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Royal MS 1 E VII-VIII
- Record Id:
- 036-002105786
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000016.0x000251
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 E VII-VIII
- Title:
-
Bible (2 volumes)
- Scope & Content:
-
These exceptionally large codices form the only surviving Bible from late Anglo-Saxon England and one of only two largely complete, surviving Bibles from England before 1066 (the other being the Codex Amiatinus). In addition to the Old and New Testaments, these volumes include tables of chapters for most books of the Bible and several of Jerome’s prefaces and letters. The text and orthography was systematically corrected by a hand from Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury shortly after the Norman Conquest. Additionally, some 15th-century supply leaves have been added for the beginning of the Book of Genesis (Royal MS 1 E VII) and the opening of the Book of Job (Royal MS 1 E VIII), and some early modern supply leaves have been added to cover the minor prophets at the end of Royal MS 1 E VII and parts of Psalms 110-143.
Decoration: miniature of God creating the world with a compass (Royal MS 1 E VII, f. 1v); initials of varying sizes in red and black (throughout); numbers and rubrics in red (throughout); initials in red and blue with penwork (Royal MS 1 E VII, ff. 2r, 3r, Royal MS 1 E VIII, f. 1r)
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
036-002105786 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 E VII-VIII : Bible (2 volumes) - Contains:
- Royal MS 1 E VII : Bible (1st of 2 volumes)
Royal MS 1 E VIII : Bible (2nd of 2 Volumes)
Click here to View / search full list of parts of Royal MS 1 E VII-VIII - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0054]/036-002105786
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- Series
- Extent:
- 2 parchment codices
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0900
- End Date:
- 1599
- Date Range:
- 10th century-16th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Southern England
Provenance:
Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury: corrected and annotated in the late 11th century and 12th century (see Marsden, 'Biblical Manuscripts' (2012), p. 425), possibly in the same hand of one of the hands in Cambridge, Trinity College, B. 1. 17 and Cambridge, Trinity College, B. 3. 9 (see Webber, 'Script' (1995), pp. 155-56) and as a corrector of in Arundel MS 155, which has a Christ Church origin and provenance (see Dumville (1991), p. 47); probably to be identified with a 'Biblia bipartita in infirmaria in duobus voluminibus' in Tituli librorum de libraria ecclesiae Christi compiled under Henry of Estria (1284-1331), Cotton Galba E IV (see James, Ancient Libraries (1903), no. 321, p. 51).
Added supply leaves covering Genesis 1-29:35 (Royal MS 1 E VII, ff. 2r-9v), the beginning of Job 1-4:21(Royal 1 E VIII, f. 1), and the end of Revelation (Royal 1 E VIII, ff. 199r-203r) in the second half of the 15th century.
Added supply leaves covering Obadiah 19-21, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Baruch, Esdras III and IV (Royal MS 1 E VII, ff. 185-208) and Psalms 110-143:2 (Royal MS 1 E VIII, ff. 26- 30) in a 16th-century imitation of Caroline Minuscule.
Robert Lenton: inscribed with his name on a slip of paper inserted between ff. 34 and 35, 16th century (Royal MS 1 E VII, f. 34*).
Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel (b. 1512, d. 1580), magnate: inscribed with his name, 'Arundel' (Royal MS 1 E VII, f. 2r, Royal MS 1 E VIII, f. 1r).
John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (Royal MS 1 E VII, f. 2r, Royal MS 1 E VIII, f. 1r).
Henry Frederick, prince of Wales (b. 1594, d. 1612), eldest child of James I: perhaps to be identified with 'Biblia Latina usque ad cap. 16 Esaiae' in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James's Palace (see Bernard, Catalogi librorum ('1697'), no . 7723).
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
[Edward Bernard], Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), no. 7723.
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 4th edn, ed. by Edward Miller, 2 vols (London: George Bell & Sons, 1894), II, p. 67.
M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover: The Catalogues of the Libraries of Christ Church Priory and St. Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury and of St. Martin’s Priory at Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. 51.
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), I, pp. 20-21.
Julius P. Gilson, Description of the Saxon Manuscript of the Four Gospels in the Library of York Minster (York: Ben Johnson, 1925), p. 4.
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 50.
Otto Pächt, C.R. Dodwell, and Francis Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), p. 51, n . 2.
Frances Wormald, 'An English Eleventh-century Psalter with Pictures: British Museum, Cotton Tiberius C. VI', The Walpole Society, 38 (1962), 1-13 (p. 8).
