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Royal MS 2 B V

Record Id:

040-002105816

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002105724

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000224.0x00039d

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100058104810.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Royal MS 2 B V

Title:

The Royal Psalter

Scope & Content:

The main text of the this manuscript consists of a Psalter, in the Roman version, with 12 canticles and some Old English glosses in the same hand as the manuscript. Between the late 10th and mid-11th century, further prayers, proverbs, and notes on topics ranging from Christ's incarnation to the number of bones, teeth, and veins in humans were added.

Contents:

f. 1r-v: prayer invoking the protection of the Virgin Mary, St Machutus, and St Eadburh,11th century (f. 1r-1v);

ff. 1v-6r: Hours to the Virgin, 11th century;

f. 6r: proverbs with Old English translation, 11th century;

f. 6v: prayer for sins ('Oratio pro peccatis') in Old English, 11th century (f. 6v);

f. 7r-v: added preface to the Psalter, beginning 'David filius jesse' with a note beginning 'Primus psalmus nulli assignatus est', 11th century;

ff. 8r-171r: Roman Psalter with glosses;

ff. 171v-186v: various canticles;

ff. 187r-190r: added text entitled 'De kimoda incarnatione divini', late 10th or 11th century;

ff. 190r-v: added thunder prognostication in Latin, beginning 'Si tonitruum fuerit in mense ianuario', late 10th or 11th century;

ff. 190v-196v: prayers in Old English, beginning 'Myn drihten god aelmihtig' (ff. 190v-192) and 'Min drihten aelmihtig god si þe wuldor 7 þonc', 11th century (192-196v);

f. 196v: note on three Friday fasts in Old English, 11th century;

ff. 197r-198r: an Old English translation of a prayer by Alcuin entitled 'Confessio et oratio' with an instruction beginning 'man mot hine gebiddan swa he maeg', 11th century (ff. 197-198).

Decoration: coloured initials, some with penwork, throughout. A face has been drawn in the initial on f. 184r.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Royal Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002105724
040-002105816

Is part of:

Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts

Royal MS 2 B V : The Royal Psalter

Hierarchy:

032-002105724[0082]/040-002105816

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_100058104810.0x000001

Thumbnail:

Languages:

English, Old
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

0940

End Date:

1070

Date Range:

mid-10th century-mid-11th century

Era:

Access:

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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment and ink

Dimensions: 285 x 220 mm.

Foliation: ff. 198 (+ 4 unfoliated modern flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end).

Script: Anglo-Saxon square minuscule, Caroline minuscule, English vernacular minuscule.

Binding: Post-1600.

Custodial History:

Origin: Southern England, mid-10th century: Worcester, Winchester, Glastonbury, and Abingdon have all been proposed as possible origins for the main body of the Psalter (for a summary of the arguments see, Sisam, Salisbury (1959), pp. 52-55; Roberts, Guide to Scripts (2005), p. 122; Grestch, Intellectual Foundations (1999), p. 267). The main text of Psalter, the titles, and the glosses to the Psalms were added by a single scribe, perhaps the same scribe as Royal MS 4 A XIV, a manuscript which includes Jerome's and Pseudo-Jerome's commentary on the Psalms. It is possible that Royal MS 4 A XIV was intended as a companion volume to this Psalter, given their related contents (see Ker, Catalogue (1957), p. 320).

Provenance:

? Nunnaminster, Winchester, 11th century: added prayer mentions the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Machutus, and St Eadburh, a former nun of the Nunnaminster whose cult seems to have centered on that house (ff.1 r-v). Alternatively, the reference to Machutus could suggest a connection to the New Minster, Winchester: Machutus appears in a list of relics added to the New Minster in the New Minster Liber Vitae (see Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule (2014), p. 67; Stowe MS 944, f. 55v).

Added Hours to the Virgin, 11th century (ff. 1v-6).

Added proverbs with Old English translation, 11th century (f. 6).

Added 'Oratio pro peccatis' in Old English, 11th century (f. 6v).

Added preface to the Psalter, beginning 'David filius jesse' with a note beginning 'Primus psalmus nulli assignatus est', 11th century (f. 7r-7v).

Added prayers in Old English, beginning 'Myn drihten god aelmihtig' (ff. 190v-192) and 'Min drihten aelmihtig god si þe wuldor 7 þonc', 11th century (192-196v).

Added note on three Friday fasts in Old English, 11th century (f. 196v).

Added Old English translation of a prayer by Alcuin entitled 'Confessio et oratio' with an instruction beginning 'man mot hine gebiddan swa he maeg', 11th century (ff. 197-198).

Added Old English lemmata with Latin glosses in the margins, 11th century (f. 1)

Added Old English marginal (ff. 41, 50, 50v, 55v, 60, 60v, 61v, 63v, 64, 80v, 107v, 153) and interlinear glosses (ff. 19v, 85v, 86, 145), 11th century.

