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Add MS 23944
- Record Id:
- 032-002097587
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002097587
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000041.0x000383
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100061206031.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 23944
- Title:
- St Augustine, De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia ad Valerium; Contra Julianum
- Scope & Content:
-
This 9th-century manuscript contains De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia ad Valerium (On Marriage and Lust to Valerius) and Contra Julianum (Against Julianus) by St Augustine of Hippo (b. 354, d. 430). The manuscript originates from France, but was in England by the late 11th century, when it served as an exemplar for Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 145 and Salisbury Cathedral MS 138 (see Ker, English Manuscripts (1960), pp. 12-13, 54, 57). It was at the Benedictine abbey of St Mary the Virgin and St Modwenna at Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire in the late 12th century, when a monk added an inventory of the abbey’s library on f. 157v.
Contents:
ff. 1r-36r: Augustine of Hippo, De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia.
ff. 36r-157v: Augustine of Hippo, Contra Julianum.
The manuscript contains two additions:
f. 157v: An inventory of books at the Benedictine abbey of Burton-on-Trent, added in a 12th-century script, beginning ‘Hos habet libros ecclesia Burtone’.
f. 158v: A prayer invoking the Seven Sleepers to benefit the soul of a deceased, added in a 12th-century script, beginning: ‘In nomine sancte et individue trinitatis . in monte celio. ibi requiescunt septem sancti dormiente'.
[f. 158r is blank].
Decoration:
Large and small simple initials in brown ink; display script (rustic and uncial initials) in brown ink; red ink (oxidized) has been added to both initials and display script. Paraph markers in red (ff. 2v-3r). A human figure in brown ink has been added to the margin of f. 134r.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002097587", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 23944: St Augustine, De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia ad Valerium; Contra Julianum" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002097587
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002097587
- 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_100061206031.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0850
- End Date:
- 0874
- Date Range:
- 3rd quarter of the 9th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 285 x 185 mm (text space: 245 x 135 mm).
Foliation: ff. 157 ( + 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); 1 paper pastedown (with bibliographical notes) on f. [iii] recto.
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather binding, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: 'AUR. AUGUSTINI EPISTOLÆ DUÆ AD VALRIUM. EJUSDEM LIBRI VI. CONTRA JULIANUM, PELAGIANUM.'; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Northern France.
Provenance:
The Benedictine abbey of St Mary the Virgin and St Modwenna at Burton-on-Trent, owned in the late 12th century: f. 157v contains an inventory of the abbey’s books, referring to Abbot Bernhard (d. 1174) in the past tense; the fact that the inventory does not include a copy of the Sentences of Peter Lombard (b. c. 1096, d. 1160), suggests that it was written not later than the 1170s (see Sharpe and others, English Benedictine Libraries (1996), p. 34).
An unknown 16th- or 17th-century owner: added marginal notes throughout the manuscript.
William Stevenson Fitch (b. 1792, d. 1859), antiquary and thief: his sale, London, Sotheby & Wilkinson, 29 November 18859, lot 224 (see note on f. [iv] recto and the sale catalogue); purchased by Thomas and William Boone for £ 26.0.0.
Thomas Boone (b. 1790, d. 1873) and William Boone (b. 1795, d. 1870), London booksellers: purchased from them by the British Museum on 13 October 1860 (see note on f. [iv] recto) for £30.0.0.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1854-1860 (London: Clowes, 1875), pp. 921-22.
[Edmund Maunde Thompson and George Frederic Warner], Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1881-1884), II (1884): Latin, p. 53.
Theodor Gottlieb, Über Mittelalterliche Bibliotheken (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1890), p. 156 (no. 442).
Henri Omont, ‘Anciens catalogues de Bibliothèques anglaises (XIIe-XIVe siècle)’, Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 9:5 (1892), 205-22 (pp. 205-07).
Francis Aidan Hibbert, The Dissolution of the Monasteries as Illustrated by the Suppression of the Religious Houses of Staffordshire (London: Pitman, 1910), pp. 281-85.
Ernest A. Savage, Old English Libraries: The Making, Collection, and Use of Books during the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 264.
Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible: And Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920; repr. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock), p. 137 n. 2.
Theodor Klauser, ‘Das römische Capitulare Evangeliorum: Texte und Untersuchungen zu seiner ältesten Geschichte’, Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen, 28 (Münster: Aschendorffschen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1935), p. CXVII (no. 41).
Neil Ripley Ker, English Manuscripts in the Tenth Century after the Norman Conquest: The Lyell Lectures 1952-3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp. 12-13.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by Neil Ripley Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 15.
Jack David Angus Ogilvy, Books Known to the English, 597-1066 (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1967), p. 74.
Franz Römer, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus, II/1: Grossbritannien und Irland, Werkverzeichnis, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historische Klasse, 281, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission zur Herausgabe des Corpus der Lateinischen Kirchenväter, 3 (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1972), p. 154.
Teresa Webber, Scribes and scholars at Salisbury Cathedral: c.1075-c.1125 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 46-47.
David N. Dumville, 'English Libraries Before 1066: Use and Abuse of the Manuscript Evidence', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, ed. by Mary P. Richards (New York: Garland, 1994; repr. London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 169-219 (pp. 183, 197, 204).
English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. by R. Sharpe and others, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London: British Library, 1996), pp. 33-42 (B11).
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998-2014), II (2004): Laon-Paderborn, ed. by Birgit Ebersperger, pp. 100-101 (no. 2390).
Rosamond Mckitterick, ‘Exchanges between the British Isles and the Continent, c. 450-c. 900’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume I: c. 400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 313-37 (p. 329).
Helen McKee, ‘The Circulation of Books between England and the continent, c. 871-c. 1100’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume I: c. 400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 338-72 (p. 368 n. 103).
Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragment Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), pp. 217-18 (no. 283).
Kati Ihnat, Mother of Mercy, Bane of the Jews: Devotion to the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Norman England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), p. 237 n. 190.
- 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.