Expositiones Morales Super Evangelia Dominicalia

The principal text is a cycle of Sunday sermons for the whole Temporal from the first Sunday in Advent to the 25th Sunday after Pentecost ascribed to John of Abbeville, (Dean of Amiens, Archbishop of Bresancon, cardinal), to Odo of Cheriton, and to Roger of Salisbury.

After the Sunday sermons are: f.268v, a short tract on the duties of priesthood, opening 'Sacerdotes dei vocabimini...'; f.269v, the speech of John Kemp, Archbishop of York, at the Congress of Arras on 27 July 1435, 'Propositio domini archiepiscopi Eborum in tractu pacis habito in civitate de aras, Reverende in xpisto principes et sublimes ecclesie columpne...'; ff.271-280v, an index to the Sunday sermons; ff.280v-282, diagrammatical summaries of the Eucharist and the celebration of Mass; and f.282, the Latin poem on the priesthood, ascribed to Golias or Walter Mapes, 'Viri venerabilies sacerdotes dei...' ending '...stolam immortalem'.

Source of title - Supplied title

Quantity: 1 volume(s).

Physical Description: Paper, 283 leaves, bound; 284 x 205 mm. Double column, 53-56 lines, ruled in plummet, written space 212 x 137 mm, written in brown ink in a small English cursive bookhand, capitals touched in red; paragraph marks and small initials in red (occasionally in blue); diagrams added on ff.280v-282.

Finding Aids: Manion, M.M. Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in New Zealand collections, no. 148; Taylor, D.M. The Oldest manuscripts in New Zealand p.75.

Provenance: Executed in England (Yorkshire) after 1435.

These rare texts are localizable. The principal text follows exactly the unique sermon cycle of B.L. Arundel MS.231, a 14th-century manuscript signed by its scribe Johannes de Munkegate, cleric of York and Procurator of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire; the Turnbull manuscript has contemporary and later ownership inscriptions of Fountains; thus it may have been copied directly from MS.231 at Fountains itself (see Manion). The texts from Basel and Arras added at each end here are dated 1435, and the inclusion of a very rare text of the Archibishop of York's speech is a reflection of local Yorkshire involvement. The principal watermarks are of the types of Briquet 4082 (1417-1436) and 12993 (1427). The manuscript must be more or less contemporary with the political events of 1435.

The manuscript probably remained in Yorkshire until the 20th century. On f.2 is the late medieval signature 'Georgius Plomton, Sacerdos', possibly the priest George Plompton who made his will in 1451 and was the 3rd son of Sir William Plompton (d.1405), of Yorkshire (see Manion). Scribbled on f.283 is a draft obligation 'Noverint universes per presentes nos Oliver Pette de feruley de lyndley in Comitatu Eborum et Robertus wythed tenere et firmunt obligare domino domino Thome archiepiscopo eborum...'; Lindley is in the Yorkshire West Riding; Thomas, Archbishop of York, could be Thomas Rotherham (1480-1500), Thomas Savage (1501-1507) or Thomas Wolsey (1514-1530).

The book passed into the library at Everingham Park, Yorkshire; the collector probably Sir Marmaduke Constable (b.1619) whose descendant William Haggerston Constable married in 1758 Lady Winifred Maxwell, granddaughter of the ninth Lord Herries. The manuscript has the bookplate of William Constable-Maxwell (1804-1876), High Sheriff of Yorkshire and successful claimant in 1858 to the barony of Herries. On the death of the last Lord Herries in 1908 the manuscripts in his library passed either to his daughter, the Duchess of Norfolk, or were sold in 1912 to W.H. Robinson, Newcastle bookseller.