Statutes of the Order of the Garter as revised by King Edward VI. Complete manuscript on parchment with modern paper endleaves (x +2+16+2+x), currently unfoliated; parchment bifolia before and after the two main gatherings were once pastedowns and flyleaves, but codex is now rebound in modern (nineteenth century?) padded embroidered cover with four 280mm blue silk tie-ribbons. Binding is degrading such that first gathering is wholly detachable. Pages measure 220mm x 158mm; fols. 3-18 ruled in plummet, 26 lines to the page with ruled margins. Fol. 2v bears coat of arms of the Order of the Garter under Edward VI, blue and red with silver and gold illumination (silver has tarnished somewhat). Main text is written single-column by one hand in an ornamental secretary script; decorative initials at section heads alternate gold-on-blue and gold-on-red throughout, with the exception of the first initial, which is blue on gold leaf. Date of 17 March 1552, 7 Edward VI, noted in preface on fol. 4r (and embroidered on binding), indicates 17 March 1553 according to modern dating practices (Edward’s seventh regnal year began 28 January 1553 while the new calendar year was reckoned from 25 March). Text and conclusion, including date and witnesses, match the ratification of the short-lived statutes issued as a reform measure under Edward VI shortly before his death; they were abolished within the following year by Philip and Mary. Manuscript appears to match nos. 772 and 774 in the Ashmole collection, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, and thus to be related also to versions of the Statutes in Ashmolean manuscripts nos. 812, 820 (item 1), 1119 (item 13), as well as to a draft in William Cecil’s hand included in the latter section of British Library MS Cotton Nero C.x.
Henry Grey (Duke of Suffolk), William Parr (Marquess of Northampton), John Dudley (Duke of Northumberland), Henry FitzAlan (Earl of Arundel), Edward Stanley (Earl of Derby), Frances Hastings (Earl of Huntingdon), William Paulet (Marquess of Winchester), William Herbert (Earl of Pembroke), Walter Deveraux (Viscount Hereford), Edward Clinton (Lord High Admiral), Thomas Cheney, Thomas Darcy (Baron of Chiche), George Brooke (Baron Cobham), Andrew Dudley, William Cecil (Chancellor of the Order), Philip Hobby (Usher of the Black Rod), Gilbert Dethick (Garter Principal King of Arms)
Transcription* and description (PDF) by Sydney Terepocki and Luke Oldfield, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), April 2015.
* Transcription practice follows Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-77.
Description also available in Vendor Catalogue (Maggs Catalogue)
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
"The Names and [...] of most of the nobilitie from Wm Conquerours tyme till ye yeare 1580. With ther severall Armes etc." Attractive illuminated late sixteenth-century manuscript in ink, with many coloured armorial illustrations within shields. 272 leaves, quarto [180x133mm], bound in later red morocco gilt. This lengthy and interesting colourful manuscript, in several sections, includes the names of the principal nobles, by reign, from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth, with an illustration of their arms; a list of nobles created since the Conquest, arranged according to rank; an account of the Order of the Garter and a list of all the Knights from the foundation of the Order by Edward III; an account of the Order of the Golden Fleece; and illustrations of armorial bearings arranged according to the heraldic devices chosen, so that, for example, all the shields with Lions Rampant are grouped together, as are all the shields with birds or fleurs de lys. [Several index sections.] Some shields [and pages] left blank, and first line of title and some page headings cropped. In fine condition.
Gruenberger, Jaclyn. "The Early Modern Heraldry Handbook: An Introduction to Victoria, McPherson Library, MS.Brown.Eng.2, including a Semi-Diplomatic Transcription of its Catalogue of English Nobility from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth I." (2016) PDF
Isherwood, Brooke. "Victoria, McPherson Library, MS.Brown.Eng.2: An Earl Marshal’s Handbook." (2018) PDF
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Identification and transcription of erased (washed) text on parchment fol. 36 (PDF). Transcription and description* by Sonya Chwyl, with assistance from Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), as part of coursework for her manuscript studies class, December 2015.
Partial transcription: folios 34r-v and 39r-39Av (PDF), six recipes written in the same hand, three with ascriptions, late seventeenth-century script. Transcription* by Renée Gaudet, with assistance from Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin and Dr. Joseph Grossi (ENGL), as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Williams Boyarin, December 2015.
