Egidius Romanus, De regimine principum (Giles of Rome, Mirror of Princes)

Fol. 1r^a. Incipit liber de Regimine principum Editus a fratre Egidio Romano ordinis fratrum heremitarum Sancti Augustini. De regia ac sanctissima pro sap[ient]ia oriundo suo domini speciali domino philippo primogenito…

Fol. 1r^b. Tables of Chapters of Book I.

Fol. 1v^a. Book I opens: Oportet ut latitudo sermonis in una quaque re…  (three Books, all ending on fol. 150v^a)…deus ipse suis promisit fidelibus qui est benedictus in secula seculorum. Amen.

Explicit on fol. 150v^a (in red): Explicit liber de regimine principum Editus a fratre Egidio Romano ordinis fratrum heremitarum Sancti Augustini Scriptus et finitus Anno domini 1429 in mense iulii.

Fol. 151r^a. Incipit Registrum quarundam auctoritatum uel conclusionum libri de regimine principum. Abhominare debemus contraria bono diuino c. 4° 3^e partis…

Fols l58r^a-163v^b. Incipit Registrum dictionale uidelicet notabilium dictionum positarum in libro Egidii de Regimine principum cum numero denotante folium in quo talis dictio ponitur etc. Abstinentia 24. 134. Abhominatio 38.39.40.41… (ends on fol. 163v^b)…Zelus 33, 44, 45, 68.

For MSS and early editions see Schulte, Vol. II, p. 182; Glorieux, Vol. II, pp. 297–98; G. Bruni in La Bibliofilia, Vol. XXVI (1935), pp. 78–110. This manuscript is not included.

Parchment and paper. The first, two centre and last leaves of each quire are parchment, the others paper. Back pastedown is contemporary parchment also. There is a paper tab between fols 147 and 148, and two stubs between fols 164 and 165 (torn out).

The watermark with an ox-head and a flower on a stalk (see fol. 166). The closest example represented in Briquet, Vol. IV, no. 14781 (Augsburg 1432, Munich 1433), is three years later than the explicit of this manuscript.

Folios 42, 55, 78, 85, 114, 138 are patched with parchment along their edges. Folio 108 has a small slash in the bottom margin repaired by stitching (thread is now missing).

Red rubrics and caps two-lines high; running book titles in brown ink surrounded by a red rectangle. Red paragraph marks, line fillers, decorative ‘bracketing’ (e.g. on fol. 107r^a), and underlining. Cues for the rubricator are often visible within the large initials.

There are ‘geometrical’ shapes in the margins of fols 140v^b and 141r^a (the addition in margin of the former is geometr(ri)cos)—the section is on drawing up battle-lines.

Corrections: fol. 10v^b, l. 2: ‘e’ is struck through with 2 vertical strokes; fol. 10r^b, l. 15, vera is added in centre margin with insertion signs. Folio 10v^b, l. 27, est added in centre margin with insertion signs; fol. 6r^a, l. 5, no(n) expunged and also struck through with several vertical strokes; fol. 5v^b, l. 34, indues struck through and i(n)duces added in centre margin with inser signs. fol. 8v^b, four from bottom, maxi(mus) glossed pessim(us) in the centre margin, with note d’envoi, but not struck out.

Additions: fol. 8v^a, three lines added at the bottom with insertion sign indicating that they are to be inserted at the top of col. b—they were left out by homeoteleuton. So too a passage on fol. 16v^b, in centre margin, bottom half.

Edges trimmed (prickings on outer and bottom margins mostly trimmed away); cont. calf over oak boards (8 (not KS '10') mm thick). Three fillets in blind forming a rectangle in which are two diagonals, each of three fillets. Remains of metal clasps on the back cover. Five holes in quincunx, studs removed on both front and back. Corner edges and at top and bottom near the spine are brass corners and plates. Inside the back cover is an iron stud, probably for a chain. Sets of three holes (upper and lower) towards the centre of the front board for affixing the pins for securing the two straps—the brass (house-shaped) plates for securing the straps within the back board (with three nails) are still present; the remnants of the alum tawed straps still present in the slots on the edge of the boards.[i] Wear on the join of the spine to the cover reveals five major sewing station cords, plus one at top and bottom for the head- and tail-bands (same thickness as the other five).

