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(MANUSCRIPT.) Maurice of Provins. Distinctiones.manuscript in latin on thin vellum, written in tiny gothic hand in black ink, mostly 48 lines, in single columns except for last 2 quires in double columns, divisional initials with penwork decoration (4 lines on first page, 5 lines on last page, 2 lines elsewhere), entry numbers, paragraph marks, and running heads in red and blue throughout. [407] (of [414]) leaves; lacks leaves [48] (probably blank), [169], [372]-[375], and [388]. 119x91 mm, late 15th-/early 16th-century blind-tooled leather over wooden boards, lacking backstrip and front cover, rear cover loose, lacking clasps; dark and partly oxidized stain in upper margins through first half of volume diminishing legibility of top few lines of text, scattered holes of varying sizes in vellum avoided by scribe, worming in lower inner corner of last few leaves affecting some words, leaf [389] loose, blank upper outer corner off last leaf. France, later 13th century
Alphabetical collections of biblical distinctions, or figurative interpretations of scriptural words, evolved as a genre in the later 12th century particularly as an exegetical tool for preachers. The Distinctiones of Maurice of Provins, originally compiled circa 1248 with over 1,000 terms from abiectio to zona, differed from earlier such works in providing longer entries with greater emphasis on moral content. Kaske, Medieval Christian Literary Imagery, pages 36-37; Rouse & Rouse, "Biblical Distinctiones in the Thirteenth Century," Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge, Vol. 41 (1974), pages 33-34; Stegmüller 5566 (recording over 50 manuscripts in British and Continental libraries, only the one at Princeton in the U. S.).
