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Royal MS 1 A XIV
- Record Id:
- 040-002105738
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x000332
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100174220924.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 A XIV
- Title:
- Gospels (the 'Wessex Gospels')
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the four Gospels in English, in the Anglo-Saxon or Wessex version, with flyleaves from a Latin missal of the 13th century. The Gospels are arranged as follows: Mark (ff. 3r-32r); Matthew (ff. 33r-82r); Luke (ff. 83r-133v); John (ff. 135r-174v) and were probably copied separately as each begins on a new quire with blank pages at the end. Some words have English glosses on f. 142r-v and Latin glosses on f. 144r-146v.
Decoration:
1 initial in green with penwork decoration in red (f. 3r), and 1 initial in red with penwork decoration in green (f. 83r), and 2 initials in red on green grounds (ff. 33r, 135r), at the beginning of Gospels. Initials in green, red or brown.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002105738 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 A XIV : Gospels (the 'Wessex Gospels') - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0014]/040-002105738
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100174220924.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1150
- End Date:
- 1200
- Date Range:
- 1150-1200
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: parchment codex.
Dimensions: 220 x 150 mm (text space: 155 x 105 mm).
Foliation: ff. 175 (+ 5 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end; ff. 1-2 and 174-175 are medieval parchment flyleaves).
Collation: i2(ff. 1-2); ii-iv8(ff. 3-26); v8-1(ff. 27-32+ 1 unfoliated leaf removed after f. 32, stub remaining); vi-x8(ff. 33-72); xi10(ff. 73-82); xii-xvii8(ff. 83-130); xviii4(ff. 131-134); xix-xxiii8(ff. 135-174); xxix1(f. 175); catchwords.
Script: Insular minuscule.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1967.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (W).
Provenance:
Added leaves from a Missal, 13th century (ff. 1, 2, 175).
The Benedictine abbey of Christ Church, Canterbury: Christ Church pressmark 'D[istinctio] xvi Gra[dus] iiii (f. 3r); listed in Henry of Eastry's catalogue of Christ Church library, of 1337-38 as 'Textus iv evangeliorum anglice' (See Ker, 1959, p. 316).
Thomas Cranmer (b. 1489, d. 1556), Archbishop of Canterbury: inscribed 'Thomas Cantuarien[sis] (f. 3r).
John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 3r); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 903 (see The Lumley Library, 1956); passed to Henry, Prince of Wales.Henry Frederick, prince of Wales (b. 1594, d. 1612), eldest child of James I: his collection became part of the Royal Library.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his Followers, ed. by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, 4 vols (Oxford: University Press, 1850), I, pp. ii, n. k, iii, n. z.
The Gospel according to Saint Luke in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions Synoptically Arranged, with Collations Exhibiting all the Readings of all the Manuscripts, ed. by Walter W. Skeat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1874), pp. vi, xi, xii.
Edward Maunde Thompson, Wycliffe Exhibition in the King’s Library (London: Clowes and Sons, 1884), no. 3.
B. Quaritch, 'Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, 1489-1556', Contributions towards a Dictionary of English Book-Collectors (London: Quaritch, 1892), p. 7.
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 4th edn, ed. by Edward Miller, 2 vols (London: George Bell & Sons, 1894), II, p. 164.
Facsimiles of Biblical Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by F.C. Kenyon (London: British Museum, 1900), no. XX.
James Wilson Bright, The Gospel of Saint John in West-Saxon: edited from the Manuscripts (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co, 1904), p. xxi.
British Museum Bible Exhibition 1911: Guide to the Manuscripts and Printed Books exhibited in Celebration of the Tercentenary of the Authorized Version (London: British Museum, 1911), no. 21.
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), I, p. 5, IV, pl. 2.
Max Förster, 'Abt Raoul d'Escures und der Später 'Sermo in festis S. Mariae'', Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, 62 (1922), 43-48 (p. 45, n. 13).
R. W. Chambers, 'The Lost Literature of Medieval England', The Library, Fourth series, 5 (1925), 293-321 (p. 315).
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 116.
N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 245, pp. 315-16.
Sir Frederic Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, revised by A. W. Adams, with an introduction by G. R. Driver (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode: 1958), pp. 269-70.
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 36.
Minnie Cate Morrell, A Manual of Old English Biblical Materials (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1965), p. 185.
The Old English Version of the Gospels: Text and Introduction, ed. by R. M. Liuzza, Early English Text Society, Old Series 304 (London: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. xxxvii-xli [an edition of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 140 including variants from the present manuscript].
David G. Selwyn, The Library of Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: The Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1996), pp. lix, n. 210, 169, 258.
Michelle P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London: British Library, 2003), pp. 96, 134, 148n.
Michelle P. Brown, Painted Labyrinth: The world of the Lindisfarne Gospels (London: British Library, 2003), p. 46.
Jane Roberts, Guide to Scripts used in English Writings up to 1500 (London: British Library, 2005), no. 28.
'London, British Library, Royal 1 A. xiv' in The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220, edited by Orietta Da Rold, Takako Kato, Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne (University of Leicester, 2010) http://www.le.ac.uk/english/em1060to1220/mss/EM.BL.Roya.1.A.xiv.htm [accessed 21.01,13].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)