Maurice of Ireland, Distinctiones, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

Estimate

5,000 - 8,000 GBP

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Description

219 leaves, 257mm. by 189mm., lacking 4 leaves after fol.3, 2 leaves each after fols.89 and 168 respectively, whole gatherings after fols.111, 127 and 185, and an unknown number of leaves at end, else apparently complete, collation: i^{6 [presumably of 10, lacking iv-vi], ii-iv^{10, v^{8, vi-viii^{10, ix^{10+1 [fol.82 added], x^{8 [of 10, lacking v-vi], xi^{10, xii^{8, lacking a gathering, xiii^{16, lacking a gathering, xiv-xvi^{12, xvii^{10 [of 12, lacking v-vi], xviii^{12, lacking a gathering, xix-xx^{12, xxi^{10, with horizontal catchwords, a small extra leaf bound in after fol.54, double column, 44-52 lines (slowly decreasing as the book progresses), written-space 195mm. by 130mm., second leaf begins “It’ in cubiculo”, written in grey-brown ink by more that one scribe in a variety of gothic scholastic bookhands, some chapter numbers in red, chapter initials and running-titles throughout alternately red and blue, sometimes with minor flourishing,}}}}}}}}}}}}}} fifteen illuminated initials in simple leafy designs in blue and pale brown with white tracery and heightening infilled with burnished gold, initial on first page with long marginal extension around two margins in brown, yellow and orange, very many marginal notes and additions in many hands from the late thirteenth to the sixteenth century, including cross-references, biblical citations and a very extensive numbering system mostly in arabic numerals, many pages thumbed and rubbed, many stains and signs of use, an oval stamp erased from first page, old ‘No.41’ on last page, bound in limp leather cut from the cover of a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century blind-stamped binding

Catalogue Note

These are the Distinctiones or Summa distinctionum super auctoritatibus Sacrae Scripturae of the Franciscan, Maurice of Ireland. Almost nothing seems to be recorded about the author, said to have flourished in 1248, except that he perhaps worked in Paris, where he was also known, with characteristic European uncertainty about these islands, as Maurice the Englishman (cf. Histoire Littéraire de la France, XXI, 1847, pp,132-37). Distinctiones are scholastic word definitions. Their importance is discussed by R.H. and M.A. Rouse, ‘Biblical Distinctiones in the thirteenth century’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, XLI, 1974. The present text is arranged alphabetically, from ‘Abiectio’ to ‘Zona’ in a complete copy (it breaks off in ‘V’, chapter 38 here). It begins by analysing the word Abiectio syllable by syllable, seeing parallels with the ‘eb’ of ebrietas, citing I Thessalonians 5:7, the ‘iac’ of iacere, citing Lamentations 2:21, the ‘i’ of ignobilis, citing John 14:21, the ‘o’ of obedentia, and so on. The massive annotation of the present manuscript attests to the apparent fascination of such texts to medieval readers, although one user remarks here in despair, “Opus laboriosum, opus opprobiosum & infructuosum, sed cardinale” (fol.134r), perhaps a fair comment. A portion of the text was published in Venice in 1603, with the letters ‘A’ to ‘E’ only, attributed, impossibly, to Maurice O’Fihely (d.1513), archbishop of Tuam. Fifty-three manuscripts are recorded in the successive lists of F. Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, III, 1981, no.5566; M.W. Bloomfield, et al., Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1979, p.22, no.88; and R. Sharpe, A Handlist of Latin Writers, 1997, p.374, no.1048. All are in public collections, 14 in Britain and the 39 others all in libraries of continental Europe.

The text opens here on fol.1r, “Circa abiectionem nota qualiter in scriptura sumitur …”