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Cotton MS Claudius B II
- Record Id:
- 040-001102468
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001246.0x000313
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056016126.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Claudius B II
- Title:
-
Alan of Tewkesbury, Collectio Epistolarum Sancti Thome Cantuariensis; John of Salisbury, Life of St Thomas Becket with Alan of Tewkesbury's prologue
- Scope & Content:
-
Alan of Tewkesbury (d. 1202) compiled a collection of St Thomas Becket's letters from earlier collections than John of Salisbury's collection. This manuscript is the earliest extant version of Alan of Tewkesbury’s collection. It contains a number of emendations, additions and corrections indicating that it may have been a work in progress. The copy is an extensive form of this work, comprising 598 letters arranged in chronological order. John of Salisbury's Life of St Thomas Becket with Alan's prologue preface the collection.
Contents:
ff. 2r-9r: John of Salisbury, Vita Sancti Thome Becket (Life of St Thomas Becket), beginning with Alan of Tewkerbury's prologue (ff. 2r-v); beginning of the prologue: 'Sacrosanctam ecclesiam iugiter impugnat hostis antiquus'; beginning of John of Salisbury's life of St Thomas Becket (f. 2v): 'Predictus igitur beatissimus Thomas Londoniensis urbis indigena'.
ff. 9r–356v: Alan of Tewkesbury, Collectio Epistolarum Sancti Thome Cantuariensis (Collection of St Thomas Becket's epistles), preceded by a prologue (ff. 9r-17r), beginning: 'Gloriosus dei martyr Thomas qualis cuius vite'; beginning of the text (first epistle): 'Iohannes Pictavensis episcopus. Reverentissimo domino et patri beatissimo Thome'.
Decoration:
Possibly the first known image of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, depicting the Archbishop struck down while at prayer in Canterbury Cathedral (f. 341r).
Added, early modern representation of St Thomas Becket in grisaille (f. 1r).
Large framed 'P' initial for 'Predictus' in gold, purple and blue, with interlaces, geometrical and zoomorphic features (f. 2v). Large historiated 'I' initial (f. 214v) decorated with three medallions portraying St Thomas's martyrdom, with a background of geometrical motifs and interlace.
The major sections open with large framed initials in gold leaf and colours with interlace and zoomorphic details; other sections open with three-line initials, alternating between blue, red, green and gold. Human or animal figures at the end of some columns (e. g., ff. 286v; 287r; 291r). Rubrics in red or green and red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102468 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Claudius B II : Alan of Tewkesbury, Collectio Epistolarum Sancti Thome Cantuariensis; John of Salisbury, Life of St Thomas Becket with… - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0564]/040-001102468
- 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_100056016126.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1175
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Foliation: ff. 356 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 2 at the end; + 1 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaf at the end); f. 1 is a parchment flyleaf.
Dimensions: 325 × 220 mm (text space 225 × 140 mm, in 2 columns).
Collation: i (f. 1), i–xvi8 (ff. 2–129), xvii12 (ff. 130–141), xviii–xxx8 (ff. 142–245), xxxi10 (ff. 246–255), xxxii12 (ff. 256–267), xxxiii–xlii8 (ff. 268–347), xliii8+1 (ff. 348–356; 9th added). Quire signatures on the last folio: xvi labelled ‘xvi’, in a contemporary hand (f. 129v), but xxi labelled ‘xxii’, in the text hand (f. 173v) and ‘xli’ (f. 323v).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Binding with gold-tooled arms.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ?Cirencester, Southeast England.
Provenance:
The Augustinian abbey of St Mary the Virgin, Cirencester: two Cirencester scribes have been identified by Gullick, 'A twelfth-century manuscript of the letters of Thomas Becket'; numerous contemporary additions and corrections throughout; perhaps written in part by Walter, a canon of the Abbey, according to Gullick, 'A twelfth-century manuscript of the letters of Thomas Becket’ (1990).
Added, early-modern miniature in grisaille portraying St Thomas Becket (f. 2r).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: table of contents found in other Cottonian manuscript (f. 1r), written in a stylised hand, see Tite, The Early Records (2003); cited in Cotton's catalogues and borrowed by Richard Bamcroft and Augustine Lindsell (see Tite, The Early Records (2003), p. 123).
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:
-
Duggan, Anne, Thomas Becket: A Textual History of his Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), especially pp. 98–123.
Duggan, Anne J., ed. and trans., The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162-1170, 2 vols (Oxford, 2000), vol. i, pp. lxxxiv–xciii.
Dunning, Andrew N.J.,‘Alexander Neckam’s Manuscripts and the Augustinian Canons of Oxford and Cirencester’ (unpublished PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2016), pp. 59, 64, 184, 192, 196, http://hdl.handle.net/1807/72968 [accessed 23 January 2017].
Gullick, Michael, ‘A twelfth-century manuscript of the letters of Thomas Becket’, English Manuscript Studies, 1100-1700, 2 (1990), 1–31.
De Hamel, Christopher, 'A Contemporary Miniature of Thomas Becket', in Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Margaret Gibson, ed. by Lesley Smith and Benedicta Ward (London: The Hambledon Press, 1992), pp. 179-84.
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. 25, 162.
Kauffmann, C. M., Romanesque Manuscripts, 1066-1190 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), no. 93.
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. 14.
McDonough, Christopher J., ‘Cambridge, University Library, Gg. 6.42, Alexander Neckam and the Sacerdos ad altare’, Studi medievali, 3rd ser., 46 (2005), 783–809 (pp. 800–05).
Robertson, J. C., Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 6 vols (London: Longman, 1875-1885), II, p. 299.
Sharpe, R., and Willoughby, J., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (Oxford: The Bodleian Libraries, 2015) «http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mlgb/book/6519/?search_term=Claudius%20B.%20II&page_size=500» [accessed 23 January 2017].
Sharpe, R., and Willoughby, J., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (Oxford: The Bodleian Libraries, 2015) «http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mlgb/book/1240/?search_term=Claudius%20B.%20II&page_size=500» [accessed 23 January 2017].
Tite, Colin G. C., The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: British Library, 2003), p. 123.
- Exhibitions:
- Magna Carta, (online), 10 March 2015-
The Middle Ages, (online), 26 March 2015-
Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint, British Museum, London, 20 May 2021 - 22 August 2021 - 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.