Medieval manuscripts blog

1158 posts categorized "Medieval"

09 March 2024

Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts

The British Library holds an internationally renowned collection of manuscripts relating to the ancient and medieval worlds. We are currently recruiting for a Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts to join our team, with a special responsibility for Classical, Biblical and Byzantine manuscripts.

A page of a manuscript of Virgil's Aeneid

The opening of Book XII of Virgil's Aeneid, from the 'King's Virgil': Kings MS 24, f. 227r 

Among other responsibilities, the post-holder will be required

  • to use innovative and traditional ways of interpreting and presenting our collections through online resources and engagement with academic and general users
  • to manage projects relating to ancient and medieval manuscripts
  • to use their specialist knowledge to support the development, management and promotion of our ancient and medieval collections

A page from the Theodore Psalter

Depiction of the Call of David from his flocks accompanying Psalm 151, from the 'Theodore Psalter': Add MS 19352, f. 189v

Applicants should have a post-graduate degree, or equivalent, in a relevant subject; experience of research in Classical, Biblical and/or Byzantine Studies; and a personal area of expertise relevant to the collection. Strong knowledge of Classical Latin and Ancient Greek, excellent written and oral communication skills in English, and the ability to promote the collections to a wide range of audiences are essential.

For more information and to apply for this position, please visit www.bl.uk/careers/ 

Closing date: 7 April 2024.

Interview date: 29 April 2024.

 

Follow us @BLMedieval

08 March 2024

Medieval Women exhibition

We have some exciting news — pass it on! In October 2024, our major exhibition Medieval Women: In Their Own Words opens at the British Library in London. The exhibition will explore the challenges, achievements and daily lives of women in Europe from 1100 to 1500. It will tell the history of medieval women through their own words and uncover their lives through manuscripts, documents and artefacts.

Women’s lives during the Middle Ages were rich and varied. The exhibition will reveal that women exerted great influence across private, public and spiritual realms. It will delve into the lived experiences of medieval women, including their beauty regimes and healthcare, their personal relationships and the running of their homes. It will shed light on their work in a wide variety of trades and professions, their role in medieval politics, the power and influence they wielded as spiritual visionaries or nuns, and the art, music and literature that they created.

Medieval illustration of a group of women in a richly decorated room. Christine de Pizan, dressed in blue, kneels on the ground and offers a large red book to Isabeau, dressed in pink and seated on a sofa
Christine de Pizan presents her book to Isabeau of Bavaria, in the Book of the Queen, France, c. 1410-1414: Harley MS 4431, f. 3r

Visitors will discover objects related to inspiring figures such as: Joan of Arc, the religious visionary and military leader; Christine de Pizan, the first professional woman author in Europe; and Shajar Al-Durr, the female ruler of Egypt who defeated Louis IX of France in the Seventh Crusade.

The exhibition will take visitors on a journey through the lives of medieval women across cultures, religions and class. Exploring both their struggles and successes, the exhibition prompts visitors to discover how medieval women’s voices still resonate across the centuries and speak powerfully to our world today.

Medieval illustration of a woman scattering food from a bowl, feeding a very large chicken and its chicks
A woman feeding chickens, in the Luttrell Psalter, England, 1325-1340: Add MS 42130, f.166v

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words is on show at the British Library from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025. Keep checking this blog for more information about the exhibition and our events programme, as well as details of when tickets will go on sale. 

This exhibition is made possible with support from Joanna and Graham Barker, Unwin Charitable Trust, and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at the London Community Foundation.

Follow us @BLMedieval

 

21 December 2023

Interim information sources for British Library manuscripts

We are extremely grateful to everyone for their kind words since the recent cyber-attack. We've now expanded our temporary website where you can find more information about our available services. On 15 January we released a searchable online version of our main catalogue, which contains the majority of our printed collections as well as some freely available online resources — please note that not everything is included.

We are now able to provide our Readers with access to the majority of the Library's special collections, including most of our manuscripts and archives. For the time being you’ll need to come on-site to consult offline versions of the specialist catalogues, and our reference teams will be on hand to help you with searching for and requesting items. Our blogpost Restoring our services an update (10 January) provides more information on what is available and how to access our collections.

We understand your frustration about the impact of this incident on your study and research, and we're continuing to work hard to develop hybrid services and workarounds that can restore some level of access to more of our collections. You can read more about our work in this blogpost by our Chief Executive.

In the meantime, we would like to share with you a list of freely available printed and online resources that provide information about our ancient, medieval and early modern manuscripts. We recognise that this list is not definitive, and that many of our catalogue records will have been updated in recent years. But we will endeavour to update the list whenever possible, and we offer it to you as a means of continuing your research while the Library's physical and online collections remain temporarily unavailable.

The list comprises references to some of the published catalogues for our principal collections of manuscripts, including Cotton, Harley, Sloane, Royal, and those designated as Additionals and Egertons.

We have also provided references for other categories of material, such as our Irish, Welsh and Greek manuscripts, our maps and drawings, and our seals. In many cases, hard copies of these catalogues may be available in other institutional libraries, and we have supplied links to the online versions. 

