St John's College S.9 (James 406)
Sermon for Good Friday. Russian, c. 1700
Sermon for Good Friday, in Russian Church Slavonic, c. 1700. The text of the Strasti is found, with considerable additions, in BL, Add. MS 30040 and in School of Slavonic and East European Studies Slavonic MS 1. The MS incorporates seventeen engravings: at fo. 1 a headpiece and border, the other sixteen corresponding to Rovinskij, Russkie narodnye lartinki (St Petersburg, 1881), no. 862A. The title is translated into Latin at fo. ii v. See Ralph Cleminson, A Union catalogue of Cyrillic manuscripts in British and Irish collections (London, 1988), and a letter with description from Dr Cleminson, 22 July 1985, held in the Rare Books Room.
190x150 mm. ii+95+ii fos. No internal clue as to provenance, but the MS is in Cowie's catalogue.
Late, open-textured book hand, with some cursive elements and some of the letters becoming very rounded. The final folio in a second, squarer hand. Paper. Binding: re-sewn red paper (printed with a floral pattern) on card, the spine of dark, red-brown leather, flush with pages.