1. (fols. 1r-7r) 'Vita prothoplausti Ade. Cum expulsi essent Adam & Eua de paradisi delicijs fecerunt sibi tabernaculam & fecerunt dies luctus & lamentacionis & in magna tristicia. ... Adam vero postquam passus est ihesus intrabit in paradisum. Explicit vita Ade &c.' (belonging to Wilhelm Meyer's Class II text: see his 'Vita Adae et Evae' Abhandlungen der philosophische-philologischen Classe der königliche bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 14, 3. Abt. (1878), pp. 187-250; ed. from this manuscript by Horstmann, 1887, pp. 459-65, and Mozley, 1929, pp. 128-48; Bloomfield, Virtues & vices, no. 1101; fol. 7v ruled, otherwise blank.
2. (fols. 8r-11v) 'De ligno sancte crucis. Post peccatum Ade expulso eo de paradiso propter peccatum; ... & in ea crucifixerunt domini nostri in salute omni credencium cui laus est & honor … Amen.' (ed. from this manuscript by Horstmann, 1887, pp. 465-9; ed. Wilhelm Meyer, 'Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor Christus', Abhandlungen der philosophische-philologischen Classe der königliche bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 16, Abt. 2 (1882), pp. 101-66 at 131-49; Bloomfield, Virtues & vices, no. 3966; ed. Hill, 'The fifteenth century prose Legende of the Cross before Christ', Medium Aevum, 34 (1965), pp. 203-22; followed by colophon (see under Provenance); fol. 12r ruled, otherwise blank.
3. (fols. 12v-13r) Genesis 49:1-30: 'Testamentum Iacob in Genesi. Uocauit Iacob filios suos et ait eis. ... in possessionem sepulcri.'
4. (fols. 13v-50v) Robert Grosseteste, 'Incipit expositio testamentorum duodecim patriarcharum filiorum Iacob. Testamentum Ruben de fornicacione. Testamentum Ruben de his que in mente habebat. ... Et ipsi reuersi sunt ex terra Chanaan et habitauerunt in Egipto usque ad diem exitus eorum ex terra Egipti.' (see Thomson, 1940, pp. 42-3; Sharpe, Handlist, p. 548); followed by colophon (see under Provenance).
Two- and one-line initials in plain red.
Parchment, c. 205 x 150 mm., of mediocre quality, with flaws and holes.
ff. ii (paper; the first a lifted pastedown) + 50 + i (paper), foliated in modern pencil: i-ii, 1-51; except for fols. 8, 13, 14, and 50, foliated in 19th-century ink.
Quire size variable: 112 (fol. 1-12), 210 (fols. 13-22), 312 (fols. 23-34), 4-58 (fols. 35-50); each arranged with a hair-side outermost; catchwords present in quires 1-4.
Ruled in brown 'crayon', the top two and bottom one or two horizontal lines extending the full width of the page, between single vertical bounding lines extending the full height of the page; the ruled space c. 140-5 x 95 mm.; prickings often survive in the upper and lower margins.
Written with 27 lines per page in an anglicana script.
Secundo folio: 'Nunc ergo'.
Sewn on four thongs and bound in undecorated 18th(?)-century parchment over pasteboards, originally with two pairs of ties at the fore-edge; the edges of the leaves coloured red, apparently after binding in the boards, but before they were covered; fol. i with watermark: 'G Durand | A' in capitals.
1. Written in England in the 15th century, perhaps by Nicholas Warde in 1449: inscribed, in a darker ink and perhaps not by the scribe of the main text: 'An. do. milleno .c. quater ter duodeno. | Bis seno primo: fuit hoc scriptum memorando. | Nomen scriptoris factoris: qui fertur Warde Nicholaus. | Pro quo letetur: et semper glorificetur.' (fol. 11v; repeated on fol. 50v but omitting the word 'scriptoris'); an identical inscription to that on fol. 50v occurs in a 31-leaf manuscript of Joannes de Bado Aureo, Tractatus de armis, now Los Angeles, UCLA, MS. 170/615 (see Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., Catalogue of western manuscripts and miniatures ... 7th December, 1982 (London), lot 76; and Mirella Ferrari and R. H. Rouse, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles, University of California Publications: Catalogs and Bibliographies, 7 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1991), at p. 151), and the similarities of size, script, layout, etc. make it possible that it once formed part of the present manuscript.
2. Unidentified 17th-century reader: inscribed 'Robertum grosthed opinor auctorem esse' next to the start of text item 4 (fol. 13v); somewhat trimmed in the later re-binding.
3. Queen's College, probably aquired after the compilation of Langbaine's mid 17th-century catalogue, from which it is absent, and before the early 18th-century shelflist in MS. 557 in which it is included; inscribed with a former shelfmark 'P. 14' (fol. iv; in the shelflist in MS. 557 P. 14 is listed under T and V, and described as 'Testamentum duodecim Patriarcharum' and 'Vita Protoplasti Adæ') above the College bookplate, and inscribed '(In Mr Coxe's Catalogue No 213)' below it; the spine with a 20th-century paper label printed '13', covering an older label.
Coxe, Catalogus, p. 47.
C. Horstmann, 'Nachträge zu den Legenden', Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprache und Literaturen 79 (1887), pp. 411-470, at pp. 459-70.
J. H. Mozley, 'The 'Vita Adae'', Journal of Theological Studies 30 (1929), pp. 121-49, at pp. 121, 128, and passim (siglum 'Q').
A. C. Dunstan, 'The Middle High German 'Adam und Eva' by Lutwin and the Latin 'Vita Adae et Evae'', The Modern Language Review 24 no. 2 (1929), pp. 191-9, at p. 192 n. 2 and passim.
S. Harrison Thomson, The writings of Robert Grossesteste, bishop of Lincoln, 1235-1253 (Cambridge, 1940), p. 43.
N. F. Blake, 'The biblical additions in Caxton's Golden Legend' Traditio 25 (1969), pp. 231-47, at. p. 243, repr. in William Caxton and English literary culture [collected essays] (London, 1991), pp. 213-29, at p. 225.
M. E. B. Halford, 'The apocryphal Vita Adae et Evae: some comments on the manuscript tradition', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 82 no. 4 (1981), pp. 417-27, at pp. 418 n. 4, 425 (due to a misprint, mistakenly citing the manuscript twice at p. 425: the first reference to 'Oxford 3' should be identified as Bodleian Library, MS. Selden supra 74).
Andrew Watson, Dated and datable, 1984, p. 153 (rejected).
Mayumi Taguchi, 'The legend of the Cross before Christ: another prose treatment in English and Anglo-Norman', Poetica (Tokyo): an International Journal of Linguistic-Literary Studies 45 (1996), pp. 15-61, at p. 16 n.5.
