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Add MS 89788
- Record Id:
- 032-004593025
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-004593025
- MDARK:
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/man_10000041.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 89788
- Title:
- Trilingual dictionary, Psalter, and Hebrew grammar
- Scope & Content:
- A composite volume containing four discrete parts bound together at Ramsey Abbey in the 13th century. The most notable contents are a Hebrew-Latin-Middle French dictionary (part 2), a Hebrew Psalter with a Latin gloss (part 3), and a Hebrew-Latin grammar (part 4). The dictionary is unique, draws solely upon Hebrew sources and commentaries, and was probably composed in collaboration between the monks of Ramsey and Jewish scholars. The grammar has been described as the most important surviving grammar of the Jewish language made in medieval Europe. The whole manuscript provides significant testimony to Christian-Jewish relations in England before the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 Contents: f. i: Paper endleaf with a 19th-century inscription, 'No. 21 / 204 vellum leaves / The Marquess of Bath / Longleat / Warminster / Wilts'. Part 1, ff. 1r-19r: Ps.-Augustine, Commentary on Aristotle's Categories, 13th century, beginning 'Incipiunt predicamenta Augustini. Eorumque sunt quadam naturalia quidam moralia...'. ff. 19v-23r: Medical text on urine from the school of Salerno, beginning 'Quinque perita est urine consideracio...'. ff. 23r-28v: John of St Paul (d. c. 1215), De simplicium medicinarum virtutibus (On the Virtues of Simple Medicine), with prologue followed by chapter list, beginning 'Incipit liber de virtute simplicis. Cogitanti mihi de sepe de simplicium medicinarum virtitutibus...'. Part 2, ff. 29r-143v: Trilingual Hebrew-Latin-French dictionary, 3rd quarter of the 13th century. Contains 3,682 entries, with the Hebrew word, a Romanised transliteration, a Latin translation and (in more than 1,000 entries) a French translation, sometimes noted in the margin (e.g. ff. 69r, 70r). Four entries also contain a Middle English translation (Olszowy-Schlanger & Grondeux, Dictionnaire hébreu-latin-francais, pp. xli-xliv). The first part of the dictionary (1392 entries, ff. 143v-93v) contains mostly verbs, the second (2,290 entries, ff. 92r-29r) other forms of speech, mostly nouns. Written in two hands, the second hand writing ff. 44v-55v, 73v and making corrections throughout. Later corrections by Robert Wakefield (d. 1537). Collated in reverse, following the Hebrew style of writing right-left. Edited by Olszowy-Schlanger & Grondeux, Dictionnaire hébreu-latin-francais, 2008. ff. 144r-192v: Hebrew Psalter, collated in reverse, probably 2nd quarter of the 13th century, with a Latin and French gloss of translations and commentary dating to the 1240s to 1250s. After the gloss was complete, one bifolium (ff. 155, 158) was lost and replaced with a new copy written by a Jewish scribe. ff. 193r-204r: Hebrew grammar in transliterated Hebrew (ff. 193r-196r) and Hebrew (ff. 197r-202r), an essay on Hebrew vowels and pronounciation (ff. 196v-197r), and transliterated Hebrew conjugation paradigms (ff. 203r-204r), 13th century. f. 203 was later damaged, detached and rebound with the recto and verso reversed. Edited by Olszowy-Schlanger, Learning Hebrew in Medieval England, 2023. f. 204v is blank. Decoration: Decorated capital in blue and red with blue and red pen-flourishes (ff. 1r, 17v); initials in red and blue with red and blue pen-flourishes (ff. 1r-19r); pen-flourishes in alternating red and blue at start of tituli and paragraphs (ff. 29r-143v); rubricated headings and marginalia (ff. 1r-19r, 189v-192r, 196r); rubricated initials (ff. 203r-204r); heading in blue (f. 192r); guide letters for initials that were never added (ff. 19v, 23r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
Longleat House MSS - Hierarchy Tree:
- [ { "id" : "032-004593025", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 89788: Trilingual dictionary, Psalter, and Hebrew grammar" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-004593025
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-004593025
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/man_10000041.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
French, Old
Hebrew
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1225
- End Date:
- 1275
- Date Range:
- middle of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
- Material: Parchment. Condition: Part of leaf wanting with some loss of text (ff. 148r-149v, 202r-203v); fading to text (f. 203v). Dimensions: 250 x 185 mm (text space: ff. 1r-28v: 205 x 155 mm; ff. 29r-143v: 205 x 160 mm; ff. 144r-192v: 195 x 145 mm; ff. 193r-204r: 210 x 165 mm). Foliation: ff. 204 (+ ii at the beginning and ii at the end). Script: Gothic (ff. 1r-19r, 29r-196r, 197v-204r); Gothic cursive (ff. 19v-28v, 196v-197r). Binding: Longleat House, 19th century. Gold-tooled brown leather, marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
- Origin: Ramsey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (England) (ff. 1r–28v; ff. 29r–143v; ff. 193r–204v); England (ff. 144r–192v). The author of the trilingual dictionary identified himself as belonging to a community of tonsured men, which in all likelihood was the Benedictine abbey at Ramsey, a major centre of the study of Hebrew in medieval England. Gregory of Huntingdon, prior of Ramsey in the 13th century, was said to be unparalleled in his knowledge of both Hebrew and Greek. Provenance: Ramsey Abbey: part of the abbey’s library in the 14th century when it was listed in its catalogue as one of the bequests of Prior Gregory (‘Predicamenta Augustini cum exposicionibus nominum hebraicorum et ars loquendi in lingua hebraica' and 'Psalterium hebraicum'). Sharpe, English Benedictine Libraries, pp. 337 (B67.53), 406 (B68.529). Robert Wakefield (d. 1537/8), Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University: according to John Leland (b. c. 1503, d. 1552), poet and antiquary, Wakefield took a Hebrew dictionary from Ramsey Abbey (‘Dictionario Hebraica, opera tum elimato, tum doctor; quod annis abhinc paucis Roberti Wachefeldi, polypi nimia diligentia sublatum est’; see John Leland, Commentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis (Oxford, 1709), p. 452); annotations in Wakefield’s hand appear in the manuscript. Sir Henry Spelman (b. 1563/4, d. 1641): inscribed, 'Henrici Spelmani' (f. 1r, upper margin). Spelman’s manuscripts were acquired by the London bookseller John Harding and sold by auction, 28 November 1709, lot 97 ('Psalterium & Lexicon Hebraicum'); bought, perhaps by Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), Old English scholar and librarian, on behalf of Thomas Thomas Thynne (b. 1640, d. 1714), 1st Viscount Weymouth. Passed by descent within the family at Longleat House, with the shelfmark ‘Longleat House, MS 21’; inscribed in pencil, ‘No. 21’ (f. i verso’) and ‘No. 2’ (f. 1r). Purchased by the British Library from The Trustees of the Longleat House and Chattels Settlement, April 2025.
- Publications:
- Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Learning Hebrew in Medieval England: Christian Scholars and the Longleat House Grammar (Toronto, 2023). Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Les manuscrits hébreux dans l'Angleterre médiévale: Étude historique et paléographique (Leuven & Paris, 2003), pp. 88–196. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger & Anne Grondeux, eds., Dictionnaire hébreu-latin-français de la Bible hébraïque de l'Abbaye de Ramsey (XIIIe s.), Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis, IV (Turnhout, 2008). R. Sharpe et al., eds., English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London: The British Library in association with the British Academy, 1996), pp. 337 (B67.53), 406 (B68.529).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)