Catalogue and preliminary identification of watermarks by Natasha O'Reilly, with the assistance of Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Boyarin, December 2016.
Fifteenth-century leaf from a Medicinal and Culinary Miscellany (fol. 38) (PDF). Transcription* by Ashley Bucci, with assistance from Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Williams Boyarin, June 2022.
Fifteenth-century leaf from a Medicinal and Culinary Miscellany (fol. 38) (PDF). Study by Kerri Li, with assistance from Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENSH), as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Williams Boyarin, Fall 2023.
* Transcription conventions follow Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-77.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Images also available through Fragmentarium.
Genealogical roll on parchment, written in Latin. 9 membranes attached by glue, each measuring 73 x 44mm (7560 x 432mm total, i.e., about 21 feet). 7 vertical text columns labeled for: the Christian year (597-1472), Popes (from Gregory I), Kings of England (following the Kentish line, from Ethelbert), Archbishops of Canterbury (from Augustine), years from the conversion of England to Christianity, dominical letters, and golden numbers. Significant historical events are also noted throughout. 2.8mm decorative borders adorn each side in multicolor pigments (pink, blue, green, red, yellow, and grey, with gold, silver, and brown detailing), with hair-line stems and heavy bell-like flowers. Vertical columns (including borders) are ruled in ink; pricking for horizontal ruling is visible at outer edges. Genealogical lines are generally drawn in red, with plain red circles around names, but additional green lines begin on membrane 6. These seem to indicate disruptions in lineage (starting around King Stephen). Text is written in black, brown, red, and occasionally green, generally in a fifteenth-century humanistic cursive, though date columns and a few early entries are in a gothic script. Another later hand titles the roll on the dorse edge of membrane 9 (“A Genealogical Account of the KINGS of ENGLAND from ELTHELBERT to HENRY .VI. 21 feet in length.”). Text entries end at the year 1435, though date entries and borders continue to 1472. No evidence of wood or other attachments for rolling; item was originally rolled top to bottom, as evidenced by titular label on the dorse of the bottom edge and patterns of damage.
Significant mold, staining, and use-related damage exists, especially at membranes 6-9. Ink fading and damage to parchment significantly affects legibility from membrane 5 on, though some faded text is recoverable under UV light. Pigments of decorative floral borders are mostly in tact until membranes 7-9, and then show significant cracking, smudging, and flaking. Wrinkling, holes, and small tears occur throughout. Evidence of repairs may be observed, especially between membranes 8-9, where parchment has been used to stabilize significant tearing and deterioration at edges.
Interest in Kentish royal lineage, archbishops of Canterbury, and historical events important to regional concerns indicate the roll was created in Kent, or perhaps in Canterbury specifically. This likelihood is corroborated by similarities to a chronological table at the beginning of Cambridge, Trinity Hall MS 1 (Thomas Elmham’s Historia Monasterii S.Augustini Cantuariensis) and a related “chronicle roll” housed at Pepys Library, Cambridge (item 2314 in the 1992 Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, vol. 5.i). The Pepys Library roll is closely associated. The last legible event recorded in both is the death of John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford (d. September 1435), which establishes a terminus a quo. The roll was donated to the University of Victoria in 1989 by Bruce and Dorothy Brown, who purchased it from Maggs Bros Ltd (London). It is unknown when Maggs acquired the roll. Markings on the top and bottom of the dorse side indicate it was once sold for 4 guineas (a currency discontinued in the UK in 1816) and later for £70.
Full description with works cited (PDF).
Transcription of membranes 1-3 (PDF) by Sophie Boucher, Brynn Fader, Rebekah Prette, and Molly Trepanier, in collaboration with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), as part of coursework for her manuscript studies class, April 2015.
* Transcription practice generally follows Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-77, with some necessary adjustments for format and spatial representation of entries in columns.
