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Royal MS 1 E VI
- Record Id:
- 040-002105785
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x00037f
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 E VI
- Title:
- Gospels (the 'Royal Bible')
- Scope & Content:
-
Gospels, Jerome's version, imperfect, with several missing leaves. The numeration of quires running from lxxx to lxxxviii suggests that the manuscript was a part of an integral Bible.
Contents:
1v: A purple-stained incipit page with an inscription in gold and silver letters relating to a miniature of the symbols of the Evangelists, now lost; the inscription incipit: 'Haec est speciosa quadriga luciflua'.
ff. 2r-2v: The Epistle of Jerome to Damasus, incipit: 'Novum opus'.
ff. 3r-3v: The capitula of Matthew in 28 paragraphs, incipit: 'Nativitas Christi, magorum muncra'.
ff. 4r-6r: Canon tables.
ff. 7r-28v: Matthew, with the first leaf missing, beginning with 1:19 over an erasure of the same text, 'Joseph autem vir eius'.
f. 29r: The capitula of Mark, incipit: 'De Johanne baptista'.
f. 30r: A purple-stained incipit page with an inscription in gold and silver letters relating to a miniature of the Baptism of Christ, now lost.
f. 30v: A miniature of St Mark, added in the 1st quarter of the 11th century.
ff. 31r-41v: Mark, with the first leaf and leaves after ff. 32 and 41 missing, beginning with 1:4, 'Fuit Iohannes in deserto', and ending with 15:39, 'Videns autem centurio'.
ff. 42r-42v: The capitula of Luke in 20 paragraphs, incipit: 'Zacharias angelo non credens'.
ff. 43r-44v: Two purple-stained incipit pages with a miniature of an ox, the symbol of St Luke, at the beginning of his Gospel, and an inscription in gold and silver letters relating to a lost miniature of the Annunciation to Zacharias.
ff. 45r-67v: Luke, with the first page missing, beginning with 1:5, 'Fuit in diebus Herodis'.
f. 68r: The capitula of John in 14 paragraphs, incipit: 'Farisaeorum levitae'.
ff. 69r-77v: John, with the first and the last leaf missing, beginning with 1:6, 'Fuit homo missus', and ending with 11:37, 'ut et hic non moreretur.
Canterbury Cathedral, Add. MS 16 is a leaf detached from this manuscript including the following fragment of John, 11:38-12:34; other identified detached leaves are Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. Bib. d.1 (P) (see St Augustine's Abbey 2008), and Worcester, Cathedral Library, MS Add. 1.
Decoration:
1 incipit page with a miniature of an ox, the symbol of Luke, with God blessing, and an initial in colours and gold with a display script, at the beginning of Luke (f. 43r). 1 added miniature of St Mark receiving a scroll from the Manus Dei (f. 30v). 3 purple pages with inscriptions in gold and silver relating to (lost) miniatures (ff. 1r, 30r, 44r). Canon tables in colours and gold with zoomorphic decoration in the 'Trewhiddle Style' (ff. 4r-6r). 1 outline initial with zoomorphic decoration (f. 42r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002105785 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 E VI : Gospels (the 'Royal Bible') - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0053]/040-002105785
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex, 77 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_1_E_VI (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0800
- End Date:
- 1024
- Date Range:
- Early 9th century-1st quarter of the 11th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex.
Dimensions: 470 x 340 mm (text space: 365 x 260).
Foliation: ff. [iii] + ii + 77 + i [ii] (all unfoliated flyleaves are modern paper leaves; ff. i-ii and iii are medieval parchment flyleaves).
Collation: two first quires imperfect i3 (ff. 1-3); ii3 (ff. 4-6); quire signatures in the form of Roman numerals, at the end of each following quire (ignoring the missing leaves): iii6 (ff. 7-12) numbered lxxx; iv8 (ff. 13-20) numbered lxxxi; v8 (ff. 21-28) numbered lxxii; vi8 (ff. 29-36) numbered lxxxiii; vii7 (ff. 37-43) unnumbered; viii2 (ff. 44-45) numbered lxxxiiii; ix8 (ff. 46-53), numbered lxxxv; x8 (ff. 54-61) numbered lxxxvi; xi8 (ff. 62-69) numbered lxxxvii; xii8 (70-77) numbered lxxxviii. Another set of quire signatures, at first pages of quires (from i to v).
Layout: Written in two columns of 42 lines.
Script: Insular hybrid minuscule. Several scribes; the hand of one of them has been identified by Budny 1999 with the hand responsible for glossing the Vespasian Psalter, Cotton MS Vespasian A I, the oldest extant translation of Scripture into Old English.
Binding: Post-1600. Royal Library binding of brown leather with the royal arms and a date of 1757.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England (Canterbury).
Provenance:
The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine's, Canterbury: ownership inscription, 'Liber s[an]c[t]i Aug[ustini] Cant[uarensis]', 14th century (f. ii recto); and two shelfmarks: 'Quatuor evan[gelia] vet[era] cu[m] A', 13th century, and 'Di[stinctio] III G[r]a[dus] I' (altered from Distinctio I Gradus III), 14th century (f. ii recto); perhaps to be identified with 'Quatuor Evangelista glo' cum A. 2º fo. in textu. Josaphat autem. D' 3ª Gª Iº' in the catalogue of the library, first compiled between 1375 and 1420, and transcribed between 1474 and 1497, (see St Augustine's Abbey, 2008).
