Queen's College, MS. 202

Horace, Opera, with glosses
England(?); s. xii^1/4

Text

Works of Quintius Horatius Flaccus with contemporary marginal and interlinear glosses, and glosses by Robert Flemmyng (see under Provenance); according to Eduard Fraenkel, the text is closest to London, BL, Harley MS. 2725, a 9th-century copy (on which see A. C. Clark in Classical Review, 5 (1891), p. 370):

1. (fols. 4r-65v) Carminum libri IV: "HORATII FLACCI CA[R]MINV(M) LIB(ER) .I. INCIPIT. | Mecenas atauis edite regibus | O & presidium dulce decus meum; | … [Flemmyng's lemma and gloss:] Mecenas atauis edite regibus. In hac ['ode' in Greek characters] Mecenatem alloquitur indicans alium alio ... [text ends:] Pro gemem ueneris canemus;".

2. (fols. 65v-75r) De arte poetica: "[Text:] Humano capiti ceruicem pictor equina lungere si uelit. ... [Gloss:] Artem poeticam traditurus oracius ordine congruo ... [Text ends:] … | Non missura cutem. nisi plena cruoris hyrudo. | HORATII FLACCI DE ARTE POETICA EXPLICIT." The lines are numbered by a late hand every 5th line (except 1 and 5).

3. (fols. 75v-88v, rubric on 75r) "INCIPIT EPODON AD MECENATE[M]. METRVM IAMBICVM DICOLON. PRIMVS VERSVS EST EXAMETER SIVE DIMETER QVI ET EPODOS DICITVR. ID ES UNO PEDE MINOR. || Ibis liburnis inter alta nauium | ... [Gloss:] Epodon. epi. [stained and difficult to read] ... [Text ends:] | Plorem artis inte nichil agentis exitum. | VETTIVS. AGORIVS. BASILIVS. MAVORITIVS. V. C. ET INL(USTRIS) EXCOM' Q'. HORATII FLACCI DOM' EXCON'S ORDIN(E). LEGI ET VT POTVI EMENDAVI. CONFERENS. EPODON EXPLIC(IT)." (R. Ellis, Specimens of Latin palaeography in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1903), pl. no. 7, shows fol. 79v).

4. (fols. 88v-90r) "INCIPIT CARMEN SECVLARE | Phebe siluarumque potens diana | … [Gloss, next to the rubric:] Hoc carmen seculare dicitur ... [Text ends:] Doctus et phebi chorus & dianæ | Dicere laudes."

5. (fols. 90r-132r) Sermonum libri duo: "INCIPIT SERMONVM LIBER I. AD MECENATEM | Qui fit mecenas \ut/ nemo quam sibi sortem | … [Gloss, next to rubric:] Hic liber de sermonibus intitulatur quia presentibus loquitur ... [Text ends:] … | Canidia ad flasset peior serpentibus afris."

6. (fols. 132v-161v) Epistolarum libri duo: "Prima dicte mihi summa dicende camena | … | Rideat. et pulset lasciua decentius ætas; | Explicit liber. Incipit pastus".

7. (fol. 161v) List of contents, not in the same order as in the volume, added in the late 12th century: "In hoc volumine continentur. Odis qui s'o incipit Mecenas. Epedon. ...".

Decoration

One large initial in green with red embellishment (fol. 4r); smaller initials alternately in plain red or green (fols. 4v, 5v, 6v, 7r, etc.), for which guide-letters in ink are visible; the first initial of each line on fol. 4r stroked in red. Marginal drawing of a male head, 12th-century (34v, lower margin).