Description also available in Vendor Catalogue (Maggs Catalogue)
Baxter, Kathleen D. "A Comparative Study of Pepys Library MS 2314 and UVic’s MS Brown.Lat.1: Poetry and Matrilineage in a Fifteenth-Century English Genealogical Roll." (2019) PDF
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
122 folios. I-IX12 (I wants 1) + X10 + 1 singleton + 1 bifolium + 2 half sheets, and wanting four leaves at end of manuscript. Paper and parchment throughout, with parchment on outermost and innermost leaves of each quire, except first quire (where first leaf is missing) and end of manuscript (where singleton following quire X is parchment but the following bifolium and half leaves are paper). In total 82 surviving folia are paper, 40 parchment. Leaves are 260 x 350mm, two columns per page (90 x 300mm, 60-70 text lines per column). Paper has two distinct watermarks (see Badke, “Watermarks”). Despite lacking first leaf, medieval foliation starts at ‘1’ indicating that the first page may have been lost early in the manuscript’s history. Medieval foliation in black ink stops at f. 105; modern pencil foliation in bottom left margins.
One scribe for main text throughout (with the exception of some marginal notations and corrections); scribe is also the rubricator. Fifteenth-century English secretary hand. Minimal decoration. Red paraphs mark the start of each seven-line stanza (no space between stanzas); rubricated titles in Latin at the start of sections; large blue initials at the start of each section (though initials in red appear on ff. 26rb, 55ra, 55rb, 80vb).
Manuscript contains only John Lydgate’s Fall of Princes and begins at Book I.120. Book II begins at f. 27, Book III at f. 44v, Book V on f. 72v, Book VI on f. 83, Book VII on f. 94v, Book VIII on f. 100v, and Book IX on f. 112. Book III ends imperfectly on f. 61r, where the text stops after fourteen lines in column a and then picks up again halfway through column a on f. 61v; the beginning of Book IV is missing, and the scribe evidently left space planning to provide the text at some point in the future. The manuscript ends 901 lines before the end of Book IX, at IX.2727, indicating that four leaves (13-16 columns) are missing. Text is continuous to last verso.
Previously bound in seventeenth-century leather binding; disbound by University of Victoria for restoration purposes and now housed in archival folders that do not correspond to quires (see just below). Leaves were edged in red ink after trimming, creating a red mottled effect when all leaves are viewed closed together.
Due to extensive water damage and purple mold, the book could not be closed at the time of acquisition. The manuscript was disbound and repaired by local Victoria conservator Jean Topham. After the leaves were removed from the binding, they were cleaned and washed with an alkaline solution to eliminate mold, pressed to flatten, and an archival rice paper was used to repair and reinforce missing and damaged areas of paper while modern parchment was grafted to the medieval parchment sheets. The seventeenth-century binding was unfortunately discarded after restoration (see Badke, “Restoration”).
Several leaves that were not originally attached were grafted together in the restoration process, creating a false sense of bifolia arrangements, and the current housing separates parchment and paper leaves rather than quires. Lasting damage is concentrated on the edges of leaves, and text loss is not extensive. Some marginal annotations and corrections are lost due to trimming at the time of binding (either originally or in the seventeenth century). A small rectangle of paper (about 90 mm long) has been cut from the bottom left corner of f. 80r, and marks visible on ff. 77-79 indicate that the cut was braced against these pages.
Sold at Sotheby’s 14 July 1947 (lot 181), and purchased by University of Victoria from the family of the 1947 buyer in 1977.
Transcription and textual notes (PDF) completed by UVic students as part of coursework for manuscript studies classes with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL).
Partial transcription by Undine Bruckner.
Digitization project by David Badke and Nicole Green, 1999-2001.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Partial transcription of fols. 1r-4r4 (PDF) by Danielle Aftias, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2016, available here.
No facsimile images available at this time.
Description available through Textmanuscripts.com.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Terrier compiled under priest of Klein-Karben, Kloppenheim (Karben), Germany 1483
Transcription (PDF) completed by Cameron Young, with reference to a prior draft transcription by Johannes Schmidt and Seamus Reid, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2016.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Title: De Proprietatibus Rerum (On the Properties of Things)
Author: Bartholomeus Anglicus
Location: University of Victoria Special Collections, Medieval Studies Collection, SC070, Acc. 1984-061
Language: Latin
Binding: 19th Century, red-brown leather; abbreviated title (Liber Propriet manuscript) printed on upper spine
Typeface: handwritten, gothic script, on vellum with a small hand
Size: binding 15.5 x 21.5 cm; pages 14.5 x 20.5 cm
Provenance: 13th Century (originally French, but prior to 19th century, unknown); Charles W. G.Howard; Alan G. Thomas; M. R. Andrew; University of Victoria.
