The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Takako Kato

Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 23

Continuous Glosses

Date: s. ximed-2

Summary:

A continuous gloss to the Roman version of the Psalms (fols 5-250v) and glosses to Canticles (fols 251-74), s. ximed. According to Ker 1957, the gloss 'is given parity with the text and is not properly an interlinear gloss' (p. 11). Later in s. xi, sixteen Old English glosses were added in black ink.

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 5-250v

   Title (C.7.1): Gloss to Psalms

   Text Language: English

   Note: Sixteen Old English glosses were added in black ink later in s. xi.

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, p. 11

2. Item: fols 251-74

   Title (C.11.1): Gloss to Canticles of the Psalter

   Text Language: English

   Note: The Te Deum, Nunc dimittis, Gloria, Pater noster and Credo (fols 267-70) are not glossed.

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, p. 11

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Support: Parchment. Flyleaves are parchment from the date of binding.

Extent: According to Ker 1957:

ca. 270 mm x 160 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

250 mm x 113 mm (dimensions of all - size of written space)

Foliation and/or Pagination: Fols iii + 278 + iii, now foliated 1-284. An incorrect sixteenth-century pagination, partly in red pencil, was followed by Wildhagen 1910.

Collation:

Quires: According to Ker 1957, collation of fols 4-281: 18 (wants 1, perhaps blank, before fol. 4); 2-348; 358 (wants 8, probably blank, after fol. 281).

Note:

The red ink on fols 5v-11 has faded in places and been retouched (Ker 1957, pp. 11-12).

Layout description:

32 long lines. The gloss is in red ink on ruled lines, line for line above the Latin text, in a script the same size as that of the Latin text.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 3

Summary: Most of the text, both Latin and Old English, is copied by one scribe, whose hand is 'large and clumsy', according to Ker 1957, resembling that of CTC B. 15. 34. The first page (fol. 5r) is in another, rounder, hand. Latin and Old English are distinguished only on the first page and the following two pages.

Sixteenth glosses were added later in s. xi. See Ker 1957, p. 12, and Wildhagen 1910, footnotes to pp. 34. 37, 298, 331, 332, 348, 358 and 359.

Decoration Description:

Titles are in green rustic capitals. There are some coloured initials and full-page drawings, described and sometimes reproduced in Wormald 1945, pls. 1a, 6d, 7b, c; Wormald 1952, pls. 20-21, and Kendrick 1949, pl. 74.

Binding Description:

Sixteenth-century gold-tooled binding.

Accompanying Material:

The words 'to ye Lord Keper' in Parkerian red pencil and a printed armorial book-plate with the words 'N. Bacon eques auratus et magni sigilli Angliae Custos librum hunc bibliothecae Cantabrig. dicauit. 1574' are on the front pastedown.

History:

Origin: Ker 1957 suggests that the manuscript is perhaps from Winchcombe, because Kenelm's name is in majuscules and he precedes the other English martyrs in the litany (p. 12). Gneuss 2001 suggests Christ Church, Canterbury or possibly Ramsey (item 4).

Provenance: Unknown.

Acquisition: Given by Archbishop Parker to Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, and by Bacon to Cambridge University in 1574.

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Takako Kato with the assistance of Hollie Morgan and Sanne van der Schee, with reference to published scholarship (2010; 2013).

Surrogates:

Kendrick, T. D., Late Saxon and Viking Art (1949), pl. 74

Robinson, Pamela R., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 737-1600 in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1988), pl. 17

Wormald, F, 'Decorated Initials in English MSS from A.D. 900-1100', Archaeologia, 91 (1945), 107-35, pls. 1a, 6d, 7b, c

Wormald, Francis, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London: Faber and Faber, 1952), pls. 20-21

Bibliography:

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 4

Kendrick, T. D., Late Saxon and Viking Art (1949)

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 13

Lindelöf, U, Studien zu altenglischen Psalterglossen, Bonner Beiträge zur Angelistik, 13 (1904)

Robinson, Pamela R., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 737-1600 in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1988), I, item 29

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)

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

Wildhagen, K., Der Cambridger Psalter, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, 7 (Hamburg: Grand, 1910)

Wormald, Fransis, 'Decorated Initials in English MSS from A.D. 900-1100', Archaeologia, 91 (1945), 107-35

---, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London: Faber and Faber, 1952)