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Over seventy years ago, H. C. Schultz observed that Huntington Library MS HM 142 (olim "Bernent") had a twin "in the library of the Marquis of Bath-Longleat 30. The close relationship between these two manuscripts extends not only to the order of the pieces within the volumes but to certain variants in the texts. Longleat 30 is less elaborately written and decorated, and might be by the same scribe who wrote HM 142."1 That scribe is T. Werken.
In 1950, R. A. B. Mynors identified eighteen Latin and Middle English manuscripts copied wholly or in part by a Dutch scribe who identified himself in several colophons as "T. Werken" and, in more complete fashion, as "Theodericus Nicolai Werken de Abbenbroith," and "theoderici nycolai Werken de Abbenbroeck."2 The list of manuscripts identified by Mynors as being copied by Werken is included in Table 1 (supplemented by information from Linné R. Mooneys unpublished list of Scribes working in England, 1375-1525).3
Many of these volumes were produced for William Gray, who was at Balliol by 1431, graduating about 1434. He was chancellor of Oxford by February 21, 1441, but departed the following year for the Continent, arriving in Cologne in 1442 and relocating to Padua in 1444, where he was awarded a Doctorate of Theology in 1446. On November 18,1445, he was commissioned the King of England's royal proctor at the Curia and in consequence moved to Rome. He received a series of ecclesiastical positions in England: appointed to the prebendaryship ofBarnby, in York (1447) and of Thorp, inRipon (1448); appointed archdeacon of Richmond (1450); and in 1454, he became Bishop of Ely. During his time at Oxford and abroad, he assembled a large library, the bequest of which constitutes "more than half the surviving library of medieval Balliol."4 Werken employs scripts of two primary varieties: a gothic textura and a humanist script. As M. B. Parkes notes, he "was an adaptable scribe."5
In 1976, A. C. de la Mare identified a binding fragment owned by Dr. George Salt "containing parts of Book XXIII of Augustine's Contra Faustum."21 De la Mare notes that Mynors suggests possible additions to the list ofWerken MSS in his Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (1963).22 She accepts from this list...