Volume 1

A summary catalogue of Western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

  • Bodleian Library
Date:
1895-1953
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A summary catalogue of Western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    they will, sufficiently numerous, he will publish a special cata- logue of them.^ Defeated by Bodley over the physical separation of manuscripts, he never made this special catalogue. The first printed catalogue, which appeared in 1605, was arranged by shelves, section by section. The manuscript which we have already taken to illustrate the system of classification is described in the Theology section as follows:^ P 2. 6 Ant. Pireira de vita, &^c. S. Jo. Baptistae lingua Lusi- tanica MS. The second catalogue (1620, with appendix 1635) was arranged alphabetically by authors. The entries of manuscripts were very brief and do not list the complete contents; for instance under Augustinus, there is an entry: Opuscula varia MS. G. 8. 8.^ There is a long heading ‘Anonymi Scriptores varii MS.’, in which the opening words of the tracts are given, for instance:^ Anon, cui Pr. Phoebo Phoebe, MS. A 3. 13. [Art.]. Anon. MS. Pr. Ex agro veteri A. 3. 13 [Art.] These are the first two pieces in what is now MS. Auct. F. i. 17 (S.C. 2506), and besides these two pieces (the Liber parabolamim of Alan of Lille and the Tobias of Matthew of Vendome), the manuscript contains Vergil, Eclogues, Georgies^ and Aeneid^ Appendix Vergiliana^ Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova^ poems of Ovid, Sedulius, Carmen paschale^ and Prudentius, Psycho- machia. All these other works are entered under the names of their authors, except the Poetria nova. Twyne oberserved that Mr. James knoweth very well, that there are many Manuscripts in y® Library y® authors and titles whereof, he himself knoweth not; as for example, he would never have put downe in his catalogue a certaine treatise in y® Library, by y® name of Author Algorismi or Algorismus if he had knowen at y® first, that, Jo: de Sacrobosco had beene y® Author thereof, as it plainly appeareth out of y® wordes of y® treatise itself.^ But it would be quite unjust to censure James for not cataloguing manuscripts in greater detail. He was regarded as a leading expert on them. He set on foot a considerable scheme for collat- ing manuscripts of works of Saints Ambrose, Cyprian, and * G. W. Wheeler, The Earliest Catalogues of the Bodleian Library, pp. 8-9. ^ p. 112. ^ Now MS. Bodl. 312 (S.C. 2123). It also contains the letters of Robert Grosseteste. ^ p. 28, col. 2. ® B.Q.R. iv. 196. 127.1 b