Real Biblioteca; El Escorial MS Q.II.6: The Travels of an English Manuscript. (2024)

MS Q.II.6 in the Royal Library at El Escorial in Spain is remarkable in many ways. Almost uniquely in that great collection, it was produced in England in the early fourteenth century and assuredly stands alone there, for being written partially in Anglo-Norman, an as-yet unedited macaronic poem on the Virgin in alternating French and Latin. MS Q.II.6 also contains anonymous additions documenting practices and events integral to the abbey of West Dereham, an important Premonstratensian house from which few other records are known to survive. Its pages, moreover, are illuminated by two artists of signal talent, following a carefully laid-out schema of noteworthy originality. In part through stylistic indications in these images, through alterations to the text, as well as from additions to the margins and originally blank pages rendered over years by many hands, an outline of the manuscript's story can be traced across time and space, from its purposive production to its adapted usages as it passed from owner to owner. And not surprisingly, perhaps, given its whereabouts, MS Q.II.6 has received far less attention since becoming part of the Real Biblioteca in the seventeenth century, even from Spanish scholars, than its uniqueness warrants.

Little expense was spared in the making of MS Q.II.6. Its 178 folios of first-quality parchment gathered predominantly in twelves, measuring 305 x 185 mm, make for an impressive volume, rendered the more so by an extensive program of illumination. (1) These images are thoroughly described by Lucy Freeman Sandler in the only published study devoted to the manuscript. (2) Sandlerargues for a Norfolk provenance and shows that two artists coordinated their work with that of two main scribes who copied the text. The first of these latter was responsible for folios 3r-6v(see fig. l), an Anglo-Norman poem on the name of the Virgin in thirty stanzas of eight lines each ("Marie mere merciable"), interleaved every two stanzas with a four-line stanza of a Latin poem on the Fifteen Joys of the Virgin ("Gaude virgo nondum nata"); (3) the second scribe produced most of the rest, with two exceptions: folios 1-2, containing a table of Gospel readings for a full year, and folio 6v, a prayer to St. Blaise ("[S]anctus Blasius oravit dicens"). (4) More on these is said below.

The bulk of MS Q.II.6, folios 15-155v, is a psalter following the Gallican version of Jerome, lavishly written in a single column, eighteen lines to the page. (5) Nine decorated initials with tooled gold fields are arranged throughout in standard positions (e.g., fig. 2, a ranting fool on folio 63r, opposite Psalm 52), along with variously placed gold initials two lines high, alternating single-line red, blue, and gold initials at heads of lines, floral borders, blue and red tracings (occasionally with whimsical grotesques; e.g., fig. 3, folio 158r). (6) The contents of the rest of the manuscript, in order, with accompanying visual program, are: folios 3r-6v, the Joys of the Virgin (fifteen framed miniatures, one column wide by sixteen lines high); folio 6v, the St. Blaise prayer; folios 7r-12v, (7) a calendar (Austin friars use ), (8) with small signs of the zodiac for each month encircled at the foot of the page; folios 13v-14v, the Short Office of the Cross, with nine appropriate miniatures, one column wide by ten lines high; folios 156r-168r, twelve canticles; folios 168v-172v, a Litany arranged for Austin use; folios 173r-178v, Office of the Dead (Austin use); folio 178v, "Explicit psalterum" ("ordinis sancti Augustini" erased). (Folio 13r, originally left blank, has additions in two later hands, discussed below; these are transcribed and translated in Appendix 1.)

The terminus a quo of MS Q.II.6 is 1316, as Sandler notes, based on the attribution of the Short Office of the Cross to Pope John XXII (fl. 1316-1334). (9) This early date explains the prominent presence of the Anglo-Norman Marian poem. Given the preparation of the calendar, psalter, and various offices for use by Augustinian friars, one might mistakenly expect the original owner to have been a house or member of that religious order. (10) Heraldic evidence suggests otherwise, however. Indeed, Sandler questions, "whether the Escorial manuscript was used in a particular Austin friary at all." (11) Based on coats of arms of five neighboring Lincolnshire gentry families integrated into the border of folio 15r (in ascending order, left to right: Bardolf, Bussey, Holland, Wells, and Buckminster); the later addition by a third, less talented artist of Bardolf and Bussey arms at the bottom of folios 36r, 63r, 74v, 92v, 108r, and 124v; and the appearance at the end of the Short Office of the Cross of Bardolf devices on the dress of a woman standing, her hands clasped in supplication, to the left of a crucified Christ, and on the right, an Austin friar in the same posture in characteristic black (see fig. 4, folio 14v), Sandler argues strongly for a marriage between a Bussey woman and a Bardolf man:

and this occasion may have inspired the production of the Escorial Psalter.... It seems likely therefore that the Bardolf woman shown in the picture was the owner of the Escorial Psalter; that the Austin friar shown with her was her confessor or chaplain; and that as her spiritual advisor he was responsible for the introduction into her prayer book of the liturgical features of the Austin friars. (12)

Plausible as this originary explanation is--a gentry-woman's psalter, perhaps a wedding gift, fine-tuned by her Augustinian confessor to assist her daily devotions according to his order's use--it nonetheless falls short of ascertainable factuality. As Sandler pointed out, there is no record of a Bussey-Bardolf wedding contemporary with the manuscript's production, nor any known contemporary association with an Austin house by any of the five families whose arms are pictured. (13) Moreover, as Sandler notes, at some point (she believes in the fifteenth century) MS Q.II.6 passed into the Premonstratensian abbey at West Dereham, in Norfolk: the calendar has been thoroughly revised in a later hand to include observances peculiar to the White Canons, and there are other indications not discussed by Sandler that make its service in a Premonstratensian house a certainty. (14)

The journeys of this manuscript--even the early ones, prior to its arrival at El Escorial--are thus both interesting and largely unexplained. The focus of Sandler's admirably detailed study is on the rich images in MS Q.II.6, not on its history. Of this latter the manuscript itself has much else of value to reveal that Sandler legitimately found inapposite to her subject. The following pages are intended to shed further light on these aspects of the manuscript, on its uses and its various owners, both in England and in Spain, during the roughly three hundred years between its making and its acquisition into the collection of the Real Biblioteca in the seventeenth century.

The apparent absence of any concrete proof of a Bussey-Bardolf marriage around 1320 to 1330 notwithstanding, Sandler's surmise that MS Q.II.6 was made for a female member of the Bardolf family seems the likeliest starting point from which to trace its provenance. The manuscript falls well within the scope of volumes produced to facilitate private worship, especially by women. (l5)

As the next verifiable home of MS Q.II.6 was the Premonstratensian abbey of St. Mary's at West Dereham, the initial problem of establishing provenance is to determine how and when the manuscript left Bardolf hands, probably in Lincolnshire, and travelled to the White Canons in Norfolk. Evidence of two kinds in the manuscript suggests that this migration took several decades to complete. Most obviously, the hands that converted the Augustinian calendar to Premonstratensian use, an undertaking that must have occurred at West Dereham, show features characteristic of the late fourteenth/early fifteenth centuries. That an important portion of the interval between the manuscript's production and this conversion was passed in the Bussey-Bardolf nexus is indicated by the several paired blazons of just those two families at the bottom of folios 36r, 63r, 74v, 92v, 108r, and 124v. As Sandler observes, these were the work of an artist far less accomplished than the two responsible for the miniatures and for the original arms of the five families on folio 15r, the magnificent Beatus page (see fig. 5). Not only are these blazons in the bottom margins more crudely rendered in comparison with those on folio 15r--the three cinquefoils or of Bardolf particularly so--but their varying placement evinces an uncertainty as to purpose which suggests the artist's hesitation in attaching them.

