Vendôme, BM, 55

Library	Bibliothèque municipale
Shelfmark	055
Century	s. XI
General region of origin	Vendôme
Collection	Quadripartitus
Main author	Bruno Schalekamp

Vendôme, Bibliothèque municipale, 055 is an eleventh-century manuscript of 84 fols. (308 x 216 mm) in 2 cols. Its codicological composition is unknown as of yet, and the same goes for any quire signatures. The manuscript was written at the Trinity Abbey, Vendôme, according to Kerff, by an unknown amount of hands. The script can be guessed to be late Caroline minuscule. Its provenance can be also be traced to the same abbey, according to Kerff.

Contents

MS Vendôme, BM, 055 contains for the most part canonical or closely relevant material and historiography. The Collectio canonum Quadripartita (Quadripartitus) fills about half of its contents, followed by the first two books of Cassiodorus's Historia. The Collectio 53 capitulorum, also known as Collectio LIII titulorum, was also included, as well as a capitulary by Gerbald of Liège.

Concerning the Quadripartitus, one may ask why book 3 was not added to this manuscript. The exclusion of the book is an exception to the rule. It is the only codex - apart from those that exclusively include book 4 - in which only book 3 was left out. We can, therefore, conclude the patron of this manuscript was probably not interested in its contents, but did value the other three books. More research on its exclusion would shed light on the background of this particular written work. However, not much else is known about the manuscript, as it has seen little study and has not been digitized (yet).

folios	texts
	Front cover
1vab-41vb	Collectio canonum Quadripartita (Quadripartitus), books 1-2 and 4
1vab-6rb	Book 1, including dedicatory letter, list of authorities, preface, and list of titles
6rb-17ra	Book 2, including preface and list of titles
17ra-41vb	Book 4, including list of titles and epilogue
41vb-42rb	Gerbald of Liège's First Capitulary
42rb-51vb	Collectio LIII titulorum. Here summarized with the Admonitio generalis on fols. 42vb-50rb, according to Mordek
51vb-54vb	De officio baptismi
56r-84v	Cassiodorus' Historia ecclesiastica tripartita, books 1-2, chapters 1-17
	Back cover

Links

• IRHT https://arca.irht.cnrs.fr/ark:/63955/md429880xc3k

Literature

Alexandre, Lanoë, Grand, Bibliothèque Municipale de Vendôme (2000), p. 204-205; Catalogue general des manuscrits (1885), p. 412-413; Jacob, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der sogenannten “Historia tripartita” (1954), p.12; Kerff, Quadripartitus (1982), p. 32-34; Kéry, Canonical Collections (1999), p. 167-168; Le Bras, ‘Manuscrit vendômois’ (1931), p. 266-269; Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium (1995), p. 341; Mordek, Kirchenrecht (1975), p. 172-174.

See also Michael Elliot's extensive work and draft editions of the Quadripartitus on his own website: http://individual.utoronto.ca/michaelelliot/.