Bibliotheca Pepysiana; a Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Ottawa http://www.archive.org/details/bibliothecapepysOOpepy — A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE LIBRARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS. By arrangement with the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Part I.—"Sea" MSS. Edited by J. R. Tanner, Litt.D., St. John's College, Cambridge. (Published 1914.) Part II. Early Printed Books to 1558. Edited by E. Gordon Duff. With a General Introduction, giving the history of the Library, by F. Sidgwick. (Published 1914.) LONDON: SIDGWICK Sc JACKSON, Ltd. BIBLIOTHECA PEPYSIANA Part III.—MEDIAEVAL MANUSCRIPTS NOTE Not more than 500 copies of the complete Catalogue will be issued ; but owing to the special appeal made by one or two of the Parts, a limited number of extra copies of such Parts has been or will be printed for independent sale. The Illustrations, consisting of photographic facsimiles will be issued in a portfolio as a separate Part. BIBL10THECA PEPYSIANA A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE LIBRARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS Part III. — MEDIAEVAL MANUSCRIPTS By Dr. M. R. JAMES Provost of Eton : sometime Provost of King's College LONDON: SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD. M CM XXIII [Temporary Title-page.] 5 °L^^>"^ FEB 18 1954,; s | 1 ^Z.Z RIGHTS RESERVED MEDIAEVAL MANUSCRIPTS INTRODUCTION HE present section of the Pepysian catalogue contains an account of the mediaeval manuscripts and some others of literary interest. In compiling it I have followed the method employed in my other catalogues of manuscripts : the order in which the books are described is simply that of their places on the shelves, an order dictated largely by considerations of size. The only printed catalogue of the Pepys Manuscripts which professes to give a general view of the collection is that which appears in the Oxford Catalogi Manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (1697 II. 207). It is entitled : Librorum Manuscriptorum viri sapientissimi Samuelis Pepysii, Curiae Admiraliae nuper a secretis, varii quidem argumenti, sed praecipue de re navali, quae est Anglorum gloria ac Praesidium, Thesaurus in- aestimabilis. 1 The numbering (a double one) runs from 6716 (1) to 6848 (129), and the catalogue has these subdivisions : Historical'. 6716 (1) to 6730(15). Political: 6731 (16) to 6749 (30). Religious: 6750 (31) to 6766 (47). Mathematical : 6767 (48) to 6785 (66). Poetical: 6786 (67) to 6792 (73). Mixt: 6793 (74) to 6809 (90). Naval: 6810 (91) to 6848 (129). (With a sub-heading at 6835 0/ Naval Architecture, which, however, does not cover all the items that follow it.) This cataloguers has been said, was issued in 1697 : it may have been drawn up some years earlier. Pepys did not die till 1703; not all his 1 first is The numbering that which runs through the whole volume : the other is that of the single collection. BIBIJOTHECA PEPYSIANA manuscripts, therefore, need appear in this list. That fact will account for some incompleteness in the catalogue. I have not tried to discover exactly how incomplete it is in other departments ; but in my own I find that 14 volumes out of the 51 which I describe are not entered in it. It has another imperfection, one of method. A single volume, if it contains several treatises, is split up, and a separate entry and number given to each treatise, so that the number of entries is swelled much beyond the number of volumes. The nineteen entries of Mathematical books, for example, are comprised in three manuscripts. Thirty-seven volumes described by me have sixty entries in the old catalogue. Of losses which the collection has suffered in the section with which I am concerned I can only find one to record: 6779 (60) Bernardus Silvester de Virtute ac Essentia Planetarum et Constellationum cum figuris. Pergam. Of omissions in the present volume — or (as I would rather put it) of volumes and tracts not included — there are many. Taking the old printed catalogue as a basis, I find that of the 15 Historical articles I have here described 6; of the 14 Political, 3; of the 16 Religious, 15 ; of the 19 of the Mathematical, 18; of the 7 Poetical, 5 ; of the 17 Mixt, n ; 39 Naval, 1. Those which are passed over are all of quite late date, except two, viz. Caxton's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, printed from the manuscript by George Hibbert in 18 19 for the Roxburghe Club ; and the Maitland Poems, the entire text of which is being edited for the Scottish Text Society. On the other hand, I have included, either by request or because they happened to interest me, several manuscripts which are no older than some which I have left out. Two or three volumes, moreover, are common, in virtue of their subject, to the mediaeval and to other sections : they contain music, or naval