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Cotton MS Vespasian B XIV
- Record Id:
- 040-001103253
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001273.0x0002b0
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100175213801.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Vespasian B XIV
- Title:
- Marie de France, Le Lais de Launval, and Fables; Elias of Evesham, Quadrilogus de uita sancti Thome Cantuariensis; Beneit of St Albans, La Vie de Thomas Becket, and other texts
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
f. 1*r: An added list of the manuscript's contents, written in the hand of Richard James (b. 1592, d. 1638), English scholar and first librarian of the Cotton library.
ff. 1r-8v: Marie de France, Le Lay de Launval (The Lay of Launval), a poem in Anglo-Norman French, the text beginning, 'Laventure de un lay / cum ele avint vus conteray...' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 176).
ff. 8v-18r: Le Livere de Reis de Brittanie (The Book of the Kings of Britain), a short prose chronicle of England, from Ecgberht, King of Wessex (r. 802-839), up to the reign of Richard I (r. 1189-1199), written in Anglo-Norman French; the text beginning, 'Jadis al tens des Engleis soleit Engletere ester en cinc parties e a cinc reys. Li uns avoit Kent...' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 13).
f. 18r-v: Carmen de excidio Troie (Song of the Siege of Troy), a poem in Latin concerning the fall of Troy, ending imperfectly; the text beginning, 'Pergama flere uolo' (Walther 13895).
ff. 19r-32v: Marie de France, Fables, a collection of verse fables and tales written in Anglo-Norman French, incomplete; the text beginning, 'Equittel homenen ad...' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 179).
ff. 33r-92r: Elias of Evesham, Quadrilogus de uita sancti Thome Cantuariensis (The Four-part the Life of St Thomas of Canterbury), a prose life of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in Latin, the text beginning, 'Venerabili domino in christo priori Henrico dei gratia abbati...'
ff. 92v-94r: Letters of Pope Alexander III, concerning Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, written in Latin.
ff. 94r-95r: Translatio sancti Thome martyris (The Translation of St Thomas the Martyr), a prose account in Latin of the translation and miracles of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, the text beginning, 'Anno quinquagesimo passione gloriosissimi martyris Thome...'
ff. 95v-113r: Beneit of St Albans, La Vie de Thomas Becket (The Life of Thomas Becket), a verse life of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in Anglo-Norman French, the text beginning, 'Al Deu loenge e son seruisse' (Dean, A Guide to Anglo-Norman Literature (1999), No. 509).
f. 113r: A list of the archbishops of Canterbury and York and the bishops of Durham.
f. 113v: Short extracts from various theological sources, including a passage on the Virgin Mary, a passage on young monks, and an excerpt from Chapter 7 of Tyrannius Rufinus' Historia monachorum seu liber de vitis patrum (History of Monks or Book of the Lives of the Church Fathers), written in several different hands.
f. 114r: Pen-trials and inscriptions.
f. 114v is blank.
Decoration:
1 large puzzle initial in red and blue with red and blue foliate half-border, at the beginning of Elias of Evesham's Quadrilogus (f. 33r).
Large and small initials in red with blue penwork decoration, or blue with red penwork decoration. Initials highlighted in red.
Rubrics, marginal notes, and headings in red, some with blue penwork decoration. Paraphs in red.
Brackets in alternating red and blue ink, delineating tail-rhyme, accompanying Beneit of St Albans' Vie de Thomas Becket (ff. 95v-113r).
1 marginal illumination of a king, possibly Henry II, flanked by two ecclesiastical grotesques (f. 15v). Added drawings of an owl and several human figures (f. 114r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
Medieval and Renaissance Women - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001103253 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Vespasian B XIV : Marie de France, Le Lais de Launval, and Fables; Elias of Evesham, Quadrilogus de uita sancti Thome Cantuariensis;… - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0936]/040-001103253
- 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_100175213801.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Anglo-Norman
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1275
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: Approximately 255 × 125 mm (written space: 195 x 75 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1* + 114 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 unfoliated parchment stubs after f. 18 + 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end); f. 1* is a parchment flyleaf.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house (1859). Brown leather, tooled in gold, with the Cottonian arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
Provenance:
Griffith Briskin (d. 1608), preacher, lecturer and prebendary of Osbaldwick, Yorkshire: possibly his name inscribed, 'Gryffyth Bryskyn', (f. 1r).
William L’Isle (b. 1569, d. 1637), English antiquary and scholar: his name inscribed, 'Guilielmus de Insula' (f. 1r); mentioned in a letter (now Cotton MS Julius C III, f. 243r), addressed from to him to Sir Robert Cotton, in which he states that he has promised the manuscript to Richard James (b, 1592, d. 1638), Cotton's librarian (see Graham, 'L'Isle's letters to Cotton' (2002), pp. 370-71).
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: listed in his catalogues (Add MS 36789, ff. 62r-63r; 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:
-
Bliss, A. J., 'The Hero's Name in the Middle English Versions of "Lanval"', Medium Ævum, 27 (1958), 80-85 (p. 80).
Bredehoft, Thomas A., The Visible Text: Textual Production and Reproduction from Beowulf to Maus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 73.
Busby, Keith, Codex and Content: Reading Old French Verse Narrative in Manuscript, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002), I, p. 212 n. 110, II, pp. 478, 499, 726 (n. 288).
Busby, Keith, 'The Manuscripts of Marie de France', in A Companion to Marie de France, ed. by Logan E. Whalen (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 303-18 (pp. 308, 315).
Dean, Ruth J. and 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. 13, 176, 179, 509.
Graham, Timothy, 'William L'Isle's letters to Sir Robert Cotton', in Early Medieval English Texts and Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, ed. by Elaine M. Treharne & Susan B. Rosser (Tempe : Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2004), pp. 353-79 (pp. 370-71).
Handel, Katharine, 'French Writing in the Cloister: four texts from St Albans Abbey featuring Thomas Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184-c. 1275', unpublished PhD thesis (University of York, 2015), p. 85.
Keidel, George C., 'The History of French Fable Manuscripts', PMLA, 24 (1909), 207-19 (p. 209).
Morcos, Hannah, 'Dynamic Compilations: Reading Story Collections in Medieval Francophone Manuscripts', unpublished PhD thesis (King's College London, 2015), pp. 191-96.
Planta, Joseph, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library, Deposited in the British Museum (London: Hansard, 1802), p. 441.
Pratt, Karen, The Arthur of the French: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2020), pp. 14, 30, 208.
Purdie, Rhiannon, Anglicising Romance: Tail-rhyme and Genre in Medieval English Literature (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008), pp. 45, 72, 81.
Smith, Thomas, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1696), p. 110.
Tite, Colin G. C., The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), p. 178.
Walther, Hans, Initia carminum ac versuum Medii Aevi posterioris Latinorum: Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Versanfänge mittellateinischer Dichtungen, Carmina Medii Aevi posterioris Latina, 1 (Göttingen: VandenHoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), no. 13895.
Ward, H. L. D. and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883–1910), I, pp. 31–32, 415, II, p. 307. - Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)