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Add MS 33534

Record Id:

032-002024379

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002024379

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000054.0x000099

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 33534

Title:

Medulla grammaticae

Scope & Content:

The manuscript contains a complete copy of the Medulla grammaticae, a fifteenth-century Latin-English dictionary.

Several other manuscript copies of the Medulla grammaticae survive: British Library, Add MS 24640, Add MS 37789 (bound with the Promptorium parvulorum), Add MS 62080, Harley MS 1000, Harley MS 1738, Harley MS 2181, Harley MS 2257, Harley MS 2270; Bristol, University Library, MS DM 1 (fragment), MS DM 14; Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys MS 2002; Cambridge, St John's College, MS C.22 (72); Canterbury, Cathedral Library, MS D.2; Downside Abbey, MS 26540; Gloucester, Diocesan Record Office, MS 31 (fragment); Lincoln, Cathedral Library, MS 88, MS 111; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Holkham Misc. MS 39, Rawlinson MS C.101, Rawlinson MS D.913 (fragment); Oxford, Brasenose College, MS UB S.2.87-88 (fragment); Shrewsbury School, MS 16; Stonyhurst College, MS 15 (A.1.10).

Six other lost or unlocated copies are noted by McCarren, 'Bristol University MS DM 1', Traditio, 48 (1993), p. 224.

The author of the Medulla grammaticae is not known. The text is often confused with the Promptorium parvulorum, not least because of the inclusion of 'Medulla grammaticae' as an alternative title in early printed editions of the Promptorium. As a result, authorship of the Medulla is often mistakenly attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian: for example, annotations in Lincoln, Cathedral Library, MS 88, assign Geoffrey's name, plus the otherwise unattested surname of Starkey, to the contents.

No sources are explicitly mentioned in the Medulla, however comparative studies have indicated several likely candidates: glossae collectae from the Bible and classical texts, the vocabulary (class glossary) or nominale, and medieval Summae and encyclopaedia, such as Huguccio of Pisa's Liber derivationem and Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae.

Albert Way asserted that 'the date of this MS...may be about 1460' (see Way, Promptorium parvulorum, III, p. l). This date has been generally followed in published studies of the Medulla, however there is no firm evidence for attributing a date of production any more specific than the mid-15th century.

The manuscript was copied by two hands: the first copying ff. 4r-75v, the second ff. 75v-119v.

In this manuscript, the opening of each section and subsection (Ca, Ce, Ch, etc) are denoted by a red initial.

The contents of the manuscript are as follows:

f. 2v: pasted-in slip of paper, possibly a note attached to the manuscript by Thomas Rodd the Younger, bookseller: summary details of the manuscript's contents. The notes make the doubtful claim that it is the 'oldest of its kind extant' and follow Thomas Hearne in assigning its authorship to Richard Francis (see Peter Langtoft's Chronicle, ed. by Hearne (1725), II, p. 625). This attribution is likewise doubtful.

f. 3r: Robert Gaguin, Gaguinus orator Gallus contra Anglos (title from Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.2.53, f. 65v). Begins: 'Siccine tam crebris frustra conventibus anglos'. Ends: 'In generum expectas proferat arma soter'. These verses and the response that follows were written early in 1490, following the failure of a French embassy in February, and must have been added to the manuscript shortly afterwards.

f. 3r: Pietro Carmeliano, Petri Carmeliani scribe Angli carmen responsum (title as above). Begins: 'Conveniunt Gallos crebris conventibus Angli'. Ends: 'Bella geras pacem Gallia victa...' (last word lost due to trimming).

(f. 3v: blank).

ff. 4r-19v: Prologue to the Medulla grammaticae; 'A'.

ff. 19v-23v: 'B'

ff. 23v-41v: 'C'.

ff. 41v-48v: 'D'.

ff. 48v-55v: 'E'.

ff. 55v-63r: 'F'.

ff. 63r-66v: 'G'.

ff. 66v-69r: 'H'.

ff. 69r-76v: 'I'.

f. 76v: 'K'.

ff. 76v-80r: 'L'.

ff. 80r-84v: 'M'.

ff. 84v-86r: 'N'.

ff. 86r-88v: 'O'.

ff. 88v-97r: 'P'.

ff. 97v-98v: 'Q'.

ff. 98v-101r: 'R'.

ff. 101r-110v: 'S'.

ff. 110v-115r: 'T'.

ff. 115r-119r: 'U/V'.

f. 119r: 'X'.

ff. 119r-119v: 'Y'.

f. 119v: 'Ȝ'.

