York, Minster Library, Additional 1
1
General Information
402
774
Textual additions in English, s. xi1-2, on the last six leaves of The York Gospels produced probaby in s. x/xi in Canterbury. The additions occupy the space left blank in the last quire of the gospel-book, which originally contained only the closing words of St John's Gospel on the recto of its first leaf (fol. 156). The Gospels were in York by s. xi.
These six leaves contain 'York: Survey of Lands', Napier 1883 [1967], no. 59: 'Sermo Lupi', Napier 1883 [1967], no. 60: 'Be hæðendome', Napier 1883 [1967], no. 61: 'Be cristendome', Bidding Prayers (the earliest extant vernacular examples: see Keynes in Alexander et al. 1986, p. 97), 'York: Writ of Cnut', 'York: List of Sherburn's Treasures', and 'York: List of Archbishop Ælfric Puttoc's "festermen".' The 'York: List of Sureties', fol. 161v, beginning 'Ðis sindan þa festermen. Elfricas ...' is dated by Ker (1957, item 402) to s. xi2.
The manuscript, as a whole, was given to Wulfstan I, possibly by Cnut and Emma in about 1020; it was subsequently owned, in the eleventh century, by Wulfstan's successors. The three homilies among his latest compositions and the later additions are among the very few hands one might ascribe to the York area in this period.
- Item: fols 156v-57v
Title (B.16.24.1.1.EM): York: Survey of Lands: Sherburn-in-Elmet
Incipit: (fol. 156v) Đis is seo socn into scyreburna
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
- Item: fols 156v-57v
Title (B.16.24.1.2.EM): York: Survey of Lands: Otley
Incipit: Into ottenleage .IIII. ploga-land
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
- Item: fols 156v-57v
Title (B.16.24.1.3.EM): York: Survey of Lands: Ripon
Incipit: Æt rypum ærest milegemet
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
- Item: fols 158r-v
- Item: fol. 159r
Title (B.3.4.49): Anonymous Homilies [for unspecified occasions, published]: Napier 1883 [1967], no. 60: 'Be hæðendome'
Rubric (initial): (fol. 159r) Be hæðendome
Incipit: (fol. 159r) Nemo cristianorum 'uel nullus cristianus' paganas...Eala mycel is nydþearf manna gehwylcum
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
- Item: fol. 159v
Item: fols 160r-v
Title (B.14.29): Cnut, 1020
Incipit: (fol. 160r) Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscop. and his leodbiscopas
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
Item: fol. 161r
Title (B.16.24.3): York: List of Service Books
Incipit: (fol. 161r) Þis syndon þa cyrican madmas on scirburnan
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
Item: fol. 161v
Title (B.12.4.2): Bidding Prayers
Incipit: (fol. 161v) + Wultan we gebiddan god ealmihtine
Text Language: English
Bibliography:
Ker 1957, item 402
- Item: fol. 161v
Object Description
Codex
Support: Parchment
Extent:
- 270 mm x 205 mm (dimensions of last quire of manuscript - size of leaf)
- 228 mm x 133 mm (dimensions of last quire of manuscript - size of written space)
Collation:
Quires: The quire containing the Old English consists of three bifolia. The manuscript collation is as follows: 12 bifolium (blank) (fols 1-2); 24 probably two bifolia (repaired) (fols 3-6); 32+1 bifolium (repaired) + singleton (fols 7-9); 45 singleton + bifolium (repaired) + 2 singletons (fols 10-14); 5-188. Most bifolia have been repaired (fols 15-126); 196? 1 cut out, 2, 5, 6 singletons, 3/4 bifolium (fols 127-131); 20-228 (fols 132-155); 232 disjunct (fols 156-157); 244 1 and 4 probably a bifolium, now disjunct (fols 158-161); | 254 (fols 162-165); 262 bifolium (fols 166-167).
Condition: All the leaves in the final quire are covered, recto and verso, by repair mesh. Heslop 2004 argues that the quire was made expressly for the Gospel volume c. 1020, at the time of the Cnut document.
