The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Orietta Da Rold and Mary Swan

London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A. x

MS Items

fols 3r-92r, fol. 92v, fols 92v-100v, fol. 100v, fol. 100v, fols 101r-v, fols 102r-04v, fols 104v-06r, fols 106r-10r, fols 110r-41v, fols 141v-42r, fols 142r-48r, fols 115v-16r, fol. 116r, fol. 116r, fol. 116r, fol. 116r and fols 148r-51v.

Physical Description

Object Description

Hand Description

Decoration Description

Binding Description

History

Additional Information

Administration Information

Surrogates

Bibliography

Back to List of MSS and Descriptions

Ælfric's Grammar, &c. and Rule of St Benedict, &c.

Date: fols 3-101 s. xi2; fols 102-51 s. xii1; annotations s. xii2-ex

Summary:

Made up of two parts:

Part 1, fols 3-101: fols 3-100 contains Ælfric's Grammar and Glossary , beginning on fol. 3 'gif hƿa þas boc'. Portions of the text are missing due to loss of leaves (fols 82-87). The glossary begins on fol. 92v. The text was corrected in s. xi/xii, and heavily annotated in several hands towards the end of the twelfth-century in Latin, Anglo-Norman and English. The Latin annotations are mainly marginal; the Anglo-Norman and English are glosses to words added at this time, especially to the glossary (see Zupitza 1880 and Ker 1957, p. 194, for a transcript Hunt 1991, pp. 101-11). Running titles are in Latin. Fols 100v-101v contain a proverb and two maxims in Latin and Old English from the eleventh century (see Zupitza 1880, p. 285 and Dobbie 1942, p. 109); a proverb: 'Ad traem dixit pereant tot buffo magistri. þa tadda cƿ to þar éiþa Forƿurþa sƿa fola maistres' written in the second half of the twelfth-century, and some Latin grammatical dialogue and maxims (Ker 1957, p. 194; Doane 2007, pp. 4-6).

Part 2, fols 102-51: Æthelwold's translation of the Rule of St Benedict in Old English: 'Her beginð seo forespræc muneca regules' (fols 102-48), beginning 'Gehyr þu min bearn geboda þines lareowes'. Fols 104v-06r contain a table of 74 chapters which only occurs in this copy of the Old English version. Chapter 7 of the Rule is divided into two parts, both in the table and the text, which are numbered VII and VIII. Annotations to the number of the items are written out: 'an tƿa þreo feower fif' by a contemporary hand, and 'sex sofana æhta nigon tin' by a late twelfth-century hand. Each chapter in the text is preceded by its title. In the table of contents and the titles of the chapters the forms are masculine, but in the text are many examples of feminine gender which have been erased and rewritten as masculine (see Schroer 1885-88). According to Ker 1957, the manuscript was 'evidently a version for nuns [that] has been altered for the use of monks' (p. 195). Some words and sentences are glossed occasionally in Latin. The lower parts of fols 115v and 116r, which were originally blank, now contain two recipes for eyesalve; a charm 'ƿiþ utsiht'; three charms in Latin; and later twelfth-century English recipes (see Cockayne 1864-66, iii, p. 292). Fols 148-51v contain the only surviving copy of An Account of King's Edgar's Establishment of Monasteries originally composed in the tenth century, and here beginning 'geard mid þæm leoman þæs halgan geleafan'. Fols 148-49 contain a number of marginal and interlinear annotations, most of which are marked for insertion in the main text, and most of which come from Ælfric's Homily on St. Gregory from the First Series of Catholic Homilies (see, Godden 1979, ix, pp. 71-80, and Ker 1957, p. 195, Swan 2000, pp. 76-78, and Swan 1993, pp. 160-64 for a discussion of the textual sources of the annotations and their relationship to the main text, and pp. 318-21 for a transcription of the annotated section of the main text and the marginal annotations).

Manuscript Items:

Item: fols 3r-92r
Item: fol. 92v
Item: fols 92v-100v
Item: fol. 100v
Item: fol. 100v
Item: fols 101r-v
Item: fols 102r-04v
Item: fols 104v-06r
Item: fols 106r-10r
Item: fols 110r-41v
Item: fols 141v-42r
Item: fols 142r-48r
Item: fols 115v-16r
Item: fol. 116r
Item: fol. 116r
Item: fol. 116r
Item: fol. 116r
Item: fols 148r-51v

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: codex

Extent: Fols 1-151

c. 220 mm x 145 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

c. 187 mm x c. 103 mm (dimensions of Part 1: fols 3-101, size varies, but all slightly larger than part 2 - size of written space)

c. 175 mm x c. 95 mm (dimensions of Part 2: fols 102-51 - size of written space)

Foliation and/or Pagination:

Fols vi + 149 + v, foliated (i-iv), 1-151, (152-56).

Fols (i-iv), 1, 2, (152-6) are post-medieval parchment and paper. An old foliation of perhaps s. xii occurs at the foot of the rectos of fols 3-36, 41, 51, 61, 62, 71, 81, 89 as follows: ii-xxxxv, xl, l, lx, l, x, xx, xxx. They are written in a similar hand to Royal 15. B. xxii, but appear in the right corner of the rectos.

Collation:

Quires:

Collation of fols 3-151: 18 wants 1 before fol. 3, 2-108, 118 wants 1 before fols 82 and 8 after fols 87, 128, 136 wants 6, probably blank, +1 leaf after 4 (fol. 100), 148, 1512 wants 3-5 after fol. 111, 1610, 1712, 186, 19 five (fols 147-51). A leaf is missing after fol. 81 and after fol. 87. Ker 1957 (p. 196) notes that 'fols 104-07 are two bifolia formed by folding in half two leaves of a larger manuscript which was ruled but not written on: the old ruling runs vertically down the page'.

