The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

described by Orietta Da Rold

London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. xii

Pater Noster

Date: s. xii ex

Summary:

A manuscript containing twenty-seven miscellaneous items, including prognostications, calendars, letters and a penitential mainly in Latin (see, British Library Catalogue and Wallis 2007).

The last part of the manuscript includes a copy of the Penitential of Bartholomew of Exeter on fols 136r-184v, including the table of contents. The Pater Noster in Old English is inserted on fol. 184v2/22 in a blank space at the end of the Penitential: 'Fader ure þe giert on heofena [...] sy hit sƿo'. (Morey 1937, p. 300; Wright and Halliwell 1841-3, p. 204; Ker 1957, p. 279).

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Fragment

Support:

Extent: fols 136-184v

Damaged by fire; the best preserved leaves measure ca. 200 x 144 (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

172 x 120 (dimensions of all - size of written)

Foliation and/or Pagination:

Collation:

Quires: Impossible to determine a collation as all leaves were individually mounted after the manuscript was damaged by the Cotton Fire.

Note:

The penitential is written on two columns, 10 mm apart, scored 34 lines in lead, probably with single bounding lines.

Hand Description:

Number of hands: 1

Summary: The Pater Noster is written by the same hand as the penitential, s. xii ex.

Methods of Correction:

Hand: Pater Noster
• Scope: major
• Script: Gothic
• Ker reference: Ker 214
• Description: fols 136-184v. A thick, gothic script, which adopts insular forms in the Pater Noster.
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand: Caroline a, e and h in the English text (see also, Ker 1957, p. 279).
• s long.
• descenders: the ends curve to the left.
• g, insular.
• f, insular cross bar to the left.
• y, dotted.
• Date: s. xii ex

Decoration Description:

Capitals in red and green, rubrics in red in Penitential of Bartholomew of Exeter. Both the Penitential of Bartholomew of Exeter and the Pater Noster have tinted capitals in red.

Additions:

Cottonian table of contents on fol. 2r.

History:

Origin:

Unknown.

Provenance:

The earlier parts of this manuscript have been associated with texts and scribes from Salisbury Cathedral ( Ker 1985, Gameson 1999, n. 419 for fols 4-77 and Chardonnens 2007, p. 73, n. 20). However, the penitential and the Pater Noster still remain unlocalised. The manuscript was in the Cotton library in 1621, see the inventory: British Library, Harley 6018.

Acquisition:

Acquired by the British Museum along with the rest of the Cotton collection .

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Orietta Da Rold with the assistance of Hollie Morgan, and further notes by Takako Kato (April 2010).

Bibliography:

Chardonnens, László Sándor, Anglo-Saxon Prognostics, 900-1100: Study and Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2007)

Gameson, Richard, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1999)

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 214

Ker, N. R., 'The Beginnings of Salisbury Cathedral Library', in Books, Collectors and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage, ed. by Andrew G. Watson (London; Ronceverte, W. Va.: Hambledon Press, 1985), pp. 143-73

Manuscripts Catalogue (British Library, http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/; accessed in 2010)

Laing, Margaret, Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1993), p. 84.

Morey, S. A., Bartholomew of Exeter, Bishop and Canonist (1937)

Planta, J., A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Deposited in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1802)

Wallis, Faith, 'Related Manuscripts', in The Calendar and the Cloister: Oxford, St. John's College MS17 (McGill University Library. Digital Collections Program, 2007), pp. http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/ms-17

Wanley, H., Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (1705)

Wright, T., and J. O. Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, 2 vols (1841-3)