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Royal MS 1 B XI
- Record Id:
- 040-002105755
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x000363
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100057897925.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 B XI
- Title:
- The Four Gospels; Records of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 2r-v: St Jerome, Epistula ad Damasum papam (Epistle to Pope Damasus), beginning imperfectly: 'addita sunt. Igitur hec presens prefaciuncula'.
ff. 2v-5r: St Jerome, Prologus Quattuor Evangeliorum (Preface to St Jerome's commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew), beginning: 'Plures fuisse qui evangelia scripserunt'.
ff. 5r-v: Eusebius, Epistula ad Carpianum.
ff. 5v-43v: Evangelium secundum Sanctum Mattheum (The Gospel of St Matthew) preceded by a prologue (ff. 5v-6v) and capitula (ff. 6v-8v).
ff. 44r-69r: Evangelium secundum Sanctum Marcum (The Gospel of St Mark), preceded by a prologue (ff. 44r-v) and capitula (ff. 44v-45v).
ff. 70r-112r: Evangelium secundum Sanctum Lucam (The Gospel of St Luke), preceded by a prologue (ff. 70r-v) and capitula (ff. 71r-v).
ff. 112v-145r: Evangelium secundum Sanctum Iohannem (The Gospel of St John), preceded by a prologue (ff. 112v-113r) and capitula (ff. 113r-v).
ff. 145v-146v: Thirteenth-century records of the revenues of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury have been inserted on leaves which were originally left blank.
Decoration:
Three incipit pages with initials, partially coloured, and display script in red and blue, at the beginning of St Mathew, St Luke, and St John (ff. 9r, 72r, 114v). Two historiated initials of St Michael fighting the dragon (f. 6r); and of a devil urging a monk to gluttony, with a portrait of St Matthew below, a naked man pointing his mouth and a man with a head of an ox at the beginning of St Matthew's Gospel (f. 6v). Five inhabited or zoomorphic initials with display capitals in red and blue: P'(lures) at the beginning of the Prologues, with a man fighting with a dragon (f. 2v); 'A'(monius) formed of dragons at the beginning of the epistle of Eusebius to Carpianus (f. 5r); 'M'(arcus), formed of two dragons (f. 44r) and 'I'(nicium) with a horse, a dragon, and a lion, at the beginning of St Mark's Gospel (f. 46r); 'L'(ucas) with a dragon biting at the beginning of St Luke's Gospel (f. 70r). A foliate initial in outline drawing with display capitals at the beginning of St John's Gospel (f. 112v). Three blue initials with penwork decoration in red (ff. 64r, 72v, 106r) and 2 initials in red and blue (ff. 142v, 134r). Decoration unfinished, space left blank for an initial (f. 139v). Instructions in the margins for the illuminator (e. g., f. 6r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Royal Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002105755 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 B XI : The Four Gospels; Records of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0031]/040-002105755
- 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_100057897925.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Greek, Ancient
Hebrew
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 12th century-13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 310 x 185 mm (text space 200 x 120 mm), in one column.
Foliation: ff. 147 (+ 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end; f. 1r is a medieval parchment flyleaf).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Rebound in 1950.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Canterbury, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury: includes records of the revenues of the abbey, 12th century (ff. 145v-147v).
Rubrics added in the margins in a 14th-century hand.
Verses in Latin and Ancient Greek with a Latin verse written by an early-modern hand and Hebrew letters in the upper margin (f. 1v).
John Theyer (bap. 1598, d. 1673), antiquary: included in the catalogue of his library left to his grandson Charles Theyer (b. 1651) (see Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, no. 6433).
Robert Scott (b. c. 1632, d. 1709/10), London bookseller: included in the catalogue of John Theyer’s manuscripts in his possession, assessed in 1678 by William Beveridge and William Jane, Royal Appendix, 70, no. 301.
Charles II (b. 1630, d.1685), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland: purchased from Scott together with over 300 other manuscripts from Theyer's 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 at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), II: English 12th and 13th Centuries (1915), p. 7, pl. 5g.
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.
H. H. Glunz, History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), no. 41.
C. R. Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), pp. 28n, 34, 79, 123, pl. 21b.
T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 157.
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, 361.
J. J. G. Alexander, Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel 966-1100 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 98 n. 4.
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), no. 65, ills. 171, 172.
Christopher de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (Oxford : Phaidon, 1986), fig. 97.
Michelle P. Brown and Patricia Lovett, The Historical Source Book for Scribes (London: British Library, 1999), p. 21.
Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), pl. 50.
Asa Simon Mittman, Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 143, 148-49, 198, pls 7.16, 7.17, 8.1, 9.10.
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. 1733, 1796.
Richard Sharpe and James Willoughby, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (Oxford: The Bodleian Libraries, 2015) http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mlgb/book/1520/?search_term=Royal%201%20B.xi&page_size=500 [accessed 27 September 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.