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Add MS 28188
- Record Id:
- 032-002019524
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002019524
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000037.0x000208
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100058079607.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 28188
- Title:
-
Pontifical with litanies and benedictional (imperfect)
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a partial Pontifical and a partial Benedictional. The manuscript's distinctive 'Exeter-style' script and the presence of saints especially venerated at Exeter in the litanies, like Pancras and Sativola/Sidwell, suggest it was made at Exeter Cathedral between about 1050 and 1072, during the episcopacy of Leofric (d. 1072). The secondary scribe of this manuscript was the main scribe of the Leofric Psalter (British Library Harley MS 863) (Pfaff, 'Liturgical Books' (2012), p. 453). (On manuscripts copied by Exeter scribes, see Gameson, 'The Origin of the Exeter Book' (1996), pp. 144-45.) The Benedictional is notable for its large number of original or substantially reworked benedictions: of the 170 blessings, only 14 have been found in older collections (Prescott, 'Structure of English Pre-Conquest Benedictionals' (1987), p. 130).
The manuscript seems to have been created as part of Bishop Leofric of Exeter's programme of book production at Exeter between about 1050 and 1070 (see Treharne, 'Producing a Library in Late Anglo-Saxon England' (2003), p. 158). The structure of its texts has also been linked to Benedictionals produced in Winchester (Prescott, 'Structure of English Pre-Conquest Benedictionals' (1987), p. 130). Meanwhile, the presence of East Anglian saints like Botulph, Oswald, and Ivo in the litanies might suggest the text was influenced by East Anglian exemplars (see Pfaff, 'Liturgical Books' (2012), p. 454). The appearance of St Ægelflæd, who shares her name with an abbess of Romsey, in both the greater and lesser litanies has led earlier scholars to suggest a link with Romsey, but this cannot be proven (Dewick and Frere, Leofric Collectar (1918), p. 615).
Contents include:
ff. 1-76: a Pontifical, including two Litanies (ff. 2r-4v).
ff. 77-166: a Benedictional, imperfect, beginning with the Sundays after Epiphany/Theophany.
Decoration: Painted initials in green, blue, and red throughout.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002019524", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 28188: Pontifical with litanies and benedictional (imperfect)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002019524
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002019524
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
1 parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058079607.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1050
- End Date:
- 1074
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of 11th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment and ink, with painted initials
Dimensions: 195 x 155 mm.
Foliation: ff. 166 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 2 at the end).
Script: English Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum in-house binding. Rebound in April 1956.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Exeter
Provenance: The Cathedral Church of St Peter at Exeter?
Rev. J. C. Jackson, schoolmaster and editor of the Astronomical Register (c. 1827, d. 1895): purchased by the British Museum, 7 October 1869.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1854-75 (London: 1875-80), II, 440-41.
E.S. Dewick and W.H. Frere, The Leofric Collectar, Henry Bradshaw Society, 56, 2 vols (London: Harrison and Sons, 1918), pp. 614-18 [includes an edition of the litanies].
T.A.M. Bishop, 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts, Parts II and III', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 2 (1954-58), 185-99 (pp. 193-97).
J. Brückmann, 'Latin Manuscript Pontificals and Benedictionals in England and Wales', Traditio, 29 (1973), 391-458 (p. 426).
C.E. Hohler, 'Some Service Books of the Late Saxon Church', in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in Commemoration of the Council of Winchester and 'Regularis Concordia', ed. by D. Parsons (London: Phillimore, 1975), 60-83, 217-27 (pp. 73, 224 n. 56).
E. M. Drage, 'Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter 1050-1072: a reassessment of the manuscript evidence' (unpublished doctoral thesis, Oxford University, 1978), pp. 357-58.
N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), pp. 81-82.
Mary Clayton, 'Feasts of the Virgin in the Liturgy of the Anglo-Saxon Church', Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), 209-33 (p. 227).
Andrew Prescott, 'The Structure of English Pre-Conquest Benedictionals', British Library Journal, 13 (1987), 118-58 (pp. 130-31, 133).
Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, Henry Bradshaw Society, 106 (London: Boydell, 1991), no. 9, pp. 67, 132-37 [includes an edition of the litanies].
Patrick Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), pp. 5, 43.
Richard Gameson, 'The Origin of the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry', Anglo-Saxon England, 25 (1996), 135-85 (pp. 145, 183 n. 205).
Nicholas Orchard, The Leofric Missal, Henry Bradshaw Society, 114, 2 vols (London: Boydell, 2002), I, 76 n. 160, 207, 218, 220, 227, 230.
Elaine Treharne, 'Producing a Library in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Exeter, 1050-1072', The Review of English Studies, n.s. 54 (2003), 155-72 (p. 161).
Richard W. Pfaff, 'Liturgical Books', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume I, c. 400-1100 ed. by Richard Gameson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 449-59 (pp. 453-54).
The Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220, ed. by Mary Swan and others, electronic book, 2010-2013, [accessed 9 November 2015].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)