Cotton MS Nero A X/1

Cotton MS Nero A X originally contained 4 items, which were bound together by Sir Robert Cotton (d. 1631) and separated into 2 volumes in 1964. The texts are often referred to as articles 1-6, following the numbering in Thomas Smith, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptum Bibliothecae Cottonianae (Oxford: Ex Theatro Sheldoniano, 1696), p. 49. The present volume, Cotton MS Nero A X/1, contains articles 1-2 and 4-6. Article 3, comprising four Middle English poems (ff. 41-130) is now kept separately as Cotton MS Nero A X/2.

There are two foliation sequences in the manuscript, an early sequence in ink (used by some scholars) and a modern sequence in pencil. Here the modern sequence is used.

ff. 1r-4v: Flyleaves containing traces of a now illegible text in a 16th-century hand (f. 1), over which Robert Cotton has written binding instructions; a table of contents in the hand of Richard James (d. 1638), Robert Cotton's librarian (f. 3r); a stanza from John of Hauville's Architrenius, in a 17th-century hand (f. 3v) and a Latin proverb (similar to Walther, 1969, 14736b) in a late 17th-century hand (f. 4v);

ff. 5r-38r: Justus de Justis, De dignitate procerum antiquissimorum Britonicum [article 1];

ff. 38v–40r: Letter of Justus de Justis to John Chedworth, archdeacon of Lincoln (1464–71), dated 16 July 1468, with the initials R. D. [article 2];

ff. 131-144: Theological excerpts [articles 4-6].

ff. 134r–143r: Theological excerpts including Pseudo-Bernard of Clairvaux, Meditationes piissime de cognitione humane conditionis, copied in the second quarter of the 13th century;

f. 144v: Epitaph of Ranulf Brito, abbot of Ramsey (1231–53), added in the third quarter of the 13th century.

Decoration:

Display script in light brown and red (f. 5). Initials with penwork decoration in red. Paraphs and rubrics in red (ff. 131-144).