Physical description

• MATERIAL: Parchment, of average quality, with holes and flaws, some repaired by sewing; some areas considered by the scribe too poor to write on, and thus left blank, e.g. top 6 lines of fol. 78v; the leaves c. 235 x 170 mm.; some of Flemmyng's glosses are cropped.
• NUMBER OF LEAVES: iii (paper, fols. i-iii) + iii (parchment endleaves, 16th-century or older, fols. 1-3) + 161 + iii (paper).
• FOLIATION: Foliated in 19th- and 20th-century pencil, i-iii, 1-164.
• COLLATION: Quires mostly of 8 leaves each, but variable: 1-4⁸ (fols. 4-35), 5⁸⁺¹ (9th leaf inserted) (fols. 36-44), 6^8-2 (7th & 8th leaves cancelled, leaving stubs) (fols. 45-50), 7¹⁰ (fols. 51-60), 8^18-3 (13th to 15th leaves cancelled leaving stubs after fol. 72) (fols. 61-75), 9-12⁸ (fols. 76-107), 13¹⁶ (fols. 108-123), 14-17⁸ (fols. 124-155), 18^8-2 (7th & 8th leaves cancelled) (fols. 156-161); quires arranged with a hair-side outermost; original QUIRE SIGNATURES present in most quires, in the form of letters of the alphabet, from ".A." to ".S." in the lower margin of the first recto of each quire; later quire numbers in arabic numerals also on first rectos, lower down.
• LAYOUT: Ruled in drypoint on the hair-side, with usually with 25 horizontal lines, typicaly with the top two and bottom three extending the full width of the page (but sometimes the top one and bottom two, or top one and bottom one, etc.), between double vertical bounding lines extending the full height of the page; the ruled space c. 160 x 110 mm.; prickings usually survive in all three outer margins.
• WRITING: Written usually with 25 lines per page in a caroline script, using … punctuation [unusual!]; fols. 56r-58r, 59v-60r, 62r, 63v, 66r, etc. written below the top ruled line; rubrics in red rustic capitals; fol. 44, added at the end of a quaternion, has only 22 lines of text on the verso.
• SEC. FOL.: "Uidimus".

Binding

Oxford binding, c. 1590-1600. Wood boards, their inner face bevelled, covered with polished brown calf, blind-tooled with a renaissance-style roll (Gibson, Early Oxford bindings, Roll XIX, used c. 1560-1618, being very common from c. 1590; cf. MS. 299); traces of two clasps at the fore-edge; trace of a chain-staple near the bottom fore-edge corner of the lower board; rebacked and repaired (19th century?); the spine with a leather title-piece lettered in gilt capitals "Horatii | Opera | MS."; 19th(?)-century marbled endpapers; the boards and cover detached from the leaves. The manuscript was very possibly given to Queen's College without a binding (as, apparently, was MS. 314, from the same donor), since after being inscribed, fol. 1r was used as a pastedown.

Provenance

1. Written perhaps in England, and presumably there when the late 12th-century list of contents was added (fol. 161v), and in the 14th century, when an English hand added notes, now erased (fol. 83r); another 14th/15th-century eased inscription is on fol. 161v.

2. Robert Flemmyng (d. 1483) (on whom see DNB), nephew of the founder of Lincoln College, with his numerous annotations in Latin and Greek (see de la Mare, 1980; Hunt et al., 1975, pl. XVIII(b)), his marginalia especially dense in the earlier part of text item 5; given to Lincoln College in 1465.

3. Oxford, Lincoln College, identifiable by the secundo folio as no. 85 in the catalogue of 1474 (see R. Weiss, 'The earliest catalogues of the library of Lincoln College' Bodleian Quarterly Record, 8 no. 14 (1937), pp. 342-59, at p. 350; Ker & Watson, MLGB).

4. John Lloyd, (1558-1603) (on whom see DNB), classical scholar, fellow of New College from 1579 to 1596 (see Bodleian, 1988), with his annotations (see de la Mare, 1980).

