Gothic book script; 2 columns of 23 lines (19 x 13.75 cm.).
Written in brown ink in a large and very regular hand. Leaves [16] - [21] and [36] - [37] are fourteenth century additions imitating the original style. Headings in red. Decorated initials in blue with good red penwork infilling and elaborate flourishes, some of which end in human and animal heads. Rubrication in red or blue. Marginal pen drolleries in brown ink at leaves [15], [24v], [25], [28], [29v], [30v], [31] and [35v].
Leaves [14], [27], and [32] slightly mutilated.
Written almost certainly at the monastery of the Augustinian Canons Regular of Llantony Secunda, Gloucestershire.
Early 19th cent. vellum binding, with gilt border and spine.
Title derived from the recto of leaf [1]: Capitula in procursum uite uenerabilis Roberti herefordens' episcopi.
Colophon: Explicit uita d[omi]ni Rob. de Betou ep[iscop]i hereford.
One of three known manuscripts of the Vita. Cf. Lambeth Palace Library, MS. 475 and the British Museum, Cotton Julius D.X.
Cf. Anthony à Wood, "Historia ... Univ. Oxon." (1674) I, p. 48; Thomas Tanner, "Bibliotheca Brit. - Hibern." (1748), p. 364; Sotheby's "Catalogue of thirty-nine manuscripts of the 9th to the 16th century from the celebrated collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps" (1965), p. 29-30; Union list of manuscripts in Canadian repositories, v. 2, p. 1344.
In slipcase.
Formerly catalogued as Fisher MSS 05088.
Also available in microfilm: mfm dup 331
Acquired from H.P. Kraus, 13 May 1966.
Later owners included Dr Silas Taylor, Thomas Bird, and Sir Thomas Phillipps (MS 22230).
