Add MS 46352

REGISTER OF ST AUGUSTINE'S, CANTERBURY

REGISTER, etc., of the Benedictine Abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury; 13th cent. Latin. Contents:-

(1) Liturgical calendar, in red and black, with gradings of xii and iii lessons, and commemoration. The omission of the Feast of the Translation of St Thomas Becket (7 July) indicates a date before 1220. There are a number of minor variations from the St Augustine's calendars edited by F. Wormald, English Benedictine Kalendars before A.D. 1100, Henry Bradshaw Soc., lxxii, 1934, pp. 57- 69, and English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, ibid., lxxvii, 1939, pp. 51-62. ff. 5-6.

(2) Parts of a register of St Augustine's Abbey, now bound in some disorder (see below), containing miscellaneous transcripts, in a series of 13th-cent. hands, of documents and memoranda, including pleas, compositions, papal and other letters, etc., relating mainly to the Abbey's rights, liberties, churches, etc.; circ. 1243 - 1294, n.d. Formerly the central section of a register of which other parts are now Cotton MS. Julius D. ii, cf. G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain, 1958, nos. 192, 200. The sequence of the contents, as now arranged, is broadly chronological with some grouping by subject matter. The contents include:-(1) Letters of Innocent IV relating mainly to Archbp. Boniface's attempt to impose upon the Abbey Gregory IX's statutes for the Benedictine order (of which the text is included, ff. 10-13); 1243-1253. ff. 7-19;-(b) Statute of Marlborough; 1267. ff. 36-40b:-(c) Letter commendatory from the Abbot to the Pope for the canonisation of Bp. Thomas de Cantilupe; 25 Jan. 1289. f. 47b;-(d) Letters commendatory from the University of Oxford, the Bishops of Salisbury, Ely, and Wells, and the Abbot of Abingdon, for the canonisation of Archbp. Edmund Rich (d. 1240); n.d. ff. 48-50b;-(e) Letter from Robert, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and other Crusaders, to the churches, etc., of France and England, recounting the Khwarismian invasion, the sack of Jerusalem, and the battle of Gaza; Acre, 25 Nov. 1244. As Matthew Paris, Chronica maiora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls ser., iv, pp. 337-344. ff. 50b-52b;-(f) Papal letters addressed to the Abbot of St Augustine's or concerning the Abbey's affairs; 1240-1277, n.d. ff. 58-69;-(g) Lists of knights, free tenants, etc., in co. Kent, by lathes, etc.; after 1283. ff. 70b-73b;-(h) Provinciale Romanum, or list of dioceses throughout the world. Similar in content, but not in arrangement, to that given by Matthew Paris, ibid., vi, 446-461. ff. 74-77;-(i) Account of Thomas de Fyndone's election as Abbot; 1283. ff. 83b-85b;-(j) Schedule of churches in the patronage of St Augustine's. ff. 94b-95. ff. 7-100b.

(3) Alexander, Prior of Ashby (fl. circ. 1220), Liber Festiualis al. Libellus de Sanctorum miraculis, Book i. For other MSS. of the work see Bodleian Library MSS. Bodley 40 (S.C. 1841) and 527 (S.C. 2219) and, of Book i only, Eton College Bk. 2. 7 (James Cat. No. 20). Opens with a prose preface beg. 'Duo preclara diuine pietatis' followed by one in verse beg. 'Omnia cum nequeam sanctorum scribere gesta', f. 101. Main text beg. 'Quem primum proprio celi rex ore uocauit', f . 101. ff. 101 - 115.

(4) Innocent III, Sermo xiii de tempore. Migne, Patr. Lat. ccxvii, cols.

371 - 376. ff. 115b - 116.

(5) Itinerarium, or prayers for travellers. Breaks off imperfectly at the end. f. 116b.