We recommend that you also consult JISC’s Library Hub Discover (https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/) to find United Kingdom holdings of these resources. 

We thank you again for your patience and we hope that you find this information useful.

 

Collection/Subject Publication Reference Online Link
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the Years 1836-1840 (London: British Museum, 1843) https://archive.org/details/catalogueofadd1836brituoft
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1841-1845 (London: British Museum, 1850) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS184145
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1846-1847 (London: British Museum, 1864) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS184647
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1848-1853 (London: British Museum, 1868) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS184853
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1854-1860 (London: British Museum, 1875) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS185460
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1861-1875 (London: British Museum, 1877)  
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1876-1881 (London: British Museum, 1882) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS187681
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1882-1887 (London: British Museum, 1889) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS188287
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1888-1893 (London: British Museum, 1894) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS188893
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1894-1899 (London: British Museum, 1894) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS18949
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1900-1905 (London: British Museum, 1907) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS19005
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1906-1910 (London: British Museum, 1912) https://archive.org/details/CatalogueOfAdditionsToTheMSS190610
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1911-1915 (London: British Museum, 1925) https://archive.org/details/catalogueadditions1915
Additional/Egerton Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1916-1920 (London: British Museum, 1933)  
Additional/Egerton British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1921-1925 (London: British Museum, 1950) https://archive.org/details/catalogueofadditionstothemss192125
Additional/Egerton British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1926-1930 (London: British Museum, 1959)  
Additional/Egerton The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1931-1935 (London: British Museum, 1967)  
Additional/Egerton     The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1936-1945, 2 parts (London: British Museum, 1970)  
Additional/Egerton     The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1946-1950, 3 parts (London: British Library, 1979)  
Additional/Egerton The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1951-1955, 2 parts (London: British Library, 1982)  
Additional/Egerton The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1956-1965, 3 parts (London: British Library, 2000)  
Additional/Egerton The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1966-1970, 2 parts (London: British Library, 1998)  
Additional/Egerton     The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1971-1975, 3 parts (London: British Library, 2001)  
Additional/Egerton The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1976-1980, 2 parts (London: British Library, 1995)  
Additional/Egerton     The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1981-1985, 2 parts (London: British Library, 1994)  
Additional/Egerton The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1986-1990, 3 parts in 4 (London: British Library, 1993)  
Arundel Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, New Series, vol. I, part 1, The Arundel Manuscripts (London, 1834) https://archive.org/details/b30455881_0001
Burney Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, New Series, vol. I, part 2, The Burney Manuscripts (London, 1840) https://archive.org/details/b30455881_0001
Cotton Smith, Thomas, Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1696) https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_uUAv2HzUGxgC
Cotton Planta, Joseph, ed., A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library Deposited in the British Museum (London: Hansard, 1802) https://archive.org/details/ACatalogueOfTheManuscripts1802
Greek MSS Richard, Marcel, Inventaire des manuscrits grecs du British Museum, I: Fonds Sloane, Additional, Egerton, Cottonian et Stowe (Paris, 1952) https://www.persee.fr/doc/dirht_1636-869x_1952_cat_3_1
Greek MSS The British Library Summary Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts, I (London, 1999) https://archive.org/details/summarycatalogue0000brit
Harley A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), Vol I https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008529493
Harley A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), Vol II https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008529436
Harley A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), Vol III https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008529311
Harley A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), Vol IV https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008529378
Irish MSS O'Grady, Standish Hayes, & Robin Flower, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: Printed for the Trustees, 1926) https://archive.org/details/catalogueofirish0000brit
Lansdowne Ellis, Henry, and Francis Douce, eds., A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: Taylor, 1820), Vol I https://archive.org/details/gri_33125012275638
Lansdowne Ellis, Henry, and Francis Douce, eds., A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: Taylor, 1820), Vol II https://archive.org/details/gri_33125012275521
Maps and Drawings Catalogue of the Manuscript Maps, Charts, and Plans, and of the Topographical Drawings in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1844-1861), Vol I https://archive.org/details/cataloguemanusc01musegoog
Maps and Drawings Catalogue of the Manuscript Maps, Charts, and Plans, and of the Topographical Drawings in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1844-1861), Vol II https://archive.org/details/cataloguemanusc02musegoog
Maps and Drawings Catalogue of the Manuscript Maps, Charts, and Plans, and of the Topographical Drawings in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1844-1861), Vol III https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_OQEVAAAAQAAJ
