The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Hollie Morgan and Takako Kato

London, British Library, Additional 28188

Litanies

Date: s. xi2

Summary:

Litanies in a Pontifical (fols 1-76v) and Benedictional (fols 77r-166v) text. They are, according to Dewick, an 'East Anglian type adapted for use at Exeter Cathedral' (1921, pp. 613-18). The greater litany contains the names of numerous Anglo-Saxon saints, including saint Ægelflæd, an abbess of Romsey, who also occurs in the lesser litany.

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 2-4v, 7r

   Title (B.18.12.EM): Lists of Kings, Saints, and Bishops in Litanies

   Text Language: Latin, with names of English saints.

   Other versions of the text: The litanies are also found in London British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.vii, fols 17v-18r, 20r, copied in s. xi1 (Ker 1957, item 213).

   Bibliography:

   Dewick 1921, p. 615

   Drage 1978, p. 357

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Support: Parchment. Flyleaves are modern paper.

Extent:

181 mm x 120 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

130 mm x ca. 80 mm (dimensions of all - size of written)

Foliation and/or Pagination: Fols [ii], 1-166, [ii].

• Foliated in pencil 1-166.
• Paginated in ink in the top right hand corner of the rectos and top left hand corner of the versos 1-269, 269-333. The paginations on the rectos have been crossed out in pencil.

Collation:

Quires: 1-98, 105, 11-158, 1610, 17-218.

Fol. 153 is blank and glued at the inner edge to fol. 152. Fols 1r and 166v are stained and worn, suggesting that the manuscript was unbound for a long time. Drage suggests that the manuscript may originally have been designed as 'two booklets' (Pontifical and a Benedictional), which were 'easily portable' (Drage 1978, p. 359).

Layout description:

Ruled in drypoint for 19 lines. Double bounding lines 3 mm apart on each side. Coloured initial capitals are placed between the left bounding lines. The horizontal lines are 4 mm apart. The top two and bottom two lines transect the bounding lines and run to the edge of the page.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1 for the Old English

Summary: Written by two scribes. The first scribe started each of the three sections (Pontifical, Blessings for the Temporale Masse and Blessings for the Sanctoral and Commune Sanctorum Masses), and the second scribe completed them. The first scribe copied: fols 1-75r/3; 77r-99v/10 and 127r-154v. The second scribe copied: fols 75/4-76v; 99v/11-126v and 155r-166v. The litanies with Anglo-Saxon names were copied by the first scribe.

Hand: Main text
• Scope: Major
• Script: Caroline Minuscule
• Ker reference: not in Ker
• Description: Fols 1-75r/3; 77r-99v/10; 127r-154v.
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand: There is no major distinction between Latin and English names.
• a is Caroline.
• æ is used.
• d is insular, rounded.
• h is Caroline.
• g is Caroline; its loop finishes open.
• Tall s is used medially and finally. Sometimes its descender extends below the writing line.
• þ is not used.
• ð is not used.
• ƿ is not used.
• descenders finish straight.

Decoration Description:

• Initials are in red, blue, green or metallic red.
• Rubrics are in red, blue, orange or green.

Binding Description:

A note on the pastedown says the manuscript was 'Bound April 1956'. Red leather with gilt letters on the spine that reads 'Benedictionale | Sec. Usum Angl. | BRIT. MUS. | Additional MS 28,188'. Each quire is now mounted onto an individual guard.

Accompanying Material:

The back of the last flyleaf has written in pencil '166 Fol's. W. L. May 1870 4° [xxx]'.

History:

Origin: The litanies were written in Exeter.

Acquisition: A note on the flyleaf says the manuscript was 'purchased of the Rev. J. C. Jackson 7 October 1869' by the British Museum. This note corresponds to the name 'Johan C. Jackson' in the top right hand corner of fol. 1r.

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Hollie Morgan and Takako Kato (2010; 2013).

Bibliography:

Bishop, T. A. M., 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts; Part III: MSS. Connected with Exeter', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 2.2 (1955), 192-99

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

Dewick, E. S., The Leofric Collectar Compared with the Collectar of St. Wulfstan, Together with Kindred Documents of Exeter and Worcester. 2, ed. by W. H. Frere (London: Harrison, 1921)

Drage, E., 'Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter, 1050-1072: A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Oxford, 1978)

Frere, W. H., Pontifical Services, Alcuin Club Collections, 3 (London: Longmans, 1901), p. 96

Gasquet, Abbot, and Edmund Bishop, The Bosworth Psalte: An Account of a Manuscript Formerly Belonging to O. Turville-Petre Esq. of Bosworth Hall Now Addit. MS. 37517 at the British Museum (London: George Bell and Sons, 1908), p. 48, n. 2

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 286

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), note in item 213

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