Three Centuries of a City Library Part 3

Vellum, 10.25 x 7.5 inches, ff. 5 + 74 + 28, double columns, the number of lines varies. Bound in wooden boards. Presented to the Library in 1618 by Thomas Atkins, merchant, Norwich.

Contains: 1. Anonymous comment on the Apocalypse, with a few very rough pictures, coloured.

2. The Summa of Richard de Wethersett, Chancellor of Cambridge, called _Qui bene praesunt_.

BIBLIA HIERONYMI, OR BIBLE OF ST. JEROME. XIIIth Century.

Vellum, 9 2/10 x 7 1/10 inches, double columns of 52-53 lines. The illuminated initial letters are unfinished. Brown leather binding.

Presented to the Library in 1614 by Ba.s.singbourne Throckmorton.

Contains: Genesis--2 Chron. (imperfect), Proverbs--Ecclus. Then the prologue to Wisdom and a small piece of the text of Wisdom repeated.

Matthew, 1 leaf of Mark. Philippians, Col. 1, 2 Thess. _Laodiceans_ (apocryphal) 1, 2 Tim. t.i.t. Phil. Heb. Apoc.

MEDICA. XIIIth century.

Vellum, 7.5 x 5.5 inches, ff. 62, double columns of 40 lines, in a small clear hand which Dr. James thinks may be South French. Initials in green and red and blue. There is no binding; the first page is much soiled.

Contains thirteen items: medical tracts, list of materia medica, etc.

MANUALE. XVth century.

Vellum, 9 7/8 x 7.25 inches, ff. 1 + 62 + 1, double columns of 27 lines, early XVth century, well written.

Original binding, white skin with circuit edge over wooden boards bevelled at the edges; remains of two strap and pin fastenings.

On the fly-leaf: John Kirkpatrick, Sept. 12, 1704. An old pressmark: 4to K 147. An illegible (not early) note of price.

The covers are lined with four half-leaves of a folio XVth century Missal in double columns, with parts of the Offices for St. Thomas of Canterbury and Sundays after Epiphany. At the end are bound in 7 smaller leaves of paper on which Kirkpatrick (?) has carefully facsimiled alphabets and abbreviations, and arranged the latter in alphabetical order.

Contents: The occasional offices to be used by a priest, according to Sarum use. The first page has a rather rough border in gold, red, and blue, and an initial of the same. Other like initials head the princ.i.p.al offices.

BIBLE: GENESIS TO PSALMS. WYCLIFFE'S TRANSLATION. XVth century.

Vellum, 17 2/10 x 12 inches, ff. 208 + 1, double columns of 59 lines.

Original sides of brown leather have been laid down on modern binding; ornamented in blind with rectangular panel formed by two roll stamps, enclosing another panel formed by the same stamps. Illuminated page at beginning of each book.

It belonged to Sir James Boleyn of Blickling Hall, who died in 1561, and was presented to the Library in 1692 by Richard Ireland.

ASTROLOGICAL TRACTATES. XVth century.

Paper, 5 3/4 x 4.5 inches, ff. 120, 32 lines to a page. In three hands; clearly written.

Original binding, wrapper of skin lined with linen. Contains thirteen items: astrological treatises, tables, etc.

PRECEDENTIA TEMPORE REGNI HEN. VIII. Circa 1500.

Vellum, 11.5 x 8.5 inches, ff. 124 (imperfect, commences at f. 10), 37 lines to a page. Rough calf binding.

Book of Precedents of Royal Writs.

SEARCH BOKE FOR LYNN, SWAFFHAM, WALSYNGHAM, AND FAKENHAM. XVIIth century.

Paper, 11 x 7.5 inches, ff. 81. Vellum binding.

Alphabetical index of offenders at various sessions courts held at Fakenham, Walsingham, Lynn and Swaffham, from 1651 to 1669.

The early printed books in the Library include no less than twenty-eight incunabula, four of these being from English presses, and two, the 1483 "Scriptum super logica," printed at St. Albans, and the 1497 "Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum," printed by Pynson, are of great rarity.

Several of the incunabula are imperfect, but Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, M.A., the Hon. Secretary of the Bibliographical Society and an eminent authority on early printed books, very kindly identified them, and he also undertook to edit the list of incunabula. To Mr. Pollard the writer's thanks are tendered for the following annotated list, arranged chronologically, and giving the place of printing and the name of the printer:--

WORKS REFERRED TO.

B.M. = Catalogue of Books printed in the XVth century now in the British Museum. Parts 1-111. 1908-1913.

Campbell. = Annales de la typographie neerlandaise au XVe siecle. Par M.

F. A. G. Campbell. 1874.

Copinger. = Supplement to Hain's Repertorium Bibliographic.u.m. By W. A.

Copinger. 1895-1902.

Hain. = Repertorium bibliographic.u.m in quo libri omnes ab arte typographica inventa usque ad annum MD typis expressi ordine alphabetico vel simpliciter enumerantur vel adcuratius recensentur. Opera Ludovici Hain. 1826-1838.

Proctor. = An Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum from the invention of printing to the year MD. By Robert Proctor. 1898.

INCUNABULA.

1480 COLOGNE. Conrad Winters de Homborch.

JACOBUS DE VORAGINE. Legenda Aurea.

Quarto.

B.M. p. 248 (IB. 4043).

1481 NUREMBERG. Anton Koberger NICOLAUS DE LYRA. Postillae super Biblia c.u.m additionibus Pauli Burgensis. Folio.

Hain *10369. B.M. p. 419 (IC 898).

[1482, after July end] WESTMINTSER. Wm. Caxton.

HIGDEN, Ranulphus. Polychronicon.

Folio.

Blades 46. De Ricci no. 19, copy 38.

Imperfect at beginning and end.

[1483] [ST. ALBANS. Schoolmaster printer.]

ANDREAE, Antonius. Scriptum super logica. Quarto.

Imperfect copies at Jesus College, Cambridge, and Wadham College, Oxford.

[About 1483-85.] LONDON. Wilhelmus de Machlinia.

ALBERTUS MAGNUS. Liber aggregationis seu De virtutibus herbarum. Quarto.

Proctor 9770.