Decoration:

Plain initials in red.

A pen drawing of Christ Resurrected, rising from a tomb (f. 1v).

Grotesques incorporated into fancy ascenders (ff. 5v-75v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-002024379", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 33534: Medulla grammaticae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002024379

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-002024379

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

Parchment codex

Digitised Content:

Languages:

English, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1430

End Date:

1470

Date Range:

Mid 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Dimensions: 265/275 x 190 mm (text space: 200/215 x 140 mm).

Foliation: ff. 120. Plus a slip of 19th-century paper with notes, pasted to f. 2v.

Collation: i² (ff. 2-3), ii-x⁸ (ff. 4-75), xi-xiii¹² (ff. 76-111), xiv^10-2 (ff. 112-119; 9th and 10th leaves cancelled).

Script: Gothic hybrid (Bastard anglicana, ff. 4r-75v); Gothic (Secretary, ff. 76r-119v).

Binding: Pre-1600, probably medieval. Oak boards covered in brown leather, with two straps (only partially surviving); evidence on rear cover of labels/bosses, now removed.

Custodial History:

Origin: England (not in the Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval England, ed. by McIntosh and others, 4 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986)).

Provenance:

William Barker: inscribed, mid-15th century, with the following note (f. 1r):

'Brothur William Barkere I pray youe lett thys booke be bound at the utmost by myddyll Lent and my brother shall pay for the byndyng.'

Inscription (f. 120r) 'Thys ys Rychard [...] ys boke' and 'Rychard'; late 15th-early 16th century.

Albert Way (b. 1805, d. 1874), antiquary: purchased around 1841 from the bookseller, Thomas Rodd the Younger (b. 1796, d. 1849) (see Way, Promptorium parvulorum (1865), p. l). The manuscript is inscribed with the following, in pencil (f. 2r): 'Rodd 3R.t'.

Presented to the British Museum on 15th April 1889 by Mrs Emmeline Way, wife of Albert Way (f. 2v).

Publications:

Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum: Lexicon Anglo-Latinum Princeps, auctore Galfrido Grammatico Dicto e predicatoribus Lenne episcopi, Northfolcensi..., ed. by Albert Way, Works of the Camden Society, 25, 54, 89, 3 vols (London: Camden Society, 1843-65), III, pp. l-li.

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years MDCCCLXXXVIII-MDCCCXCIII (London: by order of the Trustees, 1894), p. 48.

Peter Haworth, 'The First Latin-English Dictionary: A Bristol University Manuscript', Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 45 (1923), 253-75, pls I-II (pp. 254, 257) [on the text].

H.L.R. Edwards, 'Robert Gaguin and the English Poets, 1489-90', Modern Language Review, 32 (1937), 430-34 (pp. 431-33).

DeWitt T. Starnes, Renaissance Dictionaries: English-Latin and Latin-English (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1954), pp. 5-6, 9, 25-37, 39, 42, 129, 132, 135-36, 367n., 368n., 379n.

Gabriele Stein, 'The English Dictionary in the 15th Century', in Logos Semantikos: Studia Linguistica in Honorem Eugenio Coseriu, 1921-1981, ed. by Horst Geckeler and others, 5 vols (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1981), I: Historia de la Filosofía del Lenguaje y de la Lingüística, ed. by Jürgen Trabant, pp. 313-22 (pp. 315-18).

Gabriele Stein, The English Dictionary before Cawdrey, Lexicographia: Series Maior, 9 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1985), pp. 74-90.

Graham C.G. Thomas, 'A Lost Manuscript of Thomas Saint, Archdeacon of St David's, 1500-1513', National Library of Wales Journal / Cylchgrawn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, 24 (1986), 309-38 (pp. 325-26, 338n).

David Carlson, 'Politicizing Tudor Court Literature: Gaguin's Embassy and Henry VII's Humanists' Response', Studies in Philology, 85 (1988), 279-304 (pp. 297-300).

