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Cotton MS Nero A XIV
- Record Id:
- 040-001102636
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001246.0x000388
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100132823124.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Nero A XIV
- Title:
- Ancrene Riwle (Ancrene Wisse); On god ureisun of ure lefdi and other prayers
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
(in Middle English):
ff. 1r–120v: Ancrene Riwle (Ancrene Wisse) (Boffey 734.5, 3568);
ff. 120v–131r: On god ureisun of ure lefdi (ff. 120v-123v; Boffey 631) and other prayers;
(in Latin):
ff. 131r-v: Apostles’ Creed.
f. 131v: A verse beginning ‘O quam iocundum quam dulce foret dominari’ (Walther 12895); Sermo de Cruce Domini.
Decoration:
Initials in red.or blue. Paraphs in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102636 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Nero A XIV : Ancrene Riwle (Ancrene Wisse); On god ureisun of ure lefdi and other prayers - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0617]/040-001102636
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100132823124.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1250
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Condition: leaves slightly damaged by fire in 1731.
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 145 × 105 mm (text space: 125 x 75 mm).
Foliation: ff. 2* + 135 (ff. 1*-2* and 132-135 are parchment flyleaves + 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and a folded insert at the beginning and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Collation: i-ii10 (ff. 1-20), iii7+1(ff. 21-29), iv10(ff. 30-39), v8(ff. 40-47), vi8+1(ff. 48-56), vii10 + 1 (ff. 57-67), viii12 (ff. 68-79), xi-xiii10 (ff. 80-109) xiv12+1 (ff. 110-122), xv 6+3 (ff. 123-131).
Script: Gothic. Copied by 2 scribes (scribe 1: ff. 1-120v; scribe 2: ff. 120v-131v), with contemporary underlining, glosses, corrections and marginal notes (e.g., f. 3v line 19, f. 6r).
Layout: Written in one column of 28-30 lines. Quires v, vi, xi-xv are written below the top line; the remaining gatherings were written above the top line, but a faint line was added above the text)
Binding: British Museum, 1897.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England, S.
Provenance:
Partially illegible notes in a hand of the late-15th or early-16th century, perhaps from the article on the Graces in the Latin dictionary of Calepinus (f. 1*recto)
A list of names, Thomas Warne, William Dunston, Stevene Warne, Thomas Warne (again) and Thomas Bowthe, identified as inhabitants of the parishes of Snowshill and Stanton, Gloucestershire, is written in a mid-16th-century hand on the rear of the first flyleaf (f.1*verso) (see Day Ancrene Riwle, (1952), p. xii), partially overwritten by a later addition by Richard James (see below).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: his librarian, Richard James, added numbering, notes on flyleaves and in the margins (e.g., f. 2r), including a partially-erased inscription on a flyleaf, ending, 'An Dni 1625 30 Aprilis R. James' (f. 1*v) (see Day Ancrene Riwle, (1952), p. ix); a list of contents in his hand is on f. 2*r. Included in the first catalogue of his collection (Harley MS 6018, f. 55) and the Cottonian catalogues, Additional MS 36789 (ff. 4r-v) and Additional MS 36682 (see Colin G. C. Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), p. 138). 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:
-
Boffey, Julia, & A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London, 2005);
Cole, Caroline, ‘The integrity of text and context in the prayers of British Library, Cotton MS Nero A. XIV’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 104 (2003), 85–94;
Day, Mabel, ed., The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle, Early English Text Society, O.S., 225 (London, 1952);
Edwards, A. S. G., ‘The Middle English manuscripts and early readers of Ancrene Wisse’, in Yoko Wada (ed.), A Companion to Ancrene Wisse (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 103–12;
Franzen, Christine, ‘The tremulous hand of Worcester and the Nero scribe of the Ancrene Wisse’, Medium Ævum, 72 (2003), 13–31;
Innes-Parker, Catherine, 'Reading and Devotional Practice: The Wooing Group Prayers of British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.xiv' in Anchoritism in the Middle Ages: texts and traditions ed. by Catherine Innes Parker and Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa, Innes-Parker, (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013), pp. 137-50
Scahill, John, ‘The Nero Ancrene Wisse and Middle English word-geography’, in Akio Oizumi, Jacek Fisiak & John Scahill (eds.),
Diensberg, Bernard, 'Tradition and change in the Vernon recension of the Ancrene Riwle', in Text and Language in Medieval English Prose: A Festschrift for Tadao Kubouchi (Frankfurt am Main, 2005), pp. 215–27;
Walther, Hans, Initia Carminum ac Versuum Medii Aevi Posterioris Latinorum, I (Göttingen, 1969)
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)