On folio 36r, where the two blazons are first added, there appears to have been an attempt to imitate the integration of the shields as part of the border design, as was done initially on the Beatus page, folio ISr. (1) The border on folio 36r would seem to have been completed before the addition of the shields, thus necessitating clumsy overpainting (see fig. 6). That solution, apparently, was deemed unsatisfactory, as appears plain from the subsequent positioning of the shields on folios 63r, 74v, 92v, 108r, and 124v in the margin below and well clear of the border (see fig. 7). Moreover, the shields look to have been added in some haste, or at least rather carelessly, as is suggested by the smeared (with a finger?) Bussey blazon on folio 108r (see fig. 8).

In combination, the later hands converting MS Q.II.6's calendar from Austin to Premonstratensian use and the shields painted subsequent to the completed psalter suggest that the manuscript remained in Bardolf family possession for an extended period, where it was likely passed down woman to woman. (The Bardolf males were bellicose in the extreme and frequently on campaigns in Scotland or the Continent.) A potential owner was Agnes, wife of William, fourth Baron Bardolf (1349-1386). This possibility is intriguing. William, Baron Bardolf, had hereditary livery attached to lands centered at Wormegay, Norfolk, which lies approximately nine miles from the Premonstratensian abbey of St. Mary at West Dereham. (17) Given the relative compatibility of Augustinian and Premonstratensian practices, a gift of an Austin book to a house of Premontre makes liturgical sense. (18) The Marian prayer filling folios 3r-6v would, moreover, have been of particular value to a house of White Canons, since in the Norbertine order, devotion to the Virgin (with a daily Office composed by St. Norbert) was second only to honoring the Eucharist. The St. Blaise prayer would also have resonated, as the saint was specially venerated by fhe order. If Agnes, who died in 1403, passed her psalter on to the White Canons, it would explain the first leg of MS Q.II.6's journey. (19)

Inscriptions present in the manuscript supply evidence that the abbey of St. Mary's at West Dereham was the home of MS Q.II.6 for slightly less than the next one hundred and fifty years, from its assumable arrival near the turn of the fifteenth century until the abbey was surrendered to the Crown in 1538-1539. These inscriptions are of four kinds. The earliest is the first of two found on folio 13r, a leaf originally left blank, evidently to separate the calendar from the Short Office of the Cross, which begins on folio 13v. Written in a clear hand of the late fourteenth to early fifteenth century (see fig. 9), this sets out the order of prayer to be followed when receiving an individual into the brotherhood of the abbey ("Cum aliquis pecierit fraternitatem in capitulo recipiatur sic") and the spiritual benefits accompanying membership ("Hec sunt beneficia que conferuntur omnibus fratribus capituli nostri de West Dereham"). (11) About the same time or slightly later, another hand annotated the psalter, carefully adding neumes and verse cues throughout, marking ferial vespers from Monday to Friday (see fig. 10). These appear on folios. 127v, 128v, 138v, 139r-v, 140r-v (in two positions each), 141r-v, 142r (two positions), 142v, 143r, 144r (two positions), 145r, 146r-v, 147r, 148r, and 149r-v. They define the music appropriate for each antiphon and psalm as performed at West Dereham.

The significance of these additions as indicators of the conversion of MS Q.II.6 to specifically Premonstratensian use cannot be overstated. They invoke the near-uniquely high importance the order placed upon plain chant in celebration of the Hours. (22) Indeed, surviving visitation records show that when house numbers fell below thirteen canons--considered the minimum necessary to preserve the service--formal reprimands were issued for "insufficiency" in performing the liturgy. Additional recruitment was mandated in several instances. (23) Although records for West Dereham are woefully absent outside the commissary-generalship of Richard Redman, bishop of St. Asaph and abbot of Shap, in the fifteenth century, the population of St. Mary's during that period at least remained steady at between thirteen and seventeen canons. (24) Thus no special recruitment effort would have been needed. Nonetheless, the late addition of the first document added to folio 13v (see Appendix 1), outlining procedures for initiating a new brother, suggest that at some point, such recruitment may have been necessary.

Still later, clearly in the fifteenth century, another hand, if not two, altered the calendar from Austin use to Premonstratensian (see fig. 11). This was a complex process involving the addition of a number of saints, the removal of others, adjusted days of celebration (e.g., October 16, commemorating the dedication of the church at West Dereham), along with grading changes for various feasts (e.g., an Austin duplex raised to a Premonstratensian triplex). These unique adjustments to the calendar in MS Q.II.6 allow comparison with another singular manuscript, Jesus College, Cambridge MS 55, the only complete English Premonstratensian Ordinal extant. It was compiled in the late fifteenth century by its owner, one John Tanfield, a canon from Easby Abbey. (25) In consort with the emended calendar of MS Q.II.6, the Easby Ordinal provides unique evidence that alongside feasts celebrated commonly in all Premonstratensian houses, local variations existed. Notable also in this same hand in MS Q.II.6 is an unexpected, rather charming annotation, a short mnemonic poem, apparently original (see Appendix 2). Written at the bottom of folio 8v(see fig. 12), at the end of the month of April, the verses appropriately offer an aid for calculating Easter. (2)

Finally, covering what space remained on folio 13r, a later hand copied a letter (see fig. 9 and Appendix 3) to the abbot of Welbeck, a Premonstratensian house in north Notting hamshire, whose abbot was elected head of the English White Canons, newly liberated by papal bull from Premontre's control in 1512. (27) Announcing the death of the abbot of West Dereham, the letter, carried by one "John of Norwich," appeals to Welbeck to:

appoint a suitable day for the election of our future abbot... as quickly as possible, lest in the meantime (which God forbid) because of the day-to-day postponement of the election of this future [abbot], the sheep of your flock, however small it may be, struck by the sight of the death of the said pastor, may take a deviant path and be scattered, rather than be united by the future pastor.

The letter thus seems to evince concern that the core of thirteen canons crucial for proper liturgical performance might be breached. Perhaps for this reason and not merely because a partially blank page was available, it was copied below the abbreviated service and list of benefits for newly recruited brothers also written on folio 13v, as discussed above. The hand is identifiably sixteenth century, making it possible to expand the abbreviated date ("Given in our chapter house on the fourth day of the month of July, in the year of our Lord 22") to 1522. (28) It seems highly likely, then, that MS Q.II.6 was still in the West Dereham abbey at its dissolution sixteen years later.

But before following the manuscript further, a few words should perhaps be added about the value both of this late letter and of MS Q.II.6 in general. Outside of Bishop Redman's visitation records, only a tiny handful of original documents survive that record practices and events from the abbeys of the English Norbertines, and even fewer specifically from the abbey of West Dereham. Redman visited West Dereham eight times during his tenure as commissary-general, in 1475, 1478, 1482, 1488, 1491, 1494, 1500, and 1503. (29) Other isolated glimpses are offered only incidentally elsewhere in various forms: John Capgrave's English Vita of St. Norbert presented to (and likely commissioned by) John Wygenhale, abbot of St. Mary's, in 1440 bears remarks that hint at a satisfied brotherhood there under Wygenhale. He and Capgrave may have been friends.

