A Tudor “Boleyn” Ownership Inscription in a 13th-Century English Scholastic Manuscript

COMESTOR, Petrus. Cutting from a Historia Scholastica in Latin, manuscript on vellum. England c. 1210

118 x 190 mm

Text
Peter Comestor (d. 1178) was a French university lecturer and theologian. He studied in Paris under Peter Lombard, and he later served the university there as chair of theology and then chancellor of Notre Dame – the last of which put him in charge of the cathedral school there.

Provenance
1. Reused in the 16th century as a pastedown in the binding of a book, with an owner’s name of that date: “Boleyn” in hairline thin pen in blank margin. The Boleyn family (also Bulleyn or Bullen) was a large and influential kin group based on Hever Castle in Kent and Blickling Hall in Norfolk, who reached their peak during the marriage of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII.
2. From the collection of the late Professor Marvin Colker, his MS. 371.

Description
Rectangular cutting from the centre of a leaf, with remains of double column of at least 28 lines in a small English university hand, versal numbers in the margin, red paraph marks in margin, capitals touched
in red, red rubrics, remains of two initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, some contemporary marginalia and 19th-century notes on the chapters of the text.

Condition
Recovered from a binding and hence with scuffs, wormholes, stains and spots, overall in fair condition.