This fragment was once part of a volume of John of Freiburg’s Summa Confessorum, a late thirteenth-century work of pastoral theology that contributed to the spread of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy in Europe during the late Middle Ages. The fragment contains parts of Book III, tit. XXXII and XXXIII.

The leaf is part of a group of medieval fragments collected by John Edward Jackson (1805-91), a clergyman antiquary who spent his working life in the Southwest of England. Beginning his career as curate at Fairleigh Hungerford (Somerset) in 1834, he was appointed rector of Leigh Delamere (Wiltshire) in 1845, a post which he retained for the rest of his life. He had a life-long interest in the antiquities and local history of the area, and was an archivist for the Marquess of Bath at Longleat.

His collection of medieval fragments mostly came from post-medieval book bindings, and contain liturgical, legal and theological texts.

Adapted from: Jenny Stratford, Catalogue of the Jackson Collection of manuscript fragments in the Royal Library Windsor Castle (London: Academic Press, 1981).