1911 Articles

Miracles of the Virgin

Crane, T. F.

The collection of Miracles of the Virgin here edited for the first i time is contained in a manuscript (MSS. B. 14) belonging to the President White Library of Cornell University. Yhe volume is a small quarto (size of leaf cm. 10.2 X 13.7; of text cm. 13.2 X 10) of 184 folios, vellum, written in two columns (except f. 96, written in one), and contains works in various hands and of different dates, from the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Our collection, of the late thirteenth century, written in two columns of twenty-five lines, occupies fols. 104-110.

The contents of the whole manuscript is as follows: (l) Meditationes piissimae beati Bernardi de cognitione humanae conditionis, incomplete, lacking chaps. XIV-XV, cf. Mabillon's ed. of St. Bernarrd's Opera, Paris, 1690, Vol. II, coll. 319-335, f. 1; (2) A mystical treatise, the beginning of which is missing, a leaf of the quire being lost, f. 16; (3) Vitas Patrum, f. 33vo; (4) The present article, f. 104; (5) Sermons, f. i2ovo; (6) Moral reflections, f. I40vo; (7) Two chapters of Gregory's Dialogues, Bk. IV, 37, 38, f. i4ivo; Treatise on canonical law, f. 143; (9) Theological treatise, f. 168; (10) Letter of Presbyter John to the Emperor Manuel, fols. 17IVO - 172VO. Articles (1)-(5) appear to be in the same hand and of the thirteenth century. The remaining articles are in different hands of the fourteenth century. I have written out the abbreviations, punctuated, and corrected a few evident slips of the scribe's pen. I have left the text as it is in the manuscript, with the usual mediaeval orthography (e for ae, etc), and I have not attempted to correct the scribe's construction.