The front cover has the title Egidii Regimine Principum on a contemporary label; to fol. i^v is attached by a modern paper slip a fifteenth-century statement of accounts in German; it is much smaller than the folios of the volume and is torn at the top right and at the bottom right corner; on fol. i^v in a late fifteenth-century hand is the note ‘Hunc liberum (sic) legauit ad liberariam (sic) ecclesie beate Marie uirginis Venerabilis uir dominus lohannes Schuneman[i] utriusque iuris et Medicine doctor huius ecclesie Canonicus et in decretis lector cuius anima requiescat in pace’; inside front cover in nineteenth-century ink ‘550’ and in pencil ‘Egidius £5.5.0’, ‘o/s/d–’, ‘w/tu/–’; fol. i^v has ‘Phillipps 550’: Sir Thomas Phillipps purchased the codex in 1824 from van Ess;[ii] also on Av. are ‘2784.10.14’ and ‘M444.10’ and the stamp PUBLIC LIBRARY OF VICTORIA 30 DEC. 1910; inside the back cover in pencil is ‘Dobell’[iii] per E. 30.12.10.105’.

K.V. Sinclair, ‘Phillipps Manuscripts in Australia’, The Book Collector, Vol. XI, 1962, p. 333, and ‘De nouveaux manuscrits augustiniens’, Augustiniana, Vol. XIV, 1964, p. 460.

K.V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, pp. 326-7.

De regimine principum (a mirror for princes), was apparently first composed for Philip the Fair. It was translated into Middle English by John Trevisa (d. 1402), and by Thomas Hoccleve (c. 1370- c. 1450).[i]

Much of the text in all three margins is not glossing or commentary, but words from the main text used as a means of indexing. The work is also alphabetically indexed with references to book and chapter (fol. 151r^a, 'Registrum quarundam auctoritatum uel conclusionum libri…'), starting on fol. 151r, with words starting with the ‘9’ con- abbreviation coming after ‘Z’. The second index of words is keyed by folio number, as clearly stated at the beginning of the Index (fol. 158r^a, 'Registrum diccionale uidelicet notabilium diccionum positarum in libro…cum numero denotante folium in quo talis dictio ponitur…').

Digital imaging and research on this manuscript were supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australia:Researching and Relating Australia’s Manuscript Holdings to New Technologies and New Readers. Substantial donations from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Catholic Church Insurance and the National Australia Bank are gratefully acknowledged. The Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, The Network for Early European Research, and Newman College, The University of Melbourne, have also generously contributed to the project.

Chief Investigators (CIs) of the ARC project were Professor emeritus Margaret Manion (The University of Melbourne), Professor Bernard Muir (The University of Melbourne), and Dr Toby Burrows (The University of Western Australia). Graduate research assistants were Alexandra Ellem, Dr Hugh Hudson, Dr Elaine Shaw and postgraduate scholar Elizabeth Melzer (The University of Melbourne). Shane Carmody was the representative of the Chief Industry Partner (The State Library of Victoria). The following curators, conservators, photographers and computer specialists at The State Library of Victoria also contributed their expertise: Katrina Ben, Des Cowley, Ian Cox, Adrian Flint, Ross Genat, Jean Holland, Shelley Jamieson, Afsana Khan, Coralie McInnes, Monika McIntyre, Helen McPherson, Peter Mappin and Sarah Mason. Other contributors both in Australia and overseas are acknowledged in the relevant endnotes.

These detailed entries draw on the information in earlier catalogues and also update it. In particular, they are based on the following: K.V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, 1969, M. M. Manion and V. F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London, 1984, and B. Stocks and N. Morgan, eds, The Medieval Imagination: Illuminated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, 2008. Our debt to these pioneering publications and dependence on them are acknowledged here.

Margaret M.Manion, on behalf of the ARC team, October, 2013.