Music Hughes-Hughes, Augustus, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1906-1909), Vol I https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus01brit
Music Hughes-Hughes, Augustus, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1906-1909), Vol II https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus02brit
Music     Hughes-Hughes, Augustus, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1906-1909), Vol III https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus03brit
Papyri and Ostraca Trismegistos Papyri Database (requires subscription) https://www.trismegistos.org/collection/192
Ostraca Wilcken, Ulrich, Griechische Ostraka aus Aegypten und Nubien, 2 vols (Leipzig and Berlin, 1899), Vol I https://archive.org/details/griechischeostra01wilc
Ostraca Wilcken, Ulrich, Griechische Ostraka aus Aegypten und Nubien, 2 vols (Leipzig and Berlin, 1899), Vol II https://archive.org/details/griechischeostra02wilc
Romances Ward, H. L. D., & J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1883-1910), Vol I https://archive.org/details/catalogueofroman01brituoft
Romances Ward, H. L. D., & J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1883-1910), Vol II https://archive.org/details/b29001079_0002
Romances Ward, H. L. D., & J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1883-1910), Vol III https://archive.org/details/catalogueofroman03brit
Royal & Kings Warner, G. F., & J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, 4 vols (London, 1921), Vol I https://archive.org/details/BMCatalogueOfWesternMssRoyal1
Royal & Kings Warner, G. F., & J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, 4 vols (London, 1921), Vol II https://archive.org/details/BMCatalogueOfWesternMssRoyal2
Seals Birch, Walter de Gray, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (1887-1900), Vol I https://archive.org/details/catalogueofseals01brit
Seals Birch, Walter de Gray, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (1887-1900), Vol II https://archive.org/details/catalogueofseals02brit
Seals Birch, Walter de Gray, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (1887-1900), Vol I https://archive.org/details/catalogueofseals03brit
Seals Birch, Walter de Gray, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (1887-1900), Vol III https://archive.org/details/catalogueofseals04brit
Seals Birch, Walter de Gray, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (1887-1900), Vol IV https://archive.org/details/catalogueofseals05brit
Seals Birch, Walter de Gray, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (1887-1900), Vol V https://archive.org/details/catalogueofseals06brit
Sloane Ayscough, S., A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: John Rivington, 1782), Vol VI https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus01aysc
Sloane Ayscough, S., A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: John Rivington, 1782), Vol II https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanus02aysc
Sloane Scott, E. J. L., Index to the Sloane manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1904) https://archive.org/details/indextosloanema00ayscgoog
Spanish De Gayangos, Don Pascual, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1875-1893), Vol I https://archive.org/details/b29001468_0001
Spanish De Gayangos, Don Pascual, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1875-1893), Vol II https://archive.org/details/catalogueofmanu02brit
Spanish De Gayangos, Don Pascual, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1875-1893), Vol III https://archive.org/details/gri_33125013201435
Spanish De Gayangos, Don Pascual, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1875-1893), Vol IV https://archive.org/details/manuscriptsinspa04brit
Stowe O'Conor, Charles, Bibliotheca Ms. Stowensis: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Stowe Library, 2 vols (Buckingham: Seeley, 1818-1819), Vol I https://archive.org/details/bibliothecamsst00ashbgoog
Stowe O'Conor, Charles, Bibliotheca Ms. Stowensis: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Stowe Library, 2 vols (Buckingham: Seeley, 1818-1819), Vol II https://archive.org/details/bibliothecamsst01ashbgoog
Stowe Scott, Edward J.L., ed., Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1895), Vol 1 https://archive.org/details/b29002618_0001
Stowe Scott, Edward J.L., ed., Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1895), Vol 2 https://archive.org/details/b29002618_0002
Welsh Owen, Edward, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Relating to Wales in the British Museum, 4 parts, Cymmrodorion Record Series, 4 (London: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1900-1903), Parts 1-2 https://archive.org/details/p1catalogueofman04brituoft
Welsh     Owen, Edward, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Relating to Wales in the British Museum, 4 parts, Cymmrodorion Record Series, 4 (London: The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1908-1922), Parts 3-4 https://archive.org/details/p3catalogueofman04brituoft
Welsh Huws, Daniel, A Repertory of Welsh Manuscripts and Scribes c. 800-c. 1800, 3 vols (The National Library of Wales and University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2022)  
Yates Thompson James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of Fifty Manuscripts from the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (Cambridge, 1898) https://archive.org/details/descriptivecatal00jame_1
Yates Thompson A Descriptive Catalogue of Twenty Illuminated Manuscripts, Nos. LXXV to XVIV (Replacing Twenty Discarded from the Original Hundred) in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson (3rd series, Cambridge, 1907) https://archive.org/details/adescriptivecatalogueoftwe
Yates Thompson A Descriptive Catalogue of Fourteen Illuminated Manuscripts (Nos.XCV to CVII and 79A) Completing the Hundred in the Library of Henry Yates Thompson (Cambridge, 1912) https://archive.org/details/adescriptivecatalogueoffou
Yates Thompson Illustrations from one hundred manuscripts in the library of Henry Yates Thompson (London, 1916) https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924008668554
Yates Thompson Wormald, Francis, 'The Yates Thompson Manuscripts', British Museum Quarterly, 16 (1951), pp.4-5 https://doi.org/10.2307/4422290
Yelverton The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts: The Yelverton Manuscripts, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1994), Vol 1 https://archive.org/details/britishlibraryca0001brit
Yelverton     The British Library Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts: The Yelverton Manuscripts, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1994), Vol 2 https://archive.org/details/britishlibraryca0002brit

 

27 October 2023

Garendon cartulary acquired by the British Library

We are pleased to announce that the British Library has acquired a 15th-century cartulary from Garendon Abbey in Leicestershire. 

