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 Caligula A XIV, ff 1–36

Record Id:

041-001102353

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-001101582

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001630.0x000169

LARK:

SLARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100056547574.0x000001

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Cotton MS Caligula A XIV, ff 1–36

Title:

Troper (The ‘Caligula Troper’) (imperfect)

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-36v: a Troper made in England possibly in the mid-11th century, with musical notation. Some feast days were also accompanied by illustrations.

Decoration:

Miniatures depicting St Stephen (f. 3v), the Ascension (f. 18r), the naming of St John the Baptist (f. 20v), St Peter being released from prison (for the feast of St Peter ad Vincula) (f. 22r), St Lawrence (f. 25r), an angel telling Joachim of the Virgin Mary's birth (f. 26r), Saints Anna, Joachim and Mary (f. 26v), St Martin and the disguised devil (f. 29r), St Andrew (f. 30v), the Apostles (f. 31r), the virgins (f. 36r).

Initials in red, gold, purple and green throughout. Rubrics in red throughout. Neumes throughout. Initial in red and gold with decoration (f. 2r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Cotton Collection
England and France 700-1200 Project

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-001101582
040-001102352
041-001102353

Is part of:

Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Caligula A XIV : Two Tropers (including the 'Caligula Troper'); a Proser; Homilies from Ælfric's Lives of the Saints; Life of…

Cotton MS Caligula A XIV, ff 1–36 : Troper (The ‘Caligula Troper’) (imperfect)

Hierarchy:

032-001101582[0502]/040-001102352[0001]/041-001102353

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS

Record Type (Level):

Item

Extent:

Part of Cotton MS Caligula A XIV

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1050

End Date:

1099

Date Range:

2nd half of the 11th century

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

Custodial History:

Origin: ?Southwestern England.

Provenance:

?Southwestern England: There is some debate over the origin of this manuscript, which has been described as ‘completely unexpected in a mid-eleventh-century English context’ (Heslop, 'Manuscript Illumination' (2007), p. 69). This manuscript has been associated with various houses, including Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, and the Old Minster, Winchester. The decorations' similarities with Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 302 --an eleventh-century Gospel lectionary that has been attributed to Hereford (Rickert, Painting (1954), pp. 55-56) or Worcester (see Heslop, 'Manuscript Illumination' (2007), p. 65)-- might suggest that it was made at the same centre or even by the same artist (Heslop, 'Manuscript Illumination', p. 65). The artist's techniques suggest he might have been trained by Eadwig [Eadui] Basan at Christ Church Canterbury (Heslop, 'Manuscript Illumination' (2007), p. 65), but this is debated.

? 13th-century: bound with another troper (ff. 37-92). Both sections were annotated with a lead point (see, for example, f. 8r, 11v, 33v. On the dating of the annotating hand, see Teviotdale, 'An Episode' (1998), p. 220).

Publications:

Backhouse, Janet, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (London: British Library, 1997), no. 18.

Bell, Nicolas, Music in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2001), pp. 22–24.

Frere, Walter Howard (ed.), The Winchester Troper from MSS. of the Xth and XIth Centuries, with other documents illustrating the history of tropes in England and France, Henry Bradshaw Society, 8 (London, 1894), pp. xxx, 101–24.

Gneuss, Helmut 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. 309.

Hartzell, K. D., Catalogue of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1200 containing Music (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), no. 128.

Heslop, T. A., ‘Manuscript illumination at Worcester, c. 1055–1065: the origins of the Pembroke Lectionary and the Caligula Troper’, in The Cambridge Illuminations: The Conference Papers, ed. by Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2007), pp. 65–75.

Jacobsson, Ritva, ‘Unica in the Cotton Caligula Troper’, in Music in the Medieval English Liturgy: Plainsong & Mediæval Music Society Centennial Essays, ed. by Susan Rankin and David Hiley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 11–45.

Ker, N. R. (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 35.

Planchart, Alejandro Enrique, The Repertory of Tropes at Winchester, 2 vols (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1977), I, pp. 43–50, II, pp. 21–29.

Rickert, Margaret, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages (London: 1954), pp. 55–56.

Temple, Elzbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900-1066 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 97.

Teviotdale, E. C., ‘An episode in the medieval afterlife of the Caligula Troper’, in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine M. Treharne (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 219–26.

Teviotdale, E. C., ‘The “Hereford Troper” and Hereford’, in Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Hereford, ed. by David Whitehead, The British Archaeological Association, Conference Proceedings 15 ([n.p.], 1995), pp. 75–81.

Teviotdale, E. C., ‘The making of the Cotton Troper’, in England in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the 1990 Harlaxton Symposium,ed. by Carola Hicks (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992), pp. 301–16.

Teviotdale, Elizabeth C., ‘Some thoughts on the place of origin of the Cotton Troper’, in Cantus Planus: Papers Read at the Fourth Meeting, Pécs, Hungary, 3–8 September 1990 (Budapest, 1992), pp. 407–12.

Teviotdale, E. C., ‘Tropers’, in Richard W. Pfaff (ed.), The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England, Old English Newsletter, Subsidia, 23 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995), pp. 42–43.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Subjects:

Liturgy

Places:

Southwestern England