Vincent P. McCarren, 'Bristol University MS DM 1, A Fragment of the Medulla Grammatice: An Edition', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, 48 (1993), 173-235 [on the text].

Vincent P. McCarren, 'The Gloucester Manuscript of the Medulla grammatice: An Edition', The Journal of Medieval Latin, 10 (2000), 338-401 [on the text].

Vincent P. McCarren, 'Linguistic Problems within the Tradition of the 15th Century Glossary Medulla Grammatice', Bulletin Du Cange, 60 (2002), 235-60 [on the text].

Reiko Takeda, 'Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS O.5.4: A Fifteenth-Century Pedagogical Dictionary?', in Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research: Papers from the International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, at the University of Leicester, 2002, ed. by Julie Coleman and Anne McDermott, Lexicographia: Series Maior, 123 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004), pp. 11-18 (pp. 11, 13-14, 17).

Vincent P. McCarren and others, 'A Prolegomenon to the Stonyhurst Medulla: An Edition of the Letter "A"', Bulletin du Cange, 65 (2007), 45-116 [on the text].

Florent Tremblay, A Medieval English-Latin Dictionary: Based on a Set of Unpublished 15th Century Manuscripts [of the] 'Medulla Grammaticae'/'Marrow of Grammar' kept in the British Museum (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009) [on the text].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Barker, William, member of a religious order, fl mid-15th century
Carmeliano, Pietro, poet and royal official, c 1451-1527
Gaguin, Robert, diplomat, philosopher and humanist, ?1433-1501
Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, 1457-1509
Rodd, Thomas, bookseller, 1796-1849
Way, Albert, antiquary, 1805-1874
Way, Emmeline, wife of Albert Way, 1809-1906

Related Material:

From the Catalogue of Additions (1894), p. 48:

'MEDULLA Grammatice ": a Latin-English Dictionary, with a short prologue, beg. "Hec est regula generalis pro toto libro," attributed to the author of the English-Latin "Promptorium Parvulorum," Galfridus Grammaticus, a Friar-preacher of Lynn Episcopi, co. Norfolk, circ. 1440. This and other copies are described by Albert Way, Promptorium Parvulorum, Camden Soc., 1843-1865, vol. iii. App. p. 1. On the fly-leaves are inscribed:-

" Brothur Wylliam Barkere, I pray youe lett thys booke be bound at the vtmost by myddyll-lent, and my brother shall pay for the byndyng." f. 1 ;-A rude drawing of Christ rising from the tomb. f. 1 b;-Three epigrams in elegiacs on abortive attempts at peace between England and France, beg. (1) " Siccine tam crebris frustra commentibus (sc. conventibus) Anglos "; (2) " Conveniunt Gallos crebris commentibus (sic) ADglos "; and (3) " Desine, si sapias, placidos stimilare [Britaiinos]." f. 3. The first of these epigrams is said to have been written by Robert Gaguin, French ambassador to England in 1490, the others being answers to it (see B. André's " Vita Henrici VII.," Memorials of K Hen. VII, ed..J. Gairdner, Rolls Series, 1858, p. 56; and Notes and Queries, Ser. ii., vol. viii., 1859, pp. 411, 540). This leaf, f. 3 (with f. 2), did not originally form part of the volume, having been cut down at the side to make it fit, whereby a word at the end of each of the four lines of the third epigram is lost. Vellum ; ff. 119. In double columns, with rubricated initials, a marked change of hand occurring at f. 76. Bound in thick bevelled boards, covered with leather. Small Folio. Presented by the Hon. Mrs. [Emmeline] Way, widow of Albert Way.'

Further information from previous catalogue description:

'Medulla Grammaticæ: a Lat.-Engl. dictionary: 15th cent.

Dictionaries: Medulla Grammaticæ:: 15th cent.: Latin-English.

includes:

f. 1 William Barkere: Directions to, for binding a MS.: 15th cent.
f. 3 Political and Satirical Poems: On abortive attempts at peace between England and France: circ. 1490.: Lat.
f. 3 Robert Gaguin: Epigram by, on his embassy to England: in 1490.: Lat.
f. 3 France General Chronicles and History, etc: Epigrams on abortive attempts at peace with England: circ. 1490.: Lat.
f.3 Henry VII of England: Epigrams on abortive attempts at peace with France: circ. 1490.: Lat.'