The cartulary of Garendon Abbey

The cartulary of Garendon Abbey, made around 1450, and purchased by the British Library in September 2023

Garendon was founded for Cistercian monks in 1133, and was dissolved by the commissioners of King Henry VIII in 1536. The cartulary was described first by J.G. Nichols, in The History of the County and Antiquities of Leicester (1804), when it was in the hands of the antiquary Craven Ord (d. 1832). It passed eventually into the collection of the bookseller W.A. Foyle (d. 1963), and was sold at the recent auction of the library of his grandson, Christopher Foyle (d. 2022), held at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 27 September.

The opening page of the Garendon cartulary

The opening page of the Garendon cartulary

The next step is for this cartulary to be assessed and treated by our conservation team, since it has been exposed to damp over the years. As you will see from these photos, many of its pages are creased, and there is some loss of leaves at the very end of the volume. The cartulary will then be digitised before it can be made available in the Library's Manuscripts Reading Room at St Pancras. We will make a separate announcement when it can be consulted by readers in person.

The Garendon cartulary

The cartulary of Garendon Abbey

The British Library already holds an earlier cartulary from Garendon Abbey (Lansdowne MS 415), compiled at various stages from the late 1100s onwards. The Garendon cartulary also complements other monastic records acquired by the Library in recent years, including the cartulary of Otterton Priory (Add MS 81278), the rental of Worcester Cathedral Priory (Add MS 89137), the Burton cartulary (Add MS 89169), and two cartularies from Lacock Abbey (Add MS 88973. Add MS 88974).

 

Follow us @BLMedieval

25 October 2023

Chaucer’s works go online

Geoffrey Chaucer (b. c. 1340s, d. 1400): poet, courtier, diplomat, Member of Parliament and royal administrator, and often called the ‘father of English poetry’. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is one of the greatest works of medieval literature. This Middle English poem has transfixed generations of readers, who have delighted in its poetic beauty, its larger-than-life characters, and its combination of poignant tragedy and tongue-in-cheek humour. But Chaucer was a prolific writer who composed many other works, which continue to be read long after his death. Among them are his Trojan epic Troilus and Criseyde, the dream vision The Legend of Good Women, his translations of the Roman de la Rose and The Consolation of Philosophy, his instructional manual on the astrolabe, and a whole host of minor poems.

The British Library holds the world’s largest surviving collection of Chaucer manuscripts, and this year we have reached a major milestone. Thanks to generous funding provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, and the American Trust for the British Library, we have completed the digitisation of all of our pre-1600 manuscripts containing Chaucer’s works, over 60 collection items in total. We have digitised not only complete copies of Chaucer’s poems, but also unique survivals, including fragmentary texts found in Middle English anthologies or inscribed in printed editions and incunabula.

A 16th-century portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer, holding a stylus and rosary.

A 16th-century portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer, holding a rosary and stylus: Add MS 5141, f. 1r

You can download the full list of pre-1600 manuscripts containing Chaucer’s works here, together with accompanying links to the digitised versions on our Universal Viewer. There you can view the manuscripts in full, study them in detail, and download the images for your own use. Thanks to the IIIF-compatible viewer, you can also view these manuscripts side-by-side in digital form, allowing close comparison between the volumes, their texts, and scribal hands:

PDF: Download Chaucer_digitised_vols_Oct_2023

Excel: Download Chaucer_digitised_vols_Oct_2023 (this format cannot be downloaded on all browsers).

Here are some of the works you can find in our digitised collection of Chaucer manuscripts:

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales comprises a collection of stories presented in the form of a storytelling contest by a group of memorable characters on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, among their number the Knight, the Miller, the Reeve, the Wife of Bath and the Prioress.

We hold 23 manuscripts of Chaucer’s most famous poem at the British Library, the earliest of which (Lansdowne MS 851) was written only a few years after the author’s death. This particular copy opens with his portrait, showing Chaucer writing with an open book in hand, framed within the initial ‘W’ at the start of the General Prologue.

The opening of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, showing a portrait of Chaucer.

The opening of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, with a portrait of the author: Lansdowne MS 851, f. 2r

In addition to the surviving manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales, the British Library also houses some of the earliest printed versions of Chaucer’s poem. These include rare copies of the 1476 and 1483 editions of the text made by William Caxton (d. c. 1491), the 1491/1492 edition by Richard Pynson (d. c. 1529), and the 1498 edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde (d. c. 1534).

A page from Caxton's 1483 printed edition of the Canterbury Tales, showing a woodcut of the pilgrims around a table.

