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Add MS 34124
- Record Id:
- 032-002025100
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002025100
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000054.0x000141
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100064568033.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 34124
- Title:
- Vita Prima Sanctae Brigidae
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the oldest and best copy of the Vita Prima Sanctae Brigidae (The First Life of St Brigit), which survives in 26 complete copies and 1 fragmentary copy. The Vita Prima is one of the earliest lives of St Brigit of Kildare (b. 439/452, d. 542/526), patron saint of Kildare, that was composed in the 7th or 8th century. This copy was produced at the Benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuern (Bavaria) around the mid-9th century. The fact that the Vita Prima circulated in Southern Germany in such an early stage can be explained by the fact that missionary Irish monks had been travelling to the Continent from the late 6th century onwards, bringing relics and copies of the lives of Irish saints with them (see Walz, ‘Einleitung’ (2009), pp. 21-26).
Contents:
ff. 1v-124v: Vita Prima Sanctae Brigidae.
The manuscript contains a later addition:
f. 1 r: A necrology, added in an 11th-century script.
f. 124v: Office for Pope Alexander I (d. c. 115), ‘A[ntiphona] Nontimeo [ve]rbera · A[ntiphona] S[an]c[tu]s pr[ae]sul · A[ntiphona] Missus a[u]t[em] · A[ntiphona] Preciosus Christi martir Alexand[er]’, added in an 11th-century script.
f. 1 r: ‘Vita b[eate] Brigitte virginib[us]’, added in a 15th-century script.
[f. 128r and f. 128v are blank].
Decoration:
Small red initials (many oxidized) with decorative dots inside their letters.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002025100", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 34124: Vita Prima Sanctae Brigidae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002025100
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002025100
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100064568033.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0830
- End Date:
- 0870
- Date Range:
- Mid 9th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 130 x 80 mm (text space: 100 x 55 mm).
Foliation: ff. 124 ( + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end); 2 parchment stubs between f. 124 and f. [125]; f. [125] was f. ‘128’ in the old foliation (crossed out); 1 unfoliated paper pastedown on f. [ii] recto (bibliographical note).
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: Post-1600: 18th-century gold-tooled black half leather binding (German), the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘VITA S. BRIGIDAE’; marbled endpapers; red fore-edge.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Benediktbeuern, Southern Germany.
Provenance:
The Benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuern (Bavaria), founded in 739-740: indicated by the script (see Bischoff, Katalog, II (2004), p. 101 (no. 394)).
? The Benedictine abbey of Ottobeuren (Bavaria), founded in 764; suggested by office of St Alexander, added in an 11th-century script on f. 124v: St Alexander is the Abbey's patron saint (see Bischoff, Katalog, II (2004), p. 101 (no. 394)); added obits on f. 1r, featuring the German names 'Adalbit' and 'Adelwib' (see Esposito, ‘On the Early Latin Lives of St Brigid of Kildare’ (1935), pp. 148-50).
An unknown (?) 19th-century English owner: A strip from an auction catalogue pasted on f. [iii] verso: ‘502 Brigittæ (S) Vita, an early manuscript upon vellum, curious’.
Rev. Thomas William Carson (b. 1834, d. 1895), collector of bookplates, between 1876 and 1892: a transcript of Add MS 34124 was copied by William Reeves (b. 1815, d. 1892), antiquary and bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore, in Trinity College Library, MS 1104; Reeves has noted on a flyleaf that the manuscript was owned by Carson: ‘Vita S. Brigitae Virginis, copied by Wm. Reeves D.D. from a 9th century MS., written on the Continent, and now (1876) in the possession of the Revd. Thomas Carson, son of the late Bishop of Kilmore’; purchased from him by the British Museum (see the note on f. [ii] recto: ‘Purchased of Re – T.W. Carson, 15 Feb. 1892’) for £45.0.0.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
John Colgan, Triadis thaumaturgae, seu divorum Patricii, Columbae et Brigidae, trium veteris et maioris Scotiae, seu Hiberniae sanctorum insulae, communium patronorum acta (Louvain: Coenestenium, 1647), 527-42 [for an edition of the text: Tertia S. Vitae Brigidae].
