Oxford Merton College MS 87 and William Gybbe the Scribe

Abstract

ACCORDING to an inscription on f. i, this book was written for Richard Scarburgh, a fellow of Merton who died by October 1472,1 as noted by R. M. Thomson in his valuable Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Merton College, Oxford (Cambridge, 2009), 81–2. MS 87 contains as item 6 ‘Scotulus. ff.149–262v’, a work consisting of four libri sentenciarum,2 and occupying Quires 15–24 of the manuscript. Dr A. I. Doyle (Durham) has kindly drawn my attention to the explicit: ‘Ad quod gaudium Christus Dei filius nos perducat | sollercius AMEN. | Quod Gybbys’, quoted by Thomson in his description on p. 81. In the caption to his illustration of f.262 r, showing the explicit (Pl. 80), Thomson says ‘Gybbys, before Oct. 1472’. In the index to the Catalogue, p. 314, Thomson lists ‘Gybbys, a scribe’. This scribe is William Gybbe or ‘Gybbys’ as he is sometimes called (1416/18–1494), who was chaplain from 1443, then, from 1473 to his death, vicar of Wisbech.3 His work is also found in Eton College MS 34 (arts 2–4), Vatican Library MS Ottoboni lat. 334, Oxford Bodleian Library MS Bodley 152, where he altered the colophon before adding ‘Quod W. Gybbe’, and in Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson poet. 118. The present example of his work is written in a predominantly Secretary script with the occasional Anglicana form, for example long r in ‘erit’ (Thomson’s Pl. 80, left-hand column, line 16), so slightly superior in script-style to the other known examples of his work, a fact that may reflect either the relatively early date of this example, or subject matter considered to be relatively more important than others, or it was written for a patron of slightly higher status. The superiority of script-style matches the general appearance of less untidiness (Thomson goes so far as to call it ‘neat’) than in the other manuscripts that show a predominantly Anglicana script-style with Secretary forms mixed in. The duct of Gybbe’s hand is evident and is particularly notable in final -s, as in ‘q‹ui›bus’ (Pl. 80, right-hand column, line 25), and in the abbreviation for final -us, as in ‘duob‹us› dotib‹us›’ (Pl. 80, left-hand column, line 15).