See also: British Columbia’s First Medieval Manuscript by A. S. G. Edwards (PDF)
Transcription* of the entries for vipera, tinea, and vermis (fol. 85r-v) (PDF) were completed by Dylan Kerfoot, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2016.
Transcription* of MS.Lat.1's medieval index (PDF) was completed by Drew Beard, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2016.
* Transcription conventions follow Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Cornell UP, 2007), pp. 75-77.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
See also: Fragmentarium
Boyarin, Adrienne Williams, Ravana Eagleheart, James Kendrick, Lynnea Ness, and Merridy Peters. "Medieval Manuscripts and Fragments at the University of Victoria: An Early Grant of Hubert de Burgh, Constantine the African's Translation of Isaac Israeli, and a Mendicant Breviary between Italy and Croatia." Florilegium 33 (2016): 193-232. https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/11170.
Transcription (PDF) of contents list by Kalea Raposo with assistance from Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENSH) as part of coursework for a graduate manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (Fall 2023).
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Transcriptions* (PDF) completed by UVic students as part of coursework for manuscript studies classes with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL).
* Transcription practice follows Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-77 and (for the calendar) pp. 194-201.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Manuscript on paper, fragmentary. Unidentified text on Hebrew language and grammar, written ca. 1600-1700 (?) in Latin, with use of Hebrew and Greek. Pages written front and back, apparently in several different hands. The text is a Hebrew grammar made by a Christian; ... Hebrew texts examined and discussed are biblical .... Generally appears to be either a draft of a text never printed, personal notes taken from multiple sources, or perhaps lecture notes.
Provenance: Purchased by Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin from Thomas A. Bredehoft of Chancery Hill Books (Morgantown, West Virginia) May 2015.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
This manuscript contains a rich collection of the land-holdings, sales, and dowry records of the Sienese citizen Pietro Gori Michelangelo and his family. Composed by five different notaries, the documents provide extensive details on the history of the family's holdings and how these holdings fared through sales and transfers during the early sixteenth century. Family history, legal history, women's history, and notarial practices all merit further study through these entirely unpublished documents.
Bound in wood boards, faded and slightly worn red leather strap with intact lettered ("E.M.") brass clasp with pin and eylet, channels of support visible, faded and slightly worn red leather split bands, lether strap and bands tacked to boards, partial and cut front flyleaf mostly separated from quire with hinge visible, very minor worming to spine edge of boards, modern pencil annotation on inside rear cover. Provenance information written in Roman capitals in black ink on head of rear board with a rudimentary decorated underlining bar.
Provenance: Purchased from Les Enluminures, 2015.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Poor-quality parchment, codex with 98 leaves of i (paper) + i (parchment) + 98 + i (parchment) + i (paper), modern foliation in pencil on the upper right corner of each recto. Bound like sides facing, FH'HF. Collation, ten quires; I-II10, III12, IV10, V12, VI-IX10, X4. The approximate size of each leaf is 151-154mm x 109-111mm. Each column measures 98-100mm x 35-37mm. Ruled in brown ink with horizontal and vertical bounding lines, prickings still visible. Bound in modern, nineteenth century binding, inscription of "S. Greg, Dialog., Codex, Sec XV" on the spine.
Double columns of 31-32 lines per page, main text written by possibly more than one hand in Formata Italian Textualis Gothic Rotunda. Index on folios 92-98 in rapid Cursive Gothic script. Marginalia in both rapid Cursive Gothic script and Italian Gothic Rotunda. Second hand for rubrication, decoration, and illumination. Likely third hand for gloss and/or corrections.
Decorated catchwords in brown and red ink at lower center versos (at the end of each quire except IX), some decorated with human figures. Cue initials and cue notes in margins for rubricating, red rubrics with black, red, and blue single-line paraphs. Red ink additions on capital letters. One to two-line initials in alternating blue or red with purple, red, and blue pen decoration. Four, 6-11 line illuminated initials with extensions, in pink ink with blue backgrounds, decorated with gold and red, orange, green, white, and black ink on folios 2r, 18r, 39r, and 65v. One, 13-line illuminated historiated initial on folio 1r, with floral decorated extension, extending into lower margin. Historiated initial is followed by gold capitals. First letter of each line in the index is marked with orange ink. Later calendar in orange and black ink on 97v; two later diagrams in orange and black ink on 98r.
