Western Medieval Manuscripts : Byzantine and patristic religious texts

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript, copied in England in the late 17th century, contains a collection of brief <i>Byzantine and patristic religious texts</i> and excerpts, whose concerns include theological disputes and ecclesiastical organisation and appointments. It forms part of a two-volume set, of which the other is MS Dd.6.19, copied by the same hand, which contains primarily theological texts, along with historical, geographical and scientific works. In a number of cases the source manuscripts from which these texts were copied are identified, in all cases belonging to the Barocci collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Alternate pages have been left blank, perhaps with the intention of adding a facing translation which was never accomplished. The written pages are divided into two columns, of which one contains the text and the other notes on it. The person responsible for copying the manuscript was probably one R. Ray, the scholar at Trinity College whose ownership note, dated to 1693 and identical to a note in Dd.6.19, appears on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(3);return false;'>f. 1r</a>. This Ray currently remains unidentified, and no such person appears among the Fellows listed in Hugh MacLeod Innes, <i>Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge</i> (Cambridge, 1941). He may have been a relative of John Ray (or Wray), a notable scholar and Fellow of Trinity in the mid-17th century.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>