A woodcut of the pilgrims from William Caxton’s 1483 edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: G.11586, f. 20 c4

Almost a century after these editions of The Canterbury Tales were published, the English schoolmaster and editor Thomas Speght (d. 1621) produced his own collection of all of Chaucer’s works (1598), together with a glossary and biography of the author. One surviving copy of Speght’s printed edition (Add MS 42518) notably features handwritten notes by the scholar and writer Gabriel Harvey (d. 1631), infamous for his feud with the Elizabethan playwright Thomas Nashe (b. c. 1601). Harvey’s notes in the manuscript include one of the earliest known references to Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet (on f. 422v).

A page from Thomas Speght's Collected Works of Chaucer, showing a woodcut of the Knight.

 The opening of ‘The Knight’s Tale’, from Thomas Speght’s 1598 edition of the collected works of Geoffrey Chaucer: Add MS 42518, f. 29r

A page from Speght's Collected Works of Chaucer, showing autograph notes by Gabriel Harvey.

Gabriel Harvey’s autograph notes, including one of the earliest references to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, added to Speght’s collected works of Chaucer: Add MS 42518, f. 422v

Troilus and Criseyde

Alongside The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote another significant Middle English epic called Troilus and Criseyde. Set during the Trojan War, it tells the tragic love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Criseyde, the daughter of the seer Calchas, who is separated from her love when her father defects to the Greek army. Like Chaucer’s other major works, Troilus continued to be read after the poet’s lifetime and would go on to influence other English authors, most notably the poet Thomas Hoccleve (d. 1426) for his Testament of Cresseid and William Shakespeare (d. 1616) for his play Troilus and Cressida.

The opening of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, showing a decorated foliate initial.

The opening of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde: Harley MS 1239, f. 1r

The Legend of Good Women

The Legend of Good Women is one of Chaucer’s four poetic dream visions (the others are The House of Fame, The Parlement of Foules and The Book of the Duchess). In the prologue to this poem, the dreaming narrator is scolded by Queen Alceste, the goddess of love, for the depiction of women in his writing and is commanded by her to author a poem about the virtues and good deeds of women instead.

Chaucer then recounts the often-tragic stories of ten female figures, derived from Classical history, legend and mythology. They include the Egyptian queen Cleopatra; the Babylonian lover Thisbe of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; the sorceress Medea; Queen Phyllis, abandoned by her lover Demophon; Hypsipyle, Queen of Lemnos; Ariadne, saviour of the Greek hero Theseus in Minos’ Labyrinth; the Roman noblewoman Lucretia; Philomela, who suffers terribly at the hands of Tereus; Hypermenestra, daughter of Egiste; and Dido, Queen of Carthage. The British Library is home to three manuscripts of the poem, including one copy that is interspersed with printed leaves of the same text (Add MS 9832).

The opening of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, showing a printed leaf and the handwritten text.

The opening of Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, showing printed and handwritten versions of the text side-by-side: Add MS 9832, ff. 3v-4r

Boece

In addition to writing his own original compositions, Chaucer was also a translator. His Boece is a Middle English prose translation of The Consolation of Philosophy by the Roman philosopher Boethius (d. 524). Boethius’ text, itself an example of a dream vision, was hugely popular during the medieval period and had a great influence on Chaucer’s own writing. The British Library holds one of the earliest copies of Chaucer’s translation of the work (Add MS 10340), written in the 1st quarter of the 15th century, only a decade or so after Chaucer’s death.

The opening of Chaucer's Boece, showing a decorative puzzle initial.

The opening of Chaucer’s Boece, a translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy: Add MS 10340, f. 3v

Anelida and Arcite

Anelida and Arcite is one of Chaucer’s shorter and lesser-known poetic works, telling the story of Anelida, Queen of Armenia, and her courtship by Arcite, a man from the city of Thebes in Greece. One of the British Library’s copies of the poem is found in an anthology of Middle English poetry written by Chaucer and his contemporary John Lydgate (d. c. 1451). The volume is one of the earliest compilations of John Shirley (d. 1439), a prolific scribe and translator who served as a secretary to Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439), 13th Earl of Warwick, and who was responsible for writing many surviving manuscripts of Chaucer and Lydgate’s works.

The text of Chaucer's Anelida and Arcite, from a Middle English anthology.

A copy of Chaucer’s Anelida and Arcite, in a volume written by the scribe John Shirley: Add MS 16165, f. 243r

Minor Works

Like Shirley’s poetic compilation, other surviving anthologies at the British Library also feature copies of Chaucer’s shorter poems. One such collection (Add MS 34360) was written by a professional London-based scribe, named the ‘Hammond Scribe’ after the Chaucerian scholar Eleanor Hammond (d. 1933), who first identified his hand. Chaucer’s ‘Complaynt to his Empty Purse’ is a notable example of one of these minor works, a witty plea for money from his employer, disguised as a love poem:

To yow, my purse, and to noon other wight
Complaine I, for ye be my lady dere.
I am so sory now that ye be light,
For certes but if ye make me hevy chere,
Me were as leef be leyd upon my bere,
For which unto your mercy thus I crye
Beth hevy ageyn or ells mot I dye.

