Lot 68

Thomas Stotevyle, Natura Brevum, in Anglo-Norman French, decorated manuscript on vellum [England, last quarter of the fourteenth century]

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

46 leaves (plus a scrap of a bifolium, now bound in separate reconstructed quire at back, and two medieval endleaves), 200mm. by 125mm., top of fol.3 torn away with some loss of text and single leaves wanting after fols.5 and 34, perhaps also missing several gatherings from beginning and one from end, else complete, collation: i^{7 (iii a singleton), ii-iii^{8, iv^{6, v^{9 (iii, vii and ix singletons), vi^{8, single column, 30-40 lines in brown ink in a readable secretarial hand, capitals touched in red throughout, simple 3-line initial in red on fol.1r,}}}}}line-drawn snarling dragons on fols.39v and 40r, arms on fol.41r: one apparently not completed or halted after a mistake, the other checky argent and gules (as used by the d'Avignon, de Hangest, de Mouncy and de Vaux families), scribe's name in ornamental capitals touched in red on fol.45v, scuffed, discoloured and cockled, some leaves with tears, else fair, in limp vellum flap-binding, slipcase

Provenance

provenance

1. Thomas Stotevyle, who was most probably the compiler, scribe and original owner: colophon on fol.45v, "Explicit natura brevium quod Stotvyle", above the name "Thomas Stoteuyle" in ornamental letters. He appears to have been a lawyer and a governor of Lincoln's Inn. His family came from Dalham in Suffolk. A list of his books, famously including a Canterbury Tales and a Piers Plowman (but not apparently the present volume), can be found on fol.3r of British Library, MS. Addit.54233 (D.H. Turner, 'The Eric Millar Bequest', British Museum Quarterly 33, 1968, pp.22-3; and Manly and Rickert, Text of the Canterbury Tales, 1940, I, pp.27 and 610-11). The list of Stotevyle's library is presumably autograph and apparently in the same hand as the present manuscript.

2. Solomon Pottesman (1904-78); his sale in our rooms, 11 December 1979, lot 40, to Alan Thomas.

3. Bergendal MS.7; bought by Joseph Pope from Alan Thomas in December 1980: Bergendal catalogue no.7; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.168.

Catalogue Note

text

This small portable codex contains a collection of reference notes for a practising medieval lawyer. The text opens on fol.1r with "Primerment y ad breve de droit patent ...", and includes descriptions of the different types of legal writ, the giving of false judgement, the measuring of common pasture and the legal implications of surveying and wardship.