Acta sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, vel a catholicis scriptoribus celebrantur, 68 vols (Antwerp: Société des Bollandistes, 1643–1940), 3 (1658): Februarius, I, ed. by Jean Bolland and Godfrey Henschen [for an edition of the text].
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1888-1893 (London: British Museum, 1894), p. 207.
Mario Esposito, ‘Notes on Latin Learning and Literature in Medieval Ireland, IV: On the Early Latin Lives of St Brigid of Kildare’, Hermathena, 24:49 (1935), 120-65 (pp. 148-50) [repr. in Latin Learning in Mediaeval Ireland, ed. by Michael Lapidge, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 285 (London: Variorum, 1988)].
Seán Connolly, ‘Vita prima Sanctae Brigitae: A Critical Edition’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University College Dublin, 1970).
Seán Connolly, ‘The Authorship and Manuscript Tradition of Vita I Sanctae Brigitae’, Manuscripta, 16:2 (1972), 67–82.
Felim Ó Briain, 'Brigitana', Zeitschrift fur Keltische Philologie, 36 (1978), 112-37 (p. 120).
Kim McCone, 'Brigit in the Seventh Century: A saint with Three Lives?', Peritia, 1 (1982), 107-45.
Richard Sharpe, 'Vita S. Brigitae: The Oldest Texts', Peritia, 1 (1982), 81-106.
Seán Connolly, 'Verbal Usage in Vita Prima Brigitae and Bethu Brigte', Peritia, 1 (1982), 268-72.
Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature 400-1200 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1985), no. 352.
Seán Connolly, ‘Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae: Background and historical Value’, Journal of the royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 119 (1989), 5-49 (p. 6) [with an English translation of the Vita Prima].
Richard Sharpe, Medieval Irish Saints' Lives: An Introduction to Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 15.
David Howlett, ‘Vita I sanctae Brigidae’, Chronicon, 1 (1997), 1-31.
David Howlett, 'Vita I sanctae Brigitae', Peritia, 12 (1998), 1-23.
Daniel McCarthy, ‘The Chronology of St Brigit of Kildare’, Peritia, 12 (2000), 255-81.
Daniel McCarthy, 'Topographical Characteristics of the Vita Prima and Vita Cogitosi Sanctae Brigitae', Studia Celtica, 35 (2001), 245-70.
Laurance Maney, 'The Date and Provenance of Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae', Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 23 (2003), 200-18.
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998-2014), II (2004): Laon-Paderborn, ed. by Birgit Ebersperger, p. 101 (no. 2394).
Joseph-Claude Poulin, 'Les libelli dans l’édition hagiographique avant le XIIe siècle', in Livrets, collections et textes: Études sur la tradition hagiographique latine, ed. by Martin Heinzelmann, Beihefte der Francia, 63 (2006), 15-193 (p. 77).
Jakobus Kaffanke and Dorothea Walz, ‘Einleitung’, in Irische Mönche in Süddeutschland: Literarisches und kulturelles Wirken der Iren im Mittelalter, Lateinische Literatur im deutschen Südwesten, 2 (Heidelberg: Mattes, 2009), 9-26 (p. 25).
Dorothea Walz, ‘Unter dem König kracht der Wagen: Die »erste« lateinische Vita der heiligen Brigit von Kildare’, in Irische Mönche in Süddeutschland: Literarisches und kulturelles Wirken der Iren im Mittelalter, Lateinische Literatur im deutschen Südwesten, 2 (Heidelberg: Mattes, 2009), 49-112 (pp. 59-60).
Karina Hochegger, 'Untersuchungen zu den ältesten Vitae sanctae Brigidae' (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Vienna, 2009), p. 83 n. 157 [with an edition and German translation of the text].
Dorothy Ann Bray, ‘A Preliminary Analysis of its Composition’, in Narrative in Celtic Tradition: Essays in Honor of Edgar M. Slotkin, Celtic Studies Association of North America Yearbook, 8-9 (New York: Colgate University Press, 2011), 1-15.
Nathalie Stalmans, Saints d’Irlande: Analyse critique des sources hagiographiques (VIIe-IXe siècles) (Rennes: Rennes University Press, 2015), pp. 55-90 n. 60; 269-287.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.