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Description
ff. 1-329v. Nova statuta. Latin; English. Title supplied from printed catalog. Support: Parchment. Script: Cursive script with secretary features; anglicana. Layout: Quire signatures in lower-case roman numerals, except in the final four quires which are by the second scribe: the first five quires have them on their first recto, thereafter the signatures are on the final verso; catchword in quire 26 (f. 207); leaf signatures in red ink in quire 36 (ff. 280-284). Frame-ruled in plummet, typically written with 21 long lines, the last four quires typically with 24-25 lines. Span folios: ff. 1-329v. Other Decoration: One five-line blue initial with red penwork infill and marginal flourishing (f. 18); other statutes with 3-line initials in red or blue, headings with 1-line initials in red or blue; paraphs in red or blue. Written in England ca. 1386-1400: the original list of contents ends with the last statute of 6 Richard II [1382/3]; in the main text the use of marginal chapter numbers (added in a lighter ink), quire numbers, and color all end with 9 Richard II [1386], suggesting that everything that follows was added somewhat later. The final fourteen text leaves, containing part of 11 and 12 Richard II [1387/8-1388/9], were written by a different scribe and were perhaps added after the book was bound. Assigned Date: s. XIVex. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 7/6/2009. Bound in the remains of an alum-tawed chemise(?), over contemporary pink-stained alum-tawed leather, over beveled wood boards flush with the leaves; one clasp-fitting at the middle of the fore-edge of the front board, perhaps originally fastening to a pin in the center of the back board; sewn on four double bands; head- and tail-bands sewn with green and pink thread; two loose medieval(?) pink thread book-marks; the boards and covers are now largely obscured by a plain vellum covering, but the off-white chemise(?) is visible on the spine, and the turn-ins are bright pink. HM 69443. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Law reports, digests, etc.--England--Early works to 1800 Statutes--England--Early works to 1800 Law--England--Early works to 1800 Manuscripts (documents) (aat)
Source
Manuscripts, Huntington Digital Library
Provenance
Revd. Lewis Stephens, D.D. (1654-1725), vicar of Menheniot, Cornwall (on whom see Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, and Emden, Alumni Oxonienses). Francis Gregor (b. 1686?), translator of the De laudis legum Angliae (1737, 1741, etc.); inscribed "Donum Reverendissimi / Ludovici Stephens / Sanctae Theologiæ Professor / Francis Gregor" (f. iii); two other legal MSS given to Gregor by Stephens are now at Harvard and in the Library of Congress (see de Ricci, Census, p. 238 no. 135, and p. 1028 no. 32). Francis Gregor (b. 1728), lawyer, and later M. P. for Bodmin; doubtless by descent to his son, also named Francis (1760-1815), Sheriff of Cornwall (1788) and MP (1790-1806); thence to his younger brother, Revd. William Gregor (1761-1817), minerologist, discoverer of titanium, and vicar of Creed, Cornwall; after his death to his only child, Charlotte Anne, who died unmarried in 1825, bequeathing all her possessions to her cousin by marriage, Loveday Sarah Glanville (b. 1792), who in 1814 had married G. W. F. Booker; on inheriting the Gregor estates they assumed the Gregor surname and arms by Letters Patent in 1826. Gordon William Francis Gregor (né Booker) (1789-1865), of Trewarthenick House, Cornwall, Sheriff of Cornwall 1829-30; with his bookplate engraved with his assumed crest, motto, and name (f. i verso). Walter William Skeat (1835-1912), philologist, editor of Chaucer (on whom see ODNB); inscribed in pencil "W. W. Skeat / Apr. 1 1896" on the bookplate; according to the Bonham's catalogue the foliation is by him. Quaritch, Catalogue 168 (1897), no. 366, priced at £2 2s., with a clipping from the catalog stuck to f. i; (it was apparently intended to be offered in Catalogue 167 (February 1897) as it is referred to there in the description of no. 727, and is inscribed in pencil "167" (f. i verso, top left corner)); with his pencil note "MSS Statuta" on the bookplate, and price "2 - 2 - 0" (f. ii) and price-code "D/--" (i.e. 10s.?) (back pastedown, top right corner). Bonham's, 8 November 2005, lot 571; bought by Sam Fogg for £15,000 (hammer price), with his stock number in pencil "11251" (f. i, upper left corner); purchased from Fogg for the Huntington by the Library Collectors' Council in January 2006.
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