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Cotton MS Otho B II
- Record Id:
- 040-001102849
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x0001ed
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100063646037.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Otho B II
- Title:
- Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis (imperfect)
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript from the 2nd half of the 10th or early 11th century was written in Old English, most likely by six scribes that were working in South-East England, perhaps London. The manuscript contains the Regula Pastoralis (Rule of Pastoral Care) by Pope Gregory the Great (b. c. 540, d. 604), which once included a preface addressed to Hehstan (d. 879), Bishop of London (see Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 53). This indicates that the text is directly derived from the Old English translation of the Regula Pastoralis that King Alfred (b. 849, d. 899) produced in the 890s and sent to his bishops as part of an educational programme that was aimed at promoting learning and scholarship within Anglo-Saxon society.
The Old English translation of the Regula Pastoralis survives in six manuscripts. This copy, however, is imperfect: by the 17th century, the manuscript was most likely missing a quire between f. 42 and f. 43 as no variant readings are recorded for this section of the text in the transcript of the Old English translation that was made by the Dutch scholar Franciscus Junius (b. 1591, d. 1677). This transcript can now be found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 53. In 1731, moreover, the manuscript was heavily damaged in the Cotton library fire at Ashburnham House, causing the loss of 27 leaves. The manuscript’s final three folios, immediately following f. 52, were taken apart and bound into Cotton MS Otho B X, where they can now be found as ff. 61, 63, and 64. Certain leaves were previously classified as part of Cotton MS Appendix XLIII.
Contents:
ff. 1r-52v: Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis.
Decoration:
3 medium animal initials in green, yellow and red on f. 22v. Medium initials in red, yellow, blue and/or blue, sometimes featuring zoomorphic figures. Small initials highlighted in red. Rubrics in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102849 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Otho B II : Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis (imperfect) - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0741]/040-001102849
- 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_100063646037.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0975
- End Date:
- 1024
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 10th century-1st quarter of the 11th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: approximately 220 x 170 mm (text space: approximately 190/205 x 160 mm, in 2 columns).
Foliation: ff. 52 ( + 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); a modern paper pastedown on f. [i]recto (bibliographical notes) and f. [57]r (note of foliation); the original parchment leaves were damaged by fire in 1731 and have been mounted on paper frames.
Script: Anglo-Saxon minuscule.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum/British Library in-house: brown half leather binding, Cotton’s bookplate gold-stamped on the upper and the lower covers, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘ST. GREGORY. PASTORAL CARE. OLD ENGLISH VERSION.’; re-bound September 1957; gilt foredge.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ?London, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
?John Joscelyn (b. 1529, d. 1603), Old English scholar and Church of England clergyman: his annotations in the lower margin of f. 42v.
?John Rogers (b. c. 1500, d. 1555), biblical editor and martyr, probably owned in the 16th century: a ‘Joannis Rogerii’ donated the manuscript to William Bower, according to Humphrey Wanley (b. 1672, d. 1726), librarian, palaeographer and scholar of Old English (see Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (Oxford, 1705)); his identity has been proposed by Carlson, The Pastoral Care, I (1975), p. 20.
?William Bowyer (d. 1569/1570), antiquary and Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, owned in the 16th century: a ‘Gulielmo Bowiero’ donated the manuscript to Henry Ellzing according to Humphrey Wanley (see Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (Oxford, 1705); his identity has been proposed by Carlson, The Pastoral Care, I (1975), p. 20.
?Henry Elsynge (d. 1635), parliamentary official, Keeper of the records, owned until 1597: a ‘Henrici Ellzinge’ donated the manuscript to Sir Robert Bruce Cotton on 6 October 1597, according to Humphrey Wanley (see Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (Oxford, 1705)); his identity has been proposed by Carlson, The Pastoral Care, I (1975), p. 20.
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: his bookplate gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers; and described in his catalogue Add 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. 150).
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.
- Former Internal References:
- Cotton MS Appendix XLIII
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Brownrigg, Linda L., ‘Manuscripts Containing English Decoration 871-1066, Catalogued and Illustrated: A Review’, Anglo-Saxon England, 7 (1978), 239-66.
A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library Deposited in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1802), p. 362.
Gameson, Richard, ‘English Book Collections in the Late Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries: Symeon’s Durham and Its Context’, in Symeon of Durham: Historian of Durham and the North, ed. by David Rollason (Stamford: Tyas, 1998), pp. 230-53 (p. 242 n. 45).
Gneuss, Helmut, and Michael Lapidge, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), p. 277 (no. 353).
Horgan, Dorothy M., ‘The Relationship Between the O.E. MSS. of King Alfred's Translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care', Anglia, 91 (1973), 153-69.
Horgan, Dorothy M., ‘The Old English Pastoral Care: The Scribal Contribution’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose: Sixteen Original Contributions, ed. by Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY: University of New York Press, 1986), pp. 109-27 (pp. 114-19).
Jost, Karl, 'Zu den Handschriften der Cura Pastoralis', Anglia, 37 (1913), 63-68 (p. 68).
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 222-23 (no. 175).
Ohlgren, Thomas H., Insular and Anglo-Saxon Illuminated Manuscripts: An Iconographic Catalogue c. A.D. 625 to 1100, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 631 (New York: Garland, 1986), p. 111 (no. 151).
The Pastoral Care: Edited from British Museum Cotton Otho B.ii, ed. by Ingvar Carlson and others, 2 vols, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis: Stockholm Studies in English, 34 and 48 (1975-1978), I (1975): ff. 1-25va/4, pp. 1-166; II (1978): ff. 25va/4-end, pp. 1-200.
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. 255-91 (p. 276).
Schreiber, Carolin, King Alfred’s Old English Translation of Pope Gregory The Great’s Regula Pastoralis and Its Cultural Context: A Study and Partial Edition According to All Surviving Manuscripts Based on Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 12, Münchener Universitätsschriften: Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie, 25 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2003), esp. pp. 61 (as ‘O’), 65-74 (figs 1-2), 138-82, 185-88.
Schreiber, Carolin, 'Searoðonca Hord: Alfred's Translation of Gregory the Great's Regula Pastoralis', in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. by Nicole G. Discenza and Paul E. Szarmach, Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition, 58 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 171-99 (pp. 176-77).
Sisam, Kenneth, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 145.
Stokes, Peter A., English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut circa 990 – circa 1035, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, 14 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2014), pp. 19, 75, 96-97, 145, 174.
Temple, Elżbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1060, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 1 (London: Miller, 1976), p. 68 (no. 46, fig. 57).
Tite, Colin G. C., The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), p. 150.
Waite, Greg, Old English Prose Translations of King Alfred’s Reign, Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English Literature, 6 (Cambridge: Brewer, 2000), pp. 24-27, 199-226 [for further bibliography].
Wanley, Humphrey, Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (Oxford, 1705).
- 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.