St John's College H.14 (James 280)

John Bois and Thomas Smith, 'Notae in S. Clementis Epistolas'. Latin and Greek, seventeenth century

 

  1. [John Bois, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge (1561-1644)]: Notes (fo. 1), not dated but apparently seventeenth century, wanting first folio. This is an extract from the work eventually published as Annotationes Johannis Boisii in Priorem Epistolam Clementis ad Corinthios, an appendix to Sancti Clementis Romani ad Corinthios epistolae Duae, ed. Henry Wotton [of St John's College, Cambridge] (Cambridge, 1718), app., pp. 32-56. Wotton seems to have worked from these MSS, see the note on p. 8 of this vol.
  2. [Bois]: 'Notae in posteriorem Epistolam Clementis ad Corinthios' (fo. 12r), from the work published as Annotationes Johannis Boisii in Posteriorem Epistolam Clementis ad Corinthios, Idem, pp. 57-60. But, as with 1., this is no copy of the printed version: it is in an earlier hand, and contains cancellations reflected in the 1718 edition (fo. 13r). Perhaps it is Bois's MS.
  3. Thomas Smith, [Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford (1638-1710)]: 'Scholia et Annotationes Thomae Smithi in primam S. Clementis ad Corinthios Epistolam' (fo. 14r), no date, but seventeenth century from the hand. Cowie suggests that 'Thomas Smith' was the orientalist and friend of Thomas Baker, so offering an entirely plausible provenance; see Robert Masters, Memoirs of the life and writings of the late Rev. Thomas Baker, BD of St. John's College in Cambridge, from the papers of Dr. Zachary Grey, with a catalogue of his MS collections (Cambridge, 1784), p. 47.
Manuscript extra information

325x245 mm. v+17+v fos (contemporary pagination runs 3-28, then foliated 1-4). College bookplate (nineteenth century) inside front cover. No internal record of accession. The original MS H.14 was disassembled around 1880. This item is the only part of the original vol. still to retain that classmark. Items 2, 4, 5 and 6 in the lists given by Cowie and James are now at K.35. Item 3 is held separately as a parchment MS.

Two hands, the first fos 1-13, the second fos 14-17. Paper: two separate manufactures as before, both considerably worn but repaired, apparently in the later nineteenth century. Fo. 14v was clearly once a cover, and the relationship between the two sections needs further research. A functional nineteenth-century half leather binding, gold letting on spine: 'Notae in S. Clementis Epistolas MS'.