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Harley MS 2270, ff 86r-194v
- Record Id:
- 041-002767167
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048101
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100023206777.0x000001
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2270, ff 86r-194v
- Title:
- Medulla grammaticae
- Scope & Content:
-
The manuscript contains a complete copy of the Medulla grammaticae, a fifteenth-century Latin-English dictionary.
Several other manuscript copies of the Medulla grammaticae survive: British Library, Add MS 24640, Add MS 33534, Add MS 37789 (bound with the Promptorium parvulorum), Add MS 62080, Harley MS 1000, Harley MS 1738, Harley MS 2181, Harley MS 2257; Bristol, University Library, MS DM 1 (fragment), MS DM 14; Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys MS 2002; Cambridge, St John's College, MS C.22 (72); Canterbury, Cathedral Library, MS D.2; Downside Abbey, MS 26540; Gloucester, Diocesan Record Office, MS 31 (fragment); Lincoln, Cathedral Library, MS 88, MS 111; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Holkham Misc. MS 39, Rawlinson MS C.101, Rawlinson MS D.913 (fragment); Oxford, Brasenose College, MS UB S.2.87-88 (fragment); Shrewsbury School, MS 16; Stonyhurst College, MS 15 (A.1.10).
Six other lost or unlocated copies are noted by McCarren, 'Bristol University MS DM 1', Traditio, 48 (1993), p. 224.
The author of the Medulla grammaticae is not known. The text is often confused with the Promptorium parvulorum, not least because of the inclusion of 'Medulla grammaticae' as an alternative title in early printed editions of the Promptorium. As a result, authorship of the Medulla is often mistakenly attributed to Geoffrey the Grammarian: for example, annotations in Lincoln, Cathedral Library, MS 88, assign Geoffrey's name, plus the otherwise unattested surname of Starkey, to the contents.
No sources are explicitly mentioned in the Medulla, however comparative studies have indicated several likely candidates: glossae collectae from the Bible and classical texts, the vocabulary (class glossary) or nominale, and medieval Summae and encyclopaedia, such as Huguccio of Pisa's Liber derivationem and Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae.
The contents of this part of the manuscript are as follows:
ff. 86r-95v: Prologue; 'A'.
ff. 95v-98v: 'B'.
ff. 98v-112r: 'C'.
ff. 112r-117r: 'D'.
ff. 117v-122v: 'E'.
ff. 122v-128r: 'F'.
ff. 128r-131r: 'G'.
ff. 131r-133r: 'H'.
ff. 133r-139v: 'I'.
f. 139v: 'K'.
ff. 139v-144v: 'L'.
ff. 144v-150v: 'M'.
ff. 150v-153r: 'N'.
ff. 153r-156v: 'O'.
ff. 156v-168v: 'P'.
ff. 168v-170r: 'Q'.
ff. 170r-173r: 'R'.
ff. 173r-184r: 'S'.
ff. 184r-189v: 'T'.
ff. 189v-194r: 'U/V'.
f. 194r: 'X'; 'Y'.
ff. 194r-194v: 'Z'.
f. 194v: Notes by a 16th-century hand on Geoffrey the Grammarian, from John Bale, Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum.
Decoration:
Plain red initials.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048101
041-002767167 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2270 : Gesta Romanorum; Medulla grammaticae; Repertorium vocabulorum Bibliae
Harley MS 2270, ff 86r-194v : Medulla grammaticae - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2272]/040-002048101[0002]/041-002767167
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- Item
- Extent:
- 109 paper leaves, bound together with the rest of Harley MS 2270
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English, Middle
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1460
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- Late 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Publications:
-
Promptorium parvulorum sive clericorum: Lexicon Anglo-Latinum Princeps, auctore Galfrido Grammatico Dicto e predicatoribus Lenne episcopi, Northfolcensi..., ed. by Albert Way, Works of the Camden Society, 25, 54, 89, 3 vols (London: Camden Society, 1843-65), III, p. lii.
Peter Haworth, 'The First Latin-English Dictionary: A Bristol University Manuscript', Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 45 (1923), 253-75, pls I-II [on the text].
DeWitt T. Starnes, Renaissance Dictionaries: English-Latin and Latin-English (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1954), pp. 5-6, 9, 25-37, 39, 42, 129, 132, 135-36, 367n., 368n., 379n.
Gabriele Stein, 'The English Dictionary in the 15th Century', in Logos Semantikos: Studia Linguistica in Honorem Eugenio Coseriu, 1921-1981, ed. by Horst Geckeler and others, 5 vols (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1981), I: Historia de la Filosofía del Lenguaje y de la Lingüística, ed. by Jürgen Trabant, pp. 313-22 (pp. 315-18).
Gabriele Stein, The English Dictionary before Cawdrey, Lexicographia: Series Maior, 9 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1985), pp. 74-90.
Vincent P. McCarren, 'Bristol University MS DM 1, A Fragment of the Medulla Grammatice: An Edition', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion, 48 (1993), 173-235 [on the text].
Vincent P. McCarren, 'The Gloucester Manuscript of the Medulla grammatice: An Edition', The Journal of Medieval Latin, 10 (2000), 338-401 [on the text].
Vincent P. McCarren, 'Linguistic Problems within the Tradition of the 15th Century Glossary Medulla Grammatice', Bulletin Du Cange, 60 (2002), 235-60 [on the text].
Reiko Takeda, 'Cambridge, Trinity College Library, MS O.5.4: A Fifteenth-Century Pedagogical Dictionary?', in Historical Dictionaries and Historical Dictionary Research: Papers from the International Conference on Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, at the University of Leicester, 2002, ed. by Julie Coleman and Anne McDermott, Lexicographia: Series Maior, 123 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004), pp. 11-18 (pp. 11, 13-14, 17).
Vincent P. McCarren and others, 'A Prolegomenon to the Stonyhurst Medulla: An Edition of the Letter "A"', Bulletin du Cange, 65 (2007), 45-116 [on the text].
Florent Tremblay, A Medieval English-Latin Dictionary: Based on a Set of Unpublished 15th Century Manuscripts [of the] 'Medulla Grammaticae'/'Marrow of Grammar' kept in the British Museum (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009) [on the text].
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)