Colours and type of illuminated initials reminiscent of late Gothic style in Umbria, likely made in Perugia. Colophon indicating scribe, Johannes or Felix (ambiguous). Gloss, manicules, and index indicate medieval use. Second front flyleaf was a title page in some former binding. Damaged text occasionally written over in black ink in similar script by possible owner. Purchased by University of Victoria in 2017 from Les Enluminures.
Transcription* (PDF) by Jonathan Harmsworth and Asha Stewart, December 2018: fols. 1r-2rb9 and textual notes for fols. 1r-2rb9 and by Sarah Adam, December 2018: summary description, transcription of fols. 21r-23v, textual notes for fols. 21r-23v, paleography/script guide, and bibliography of consulted works.
* Transcription conventions follow those set out by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham in Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-78. Textual notes on manuscript features and scribal errors or corrections, a script guide, and a bibliography follow the transcriptions. The work has been checked and lightly edited by Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin.
A refined illuminated author portrait and delicate filigree initial grace this signed and complete copy of Gregory the Great's Dialogues, an influential collection of early saints' lives and miracles. Book two, on the life and miracles of St. Benedict, became a foundational text for Benedictine monasticism. Added computus diagrams, annotations, and an index furnish signs of early use and shed an intriguing light on how this text was being read and used in the late Middle Ages.
Bound in nineteenth-century half parchment over pasteboard, with a smooth spine bearing a brown leather label with gilt stamped inscription, “S. GREG. / DIALOG. / CODEX / SEC. XV,” similar identification on front parchment flyleaf, mostly effaced, slight staining, wear at hinges and edges, first quire slightly loose along the bottom.
Provenance: Purchased from Les Enluminures, 2017.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
This large-format manuscript is a marvelous artifact of Franciscan life and worship. Used for singing by the Choir, it is notable for its content, including other texts not commonly found in more portable Franciscan Breviaries: the Franciscan Ceremonial (known to its editor in only thirty-five manuscripts), the Indutus planeta (Haymo of Faversham's description of the private Mass), the Franciscan liturgical statutes of 1254, and others. It is accompanied by additions over at least two centuries and other plentiful signs of early use.
Bound in Italy in the fifteenth century in substantial beveled wooden boards extending beyond the book block covered with blind-stamped brown leather, with an outer border of palmettes, framing a large rectangular center panel with four rope-interlace diamonds positioned to form a cross, above three large stamps of fleur-de-lis and foliage, rounded spine with four raised bands, four corner bosses upper and lower boards, two clasp and catch fasteners, fastening back to front (restored), edges once dyed green(?), rebacked with the spine laid down, resewn, with reinforcement strips added in the middle of quires, new head and tail bands, extensively restored but now in very good condition.
Provenance: Purchased from Les Enluminures, 2017.
Transcription and textual notes* for fols. 2r-7v (liturgical calendar) (PDF) by Emma Usselman and Kira Razzo, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies class with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2018.
* Transcription conventions follow those set out by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham in Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-78. Textual notes on manuscript features, scribal hands, and corrections follow the transcription. The work has been checked and lightly edited by Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Images also available through Fragmentarium: on details of a paper patch on f. 129v; on its flyleaf, f. 1.
Resplendent with gold and glowing color, this beautiful Book of Hours from the collection of the Duc de La Vallière, nobleman and one of the greatest bibliophiles of all time, betrays the influence of the Master of the Troyes Missal, an accomplished illuminator active in or near Troyes between 1460 and 1480, and was undoubtedly the work of a member of his circle. Probably trained in Paris, members of this workshop executed many Books of Hours for owners in Champagne and eastern France.
Bound in nineteenth century red morocco; gilt-stamped border of vine leaves with corner flowers on front and back; spine with four raised bands and gilt stamping; all edges gilt. "Lacking ff. 75 and 88, as well as an unfoliated leaf preceding f. 1 (collation i6 [-1, with loss of text] ii6 iii-ix8 x 8 [-8, with loss of a miniature] xi8 xii4 xiii8 [-1, with loss of a miniature] xivxix8 xx 8 [-4 to 8, with no loss of text]). Inscription on front flyleaf: “Ce Manuscrit a appartenu au Duc de la Vallie`re qui l'avait de l'Eveque de St Denis, il proviend[...?] de la Bibliotheque Royale de Versailles. Il est du 15e Sie`cle.
Provenance: Purchased from Les Enluminures, 2017.
