A Previously Unnoticed Extract of Suso's Horologium Sapientiae in English

Abstract

A manuscript in the library of St John's College, Cambridge, contains a hitherto unnoticed text of part of The Seven Poyntes of Trewe Wisdom (hereafter Seven Poyntes), a late-fourteenth-century English abridgement of Henry Suso's Horologium Sapientiae (c.1320). The manuscript in question, Cambridge, St John's College MS G.25 (hereafter G.25), is written on membrane and measures around 195?mm by 130?mm, with a written area of 140–150?mm by 90–95?mm. It dates from the first half of the fifteenth century, and consists entirely of religious materials in English prose: alongside the text which is the subject of this paper we find the Elucidarium, an Apocalypse commentary, part of the gospel harmony Oon of Foure and two Wycliffite sermons. The manuscript is written in two different textura semi-quadrata hands; hand A, located by the Linguistic Atlas to Northamptonshire, is responsible for the first two quires, containing only the Elucidarium, while hand B, from Cambridgeshire, copied the remaining texts. Although the manuscript has been described more than once, the identity of the Suso text has not previously been established.