Gospel of St Matthew, in Latin

Vellum (ca. 9 7/8 x 6 7/10 in.; 250 x 170 mm), 25 leaves, lacking several leaves and quires, lacunae in text marked by blanks, collation: i8-2 (wanting i and viii), ii-iii8, iv8-5, paginated including blanks, 15 lines (ca. 170 x 70 mm), the Gloss written in columns to either side of the text and between the lines, worn, leaves at each end very rubbed and stained and defective, margins crudely repaired, many leaves battered and corners damp stained, generally in reasonable state with wide margins, bound in late 19th-century calf signed by David Chivers, Bath, corners slightly scuffed

Lt.-Col. Edward George Troyte-Bullock (1862–1942); his sale in our London rooms, 27 June 1927, lot 515, bought by Marcham for £3 — Ralph Ewart Ford (1897–1974), with his signature (first flyleaf verso), joint translator, with his brother, of the Letchworth New Testament (1948); he is reputed to have "owned the largest and most complete collection of English Bibles in England" (W.G. Lofft, "The Ford Brothers", The Bible Collector, 1974) — Alan G. Thomas (1911–92), who bought Ford’s library c.1963 (book plate "A.G.T" inside upper cover); his sale in our London rooms, 21 June 1993, lot 3, bought by Quaritch for £6,500

Formatting the Word of God 3.1 

The text here consists of Matthew 7:17–26:53, with gaps. The layout in three columns whose widths do not vary from page to page (resulting in large blank spaces on pages with fewer glosses) is the most primitive form, and this is therefore a very early example of the text and its mise-en-page (see C. de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible, 1984); in the 1993 catalogue de Hamel suggests that the present volume "is as early as one could ever hope to find."