Occasional individual reports exist also, such as canon John Dytton's for the year 1454-1455, at Kirkby Malham, West Yorkshire, a parish church appropriated to St. Mary's, that demonstrate diligent parochial ministry by some West Dereham canons. Evidence of the presence of only two West Dereham canons (Thomas Wygenhale and Robert Walton, or Watton) at either Cambridge or Oxford between 1384 and 1532 suggests a devout rather than a learned community, something confirmed by Redman's recalling Walton/Watton in 1503 to strengthen instruction at St. Mary's. (31)

In contrast to oblique references like these, however, the documents added to folio 13r of MS QII.6 constitute rare "insider" evidence, as it were, that concretely captures the state of life at West Dereham at two particular points in time. The 1522 letter is particularly valuable in this regard in that the flightiness of the canons it describes, if accurate, seems to corroborate the oft-dismissed assessment of Thomas Cromwell's agent Sir John Prise (on whom more below), who only a few years later similarly judged that the members of the St. Mary's brotherhood at that time were disinclined to continue in the regulated life and were looking to the king to release them. MS QII.6 and these heretofore unedited documents on folio 13r, then, contribute in no small measure to what we know of the obscure but seemingly important religious community of West Dereham and of English Premonstratensian life in general as the Dissolution neared.

That moment came to St. Mary's in 1538-1539, when the canons formally surrendered the abbey to the crown. It had been visited and assessed in November 1535 by Thomas Legh and John Prise (John ap Rhys), the latter acting as registrar. (3) Assessors of the Valor Ecclesiastiaus were expected not only to provide an estimate of the net worth of the institution's goods, livestock, lands, lead, bells, and tithes, rents, and debts owed them, after subtracting institutional debts owed to others, but also to determine the willingness of the brothers to remain in orders. As might be expected, the various teams of assessors, working under time pressure and without common, detailed instructions, produced figures that require complex interpretation. (33) As noted above, the compena submitted by Legh and Prise for West Dereham cited the self-professed incontinence of the West Dereham canons and their wishes to abandon the abbey and to marry. (34) That they did not include St. Mary's among the 435 houses valued at less than [pounds sterling]200 slated for immediate dissolution and reversion to the Crown under the Act of 1536 nor among those with a net worth of over [pounds sterling] 1000 (35) suggests that West Dereham fell in among the roughly 35 percent of religious houses assessed at about [pounds sterling]300, a number more or less corroborated by the pension of [pounds sterling]66 13s. 4d. received by Roger Forman, its last abbot, in 1539. (36)

In light of John Prise's subsequent activity related to St. Mary's, these figures are intriguing. In a petition submitted to Cromwell in 1538, Prise asked that the West Dereham abbey, along with its possessions, be given him in compensation for his services to the crown, otherwise unpaid, as an assessor. At that time, he put the value of the buildings at [pounds sterling]52 12s. 8d., the rent at [pounds sterling]200 per annum, and the goods at [pounds sterling]600, of which he promised Cromwell [pounds sterling]200 yearly and [pounds sterling]400-[pounds sterling]500 in goods, keeping only [pounds sterling]50 for himself. Unsurprisingly, Cromwell acceded. (37)

This result very likely has direct bearing on the history of MS Q.II.6. Prise was a book collector whose "antiquarian knowledge was not inferior to Leland and Bale," and he used his familiarity with the inventories of religious houses to amass a significant library. (38) His primary interest was British history, especially the contributions of Wales (his was the impetus behind the publication of the first book printed in Welsh, in 1546), (39) and he wrote the Historiae Brytannicae Defensio in defense of Geoffrey of Monmouth against Polydore Virgil, with a dedication to Edward VI, posthumously published in 1573. (40) "He did not disdain manuscripts outside of his own particular subject," however, Neil Ker says, and "he was prepared to rescue worthy theological manuscripts from destruction." (41) That MS Q.II.6 found its way into the library of Sir John Prise would seem a strong possibility. Were that the case, it would possibly have traveled into Wales, where in 1542 Prise had acquired Brecon Priory, in the shadow of which he had grown up; but a more likely destination would be St. Guthlac's Priory in Hereford, purchased by Prise in 1543 and thereafter his permanent residence until his death in 1555. (42) In his will, probated in January of that year, Prise made careful division of his library:

Item. I geue and bequeathe to the cathedral churche of Hereford to be sette in theire librarye all my written Bookes of Divinite. Item. I geue to my sonnes Gregorie and Richarde all my printed bookes, savinge the works of Saint Austen and course of the cannon Lawe which I geue to the foresaid master Smithe vicar of Bromeyarde to be diuided between them by discretion of my executors. Item. I bequeathe to my sonne Richarde all my written bookes of histories and humanitie... Item. I geue my welche bookes to Thomas Vaughn of Glamorganshere. (43)

The Cathedral Donors Book of 1611 shows that a number of Prise's bequests remained at Hereford at least until that date. (44) Many others went to Jesus College, Oxford, where they were inventoried in 1621 or 1622 as "ex Donatione Iohannes Prise Equitis Aurati Herefordensis." (45) The university's first Protestant college, Jesus was founded in 1571, however, sixteen years after John Prise's death. At that time, his collection of manuscripts, per his will ("all my written bookes of histories and humanitie"), would have been in the possession of his eldest son Richard. Very likely, then, the headnote to the inventory not with standing, the gift came not directly from John but from Richard Prise, who, following his father's interests, may have been motivated to donate the manuscripts by the college's foundational preferment of Welsh students. (46) The instigator may have been Hugh Price (or Prise), founder and first benefactor of Jesus College. (47) While no close relation, Hugh Price was also from a Brecon family, roughly a contemporary of Sir John, and the likeliest conduit for the gift.

Sir John Prise may, then, have taken MS Q.II.6 from West Dereham, and later perhaps it was among the manuscripts he gifted to Hereford Cathedral or left to Richard, eventually to belong to Jesus College. The fact that neither of the inventories compiled in 1611 or 1622, respectively, lists its presence in either of these places would connect rather neatly with what is known about when the manuscript arrived in Spain, as discussed below. Suggestive, too, is a crossed-through portion of the Litany of the Saints on folio 170r (see fig. 13), reading "Ut Domnum Apostolicum et omnes ecclesiasticos ordines in sancta religione conservate digneris, te rogamus" (That you see fit to preserve the Apostolic Pope and all ranks in the Church in holy religion), which offers clear evidence that MS Q.II.6 was censored by a post-Reformation Protestant reader. This would also seem well suited to a period of residence in Protestant Jesus College.

Nevertheless, attractive as it is, there are several problems with this explanation, beginning with the complete absence of concrete evidence that Prise saw this manuscript at all. Moreover, one would have to ask how MS Q.II.6 found its way from the library at Hereford Cathedral or Jesus College into the royal collection at El Escorial. There are ways to answer that question, of course; Ker outlined a number of them some years ago. (49) Others with specific relevance for this manuscript within a context of historical moment and particular circ*mstance are explored below. But still other avenues should be considered as well.