Note: Double vertical bounding lines, blind ruled; the top three lines extend across the page on some folios, with only the top two extending across the folio at fol. 160. At fol. 161v, there are 29 lines of script. The earlier articles in the quire are written in the same hand and inks as the preceding Wulfstan items; the accommodation of these four items requires a two- rather than one-bifolia supplement; its sewing-holes are the same as the Gospel's, showing that it was never part of any other book, and the rust stain of a nail once holding the book clasp is visible, running from fol. 159 to its last sheet, showing that it was the final sheet of the completed, bound Gospel book (Doane 2007, p. 139).
Hand Description
Number of Hands: 1 from the period 1060-1220
Summary: fol. 161v
Scope: sole
Scribe: Ker 402 art. f
Script: Late eleventh century
Description: fol. 161v. The aspect of this hand is round and upright, and more laterally expansive than the preceding hands. The ink is quite black.
Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
- a is single-compartment, and either round or tear-drop shaped. There are no examples of æ in this hand.
- b has a rounded bowl.
- Insular, round-backed d, but the back is higher than earlier eleventh-century examples of English minuscule.
- The e is quite distinctive: it is very round, with a small bowl.
- The f is also quite distinctive: the medial stroke is longer than the headstroke and has a tendency to curve upwards.
- The minims are often quite uneven, and occasionally have serifs to the right.
- Insular r has a narrow, quite angular shoulder, and curves upward at the end.
- Both long and low forms of s are used.
- The majuscule A is half-uncial in form.
- The lower bowl of majuscule B is larger than the upper.
- The majuscule E is rustic capital in form. ascenders are tagged to the left.
- ascenders of b, l and ð tend to be higher than those of other graphs.
- descenders are straight but turn to the left at the very end.
Punctuation: Punctuation consists of a punctus, placed above the base line. Occasional accents are used.
Abbreviations: The abbreviation mark is zig-zagged. The ˥ is very straight, with a 90º angle at the descender. The very end of the descender curves slightly to the left.
The book probably lost its medieval silver-gilt cover about 1547 at the time of the royal injunction for episcopal inventories and subsequent confiscations. It was presumably rebound more simply at the time. Rebound in 1678 in reversed calf over paste-boards with no lettering on the spine. As a note on fol. ir recto reveals, the 1678 covers are preserved as York, Minster Library, MS Add. 1A. Rebound again by K. Phillips of the British Museum in full dark brown undecorated morocco, on spine in gold capitals 'THE | YORK | GOSPELS'. Kept in a box now. The shelfmark appears on the inner front cover.
Additional Information
Described by Elaine Treharne with the assistance of Hollie Morgan (2010; 2012).
Surrogates:
Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and David Rollason, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), vol. 14: Manuscripts of Durham, Ripon, and York
Alexander, Jonathan, Patrick McGurk, Simon Keynes, and Bernard Barr, ed. by Nicholas Barker, The York Gospels, Roxburghe Club (London, 1986)
History
According to Doane the manuscript was probably produced at Christ Church, Canterbury, as fol. 23v was executed in the known hand of the Christ Church scribe Eadui Basan (1012-1020s), though St Augustine's is a possibility (2007, p. 135).
Provenance: The manuscript was at York in s. xi1, as can be seen from the Old English surveys of three Yorkshire estates. Because the manuscript survived the fire of 1069, Norton 2004 argues that the book was not kept at the Minster but at the estate of the York archbishops at Sherburn-in-Elmet, mentioned in the surveys. York-related documents continued to be recorded until the late sixteenth century, and was used as an oath-book for the chapter, s. xiii-xv.
Acquisition: During the period of the Civil Wars, or the Commonwealth, the Gospels appear to have left York, because in 1678 they were returned by the executors of the will of Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, who had died nine years earlier (Barr in Alexander et al. 1986, pp. 11-12).
