Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 486
| England |
| Oxford |
| Bodleian Library |
| Laud Misc. 486 |
| SC 1186 |
Late fourteenth-century/early fifteenth-century copy of the
Prick of Conscience followed by Gregory's
Pastoral Care in Latin.
Item: 1| ff.1r-122r |
| Prick of Conscience (Main Version, IMEV 3428) |
| 'The my?t of þe fader almy?ty'. |
| 'That for oure hele on roude gan hyng'. |
| 'Stimulus consciencie et hec prima pars qualiter factus est homo et omnia propter ipsum et cetera'. |
| 'Explicit tractatus venerabilis lincolniensis qui dicitur stimulus consciencie'. |
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Item: 2| ff. 123r-174v |
| Pastoral Care |
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| Codex |
| Parchment |
| 207 x 137 mm |
| Sixteen quires of twelve, apart from quire 110, quire 118, and quire 1510. Catchwords throughout apart from penultimate quire, 15. Catchword on f. 10v in scroll. |
| Pricking not visible. Writing space of 160 x c. 80 mm. Single columns with 35-38 lines. Ruling not visible. |
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One scribe writing in an Anglicana Formata script. Characteristics: dotted y; double compartment g; long s in medial position; double compartment d; B-shaped w; horizontal serif on ascender of h with hooked descender; þ; ?; extension of ascender into top margin for one letter on the top lines of Gregory's Pastoral Care, sometimes drawn into a kite shape and coloured red. Body height: 2 mm.
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In red: rubrics, initials, underlining, penwork flourishing, cuff details on hands. First letter of each line infilled with red.
F. 1r: Large blue initial S of 'Stimulus' with elongated red penwork topped with a crown, outlined in blue and infilled with red. Two-line initials in blue with red flourished penwork - ff. 3v, 4r, 13r, 23r, 35v.
F. 122r: drawing of bust of Bishop of Lincoln (presumed author of Prick of Conscience) in mitre and amice with apparel in dull red and pink with dull brown hair.
Nota bene: two hands with red cuff detail - ff. 1r, 35v.
Later drawings: profile heads, f. 169v - c. sixteenth century.
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Medieval, c. 1390-1410. Covered in white leather, mitred and pasted. Size: 225 x 130 mm. Support of bevelled (15 mm) oak boards; channels for two leather straps cut out on front cover; inside front cover and inside back cover - channels for thongs visible with two v-shaped channels at top and bottom of board with three staggered channels between, the middle channel being slightly shorter. Sewn with split leather thongs; wooden pegs remain holding thongs in peg-holes. Four bands across the spine. Remains of one leather strap on front cover.
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| ff. i + 174 + ii |
| F. i verso (flyleaf) four hands: 1 - two lines of Latin (fifteenth/sixteenth century); 2 - 'A gode medisyn for ...' (6 lines) (fifteenth/sixteenth century); 3 - six lines of Latin (fifteenth/sixteenth century); 4 - 'Contenta hujus m. s. Grosthead Stimulus Conscientia Gregor de Cura Pastorali' (?seventeenth century). F. 1v - 'Liber Guilielmi Laud Archiepiscopi Cantuar': et Cancellar' Vniuersitatis Oxoniensis 1633.' F. 175v - note of birth of Margaret de Eston in 1334. F. 176v - pen trials and 'O blessid lady ...', 'O blessid lady prised of ...' (?sixteenth century). Other seventeenth-century inscriptions on ff. 16r, 37r, 40r, 43r. |
| In good condition with its original medieval binding. |
| Unknown |
| F. 175v - late fifteenth/early sixteenth-century hand - note of the birth of in 1334, 'Margareta de eston nata errata in die sancti mathie apostolic inter horam x am et xi am anno Regis Edwardi iii ii post conquestum viii'. |
Catalogued and encoded by Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, July 2003.
Related Manuscripts
Lewis and McIntosh list three other manuscripts they believe to be very closely related to this copy of the
Prick of Conscience: Brussels, Bibliothèque, MS Royale Albert, I, IV 998 (Dialect: Devon); Leeds, University Library, MS Brotherton 500 (Dialect: North West Worcestershire); Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 14 (Dialect: Devon). The group is derived from the Vernon subgroup of the
Prick of Conscience and related to the Lichfield subgroup (Lewis and McIntosh 1982, p. 105).
- Allen, H. E. 1927. Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole and Materials for his Biography, Modern Language Association of America Monograph series, 3, New York and London: Modern Language Association of America, p. 377.
- Coxe, H. O. 1858-85. Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae: Pars Secunda Codices Latinos et Miscellaneos Laudianos Complectens, 2 fascicles, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1, fasc. 1, col. 350.
- Dennison, L., Driver, M. W., Eljenholm Nichols, A., and Scott, K. L. ed, 2001. An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII c. 1380-c.1509: Fascicle 2, MSS Dodsworth-Marshall, London, Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, p. 89, no. 673.
- Lewis, R. E., and McIntosh, A. 1982. A Descriptive Guide to the Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience, Medium Aevum Monographs 12, Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures, pp. 105-6.
- McIntosh, A. 1976. ‘Two Unnoticed Interpolations in Four Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 77, 63-78.
- McIntosh, A., Samuels, M. L. and Benskin, M. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English: County Dictionary, 4 vols, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 4.
- Madan, F., and Craster, H. H. 1922. A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, vol. 2, part 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 51
- Pächt, O., and Alexander, J. J. G. 1973. Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol., 3, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 65, no. 721.
- Warton, T. 1824. The History of English Poetry from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century, new edition, 2 vols, London: Thomas Tegg, p. 96, n. y.
- Waters, S. 1976. ‘The Pricke of Conscience: The Southern Recension, Book V’, University of Edinburgh, Ph.D thesis, p. 4.
