Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Royal MS 1 E VII
- Record Id:
- 040-002105787
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x000380
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100058103267.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 1 E VII
- Title:
- Bible (1st of 2 volumes)
- Scope & Content:
-
This exceptionally large codex is the first of two volumes of the only surviving Bible from late Anglo-Saxon England and the second of only two largely complete, surviving Bibles from England before 1066 (the other being the Codex Amiatinus, now Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Amiatino 1). In addition to the Old and New Testaments, these volumes include tables of chapters for most books of the Bible and several of Jerome’s prefaces and letters. The text and orthography was systematically corrected by a hand from Christ Church Canterbury shortly after the Norman Conquest, some 15th-century supply leaves have been added for the beginning of the Book of Genesis, and some early modern supply leaves have been added to cover the minor prophets at the end of the codex. The second volume of the Bible has also been digitised, and is available at [http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_1_E_VIII].
Decoration: miniature of God creating the world with a compass (f. 1v); initials of varying sizes in red (throughout); rubrics and numerals in red (throughout); initials in red and blue with penwork decoration (ff. 2r, 3r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
036-002105786
040-002105787 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 1 E VII-VIII : Bible (2 volumes)
Royal MS 1 E VII : Bible (1st of 2 volumes) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0054]/036-002105786[0001]/040-002105787
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100058103267.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0980
- End Date:
- 1599
- Date Range:
- late 10th century-16th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: parchment and ink.
Dimensions: binding 580 x 370 mm.
Foliation: ff. 208 (+ 1 unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the beginning and 2 at the end).
Binding: Post-1600 (1757).
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Southern England
Provenance:
Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury: corrected and annotated in the late 11th century and 12th century (see Marsden, 'Biblical Manuscripts' (2012), p. 425), possibly in the same hand of one of the hands in Cambridge, Trinity College, B. 1. 17 and Cambridge, Trinity College, B. 3. 9 (see Webber, 'Script' (1995), pp. 155-56) and as a corrector of in Arundel155, which has a Christ Church origin and provenance (see Dumville (1991), p. 47); probably to be identified with a 'Biblia bipartita in infirmaria in duobus voluminibus' in Tituli librorum de libraria ecclesiae Christi compiled under Henry of Estria (1284-1331), Cotton Galba E IV (see James, Ancient Libraries (1903) no. 321, p. 51).
Added supply leaves covering Genesis in the second half of the 15th century (ff. 2r-9v)
Added supply leaves covering Obadiah 19-21, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Baruch, Esdras III and IV in a 16th-century imitation of Caroline Minuscule (ff. 185-208).
Robert Lenton: inscribed with his name on a slip of paper inserted between ff. 34 and 35, 16th century (f. 34*).
Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel (b. 1512, d. 1580), magnate: inscribed with his name, 'Arundel' (f. 2r).
John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator: inscribed with his name (f. 2r).
Henry Frederick, prince of Wales (b. 1594, d. 1612), eldest child of James I: perhaps to be identified with 'Biblia Latina usque ad cap. 16 Esaiae' in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James's Palace (see Bernard, Catalogi librorum ('1697'), no. 7723).
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.
- Publications:
-
[Edward Bernard], Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), no. 7723.
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. 67.
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), p. 51.
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, pp. 20-21.
Julius P. Gilson, Description of the Saxon Manuscript of the Four Gospels in the Library of York Minster (York: Ben Johnson, 1925), p. 4.
The Lumley Library: The Catalogue of 1609, ed. by Sears Jayne and Francis R. Johnson (London: British Museum, 1956), p. 50.
Otto Pächt, C.R. Dodwell, and Francis Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London: Warburg Institute, 1960), p. 51, n. 2.
Frances Wormald, 'An English Eleventh-century Psalter with Pictures: British Museum, Cotton Tiberius C. VI', The Walpole Society, 38 (1962), 1-13 (p. 8).
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N.R. Ker, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), pp. 36, 362.
Adelheid Heimann, 'Three Illustrations from the Bury St. Edmunds Psalter and their Prototypes: Notes on the Iconography of some Anglo-Saxon Drawings', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 29 (1966), 39-59 (pl. 11a, pp. 52, 53).
John B. Friedman, 'The Architect's Compass in Creation Miniatures of Later Middle Ages', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, 30 (1974), 419-28 (pp. 420 n. 2, 423).
Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 102.
Mary Richards, 'A Decorated Vulgate Set from 12th-Century Rochester, England', The Journal of the Walter Art Gallery, 39 (1981), 59-67 (pp. 63-65, 68, 75, 80-83).
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 82, fig. 51.
Mary Richards, Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 78, part 3 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1988), pp. 63-64.
David N. Dumville, 'On the Dating of Some Late Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Manuscripts', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 10 (1991), 40-57 (pp. 47-48).
David N. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History, Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950-1030, Studies in Anglo-Saxon History, 6 (Suffolk: Boydell, 1993), pp. 109, 146.
Richard Marsden, 'The Old Testament in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Preliminary Observations on the Textual Evidence', in The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 101-24 (pp. 101-02, 104, 109-23).
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: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 95-144 (pp. 104, n. 31, 111, n. 55, 143).
Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Tessa Webber, 'Script and Manuscript Production at Christ Church Canterbury after the Norman Conquest', in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars 1066-1199, ed. by Richard Eales and Richard Sharpe (London: Hambledon, 1995), pp. 145-58 (pp. 155-56).
David G. Selwyn, The Library of Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: The Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1996), pp. 192-93, 258.
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.174).
Kristine Haney, The St. Albans Psalter: An Anglo-Norman Song of Faith (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 19-21.
Diane Reilly, 'French Romanesque Giant Bibles', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 56 (2002), 294-311 (p. 295).
C.M. Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England, 700-1500 (London: Harvey Miller, 2003), p. 56.
The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 59.
Asa Simon Mittman, Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (New York: Routledge, 2006), fig. 2.3.
Richard Gameson, The Earliest Books of Canterbury Cathedral: Manuscripts and Fragments to c. 1200 (London: Bibliographical Society, 2008), p. 62.
Richard Gameson, Manuscript Treasures of Durham Cathedral (London: Third Millennium, 2010), p. 55.
Richard Gameson, 'The material fabric of early British books', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2012), I: 400-1100 (2012), ed. by Richard Gameson, pp. 13-93 (p. 20).
Richard Marsden, 'The biblical manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon England', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2012), I: 400-1100 (2012), ed. by Richard Gameson, pp. 406-435 (pp. 425-26).
M. Jane Toswell, 'Psalters', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2012), I: 400-1100 (2012), ed. by Richard Gameson, pp. 468-481 (p. 473).
Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), no. 449.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)