Quire registers
A link will be added here to a complete collation of the Complutensian Bible when that page is complete.
In the four volumes covering the Christian Old Testament, the first three include a register of all the quires in the volume. The third volume lists all the books of the Old Testament it contains along with the register of quires; the fourth volume lists only the the books it includes.
It is significant that we find nothing comparable in volumes 5 and 6. In addition to the text of the New Testament, Volume 5 has reference materials including a Greek grammar and vocabulary. Volume 6 is entirely comprised of reference materials, including a Hebrew ditionary and introductory grammar. There is no necessary sequence to these reference works (tractactus), so there is no single sequence of quires for all of volume 5 or 6. Instead, we find three different sequences beginning with a in volume 5 and three sequences beginning with A (upper case) in volume 6.
Volume 1
Volume 1 contains the Pentateuch (or Torah). Its single sequence of 48 quires are identified by letters running through the alphabet twice (a - z, then aa - zz), followed by two further quires identified by typographical symbols used for ligatures in the main text.
Volume 2
Volume 2 contains single sequence of 43 quires identified by letters running through the alphabet from a - z, then aa - vv. It contains ten books from Joshua to 2 Paralipomenon (2 Chronicles) and the Prayer of Manasseh.1
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 4 has two sequences of quire identifiers. The first runs from a - z and aa - pp. All these quires are ternions except for the final pp which is a binion. There would have been no confusion about the length of quire pp: it shows the regular system of numbering as applied to a binion,2 and ends at a major content break, namely at the completion of Malachi, the last of the twelve minor prophets, signalled with an explicit statement.
Then there is a sequence from A - G, again all ternions except for a binion in the final G. It is clear that G is the final quire of the entire volume, since its last folio has the colophon for volumes 1-4 on the same page as a list of books included in the volume.
Quires A - G have the three books Maccabees. The separate quire organization suggests that this section of volume 4 in some sense had a different status from the contents of a - pp, comparable to the separate sections of volumes 5 and 6.
Footnotes
The complete sequence of books in volume 2 is:
- Joshua
- Judges
- Ruth
- 1 Samuel
- 2 Samuel
- 1 Kings
- 2 Kings
- 1 Chronicles (1 Paralipomenon)
- 2 Chronicles (2 Paralipomenon)
- Prayer of Manasseh
The system of numbering gathers is explained in a forthcoming page with the full collation of the Complutensian Bible.↩︎