St John’s College M.4 (James 387)

Arguments against a treatise of Stephen Gardiner. Latin, sixteenth century

‘Reprobatio nugalium responsionum Marci Antonii Constantii ad obiectiones orthodoxorum’ (fo. 2r). At fo. 117r: ‘Reliqua sequu’ in proximo Libro’. There is a preface at fo. 1r, which begins: ‘Hinc omnium primum mira profecto papistarum impudentia est; quod Catholicorum nomen solis sibi vendicant’. An incomplete list of contents is at fo. iir. Marcus Antonius Constantius was a pseudonym of Stephen Gardiner (1483-1555), Bishop of Winchester. The title of his book is Confutatio cavillationum, quibus sacrosanctum eucharistiae sacramentum ab impiis Capernaitis impeti solet (Paris, 1552). A copy of this work, once belonging to Thomas Baker, is at SJC, P.8.41 (formerly Qq.10.1). M.4 is in a different hand to SJC, M.1-3 and M.5. This is a reformist polemic, while the other four MSS are all Catholic texts.

Manuscript extra information

200x160 mm. ii+117+iv fos (modern foliation). Formerly A.6.22. From the Earl of Southampton (‘Hen: C. S.’ inside front cover). College bookplate (eighteenth century) at fo. ir. On the final flyleaf, in a sixteenth-century hand: ‘Father and Be that (yt?) knowne’.

Single mid sixteenth-century hand throughout. A few cancellations later in the vol. Paper. Limp vellum covers, the binding utilising fragments of a unidentified medieval vellum MS. Spine title: 'MS De … Resp ad M Antonium Constantium 4’.