Egerton MS 3721

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1951-1955, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1982), I, no. Eg. 3721:

'ST AUGUSTINE, extracts from his De Trinitate, etc., preceded by a calendar from St Albans Abbey, co. Hertf., in Latin, compiled circ. 1119- 1146. See A. G. Watson, Catalogiie of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, c.

700-1600, in the Department of Manuscripts, The British Library, 1979, i, no.

627. The contents are as follows:-(1) Calendar of St Albans Abbey, written circ. 1119-1146, preceded (f. 1b) by some compotistical notes in red, green, and black (probably indicative of grading). Closely resembles that in Royal MS. 2 A.x, ff. 2-7b (collated by F. Wormald, English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, i, 1938, pp. 31-45), but differs therefrom in omitting the Feast of Relics (27 Jan.), the Conception of the Virgin (8 Dec.), and the Dedication of St Albans Abbey (29 Dec.), as well as the Translations of SS. Thomas of Canterbury (7 July) and Edward the Confessor (13 Oct.) (which are, however, 14th cent. additions to Royal 2 A.x), and by including not only the feasts of SS. Botolph (17 June), Leo the Great, Pope (28 June), and Alexius (17 July), which appear in later St Albans calendars, but also the feast of St Juliana (16 Feb.), which is not found in other calendars of this house. The feasts of SS. Alphege (19 Apr.) and Mark (25 Apr.), and the entry 'Et letania maior' on 25 Apr. are additions made in the first hand of art. 3 below. The feast of St Katherine (25 Nov.), the ordination-day of Geoffrey of Le Mans, Abbot of St Albans 1119-1146 (see Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H. T. Riley, Rolls series, i, 1867, p. 75), appears to be exceptionally highly graded, being written in both red and green. Apart from such gradings, the calendar did not originally contain liturgical notes, though notes of nine lessons, etc., have been added to certain feasts in Jan. and Feb. (f. 2) in a 13th cent. hand, presumably indicating that by then the volume had passed out of monastic possession. The title 'papa', where it occurs, has been erased. ff. 2-7b;-(2) St Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, I, chh. viii, 8-x, 10, and part of ch. xi, 11 (cf. Migne, Patr. Lat., xxxiv, cols. 22, 23). ff. 8- 8b;-(3) Extracts from St Augustine, De Trinitate (headed in a hand of circ. 1400 'Extractum de libro Augustini de trinitate') (cf. Migne, op. cit., xlii, cols. 819-1097 passim). The division between the extracts is generally indicated by 'Item' (sometimes preceded by paragraph mark), and each book is numbered in the margin. Parts of two extracts from Book XV, chh. xi, 20 (f. 77), and xxiir, 43 (ff. 83b-84), repeated by mistake, have been deleted in red, and two extracts from Book XV, ch. xx, 39, and ch. viii, 14, omitted from the body of the text, have been added at the end (ff. 85b-86). ff. 9- 86;-(4) Marbodus of Angers, Bishop of Rennes (d. 1123), Hymn on the twelve precious stones of the Apocalypse. Beg. 'Siues (sic for Clues, the marginal guide-letter being misread by the rubricator) celestis patrie'; ends imperf. 'uitam signet angelicam. discretione preditam' (the last four verses are wanting, as also is v. 7). The present text differs from those printed by G. M. Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, ii, pp. 94, 95, and Migne, op. cit., clxxi, cols. 1771, 1772. See also C. U. J. Chevalier, Repertorium Hymnologicum, no. 3271. ff. 86-86b. Vellum; ff. iii+86. 162 mm.xIIO mm. Circ. 1119-1146. Gatherings of eight leaves (v') (no catchwords). The hand of art. I appears on pp. 67, 68 of the Albani Psalter at Hildesheim and in marginal notes in Harley MS. 2624, ff. 5-46b; the names 'de Brabazon' and 'de Brohille' are written with a plummet at foot of f. 7 in a 13th cent. hand. Art. 2 is written in a hand resembling that of art. 1; notes in a 13th cent. hand occur on f. 8b. Art. 3 is in two hands, viz.:-(a) The first (ff. 9-33b) is the same as that of Cotton Ch. xi. 8 (dated circ. 1145), Royal MSS. 12 G.xiv and 2 A.x (the main hand), and Saltykov Shchedrin Library, Leningrad MS. Q.v.l, 62, ff. 1-6b, which contains a St Albans calendar very closely resembling that of Royal 2 A.x, ff. 2-7b (see A. Staerk, Les Manuscrits Latins du V^e au XIII^e siècle conservés à la Bibliothèque Imperiale de Saint-Pétersburg, 1910, i, pp. 274, 275, and ii, pl. xcvi, where the page of this calendar for the month of August is reproduced); the first hand is also found in Harley MS. 865 in a note on f. 1b and in headings added passim;-(b) The second (ff. 34-86), somewhat more developed than the first, closely resembles that of Royal 2 A.x, ff. 124, 125. The text of art. 3 runs on without a break at the change of hand, which occurs after the first leaf of the only gathering of six leaves in the volume. On f. 76 is a correction, apparently in the first hand. The initial 'N' on f. 9, illuminated in red, blue and gold (and resembling the initials in Royal MS. 4 D.vii) is a 12th- 13th cent. repainting over an earlier, contemporary initial; on ff. 16, 42, 50b, 59b, and 72 are pen-work initials in red and green (cf. Royal MS. 2 A.x). Each book of art. 3, originally numbered in the text or in the margin in words or Roman numerals, also has an Arabic numeration added at the top of the page, possibly in the same hand of circ. 1400 as the heading on f. 9, although the form of '2' found, e.g. on f. 63, would be unusual after the mid 14th cent. (see Sir G. F. Hill, The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe, 1915, pp. 34, 38). The chapter references in 15th cent. Arabic numerals in the margins of ff. 10-12 differ from those given in Migne, op. cit., xlii, cols. 822- 834. Marginal notes have been added to ff. 9-38 in a small hand of the second half of the 13th cent., and to ff. 35b, 46, 49, 76 in a 14th cent. hand. Art. 4 is written in a hand resembling the first hand of art. 3, but thinner, and has penwork initials in red and black. The manuscript has been cropped, apparently when rebound in the 18th cent., and at least one leaf is missing at the end. A late 16th cent. hand has made two entries of births in the calendar and some marginal notes elsewhere in the MS. Bookplate (f. iii) with cypher 'SM' (repeated) and surmounted by crests of (1) a flaming mountain and (2) a pelican in her piety (cf. A. W. Franks, Catalogue of British and American Bookplates, no. 21511). On f. I is signature of John Brough Taylor, F.S.A. (elected 1813), the editor of R. Hegge's Legend of St Cuthbert. Item 90 in an unidentified French sale-cat., aft. 1892 (f. ii).'.