A second possibility is that MS Q.II.6 was taken away by one of the departing canons--Abbot Forman, perhaps, or another unnamed individual--for his personal use or in order to serve a converted secular cathedral, college, or even a parish once attached to the West Dereham priory. (50) Recent studies show that it was not uncommon for abbots and priors in particular to become deans or canons in newly regulated institutions or claim beneficed vicarages. (51) Although clearly some used the latter simply to pad their incomes, others, at least while enjoying the comparative leniency to do so offered during Henry VIII's reign, found little difficulty celebrating the Roman service in their accustomed manner in new communities that sometimes included former members of their old houses. Others of lesser stature took seriously their pastoral duties to congregations accustomed to Premonstratensian liturgy or stood in for former abbots or priors with multiple livings who could not serve them all themselves. (52) For such as these, a book like MS Q.II.6 would have had significant utility and hence value. (53)

Is there any reason to suspect that the manuscript might have left the priory in such a fashion? One clue might be a signature on folio 35v, in what appears to be a late-sixteenth- or early-seventeenth-century hand (see fig. 14). The initial element, "John," is quite clear; the second is too faded to make out confidently, though the first letter would seem to be "J." This, in any event, suggests a reader/owner whose surname was not "Prise." (54) The idea of such a later reader-owner is attractive in another way, too. As noted above, if MS Q.II.6 were part of Sir John Prise's library given to Hereford Cathedral or Jesus College, identifying when and how it broke free of either collection and became available for conveyance to Spain would pose a problem. If, however, the manuscript had been taken by a White Canon dispossessed in 1538 and was used thereafter, it must subsequently have passed through several sets of hands by the seventeenth century, perhaps via the antiquarian book market, where clearly it would have been an attractive prize.

What is known with certainty is that MS Q.II.6 was in Spain in the library of Gaspar de Guzman y Pimentel, First Duke of Sanlucar and Third Count of Olivares, by 1626. In that year Fr. Lucas de Alaejos, librarian (and later prior) of the Monastery of San Lorenzo at El Escorial, compiled an inventory for the Conde-Duque de Olivares of the books and manuscripts owned between 1611 and 1626 by Olivares, the Biblioteca Selecta del Conde-Duque de Sanlucar, gran chanciller. De materias hebreas, griegas, arabigas, latinas, castellanas, francesas, tudescas, italianas, lemosinas, portuguesas, etc. ("Select Library of the Conde-Duque de Sanlucar, grand chancellor. Concerning Hebrew, Greek-Arabic, Latin, Castilian, French, Saxon, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, etc."). (55) Creating this list was no small task. Only works deemed most important (hence "Selecta") were included; but even with that limitation, Alaejos's inventory runs to 2,700 printed works and 1,400 manuscripts. (56) MS Q.II.6 appears among the Latin manuscripts as item 1042. (57)

In his day, the Conde-Duque was arguably the most famous bibliophile in Europe and reputedly the owner of its largest library, not a small claim in an age of intensely competitive book collecting when great men measured each other according to the size and quality of their holdings. (58) Until his spectacular fall from power in 1643, Olivares served first Philip III of Spain, then his son and successor, eventually becoming first minister under Philip IV, a king who much preferred hunting to governing and contentedly left the latter in the Conde-Duque's hands. (59)

An intellectual who liked to be recognized as a such, a self-described Maecenas to painters and poets, a workaholic, and famously mercurial, (60) Olivares used his position to build his library, appropriating books and manuscripts from monasteries, colleges, and private citizens throughout Spain. (61)

From the perspective of MS Q.II.6, the obvious question is: how did Olivares come to own it? He himself never left Spain after 1600. Thus it must have been a part of one of the libraries he absorbed into his own, or purchased for him, or presented to him as a gift. The likelihood of the first is small given the inclusion of MS Q.II.6 in Alaejos's 1626 list, because most of the Conde-Duque's forced appropriations from Spanish collections occurred later. (62) A good deal more probable is that it was purchased. Olivares's bibliophilia was well known--visiting ambassadors wrote home about it--and he used his diplomatic connections to acquire books and manuscripts from abroad. Two names stand out as likely agents in England: Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, the Marques de Hinojosa, and Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, the first Count of Gondomar. Gondomar, ambassador to the Court of James I from 1613 to 1622, was himself a bibliophile, as was James; indeed, Gondomar was able to leverage their common interest in books into a firm relationship with the king. In England, Gondomar was alert to important books for sale. Much of his own collection, which came close to rivaling Olivares's, he acquired there. (64) The Conde-Duque and the Count were not close, but both saw the diplomatic advantage in cooperation, and Olivares, who clearly respected Gondomar's discerning eye for books, on occasion wrote to him with requests. Hinojosa, who succeeded Gondomar as Spanish envoy to England in 1622, was on intimate terms with Olivares, and he, too, seems actively to have sought out books there.

MS Q.II.6, with its multiplicity of richly rendered images, would have been an attractive object, certainly for Gondomar and even for Hinojosa, who was not himself a bibliophile. Nor might its pictorial uniqueness have been lost on the Conde-Duque, who, although credited with discovering and promoting Velazaquez, was primarily focused on books and manuscripts in the 1620s. (Olivares developed an enthusiasm for paintings later, influenced by Philip rV's connoisseurship, while he directed the furnishing of the Buen Retiro for the king.) (66) The potential of MS Q.II.6 as an influential gift for the Conde-Duque in those years was thus quite high. This foregrounds an intriguing possibility, suggested by Gregorio de Andres, that Charles, the Prince of Wales, may have brought books to buy Olivares's good opinion when he and the Duke of Buckingham paid an unannounced visit to Madrid in 1623, in hope of overcoming Spanish court resistance to the proposed marriage of Prince Charles and the Infanta Maria Ana. (67) Charles did present Olivares with a "jewel of eight diamonds, valued at 25,000 ducats." (68) If there were books too, one such may have been the Codex Aureus, a mid-eighth century gospel probably produced in Canterbury, that Olivares considered the "jewel of his library." (69) Another, perhaps, may have been MS Q.II.6.

The two books, it should be noted, had aesthetic and political aspects that might recommend them to Charles as gifts suitable for both the Conde-Duque and the occasion. (70) If Olivares in 1623 was not yet attracted to pictures, the opposite was true of Prince Charles, who took the opportunity while in Madrid to purchase important paintings. (71) The gorgeous Codex Aureus gospel and MS Q.II.6 might well have seemed appropriately lavish gifts of a kind that one such as Charles with an eye for images might select. The political statement inherent in both was unlikely to go unnoticed either. The major issues obstructing the union of Prince and Infanta were their confessional difference and the oppressed state of Catholics in England. The question of Charles's conversion loomed over the visit, culminating ultimately in his taking an oath to convert. (72) At a time and place where both sides would analyze the meaning even of their opposites' clothes, gifts to Olivares of a Roman rite gospel and a psalter accompanied by illuminated Marian texts would unavoidably have been read suggestively. (73)

