Western Medieval Manuscripts : Theological works

Western Medieval Manuscripts

This manuscript mainly comprises two large theological works. The first is a copy of William of Auvergne's De sacramentis, which, according to a colophon, was copied by the scribe Thomas Singulton of Newark in 1442. In the published version of his 1999 Lyell Lectures, Malcolm Parkes grouped Singulton together with other examples of commercial scribes who signed their copies, and suggested that the inclusion of place names in such inscriptions advertised to a manuscript's reader, and prospective future customer, where a scribe's services could be found.To Singulton's work was later added, but not much later, a second theological text: a previously unidentified mid- or late 15th-century collection of excerpts from the Memoriale presbyterorum, an early 14th-century manual for parish priests that is known in only five other manuscripts. An additional quire of eight leaves was used to accommodate the Memoriale. The blank page (f. 78v) in between the end of De sacramentis and the beginning of the Memoriale was filled by the copyist of the latter text with more than a dozen Latin aphorisms, including one attributed to St Ambrose: 'Sputum hominis ieiuni est venenum serpenti' - 'The saliva of a young man is the poison of the serpent'. This is found in Ambrose's Hexameron, but was widely quoted, including among the Sermones of Jacobus de Voragine.The manuscript retains its medieval endleaves, which were recycled from a 14th-century account roll. Entries therein reference York and Lowthorpe, which suggests that the book spent part of its life in the north-east of England. An inscription in the margin of f. 83v records the gift of the book by an unnamed legator to a 'William Cat', chaplain, 'in order that he say a trental for my soul after my death'. A trental is a set of thirty requiem masses. The chaplain named may have been the William Catte who was made rector of All Saints' Church, Edingthorpe, Norfolk, in 1465. Dr Clarck Drieshen Project Cataloguer Cambridge University Library