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Royal MS 1 A XVIII
- Record Id:
- 040-002105742
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x000336
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056061555.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 A XVIII
- Title:
-
The Four Gospels
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 4r-11v: The Eusebian Canon tables.
ff. 12r-66r: The Gospel of St Matthew, preceded by a preface (ff. 12r-13r).
ff. 66r-99r: The Gospel of St Mark, preceded by a preface (ff. 66r-67r) and capitula (ff. 67r-68r).
ff. 99v-159v: The Gospel of St Luke, preceded by capitula (ff. 99v-104v), a preface ((ff. 104v-105v), and a table of Hebrew names with their interpretation 'Item incipit interpretatio nominum de Luca' (ff. 106r-v).
ff. 159v-192v: The Gospel of St John, preceded by capitula (ff. 159v-161r), and a preface (ff. 161r-v), imperfect.
ff. 193r-194r: The Epistle of St Jerome (b. c. 347, d. 420) to Damasus.
ff. 194r-196r: Prologus quattuor Evangeliorum (Prologue to the Four Gospels), St Jerome's prologue to his commentary on St Matthew.
ff. 196r-196v: The Epistle of Eusebius (b. c. 260, d. 339) to Carpianus, imperfect because of the loss of a leaf.
f. 197r: Prologue to the Gospel of St Matthew, imperfect.
ff. 197r-199v: Capitula of the Gospel of St Matthew.
Decoration:
Canon tables decorated with coloured interlaced geometric and foliate patterns (ff. 4r-11v). Five large initials in colours decorated with interlaced foliate and zoomorphic patterns, with display script (ff. 13r, 68v, 107r, 162r). Four smaller initials with similar patterns and display script (ff. 66r, 67r, 193v, 194r), and some small initials in colours in the text. First letters of verses highlighted in red, yellow, or green. Decorated quire signatures in the form of Roman numerals, I-IX (ff. 19v-98v) and letters. The numbering of chapters and verses are written in margins throughout according to the Eusebian Canons.
Drawings of a head of an eagle and of an inclined human head on f. 3v visible in video spectral comparator, 10th century (see Keynes, 'King Athelstan's Books' (1985), pp. 167-69).
Drawing of the Virgin and Child, 16th century (f. 199v).
Unusual punctuation in the form of two dots and a comma, also found in London, British Library, Additional 9381 from Bodmin, Cornwall.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Royal Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002105742 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 A XVIII : The Four Gospels - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0018]/040-002105742
- 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_100056061555.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0900
- End Date:
- 0924
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 10th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 260 x 185 mm (text space: 200 x 120 mm)
Foliation: ff. 199 (+ 4 modern unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end); ff. 1-3 are medieval parchment flyleaves; ff. 193-199 are bound incorrectly and should be placed before the Gospels.
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1874.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Western France.
Provenance:
A scriptorium in Brittany: see Bischoff, Katalog, II (2004), pp. 123-24 (no. 2491).
Æthelstan [Athelstan] (b. 893/4, d. 939), king of England; possibly given by him to St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury: inscribed in a possible imitation of Anglo-Saxon square minuscule (see Keynes, 'King Athelstan's Books' (1985), pp. 165-70): 'Hunc codicem Ædelstan rex devota / mente Dorobernensi tribuit ecclesie / beato Augustino dicate et quisquis / hoc legerit omnipotenti pro eo pro/que suis fundat preces' (f. 3v).
The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, founded in 598: suggested by the inscription on f. 3v (see Ker, Medieval Libraries (1964), p. 44).
(?) Humfrid, unidentified: his name ('Umfridus me fecit') inscribed in a 14th-century script (f. 3r).
'Thomas Lee': inscribed with his name, 15th century (f. 8v).
'John Birchyton': inscribed with his name, 15th century (f. 8v).
'John Hinstyde [or Lynstyde]': inscribed with his name, 15th century (f. 8v).
'N. Hersth': inscribed with his name, 15th century (f. 60r).
John Leland (b. c.1503, d. 1552), poet and antiquary, inscribed with his name: 'Joannes Lelandus / Æthelstanus erat nostre pars maxima cure. / Cuius nota mihi bibliotheca fuit. / Illo sublato sexcentos amplius annos. / Pulvere delitui squalidus atque situ. / Nunc pietas sed me superas revocavit ad auras. / Henrici digno restituique loco' (f. 3v).