The next step, from the library of the Conde-Duque to the Real Biblioteca at El Escorial, where MS Q.II.6 has remained for over three centuries, seems to have been comparatively direct. Olivares died in 1645, having been dismissed from his posts by Philip IV three years previously. Along with the fate of his family, that of his library was a salient concern. He had long considered it the monument that would establish his stature and intellectual achievement in perpetuity; to that end, all the volumes were bound in leather embossed with his family arms. He had even obtained a decree in 1627 promising excommunication for "bibliopiratas" who might abscond with any of his books. (74) This was posted at the library entrance. In keeping with these views, he directed in his will, dated 1642, that his library be kept intact and become property entailed to the ducal estate of Sanlucar. Accordingly, at his death some of the books and manuscripts were shipped to Seville and stored in the Alcazar; most of the library, however, remained in Olivares's house in Loeches, outside Madrid. No listing exists to indicate what went where. Complicating matters further, the Countess, his wife, began to arrange very shortly after his death for masses to be sung for her husband at diverse convents and monasteries, paying for them with portions of his library. The bulk of the manuscripts, however, went to Olivares's nephew, Luis Mendez de Haro, sixth Marquis of Carpio, who in turn passed them to his son, Gaspar de Haro, Marquis of Heliche. In a grand, if calculating, gesture, Heliche in 1654 gave Philip IV a thousand of the manuscripts, seven hundred of which were in Latin. The king, for whom such things meant little, sent them to the royal library at El Escorial. (75)

In the collection of the Real Biblioteca today, MS Q.II.6 is one of 545 of Olivares's Latin manuscripts remaining. (76) Almost without a doubt, it came among the many given by Heliche. Despite the Conde-Duque's hopes for his books to stand as a lasting monument, none, MS Q.II.6 included, retains his original binding. All were rebound in the Escorial style in the eighteenth century, with the grill of St. Lawrence permanently replacing the arms of Guzman.

University of West Florida, emeritus

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Henry Ansgar Kelly, Robert J. Meindl, and Mark Riley for consultation on Latin translation; Aled Llion Jones for translation from Welsh; and Mauricio Herrero Jimenez and Francisco Javier Molina de la Torre for help with transcription. Research for this essay has been supported by the Spanish Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigacion) through the Research Project "Missions and Transmissions: Exchanges between Iberia and the British Isles during the Broad Early Modern Period" Ref: PID2020-113516GB-I00.

Appendix 1

The original text is comprised of two parts. The first is a series of abbreviated references, given in full below. In the following translation of this first part, the original text is in boldface, followed by an expansion of abbreviation, if appropriate, then a literal English translation, and then, in brackets, identification of liturgical type and/or location. In the second part, the original being full sentences, a direct translation is provided. Cum aliquis pecierit fraternitatem in capitulo recipiatur sic Suscepimus Deus misericordiam tuani, et cetera. Magnus Dominus, Gloria Patri. Suscepimus Deus. Kyrie eleison Pater, et cetera. Et ne nos. Salum fac serum tuum, Mitte ei auxilium de sancto. Esto ei Domine turris fortitudinis. Nichil proficiat inimicusineo. Domine exaudi orationem meam.

Dominus vobiscum. Oremus. >> >>

Cum aliquis pecierit fraternitatem in capitulo recipiatur sic

When someone seeks brotherhood in the chapter he should be received thus:

Suscepimus Deus misericordiam tuam, et cetera. We have received your mercy, God, et cetera. [Introit Gregorian]

Magnus Dominus, Gloria Patri.

Great God, glory be to the father [Introit]

Suscepimus Deus.

We have received God.

Kyrie eleison Pater, et cetera.

Have mercy, Father, et cetera.

Et ne nos. [Et ne nos inducas in tentationem] And us not. [Lord's Prayer]

Salum fac serum tuum, [Salvum fac servum tuum] Save thy servant, [Graduale Psalm. 86:2]

Mitte ei auxilium de sancto. [Alleluia. Mitte nobis auxilium de sancto et de Sion tuere nos domine in quacumque die invocaverimus te alleluia alleluia]

Alleluia. Send us help from the Holy one and from Sion, protect us Lord in whatever day we shall call out to you. Alleluia. Alleluia. [Antiphon based on Psalm 19:3]

Esto ei Domine turris fortitudinis. [Esto michi Domine turris fortitudinis a facie inimici]

Lord, be for me a tower of courage against the enemy. [Psalm. 61.3]

Nichil proficiat inimicus in eo.

The enemy shall have no advantage over him. [Psalm. 88:23]

Domine exaudi orationem meam. [Domine, exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te [per]veniat]

Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to thee. [Psalm. 101:2]

Dominus vobiscum. Oremus.

The Lord be with you. Let us pray.

Suscipiat te Deus Pater in numero fidelium suorum, et [ut?] nos, licet indigni, suscipimus te in oracionibus nostris; concedatque tibi per vnigenitum suum, mediatorem Dei et hominum, locum bene agendi et instanticiam [recte, instanciam] bene perseuerandi; et, sicut nos hodie caritas fraternitatis specialiter coniungit in terris, ita diuina pietas, que fraterne dilectionis est auctrix et amatrix, cum fidelibus suis nos coniungere dignetur in celis. Per Christum Dominum.

Hec sunt beneficia que conferuntur omnibus fratribus capituli nostri de West Dereham. >> >>

In primis post eorum obitum scribuntur eorum nomina in martirologio nostro et quoli bet anno imperpetuum, in die anniuersario, dicetur pro eis a conuentu placebo et dirige cum comendacione [animarum] et missa celebrabitur et quilibet canonicus dicet pro eis septem psalmos penitenciales, cum spirituale collecta; et quilibet conuersus dicet, scilicet, Pater Noster. Item scribuntur nomina eorum in qui[...].

May God the Father receive thee in the number of His faithful, [as] we, though unworthy, receive thee in our prayers; and may He grant to thee through his only begotten Son, the mediator between God and men, a place to do well and a determination to persevere; and, just as the charity of brotherhood joins us specially here today on earth, may the divine piety, the beginner and lover of brotherly love, deign to join us with His faithful in heaven. Through Christ the Lord.

These are the benefits that are conferred on all of the brothers of our chapter of West Dereham:

Especially, after their death, their names are written in our martyrology; and every year in perpetuity, on the anniversary day, the Placebo and Dirige [Vespers and Matins, respectively, in the Office for Dead] will be sung for them by the convent [i.e., all the members of the house], along with the Commendation [of Souls], and a mass will be celebrated; and each canon will recite the seven penitential psalms for them along with the spiritual collect, and every converse [lay brother], you may be sure, will recite the Pater Noster. Also, their names will be inscribed in [...]

Appendix 2

Estryn day yf pu wylte knoweWhether pt yt falle hygh or loweLoke wheron pe prime go that 3ereAnd bu xalt fynde pt prime hereAmong these primes MakeThat same prime I rede ye takeAnd after that prime the next sondayWith owten dowt ys Estryn dayEaster day if you will knowWhether that it falls high or lowLook whereon the prime goes that yearAnd you shalt find that prime hereAmong these primes blackThat same prime I advise you takeAnd after that prime the next SundayWithout doubt is Easter day.