The text of Chaucer's Complaynt to his Empty Purse, from a Middle English anthology.

Chaucer’s ‘Complaynt to his Empty Purse’ from an anthology of Middle English poetry: Add MS 34360, f. 19r

Other minor works by Chaucer also now digitised include his ‘Gentilesse’, ‘Lak of Steadfastnesse’, ‘Truth’, ‘The Complaynt unto Pity’ and the ‘Balade of Good Fortune’.

The Treatise on the Astrolabe

While Chaucer is now known principally as a poet, he was also responsible for an important medieval instructional manual, called ‘A Treatise on the Astrolabe’, which like his poetry, was written in Middle English rather than Latin. Astrolabes had been in use for hundreds of years by Chaucer’s lifetime and had a wide variety of functions, but their principal purpose was as astronomical and navigational instruments, helping to determine different latitudes by day and night.

An astronomical instrument in brass called an astrolabe.

An example of one of the earliest known European astrolabes, made in 1326: British Museum, 1909,0617.1

In one of the British Library’s medieval copies of the text (Egerton MS 2622), preserved in its original binding, Chaucer’s work appears as part of a collection of treatises on arithmetic, geometry, horticulture and astronomy. 

A collection of scientific treatises with a medieval clasped leather binding.

A copy of Chaucer’s ‘Treatise on the Astrolabe’ in a collection of scientific treatises with its own original medieval clasped binding: Egerton MS 2622

Chaucer’s treatise continued to be read during the Early Modern period. A notable 16th-century manuscript contains a revised edition of the ‘Astrolabe’, undertaken by an otherwise unknown editor called Walter Stevins. Stevins made his own corrections throughout Chaucer’s text, and prefaced it with his own address to the reader and a dedication to Edward Courtenay (d. 1556), 1st Earl of Devon. His manuscript features numerous detailed drawings that accompany the text, illustrating the workings and uses of the astrolabe itself.

The title page of an edited version of Chaucer's 'Astrolabe', with a diagram of the instrument.

The opening of Walter Stevins’ revised edition of Chaucer’s ‘Treatise on the Astrolabe’: Sloane MS 261, f. 1*r

Whether you are experienced scholars of Chaucer’s life and poetry, who know his words off by heart, or only just learning of his collected works for the first time, we hope you enjoy exploring the pages of these digitised manuscripts and engaging with the writing of one of the foundational figures in the history of English literature. We are grateful to The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, and the American Trust for the British Library for their support of the project.

 

Calum Cockburn

Follow us @BLMedieval

09 October 2023

The largest Greek manuscript?

We are always pleased to announce the digitisation of our manuscripts but this blogpost marks a particularly special milestone. Thanks to generous support by Kimberley and David Martin and the Hellenic League, we have been able to digitise one of the largest (and heaviest!) Greek manuscripts in our collections.

A photograph of a very large manuscript of the Greek Octateuch, next to a pencil and pencil sharpener to show the scale.

One of the largest volumes in the British Library’s collection of Greek manuscripts: Add MS 35123

Add MS 35123 comprises more than 600 leaves, almost 1,300 larger-than-A4 pages, bound tightly between heavy medieval wooden boards that weigh almost 10 kilograms. This giant tome is a late-12th century Biblical manuscript, containing the first eight books of the Old Testament: the five from Moses appended by Joshua, Judges and Ruth.

So if this manuscript only contains part of the Bible, what makes it so enormous? A glance at just one of the volume’s pages will provide the answer: the biblical text in the manuscript is actually enclosed by an extensive commentary, which appears on three margins of every single leaf.

A page from a medieval manuscript of the Greek Octateuch with extensive commentary.

Octateuch with Catena: Add MS 35123, f. 84v

Translated from Hebrew in the 3rd century BC, the Greek text of the books of Moses and the other Old Testament scriptures, known as the Septuagint, was not an easy read for an ordinary Greek reader. Some help was needed to understand its grammar, which reflected the original Hebrew text, and, even more importantly, the unique vocabulary used by its translators. New commentaries were also required to highlight the complex relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Unsurprisingly, many of these commentaries were written by the most renowned and learned of the Church Fathers. By the 7th and 8th centuries, the volume of interpretative Biblical material had grown enough to fill entire libraries. Thankfully, an effective and ‘user-friendly’ way of navigating this material had  been invented many centuries before by ancient scholars working on the Greek classics, particularly the work of the poet Homer.

Burney_ms_86_f003v

Homer’s Iliad with marginal commentaries: the Towneley Homer, Burney MS 86, f. 3v

Scholars working in the library of Alexandria between the 3rd and 1st century BC established a way for students and readers to navigate the enormous amount of scholarship on Homer’s epics. They extracted the most important elements from these commentaries and placed them in the margins of the texts they interpreted. They also devised an elaborate system of symbols emphasising the connection between the main text written in the centre of each page and the commentary excerpts placed in the surrounding margins. The commentaries became very popular elements of school education, being named scholia (‘school material’) as a result.

A detail from the Towneley Homer, showing the system of signs used to link the text with the commentary.

