London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xxi, fols 18-40
Vespasian D. xxi, fols 18-40
General Information
344
The second part of a composite manuscript made up of three distinct units. Fols 18-40r contain an Old English translation of Felix, Anonymous Homilies, Homilies for Specified Occasions, Sanctorale: Saint Guthlac. Fol. 40v contains an alphabet 'a...z & ˥ ƿ ð æ þ'. This section of the manuscript was once part of Laud Misc. 509. Doane argues that, before this, it belonged to the Old Royal collection (2002, p. 44).
Digital Surrogate
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_vespasian_d_xxi_…
- Item: fols 18r-40v
Title (B.3.3.10): Anonymous Homilies, Homilies for Specified Occasions, Sanctorale: Saint Guthlac
Title (manuscript): incipit prologus alfrici monachi vita sancti Guthlaci
Incipit: (fol. 18r/1) VRVUM WEALDENDE RIHT GELYFENDVM AWORVLD aworuld minum þam leofestan hlaforde ofer ealle oðre men eorðlice kyningas alfwold
Explicit: (fol. 40v/2) Sy urum Drihtne lof ˥ wuldor ˥ wurðmynt ˥ þam eadigan were Sancte GVTHLACE on ealra worulda woruld aa buton ende on ecynysse. Amen.
Text Language: English
Note: The title and false attribution is an addition of s. xiii/xiv
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 344, article 5
- Item: fol. 40v
Title (B.27.4.15.EM): Alphabet
Incipit: (40v/3) abcdefȝ
Explicit: ðæþ
Text Language: English
Date: s. xii
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 344, article 5
- Item: fol. 40v
Object Description
Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent:
- 193 mm x 132 mm (dimensions of fols 18-40 - size of leaves)
- 152 mm x 95 mm (dimensions of fols 18-40 - size of written space)
Foliation and/or Pagination: Foliated 18-40. Another hand began the pagination with '35' on fol. 18r but did not continue.
Collation:
Quires: 110 wants 6 after fol. 5, 2-128, 1310, 14-208, 21 one (Ker 1957, p. 423).
Note:
- Parchment matches that of Laud Misc. 509: 'somewhat stiff, with a sheen on hair side' (Doane 2002, p. 45). Scored on hair sides with double bounding lines, and lineated before folding for 26 lines. The first two leaves of Quire 18 are in Laud Misc. 509.
Hand Description
- Number of hands: 1
Hand: main text
The same hand as Scribe 1 of Laud Misc. 509.
- Scope: major
- Scribe: Ker 344 SC1
- Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
- Description: Fols 18-40v. Doane calls this an 'elegant expert hand' (2002, p. 45).
- Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
- e open-headed
- s low or long s used. The long s is not used at the end of a word and has a broken shaft made in two strokes.
- ð has a long upstroke tagged to the left at the top, the cross-stroke not transecting the upstroke.
- descenders the ends turn to the left.
Initials in red and silver, silver titles.
The title 'incipit prologus alfrici monachi vita sancti guthlaci' (fol. 18r) added in the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century, along with running heads in the same hand. Robert Cotton's signature is on the tope of fol. 18r.
Nineteenth-century binding. The previous Cottonian binding included Cotton's 'armes and claspes in 4to', according to a list of Cotton's loans of books in British Library, Harley 6018, fol. 148v.
Bound with (fols 1-17) Nennius, Historia Brittonum (s. xii)1 and (fols 41-71) Sedulius, Hymns and Carmen Paschale (s. x1?).
Additional Information
Described by Hollie Morgan with the assistance of Sanne van der Schee; ed. by Takako Kato (2010; 2013).
Digital surrogate: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_vespasian_d_xxi_f018r (accessed 18 July 2018)
Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), vol. 7: Anglo-Saxon Bibles and 'The Book of Cerne'
History
Origin:
Unknown.
Provenance:
Part of the Old Royal collection, Westminster, before 1542 (Carley 1992, p. 64), then part of Laud Misc. 509. The manuscript was dismembered and rebound in its present combination by 1606, as on 20 December 1606: 'Nennius and Vita Guthlaci 8(0) was lent to Camden(British Library, Harley 6018, fol. 154r).
Acquisition:
Acquired by the British Museum along with the rest of the Cotton collection.
Unknown
Bergman, Iohannes, ed., Aurelii Prudentii Clementis Carmina, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 56 (Vienna and Leipzig: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1926)
Carley, James C., 'The Royal Library as a Source for Cotton's Collections: A Preliminary List of Acquisitions', British Library Journal, 18.1 (1992), 52-73
Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Studies (Series) (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), vol. 7: Anglo-Saxon Bibles and 'The Book of Cerne'
Gonser, Paul, ed., Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben des hl. Guthlac, mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen und Miniaturen, Anglistische Forschungen, 27 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1909; repr. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1966)
Henricus, Fros, ed., Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, Novum Supplementum. (Brussels: Society of Bollandists, 1898-1901, 1911; repr. Subsidia Hagiographica 70. 1986)
Huemer, Iohannes, ed., Sedulii Opera Omnia, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 10 (Vienna: Gerold, 1885)
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 344
---- , 'Membra Disiecta ', British Museum Quarterly 12 (1937-1938), 130-35
Mommsen, Theodorus, ed., Historia Brittonum cum additamentis Nennii, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctorum Antiquissimorum, 13, Chronica Minora, 3. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1898)
Morris, John, ed., Nennius, British History and The Welsh annals, History from the Sources, 8 (London and Chichester: Phillimore; Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980)
Roberts, Jane, 'An Inventory of Early Guthlac Materials', Mediaeval Studies, 32 (1970), 193-233
Hollie Morgan