Added Old English glosses, 12th century (ff. 9, 29v, 62v, 69).

The Benedictine abbey of Christ Church, Canterbury: Christ Church pressmark 'r' with a title 'Psalteriu[m] s[anc]ti Jeronimi glosatu[m]', 12th century (f. 8) and Christ Church script, 11th century (ff. 197-198, according to Ker, 1957).

Thomas Cranmer (b. 1489, d. 1556), archbishop of Canterbury, inscribed with his name (f. 8).

John Lumley, 1st baron Lumley (b. c. 1533, d. 1609), collector and conspirator (b. c. 1533, d. 1609): inscribed with his name (ff. 1, 8); listed in the 1609 catalogue of his collection, no. 719 (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: included in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, f. 3v; and in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James's Palace (see Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697'), no. 7746)).

Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.

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, p. ii, n. q.

E. M. Thompson, Wycliffe Exhibition in the King’s Library (London: Clowes and Sons, 1884), no. 6.

Bernard Quaritch, 'Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, 1489-1556', in Contributions towards a Dictionary of English Book-Collectors, (London: Quaritch, 1892), p. 8.

E. S. Dewick, Facsimiles of Horae de beata Maria virgine, Henry Bradshaw Society, 21 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1902), pp. xi-xii, cols 1-2 [facsimile ff. 1-5v].

Fritz Roeder, Der altenglische Regius-Psalter: Eine Interlinearversion in HS. Royal 2. B. 5 des British Museum, Studien zur englischen Philologie, 18 (Halle: Niemeyer, 1904) [edition of the glosses].

Abbot Gasquet and Edmund Bishop, The Bosworth Psalter (London: Bell and Sons, 1908), pp. 7-8.

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. 40-41.

Robert Priebsch, The Heliand Manuscript: Cotton Caligula A VII in the British Museum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), pp. 19, 20, 25.

N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 249.

Cecilia Sisam and Kenneth Sisam, The Salisbury Psalter, Edited from Salisbury Cathedral MS. 150, Early English Text Society, 242 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. ix, 4 n. 3, 5, 7 n. 2, 17-21, 28, 35, 48, 52-55, 59, 62, 71 n. 2.

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. 104, 202.

Minnie Cate Morrell, A Manual of Old English Biblical Materials (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1965), pp. 89-92.

Lars G. Hallander, 'Two Old English Confessional Prayers', Studies in Modern Philology, new series 3 (1968), 87-110 (pp. 87, 88-92, 94-99).

Nicholas Haring, 'Commentaries on the Pseudo-Athanasian Creed', Medieval Studies, 34 (1972), 208-52 (p. 233, n. 87).

Mechthild Gretsch, 'Æthelwold's Translations of the Regula Benedicti and its Latin Examplar', Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974) 125-51 (p. 151, n. 1).

The Stowe Psalter, ed. by Andrew C. Kimmens, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. ix.

David N. Dumville, 'On the dating of some Late Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Manuscripts', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 10 (1991) 40-57 (p. 48).

Patrick Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth Century Cultural History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), pp. 57-58, 63, 67, 70, 74, 75.

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), p. 14.

David Dumville, 'English Square Minuscule Script: the Mid-Century Phases', Anglo-Saxon England, 23 (1994), 133-64, pp. 16, 18.

Phillip Pulsiano, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Volume 2: Psalters I, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 137 (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1994), pp. 57-64.

Phillip Pulsiano and Joseph McGowan, 'Four Unedited Prayers in London, British Library Cotton Tiberius A III', Medieval Studies, 56 (1994), 189-216 (pp. 189, 190, 191-199).

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. 111, n. 55).

David G. Selwyn, The Library of Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: The Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1996), pp. 168, 258.

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 (pp. 28, 30).

George Brown, 'The Psalms as the Foundation of Anglo-Saxon Learning', in The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages, ed. by Nancy Van Deusen (Albany: State University of New York, 1999), pp. 1-24 (p. 7, as 'D').

Mechthild Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundation of the English Benedicine Reform, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 25 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 28-33, 90, 112, 170, 261-331, 430, 431.

Phillip Pulsiano, Old English Glossed Psalters: Psalms 1-50 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), pp. xvi, xxi, xxiv, xxvi, xliii.

Simon Keynes, ' Between Bede and the Chronicle: London, BL, Cotton Vespasian B. vi, ff. 104-09' in Latin Learning and English Lore, I: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe and Andy Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 47-67 (p. 62).

Mercedes Salvador, 'Architectural Metaphors and Christological Imagery in the Advent Lyrics: Benedictine Propaganda in the Exeter Book?', in Conversion and Colonization in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. by Catherine E. Karkov and Nicholas Howe, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 318, Essays in Ango-Saxon Studies, 2 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), pp. 169-212 (pp. 172 n. 9, 204 n. 92).