Signs written in red ink connecting marginal commentaries to the main text: the Towneley Homer, Burney MS 86, f. 3v (detail)

Christian commentators adopted a  similar system. They placed the Biblical text in the centre of each page, written in larger, more prominent characters, adding the commentary around it in smaller letters, so that as much as possible could fit on the page. These Christian commentators also used symbols to connect a particular item in the marginal commentary with the relevant place or line in the Biblical text.

The source of each commentary was more important for Christian compilers than it had been for the ancients. They placed particular emphasis on recording the source of each extract, usually writing them at the beginning of each paragraph in red ink. This commentary, presented as a series of inter-connected extracts accompanying the Biblical text, was later called ’catena’, after the Latin word meaning ‘chain’.

A detail from a manuscript of the Greek Octateuch, showing numerical signs in red ink, connecting the text and commentary.

Numbers in red ink in the left margin connecting the commentary to the central text: Add MS 35123, f. 83v (detail)

Over time, many of the original texts used by these compilers were lost — in some cases they were condemned explicitly as heretical and were deliberately destroyed. The extracts found in the margins of these ‘Catena-Bibles’ have become increasingly valuable to modern biblical scholars. In many cases, they are the only witnesses for once-celebrated works, such as the Commentary on Genesis by Diodore of Tarsus (d. 394) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), both condemned as heretics in the 6th century, and the Commentary on Exodus by Gennadius of Constantinople (d. 471), which is also now lost.

Add_ms_35123_f084v_detail

Excerpts from the lost commentary of Diodorus (upper right-hand corner) and Gennadius of Constantinople (abbreviated in the lower right-hand corner): Add MS 35123, f. 84v (detail)

These are just a few of the many exciting sources preserved in this manuscript. A systematic survey of all Catena manuscripts has yet to be completed so there may be more to discover. We invite you to take a look at the online images. If you're lucky, you may be able to spot a new fragment of a lost text.

 

Peter Toth

Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval

26 September 2023

PhD Studentship opportunity: Medieval Women's Religious Communities

The British Library is collaborating with the University of Cambridge to offer a fully-funded PhD studentship on the subject of ‘Reading and Writing in Medieval Women's Religious Communities’. The successful applicant will be supervised by Dr Jessica Berenbeim (Cambridge) and Dr Eleanor Jackson (British Library), and start in October 2024. 

Manuscript illustration of nuns attending Mass inside a church. On the right, a priest and deacons are at the altar. Behind them stands an abbess with book and crozier, and other nuns including the sacristan pulling the bell ropes.
Nuns attending Mass inside a church: Yates Thompson MS 11, f. 6v

The student will have the opportunity to investigate the culture of female religious communities in the Middle Ages through a study of their surviving manuscripts. Medieval women living together in monasteries and other kinds of convent communities owned or produced an astonishing number and variety of manuscripts. These include literary works in poetry and prose, archive and record books, music manuscripts, financial and administrative accounts, maps, books for religious services, paintings in the form of manuscript illumination, documents such as charters, and sculpture in the form of seal impressions.

We are inviting applicants to propose a project that explores any aspect of women’s conventual life, with the specific aim of bringing together kinds of sources that have rarely been discussed in combination. The themes and structure of the project are entirely open, provided the proposal is interdisciplinary and combines different types of manuscripts—broadly defined, as above—in novel, creative, and productive ways. At least some element of your research should concern institutions in the British Isles, but the project as a whole may be comparative. In your proposal, you would aim to draw principally on the British Library’s collections (although we understand that some research in other collections will almost certainly be inevitable). Some indication of the BL’s holdings can be found on these sites:

Medieval charter with a wax seal
Foundation charter of Flixton Priory of Augustinian nuns by Margery de Crek: Stowe Ch 291

The British Library has one of the world’s most extensive and diverse collections of manuscripts from medieval women’s communities. In your research for this project, you would work on these collections alongside the BL’s curatorial staff, and undertake specialised training at both the BL and at Cambridge, where you would be part of a large and collegial community of medievalists in a wide range of fields. The British Library is currently developing a major exhibition on Medieval Women, which is due to open in October 2024. Starting your doctoral research just as the exhibition is opening, you will be able to develop a close familiarity with the display, support the programme of private views and visits to the exhibition, and build on its research findings.

The studentship is fully funded via the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. Applications are now open on their website, where you can view the full Collaborative Doctoral Award advert and find details of how to apply. The closing date for applications is 4 January 2024. 

Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval

28 May 2023

Death of the Wolf

Exactly a thousand years ago, on 28 May 1023, Lupus – ‘The Wolf’ – died in York. Lupus was the punning Latin name used by the prolific writer, cleric and royal adviser, Archbishop Wulfstan.

At the end of his entry on Wulfstan in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Patrick Wormald wrote that research on Wulfstan’s manuscripts in the twentieth century had transformed him ‘from just another doubtless worthy Anglo-Saxon prelate into one of the half dozen most significant figures even in the crowded and dramatic history of eleventh-century England’. Settling on a list of the other five most significant figures is a distracting little game.