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N.R. Ker, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), pp. 36, 362.
Adelheid Heimann, 'Three Illustrations from the Bury St. Edmunds Psalter and their Prototypes: Notes on the Iconography of some Anglo-Saxon Drawings', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 29 (1966), 39-59 (pl. 11a, pp. 52, 53).
John B. Friedman, 'The Architect's Compass in Creation Miniatures of Later Middle Ages', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, 30 (1974), 419-28 (pp. 420 n. 2, 423).
Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 102.
Mary Richards, 'A Decorated Vulgate Set from 12th-Century Rochester, England', The Journal of the Walter Art Gallery, 39 (1981), 59-67 (pp. 63-65, 68, 75, 80-83).
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 82, fig. 51.
Mary Richards, Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 78, part 3 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1988), pp. 63-64.
David N. Dumville, 'On the Dating of Some Late Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Manuscripts', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 10 (1991), 40-57 (pp. 47-48).
David N. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History, Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950-1030, Studies in Anglo-Saxon History, 6 (Suffolk: Boydell, 1993), pp. 109, 146.
Richard Marsden, 'The Old Testament in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Preliminary Observations on the Textual Evidence', in The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 101-24 (pp. 101-02, 104, 109-23).
Richard Gameson, 'English Manuscript Art in the Late Eleventh Century: Canterbury and its Context', in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars 1066-1109, ed. by Richard Wales and Richard Sharpe (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 95-144 (pp. 104, n. 31, 111, n. 55, 143).
Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Tessa Webber, 'Script and Manuscript Production at Christ Church Canternury after the Norman Conquest', in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars 1066-1199, ed. by Richard Eales and Richard Sharpe (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 145-58 (pp. 155-56).
David G. Selwyn, The Library of Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: The Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1996), pp. 192-93, 258.
Richard Marsden, 'Ask What I am Called': The Anglo-Saxons and Their Bibles', in The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition, ed. by John L. Sharpe III and Kimberly Van Kampen (London: British Library, 1998), pp. 145-76 (p.174).
Kristine Haney, The St. Albans Psalter: An Anglo-Norman Song of Faith (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 19-21.
Diane Reilly, 'French Romanesque Giant Bibles', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 56 (2002), 294-311 (p. 295).
C.M. Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England, 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), p. 56.
The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 59.
Asa Simon Mittman, Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (New York: Routledge, 2006), fig. 2.3.
Richard Gameson, The Earliest Books of Canterbury Cathedral: Manuscripts and Fragments to c. 1200 (London: Bibliographical Society, 2008), p. 62.
Richard Gameson, Manuscript Treasures of Durham Cathedral (London: Third Millennium, 2010), p. 55.
Richard Gameson, 'The material fabric of early British books', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2012), I: 400-1100 (2012), ed. by Richard Gameson, pp. 13-93 (p. 20).
Richard Marsden, 'The biblical manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon England', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2012), I: 400-1100 (2012), ed. by Richard Gameson, pp. 406-435 (pp. 425-26).
M. Jane Toswell, 'Psalters', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2012), I: 400-1100 (2012), ed. by Richard Gameson, pp. 468-481 (p. 473).
Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), no. 449.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Related Material:
-
From Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (1921), I, pp. 20-21:
