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Cotton MS Vitellius A XIX
- Record Id:
- 040-001102979
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x000231
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100058093967.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Vitellius A XIX
- Title:
- Bede, Vita sancti Cuthberti; Latin poems entitled 'De quattuor clavibus sapientiae'; excerpts from Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum; extract from Juvencus, Evangeliorum libri; note on 'De sacro baptismate'; hymn for St Martin and 'Alleluia' verses with musical notation; Bede, Vita metrica sancti Cuthberti
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a series of Latin texts relating to St Cuthbert, including both Bede's prose and verse vitae of Cuthbert and excerpts from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica pertaining to Cuthbert. There are Old English glosses, apparently in the same hand as the main text, added to Bede's prose Vita S. Cuthberti.
This manuscript includes:
f. 1r: early modern table of contents;
f. 1v: title page with decorative capitals;
ff. 2r-4v: Bede's prefatory letter to the prose Vita Sancti Cuthberti, addressed to Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne;
ff. 4v-7r: table of contents to Bede's prose Vita Sancti Cuthberti;
ff. 7v-8r: Latin poems, entitled 'De quattuor clavibus sapientiae', written in a different hand from the rest of the text in the late tenth or early eleventh century;
f. 8v: a purple rectangle with a figure with a halo and stole etched into it;
ff. 9r-84v: Bede, Vita Sancti Cuthberti in prose (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, no. 2021);
ff. 85r-88r: extracts from Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum;
f. 88r: note on 'De sacro baptismate' and a hymn for St Martin with musical notation, added in the 2nd half of the 10th century;
ff. 88v-89r: Bede's prefatory letter to John;
f. 89r: Alleuia verses with musical notation;
ff. 89v–114r: Bede, Vita metrica sancti Cuthberti (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, no. 2020);
f. 114r: later pen trials and brief note on the six ages of man, added in the 2nd half of the 10th century.
Decoration: decorative captials (f. 1v, 2r, 7v-8r, 89v-90r); initials filled with blue and purple (ff. 2r, 4v, 88v); initials in black (ff. 4r-v); rubrics in oxidised red (throughout f. 4v-84v); purple field with a figure with a halo and stole etched into it (f. 8v); large initial with foliate and interlace details and a bird's head (f. 9r); large initials in black and possibly oxidised red (throughout f. 12r-90r); letter 'h' with foliate details (f. 79r); musical notation (f. 88r); initials in red and green (throughout ff. 91r-114r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102979 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Vitellius A XIX : Bede, Vita sancti Cuthberti; Latin poems entitled 'De quattuor clavibus sapientiae'; excerpts from Bede,… - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0809]/040-001102979
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058093967.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0930
- End Date:
- 0999
- Date Range:
- Mid 10th century-2nd half of the 10th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Condition: Outer edges of leaves scorched by fire in 1731.
Materials: Parchment and ink.
Dimensions: binding 230 × 150 mm (text space 150 x 95 mm).
Foliation: ff. 114 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end).
Script: Anglo-Saxon square minuscule, Caroline minuscule.
Binding: BM/BL in-house, rebound in 1856.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ? The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury: the manuscript has been attributed to St Augustine's on the basis of its script and decoration. The manuscript's script seems to be similar to that found in Cotton Cleopatra A III, whose original endleaves came from the same manuscript as Cotton Vitellius A XIX. Those endleaves have been removed to form Cotton Cleopatra A III/1 (formerly Cotton Cleopatra A III*), where f. 1 was originally joined with from Cotton Vitellius A XIX.
Provenance:
? Canterbury: may have been the exemplar for Harley 1117, given their shared content, including most of their glosses in the prose Vita S Cuthberti (see Colgrave, Two Lives (1940), pp. 46-47; Rollason, 'St Cuthbert' (1989), p. 418). Alternatively,Harley 1117's exemplar may have been Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 204 (see Barker-Benfield, St Augustine's (2008), III, p. 1818).
? The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury: this may be the collection of texts pertaining to Cuthbert mentioned in one of St Augustine's medieval booklists (ed. by Barker-Benfield, St Augustine's (2008), I, p. 604).
John Leland (c.1503–1552), poet and antiquary: annotated by him (ff. 2v, 4r, etc.)
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: inscribed with his name (f. 9r).
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:
-
O’Keeffe, Katherine O’Brien (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, 10, Manuscripts containing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, works by Bede, and other texts (Tempe, AZ, 2003).
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
Barker-Benfield, B. C., St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 3 vols(London: British Library, 2008), III, p. 1818.
Bibliotheca Hagiographica Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis [BHL], Subsidia Hagiographica, 6, 2 vols (Brussels, 1898–1901; repr. 1992).
Bishop, T. A. M., ‘Notes on Cambridge manuscripts. Part V: MSS. connected with St Augustine’s Canterbury (continued)’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3 (1959–63), p. 93.
Colgrave, Bertram (ed. and trans.), Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), p. 27 [includes edition with Cotton Vitellius A XIX collated as V].
Gnuess, Helmut and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), no. 401.
Hartzell, K. D., Catalogue of Manuscripts written or owned in England up to 1200 containing Music (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), no. 148.
Jaager, Werner, ed., Bedas metrische Vita sancti Cuthberti (Leipzig, 1935), p. 30 [includes edition of Bede's metrical vita].
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), no. 217.
Laistner, M. L. W., & H. H. King, A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, NY, 1943), pp. 88, 90.
Lapidge, Michael, 'Prolegomena to an Edition of Bede's Metrical Vita Sancti Cuthberti', Filologia Mediolatina, 2 (1995), 127-63.
Meritt, Herbert Dean, ed., Old English Glosses (A Collection) (London, 1945), pp. xii, 15 [includes edition of the glosses].
[Planta, J.], A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Deposited in the British Museum (London, 1802), p. 381.
Rollason, David, 'St Cuthbert and Wessex: The Evidence of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 183', in St Cuthbert, His Cult and Community to AD 1200, ed. by Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1989), pp. 413-24 (pp. 418-19).
Sheerin, D.M., 'John Leland and Mildred of Worcester', Manuscripta, 21 (1977), 172-80 (pp. 178-80) [includes editions of the Latin poems].
Temple, Elzbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 19 (ii).
Tite, Colin, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: British Library, 2003), p. 160.
Webber, Teresa, 'Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica as a Source of Lections in Pre- and Post- Conquest England' in The Long Twelfth-Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, ed. by Martin Brett and David Woodman (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 47-74.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)