List of contents (updated from bookseller description) and transcription of fols. 76r–87r (French prayers) (PDF) by Mary Johnson, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2018, is available here.
In transcriptions of the French, the scribe’s orthography, punctuation, and capitalization have been maintained; expanded abbreviations are marked by italics, and scribal correction is marked by carots (^ ^). All work has been checked and lightly edited throughout by Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Introduced by an illuminated frontispiece of Emperor Frederick III enthroned and surrounded by his electors, this volume is an example of a book copied in Germany that includes a text in Middle English, an almost unique phenomenon. Its compiler(s) exhibit a sophisticated interest in history, especially the history of the Holy Roman Empire, with an emphasis on Cologne. Its contents include abbreviated chronicles (mostly quite rare) and catalogs of bishops, archbishops, and ruling princes, numerous epitaphs, and the English Act of Accord of 1460. After copying, it was annotated and perfected by later hands until the end of the fifteenth century. Why and for whom it was made, and its exact relationship to a historical miscellany now in Hamburg with similar contents, are just some of the questions that remain to be answered.
Bound in deerskin over wood boards, back sewn on four bands (not its original binding, although binding is a period binding, here reused), front and back covers worn, cracking along the upper joint. Damaged in the upper and inner margin, opening folio and edges of many leaves damaged, small tear upper margin ff. 62-63, but overall fair condition with the text undamaged and legible. Written in a variety of hands, mostly in very small formal cursive gothic bookhands ... contemporary marginal annotations and early additions throughout, some dated, often copied on small strips of paper bound in, red rubrics, some red paragraph marks, some guide letters, numerous capitals stroked in red, one-to five-line initials alternating red and blue, approximately 35 small colored armorial shields found in the margins, ... two small miniatures ... one heraldic composition with 8 colored armorial shields (f. 17v), one full-page wash-colored pen drawing of Emperor Frederick III surrounded by the seven imperial electors and with armorial shields and inscriptions.
Provenance: Purchased from Les Enlumieres with the Special Collections fund, the Rainer Library Endowment Fund, the Gwladys Downes bequeathment fund, the John & Irene Dorn Memorial Endowment Fund, and the MSSF fund, 2018.
Transcription* of fol. 15r (start of the 25 October 1460 Act of Accord) (PDF) by Shaylene Keddy, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2018. Also includes transcription, presentation, and notes for fol. 17v (annotated heraldic shields showing lineage of Richard, Duke of York) by Jessica Eisner, December 2018.
Transcription of fols. 15r–17r: 1460 Act of Accord (PDF) by Chloe Mee, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), December 2023.
* Transcription conventions follow those set out by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, “How to Transcribe Middle English,” in Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts: Literary and Visual Approaches, edited by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Maidie Hilmo, and Linda Olson (Ithaca, 2012), pp. 2-5 and xxxi-xxxii (including the “Note on Transcriptions and Transcription Symbols”). Work has been checked and lightly edited throughout by Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Detailed list of contents (PDF) completed by Chantal Southam, as part of coursework for a manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin, December 2015.
Transcription* (PDF) by Rachelle Ann Tan with reference to the partial transcription of Cana Donovan (for fols. 11r28-16v), as part of coursework for a manuscript studies course with Dr. Adrienne Williams Boyarin (ENGL), April 2016.
*Transcription conventions follow, where appropriate, those outlined by David Mackenzie, A Manual of Manuscript Transcription for the Dictionary of Old Spanish Language, as revised and expanded in the 5th ed. by Ray Harris Norhill (Madison, 1997), as well as Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, 2007), pp. 75-77.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
A unique illuminated manuscript apparently created in France during the reign either of Louis XIII (1610-1643) or of Louis XIV (1643-1715). While its decoration shares similarities with baroque ornamentation, and its script style matches that of Getty Ms. 11a, this manuscript is more rugged, and is unlikely to have been executed for anyone in the immediate orbit of the royal court.
In near-contemporary leather and paper binding. Coat of arms affixed to front board depicts a knight's helmet above a green-painted shield, presenting a rooster resting atop a castle flanked by two lions and three fleur-de-lis, all in yellow on a red field. Spine perished. Quire 1 (folios 1-6) detached. Single column; around 11 lines per page. Some pages frame-ruled. Illuminated initials. Unfinished decoration on folios 2r, 4v-9r, 11v-12v. Folios 1-12, vellum; folios 13-15, paper; folios 16-17 wanting.
