Manuscripts
Life of St. Norbert : [manuscript]
1 of 5
- Description
- Part 1. ff. 1-59v. [John Capgrave]. [Life of St. Norbert]. Incipit: There was a man sumtyme dwelling here/ As our book seith in þat ilk same tyde. Explicit: The freris name þat translate þis story/ Thei called Ion capgraue whech in assumpcion weke/ Made a ende of all his rymyng cry/ The ȝere of crist oure lord witȝ outen ly/ A thousand four hundred & fourty euene/ Aftyr þis lyf I pray god send us to heuene. Feliciter. English. The text is precede by a prologue that begins,"Ioye grace & pees loue feith & charite/ Euyr rest up on ȝour goodly religious breest..." and ends with an Envoy that begins," Go litil book to hem þat wil þe rede/ Sey þe were made to þe abbot of derham..." IMEV 1805. C. L. Smetana, ed., The Life of St. Norbert by John Capgrave O.E.S.A. (1393-1464). Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 40 (Toronto 1977) from this manuscript, evidently autograph (witness the hand and the"signature" on f. 59v,"Feliciter" with the trefoil); interlinear corrections in the author's hand. For discussions of the identity of the copyist, see P. J. Lucas,"John Capgrave O.S.A. (1393-1464) Scribe and 'Publisher,'" TCBS 5 (1969) 1-35 ; E. Colledge,"The Capgrave 'Autographs,'" TCBS 6 (1974) 137-48 ; Smetana, op. cit., 5-7. On the linguistic forms in HM 55, see E. Colledge and C. Smetana,"Capgrave's Life of St. Norbert: Diction, Dialect and Spelling," Mediaeval Studies 34 (1972) 422-34. Part 2. f. i recto-verso. [Breviary, fragment]. Incipit: //pulus. Numquid aliud iudex nunciat aliud preco clamat. An simul et odisse possumus et diligere. Explicit: Nam et ihesus vester dum hec predicaret iudei illum crucis patibulo affixerunt. Andreas respondit O si//. Latin. Unfinished leaf of a breviary from the end of a homily of Gregory (PL 76:1275 ) in the common of a martyr, presumably for Saturninus through part of the 4th lesson for Andrew.
- Date
- [1440]
- Call number
- mssHM 55
- Provenance
- Written in England, possibly in the Augustinian house at Lynn, Norfolk in 1440, as the presentation copy made by John Capgrave for John Wygenhale, alias Saresson, abbot of the Premonstratensian house of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in West Dereham, Norfolk from 1429 to 1455; see P. J. Lucas, "On the Date of John Capgrave's Life of St. Norbert," The Library ser. 6, vol. 3 (1981) 328-30. Possession notes throughout the manuscript are: s. XVIIin: f. 28v, "frances Barnad" who also did the reckonings mentioned above; s. XVII: f. 13, "Richard Clarke est verus possessor huius libri"; s. XVII2: f. 49, "Ferdinand Newington his Booke 1670"; s. XVIII: on the front pastedown and on ff. 1 and 49, "Newington, ladbrooke" to which he added on the pastedown "Ye men of Orde" and on f. 49 (where his name was erased) "His Book 1729"; on ff. 3, 27 and 45, the signature of the Rev. Ar. Hubbard, lecturer in the parish of Watford, Hertfordshire, 1846-56; on f. 45 his name is followed by "Epping Essex." On the back flyleaf, the initials "R.P." of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Savile sale, Sotheby's, 6 February 1861, lot 80 (this number on a round label on the front cover) to "Powis," a pseudonym for Sir Thomas Phillipps; his MS 24309. Acquired by Henry E. Huntington through A. S. W. Rosenbach in 1923.
- Restrictions
- RESTRICTED. Available with curatorial approval. Requires extended retrieval and delivery time.
- Associated people
- Capgrave, John, (1393-1464,)
- Phillipps, Thomas, (1792-1872,)
- Associated organizations
- Catholic Church.
- Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

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