The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Orietta Da Rold

London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. xii

Pater Noster

Date: s. xiiex

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 1841-43, p. 204; Ker 1957, p. 279).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fol. 184v

   Title (B.12.4.1): Pater Noster

   Incipit: (fol. 184v) Fader ure þe giert on heofona

   Explicit: (fol. 184v) sy hit sƿo

   Text Language: English

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, p. 279

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: fragment

Support: parchment

Extent: Fols 136r-184v

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

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

Collation:

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

Layout description:

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. xiiex.

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. xiiex

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 Sanne van der Schee, and further notes by Takako Kato (2010; 2012).

Surrogates:

EM Project facsimile

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

---, 'The Beginnings of Salisbury Cathedral Library', in Books, Collectors and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage, ed. by Andrew G. Watson (London; Ronceverte, WV: 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 (Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 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; http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/ms-17)

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

Wright, T., and J. O. Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, 2 vols (London: John Russel Smith, 1841-43)