Provenance: Purchased from Hindman on the Medieval Manuscripts Fund.
No facsimile images available.
Collective volume with texts in Arabic and Turkish, manuscript on brownish coloured European paper (with watermark, not further analyzed) of two different types (pp. 1-312, 313-412), 19.5 × 12.7 cm, 412 pp., written mostly in a bold, fully vocalized naskh script. Two (or possibly even three) hands can be distinguished: pp. 4-271, 272-310, 313-403, the first of which is of calligraphic quality, the others are less accomplished, and on p. 311 the colophon is written in thuluth script by the first or second copyist. The divide between the two sorts of paper coincides with the divide between hands. At the end of the volume (pp. 406-408) a Turkish text has been added, which is written in ruqʿa script within frames that were not used for the second part of the volume. The entire content of the volume is set within a composite frame (gold, red), black ink, with the use of gold and white ink, and several colours. Up till p. 311 the texts are written in 9 lines to the page (traces of the use of a misṭara), with cloud shaped divisions between the lines. From p. 313 onwards many calligraphic panels and drawings are given with a varied number of lines. The first part of the manuscript is dated 1201 (1786-1787), and was allegedly copied by Mūsā Efendi b. Ḥasan Efendi, a pupil of Ibrāhīm al-Rudūsī Efendi, but actually it was copied by Musṭạfā Ayyūb Efendīzāda (colophon on p. 311, see transcript and translation below). This first part has catchwords at the bottom of every verso page. Larger illuminations are on pp. 4 and 272, and in the text part there numerous smaller headings in white ink on a gold background. There are numerous illustrations in the second part (pp. 313-403). The volume is bound in a full-leather Islamic binding, with gilded ornamentation (borders, central medallion, corner pieces). Remnants of painted gold ornamentation on the edges (floral motifs) are still visible.
Taken from The Islamic Manuscripts in the McPherson Library, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. by Jan Just Witkam, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 1 (2010), pp 101-142.
NOTE: Access to the original manuscript is restricted due to extreme fragility of item. Slides and digital images are available for viewing.
Facsimile images available through UVic Libraries Digital Collections.
Arabic, with some Persian, manuscript on indigenous paper, 28 × 17.5 cm, leaves unnumbered, ca. 500 ff., fully vocalized large naskh script (text area with frame: 20.5 × 10.5 cm), in two hands; the second, more recent hand on a text area with frame: 20.5 × 10.2 cm on the final 20 leaves of the volume only, from the middle of al-Nāziʿāt onwards till the end, first word in this hand: wal-Ǧibāl, Qurʾān 79:32; this part in the second hand is apparently a newer replacement for the final quire of the original manuscript; 11 lines to the page, illuminated double opening page (ff. 1b-2a) for sūrat al-Fātiḥa and the beginning of sūrat al-Baqara (last word on f. 2a: qablika, in Qurʾān 2:4), black ink with rubrication (for sūra titles, marginalia, etc.), entire text within a composite frame (blue, red, but the part in the more recent hand has a more simply executed double frame in red ink only), catchwords on every verso page, full-leather Islamic binding, the greater part of which has been preserved, but which is now only loosely connected to the text block. The leather shows simple blind tooled ornamentation.
A copy of the Qurʾān from the North West Frontier area of former British India, or from Afghanistan, apparently the complete text.
The text of sūrat al-Fātiḥa (f. 1b) has been provided with an interlinear translation in Persian, which is not well legible anymore. The wide interline in the entire manuscript might indicate that a full Persian translation of the Arabic text was to be added. There are original and later numbering mark for the agž āʾ and their subdivisions in the margins. As the first gǔ zʾ covers 17 ff., the entire codex may contain slightly over 500 ff. The agž āʾ do not coincide with the quires.
Earlier provenance: Loosely inserted is a short handwritten note (on stationary ‘15, York Terrace, Regent’s Park.’) saying: ‘ Jany 13, 19. This Koran was discovered in an Indian Temple during the Indian Frontier war—Tirah Campagne. V.L. Eardley-Wilmot Capt RE’.
Taken from The Islamic Manuscripts in the McPherson Library, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. by Jan Just Witkam, Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 1 (2010), pp 101-142.
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