St John's College L.8 (James 365)

Konrad Glesinski, Polish-Slavonic primer. Polish, Latin, English and German, c. 1670

Konrad Gleshinski, or Glesinski (fl. 1670): a Slavonic primer, consisting of alphabets (fos 6r-7v), numbers (fo. 19r-20v), the Epistle to Philemon (fos 8r-16r) and the Lord's Prayer (fos 17r-18v) in four parallel texts: a strongly polonised Church Slavonic (Cyrillic and transliterated), and English and German, both rendered literally. A fulsome Latin dedication to Peter Gunning (1614-84), as Bishop of Chichester (fos 2r-5r), which would date the MS between 1669 and 1675. From fo. 21r there is a long list of all those worthies who have helped the author in his travels. At fos 28r-29v, 'Hic sequitur Origo, ac Valor Linguae Slavonae', beg.: 'Gens Slavonica fuit quondam Gens Moschovitica'; ends: 'inde illorum quoq', Lingua est aliis politior'. Other MSS by Glesinski are in Cambridge University Library (Ff.6.5), the British Library (Royal 16.B.xxii), the Bodleian Library (MS Rawl. C. 544 and D. 315), and Queen's College, Oxford (MS 218).

Manuscript extra information

206x160 mm. vi+35 fos (30-35 blank). Printed 'ex dono' of Peter Gunning, 1684 at fo. 1v. College bookplate (eighteenth century) at fo. 2v.

Autograph, a seventeenth-century Latin cursive and a Slavonic semiuncial. Paper, (i) Arms of Amsterdam in later form; (ii) horn on shield, repaired in several places (nineteenth century?). The book has been rebound in half-leather, brown cloth on card, 19th cent. Spine title 'Gleshinski Slavonica MS'.