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Cotton MS Vitellius A XV
- Record Id:
- 040-001102971
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x00022d
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165161444.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Vitellius A XV
- Title:
-
(1) Old English adaptations of Augustine of Hippo's Soliloquia and other texts (known as the 'Southwick Codex'); (2) Beowulf, The Marvels of the East, Judith, and other texts in Old English (known as the 'Nowell Codex')
- Scope & Content:
-
This volume, containing the unique medieval copy of Beowulf and other important texts in Old English, comprises two manuscripts of different origin and date, bound together for Sir Robert Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631). The so-called 'Southwick Codex' (ff. 4–93), named after its medieval home, was made in the 2nd half of the 12th century. The so-called 'Nowell Codex' (ff. 94–209), named after a former owner, dates from either the very end of the 10th century or more likely the early decades of the 11th century.
While in the Cotton collection, these two separate components were bound with three other leaves, as follows:
(i) a leaf from a 14th-century Psalter (formerly foliated as f. 1, now removed to form Royal MS 13 D I/1, f. 37);
(ii) a list of contents made by Richard James (d. 1638) after all the items had been bound together, on an inserted 17th-century leaf;
(iii) a medieval English endleaf (f. 3), containing historical memoranda copied in the 1st half of the 15th century and in the 2nd half of the 16th century.
The full list of contents is as follows.
Contents:
[f. 1]: a 14th-century Psalter leaf re-used as an early modern endleaf, added to the volume while in the ownership of Sir Robert Cotton. Note: this leaf has now been removed to form Royal MS 13 D I/1, f. 37;
f. 2: a list of contents made by Richard James (d. 1638) for Sir Robert Cotton, on an added 17th-century leaf. James listed eight items in total but left a space blank for a description of the seventh item, comprising the Old English poem Beowulf. This has been added in pencil in a modern hand;
f. 3: a medieval endleaf, containing historical memoranda copied in Latin in the 1st half of the 15th century (f. 3r) and in French in the 2nd half of the 16th century (f. 3v);
ff. 4–93: the 'Southwick Codex' copied in the 2nd half of the 12th century, comprising:
ff. 4r–59v: the Old English adaptation of Augustine of Hippo's Soliloquia, sometimes attributed to Alfred the Great (ends imperfect);
ff. 60r–86v: an Old English version of the Gospel of Nicodemus (begins imperfect);
ff. 86v–93v: the prose Dialogues of Saturn and Solomon;
f. 93v: a homily on St Quintin (imperfect);
ff. 94–209: the 'Nowell Codex' copied either at the very end of the 10th century or the early 11th century, comprising:
ff. 94r–98r: an Old English homily on St Christopher, beginning imperfectly. According to Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, no. 216, approximately two-thirds of the text is likely to be missing in comparison to Latin versions of the homily;
ff. 98v–106v: an Old English version of The Marvels of the East;
ff. 107r–131v: an Old English version of the letter purporting to be of Alexander to Aristotle;
ff. 132r–201v: Beowulf, the unique medieval copy of the longest surviving epic poem in Old English;
ff. 202r–209v: Judith (imperfect).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102971 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Vitellius A XV : (1) Old English adaptations of Augustine of Hippo's Soliloquia and other texts (known as the 'Southwick… - Contains:
- Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, ff 3r-3v : Medieval end-leaf, containing historical memoranda
Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, ff 4r–93v : The 'Southwick Codex', containing Old English versions of Augustine of Hippo's Soliloquia;…
Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, ff 94r–209v : The 'Nowell Codex', containing a homily on St Christopher; The Marvels of the East; Letter of…
Click here to View / search full list of parts of Cotton MS Vitellius A XV - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0805]/040-001102971
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165161444.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
French
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0990
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 990s-2nd half 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:
-
Condition: leaves damaged by fire in October 1731, with the distortion, blackening and cockling of some pages and the occasional loss of letter-forms from the outer margins.
Materials: parchment, mounted in paper frames in the 19th century.
Dimensions: 245 x 185 mm (binding); the parchment leaves measure approximately 202 x 120 mm; the paper frames measure 235 x 170 mm.
Foliation: ff. 209 (f. 1 has been removed and is now Royal MS 13 D I/1, f. 37).
Binding: British Museum, 1845.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England (all parts of the volume).
Provenance:
(i) the 'Southwick Codex' (ff. 4-93):
Southwick Priory, Hampshire, by the late 13th century: inscribed 'Hic liber est Ecclesie beate marie de Suwika quem qui ab eadem abstulerit. vel titulum istum dolose deleverit nisi eidem ecclesie condigne satisfecerit; sit Anathema maranatha. fiat fiat; Amen; Amen' in a late 13th-century hand (f. 5r).
(ii) the 'Nowell Codex (ff. 94-209):
Laurence Nowell (b. 1530, d. c. 1570), antiquary, by 1563: inscribed with his name and the year 1563 (f. 94r).
(iii) the whole volume:
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: owned and assembled by him (see Kiernan, Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript (1981), pp. 65-169); list of contents added for him (f. 3r).