(6) Peter of Blois, Letters i-xiii, xv, xvii, xix, xxi, xxiv, cxxxvi, clxxiii, clxii, xxvi, clvi, clxiii, cliii, xxviii, xxx, xxxii, xxxiii, cliv, xxxiv-xxxviii, clviii, xxxix, cxxx, clv, xl-xlvii, following the numeration of Migne, Patr. Lat. ccvii. Ff. 137-146, misbound, should precede ff. 127-136. Letter xv is written as a continuation of xiii. The arrangement and text place the MS. in the group defined as 'A' by E. S. Cohn, Engl. Hist. Rev. xli, 1926, pp. 43 - 60, cf. Royal MS. 8 F. xvii, ff . 1-188b, and Harley MS. 325, ff. 326-376b. For another 13thcent. MS. of the work from St Augustine's see Cotton MS. Vespasian E. xi, ff. 46-132*. ff. 117-146b. Vellum, except ff. i, iii-x, xii paper. ff. xii + 150. 185 mm. x 135mm. XIII cent. Gatherings irregular, lettered, 16th - 17th cent., K-BB, omitting U, in the lower margin of the first leaf as in Cotton MS. Julius D. ii. Ff. 1- 4, 147- 150 are blank fly-leaves. A 14th- and a 15th- cent. foliation indicate that the MS., except artt. 3-5 (ff. 100-116), was then bound with Julius D. ii in the following order:-Add. MS. 46352, ff. 94 - 100, 3 missing folios, 5 - 6, 4 missing folios; Julius D. ii, ff. 24 -133, 162-164, 36 missing folios, ff. 165 - 172, 157-171, 156, 155, 1 missing folio, ff. 1-25, 134 - 154; Add. MS. 46352, ff. 35-41, 117-126, 137-146, 127-136, 42-57, 33-34, 7-32, 58-93; Julius D. ii, ff. 177-201, 30 missing folios, 202-240, 173-176, 241-264. Written in a number of hands. Art. 6 opens with a decorated initial in red and blue (f . 117); elsewhere there are some plain red or blue initials and rubrics passim. At the foot of the original first leaf (f. 94, see above) is the added title, circ. 1300, 'Mat(ri)cula de cam(er)a abb(at)is sci augustini cant.' to which a slightly later hand has added the pressmark 'D(istinctio) Th(omae) Abb(at)is' (presumably a reference to Thomas Fyndon, abbot 1283-1309, cf. M. R. James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, 1903, pp. lx-lxi, lxxii-lxxiii, 298). This title was used in connection with material now in Julius D. ii, ff. 162-164, that was transcribed, presumably by Augustine Baker (see the annotation in his hand, f. 264b), for C. Reyner's Apostolatus Benedictinorum iii, 1626, pp. 94 - 98 (cf. W. A. Pantin, Chapters of the English Black Monks, Camden Third Ser., xlv, 1931, pp. 4-5), but the present MS. had certainly become separated from Julius D. ii before 1621 (see the reference to the latter as No. 312 in the Cotton catalogue of that year [Harley MS. 6018, f. 115b] ). Both parts of the MS. appear to have been given by John Twyne the elder, of Canterbury, to his son John, of Gray's Inn, in 1578 (see the latter's note at the foot of Add. MS. 46352, f. 94). In Julius D. ii the 'Jupiter' sign used by John Dee appears on f. 2, but apparently written by the hand that inserted the Cotton number '312'. For Dee's acquisition of MSS. from John Twyne see M. R. James, Lists of MSS. formerly belonging to John Dee, 1921, pp. 6 - 7, but for a possible reference by Brian Twyne to the whole MS. as a thick quarto with a red cover, that was given by John Twyne to Thomas Smythe (d. 1591), Farmer of the Customs to Elizabeth I, of Ostenhanger and Ashford, co. Kent, and was afterwards in the hands of Cotton's librarian, Richard James, see also ibid., p. 10. The present part was owned subsequently by Sir Edward Dering, 1st Bart., d. 1644 (armorial bookstamp in gold, on a 17th-cent. brown reversed calf binding). The inside of the front cover carries the 18th - cent. pressmark 'L, J, Jo.' and 19th - cent. mark of ownership (?) '1680. B.S./F.C.P. - ' (f. i). Acquired circ. 1830 by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. (MS. 1085; bookstamp, f. iv) who has annotated ff. ii, iv, etc. Sotheby's sale-cat. 11 Nov. 1946, lot 132.