László Sándor Chardonnens, Anglo-Saxon Prognostics, 900-1100: Study and Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 46-47, 531-32, 553.

Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London: British Library, 2007), p. 48, fig. 35.

C. Cubitt, ‘Archbishop Dunstan: A Prophet in Politics?’, in Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks, ed. byJ. Barrow and A. Wareham, (Aldershot, 2008), 145-66 (pp. 158-60).

Donald Scragg, 'London British Library Royal 2 B V, Christ Church, Canterbury and the English Language in the Eleventh Century', Forum (2008), 381-93 (pp. 381-84)

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. 39 n. 95).

David Ganz, 'Square Minuscule', 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. 188-96 (p. 193).

Barbara Raw, ‘Anglo-Saxon Prayerbooks’, 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. 460-67 (p. 466).

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. 468-81 (pp. 471, 475, 477, 479).

Peter A. Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut circa 990-1035 (D.S. Brewer: Cambridge, 2014), pp. 24, 67-68, 85, 89-91, 128, 132, 133, 174, 178-79.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Related Material:

From 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. 40-41:

'PSALTER, in Latin, Roman version, and Canticles; with interlinear Anglo-Saxon gloss. An added quire at the beginning and spare leaves at the end contain prayers, hours, &c., in later hands. The glossed Psalter and Canticles are printed by F. Roeder, Der altenglische Regius-Psalter (L. Morsbach's Studien zur engl. Philologie, heft xviii), Halle, 1904. He also proposed to print the English part of the added matter (artt. 4, 9, ii) in a forthcoming Sammlung kleiner altund mittelengl. Denkmdler. Artt. I, 2 are printed, with complete collotype facsimile, by E. S. Dewick, Facsimiles of Horae de beata Maria virgine (Hen. Bradshaw Soc. 1902), p. x sqq. Contents:-

1. Prayer, in which the Virgin, as patron of the house, and SS. Machutus and Eadburga are invoked to recover possessions wrongly taken from the monastery. The names of the saints indicate Winchester, and Mr. Dewick, l. c., suggests that the reference is to Itchen Abbas manor, recorded in Domesday as taken from St. Mary's, Winchester (Nunnaminster), by Hugh Fitz Baldric. Although all the forms of prayers are in the masculine gender, this is not impossible, but New Minster (Hyde Abbey), which certainly possessed relics of both saints, is perhaps not less probable. For the variations in statements as to the dedication see Birch, Liber Vitae of Hyde, p. viii, and Edm. Bishop in Down. side Review, March, I907, p. 63. Beg. 'Dominator omnium domine quesumus qui omnem diligis iustitiam'. f. 1.

2. Hours of the Virgin; printed by Dewick, op. cit., coll.3-18. Cf. H. Littlehales, introduction to The Prymer (E. E. Text Soc., 1897), P. lxxv. f. i b.

3. A few Latin proverbs with Anglo-Saxon render. ings. Printed by Roeder, op. cit., p. xii. Beg. 'Meliora plura quam grauia honera fiunt. Selre by oft feore'. f. 6.

4. 'Oratio pro peccatis.' Beg. 'Min drihten leof for pinre paere micelan mildheortnysse '. f. 6 b.

5. Preface to the Psalter: no. 69 of S. Berger's list (Les Préfaces jointes aux livres de la Bible, 1902), printed (from the Milan Irish MS. Psalter, C. 301 inf.) in Archivio glottologico Italiano, v (1878-I889), P. 4. Beg. 'Dauid filius Iesse cum esset in regno suo'. Followed, without a break, by a note beg. 'Primus psalmus nulli assignatus est'. f. 7. The above articles, in 11th cent. hands, are on an added quire.

6. PSALTER, with short marginal commentary and interlinear Anglo-Saxon gloss, all apparently by the same hand. Large initials to Ps. li, ci. The biblical titles of psalms are not given, but are replaced by interpretations mainly extracted from the Divisiones psalmorum of Cassiodorus. Text and gloss, but not titles nor commentary (except the commentary on Ps. lxxv as a specimen), are printed by Roeder, op. cit. In a few places in Ps. i the Gallican has been substituted for the Roman reading in a hand of circ. 1300. Text (see Pl. 22) beg. :- Eadig wer se pc na eode on gepeahte arleasra. Beatus uir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum. Commentary beg. 'Beatus a beatitudine . beatitudo est ueritatem diligere', or, in the other margin, 'Beatus est omnis homo qui non uult'. The title to Ps. ii beg. 'Species psalmi huius quatuor membris decorata est'. There is no Ps. cli. f. 8.

