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Royal MS 6 B VI
- Record Id:
- 040-002106156
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000277.0x0001b8
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056065175.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 6 B VI
- Title:
- St Ambrose, De Mysteriis; St Ambrose, De Sacramentis; St Ivo of Chartres, De ecclesiasticis sacramentis; St Bruno of Segni, De sacramentis ecclesiae; St Ivo of Chartres, Epistulae
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript was written by two scribes (ff. 1-22 and ff. 23-126), according to Waller, 'The Library, Scriptorium and Community' (1980), p. 314. The second hand (Rochester scribe 4) also wrote Royal MS 5 B IV and Royal MS 15 A XXII, according to Waller.
This manuscript consists of two texts of St Ambrose, a Father of the Church, the De Mysteriis, a dogmatic work on baptism, confirmation and Eucharist intended for catechumen, and the De Sacramentis,which consists of six sermons whose content is similar to the De Mysteriis, including instructions for prayers, and the Canon of the Mass. It includes other works related to sacraments written by St Ivo of Chartres (b. c. 1040, d. c. 1116), bishop of Chartres and defender of the Gregorian reform, and by St Bruno of Segni (d. 1123), abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Monte-Cassino and bishop of Segni.
Contents:
ff. 2r-8v: St Ambrose, De Mysteriis (About Mysteries), beginning: 'Incipit liber beati Ambrosii Mediolanensis archiepiscopi de Misteriis sive Initiandis. De moralibus cotidianum sermonem'.
ff. 8v-22v: St Ambrose, De Sacramentis (About Sacraments), consists of six sermons, beginning: 'Incipit sermo Primus de sacramentis. De sacramentis que accepistis'.
ff. 23r-58r: St Ivo of Chartres, De ecclesiasticis sacramentis (About the ecclesiastical sacraments), beginning: 'Sermo de sacramentis neophitorum habitus in synodo. Quoniam populus ad fidem vocatus'; imperfect at the end, ending with sermon 8 (De Nativitate Christi): 'Audiamus Paulum amicum sponsi casto amore zelantem non sibi sed sponso'. Sermons 9-25 are lacking.
ff. 58r-66r: St Bruno of Segni, De sacramentis ecclesiae (About the sacraments of the Church), beginning: 'Dilectissimo frati (sic) Gaio (sic) Magalonensi episcopo Braviro (sic) Signiensis episcopus salutem'.
ff. 66v-126r: Ivo of Chartres, Epistulae (Epistles), 92 letters, beginning: 'Ivo dei gratia humilis Carnotensium episcopus dilectissimo abbati maioris monasterii B[ernardo] et qui tecum sunt fratribus in domino salute. Quoniam summus pastor pastoris nomen habere nos voluit'. It includes extracts from Ivo of Chartes's Panormia (ff. 91r-97v).
Decoration:
This manuscript was illuminated by an artist working in both Rochester and Canterbury c. 1120, according to Heslop, 'Dunstanus Archiepiscopus' (1984). Other manuscripts illuminated by him are: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 271, Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.I.4, and probably Royal MS 5 C I and Royal MS 5 D III (see Waller, 'The Library, Scriptorium and Community' (1980), p. 314).
One historiated initial of Ambrose and one containing griffins, in colours, at the beginnings of works of St Ambrose and St Ivo of Chartres (ff. 2r, 23r).
Initials in red, purple, or green, some with penwork decoration or highlights in yellow.
Instructions for rubrics in the lower margins.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Royal Collection - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002106156 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 6 B VI : St Ambrose, De Mysteriis; St Ambrose, De Sacramentis; St Ivo of Chartres, De ecclesiasticis sacramentis; St Bruno of Segni,… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0395]/040-002106156
- 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_100056065175.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1124
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 12th 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 210 mm (text space: 225 x 150 mm).
Foliation: ff. 128 (+ 2 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaves at the beginning + at the end); ff. 1, 127, 128 are medieval parchment flyleaves.
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Rochester, Southeastern England.
Provenance:
The cathedral priory of St Andrew, Rochester: late 12th-century ownership inscription 'Hic est liber sancti Andree de Rovecestria', preceded by a table of contents written by the same hand; a 14th-century ownership inscription 'Liber de claustro Roffensi per Andrem monachum' (f. 2r). 'Liber de claustro Roffens[i] per Andr[eam] mona[chu]m', 14th century (f. 2); probably written and illuminated there after 1114: includes a letter of Ivo of Chartres concerning the election in 1114 of Ralph d'Escures, bishop of Rochester, as archbishop of Canterbury (f. 125v); included in the Rochester library catalogues of 1122/23, no. 44, and of 1202, no. 30 (see Sharpe, English Benedictine Libraries (1996)).
Added, early 13th-century theological distinctions (ff. 126v, 127v).
The Old Royal Library (the English royal library): Westminster inventory number 'no. 630' (f. 2), included in the inventory of books in the Upper Library at Westminster of 1542; note in the hand of the royal librarian, Patrick Young, [Junius] (b. 1584, d. 1652) (f. 46v); red seal of a ship, 17th century (f. 1); 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. 8651).
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:
-
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. 135-36.
O. Faller, S. J. Feldkirch, 'Was sagen die handschriften zur Echtkeit der Secha Predigten S. Ambrosii De Sacramentis', Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, 53 (1929), 41-65 (p. 55).
C. R. Dodwell, The Canterbury School of Illumination 1066-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), p. 77, pl. 46e.
T. S. R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, Oxford History of English Art, 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 64.
N. R. Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), p. 31.
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. 162, 297.
Pierre Courcelle, Recherches sur S. Ambroise: Vies anciennes, culture, iconographie (Paris 1973), p. 162, pl. X.
C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066-1190,A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 3 (London: Harvey Miller, 1975), p. 81.
Katharine Mary Waller, 'The Library, Scriptorium and Community of Rochester Cathedral Priory c. 1080-1150' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Liverpool, 1980), pp. 269, 313-14, 360.
T. A. Heslop, 'Dunstanus Archiepiscopus and painting in Kent around 1120', Burlington Magazine, 126 (1984), 195-204 (p. 200, fig 13).
Michelle P. Brown, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (London, 1990), pl. 26.
Deborah Kahn, Canterbury Cathedral and its Romanesque Sculpture (London: Harvey Miller, 1991), fig. 79.
English Benedictine Libraries: The Shorter Catalogues, ed. by R. Sharpe and others, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London: British Library, 1996), B.77.44, B79.30.
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H2.796.
Richard Sharpe and James Willoughby, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (Oxford: The Bodleian Libraries, 2015) http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/mlgb/book/4730/?search_term=Royal%206%20B.vi&page_size=500 [accessed 21 October 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.