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Add MS 71687
- Record Id:
- 032-001965971
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001965971
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000055.0x0002e6
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100161518930.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 71687
- Title:
-
Aldhelm of Sherborne, De virginitate (prose), with added glosses in Old English
- Scope & Content:
-
This bifolium once belonged to one of the earliest known surviving copies of the prose version of the De virginitate (On Virginity), a treatise on virginity addressed to the nuns of the double monastery at Barking, written by Aldhelm (b. c. 639, d. 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey and Bishop of Sherborne. This fragment contains parts of Chapters 27 and 32 of the work. The Latin text in this copy was originally written in the early 9th century. Glosses in Old English were subsequently added to it during the 2nd half of the 10th century.
The fragment was formerly used as the binding of a copy of Jacobus Bornitius' Emblemata ethico politica (now 637. d. 23), housed in the Department of Printed Books. It was subsequently transferred to the Department of Manuscripts in 1996, along with another fragment of the manuscript (Add MS 50483K). The two fragments are now housed together.
40 folios of the original manuscript now survive in Yale's Beinecke Library (as MSS 401 and 401A). Further fragments can be found in the Bodleian Library (Arch A, f. 131 and Lat. theol. d. 24, ff. 1-2), Cambridge University Library (Add MS 3330), the John Frederic Lewis collection in the Free Library of Philadelphia (MS ET 121), and the Schøyen collection (MS 197, formerly of Ludwig and J. Paul Getty Museum collections).
Contents:
ff. 1r-2v: Aldhelm of Sherborne, De virginitate, in prose, comprising parts of Chs. 27 and 32, with added glosses in Old English.
Decoration:
1 pen-drawn initial touched in red and yellow, with red infills to litterae notabiliores.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001965971", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 71687: Aldhelm of Sherborne, De virginitate (prose), with added glosses in Old English" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001965971
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001965971
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 bifolium
- Digitised Content:
- https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100161518930.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0800
- End Date:
- 0824
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 9th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 190 x 145 mm (written space: 140 x 110 mm).
Foliation: ff. 2.
Collation: Outer bifolium of a quire of 8. Letter 'q' at the foot of f. 2v may be part of an original quire numeration.
Pricked and ruled in hard-point. Single columns of 22 lines in double lines, with horizontal ruling for both head and base-lines.
Script: Insular minuscule.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Canterbury or Worcester.
Provenance:
The fragment was formerly used as the binding of a copy of Jacobus Bornitius' Emblemata ethico politica (now 637. d. 23). The Emblemata was owned by W. Bayntun of Gray's Inn during the 18th century and was purchased by the British Museum from Lady Cayley, 1 July 1841. The original manuscript may have been broken up in order to provide wrappers for printed books in a Brighton bookshop during the early nineteenth century. The fragment was transferred from the Department of Printed Books in 1996.
- Publications:
-
Old English Glosses, ed. by A. S. Napier (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), pp. 175-78.
Aldhelmi Opera, ed. by R. Ehwald, M. G. H. AA, 15 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919), pp. 265-66.
E. A. Lowe, 'Membra Disiecta', Revue Bénédictine, 39 (1927), 185-98 (pp. 191-92).
N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 12.
H. Gneuss, 'Manuscripts written or owned in England up to 1100', Anglo-Saxon England, 9 (1981), 1-60 (p. 54, no. 857).
Anton von Euw and Joachim M. Plotzek, Die Handschriften der Sammlung Ludwig (Cologne: Das Museum, 1982), pp. 66-69.
B. A. Shailor, Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Yale University, ii (Binghampton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1987), pp. 280-84.
Philip G. Rusche, 'Dry-point glosses to Aldhelm's "De laudibus virginitatis" in Beinecke 401', Anglo-Saxon England, 23 (1994), 195-213.
S. Gwara, 'Manuscripts of Aldhelm's Prosa de virginitate and the Rise of Hermeneutic Literacy in Tenth-Century England', Studi Medievali, 35 (1994), 101-59 (pp. 112-18).
Jeremy Griffiths, 'Manuscripts in the Schoyen Collection copied or owned in the British Isles before 1700', in English Manuscript Studies 1100-1700, ed. by Peter Beal & Jeremy Griffiths, 5 (London: British Library, 1995), pp. 36-42 (pp. 39-40).
Helmut Gneuss, 'More Old English from Manuscripts', in Intertexts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Paul E. Szarmach, MRTS 334 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2008), pp. 411-21 (p. 421).
Jayne S. Ringrose, Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library acquired before 1940 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009) pp. 90-91.
G. R. Wieland, 'A Survey of Latin Manuscripts', in Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. by Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2009), pp. 113-57 (p. 150).
Michael Lapidge, 'Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis Abb. et Scireburnensis ep.', in La trasmissione dei testi latini del medioevo: Te.Tra, ed. by Paolo Chiesa and Lucia Castaldi, IV (Florence: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2012), pp. 14-38 (p. 28).
Donald Scragg, A Conspectus of Scribal Hands writing English, 960-1100 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2012), nos. 225-26.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)