. 160 The Bible 165 14 rB53 Bible (with prefaces by Jerome and others); stephen langton (attrib.), Interpretationes nominum Hebraicorum ordine alphabetico 166 From Aix-en-Provence to Maynooth 182 15 rB74 Benedictional (by Guillaume durand the elder) made for armand de narcès, aix-en-provence 184 The Venetian naval commander’s ‘Commissione’ 206 16 rB52 ‘commissione’ given by the doge of venice to niccolò da pesaro 207 FraGments 17 rB523/1 image of a martyr 213 18 rB523/2 Book of hours (extract) 214 19 rB523/3 liturgical psalter (extract) 216 Fragments in bindings 219 20 cl.G.6.35a pollux, Julius 220 21 F138 archdekin, richard 220 22 h.sc.7.1.a–b Buchanan, George 220 23 nt.1.20 Burgos, pablo de 221 24 ph.2.264 niphus, eutychius augustinus 222 25 ph.4.223 Francisco de toledo 222 26 ph.4.226 agricola, rudolf huysman 224 27 pp.7b petramellarius, Joannes antonius 224 Contents ix 28 rB2 Boniface viii, pope 224 29 rB8a duns scotus, Johannes 226 30 sc.17.46.1.2 Gemma, Frisius 228 31 td.3.20 Francisco à christo eremita 228 32 th.5.1173 richard of st victor 229 33 th.5.1274 Scriptum Sancti Thome de Aquino 230 34 th.5.1549 Bunderius, Joannes 230 35 th.5.1601 thyraeus, petrus 232 36 th.5.1603 Gregorius de valentia 232 37 tm.6.1546 Codex de penitentia per doctorem de Medina 233 38 tp.2.128 vincent Ferrer, st 234 appendix: extracts from the will of dr laurence renehan in maynooth college archives 235 BiBlioGraphy 237 index oF Former manuscript oWners 249 index oF incipits 250 index oF contents 261 General index 263 Foreword n the middle aGes , when the catalogue of a library was a hand-list of its imanuscripts, the entries were generally minimal: Horae for a Book of hours, or Commentarius in Exodum, a commentary on the Book of exodus. nothing more. thus in a medieval catalogue these two items, which are to be found in this book, would have taken two lines! so much more can be said. there was often no information on who wrote the commentary, and certainly it was rarely stated where and when a manuscript was copied out and decorated. it is therefore a serious challenge to determine these elements. as the authors explain, there can also be false trails, as happened with one of ours, where the fifteenth-century prior stated unambiguously that a fine substantial commentary on psalm 118 was by alexander of hales and later, the binder, taking a lead from this, stamped the name of the thirteenth-century Franciscan theologian accordingly, in gold on the spine. it was only through a careful examination of the text that the true author came to light in the person of englebert of admont. again, it was common practice to bind up several works together, with only the title of the first on the binding. so our earliest manuscript from the eleventh century, a record of conciliar events in the diocese of reims in 991, is tucked away at the end of a volume that contains eight separate booklets, spans three centuries and begins with a thirteenth- century hand copying a work thought then to be by st augustine – and with only his name on the spine. a love of detection work is an essential qualification for cataloguing medieval manuscripts. today, there are still medieval manuscripts in libraries that are one-liners in the catalogue or are not in a catalogue at all. We have been most fortunate, and grateful, that the authors have gone to great trouble to describe in detail the medieval manuscripts in maynooth. it began with a conversation over a glass of wine at a christmas party in the 1990s. it came to light that we had a collection of medieval manuscripts which, tantalizingly, were almost unknown to scholars as no list had ever been published: they were hooked, what might they find! the two authors began a very detailed description of each of our latin manuscripts. the russell library staff devoted much time in assisting them in different ways, glad to see the manuscripts in their care receiving the attention they deserved. We are particularly indebted to penny Woods for devoting her expertise and knowledge to the process for many years. after the authors moved to cambridge, they were able to maintain progress by many visits to the library and through transmission of images from the manuscripts. When the catalogue of our library’s large collection of manuscripts in the irish language was published, the contents became widely known thereby and more easily accessible for consultation. as a result, there were regular visits and enquiries from our own departments, and from readers elsewhere in ireland and abroad, seeking to examine and research the manuscripts in greater detail. resulting xi xii The Medieval Manuscripts at Maynooth publications from these researches cite the manuscripts and open their contents still further to readers. publication of The medieval manuscripts at Maynooth: explorations in the unknown will bring our holdings to the notice of medievalists worldwide and each manuscript will become part of the corpus of surviving recensions of its text. the contents of each manuscript have been carefully noted and a detailed physical description given. this will make the book invaluable to students of codicology, learning how medieval books are put together. the authors also made use of the library’s ‘unique to the Book’ project which was devised after they expressed a desire to include manuscript fragments incorporated in the older printed books. as part of the project’s remit, therefore, books in the printed collection were recorded where early binders had used cut-up scraps of vellum manuscripts with fragments of text or sometimes musical notation as part of the bindings. sixty per cent of the russell library collection had been examined by the time of writing, beginning with theology, as that area was known to have many of the earliest bindings. photographs of these fragments with bibliographical details of the books have been included in this book to tempt further research by other scholars. the book explores sixteen medieval latin manuscripts, some of which are composite – one contains eight separate booklets. they range in date from the eleventh century to 1529. there are three further illuminated single-leaf items, each extracted at some stage from a liturgical manuscript or Book of hours. Because they were decorated, it seems it was a common practice to break up such manuscripts and sell leaves individually as ‘pictures’. Bibliographical details are given of nineteen books ranging in date from 1491 to 1694, each containing scraps of manuscript in its binding.