Copy number: T-132(1)

Wanting the blank leaves [a1], [E11-12], and [MM6].

Bound in two volumes.

Binding: Contemporary Netherlandish blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, with manuscript title on a rectangular parchment label enclosed in a metal frame, remains of the protective horn over label; rebacked. Four circular corner-pieces and a centre-piece lost from each cover. On the upper cover, seven-line fillets form a quadruple frame. Within the outer frame a repeated rectangular foliate staff stamp. Within the following frame a square four-petalled stamp. Within the following frame a repeated smaller rectangular foliate staff stamp and the four-petalled flower stamp at each corner. The inner rectangle is divided into 40 square compartments formed of 10 rows each containing 4 square stamps, including a warrior armed with shield and club, a pelican, a fox with a goose in its mouth, a lion, a wyvern, a monkey with a mirror, a bear, etc.; see Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Exposition de reliures, 1 (Brussels, 1930), nos 39, 115, pl. vi. On the lower cover, seven-line fillets form a double frame. Within the outer frame the four-petalled flower stamp. Diagonal triple fillets divide the inner rectangle into lozenge-shaped and triangular compartments, each decorated with a circular rosette stamp; a small four-petalled flower stamp at the intersection of the fillets.

Size: 491/480 × 328/325 × 75 mm.

Size of leaf: 475 × 312 mm.

Early signatures partially visible.

At the beginning of each book a large initial is supplied in interlocked red and blue, with blue and red pen-work decoration and some extensions into the margin. Other main initials are supplied in red or blue with blue or red pen-work decoration. Other initials and paragraph marks are supplied in red or blue. Running titles in red and blue. The quotations from the Gospel are underlined in red.

Provenance: Bethlehem (Herent), near Louvain, Priory, BVM, Augustinian Canons; on title label on the upper cover of vol. 2: ‘Partinet Bethleem'; also deleted inscriptions in brown ink on [E10v] and [MM4v]: ‘Pertinet Bethleem prope Louanium liber iste'. Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843); book-plate with handwritten shelfmark ‘y.h.3'; not identified in sale catalogues. Purchased for £2. 2. 0; see Books Purchased (1844), 3.

SHELFMARK: Auct. Q sub. fen. 1.12-13.

Copy number: T-132(2)

Bound in a modern guard-book of fragments: see A‑105.

Fragments; Leaves 12 ([l2]), 16-17 ([D9]), and 18 ([ii3]) were removed in 1885 from the binding of Auct. O inf. 1.47 (V‑108); see there for details of provenance; main initials are supplied in interlocked red and blue with pink and green pen-work decoration. Manuscript headings in red. Leaves 13 ([l6]) and 14-15 ([B9]) formed part of the binding of Auct. 1Q 7.16 (M‑299); they were removed in 1882. However, all fragments seem to contain rubrication and headings in the same hand and ink, suggesting that they all come from the same copy. This would also suggest that the two editions, from which these fragments have been extracted, shared the same provenance at some point.

A large initial is supplied in interlocked red and blue with pink and green pen-work decoration. Other initials and paragraph marks are supplied in red or blue; running chapter heading, and capital strokes in red.

Former Bodleian shelfmarks: Auct. O inf. 1.47; Auct. 1Q 7.16.

SHELFMARK: Inc. b. G97.1(4) [leaves 12-18].

Copy number: T-132(3)

One leaf only, used as the cover for T‑070; see there for details of binding.

SHELFMARK: Auct. Q sub. fen. 2.20.