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...

Cotton MS Vitellius A XIII/1

Record Id:

040-003371501

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-001101582

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100041979839.0x000001

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100165161436.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Cotton MS Vitellius A XIII/1

Title:

Les roys de Engeltere

Scope & Content:

ff. i–v: Five rectangles of red linen, formerly used as curtains for the miniatures.

ff. 3–6: Eight miniatures of the kings of England from Edward the Confessor (r. 1042–1066) to Edward I (r. 1272–1307); each one except the last is accompanied by a short account of their reign in Anglo-Norman prose.

These contents were part of a composite manuscript, Cotton MS Vitellius A. xiii; they were extracted from the composite volume in January 1939 and are now kept separately (former reference: Cotton MS Vitellius A. xiii, ff. I–V, 3–6). The work is sometimes called ‘Effigies regum Angliae’ after its description in the Cotton catalogue, but this a modern description and not its title.

Decoration:

8 miniatures in colours with gold. Initials in gold or blue with pen flourishing in red. Line-fillers in red and blue. Script in blue or gold.

The subjects of the miniatures are:

f. 3r: Edward the Confessor at a banquet;

f. 3v: William killing Harold with a lance at the Battle of Hastings;

f. 4r: William II ('le rous') holding a sceptre and Henry I holding a sword;

f. 4v: Stephen hawking and Henry II holding a sceptre;

f. 5r: Richard I imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria and being shot at Chalus castle;

f. 5v John offered a cup of poison by a monk of Swineshead;

f. 6r: The coronation of Henry III;

f. 6v: Edward I enthroned before courtiers, clergy and scribes.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Cotton Collection

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-001101582
040-003371501

Is part of:

Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts

Cotton MS Vitellius A XIII/1 : Les roys de Engeltere

Hierarchy:

032-001101582[1379]/040-003371501

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

4 parchment leaves and 5 rectangles of fabric in frames

Digitised Content:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100165161436.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Anglo-Norman

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1275

End Date:

1305

Date Range:

c 1280-c 1300

Era:

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:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: linen (ff. i–v) and parchment in glass and wooden frames (ff. 3–6).

Dimensions: 200 × 140mm.

Foliation: ff. v (ff. i–v) + 4 (ff. 3–6); [ff. 1-2 are early modern flyleaves, bound together with Cotton MS Vitellius A XIII].

Script: Gothic.

Binding: Each parchment folio is mounted separately within glass in a wooden frame; each square of fabric is mounted in a wooden frame; the 9 frames are boxed together.

Custodial History:

Origin: England.

Provenance:

Produced in the reign of Edward I: his image is last and has no commentary (Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1986).

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (b. 1571, d. 1631), 1st baronet, antiquary and politician: acquired by him and bound together with the remainder of Cotton MS Vitellius A xiii by him.

Cotton’s collection was augmented by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton (b. 1594, d. 1662), 2nd baronet, and his grandson, Sir John Cotton. Sir John Cotton (b. 1621, d. 1702), 3rd baronet: bequeathed the entire Cotton collection of books and manuscripts to trustees ‘for Publick Use and Advantage’, 12 and 13 William III, c. 7. Formed one of the foundation collections of the British Museum in 1753.

Former Internal References:

Cotton MS Vitellius A XIII, ff. I-V, 3-6

Publications:

Backhouse, Janet, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (London, 1997), no. 75.

Brieger, Peter, English Art 1216–1307, Oxford History of English Art, 4 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 216, n. 4.

Buzwell, Greg, Saints in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2005), p. 47.

Collard, Judith, ‘Effigies ad regem Angliae and the Representation of Kingship in Thirteenth-Century English Royal Culture’, Electronic British Library Journal, 2007, https://bl.uk/eblj/2007articles/article9.html.

Dean, Ruth J., & Maureen B. M. Boulton, Anglo-Norman Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, Occasional Publications Series, 3 (London, 1999).

Dunning, Andrew N.J., ‘Les roys de Engeltere: An illustrated genealogy for King Edward I’, Medium Ævum (forthcoming), https://osf.io/xbvhp/.

Hardy, Thomas Duffus, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials Relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, to the End of the Reign of Henry VII, 3 vols. (London: Longman, 1871), III, no. 516.

McKendrick, Scot, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, eds., Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 115 [exhibition catalogue].

Michael, Michael, ‘The Iconography of Kingship in the Walter of Milemete Treatise’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 57 (1994), 35–47 (p. 44, n. 64), https://doi.org/10.2307/751462.

Sandler, Lucy Freeman, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, 2 vols (London: Miller, 1986), no. 9.

Strutt, Joseph, The Regal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England, ed. by J.R. Planché (London: Bohn, 1842), nos. 2–7, 10–13.

Richard Löwenherz: König, Ritter, Gefangener, ed. by Alexander Schubert [exhibition catalogue, Stiftung Historisches Museum der Pfalz, Speyer, 17 Sept. 2017 - 15 April 2018) (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2017), no. 93, p. 286.

Exhibitions:

Richard Löwenherz: König-Ritter-Gefangener, Historisches Museum der Pfalz, 17 September 2017 - 14 January 2018

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)