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Cotton MS Otho A VIII
- Record Id:
- 040-001102836
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x0001e4
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100186177733.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Otho A VIII
- Title:
- Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Uita sancte Mildrethe and Translatio sancte Mildrethe; Old English Life of St Machutus
- Scope & Content:
-
Cotton MS Otho A VIII was badly damaged in the Ashburnham House Fire of 1731, leaving only 34 surviving leaves, which were subsequently bound out of their original order. An additional leaf from the manuscript (containing part of the Old English Life of St Machutus) is now bound separately as Cotton MS Otho B X, f. 66.
The manuscript is now made up of two parts (ff. 1-6 and 7-34), which were probably joined together in the library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631). The first part dates between the 4th quarter of the 11th century and 1st quarter of the 12th century and consists of fragments of six leaves of a Latin account of the life and translation of St Mildrith by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (b. c. 1040, d. in or after 1106), a Benedictine hagiographical writer. A similar, contemporary collection on St Mildrith, her life and translation, made at St Augustine's, Canterbury, is now Harley MS 3908, ff. 1r-100r (see Sharpe, 'Goscelin's St Augustine and St Mildreth' (1990), 502-16 (pp. 510-11).
The second part of the manuscript dates to the 1st quarter of the 11th century and contains fragments of 28 leaves of an Old English translation of the Life of St Machutus (b. c. 520, d. 621), also known as St Malo. A description of the manuscript made by Humfrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), librarian and scholar, indicates that the Old English Life was originally divided into 80 unnumbered chapters, each prefaced by a Latin title (see Wanley, Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (1705), p. 232). For a suggested order for the surviving leaves of the Old English text, see Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (1957), pp. 218-19 (no. 168) and Yerkes, 'The Foliation of the Old English Life of Machutus' (1987), pp. 89-94; for an edition of the text based on this manuscript, see Yerkes, ed., The Old English Life of Machutus (1984).
According to Thomas Smith's 1696 catalogue of the Cotton library, Cotton MS Otho A VIII contained at least 12 items before the Ashburnham House Fire, with the Old English Life of St Machutus apparently occupying ff. 43-87 (see Smith, Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (1696), pp. 66-67). The destroyed material included a Life of the Roman St Praxedis, an early modern copy of the Epistola de obitu Baedae (Letter on the Death of Bede), written in the hand of John Joscelyn (b. 1529, d. 1603), English clergyman and antiquarian, and an 'Epitome privilegiorum' of the royal charters of the abbey of St Augustine's, Canterbury, compiled during the reign of Henry V (r. 1413-1422). Smith's Catalogue and the Fire Report also state that the copy of the Uita sancta Mildrethe (now ff. 1r-5v) was annotated by Joscelyn but no evidence of this survives on the remaining leaves.
Contents:
ff. 1r-5v: Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Uita sancta Mildrethe, written in Latin, imperfect (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 5960) .
f. 6r-v: Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Translatio sancta Mildrethe, written in Latin, imperfect (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 5961).
ff. 7r-34v: Life of St Machutus, written in Old English, imperfect.
Decoration:
1 large zoomorphic initial made up of animal heads and bodies in red and green (f. 1r). Plain initials in red.
Small initials with red (ff. 7r-34v) or gold infill (f. 20v). Display script. Rubrics.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102836 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Otho A VIII : Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Uita sancte Mildrethe and Translatio sancte Mildrethe; Old English Life of St Machutus - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0732]/040-001102836
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100186177733.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1000
- End Date:
- 1124
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 11th century-1st quarter of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Condition: Leaves damaged by fire in 1731.
Dimensions: Approximately 265 × 210 mm.
Layout: Originally 24 lines (see ff. 10, 14, 19, 20, 22, 26).
Foliation: ff. 34 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Script: Protogothic (ff. 1r-6v); Insular square minuscule (ff. 7r-34v).
Binding: British Museum in-house (1866). Brown half-leather binding with the Cottonian arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
?Canterbury, England (ff. 1-6); Canterbury or Winchester, England (ff. 7-34).
For a discussion of the dating and origin of the different sections of the manuscript, see Barker-Benfield, ed., St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury (2008), III, pp. 1747-48; Gameson, Early Norman England (1998), no. 398; Yerkes, ed., The Old English Life of Machutus (1984), pp. xxxvi-xlii.
Provenance:
John Joscelyn (b. 1548, d. 1619), English clergyman and antiquarian: at least one of the destroyed items in the volume apparently written in his hand, as well as his annotations to the Uita sancte Mildrethe, though no evidence of this now survives (see Smith, Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (1696), pp. 66-67; Tite, Early Records (2003), p. 148).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: listed in his catalogues, indicating that he had acquired it before 1621 (Add MS 36789, f. 27v; Harley MS 6018, no. 20 (ff. 14r, 15r); Add MS 36682). 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.
- Publications:
-
Barker-Benfield, B.C. (ed.), St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 13, 3 vols (London: British Library in association with the British Academy, 2008), III, p. 1748.
Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina: Antiquae et Meditae Aetatis (Brussels, 1898-1911), II, p. 870 (nos. 5960, 596).
Biggs, Frederick M, et al (eds.), Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literature Culture, I: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-pres, and Acta Sanctorum, Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture 1 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), pp. 308-10, 347-50.
Crowley, Joseph, 'Anglicized word order in Old English continuous interlinear glosses in British Library, Royal 2. A. XX', Anglo-Saxon England, 47 (2000), 123-51 (pp. 143-45).
Gameson, Richard, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), no. 398.
Gneus, Helmut and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A BibliographicalHandlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), no. 348.
Ker, N. R. (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 2nd edn., 1964), p. 47.
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), no. 168.
Prescott, Andrew, 'The Ghost of Asser', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 255-93 (pp 276-77).
Rollason, David W., The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), pp. 20, 104-43.
Rollason, David W., 'Goscelin of Canterbury's Account of the Translation and Miracles of St Mildreth (BHL 6961/4): An Edition with Notes', Mediaeval Studies, 48 (1987), 139-210 (p. 150).
Scragg, Donald G., 'The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints' Lives before Ælfric', Anglo-Saxon England (1979), 223-77 (p. 263).
Scragg, Donald G., 'The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and their Manuscript Context', in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and their Contexts, ed. by Paul E. Szarmach (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), pp. 209-34 (pp. 220-21).
Scragg, Donald G., A Conspectus of Scribal Hands writing English, 700-1100 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2021), no. 515.
Sharpe, Richard, 'Goscelin's St Augustine and St Mildreth: Hagiography and Liturgy in Context', The Journal of Theological Studies, 41 (1990), 502-16 (pp. 510-11).
Smith, Thomas, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1696), pp. 66-67.
Tite, Colin G. C., The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), p. 148.
Whatley, E. Gordon, 'Lost in Translation: Omission of Episodes in some Old English Prose', Anglo-Saxon England, 26 (1997), 187-208 (pp. 198-207).
Yerkes, David, 'British Library, Cotton Otho A. viii, fols. 1-6', Old English Newsletter, 16 (1982), 28-31.
Yerkes, David, 'Earliest Fragments of Goscelin's Writings on St Mildred', Revue bénédictine, 93 (1983), 128-31.
Yerkes, David (ed.), The Old English Life of St Machutus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984) [edition].
Yerkes, David, 'The Provenance of the Unique Copy of the Old English Translation of Bili, Vita Sancti Machuti', Manuscripta, 30 (1986), 108-11.
Yerkes, David, 'The Foliation of the Old English Life of Machutus', in Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by K. L. Selig and R. Somerville (New York: Italica Press, 1987), pp. 89-93.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)