matter. These I have not attempted to treat from the specialist's standpoint. As to the composition of the collection. Without doubt the volumes containing English prose and poetry are the most famous. The religious poetry has been included in Professor Carlelon Brown's admirable Register of Middle English Religious Verse, published by the Bibliographical Society in two volumes, to which I have given references. The Chaucerian pieces MEDIAEVAL MANUSCRIPTS (2006) have been long known. To Poetry I reckon Nos. 1236, 1461, 1584, 1999, 2006, 2011, 2014, 2030, 2101, 2125, 2344. English Prose is an important constituent in 2125 and 2498. There are also medical and other receipts in 878, 1047, 1307, and portions of the Bible in 1576, 1603. More recent verse is in 1999 and 21 and there is the bulky rhymed Chronicle of Herdinge in 2163. The most important French books are the Apocalypse (1803), the Vegetius, etc. (1938), and the Guillaume de Machaut (1594). The Coro- nation of Claude (1791) is an interesting, but ugly book. Jean Mallart's little book (1607) is illustrated with woodcuts. The ordinary ingredients of a collection of manuscripts are not to be found here. Not a single Latin Bible, Psalter, Missal, or Breviary did Pepys acquire. There is but one book of Hours—but that is interesting from the number of commemorations of Scottish saints which it contains (1576). One patristic manuscript—Isidore (2808) — and that not theo- logical : no Scholastic Divinity, no Canon or Civil Law. The Medical books are English. Science does contribute two, both of some interest, the volume of mathematical treatises (2329) obtained by Dr. Dee (quite honestly) from Peterhouse, and the Bacon (1207) which was also Dee's. Alchemy (1295) follows at the heels of Science, and Magic (1530) on the heels of Alchemy. Among the historical books I reckon 146 1, 1791, 1955, 1998, 2014, 2099, 2163, 2191, 2244, 2314, 2516. They are a motley array : some belong to more than one category. I call attention here to only one (2314), which must come from St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and, if I mistake not, is closely connected with the better known manu- script of Thomas of Elmham at Trinity Hall. This is almost the only manuscript with a fairly clear monastic provenance. 1 The pretty Kalendar (1662) that was written at Durham, was probably used by a layman. Coming to the artistic aspect of the books, I unhesitatingly place first the mediaeval sketch-book (1916). There are very few such things any- where, and I believe that this of Pepys's is the only English one in 1 The word provenance having occurred, I take the occasion to observe that it seems useless to expect any information from Pepys's papers as to when and whence he procured his manuscripts, other than naval. The bill for Spanish books, lately published by Mr. Gaselee in the Transactions of the Bibliographical Society , appears to be the only document of the kind which has survived either at Oxford or Cambridge. 2. C2 BIBLIOTHECA PEPYSIANA existence. Though it is later and less important in many ways than the famous book of Villars de Honnecourt, at Paris, which has been twice at least reproduced in full, it would amply repay a special monograph. The other notable picture books are the Apocalypse (1803), and the 2 Speculum (2359). Vegetius (1938 ) has some fair pictures, the Coronation Claude (1791) some bad ones, the Kalendar (1662) some very nice drawings. The complete list of picture books is : 1576, 1594, 1662, 1791, 1803, 2 1916, 1938 , 2258,2359. The Octateuch(i6o3)has some very clever late restorations of illumination in it. Palaeographically the scrap-book (2981) is by far the most interesting. Its specimens of early writing, from the eighth century onwards, include some very great rarities. It would be a good thing if they could be detached so as to render the verso-sides visible ; but so far this has not been found practicable. The last item in my catalogue, a ' copy-book of about 1400' is not impossibly unique. I at least have never seen another. I am afraid that this catalogue may have suffered a little from the long interval which has of necessity elapsed between the writing of it and its appearance in print. During that time I removed from Cambridge to Eton, and it became no longer possible to refer to the manuscripts them- selves, to verify small points, or to resort to libraries, with the same ease, and keep abreast of publications of texts and periodical literature. The catalogue is therefore in essentials a pre-war production. I submit, in palliation of defects which may be found in it (I am thinking principally of references to modern editions) that no catalogue can be absolutely up to date : in fact, one object of the cataloguer is to pave the way for others to supersede his own work by publishing texts and studying pictures and scripts to which he has called their attention.