Henry VIII (b. 1491, d.1547), king of England and Ireland, probably appropriated by him at the dissolution of St Augustine's Abbey (see Leland's inscription above).
John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 4r); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 303 (see The Lumley Library, (1956)); his library acquired by 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: included in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 3; and in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James's Palace (see Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697'), no. 7905).
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 at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
E. Maunde Thompson and G. F. Warner, Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1881-1884), Part II, Latin, p. 37.
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. 75.
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. 12.
Julius P. Gilson, Description of the Four Gospels in the Library of York Minster (York: Ben Johnson, 1925), p. 5.
H. H. Glunz, History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), no. 19.
Theodor Klauser, Das römische capitulare evangeliorum: Texte und Untersuchungen zu seiner ältesten Geschichte, Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen, 28 (Munster: Aschendorffschen, 1935), p. XXXVI.
Geneviève Louise Micheli, L’Enluminure du haut Moyen Âge et les influences irlandaises, (Bruxelles: Édition de la Connaissance, 1939), p. 100.
D. Talbot Rice, English Art 871-1100, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 35.
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 65.
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), pp. 44, 243, 361.
Francis Wormald, An Early Breton Gospel Book, ed. by Jonathan Alexander (Cambridge: Roxburghe Club, 1977), p. 5, 13 n. 1, pl. xxxiv.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), I, no. 853.
F. A. Rella, 'Continental Manuscripts Acquired for English Centers in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries, a Preliminary Checklist', Anglia, 98 (1980), 105-16 (p. 112).
Simon Keynes, 'King Athelstan's Books', in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes, ed. by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 143-201 (pp. 165-70).
Bonifatius Fischer, Die Lateinischen Evangelien bis zum 10. Jahrhundert, 4 vols (Freiburg: Herder, 1988-1991), I: Varianten zu Matthäus, Vetus Latina die Reste der Altlateinischen Bible: Aus der Geschichte der Lateinischen Bibel, 13, p. 18.
Jennifer O’Reilly, 'The Book of Kells and Two Breton Gospel Books', in Irlande et Bretagne: vingt siècles d’histoire: Actes du colloque de Rennes, 29-31 Mars 1993, ed. by Catherine Laurent and Helen Davis (Rennes: Terre de brume, 1994), pp. 216-27 (pp. 222-24).
Patrick McGurk, ‘The Disposition of Numbers in Latin Eusebian Canon Tables’, in Philologia Sacra: Biblische und patristische Studien für Hermann J. Frede und Walter Thele zu ihrem siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. by Roger Gryson (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), pp. 242-58 (p. 257).
Olivier Szerwiniak and Patrick Mc Gurk, 'Des recueils d'interprétations de noms hébreux (suite)', Scriptorium: revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits médiévaux, 50 (1996), 117-22.
Richard Marsden, 'Ask What I am Called': The Anglo-Saxons and Their Bibles', in The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition, ed. by John L. Sharpe III and Kimberly Van Kampen (London: British Library, 1998), pp. 145-76 (p. 175).
Adam S. Cohen and Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, 'The Getty Anglo-Saxon Leaves and New Testament Illustration around the Year 1000', Scriptorium: revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits médiévaux, 53 (1999), 63-81 (pp. 61 n. 22, 69, pl. 21).
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London, 2000), pp. xlv, xlvi.
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 444.
James P. Carley, The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives, preface by David Starkey (London: British Library, 2004), pl. 87.
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998-2014), II (2004): Laon-Paderborn, ed. by Birgit Ebersperger, pp. 123-24 (no. 2491).
Catherine E. Karkov, 'Evangelist Portraits and Book Production in Late Anglo-Saxon England' in The Cambridge Illuminations: The Conference Papers, ed. by Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2007), pp. 55-63 (p. 55 n. 8).
St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, ed. by B. C. Barker-Benfield, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 13, 3 vols (London: British Library, 2008), pp. lv, cii, n. 103, 1654, n. 42, 1696, 1734, 1796.
Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: University Press, 2009), p. 69.
Richard Sharpe and James Willoughby, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (Oxford: The Bodleian Libraries, 2015) http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mlgb/book/1519/?search_term=Royal%201%20A.xviii&page_size=500 [accessed 23 August 2016].
- 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.