This is one of the few manuscripts to survive from the Benedictine
abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Rumon at Tavistock (Devon). This
manuscript was produced in the 12 th century, and contains biblical
commentaries by the Church father St Jerome (b. 347, d. 420), whose
writings were central to the study of the Bible in the Middle Ages.
It contains several marginal notations in Latin, Greek and English.
Contents:f. 1v: A title and ownership inscription. ff. 3r-69v: St
Jerome, Commentary on the Gospel of Jerome, with a prologue,
beginning ‘Plures fuisse qui evangelia scripserunt et Lucas
evangelista’.ff. 70r-104r: St Jerome, Commentary on the Book of
Daniel, beginning (after a faded rubric), ‘Contra danielem
prophetam duodecimum librum scripsit porphirius’.The manuscript
contains a number of additions:f. 2v: A list describing the weather
conditions at feast days, beginning ‘the Christynmas was fayre
and drye with owt enye sunne shynyng’, written in a 15th- or
16th-century script.f. [iii] recto: a transcription of the Middle
English text on f. 2v by Sir Frederic Madden. [ff. 1r, 2r, 104v are
empty]. Decoration: 2 large initials in blue, red and green on f 3r
and f. 4r; 5 large initials in red or green with penwork decoration
in green or red on ff. 35r, 52r, 70r, 71r, 87v (with an offset of
the last on f. 81v); foliate pen-flourishing in red ink in the
lower margins of ff. 102v, 103r and 104r; manicules in brown and
red ink, and symbols in brown ink in the margins; the symbols
include crosses, and an asterisk (‘asteriscus) and an arrow
(‘obulus’) on 70v.