Layout description:

Written in 28 long lines (27 in Quire 16), frame in dry point and double bounding lines on both side of the frame. External pricking to guide the ruling of the lines.

Hand description:

Number of hands:

Summary:

Grammar and Glossary

Rule of St Benedict

Ker 1957

Hand:

Scope: major
Script: Insular Minuscule
Ker reference: Ker 154 scribe 1
Description: Fols 3-101. A round and regular insular script with occasional Caroline features, which does not distinguish between Caroline and insular letter forms. This hand also shares some similarities with Royal 15. B. xxii, perhaps through training.
Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
a is Caroline in the combination æ.
Long s is regular initially and medially but not finally.
The cross-bar of ð is usually nearly horizontal and sometimes inclines slightly downwards from left to right. Tall tapered ascender curving to the left
descenders: tapered descenders with a serif which turns to the left, except p, which ends with a flat foot.
Abbreviations:
The common mark of abbreviation is cup-shaped.
Other manuscripts:
- Hatton 115, fols 1-64v, 66-139v (see also Ker 1957).
Date: s. xi2

Hand:

Scope: major
Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
Ker reference: Ker 154 scribe 2
Description: Fols 102-51 (except lower parts of 115v and 116v). A regular, angular hand mixing insular and Caroline features.
Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
a Caroline.
descenders: tapered descenders with sharp, short serifs to the left.
ascenders: flat, upright ascenders which thick strokes.
Punctuation:
hypens curl upwards.
Date: s. xii1

Hand:

Scope: minor
Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
Ker reference: Ker 154 scribe 3
Description: Fols 115v lower half and 116r lower half. A similar hand to the main hand of the Rule of St. Benedict on fols 102-51.
Date: s. xii1

Hand:

Scope: minor
Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
Ker reference: Ker 154 scribe 4
Description: Fol. 116r top and right-hand margin. Another hand including English and Latin additions.
Date: s. xii2

Decoration Description:

Fols 3-101, red initials, titles in red rustic capitals, some capitals tinted in red.

Fols 102-51, green and red initials.

Binding Description:

Rebound in nineteenth-century; nail-mark from a former binding on fols 149-51.

History:

Origin:

Unknown

Provenance:

Part 1 was probably written in the same scriptorim as Hatton 115 (Ker 1957, p. 196). Parts 1 and 2 have probably been together since the twelfth-century: the annotations on fols 92v and 103 are by the same hand (see also Hunt 1991, p. 111). The contents of the manuscript suggest a south-east origin; perhaps Rochester or Christ Church, Canterbury (Treharne 1998, pp. 232-33). The manuscript probably travelled 'to Worcester in the twelfth-century, and was reorganised there' (Swan 2007, p. 39).

Acquisition:

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

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

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

Surrogates:

EM Project facsimile

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), vol. 15

Bibliography:

Cockayne, Oswald, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1864-66; repr. Wiesbaden: Kraus, 1965)

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), vol. 15

Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942)

Hickes, George, Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archaeologicus, 5 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1705)

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 331

Godden, Malcolm, ed., Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series; Text, EETS, SS 5 (London: Oxford University Press, 1979)

Hunt, Tony, Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century England: Volume 1, Texts; Volume 2, Glosses; Volume 3, Indexes (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991)

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 154

Laing, Margaret, Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1993), p. 76

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

Luscombe, D., and C. Burnett, 'A New Student for Peter Abelard: The Marginalia in British Library MS Cotton Faustina A. X', in Itinéraires de la raison: Études de philosophie médiévale offertes à Maria Cândida Pacheco, ed. by J. F. Meirinhos, Textes et Études du Moyen Âge, 32 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération Internationale des Instituts d'Études Médiévales, 2005), pp. 163-86

Menzer, Melinda J., 'Multilingual Glosses, Bilingual Text: English, French, and Latin in Three Manuscripts of Ælfric's Grammar', in Old English Literature in its Manuscript Context, ed. by Joyce Tally Lionarons, Medieval European Studies 5. (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2004), pp. 95-119

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

Robinson, J. A, The Times of St. Dunstan (1923)

Scragg, Donald, Alexander Rumble, and Kathryn Powell, C11 Database Project (Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/mancass/c11database/; accessed in 2009)

Storms, G., ed., Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1948; repr. Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Library Editions, 1975)

Schröer, Arnold, ed., Die angelsächsichen Prosabearbeitungen der Benediktinerregel, rev. with a supplement by Helmut Gneuss, 2nd edn (Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 2; Kassel 1885-1888; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964)

Swan, Mary, 'Ælfric as Source: The Exploitation of Ælfric's Catholic Homilies from the Late Tenth to Twelfth Centuries' (unpublished unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds, 1993)

---, 'Ælfric's Catholic Homilies in the Twelfth century', in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. by Mary Swan and Elaine M. Treharne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 62-82

----, 'Mobile Libraries: Old English Manuscript Production in Worcester and the West Midlands, 1090-1215', in Essays in Manuscript Geography: Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century, ed. by Wendy Scase (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 29-42

Treharne, Elaine M., 'The Dates and Origins of Three Twelfth-Century Old English Manuscripts', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage, ed. by Philip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 227-53

Whitelock, Dorothy, M. Brett, and Christopher N. L. Brooke, eds, Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church: A.D. 871-1204, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981)

Wright, Thomas, Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets, Rolls Series, 59 (London: Longman, 1872)

Zupitza, Julius, ed., Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar: Text und Varianten, 2nd edn (1880; Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung Max Niehans Verlag, 1966)