The opening of Wulfstan's Sermon to the English.

Wulfstan called himself Lupus (‘The Wolf’): Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 110r

Wulfstan, who had been bishop of London from 996 to 1002, became bishop of Worcester from 1002 to 1016 and archbishop of York from 1002 until his death in 1023. He had been a leading religious and political figure in the turbulent reign of King Æthelred the Unready (r. 978–1016). Although the Danish conquest of England by Cnut in 1016 saw a turnover in the English nobility, Wulfstan remained both a key royal adviser and archbishop of York under the new regime. He drafted laws for Cnut, as he had for Æthelred, and introduced reforms of both church and lay society.

Wulfstan’s own handwriting survives in a number of manuscripts, and a Latin poem praising him in one such volume (Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV), is thought to be in his own hand. The poem mentions Wulfstan’s name admiringly in each verse. It includes the line, Est laus wulfstano mea pulchritudo benigno pontifici cui sit dominus sine fine serenus ([This poem’s] beauty is praise for the kind Bishop Wulfstan, my Lord be endlessly merciful to him).

A Latin praise poem written by Wulfstan.

A poem praising Wulfstan, apparently written in his own hand: Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 148v

While no contemporary biographical account of Wulfstan’s life survives to set alongside the poem, we can reconstruct his life and career from his other works and from the manuscripts that he annotated. They show him to be a busy, restless figure, collecting legal, liturgical and instructional texts for use in the many crises of his day.

Wulfstan’s ‘letter-book’ (also Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV), compiled when he was Archbishop of York, includes a collection of letters written around two hundred years previously by the royal adviser and abbot, Alcuin (d. 804). Alcuin had sent advice to the English archbishops and to King Æthelred of Northumbria (r. 774–779, 789–796). He warned of the perils of sin, which he believed had led to Viking raids as divine punishment for the wickedness of the English. As Wulfstan was adviser to his own King Æthelred during another period of Danish invasion, he doubtless recognised the analogies between Alcuin’s times and his own.

The opening of Wulfstan's letterbook.

The opening of Wulfstan’s letter book: Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 114r

Wulfstan took these lessons to heart in his own time and drew upon Alcuin in his most famous work, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the English when the Danes were persecuting them most). In this barnstorming speech, he warned the people that they could lose their kingdom unless they repented from sin:

Leofan men, gecnawað þæt soð is. Ðeos worold is on ofste, and hit nealæcð þam ende, and þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse. And swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan ær antecristes tocyme yfelian swyþe, and huru hit wyrð þænne egeslic and grimlic wide on worolde.

Beloved men, recognise what is true: this world is in haste and approaches its end; and therefore, in this world things always worsen the longer they last. And so, it must by necessity deteriorate greatly before the coming of the Antichrist, because of the people sins, and indeed it will then be terrible and grim widely in the world. 

The opening of Wulfstan's sermon to the English.

The Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of the Wolf to the English): Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 110r

This manuscript also contains law-codes, drafted by Wulfstan for Æthelred and Cnut. It includes the earliest surviving copy of laws (known as I–II Cnut) issued in Cnut’s name at a meeting at Winchester around 1020 or 1021. These laws are the most extensive record of law in England before the Norman Conquest. They drew on earlier English kings’ law-codes, and this copy, made in the third quarter of the 11th century, is now bound with copies of earlier law-codes that Wulfstan used and annotated.

An English law-code of King Cnut drafted by Wulfstan.

A law-code of King Cnut drafted by Wulfstan: Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 16r

We can see other aspects of Wulfstan’s activities in one of his own liturgical books (Cotton MS Claudius A III). This is a pontifical, a service book for the rites performed by a bishop. Wulfstan included in it Latin and Old English versions of an Æthelred law code that he had drafted. He seems to have added in his own hand the names of King Æthelred and himself between the lines of the text.

An Old English law-code of King Æthelred with added names written by Wulfstan.

A law-code of King Æthelred drafted by Wulfstan, with the added names of King Æthelred and Wulfstan: Cotton MS Claudius A III, f. 35r

In other manuscripts, Wulstan’s annotations show him minutely changing the wording of his own sermons, as well as correcting and supplementing the texts of others. He also oversaw the compilation of the first cartulary gathering together evidence of gifts of property to the cathedral priory of Worcester and leases of its land.

A page from the first cartulary of Worcester containing copies of leases.

Copies of leases in the first cartulary of Worcester: Cotton MS Tiberius A XIII, f. 87v

The manuscripts linked to Wulfstan reveal the multifaceted role of an early medieval bishop, responsible for pastoral care in his diocese and for the education and disciplining of the clergy, managing property, participating on the national stage as a major voice at the royal council and advising on the spiritual welfare of the kingdom.

Although Wulfstan died in York on 28 May 1023, he was buried, in accordance with his wishes, in the fenland abbey at Ely.

Claire Breay

Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval

Medieval manuscripts blog recent posts

Archives

Tags

Other British Library blogs