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Cotton MS Tiberius A XIV

Record Id:

040-001102189

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-001101582

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001246.0x00024a

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100058090442.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Cotton MS Tiberius A XIV

Title:

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (imperfect)

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains an ornate copy of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. The text and decoration has been badly damaged by fire in some places.

Decoration: large coloured initials and capitals (ff. 1r, 39r); decorative lines in the margin (ff. 51r-57r, 65r-66v, 109v-111r); rubrics in red, black, or alternating red and black (ff. 23r, 33v, 34v, 38r, 53v, 55v, 68r, 156v); large decorated initials on coloured backgrounds, smaller initials filled with colour washes, and chapter numbers in red throughout.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Cotton Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-001101582
040-001102189

Is part of:

Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts

Cotton MS Tiberius A XIV : Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (imperfect)

Hierarchy:

032-001101582[0443]/040-001102189

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 parchment codex

Digitised Content:

https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058090442.0x000001

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

0775

End Date:

0824

Date Range:

4th quarter of 8th century-1st quarter of 9th century

Era:

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: Parchment and ink.

Dimensions: 310 × 255 mm (text block 210 x 160 mm, in two columns).

Foliation: ff. 201 (+ 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and two at the end).

Script: Insular minuscule, Rustic capitals, Capitular Uncial.

Binding: BM/BL in-house, rebound in January 1963.

Custodial History:

Origin: England (? Southumbria or ? Wearmouth-Jarrow). Its exemplar may have been a manuscript of the Historia Ecclesiastica traditionally associated with Wearmouth-Jarrow which was copied in the second quarter of the 8th century (St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Lat. Q. v. I. 18; see Colgrave and Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History (1969), pp. xlvi-xlvii).

Provenance:

Medieval marginal additions, possibly made in Gloucester or Winchcombe (f. 6v).

Medieval marginal additions from the south of England (ff. 20v, 112v).

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: owned.

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:

Brown, Michelle, 'Writing in the Insular World', 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. 121-66 (p. 158 n. 173).

Brown, Michelle, 'Bede's Life in Context', in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. by Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 15.

Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, II, Latin (London, 1884), p. 79.

Colgrave, Bertram, and R.A.B. Mynors (ed.), Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. xlvi-xlvii.

Dumville, David N., ‘The two earliest manuscripts of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History?', Anglo-Saxon, 1 (2007), 55–108.

Gameson, Richard, '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. 25 n. 45).

Gameson, Richard, ‘Writing at Wearmouth-Jarrow’, in Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story with Eleanor Jackson (Dublin: Four Courts, 2021), pp. 28-44 (pp. 28 n. 4, 30; fig. 3.2).

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. 367.

Laistner, M. L. W., & H. H. King, A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1943), p. 97.

Lapidge, Michael, 'The Latin Exemplar of the Old English Bede', in Un tuo serto di fiori in man recando: Scritti in onore di Maria Amalia D'Aronco, ed. by P. Leninara, 2 vols (Udine: Forum, 2008), I, pp. 235-46.

Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores, II, Great Britain and Ireland, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), no. 1703.

Lowe, E. A., English Uncial (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), no. 38d (p. 24).

Parkes, M.B., Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), pp. 100 n. 35, 108-09, 116 n. 81.

[Planta, J.], A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Deposited in the British Museum (London, 1802), p. 34.

Smith, Thomas, Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Cottonianae (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1696), p. 21.

Tite, Colin, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library (London: British Library: 2003), p. 106.

Webster, Leslie and Janet Backhouse (ed.), The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900, (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1991), no. 92.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)