MEDULLA GRAMMATICAE.

MRJ number
72
College classmark
C.22

    Vellum and paper, 11.625 x 8.5, ff. 119, double columns of 49 lines.  15th cent. (1468), in a somewhat current hand.  Vellum wrapper.

    Donor, T. C. S.

    Collation: 114 - 714 812 910 (wants 10: 9 a fragment).  The outer and middle sheets of each quire are of vellum.

    At top of f. 1 and elsewhere: Jenour.

    Contents:

        Hec est regula generalis pro toto libro

                                     …

        Versus.  ffructum gramatice pueris do sub breuitate.

        Hic liber intitulatur qui ab auctoribus nuncupatur medulla gramatice.

        A. prepositio anglice ffro.

        Aaron. i. mons fortis.

        Ab. prep. anglice ffro.

        Ends f. 118b: Zoma. e. corpus.

                              Zoticus a um vitalis coi pe.

                                       Sit laus Christo.

        Expl. quod. T. P.

        Iste liber finiebatur 16o die mensis decembris a. d. 1468o.

        An erased beginning of an Indenture of I Richard III between Will. Jenour of

           Stonham Aspall (Suffolk) and Roger…of Debenham.

        At the bottom, in large letters: Iste liber constat Willmo Jenour de Stoneham

           Aspall.

        In 2nd cover: pertinet ad Joh. Jenour.

        There are a good many other scribbles.

    Seventeen (or sixteen) MSS. of this work (including the present copy) are described by Mr Way in Promptorium Parvulorum (Camd. Soc. 1865) I,

pp. l-liv.

Manuscript extra information

Negative microfilm in St John's College Library.

Attributed to Thomas Swyft, vicar of Ecclesfield, died 1478, by S. O. Addy in Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society 2 (1904), 301.

F. A. Tremblay, The Latin-Middle English glossary 'Medulla Grammatice'  (Washington D. C., 1968).  Copy in St John's College library 7.7.70.

With reference to 'Expl. quod T. P.', it has been suggested that T. P. may be Thomas Pennant (Abbot of Basingwerk 1481-1522), the scribe of Aberystwyth, who produced National Library of Wales, MS. Penarth 356 at about the same time.

This manuscript was used by S. H. J. Herrtage in his edition of Catholicon Anglicum: an English-Latin wordbook, dated 1483, Early English Text Society, 75 (London, 1881).

The initial prologue of this MS agrees with British Library Harl. MS. 1738.

P.R. Robinson, Catalogue of dated and datable manuscripts c.737-1600 in Cambridge libraries (Cambridge, 1988) vol. I, p. 86, no. 297; vol. II pl. 298 (fol. 12).