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Cotton MS Julius A VI
- Record Id:
- 040-001101608
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001246.0x0003d5
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056024379.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Julius A VI
- Title:
- A calendar, computistical texts and tables, Expositio Hymnorum, canticles and poems
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains two discrete parts, which were joined together in the medieval period. One part (ff. 2r–17v), copied in the first half of the 11th century, includes a calendar and computistical material. The second part (ff. 18r–80v) contains an early version of the Expositio Hymnorum (An Exposition of the Hymns)with an Old English gloss and canticles, copied in the mid-11th century. A hymn and a poem on the liberal arts were added in the late 11th century, and two 12th-century hands added a hymn and extracts from the liturgy for Easter Sunday on blank and erased folios.
Contents:
f. 1r: A paper folio with a parchment strip describing the volume's contents in an early modern hand.
ff. 2r–v: Computistical texts and tables.
ff. 3r–8v: A metrical calendar (a version of the text known as the Metrical Calendar of Hampson), illustrated with the Labours of the Month and astrological symbols.
ff. 9r–17v: Further computistical texts, tables, diagrams and a wheel linking months, lunar cycles and a T-O map (f. 15r), including a 'Sator square' palindrome written in Greek letters (f. 11r).
ff. 18r–19v: A hymn beginning 'Assunt o socii' and excerpts from the Easter Sunday liturgy, beginning 'Et valde mane', were added in 12th-century hands to blank and erased folios.
ff. 19r–71r: An imperfect Expositio hymnorum with a near-continuous Old English gloss. The text on f. 19r-v has been erased, but some initials are still visible.
ff. 71r-72v: Three hymns for Trinity Sunday;
ff. 72v-89v: Monastic canticles with an Old English gloss.
f. 90r–v: The hymn 'O genetrix aeterni' and a fragment of the Latin poem beginning, 'Ad mensam philosophie sitientes currite,' both accompanied by neumes, were added in the last quarter of the 11th century.
Decoration:
Capitals in red, gold, green and blue (ff. 2r–17v). Drawings of the Zodiac signs associated with each month (ff. 2r–8v). Gold cross with the letters OG and EN (f. 9v). Miniatures depicting various agricultural and social activities, including:
ploughing and sowing (f. 3r);
cutting vines (f. 3v);
digging and sowing (f. 4r);
feasting (f. 4v);
tending sheep (f. 5r);
clearing and collecting wood (f. 5v);
mowing (f. 6r);
harvesting (f. 6v);
hunting and pigs (f. 7r);
hawking (f. 7v);
smithing and fire (f. 8r);
threshing (f. 8v).
Neumes (ff. 18r–19r). Initials in red and green (ff. 20r–89v). Initial in red, yellow and green with foliate details, a biting beast and interlace (f. 72v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001101608 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Julius A VI : A calendar, computistical texts and tables, Expositio Hymnorum, canticles and poems - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0006]/040-001101608
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100056024379.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Greek
Latin - Start Date:
- 1000
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 11th century-2nd half of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Condition: leaves damaged by fire in 1731.
Materials: Paper with parchment strip (f. 1); parchment (ff. 2–90).
Dimensions: 200 x 130 mm.
Foliation: ff. 90 (where f. 1 is a paper leaf containing part of an early modern endleaf + 4 modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1968.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ?Canterbury, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
Last quarter of the 11th century: added hymn, neums, and poem beginning 'Ad mensam philosophie sitientes currite' (f. 90r–v).
12th century: added hymn and liturgy on blank and erased folios (ff. 18r–19r).
Title '[H]ympnar glo.' added (f. 20v).
Later annotations (ff. 20r–89v).
Durham Cathedral: inscribed 'principium iani', which matches an entry in the 1391 catalogue of Durham Cathedral's library (Ker, Catalogue (1957), p. 205).
Late 15th century: inscribed in the hand of the Durham librarian (Ker, Catalogue (1957), p. 205).
?Henry Savile of Banke (d. 1617): no. 111 in his catalogue (see Gilson, 'The Library' (1908), 140–209).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: owner. Cotton’s collection was augmented by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton (b. 1594, d. 1662), 2nd baronet, and his grandson, Sir John Cotton. Sir John Cotton (b. 1621, d. 1702), 3rd baronet: bequeathed the entire Cotton collection of books and manuscripts to trustees ‘for Publick Use and Advantage’, 12 and 13 William III, c. 7. Formed one of the foundation collections of the British Museum in 1753.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: The British Library, 2018), no. 152 [exhibition catalogue].
Banham, D., and R. Faith, Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 53, figures 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.9, 4.3, 4.6, 5.2, table 3.1.
Boutemy, André, ‘Un calendrier illustré du British Museum (ms. Cotton Julius A VI)’, Bulletin de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France (1970), 79–98.
Doyle, Kathleen and Charlotte Denoël, Medieval Illumination: Manuscript Art in England and France 700-1200 (London: British Library, 2018), also published as Enluminures Médiévales: Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Bibliothèque nationale de France et de la British Library, 700-1200 (Paris : BnF Éditions, 2018), pp. 21, 162.
Dumville, David N., ‘On the dating of some late Anglo-Saxon liturgical manuscripts’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 10 (1991), 40–57 (p. 47).
Gilson, J. P., ‘The Library of Sir Henry Savile, of Banke’, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 9 (1908), 140–209.
Gneuss, Helmut, Hymnar und Hymnen im Englischen Mittelalter (Max Niemeyer: Tübingen, 1968), pp. 257-414 [includes edition].
Gneuss, Helmut, 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. 337.
Hartzell, K. D., Catalogue of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1200 containing Music (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), no. 136.
Hughes-Hughes, Augustus, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1906–09), II, p. 464.
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), no. 160.
Ker, N. R. (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 72.
Ker, N. R., and Andrew G. Watson (eds.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. Supplement to the Second Edition (London: Royal Historical Society, 1987), p. 30.
[Planta, J.], A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Deposited in the British Museum (London: [British Museum], 1802), p. 2.
Shepherd, S. L., ‘Anglo-Saxon Labours of the Months: Representing May- A Case Study’ (unpublished M.Phil thesis, University of Birmingham, 2010) [available at http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/2920/1/Shepherd11MPhil.pdf] [accessed 11 May 2017].
Smith, Thomas, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1696), p. 2.
Springer, Carl P. E., ‘The Manuscripts of Sedulius: A Provisional Handlist’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 85, part 5 (1985), pp. 144–45.
Temple, Elzbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 62.
Thiébaut, J., ‘Un calendrier illustré du XIe siècle au British Museum’, Bulletin Monumental, 130 (1972), 158 [available at http://www.persee.fr/doc/bulmo_0007-473x_1972_num_130_2_7068] [accessed 11 May 2017].
Wormald, Francis, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London: Faber and Faber, 1952), pp. 36, 39, 68.
- Exhibitions:
- Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, British Library, London, 19 October 2018 - 19 February 2019
- 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.