Canterbury Christ Church
Alexander, Jonathan, and others, eds, The York Gospels (London: The Roxburghe Club, 1986)
Baxter, Stephen, 'Archbishop Wulfstan and the Administration of God's Property', in Wulfstan, Bishop of York: The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, ed. by Matthew Townend (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 161-205
Bethurum, Dorothy, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957)
Bradshaw, Henry, and Christopher Wordsworth, eds, Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892-97)
Brown, Michelle P., 'Review of Alexander et al. The York Gospels: A Facsimile with Introductory Essays', The Book Collector, 38 (1989), 551-55
Davis, H. W. C., Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, Vol. 1: Regesta Willelmi Conquestoris et Willelmi Rufi, 1066-1100 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913)
Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and David Rollason, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), vol. 14: Manuscripts of Durham, Ripon, and York
Dugdale, William, and others, Monasticon Anglicanum, or, The history of the ancient abbies, and other monasteries, hospitals, cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales. With divers French, Irish, and Scotch monasteries formerly relating to England (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1846; http://www.archive.org/details/monasticonanglic00dugd, accessed 24 July 2018)
Fallow, T. M., 'The Victoria History of the Counties of England, York', ed. by William Page (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 336-45
Gameson, Richard, 'The Colophon of the Eadwig Gospels', Anglo-Saxon England, 31 (2002), 201-22
Gilson, J. P., Description of the Saxon Manuscript of the Four Gospels in the Library of York Minster (York: Printed to the order of A.H. Barron, Chapter Clerk of York, 1925)
Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), item 774
Heslop, T. A., 'Art and the Man: Archbishop Wulfstan and the York Gospel-book', in Wulfstan, Bishop of York: The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, ed. by Matthew Townend (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 279-308
[Illingworth, W.], ed., Placita de quo warranto temporibus Edw. I, II, et III in curia receptæ scaccarij Westm. asservata ([London]: Record Commission, 1818)
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 402
---, 'The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan', in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. by Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 315-31
Liebermann, F., ed., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen , 3 vols (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1903), vol. 1: Text und Übersetzung
Napier, Arthur Sampson, ed., Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen uber ihre Echtheit, Sammlung englischer Denkmaeler in Kritischen Ausgaben, 4 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1883)
Norton, Christopher, 'York Minster in the Time of Wulfstan', in Wulfstan, Bishop of York: The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, ed. by Matthew Townend (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 207-34
Pfaff, Richard W., 'Eadui Basan: Scriptorum Princeps?', in England in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Carola Hicks (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992), pp. 267-83
Raine, Angelo, Mediaeval York: A Topographical Survey based on Original Sources (London: John Murray, 1955)
Raine, James, ed., The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, Rolls Series 71, 3 vols (London: Longman, 1879, 1886, 1894; repr. Wiesbaden: Kraus, 1965)
Raine, James, and Henry Bradshaw, eds, The Statutes, etc., of the Cathedral Church of York, 2nd edn (Leeds: Richard Jackson, 1900)
Robertson, A. J, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 2nd edn (1939; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939)
Scragg, Donald, Alexander Rumble, and Kathryn Powell, C11 Database Project (Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/mancass/c11database/). Available for limited viewing on the Internet Wayback Machine.
Stevenson, W. H., 'Yorkshire Surveys and other Eleventh-Century Documents in the York Gospels', English Historical Review, 27 (1912), 1-25
Thompson, E. M., and others, eds, Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, etc, New Palaeographical Society, Series 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1903-12)
Townend, Matthew, ed., Wulfstan, Archbishop of York: The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 10 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004)
Whitelock, Dorothy, 'Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut', English Historical Review, 63 (1958), 433-52
Whitelock, D., M. Brett, and C. N. L. Brooke, eds, Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), vol. I: A.D. 871-1204, Part I: 871-1066
Wordsworth, John, and Henry J. White, eds, Nouum Testamentum Domini Nostri Iesu Christi Latine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889)
Elaine Treharne