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Royal MS 5 E XI
- Record Id:
- 040-002106105
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000277.0x00015d
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100062418926.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 5 E XI
- Title:
- Aldhelm of Sherborne, De virginitate (prose)
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains the De laudibus virginitatis (On the Praise of Virginity) a didactic work in 60 chapters extolling virginity, composed by Aldhelm of Sherborne (d. 709). Two leaves (ff. 116-117) have been replaced in the 11th century and now function as flyleaves.
Contents:
ff. 3r-7v: A table of chapters for Aldhelm, De Laudibus virginitatis.
ff. 7v-8r: Preface to the De laudibus virginitatis.
ff. 9r-119v: Aldhelm, De Laudibus virginitatis with numerous Latin and Old English interlinear glosses, added in the 1st quarter and middle of the 11th century (see Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (1957). Syntactic marks or glosses using a system of dots and dashes have been used throughout (e.g., ff. 11r, 12v).
The manuscript contains a number of additions:
f. [iv] recto: Two strips of parchment have been pasted on a paper flyleaf showing earlier titles in capitals with interlocked letters referring to the De laudibus virginitatis and its author.
f. [v] recto. A fragment of the scribe's pen trial with an alphabet and the words 'Omnium inimicorum' in red and yellow ink.
ff. 1, 120: Leaves with a part of De laudibus virginitatis have been used as flyleaves at the beginning and at the end. These extracts are similar to the text on ff. 116, 117; these leaves were originally part of this manuscript but probably replaced because of the defects in their parchment: ff. 1r-1v contain an extract from Aldhelm, De laudibus virginitatis chapter 59, beginning: '[obsta]culo tricabatur. Que meorum fenus votorum actenus infectum arguebat'; ff. 120r-120v contain an extract from chapter 60 with interlinear Latin glosses: '[...] sequentis eulogiae munusculum non aliter me spopondisse memento (sic)'.
Decoration:
Two large initials in colours with zoomorphic and interlace decoration of Wormald's type II, at the beginning of the prologue and the text (ff. 7v, 9r). One smaller initial in ink with zoomorphic and interlace decoration of the same type (f. 36r). Initials in red. A late 12th-century or early 13th-century drawing of Aldhelm standing at a lectern with a book opened on the first words of his treatise 'Iam / dudum ad pon/tifica/le pro/fisciscens', with an inscription 'Sanctus Aldelmus Episcopus' (f. 2v). Syntactic
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Royal Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002106105 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 5 E XI : Aldhelm of Sherborne, De virginitate (prose) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0344]/040-002106105
- 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_100062418926.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English, Old
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1000
- End Date:
- 1024
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 11th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 225 x 150 mm (text space: 170 x 105 mm).
Foliation: ff. 120 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); ff. 1, 2, 120 are medieval parchment flyleaves.
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. 19th century.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Canterbury, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
The English Royal Library: included in the 1698 catalogue of the library of St James's Palace (see [Edward Bernard], Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford: Sheldonian, '1697', but 1698?), no. 7881).
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:
-
O. Homburger, Die Anfänge der Malschule von Winchester im X. Jahrhundert: Studien über Christliche Denkmäler (Leipzig, 1912), p. 3, n.3.
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. 115.
Francis Wormald, 'Decorated Initials in English Manuscripts from A.D. 900 to 1100', Archeologia, 91 (1945) 107-35 (p. 134).
T. D. Kendrick, Late Saxon and Viking Art (London: Methuen, 1949), p. 36, n. 2.
T. A. M. Bishop, 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts: Part VII', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 5 (1963) 413-23 (pp. 414, 419, 420, 421).
N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 252.
Louis Goossens, The Old English Glosses of MS Brussels, Royal Library 1650(Aldhelm's 'De laudibus virginitatis') (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1974), p. 18.
Elżbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Miller, 1976), p. ix (no. 19), pls 74, 75.
Aldhelm, The Prose Works, ed. and trans. by Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren (Cambridge: Brewer, 1979), pp. 11-19, 51-136, 160-64 [a translation of the text].
Michael Korhammer, 'Mittelalterliche Konstruktionshilfen und altenglische Wortstellung', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 34 (1980), 18-58 (pp. 26, 55).
J. A Kiff-Hooper, 'Classbooks or Works of Art? Some Observations on the 10th Century Manuscripts of Aldhelm's De Laude Virginitatis', in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages ed. by Ian Wood and G. Loud (London: Hambledon Press, 1991) 15-26 (p. 23).
Richard Gameson, 'The Decoration of the Tanner Bede', Anglo-Saxon England, 21 (1992), 115-59 (p. 137 n. 92).
Richard Gameson, ‘Book Production and Decoration at Worcester in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, in St Oswald of Worcester: Life and Influence, ed. by Nicholas Brooks and Catherine Cubitt, Studies in the Early History of Britain, The Makers of England, 2 (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), pp. 194-243 (p. 220n.).
Patrizia Lendinara, Anglo-Saxon Glosses and Glossaries (Ashgate: Variorum, 1999), pp. 22n., 35, 180n.
Richard Gameson, 'Books, Culture and the Church in Canterbury around the Millennium', in Vikings, Monks and the Millennium: Canterbury in about 1000 A. D., Lectures delivered to the Canterbury Archaeological Society, 30 March 2000 (Tenterden: Canterbury Archaeological Society, 2000), pp. 15-41 (p. 32, pl. 5).
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), p. xxxvi, n. 48.
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 458.
Patrizia Lendinara, 'Instructional manuscripts in England: the tenth and eleventh century codices and the early Norman ones', in Form and content of instruction in Anglo-Saxon England in the light of contemporary manuscript evidence, Papers presented at the international conference, Udine, 6-8 April 2006, ed. by P. Lendinara, L. Lazzari and M. A D'Aroncon (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), p. 77.
- 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.