5. Queen's College, given by Lloyd on 12 November 1595: inscribed "Joannes Luidus Collegio Regineo | dedit. | XII Nove(m)b. | A.D. | M D XCV" (fol. 3v) (cf. MS. 314), and by the same hand "Q. Horatius Flaccus" (fol. 1r); the gift is recorded in the catalogue of benefactors: "Io. Lloyd, MS. Horatii" (see Magrath, Queen's College, II, p. 273); included in Langbaine's mid 17th century catalogue (Bodleian Library, MS. Langbaine 7, p. 418) under the shelfmark Arch. B. 4. 1.; Richard Bentley (1662-1742, on whom see DNB) borrowed it for at least three years, and had to be asked to return it (see C. E. Doble, Remarks and collections of Thomas Hearne, I (Oxford Historical Society, Oxford, 1885), pp. 263, 386); inscribed with former shelfmarks: "Arch:B.4.1", "A.1", "P.2", all crossed-though (fol. 1v), and "4. 1." (fol. 3v); inscribed in a 19th(?)-century hand "Seculo decimo conscriptum ut videtur" (fol. 2r).

Bibliography

• Bernard, CLM, p. 30 no. 938 (MS. 14).
• Richard Bentley, ed. Q. Horatius Flaccus (Cambridge, 1711), leaf C2v; and later editions. ("Ex Britannicis, quos omnes ipsi oculis usurpavimus, palmam facile aufert Codex Collegii Reginensis Oxonii, DCC annorum & ab omni parte integer …")
• Coxe, Catalogus, p. 44.
• E. C. Wickham, ed., Quinti Horati Flacci opera omnia: the works of Horace (2 vols., Clarendon Press, Oxford), II (1891), Appendix, pp. 433-447 (referred to by the former shelfmark "P. 2"; I (3rd edn., 1896), p. 7 and Appendix IV, pp. 416-36.
• O. Keller and A. Holder, eds., Q. Horati Flacci Opera (2 vols., Teubner, 1899-1925), I, p. xxxix ("Reginensis").
• Fredericus Klingner, ed., Q. Horati Flacci opera (Teubner, Leipzig, 1950), p. xxi, and passim (siglum "Oxon").
• Ker & Watson, MLGB, p. 55.
• R. W. Hunt and others, The survival of ancient literature: catalogue of an exhibition of Greek and Latin classical manuscripts mainly from Oxford libraries displayed on the occasion of the triennial Meeting of the Hellenic and Roman Societies, 28 July - 2 August 1975 (Oxford, 1975), no. 111, pl. XVIIIb (fol. 5v, upper detail including marginalia by Robert Flemmyng).
• A. C. de la Mare, 'Humanistic hands in England', in A. C. de la Mare and B. C. Barker-Benfield, eds., Manuscripts at Oxford: an exhibition in memory of Richard William Hunt (1908-1979), Keeper of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library Oxford, 1945-1975, on themes selected and described by some of his friends (Oxford, 1980), pp. 93-101, at p. 98.
• B. Munk Olsen, L'étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles, tome I: catalogue des manuscrits classiques latins copiés du XIe au XIIe siècle, Apicius - Juvénal (Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique: Paris, 1982), p. 475, no. 'C. 129'.
• L. D. Reynolds, ed., Texts and transmission: a survey of the Latin classics (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2nd edn. 1983), p. 184 n. 11.
• Cesare Questa, 'Il metro e il libro: per una semiologia della pagina scritta di Plauto, terenzio, Prudenzio, Orazio', in Atti del Convegno internazionale: il Libro e il Testo (Pubblicazioni dell'Università di Urbino. Scienze umane, Atti di congressi, 1: Università, Urbino, 1984), pp. 339-96, at p. 366.
• Bodleian Library, Duke Humfrey's Library & the Divinity School 1488-1988: an exhibition at the Bodleian Library, June-August 1988 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 76 under no. 57.
• Francesco Delle Corte, Paola Venini, and Luca Canali, eds., Q. Orazio Flacco: le opere I: le odi, il carme secolare, gli epodi (2 vols., Libreria dello stato, Rome, 1991), refers to "Coleggi Reginensis P2, saec. X", with the siglum "Ox."
• M. B. Parkes, Pause and effect: an introduction to the history of punctuation in the West (Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1992), at p. 149 n. 44.