London, British Library, Additional 11748

| Shelfmark | Date and Language | Contents |
| Physical Description | History | Record History | Bibliography |


Shelfmark
Country:England
Settlement:London
Repository: British Library
Idno:Additional 11748
AltName:
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Date and Language
Date:s. xv
Language: English
Dialect:Scribal dialect: Staffordshire. Linguistic Atlas Grid Reference: not mapped. 'Hand of ff. 140r-142r. Possibly N. Staffs, or Cheshire/Derbys border mixed with a more northerly element' (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, vol. 4, p. 239). Folios 144v-147r have a scribal dialect of Dorset, Grid: 386 122, LP 5340 (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986, vol. 1, p. 100).
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Contents
A fifteenth-century manuscript including Hilton's Treatise of a Contemplative Life, a chapter from pseudo-Bonaventura's Meditationes Vitae Christi, a verse on the crucifixion and one Latin text. Only the scribe of pseudo-Bonaventura's work, ff. 104r-142r, has been located to the West Midlands. The scribe of ff. 144v-147r, the poem on the Instruments of the Passion, has been located to Dorset.




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Physical Description
Form:Codex
Support: Parchment
Extent:195 x 135 mm
Collation: 112, ff. 2r-14v, catchword in attractive grey pen scroll; 212, ff. 15r-26v, catchword as before; 312, ff. 27r-38v, catchword - scroll as before; all others 12's.
Layout:Pricking: vertical slits. Writing space of 140 x 90 mm. Single columns with 29 lines. Frame and lines ruled in drypoint.
Writing: Scribe 1 writing in black ink in an Anglicana Formata script. Characteristics: single and double compartment a; thorn; 8-shaped s in final position; long s in initial postition; flat-topped t; 2-shaped r in medial position. Items 2 and 3 in one cursive hand in brown ink. Characteristics: sigma s; 2-shaped r in medial position; straight descenders; looped ascenders; long s in medial position. Item 4 in an Anglicana Formata script.
Decoration: F. 3r: four-line rose initial I on a gold ground giving rise to a three-sided bar-frame border. At the top a cluster of rose and blue leaves gives way to a straight spray constructed of a blue vine terminating in a rose leaf. The vine is decorated with a white central line and carries alternating pairs of gold balls with black pen squiggles and pairs of rose or blue leaves. The leaves are decorated with a white circle, white shading and white dots. On the left side the bar-frame is broken by leaves on short vines crossing over the bar. The decoration is typical of c. 1400. Other initials: two/three-line blue initials with red penwork flourishing spreading along the left margin. Fine grey penwork is drawn on many folios including elaborate scrolls for catchwords, line fillers (f. 63v), around smaller initials, and extensions of descenders into the bottom margin e.g. f. 61r, which carries elaborate foliate penwork on two descenders forming two heads facing one another. F. 56r - head in grey penwork; f. 76v - drawing of man with penwork protruding from his mouth.
Binding: Not medieval.
Foliation:ff. 1-147
Additions:
Condition:Good
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History
Origin:f. 138v: 'Iste liber constat willielmo smyth sacerdoti ...quem...iohannes horder emebat...'. This inscription is in same hand as that of the scribe.
Provenance:Folio 1r - contemporary ownership inscription of John Horder: 'Hunc librum & librum vocatum gracia dei qui est in custodia willielmi carenti habeant abbatissa & conventus shaftoniensis in succursum anime '.
Acquisition:'Purchased of H. Bohn 26 Sept 1840'.
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Record History
Catalogued and encoded: Rebecca Farnham, University of Birmingham, January 2004.
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Bibliography
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