7. Twelve Cantica, with Anglo-Saxon gloss (Roeder, op. cit.), viz. (a-f) 'Canticum . feria ii (-in sabbato'): the usual set of six. As in Cotton MS. Vesp. A. i and Add. MS. 375I7, the first three (Is. xii. 1-6, xxxviii. 10-20, i Sam. ii. 1-10) are from the Vulgate, the next three (Exod. xv. 1-19, Hab. iii. 2-19, Deut. xxxii. 1-43) from a Roman, probably prehieronymian, text. These six are without commentary. f. 171 b;-(g) Benedicite, a Roman text, resembling Vesp. A. i and the Sorbonne psalter collated by Sabatier, Versiones Antiquae, 1743. Without commentary. f. 181 b;-(h-k) Benedictus, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, with marginal commentary in the same hand, as in the psalms. The only notice. able departures from the Vulgate reading are 'Et liberauit nos ab inimicis' ' as in Vesp. A. i and many other psalters, and'Nunc dimitte', as in Add. 37517. f. 182 b; -(l) 'Hymnus Athanasii de fide trinitatis quem tu concelebrans discutienter intellege': the Quicumque, with commentary, beg. 'Saluus coram deo in iudicio. Opus operationem id est necessaria praebeat uoluntatem'. f. 184 -(m) 'Oratio pura cum laudatione': the Gloria in excelsis, without commentary. f. 186 b. Art. 8 is added in a hand of about the end of the 10th century.

8. Chronological and other commonplaces, viz. (a) 'De trimoda incarnatione diuini pignoris Christi'. Beg. 'Dominus noster lesus Christus ter carnaliter huic mundo ortus est'. f. 187;- (b) 'De annis domini nostri Iesu Christi.' Beg. 'Sunt ergo anni domini nostri Iesu Christi in corpore'. f. 187;-(C) 'De pascha Christianorum que ante uel post.' Beg. 'Christianorum uero pascha ab xi. kal.' f. i87 b;-(d) 'De etatibus mundi.' Beg. 'Prima etas ab Adam usque a[d] Noe anni ii.ccxlii'. f. 187 b;-(d) 'Item de etatibus et genera. tionibus etatum, from Bede, De temporum ratione, cap. lxvi (Migne, Pair. Lat. xc. 520). Beg. 'Prima itaque mundi huius aetas'. f. 187 b ;-(e) A number of paragraphs all of which occur, in a different order, in the 9th cent. MS., Cotton Vesp. B. vi, ff. 106-107. The subjects are-'Quod (i. e. Quot) sunt anni ab orbe condito usque ad urbem conditam-De aetate hominis -Item de actate et annorum numero '-On the number of bones, &c., in man-'De longitudine mundi- Longitudo latitudo et altitudo templi et tabernaculum (sic)-De aedificatio (sic) ecclesiae sancti Petri apostoli (i. e. the dimensions of S. Peter's at Rome, f. 189 b)- De arca Noe-De nouo et uetere canones (sic)' and notes on measures of length. Beg. 'Ab orbe condito usque ad urbem', and ends 'xii arripine iugem faciunt'. f. 188 b;-(f) On prognostications from thunder in the several months, This differs from the later prognosti_ cations given in 12 C. xii, art. 26. Beg. 'Si tonitruum fuerit in mense Ianuario multe conuentiones sunt'. f.190. Artt. 9-11 are in 11th cent. hands.

9. Two long prayers in Anglo-Saxon, viz. (a) Con. fession, beg. 'Myn drihten god ælmihtig ic þe eom andetta'. f. 190 b;-(b)Thanksgiving beg.'Min drihten ælmihtig god si þe wuldor and þonc', f. 192.

10. Note on three Friday fasts, printed by Roeder, op. cit., p. xii. Beg. 'Pis syndan pa iii. frigedagas'. In- cmplete. f. 196 b. ii. 'Confessio et oratio,' in Anglo-Saxon. Beg. 'Eala þu ælmihtiga god unasecgendlicere mildheortnesse'. Followed in the same hand by a short instruction (Roeder, p. xiii) beg. 'Man mot hine gebiddan swaswa he mæg'. f. 197. On f. 198 b is some scribbling in Anglo-Saxon, including fragments (of a copy of a charter?) with the names 'Aetheluf cing' and 'Cealnoð'. In the margin G of f. 1 are a few words glossed, e.g. 'calida aura hat weder'. Vellum; ff. 198. ii in. x 8 in. X cent. (exc. artt. 1-5, 9-11, which are Xl cent.). Gatheringsofeight(7+i-xxiii+7). Quires i-viii have signatures. Sec. fol. 'specie tua' or (Psalter)-' dominus dixit'. Initials in colour, or in black filled with colour. Belonged to Archbishop Cranmer, whose name (f. 8) is not autograph, afterwards to [John,Lord]Lumley(autograph signature on f.8, not autograph on f. 1). Lumley cat. f. 107 ; cat. of 1666, f. 3 b; CMA. 7746.'