MS C189 Outer Cover
Text: Sententiae (Sentences)
Author: Isidore of Seville
Script: late Caroline minuscule
Description:
- Two columns of 38 lines, ruled in drypoint.
- The cover is warped due to extensive water damage.
- The cover and the flyleaves are cockled.
- The cover and flyleaves have minor bookworm damage.
- Trimmed upper margin
- There seems to be no loss of text due to trimming
- Most of the text is still readable on the cover and the turn-ins.
Isidore of Seville
( c. 560 - 636)
Born: Cartagena, or Seville, Spain
Died: Seville, Spain
Sententiae
Instead of scraping away the text to reveal a blank surface, the scriptorium preserved the text as a protective wrapping. The parchment leaf that forms the outer cover (the recto side of the first of the two folios) likely comes from a homiliary, dated around the second half of the eleventh century. A homiliary, is a set of short texts and sermons on a moral theme. The cover contains text from Isidore of Seville's Sententiae, Book 10.11 "De angelis" (On the Angels.) Isidore of Seville’s Sententiae was popular and there are many copies from the Middle Ages. MS C54 is another manuscript at the Spencer Research Library that contains the Sententiae.
