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Cotton MS Vitellius F VII
- Record Id:
- 040-001103116
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x00027f
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165161686.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Vitellius F VII
- Title:
- Ancrene Riwle; Purgatory, Hell and Heaven; The Utility of Temptations; Le Pasturel Gregoire; prayers and meditations in Anglo-Norman French
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains an early Anglo-Norman French translation of the Ancrene Riwle (also known as Ancrene Wisse), an anonymous monastic rule (or manual) for anchoresses, originally composed in Middle English for three sisters who chose to enter the contemplative life.
17 surviving medieval manuscripts contain all or part of the Ancrene Riwle, of which four are translations into Anglo-Norman French. The three other Anglo-Norman translations of the text are now Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 883 (R.14.7); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 90; and Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, fr. 6276.
In addition to the Ancrene Riwle, the manuscript contains a number of other Anglo-Norman works. These include a treatise on Purgatory, Hell and Heaven; a translation of a Latin work by the English hermit Richard Rolle (b. c. 1300, d. 1349); a translation of the Cura Pastoralis by Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590-604); and a collection of prayers and meditations drawing on Biblical and patristic writings.
The manuscript was badly damaged during the Ashburnham House Fire of 1731 and was thought to have been completely destroyed (see Planta's Catalogue of the Cottonian Manuscripts (1802), p. 431, and Morton's preface to his edition of the Ancrene Riwle (1853), p. vii). However, it was later carefully restored under the supervision of Sir Frederic Madden (b. 1801, d. 1873), Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum between 1837 and 1866.
Contents:
f. [v] recto: An added note by Sir Frederic Madden relating to the extant Middle English versions of the Ancrene Riwle in the Cotton collection, dated 1853.
f. 1v: An added list of the manuscript's contents, written in Anglo-Norman French, in a late 14th-century hand.
ff. 2r-70r: The Ancrene Riwle, an early translation of the Middle English work into Anglo-Norman French, the main text beginning, 'Sire dit la spouse Dieu a son treschier espouse li dreiturels vous aiment...' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 643).
ff. 70v-102v: Purgatory, Hell, and Heaven, a treatise in Anglo-Norman French concerning the pains of Purgatory, the nine pains of Hell, and the fourteen joys of Heaven, with numerous exempla, the main text beginning, 'Tres cher frere cestes sunt les paroles seint Job a qi Dieu...'. (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 646).
ff. 103r-120r: The Utility of Temptations, an Anglo-Norman French translation of Richard Rolle's De XII utilitatibus tribulationis, beginning, 'A toi alme livre des temptacions...' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 648).
ff. 120v-146v: Le Pasturel Gregoire, an Anglo-Norman French version of part of Gregory the Great's Cura Pastoralis (Part III, Chs. 2-35), beginning, 'Altrement doit len amonesteir les povres, altrement les riches...' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 674).
ff. 147r-164v: A collection of prayers and meditations in Anglo-Norman French drawn from the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers, with a prologue beginning, 'Ces oreysons e ces meditacions ke ci siwent sunt prises partye de seynt Anselyn partye des autres escritz pur esprendre les corages e les pensers ky lit en le amour e en la pour de Dieu e pur se mesme conoistre...'; the main text beginning, 'Jesu le bon jeo vous vei des oils de bon creance ke vous mavez overt..' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 942). The last few leaves of the manuscript were badly damaged by fire and only fragments now remain.
f. 164v: An added ownership inscription relating to Eleanor Cobham (b. c. 1400, d. 1452), second wife of Humphrey of Lancaster (b. 1390, d. 1447), Duke of Gloucester.
Decoration:
Large and small initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or red with blue pen-flourishing. Paraph marks in red and blue.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
Medieval and Renaissance Women - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001103116 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Vitellius F VII : Ancrene Riwle; Purgatory, Hell and Heaven; The Utility of Temptations; Le Pasturel Gregoire; prayers and meditations… - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0887]/040-001103116
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100165161686.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1324
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Condition: Leaves damaged by fire in 1731.
Dimensions: Approximately 300 × 220 mm, written in two columns.
Foliation: ff. 164 (+5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Script: Gothic (textualis).