'i E. vii, viii BIBLE, in Latin, of S. Jerome's version. In two vols. Imperfect at the beginning, wanting the epistle of Jerome to Paulinus and beginning with the words 'Quid igitur? damnamus veteres' in the prologue to Genesis; this is followed by the capitula to Genesis and a coloured drawing of the Creation (f. 1). The beginning of Genesis (ff. 2 - 9, containing Gen. i. i-xxix.35) is supplied in a later hand (15th cent.). The books of the 0. T. are arranged thus: Octateuch, Kings, Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Eccles., Cant., Wisdom, Ecclus., Chronicles, Ezra, Esther, Tobit, Judith, Maccabees. Jonah- Malachi, with the addition of Baruch and 3 and 4 lines. Esdras, are supplied in a hand of the 16th cent. (ff. 185- 208). The beginning of Job (i E. viii, f. i, Job i. i-vi.21) is supplied in a 15th cent. hand. The Psalter is Gallican, and includes Ps. cli ('Pusillus cram'); ff. 26- 30, PS. cx. i-cxliii. 2, were supplied in the 16th cent. The Prayer of Solomon is appended to Ecclesiasticus; the text differs but slightly from that in i E. i. Jerome's prologues, except those to Job, which are missing, and Ecclesiastes: iii addition, another prologue to the Psalter (beg. 'Dauid filius lesse', as in i A. i and i D. i, Berger, no. 69), two to Proverbs (one beg. 'Tribus nominibus vocatum, from Jerome's commentary on Ecclesiastes, Berger, no. I30; the other beg. 'Tres libros Salomonis', being the prologue to Jerome's version of Proverbs from the LXX, Berger, no. 131); also one to Judith (beg. 'Iudith vidua filia Meran' Berger, no. 49), and a second to Tobit ('beg. 'Tobi filius Ananiel', Berger, no. 46). Tables of capitula are prefixed to all the books except the Prophets, Job, Psalms, Cant., Chron.-Judith; the chapters are also generally numbered in the text, the numbers showing slight discrepancies from those of the tables. The chapter-numeration agrees generally, but not exactly, with that of i E. i. A numeration of 'versus' is given at the end of a few books. The N. T. is preceded by (i) the epistle of Jerome to Damasus ('Novum opus me facere', f. 120 b); (2) the prologue of Jerome ('Plures fuisse', f. 121); (3) the letter Of Eusebius to Carpianus ('Ammonius quidem', f. 121); (4) the spurious addition to Jerome's epistle to Damasus ('Sciendum etiam, f. 121 b). The order of the books is Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse, ending imperfectly with Apoc. ii. i, the rest of the book having been supplied in the 16th cent. The apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans follows Hebrews (f. 178), in its fullest form and with capitula (the earliest example, see Lightfoot's Colossians, P. 349, Westcott's Canon, p. 572, &c.). The usual prologues to all the books; in addition, Romans is preceded by (i) argument, beg. 'Epistolae Pauli ad Romanos causa haec est' (Berger, no. 294); (2) list of Epistles, including Laodiceans, with a description of their contents, beg. 'Omnis textus vel numerus' (ib. no. 2,58); (3) preface to the Pauline Epistles [by Rabanus Maurus], beg. 'Primum quaeritur' (ib. no. 253); (4) preface to the Epistle to the Romans [attributed to Jerome, cf. i E. 11 beg. 'Romani qui ex Iudaeis' (ib. no. 255); (5) the usual short argument to the Epistle; (6) 'Versus Damasi episcopi urbis Romae', beg. 'Iamdudum Saulus procerum precepta secutus' (Migne, Pair. xiii. 379); (7) capitula of the Epistle; (8) list of the Pauline Epistles, omitting Laodiceans. There is also a long prologue to i Corinthians, as in i E. i. Tables of capitula are prefixed to all the books (Gosp. 28, 1O, 21, 14, Acts 71, Cath. 20, 21, 11, 20, 4, 5, 7, Paul. 29, 26, 20, 12, 10, 8, 10, 10, 6, 12, 7, 6, 3, 23, Laod. 4, Apoc. 24), and a computation of 'versus' is affixed to Matt., Mark, 2 Cor., Gal., and Hebr. On the capitula to Romans in this MS. see Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, PP. 358, 359. Vellum; ff. 208 and 203. 22 in. x 13.3/4 in. Late X cent., with additions in XV and XVI centt. (see above). The quire-numeration (8 leaves), which is continuous through both volumes, shows that in vol. i seven leaves (replaced by ff. 2-9, see above) are lost from qu. i, f. 10 being marked as beeinning qu. ii; one leaf (not replaced) after f. 171, containing Ezek. xliii. 5, 'cortuum'...xlvi. 20, 'sacerdotes'; and the whole of qu. xxiiii at the end. Vol. ii begins with qu. xxv, of which the first two leaves are lost ; four leaves are also lost from qu. xxviii (after f. 25), and the original text ends (f. 198) with the sixth leaf of qu. xlviiii. Written in double columns of Caroline minuscules ; titles and first lines of books in rustic capitals or uncials. Initial letters coloured, but quite plain. Corrected throughout in a 12th cent. hand. Inserted in vol. i between ff. 34, 35 is a slip of paper bearing writing in a 16th cent. hand, with the signature of Robert Lenton. In the margin of f. 193 in vol. ii is written in a 14th cent. hand 'Bibilioteca (sic) ecclesie Christi', possibly referring to Christ Church, Canterbury, among the books of which was a' Biblia bipartita in infirmaria in duobus voluminibus' (James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, P. 51, no. 321). Belonged successively to Henry Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, and John, Lord Lumley, whose names are in vol. i, f. 2 and vol. ii, f. i.'