The Festial, sermons on Holy Days and Sundays, written in the second half of the 15th cent. in the South of England

File

MS. Douce 60

Held at the Weston Library

Also comprises:

(fol. 1) The Festial, sermons on Holy Days and Sundays. A list of contents will be found in C. Horstmann's Altengliscbe Legenden, neue Folge (1881), p. cxix: where it is shown that this is the Festial written by John Mirk, see fol. 147. [With Horstmann I believe the author's name to be Mirkus (?=Mirkhus, 'Dark house'): see MS. Douce 103 E.W.B.N.].
(fol 147) Colophon:'Explicit tractatus qui dicitur Pars Oculi de Latino in Anglicum translatus per fratrem Johannem ... [Mirk canonicum regularem] monasterii de Lylleshulle, cuius anime propicietur Deus. Amen': this treatise on the duties of a parish priest is perhaps based on part of the Pupilla Oculi of Johannes de Burgo. It is in verse and prose, beg. 'God seith him self. as writen y fynde'.
(fol. 189) A sermon 'De festo omnium Sanctorum': beg. 'Gode men and women this day is called all hallowen day.'.
(fol. 193) A treatise on the Seven Deadly Sins: beg. 'Crist that dyed ... The thinges that I haue proposed.'.
(fol. 213) 'Hec est forma confessionis', a long English form in sections, beg. 'I be knowe to God ... that I sinful creature.'.

On fol. 228 (cf. 146v) are notes of Welsh rents owing to sir John Davyys, partly in 1492-4.

Leaves are lost after fols. 30, 43, 59.

Dates

239 Leaves

MS. Douce 60

Falconer Madan, et al., A summary catalogue of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford which have not hitherto been catalogued in the Quarto series (7 vols. in 8 [vol. II in 2 parts], Oxford, 1895-1953; reprinted, with corrections in vols. I and VII, Munich, 1980), vol. IV, no 21634

Our best descriptions for medieval items in this collection are in Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries under MSS. Douce.

On paper

8 × 5 3/4 in.

Part of the Bodleian Libraries Repository

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