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house (1853). Brown leather binding, tooled in gold, with the Cottonian arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Eleanor Cobham (b. c. 1400, d. 1452), Duchess of Gloucester and second wife of Humphrey of Lancaster (b. 1390, d. 1447), Duke of Gloucester: inscribed, '...m. . Duchesse de Gloucestre du doun d ... / … Kent: Plesance / Al en un' (f. 164v); probably given to her by Joan Holland, Countess of Kent, wife of Thomas Holland, 8th Earl of Kent, at some point between 1433, when the construction of 'Plesance' (later known as 'Greenwich Palace') began, and Eleanor's indictment for necromancy in 1441 (see Allen, 'Eleanor Cobham' (1934), p. 214; Herbert ed., The French Text of the Ancrene Riwle (1944), pp. xii-xiii).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: listed in his catalogues (Harley MS 6018, no. 358; Add MS 36789, f. 61r; 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:
-
Allen, Hope Emily, 'Eleanor Cobham', Times Literary Supplement, 22 March 1934, p. 214.
Allen, Hope Emily, 'Wynkyn de Worde and a Second French Compilation from the "Ancren Riwle" with a Description of the First (Trinity Coll. Camb. MS. 883)', in Essays and Studies in Honor of Carleton Brown (New York: New York University Press, 1940), pp. 182-219.
Dahood, Roger, 'The Use of Coloured Initials and Other Division Markers in Early Versions of Ancrene Riwle', in Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane, ed. by Edward Donald Kennedy, Donald Waldron, and Joseph S. Witig (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988), pp. 79-97.
Dean, Ruth J., & Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Occasional Publications Series, 3 (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999), nos. 643, 646, 648, 674, 942.
Dobson, E. J., 'The Affiliations of the Manuscripts of Ancrene Wisse', in English and Medieval Studies Presented to J. R. R. Tolkein on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. by Norman Davis and C. L. Wrenn (London: Allen, 1962), pp. 128-63.
Dobson, E. J., 'The Date and Composition of Ancrene Wisse', British Academy Gollancz Lecture, 25 May 1966, Proceedings of the British Academy, 52 (1966), 181-208.
Dobson, E. J., The Origins of Ancrene Wisse (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).
Doyle, A. I., 'A survey of the origins and circulation of theological writings in English in the 14th, 15th, and early 16th centuries with special consideration of the part of the clergy therein', 2 vols, PhD dissertation (Cambridge University, 1953), II, pp. 173-77.
Edwards, A. S. G., 'The Middle English Manuscripts and Early Readers of Ancrene Wisse', in A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. by Yoko Wada (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 103-12 (p. 103 n. 1).
Herbert, J. A., ed., The French Text of the Ancrene Riwle: Edited from British Museum MS Cotton Vitellius F vii, Early English Text Society, 219 (London: Oxford University Press, 1944) [edition].
Innes-Parker, 'The Legacy of Ancrene Wisse: Translations, Adaptations, Influences and Audience, with Special Attention to Women Readers', in A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. by Yoko Wada (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 145-74 (pp. 152-53).
Lee, Berta Gratan, Linguistic Evidence for the Priority of the French Text of the Ancrene Wisse: Based on the Corpus Christi College Cambridge 403 and the British Museum Cotton Vitellius F VII Versions of the Ancrene Wisse (Hague: Mouton, 1974).
McAvoy, Liz Herbert, Medieval Anchoritisms: Gender, Space and the Solitary Life (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011), p. 176.
Millett, Bella, ed., Ancrene Wisse: A Corrected Edition of the Text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402, with variants from other manuscripts (Oxford: Published for the Early English Text Society by Oxford University Press, 2005), p. xv.
Millett, Bella, 'The Ancrene Wisse Group', in A Companion to Middle English Prose, ed. by A. S. G. Edwards (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004), pp. 1-18 (p. 3).
Planta, Joseph, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Deposited in the British Museum (London: Hansard, 1802), p. 431.
Robertson, Elizabeth, 'Savoring 'Scientia': the Medieval Anchoress Reads Ancrene Wisse, in A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. by Yoko Wada (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 113-44 (p. 116).
Tite, Colin G. C., The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), p. 171.
Trethewey, W. H., 'The Seven Deadly Sins and the Devil's Court in the Trinity College Cambridge French Text of the Ancrene Riwle', Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, 65 (1950), 1233-46 (p. 1246).
Trotter, D. A, 'The Anglo-French lexis of Ancrene Wisse: a re-evaluation', A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. by Yoko Wada (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 83-101 (pp. 90, 91).
Wada, Yoko, 'What is Ancrene Wisse?', in A Companion to Ancrene Wisse, ed. by Yoko Wada (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003), pp. 1-28 (pp. 1 n. 5, 2 n. 6, 8, 10, 16).
Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, ''Cest livre liseez...chescun jour': Women and Reading c. 1230-c. 1430', in Language and Culture in Medieval Britain: The French of England, c. 1100-c. 1500, ed. by Ad Putter, Carolyn P. College et al (Woodbridge: York Medieval, 2009), pp. 239-53 (pp. 245 n. 15, 251-52).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)