Lost Manuscript

Babel MS 29

Though only one fragment has presently been identified from this codex, that strip cut across a bifolium is sufficient to give some sense of the lost manuscript. It was a moderately sized volume of the Decretum, with interlinear glossing added early and the supplemented by a fuller commentary in the margins.

Textual Information
Subject
Law
Canon Law
Author of work
Gratian
Title of work
Decretum
Language
Latin
Palaeography
Type of script
Gothic
Place of production
England
Date of production
s. xiii 1
Material Information
Material
Parchment
Layout
Bicolumnar with gloss
Decoration

In text, initials in red or blue with blue paraph marks and some red pen-flourishing. No colour used in gloss.

Ruling
lightly in plummet, lines crossing the central reservation
Dimensions
Page

mm (h) x mm (w)

Number of lines
?49
Height of minims
2mm
Space between lines
4mm
Height of written space
?196
Width of text 1

58

Reservation 1

14

Width of text 2

?58

Space between lines (gloss)
4mm
Height of minims (gloss)
2mm
History and further information
Information on dismantling

The binding of the volume in which the one known fragment survives probably dates from the 1510s or 1520s, with it either in situ or made for the person who was presumably its second owner, William Duffield. It is certainly apparent that Duffield,  who bought the book in London in 1530, added his notes to the printed book after it had been cropped to its present size. The implication of this evidence is that the manuscript was dismantled ahead of the turbulence of the Reformation period.

Number of folios represented
2
Author: David Rundle_
Constituent Fragments
Colchester Harsnett H.h.14 i verso
Colchester: University of Essex Library, Harsnett H.h.14 i