Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??

Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...

Add MS 24640

Record Id:

032-002031922

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002031922

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000043.0x00009d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 24640

Title:

Medulla grammaticae

Scope & Content:

The manuscript contains an imperfect copy of the Medulla grammaticae, a fifteenth-century Latin-English dictionary. It is missing the prologue and entries at beginning, and entries at the end.

Several other manuscript copies of the Medulla grammaticae survive: British Library, Add MS 33534, Add MS 37789 (bound with the Promptorium parvulorum), 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 deriuationem and Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae.

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

The contents of the manuscript are as follows:

f. 1r: a note by 'J.O.H.' (James Orchard Halliwell) pasted onto an endleaf.

ff. 2r-30r: 'A' (opens imperfectly with 'Abhominarium').

ff. 30v-37r: 'B'.

ff. 37r-68r: 'C'.

ff. 68r-82r: 'D'.

ff. 82r-96v: 'E'.

ff. 96v-111r: 'F'.

ff. 111r-117v: 'G'.

ff. 117v-123r: 'H'.

ff. 123r-139v: 'I'.

ff. 139v-140r: 'K'.

ff. 140r-151v: 'L'.

ff. 151v-154v: 'M' (ends imperfectly with 'Mantica').

f. 155r: verse: 'Anno Milleno quadragentesimo trino / Bellum Salopie fuit in Mag. nocte marie'. The Battle of Shrewsbury was fought on 23 July 1403; the festival of St Mary Magdalene occurred on 22 July. The verse is repeated below by a later hand, and is now partially erased.

Decoration:

Plain initials in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-002031922", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 24640: Medulla grammaticae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002031922

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-002031922

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:

Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.

Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.

Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.

If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.

This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.

User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 260/270 x 170 mm (text space: 190 x 90 mm).

Foliation: ff. 155. Folio 1 is the fourth modern paper endleaf at the front of the volume, to which is affixed a manuscript note by 'J.O.H.' (James Orchard Halliwell). (Plus three blank, unfoliated, modern paper endleaves at the beginning of the volume, and four at the back).

Collation: i^8-2 (ff. 2-7; 1st and 2nd leaves missing before f. 2), ii⁶ (ff. 8-13), iii-iv⁸ (ff. 14-29), v⁶ (ff. 30-35), vi-xix⁸(ff. 36-147), xx^8-1 (ff. 148-154), xxi¹ (f. 155).

Script: Gothic cursive (Anglicana).

Binding: British Museum in-house: brown morocco with gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Partially erased inscriptions, mid-15th century (f. 155r).

William Oakes Hunt (b. 1795, d. 1874), solicitor and clerk of Stratford-upon-Avon: given by him to James Orchard Halliwell (see below).

James Orchard Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps) (b. 1820, d. 1889), antiquary and literary scholar: the following note (f. 1) in his hand and bearing his initials is pasted onto a front endleaf:

'This MS. was given to me by Mr W.O. Hunt of Stratford-on-Avon, April 23rd (Shakespeare's birthday) 1862. I accepted it on the condition that I was to be at liberty to sell it, adding the proceeds to the Shakespeare Fund. J.O.H.'

Purchased by British Museum from Halliwell, 17 May 1862 (note by Sir Frederic Madden (fourth unfoliated front endleaf).

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, lii.

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years MDCCCLIV-MDCCCLXXV (London: by order of the Trustees, 1877), p. 90.

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 [on the text].

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.

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].

Marvin Spevack, 'James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps and the British Museum Library', British Library Journal, 23 (1997), pp. 237-58 (p. 252).

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:

Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard, antiquary and literary scholar, 1820-1889,
see also http://isni.org/isni/000000010895785X
Hunt, William, solicitor, 1795-1874

Related Material:

From the Catalogue of Additions (1877), p. 90:

'MEDULLA grammatica: a Latin-English vocabulary, attributed to Galfridus Grammaticus. Imperfect, extending from "abhominarium" to "mantica." See Albert Way's "Promptorium Parvulorum," 1843-1865, vol. iii. p. lii. On f. 155 are two Latin lines containing the date of the battle of Shrewsbury, 1403. Vellum xvth cent. Small Folio.'