Appendix 3

Reuerendo in Christo Patri ac domino domino N., permissione diuina Welbeccensi abbati atque generali tocius Ordinis Premonstratensis in Anglia visitatori satis, peruigili ac pio, Deo devoti filii sui supprior et conuentus monasterii Beate Marie Virginis de West Dereham, infra diocesi Norwicensi dictique Ordinis Premonstratensis obedienciam cum reuerenciis tanto patri debit paternitati vestro, pio pater, presentibus humiliter significamus quod venerabilis in Christo Pater Noster ac abbas memorati monasterii Beate Marie Virginis de West Dereham, secundo die mensis iulii, circam VHP[TM] horam post meridiem, in nostri manus saluatorum suum emisit spiritum atque tunc et ibidem suum sic diem clausit extremum. Quamobrem sigillum officii dicti abbatis priorisque nostri secundum statuti exigenciam paternitati vestre per Johannem Norwych, confratrem nostrum, presentantes suppliciterque rogantes supplicamus quatenus diem competentem pro futuri electione abbatis graciose prestituere ac omnia et singula alia dictum negocium nostrum que comune comodum concernendo graciosius perficere consummare que dignemini quam cicius ne interim quod absit ob diuturniorem futuri electionis dilacionem querit oportet oves sue gregis quantulecunque in devia deflexa ve quoque dispergantur percusso iam mortis speculo prefati pastore nostro sedi pocius per futurum pastorem vnito valeant suis precibus iam dictum pastorem defunctum sic suffragari quam postquam in nouissimo die resurrexerit a mortuis precedere nos poterit in supremam Gallileam, vbi Deum vi<de>bimus cui sit honor in secula, amen. Per viscera ergo misericordie Dei nostri Ihesu visitet nos vestra paternitas viscerosa ea visitacione qua visitauit nos oriens ex alterationibus. Datum in domo nostra capitulari, IIIIto die mensis iulii, anno Domini aliquo XXII (do). In cuius rei testimonium presentibus sigillum nostrum comune apponi fecimus.

To Dom N, reverend father in Christ and Dom by divine permission of Welbeck Abbey, ever vigilant and devoted to the merciful God, Visitor General of all the Premonstratensian Order in Anglia, we his sons and the convent subprior of the monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the said Norbertine Order in West Dereham, in the diocese of Norwich, with the reverences it owes obedience to Your Father by his paternity, merciful father, signify humbly by these presents that our venerable father in Christ and abbot of the mentioned monastery of the Blessed Virgin Mary of West Dereham, on the second day of the month of July, about the eighth hour past noon, gave up his spirit into the hands of our savior and then likewise concluded his last day. Therefore, according to the requirements of the statute, we come before your Fatherhood in the person of John of Norwich, our brother, and humbly beg the seal of office of our aforesaid abbot and prior, and we beseech you that you graciously deign to appoint a suitable day for the election of our future abbot and even more graciously to complete and finish all the details of our aforesaid business which concerns our welfare in common. [Do this] as quickly as possible lest in the meantime (which God forbid) because of the day-to-day postponement of the election of this future [abbot], the sheep of your flock, however small it may be, struck by the sight of the death of the said pastor, may take a deviant path and be scattered, rather than be united by the future pastor. May they be able with their prayers to support the said deceased pastor, who, after he has been resurrected on the last day from the dead, will be able to precede us into that eternal Galilee, where we will see God, all honor be His forever, amen. By the heart of that mercy of our Lord Jesus, let your Fatherhood visit us with that sincere visitation with which the Morning Star visited us after these changes. Given in our chapter house on the fourth day of the month of July, in the year of our Lord XXII. In which matter, by these presents we have made our seal affixed in witness.

NOTES

(1.) The collation is ii (fols. l-2v) + 14 (fols. 3-6v), 28 (fols. 7-14v), 3-412 (fols. 15-38v), 512 [lacks 12] (fols. 39-49v), 6-1512 (fols. 50-169v), 1612 [lacks 10-12] (fols. 170-178v) + 1.

(2.) Lucy Freeman Sandler, "An Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter in the Escorial," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 42 (l979):65-80; Sandler's findings are subsequently summarized in Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 128S-138S, 2 vols., A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 5 (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), 2:87-89.

(3.) I am currently editing and translating these for subsequent publication.

(4.) Sandler, "Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter," 78.

(5.) Psalms l-150were originally included, but what would have been fol. 50, containing Psalms 37:16 to 38:6, has been removed.

(6.) For full descriptions, see Sandler, "Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter," 79-80, and Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 2:88.

(7.) If MS Q.II.6 were prepared with a Bardolf patron in mind (see nn. 16 and 19, below), the inclusion of the Blaise prayer is perhaps indicative, although with no further information it is difficult to see precisely how. Jacobus de Voragine relates the saint's life and martyrdom (Legenda aurea, February 3); he was the patron of wool combers and intercessor for diseases of the throat. The former detail seems unsuitable for an armigerous family, but the latter might have had personal resonance for a family member.

(8.) On the MS's preparation for Austin use, see the deductive discussion in Sandler, "Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter," 67-69.

(9.) Fol. 13v, "Incipit officium crucifixi editumper dominum johannem papam XXII." In Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 2:87, Sandler gives dates of "c. 1320-C.1330."

(10.) As noted on fol. 3 in a fifteenth-century hand:" Secundum consuetudinem ordinis St Augustin i." Augustinian provenance may also partially explain the use of French: as Ralph Hanna observes, "One striking feature of surviving Augustinian books is the heady percentage in the vernacular, including Anglo-Norman." See Ralph Hanna, "Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature," in The Medieval English Book: Studies in Memory of Jeremy Griffiths, ed. AS.G. Edwards, Vincent Gillespie, and Ralph Hanna (London: British Library, 2000), 27-42, at 36.

(11.) Sandler, "Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter," 70.

(12.) Ibid., 71.

(13.) Ibid.

(14.) Ibid.

(15.) See, among many, with perhaps particular relevance to MS Q.II.6 as a religious text partially in Anglo-Norman for a woman of the Bardolf family in the early fourteenth century, Jocelyn Wogan-Brown, Saints Lives and Women's Literary Culture, 1150-1300: Virginity and Its Authorizations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); David N. Bell, What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995), chap. 2, esp. 35-39; and C. Annette Grise, "Women's Devotional Reading in Late Medieval England and the Gendered Reader," Medium Aevum 71 (2002):209-225.

(16.) What appear to be practice sketches of two flowers on fol. 63r (fig. 2), faintly visible to the right of the Bardolf blazon, may be further evidence of the tentativeness of the later artist who added the marginal shields.

(17.) See Helen Castor, "Phelip, William, Fourth Baron Bardolf (1383/4-1441), nobleman and soldier," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (23 September 2004) accessible online at https;//doi.org/10.93/ref:odnb/50244

(18.) Premonstratensians followed a version of the Augustinian Rule and adapted that liturgy; see John Harper, Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 29, 311.

(19.) A second potential donor is Joan (1390-1447), daughter of Thomas, fifth baron Bardolf, who married Sir William Phelip. With her father's attainder, the title passed to Phelip through Joan. Although no mention of a psalter appears in her will, Joan was clearly inclined to support the religious: among her bequests was [pounds sterling]6 to the anchorite Julian Lampet of Norwich. See Christopher Harper-Bill and Carole Rawcliffe, "The Religious Houses," in Medieval Norwich, ed. Carole Rawcliffe and Richard Wilson (Hambledon and London: Hambledon Press, 2004), 98.

(20.) "When someone seeks brotherhood in the chapter he should be received thus."

(21.) "These are the benefits that are conferred on all of the brothers of our chapter of West Dereham."

