188 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 98. 



cipal nobility. The publication of this work is 

 thus easily explained without the intervention of 

 any " secret piece of history." 



Edward F. Rimbault. 



MS. NOTES IN A COPr OF LIBER SENTENTIARUM. 



As MS. notes in old books have been regarded as 

 fit matter for this journal, I would contribute two 

 or three from a copy of Puter Lombard's Book of 

 Sentences, printed at Vienna in 1477. This has 

 not only passed through divers hands before it 

 came into mine, but several previous owners have 

 left their names in it, and one of them very 

 numerous marginal comments. Of these tlie 

 earliest appears to have been Thomas Wallwell or 

 T. Swallwell, a monk of Durham, who, from the 

 handwriting, which is of the fifteenth century, I 

 conclude was (he marginal comnientator. lie has 

 availed himself of the " Laus Deo " below the 

 colophon to add " q' Ts. Wallwell monachus 

 ecclesias cathedralis Dunelmensis." The words are 

 abbreviated, but I have given them at length, ex- 

 cept the first, which, instead of being a </, with 

 a comma, is a (j* with an oblique line through it, 

 that I thought might bailie the printer. The 

 comments are very scholastic, and such as would 

 then have been considered much to the purpose. 

 It is possible some reader of this journal may be 

 able to supply iuformation respecting this erudite 

 monk. 



The next owner, judging by the handwriting, 

 which seems little, if at; all, later than 1500, has 

 thus recorded his ownership on the blank side of 

 the last leaf: 



" Istius libri yerus est possessor dominus Stephanus 

 Merleye." 



He was probably a priest, but I have discovered 

 no annotations by him ; though, as there is scarcely 

 a page without writing on it, there may be some. 



Plowever, the note to which I would more par- 

 ticularly invite attention is at the top of the first 

 page, and in the handwriting, I think, of the above- 

 mentioned monk. It is in abbreviated Latin, but 

 read in extenso it runs thus : 



" SententiiE Petri Lumbardi fratris Giaciani qui 

 decretum compilavit, et etiam Petri Comestoiis, qui 

 scholasticam historiam edidit et alia. Iste Petrus 

 Lumbardus ftcit istud opus, edidit glossas psalterli et 

 Epistolarum et plura alia. Fuit etiam episcopus Pari- 

 siensis. Isti tres fratres uteriiii erant, et floruenint 

 anno salutis 1154, qui fuit annus ab orlgine mundi 

 6353." 



Over the word Graciani is interlined "monachi" 

 in the same hand. In this statement two things 

 are remarkable: — \. The allegation that these 

 three well-known writers of the twelfth century 

 were uterine brothers. 2. The mundane era. The 

 former is hardly reconcileable with the generally 



received account of them, but it is not altogether 

 new. Cave, writing of Gratian, adverts to a story of 

 their having been brothers in the following words : 

 " Non dcsunt plurimi qui Gratianum, Petri Lom- 

 bard!, Petrique Comestoris germanum fuisse vohint, 

 matremque tergeminos hos fratres ex furtivo concuhitu 

 conceptos uno partu edidisse, quod quidem nullo satis 

 gravis autoris testinionio fulcitur." — Scriplores Eccl., 

 vol. ii. p. 216. 



I am not going to advocate this story, for it is 

 most likely false ; and the monk's statement may 

 not be correct ; but as it is less improbable, it 

 may be worth recording. Peter Lombard died in 

 1164. Gratian completed the Decretum about 

 1151, and probably survived some years, but I 

 have not met with the date of his death. Peter 

 Comestor died in 1198. They may therefore have 

 all been contemporaries, though the last must 

 have lived to a good old age, unless he were con- 

 siderably younger than the others. 



With regard to the mundane era by which the 

 writer computed, it will be found to differ mate- 

 rially, not only from that now in common use 

 among ourselves, but also from all that are men- 

 tioned by Sir II. Nicolas in his Chi-onology of 

 History; for it assumes the Nativity to have oc- 

 curred in the year of the world 5199. This, how- 

 ever, agrees with what appears to have been re- 

 cognised as the era of the creation by the western 

 churches from about the beginning of the fifth 

 century (see De Value's Dictionnaire Eaisonne de 

 Diplomatique, voce C'omput), though from some 

 cause it seems to have been almost overlooked by 

 modern writers in this country. 



I have not attempted to explain the "^ " before 

 Ts. Wallwell. It may have meant " quoth," or 

 "qua3sit;" but I am not satisfied with anything 

 that has occurred to me. It stands thus : 



" Laus Deo. q, Ts Wallwell 



Mo"^* eccle cathedralis duneim." 



" Ts." for Thomas is not usual, but those are 

 clearly the letters: I have tried to read the "s" 

 (which may have been meant for a capital) with 

 the surname, but Swallwell is a stranger cog- 

 nomen than that I have attributed to the monk. 

 Some correspondent conversant with Durham may 

 possibly recognise the name in one of its forms. 



^Y. s. w. 



Temple. 



CLASSIFICATION OF LITERARY DIFFICULTIES. 



Whatever may be the utility of your publication 

 as a source of information to individuals, each on 

 his own point of difficulty, there is a purpose, and 

 one of its greatest ultimate purposes, which it must 

 one day answer, though not immediately — I mean 

 the furnishing of materials for general conclusions 

 on the difficulties of literature. The queries which 