John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 1); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 304 (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 http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
John Obadiah Westwood, Palæographia Sacra Pictoria: Being a Series of Illustrations of the Ancient Versions of the Bible, Copied from Illuminated Manuscripts, Executed between the Fourth and Sixteenth Centuries (London: William Smith, 1843-45), no. 21.
M. Digby Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating (London: Dan and Son Lithographers, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pp. 11, 17.
[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~, pp. 20-21.
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.
M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover: The Catalogues of the Libraries of Christ Church Priory and St. Augustine’s Abbey at Canterbury and of St. Martin’s Priory at Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), pp. lxiv-lxv, lxvii, 208, 500, 516.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 87.
Georg Swarzenski, Die Salzburger Malerei, 2 vols (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1913), I, 2 n 1, 3 n. 2.
E. H. Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, 5 vols (Berlin: Selbstverlag des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, 1916), V, pp.131, 134-35, 139, 143, 291-93.
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. 20.
Johannes Brøndsted, Early English Ornament: The Sources, Development and Relation to Foreign Styles of Pre-Norman Ornamental Art in England (London: Levin & Munksgaard: 1924), pp. 104, 106, 108, 117, 122, n. 1, 138, 159, figs 86, 88, 98, 99, 100.
Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 3, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1925), pl. 3.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1926), p. 106.
O. E. Saunders, English Illumination, 2 vols (Paris: Pegasus Press, 1928), I, p. 14.
H. H. Glunz, History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), p. xiii.
Guide to an Exhibition of English Art gathered from Various Departments and held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934.), no. 74.
Codices Latini Antiquiores, ed. by E. A. Lowe, 11 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934-1966), II: Great Britain and Ireland (1935), no. 214.
T. D. Kendrick, Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900 (London: Methuen, 1938), pp. 148, 162, 168, 184, 188, pl. lxvi.
G. L. Micheli, L’enluminure du haut moyen age et les influences irlandaises (Brussels: Editions de la connaissance, 1939), pp. 16, 31, 32, 51, 62, 114.
S. M. Kuhn, 'From Canterbury to Lichfield', Speculum, 23 (1948), 591-629 (pp. 591, 612-13).
C. E Wright, 'Palaeography and Manuscripts', The Year's Work in Librarianship, 15 (1948), 248-66 (p. 253).
K. Sisam, 'Canterbury, Lichfield and the Vespasian Psalter', Review of English Studies, 7 (1956), pp. 1-10 (p. 7), and 113-31 (p. 113).
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 65.
S. M. Kuhn, 'Some Early Mercian Manuscripts', Review of English Studies, 8 (1957), 356-70 (pp. 356, 364).
Carl Nordenfalk, Early Medieval Painting from the Fourth to the Eleventh Century: Book Illustration, (Lausanne: Skira, 1957), p. 125.
P. McGurk, 'An Anglo-Saxon Bible Fragment of the Late 8th Century: Royal 1 E VI', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 25 (1962), 18-34 (pl. 4, 5).
Hans Swarzenski, 'The Role of Copies in the Formation of the Styles of the Eleventh Century', in Studies in Western Art: Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, 4 vols (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), I: Romanesque and Gothic Art, 7-18 (p. 11).
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. 44.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), pp. 19-20, 219, n. 52.
Francis Wormald, 'Bible Illustration in Medieval Manuscripts', in The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963-1970), 2: The West from the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. by G. W. H. Lampe (1969), pp. 309-37 (pp. 310-11).
Die Ottonische Kolner Malerschule, ed. by Peter Bloch and Hermann Schnitzler, 2 vols (Dusseldorf: L. Schwann, 1967-1970), II: Textband, p. 132.
Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 55.
J. J. G. Alexander, Insular Manuscripts: 6th to the 9th Century, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 1 (London: Harvey Miller, 1978), no. 32.
Joyce Irene Whalley, The Pen's Excellence: Calligraphy of Western Europe and America (Tunbridge Wells: Midas Books, 1980), p. 36.
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 33, pl. 14.
C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), p. 159, pl. 37.
M. O. Budny, 'London, British Library MS Royal 1.E.vi: the Anatomy of an Anglo-Saxon Bible Fragment', (unpublished doctoral dissertation, London University, 1985), pp. 6, 10-12, 255, and passim.
Jennifer Morish, 'Dated and Datable Manuscripts Copied in England during the Ninth Century: A Preliminary List', Medieval Studies, 50 (1988), 512-38 (p. 529, pl. 8).
Michelle P. Brown, 'The Lindisfarne Scriptorium from the Late Seventh to the Early Ninth Century', in St Cuthbert: His Cult and His Community to AD 1200, ed. by Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989), pp. 151-64 (p. 155).