(22.) On the importance of chant to the Roman service as practiced by the Premonstratensians, see C.H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages (New York: Longman, 1984), 142-144; Joseph A. Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2001), 105,109-110,114,121.

(23.) The most complete visitation records for the order's abbeys are those of Richard Redman, commissary-general for England, Wales, and for part of the time, Scotland, 1458-1505. Gribbin, Premonstratensian Order, 55-58, discusses his requests at various sites for recruitment; see also 51, Table 2.

(24.) Ibid., 54.

25 Ibid., 119-127, discusses the Easby Ordinal in some detail, with useful comparative remarks concerning MS Q.II.6. Tanfield was resident at Easby 1475-1497.

(26.) For discussion of this text see RF. Yeager, "A New Mnemonic for the Date of Easter," Notes & Queries 69 (2022): 77-78. Available online at https: / /doi.org/10.1093 /notesj /gjac038

(27.) Gribbin, Premonstratensian Order, 210. Welbeck also had particular traditional authority over West Dereham, which at its founding in 1188 drew its initial thirteen canons from Welbeck. See J.C. Cox, "The Religious Houses of Norfolk," in The Victoria History of the County of Norfolk, ed. William Page, 2 vols. (London: Historical Institute, 1906), 2:414.

(28.) Welbeck acted with apparent alacrity: William Norwich, who was probably abbot in 1522 and whose death the letter references, was replaced that same year by Abbot Richard (no surname is known); see David M. Smith, ed., The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales, III. 1377-1540,3 vols. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 592. (It should be noted, however, that Smith's entry errs regarding the date of Richard's election, mistaking July 4, the date the request to Welbeck was written and sent to authorize an election, for the election date itself. See Appendix 3 for text and translation.) Abbott Richard died in 1535, to be succeeded by the then-sub-prior Roger Forman, appointed by Thomas Legh and Sir John Prise; Smith, Heads of Religious Houses, 592; and J.S. Brewer, James Gairdner, and RH. Brodie, eds., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 37 vols. (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1862-1932), 9:271, no. 808. https://www.british-history.ac.uk.

(29.) See Gribbin, Premonstratensian Order, app. 3, 325-344, listing Redman's visitations.

(30.) The sole manuscript of Capgrave's "Life of St. Norbert," San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, MS HM 55, is probably an autograph and clearly the presentation copy prepared for Abbot Wygenhale. Peter J. Lucas, From Author to Audience: John Capgrave and Medieval Publication (Dublin: University College Press, 1997), app. 1, 281-284, argues for a composition date of 1422 and copying for presentation in 1440. Lucas in consequence sees the poem as being originally composed not for Wygenhale but for a predecessor. There are, of course, other views: see esp., e.g., Gribben, Premonstratensian Order, app. 5, 248-250, who summarily dismisses Lucas; and the introduction to C.L. Smetana, The Life of St. Norbert by John Capgrave, O.E.SA (1393-1464), Studies and Texts 40 (Toronto, 1977).

(31.) See Gribbin, Premonstratensian Order, 151, 157,164, 168-169.

(32.) See Dom David Knowles, The Religious Orders of England, 3 vols. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1948-1959), 3:477.

(33.) The fullest description of circ*mstances is in James G. Clark, The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021), 206-263, 322-323, 384-385. See further, Knowles, Religious Orders, 3:241-259; and Sybil M.Jack, "The Last Days of the Smaller Monasteries in England," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 21.2 (1970):97-124.

(34.) For the text of their report, see Brewer, Gairdner, and Brodie, Letters andPapers, 10:144. The report's accuracy has been generally dismissed, sometimes vehemently, as biased; see, e.g., Francis Aiden Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries: An Attempt to Illustrate the History of Their Suppression, 2 vols. (London: Nimmo, 1888-1889), 1:470; H. Maynard Smith, Henry VIII and the Reformation (London: Macmillan, 1948), 76; Cox, "Religious Houses," 417-418.

(35.) For those valued at [pounds sterling] 1000, see the list in Knowles, Religious Orders, app. 4, 3:473-474 For lesser houses, see esp., Sybil M. Jack, "Dissolution Dates for the Monasteries Dissolved under the Act of 1536," Historical Research 43 (1970): 161-181.

(36.) The 35 percent is Knowles's calculation; see Knowles, Religious Orders, 3:248. For Abbot Roger's pension, see Brewer, Gairdner, and Brodie, Letters and Papers, 14:598.

(37.) Prise's marriage to Cromwell's wife's niece in 1534 may also have influenced his generosity. See Glanmor Williams, "Sir John Pryse of Brecon," Brycheiniog 31 (1998-1999) :49-63, at 52. At the Dissolution a year later, however, Henry VIII granted the abbey and lands to Thomas Dereham of Crimplesham.

(38.) T.D. Kendrick, British Antiquity (London: Methuen, 1950), 88. Daniel Huws called Prise, "the one clearly identifiable collector of manuscripts from the dissolved monastic houses of Wales"; see Daniel Huws, "Gildas Price," National Library of Wales Journal 17 (I972):314-320, at 314.

(39.) ny lhyvyr hwnn, printed by Edward Whitchurch in 1546 (STC 20310). It contains a Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Commandments in Welsh. See R Geraint Gruffydd, "Yny lhyvyr hwnn (1546): The Earliest Welsh Printed Book," Bulletin Board of Celtic Studies, 23 (1968-1970):105-116.

(40.) The preface of an early draft of the Defensio (London, British Library, MS Cotton Titus F. III) dedicates the work to Brian Tuke, however.

(41.) See Neil R Ker, "Sir John Prise," The Library, 5th ser., 10 (1955):1-24, at 5.

(42.) See Williams, "Sir John Pryse," 55; Clark, Dissolution, 485-486.

(43.) See F.C. Morgan, "The Will of Sir John Prise of Hereford, 1555," National Library of Wales Journal 9.2 (1955-1956):255-261, at 257.

(44.) Listed in Ker, "Sir John Prise," 14-15.

(45.) The inventory list, "Nomina Librorum Manuscriptorum ex Donatione Iohnannis Prise Equitis Aurati Herefordiensis," is included on fols. 42-43 of a "Register" kept with the muniments of Jesus College, probably written by the then-principal, Eubule Thelwall. Ker, "Sir John Prise," 12-14, reproduces the list, noting manuscripts annotated in Prise's hand.

(46.) "Jesus College has maintained a strong connection with Wales since its founding in 1571 by a group of Welshmen led by Hugh Price, Treasurer of St David's Cathedral. Its first Fellows were mostly Welsh lawyers and as a result, for centuries Jesus was known as Oxford's 'Welsh college'"; Jesus College Oxford, https://www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/.

(47.) Officially the founder of Jesus College is Elizabeth I, with whom Price negotiated the establishment of a new college. Elizabeth appropriated the title, but financing came through Price; see n. 48.

(48.) See Glanmor Williams, "Hugh Price LID., (? 1495-1574), Founder of Jesus College, Oxford,"Brycheiniog 25 (l992-1993):57-66.

(49.) See Neil R Ker, "The Migration of Manuscripts from the English Medieval Libraries," The Library, 4th ser., 23 (1942):1-11; and further C.E. Wright, "The Dispersal of the Libraries in the Sixteenth Century," in The English Library before 1700: Studies in Its History, ed. Francis Wormald and C.E. Wright (London: Athlone Press, 1958), 148-175.

