The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Orietta Da Rold

London, British Library, Cotton Claudius D. iii

Rule of St. Benedict

Date: s. xiiiin

Summary:

A manuscript containing seven items, including Anglo-Norman verses (see, Dean 1999, ns 344 and 953) inventories and calendars (see, British Library Catalogue). It is uncertain when the manuscript was put together but all items seem to be related to Witney. Item 6, fols 52-140r, is a copy of the Benedictine Rule, IPEMP 98, in alternate chapters of Latin and English, starting at 'Et uerum. Qui habet aures audiendri.' (see, Schröer 1888 and Ker 1957, p. xix).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 52r-140v

   Title (B.10.3.4): Benedict, Rule

   Incipit (Latin): (fol. 52r) [I]n nomine sancte trinitatis incipit unt regule prologas sancti monialium eximii patris beatissimi benedicti abbatis

   Incipit: (fol. 54r) Her onsynð ures halies fæder regolan sanctus Benedictus. Se hur ðu min bearn beboda þines lareoƿes ond onhyld þinre hurte eare

   Explicit (Latin): (fol. 139v) ettunc demum ad maiora que supra commemorauimus doctrine uirtutum que culmina deo protegente preuenies

   Explicit: (fol. 140r) Ece lif to leane ond ƿunung mid gode ealle þam þe þisse regole hlyðelice fyliað

   Bibliography:

   Schröer 1888

   Hanslik 1960

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: codex

Support: parchment

Extent: fols 50-140

340 mm x 245 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

225 mm x 145 mm (dimensions of all - size of written space)

Foliation and/or Pagination: iii (paper)+164+iv (paper).

• Fols 52-162 are paginated on the rectos in pencil 1-221, now cancelled with a strike-through.
• Fols 3-164 are foliated in ink 1-162. These foliations are cancelled with a pencil strike-through.
• There is an attempt to foliate each tenth folio, in ink, in the top outer corners of both the rectos and versos. This foliation is one behind the modern pencil foliation.
• The most recent foliation is in pencil from fol. 1 in the top right hand corners of the rectos, dated May 1848.
• The bottom right hand corners of the rectos also contain a pencil foliation, in a different hand to the others. The bottom and top pencil foliations correspond throughout the manuscript.

Collation:

Quires: iii flyleaves, quires 12, fols 1-2 (a bifolia); 27 (wants 1), fols 3-9; 3-68, fols 10-41; 710, fols 42-51; 8-188, fols 52-139; 19-2010 fols 140-159; 216, wants 4-6, fols 160-162; 222, fols 163-4 (a bifolia); iv flyleaves.

Catchwords: Visible only on fols 9v, 17v, 33v, 41v, 59v and 91v; others missing possibly due to trimming.

Layout description:

Complex layout. Two columns of 32 lines, double inner and outer bounding lines, 9 mm apart, ruled in brown crayon. Each column varying 70-65 mm. Lines 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 15 and 32 run to the edge of the leaf. All other horizontal lines are contained within the outer bounding lines. Further vertical lines are drawn outside of the writing grid, ca. 15mm from the edge of the leaf. Fols 32-3 show pricks to guide ruling inner and outer margins. Writing above the top ruled line.

In the bottom margin of fol. 140 is a rectangle of prick-marks.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1

Hand: Main text
• Scope: Sole
• Script: Gothic
• Ker reference: Ker, p. xix
• Description: Fols 55-140. A large script influenced by gothic textura. Regular body height of squarish proportion with ascenders and descenders which do not extend above or below the line of writing. The appearance of the hand in the Latin and English texts changes. English is written with slightly more elongated ascenders and descenders, and different letter forms. Datable to s. xiiiin, and, as Ker noted, the text probably was written 'soon after the 1200' (Ker 1957, p. xix).
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
• rounded d is regular in English, but rare in Latin.
• g insular g for the spirant and caroline g for the stop in English.
• r insular in English.
• þ used in English only.
• ð used in English only.
• ƿ used in English only.
• Punctuation: Punctuation in English is by dot only. Punctuation in Latin is by dot, punctus elevatus and a tironian mark suspended above a dot.
• Ligatures:
• d and o occasionally bite, but not apparently d and e.
• Abbreviations:
• The nota ˥ is crossed when it stands for 'et', but usually not crossed when it stands for 'and'. However, on fol. 52r there are four cases of crossed ˥ representing 'and'.
• Date: s. xiiiin

Decoration Description:

Red and blue initials, with pen-ink decorations in the other colour.

Additions:

Cottonian table of contents on fol. 2.

Binding Description:

Brown leather binding. The top quarter of the spine is missing.

History:

Origin:

Unknown.

Provenance:

Belonged to the nuns of Whitney in Hampshire.

Acquisition:

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

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Orietta Da Rold with the assistance of Hollie Morgan, Owen Roberson and Johanna Green (2010; 2013).

Surrogates:

Roberts, Jane, Guide to Scripts Used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005), p. 123, reproduction of fol. 78r

Bibliography:

Dean, Ruth J., and Boulton Maureen B. M., Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications Series, 3 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999)

Gneuss, Helmut, 'Die Benediktinerregel in England und ihre altenglische Ubersetzung', in Die angelsächsischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benediktinerregel, ed. by Arnold Schröer (Darmstadt: Wissenschafliche Buchgessellschaft, 1964; repr. in Helmut Gneuss, Language and History in Early England. Variorum Collected Studies Series 559. Variorum: Ashgate Publishing House, 1996, VIII), pp. Appendix, 263-84

Gretsch, Mechthild, 'Æthelwold's Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti and its Latin Exemplar', Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (1974), 125-51

---, Die Regula Sancti Benedicti in England und ihre altenglische Ubersetzung (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1973)

---, 'Die Winteney-Version der Regula Sancti Benedicti: Eine fruhmittelenglische Bearbeitung der altenglischen Prosubersetzung der Benediktinerregel', Anglia, 96 (1978), 310-48

Hanslik, Rudolphus, ed., Benedicti Regula, Corpus Scriptorium Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 75 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1960)

Henderson, Frank, 'Feminizing the Rule of Benedict in Medieval England', Magistra, 1 (1995), 9-38

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), footnotes to p. xix

Laing, Margaret, Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1993), p. 72-73.

Lewis, R. E., N. F. Blake, and A. S. G. Edwards, Index of Printed Middle English Prose (New York and London: Garland, 1985)

---, Index of Printed Middle English Prose (New York and London: Garland, 1985)

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

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

Roberts, Jane, Guide to Scripts Used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005)

Schröer, Arnold, ed., Die Winteney-version der Regula S. Benedicti (Halle: M. Niemeyer, 1888)