Christopher D. Verey, 'The Gospel Texts at Lindisfarne at the Time of St Cuthbert', in St Cuthbert: His Cult and His Community to AD 1200, ed. by Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989), pp. 143-50 (p. 148).
Michelle P. Brown, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (London: British Library, 1990), pl. 17.
Michelle P. Brown, 'A New Fragment of a Ninth-Century English Bible', Anglo-Saxon England, 19 (1990), 33-43 (pp. 35, n. 9, 42, 43).
Michelle P. Brown, 'Continental Symptoms in Insular Codicology: Historical Perspectives', in Pergament: Geschichte, Struktur, Restaurierung, Herstellung, 2 vols, ed. by Peter Rück (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1991), II, pp. 57-62 (pp. 60, 62).
The Making of England, ed. by L. Webster and J.M. Backhouse (London: British Museum, 1991), no. 171 [exhibition catalogue].
Richard Gameson, 'The Decoration of the Tanner Bede', Anglo-Saxon England, 21 (1992) 115-59 (pp. 118, n. 12, 120, 156).
D. N. Dumville, Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo Saxon England: Four Studies (Woodbgidge: Boydell Press, 1992), p. 101, n. 27.
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. 245).
Henry Shaw, Alphabets and Numbers of the Middle Ages, intro. by Rowan Watson (London: Bracken Books, 1994; first published as Alphabets, Numerals and Devices of the Midddle Ages London, William Pickering, 1845), p. 13.
Richard Gameson, 'English Manuscript Art in the Late Eleventh Century: Canterbury and its Context', in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars 1066-1109, ed. by Richard Wales and Richard Sharpe (London: the Hambledon Press, 1995), pp. 95-144 (p.122, n. 96).
Michelle P. Brown, The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage and Power in Ninth-Century England (London: British Library, 1996), pp. 17-24, 128-30, 172, and passim.
Richard Marsden, 'The Old Testament in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Preliminary Observation on the Textual Evidence', in The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use, ed. by Richard Gameson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 101-24 (p. 102, n. 8).
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 4.
Helmut Gneuss, ‘Origin and Provenance of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: The Case of Cotton Tiberius A. III’, in Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, their Scribes and Readers: Essays presented to M. B. Parkes, ed. by P. R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1997), 13-48 (p. 25).
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.171).
Michelle P. Brown and Patricia Lovett, The Historical Source Book for Scribes (London: British Library, 1999), p. 53.
St Augustine and the conversion of England, ed. by Richard Gameson (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), pp. 237-48, 255-60, 264-68, 270-73, 289, 295-96, 363, 416.
George Henderson, Vision and Image in Early Christian England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 132-33, 137, pl. VII.
Mildred Budny, 'The Biblia Gregoriana', in St Augustine and the Conversion of England, ed. by Richard Gameson (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), pp. 237-84 (pp. 237-48, figs 11.1-5, 11.7, 51-52, fig. 11.10).
Richard Gameson, 'The Earliest Books of Christian Kent', in St Augustine and the Conversion of England, ed. by Richard Gameson (Stroud: Sutton, 1999), pp. 313-73 (p. 363).
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. 448.
Michelle P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London: British Library, 2003), pp. 67, 68, 96, 123, 277, 289, figs 32, 33.
Michelle P. Brown, Painted Labyrinth: The world of the Lindisfarne Gospels (London: British Library, 2003), p. 46.
Michelle P. Brown, 'Preaching with the Pen: the Contribution of Insular Scribes to the Transmission of Sacred Text, from the 6th to 9th Centuries', University of London Annual Palaeography Lecture, January 2004, School of Advanced Study, Institute of English Studies, University of London, Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, Courses & Events, [http://www2.sas.ac.uk/ies/cmps/Events/Lectures/2003/fulltext.htm] [accessed 3 April 2006], p. 10 no. 10, p. 28 n. xlix.
Michelle P. Brown, Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age (London: British Library, 2007), pls 52-53.
Richard Gameson, The Earliest Books of Canterbury Cathedral: Manuscripts and Fragments to c. 1200 (London: Bibliographical Society, 2008), pp. 57, 60.
St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, ed. by B. C. Barker-Benfield, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 13, 3 vols (London: British Library, 2008), BA I.190, pp. lxi, lxxxix, xcv, 373, 443, 515, 606, 1656, 1658, 1730, 1733, 1747, 1801, 1822, 1838.
Melanie Holcomb, Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), p. 62 [exhibition catalogue].
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 2.
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story (London: The British Library, 2018), no. 55 [exhibition catalogue].
Bernard Meehan, ‘The Royal-Otho-Corpus / Cambridge-London / Parker-Cotton-Wolsey Gospels’, in Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story with Eleanor Jackson (Dublin: Four Courts, 2021), pp. 16-27 (p. 19).
Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Anglo-Saxon links with Rome and the Franks in the light of the Würzburg book-list’, in Manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Cultures and Connections, ed. by Claire Breay and Joanna Story with Eleanor Jackson (Dublin: Four Courts, 2021), pp. 86-97 (p. 94).
- Exhibitions:
- Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, British Library, London, 19 October 2018 - 19 February 2019
Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, 19 October 2017 - 18 February 2018 - Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)