The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Hollie Morgan and Takako Kato

London, British Library, Harley 2961

[Inscription] in Leofric Collectar

Date: s. xi3/4

Summary:

According to Ker (1957, p. 308), this manuscript used to contain an Old English donation inscription, as suggested by the note by Samuel Knott on fol. 1: '...extant fragmenta subscripsionis Saxonicæ in laceris extremi folii reliquiis quibus opinor testatum (?) fuit Leofricum eundem donasse'. The section containing Old English is now missing. The inscription might have been on the verso of the final leaf of text, as it is in Auct. F. 1. 15 and CTC B. 11.2.

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: missing

   Title (B.16.10.5): Exeter: Leofric Inscriptions: missing

   Text Language: English

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, p. 236

History:

Origin: Written in Exeter.

Provenance: Given to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric, probably the Collectaneum in the list of his gifts (Exeter Book, p. 35). Knott passed the manuscript to Robert of Burscough, rector of Totnes, who passed it to Harley on 17th May, 1715.

Acquisition: Acquired by the British Museum along with the other Harley manuscripts in 1753.

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Description by Hollie Morgan and Takako Kato (August 2010).

Surrogates:

The English inscription is now missing.

Bibliography:

Förster, Max, R. W. Chambers, and Robin Flower, eds, The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry: Facsimile (London: for the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral by Humphries, 1933)

Bishop, Terence Alan Martyn, 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts, Part III: Mss. Connected with Exeter', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 2.2 (1955), 192-99

Dewick, E. S. , ed., The Leofric Collectar with an Appendix Containing a Litany and Prayers from Harl. MS. 863. (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1914), vol. 1

---, The Leofric Collectar Compared with the Collectar of St. Wulfstan, Together with Kindred Documents of Exeter and Worcester (London: Harrison, 1921), vol. 2

Drage, E., 'Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter, 1050-1072: A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence' (unpublished D. Phil.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

Förster, Max, 'The Donations of Leofric to Exeter', in The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry: Facsimile (London: for the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral by Humphries, 1933), pp. 10-32

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 236

Warren, F. E., The Leofric Missal as used in the Cathedral of Exeter during the episcopate of its first bishop, A.D. 1050-1072. Together with some account of the Red book of Derby, the Missal of Robert of Jumièges, and a few other early manuscript service books of the English church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883)