Cotton’s collection was augmented by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton (b. 1594, d. 1662), 2nd baronet, before passing to his grandson, Sir John Cotton (b. 1621, d. 1702), 3rd baronet. Sir John Cotton bequeathed the entire collection of manuscripts to the British nation ‘for Publick Use and Advantage’, by Act of Parliament (12 and 13 William III, c. 7).
The Cotton collection formed one of the foundation collections of the British Museum in 1753, and was transferred to the British Library in 1973.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage of this volume is available at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_vitellius_a_xv .
- Publications:
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Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: The British Library, 2018), no. 86 [exhibition catalogue].
Bjork, Robert E., and John D. Niles (eds), A Beowulf Handbook (Exeter, 1997).
Boyle, Leonard E., ‘The Nowell Codex and the poem of Beowulf’, in The Dating of Beowulf, ed. by Colin Chase (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), pp. 23–32.
Chase, Colin (ed.), The Dating of Beowulf (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1981).
Cross, James E., and Thomas D. Hill (eds), The Prose Solomon and Saturn and Adrian and Ritheus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 14.
Doane, A. N., ‘“Beowulf” and scribal performance’, in Unlocking the Wordhord: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Memory of Edward B. Irving, Jr, ed. by Mark C. Amodio and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), pp. 62–75.
Dumville, David N., ‘Beowulf come lately: some notes on the palaeography of the Nowell Codex’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 225 (1988), 49–63.
Dumville, David N., ‘The Beowulf-manuscript and how not to date it’, Medieval English Studies Newsletter, 39 (1998), 21–27.
Fleming, Damian, ‘Eþel-weard: the first scribe of the Beowulf MS’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society, 105 (2004), 177–86.
Förster, Max, Die Beowulf-Handschrift, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologische-historische Klasse, 71, part 4 (Leipzig, 1919).
Fulk, R. D., ‘Some contested readings in the Beowulf manuscript’, Review of English Studies, n.s. 56 (2005), 192–223.
Gerritsen, Johan, ‘British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv – a supplementary description’, English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature, 69 (1988), 293–302.
Gneuss, Helmut, and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), no. 399.
James, Montague Rhodes (ed.), Marvels of the East, Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1929).
Johnson, David F., ‘The transmission and reception of Alfredian “Apocrypha”’, in Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story with Eleanor Jackson (Dublin: Four Courts, 2021), pp. 98-107 (p. 98 n.1).
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), nos. 215, 216.
Kiernan, Kevin S., Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript, rev. edn. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996).
Kiernan, Kevin (ed.), Electronic Beowulf 4.0 (2015), sponsored by The University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences and The British Library: [accessed 31 August 2021].
Kiernan, Kevin S., ‘A long footnote for J. Gerritsen’s “supplementary” description of BL Cotton MS Vitellius A.XV’, English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature, 72 (1991), 489–96.
Kiernan, Kevin S., ‘The state of the Beowulf manuscript 1882-1983’, Anglo-Saxon England, 13 (1984), 23–42.
Lucas, Peter J., ‘The place of Judith in the Beowulf-manuscript’, Review of English Studies, n.s. 41 (1990), 463–78.
McGowan, Joseph, ‘Readings from the Beowulf manuscript, ff. 94r-98r (the St. Christopher folios)’, Manuscripta, 39 (1995), 26–29.
Malone, Kemp (ed.), The Nowell Codex: British Museum Cotton Vitellius A. XV Second MS, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 12 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1963).
Orchard, Andy, A Critical Companion to Beowulf (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 12-56.
Powell, Kathryn, ‘Meditating on men and monsters: a reconsideration of the thematic unity of the Beowulf manuscript’, Review of English Studies, 228, n.s. 57 (2006), 1–15.
Sauer, Hans, 'The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine's Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis', Anglia, 137 (2019), 561-611.
Senra Silva, Inmaculada, ‘The rune ‘ēþel’ and scribal writing habits in the Beowulf MS’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique /Bulletin of the Modern Language Society, 99 (1998), 241–47.
Smith, Thomas, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1696), p. 83.
Taylor, Paul Beekman, and Peter H. Salus, ‘The compilation of Cotton Vitellius A xv’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen/Bulletin de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki/Bulletin of the Modern Language Society of Helsinki, 69 (1968), 199–204.
Temple, Elzbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 52.
Tite, Colin, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: British Library, 2003), p. 159.
Torkar, Roland, ‘Cotton Vitellius A. xv (pt. I) and the Legend of St Thomas’, English Studies: A Journal of English Language and Literature, 67 (1986), 290–303.
Treharne, Elaine, 'London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. xv, fols 4-93', in The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220, ed. by Orietta Da Rold and others (University of Leicester, 2010; last update 2013), [https://www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/mss/EM.BL.Vite.A.xv.htm], accessed 30 May 2017.
Ward, H. L. D. and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1883–1910), I, p. 134, II, pp. 1–15.
Zupitza, Julius (ed.), Beowulf, reproduced in facsimile from the unique manuscript British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A. XV, Early English Text Society, OS 245, 2nd edn (London: Oxford University Press, 1959).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)