(50.) Forman was installed as rector of Boughton in 1544, where he served until his death in 1548; see Francis Blomefield, An Essay toward a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, Containing a Description of the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, with the Foundations of Monasteries, Churches, Chapels, Chantries, and Other Religious Buildings, 11 vols. (London: William Miller, by W Buhner, 1805), 7:336; see BHO: British History Online, "Norfolk, Topographical History," http://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk; Cox, "Religious Houses," 418; and further, Smith, Heads of Religious Houses, 3:593. Norbertines traditionally had oversight of parish churches; see H.M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951), 272-288.

(51.) See Knowles, Religious Orders, 3:389-392, 402-417; and further, Martin Heale, The Abbots and Priors of Late Medieval and Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 347-350.

(52.) See Heale, Abbots and Priors, 357-359.

(53.) Lancashire, while in most respects a unique case, nevertheless offers instructive examples of how communities preserved liturgical materials from confiscation by reformist officials of Edward VI; see Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 139-158, esp. 147-151.

(54.) The surname may be "Jones," which is, of course, of Welsh origin. See Percy H. Reaney and R.M Wilson, eds., A Dictionary of English Surnames, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 256.

(55.) Alaejos's original has disappeared, likely destroyed in fires that swept through the Palacio de Buenavista of the Duke of Alba in 1795 and 1796. A fine copy was made for the duke by the calligrapher Emanuel Angulo in 1744, however, and this is now in the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid, item 9/5.729 (olim D.119); the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana has another copy. See Gregorio de Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca del Conde-Duque de Olivares y descripcion de sus codices, I. Formacion," Cuadernos Bibliographicos 28 (1972): 131-142, esp. 133,139; and Gregorio de Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca del Conde-Duque de Olivares y descripcion de sus codices, II. Dispersion," Cuadernos Bibliographicos 30 (1973):5-73, at 12-13; and further, Gregorio Maranon, "La Biblioteca de Conde-Duque de Olivares," Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia 107 (1935):677-692, esp. 679, n.2; on Alaejos himself, see 680.

(56.) See Maranon, "Biblioteca," 681.

(57.) To facilitate his list, Alaejos also created the alphabetical/numerical cataloguing system that identifies the manuscript today. For a detailed description of the method, see Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, II," 14.

(58.) See in particular Oliver J. Noble Wood, "Vanitas, vanitatum, et omnia vanitas': Bibliotecas y bibliofilia en la literatura del Siglo de Oro," in Poder y saber: Bibliotecas y bibliofilia en la epoca del Conde-Duque de Olivares, ed. Oliver J. Noble Wood, Jeremy Roe, and Jeremy Lawrance (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispanicos, 2011), 277-296; and, in the same volume, Christian Peligry, "Richelieu y la cultura del Siglo de Oro Espanol," 141-156; Maria Luisa Lopez-Vidriero, "Asiento de coronas y distincion de reinos: Librerias y aprendizaje nobiuario," 223-248; Fernando Bouza, "Politica del libro del Consejo Real en el tiempo de Olivares," 339-362; and further, Jacobo Sanz Hermida, "Bibliomania, o la libreria del ignorante," in El escrito en el Siglo de Oro: Practicas y representaciones, ed. Pedro M. Catedra, Augustin Redondo, and Maria Luisa Lopez-Vidriero (Salamanca, Spain: Universidad de Salamanca, 1999), 305-318.

(59.) See J.H. Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 131-191.

(60.) Olivares may have suffered from bipolar disorder; see Gregorio Maranon, El Conde-Duque de Olivares: La pasion de mandar (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1936), 105-111; and further, J.H. Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 8-31, esp. 13-18. His oscillating moods were well documented at the time in ambassadorial correspondence and hence well known. This bears mention, perhaps, in light of others' gifts of books to buy favor. Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, I," 28,134-135, lists examples.

(61.) On these characteristics, see Maranen, Conde-Duque, 185-218; Vicente Lleo Canal, "El circulo sevillano de Olivares, in Poder y saber: Bibliotecas y bibliofilia en la epoca del Conde-Duque de Olivares, ed. Oliver J. Noble Wood, Jeremy Roe, and Jeremy Lawrance (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispanicos, 2011), 47-70; and also in the same volume, John H. Elliott, "Olivares como Mecenas," 11-24. On his appropriations from monasteries, see Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, I," 134-135,136-139.

(62.) See Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, I," 138ff.

(63.) See Juan Duran-Loriga, El embajador y el rey: El Conde de Gondomar y Jacobo I de Inglaterra, Biblioteca Diplomatico Espanola 27 (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperacion, Secretaria General Tecnica, 2006).

(64.) On Gondomar as bibliophile, and for an inventory of his books, see Carmen Manso Porto, Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, Conde de Gondomar (1567-1626): Erudito, mecenas y bibliofilo (La Coruna, Spain: Xunta de Galicia, 1996); and further, Jeremy Lawrance, "'Une bibliotheque fort complete pour un grand seigneur': Gondomar's Manuscripts and the Renaissance Idea of the Library," Bulletin of Spanish Studies 81 (2004):1071-1090.

(65.) On both Gondomar and Hinojosa as surrogate purchasers for Olivares, see Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, II," 11.

(66.) See Jonathan Brown and J.H. Elliott, A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip TV (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 114-118.

(67.) See Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, II," 10-12.

(68.) Elliott, Count-Duke of Olivares, 213. Charles also gave jewels to the bishop of Palencia and as an offering to the Virgin of Fuensicla; see Alexander Samson, "1623 and the Politics of Translation," in The Spanish Match: Prince Charles's Journey to Madrid, 1623, ed. Alexander Samson (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 91-106, at 103, 104; and also to the Infanta, Philip IV, and Gondomar; see Glyn Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta: The Cultural Politics of the Spanish Match (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 130.

(69.) "la joya de la biblioteca"; Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, II," 10. This MS is now Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, MS A135.

(70.) As Samson notes, "Books were ... a critical part of the ideological struggle between Catholics and Protestants, ecumenicists and sectarians." See Samson, "1623 and the Politics," 99.

(71.) See Jerry Brotton, "Buying the Renaissance: Prince Charles's Art Purchases in Madrid, 1623," in The Spanish Match: Prince Charles's Journey to Madrid, 1623, ed. Alexander Samson (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 9-26.

(72.) On the significance of religious differences, and Charles's oath, see Elliott, Count-Duke of Olivares, 207-214; and in particular, Redworth, Prince and Infanta, esp. 89-99, 123,128-129.

(73.) See Lesley Ellis Miller, "Dress to Impress: Prince Charles Plays Madrid, March-September 1623," in The Spanish Match: Prince Charles's Journey to Madrid, 1623, ed. Alexander Samson (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), 27-49, esp. 41-45; and Redworth, Prince and Infanta, 99.

(74.) See, on Olivares's binding, Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, II," 15; the decree of excommunication that protected Olivares's library is reproduced in 15-16.

(75.) See Andres, "Historia de la Biblioteca, II," 6; and further, Elliott, Count-Duke of Olivares, 670-672.

(76.) Olivares's manuscripts are among those listed and described in Guillermo Antolin, Catalogo de los codices latinos de la Real Biblioteca del Escorial, 5 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta Helenica, 1910-1923). For MS Q.II.6, see 3:377-378.

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