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Add MS 38130
- Record Id:
- 040-002057344
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002057341
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001102.0x0003b9
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100063225044.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 38130
- Title:
- Vita Sancti Neoti; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript from the early 12th century mainly contains a life and sermons concerning the 9th-century Benedictine monk St Neot, and the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) by the Benedictine monk Bede (b. 672/3, d. 735). Its script and opening initial suggest a Continental influence, which may indicate that the manuscript may have been written by English scribes educated on the Continent or Continental scribes in England. The manuscript, for example, may have been written by Norman monks who came to the Benedictine abbey of St Neots in the 12th century.
Contents:
ff. 1r-8v: Vita Sancti Neoti (Life of St Neot), beginning ‘Incipit prologus in vitam beatissimi neoti Abatis Gloriosi confessoris Christi’.
ff. 8v-9v: Two sermons for the Translation of St Neot, beginning ‘Sermo de Translatione corpois eiusdem confessoris Christi · vita de miraculis insignis’; and ‘Item alius Sermo · Quoniam dignissimi patris nostri neoti translationis diem cum devotione celebratis annua sollempernitate’.
ff. 10r-109r: Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, beginning ‘Incipit prefatio Gloriossimo regi cevulfo beda famulus Christi et presbiter ; historiam gentis anglorum ecclesiasticam quam nuper edideram libentissime tibi desideranti rex et prius ad legendum transmisi’.
The manuscript contains two additions from the 1st half of the 12th century:
f. 1v: Office for the feast of St Abraham, St Isaac and St Jacob, Patriarchs (9 October), beginning ‘Pro die nono octobris festivitas Sanctorum Patriarcharum abraam · Ysiac · et iacob ·officio · ad missam’.
f. 9v: Abbo of Fleury (b. c. 945, d. 1004), dedicatory letter to Dunstan prefacing the Passio Sancti Edmundi Regis et Martyris, (Passion of King and Martyr St Edmund) beginning, imperfect (opening only), beginning ‘[D]OMINO SANCTAE metropolitanae dorobernensium ecclesiae archiepiscopo Dunstano · vere moribus et aetate maturo · abbo floriacensis monachus levita etsi indignus Christo Domino irriguum superius et irriguum inferius.
[ff. i recto, i verso, and 109v are empty].
Decoration:
Large and small initials in red and brown ink, some with minor pen-work decoration. Words highlighted with red ink and rubrics throughout the manuscript.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002057341
040-002057344 - Is part of:
- Add MS 38128-38167 : PHILLIPPS MANUSCRIPTS
Add MS 38130 : Vita Sancti Neoti; Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum - Hierarchy:
- 032-002057341[0003]/040-002057344
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 38128-38167
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100063225044.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1149
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 275 x 180 mm (text space: 215 x 140 mm).
Foliation: ff. i + 86 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); f. i is a parchment flyleaf; 1 parchment stub between f. 39 and f. 40; f. 40 and f. 41; f. 42 and f. 43; f. 46 and f. 47; f. 47 and f. 48; f. 58 and f. 59; f. 59 and f. 60; f. 60 and f. 61; gatherings of unused paper stubs between f. 19 and f. 20; f. 50 and f. 51; f. 87 and f. 88.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house; gold-tooled black half leather binding, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘VITA S. NEOTI BEDA HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA’; marbled endpapers and endpapers or covers of an earlier binding, containing unusual floral motifs in gold, pasted on the inside covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England.
Provenance:
An unidentified ?19th-century owner: inscribed with his or her note: 'No.32' (inside upper board).
Guglielmo Libri (b. 1803, d. 1869), Italian count, mathematician, and book collector: his sale at Sotheby's, London, 28 March 1859, lot 140 (see Catalogue of the Extraordinary Collection of Splendid Manuscripts (1859), pp. 32-33 (no. 140)). Purchased by Sir Thomas Phillipps.
Sir Thomas Phillipps (b. 1792, d. 1872), baronet, collector of books and manuscript: his shelf-mark (‘Phillipps MS. 16250’) on f. i recto; his sale at Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 1911, lot 753. Purchased by the British Museum (see note on f. [ii] recto: ‘Purchased at Sotheby’s (Phillipps Sale), 24-28 April 1911 (lot 753)’).
- Information About Copies:
- Complete digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of the Extraordinary Collection of Splendid Manuscripts, Chiefly upon Vellum, in Various Languages of Europe and the East formed by M. Guglielmo Libri (London: Sotheby & Wilkinson, 1859), pp. 32-33 (no. 140).
Max Ludwig Wolfram Laistner and Henry Hall King, A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1943), p. 97.
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. by Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p.xlviii.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1911-1915, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1969), I: Descriptions, pp. 30-31.
The Annals of St. Neots with Vita prima Sancti Neoti, ed. by David Dumville and Michael Lapigde (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985), p. lxxviii-ix.
Mary P. Richards, ‘Liturgical Materials for the Medieval Priory of St Neots, Huntingdonshire’, Revue Benedictine, 90 (1980), 301-06.
- 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.