Which Royal Manuscripts Should We Digitise?

Miniature of God the Creator, from a Bible Historiale, France (Clairfontaine and Paris), 1411, Royal 19 D. iii, vol. 1, f. 3

We are pleased to announce that the British Library has recently been awarded a research grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to facilitate on-going research for the Royal project. Each year the AHRC provides funding from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. Only applications of the highest quality are funded and the range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.

The British Library's Royal project is funded by the AHRC as part of its Digital Transformations in Arts and Humanities theme and contributes to a package of measures aimed at developing innovative approaches to archiving, accessing and using data in the arts and humanities. This package of measures is supported as part of the additional investment to enhance the national e.infrastructure for research, announced by the Government in October 2011.

An important part of this new research grant will enable us to digitise fully a number of the manuscripts that are currently featured in the exhibition Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination; these manuscripts will soon be freely available to all on our Digitised Manuscripts site. So far we have selected 41 manuscripts from the current Royal exhibition to be included on Digitised Manuscripts; please see the list below.

One of the principal goals of our follow-on Royal project is to be responsive to current research needs, and to select manuscripts for digitisation that will have the biggest impact in these areas. To that end, we would like to invite your thoughts and ideas about which manuscripts should be included in our final list. It will be possible to select another 6 - 10 manuscripts to be digitised in full (depending, of course, on their length); we would love to hear your feedback.

We have already selected for digitisation the 41 items in the list below. Please send your suggestions for other candidates to [email protected] or in the comments to this post. The only 'rule' is that the manuscript should be one that is currently on display in the exhibition Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination; for more details on the manuscripts please see our Facebook albums.

Royal Manuscripts for Digitisation

Royal 1 C. vii	The Rochester Bible, England (Rochester), second quarter of the 12^th century
Royal 1 D. ix	The Cnut Gospels, England (Christ Church, Canterbury), c. 1020
Royal 10 E. iv	The Smithfield Decretals, France (Toulouse?), c. 1300 and London, c. 1340s
Royal 12 C. viii	Pandolfo Collenuccio, Apologues, Italy (Rome and Florence), c. 1509 – c. 1517
Royal 13 B. viii	Gerald of Wales, Topographia Hibernica, England (Lincoln?), c. 1196 - c. 1223
Royal 14 E. iii	Estoire del Saint Graal, France (Saint-Omer or Tournai?), first quarter of the 14^th century
Royal 14 E. iv	Jean de Wavrin, Recueil des croniques d’Engleterre, France (Lille) and Netherlands (Bruges), c. 1470 – c. 1480
Royal 15 D. i	Guyart des Moulins, Bible Historiale (Bible Historiale of Edward IV, part 4), Netherlands (Bruges), 1470 and c. 1479
Royal 15 E. iv	Jean de Wavrin, Anciennes et nouvelles chroniques d'Angleterre, Netherlands (Bruges), between 1471 - 1483
Royal 15 E. vi	The Talbot Shrewsbury Book, France (Rouen), 1444-1445
Royal 16 F. ii	Poems of Charles, Duke of Orléans, Netherlands (Bruges), third quarter of the 15^th century (before 1483)
Royal 16 G. vi	Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, France (Paris), between 1332 – 1350
Royal 16 G. viii	Bellum Gallicum (Les commentaires de Cesar), France (Lille) and Netherlands (Bruges), 1473-1476
Royal 17 D. vi	Thomas Hoccleve, The Regement of Princes, England, second quarter of the 15^th century
Royal 17 E. vii	Guyart des Moulins, Bible historiale complétée (Genesis - Psalms), France (Paris ?), 1357
Royal 17 F. ii	La grant hystoire Cesar, i.e. Les faits des Romains, Netherlands (Bruges), 1479
Royal 18 D. ii	John Lydgate, Troy Book and Siege of Thebes, England (London?), c. 1457-1460
Royal 18 D. ix	Guyart des Moulins, Bible Historiale (Bible Historiale of Edward IV, part 1), Netherlands (Bruges), 1479
Royal 18 D. x	Guyart des Moulins, Bible Historiale (Bible Historiale of Edward IV, part 2), Netherlands (Bruges), 1479
Royal 18 E. ii	Jean Froissart, Chroniques, Netherlands (Bruges), last quarter of the 15^th century (before 1483)
Royal 18 E. iii	Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, Netherlands (Bruges), 1479
Royal 19 B. xiii	Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose, France (Paris), c. 1320 – c. 1340
Royal 19 C. iv	Le Songe du Vergier, France (Paris), 1378
Royal 19 D. ii	Guyart des Moulins, Bible Historiale (Bible Historiale of John the Good), France (Paris), c. 1350 – before 1356
Royal 19 D. iii	Guyart des Moulins, Bible Historiale, France (Paris and Clairefontaine), 1411
Royal 2 A. xviii	The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours, England (London), c. 1430, before 1443
Royal 2 A. xxii	The Westminster Psalter, England (Westminster or St Albans), c. 1200
Royal 2 B. i	The Psalter of Humfrey of Gloucester, England (London), second quarter of the 15th century (before 1447)
Royal 20 A. xvii	Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Thomas de Bailleul, Roman de la Rose and la Bataille d'Annezin, France (Artois or Picardy), c. 1340
Royal 20 D. i	Histoire ancienne jusq'à César, Italy (Naples), second quarter of the 14^th century
Royal 20 D. iv	Lancelot du Lac, France (Arras ?), first quarter of the 14th century

Add 18850	The Bedford Hours, France (Paris), c. 1410 - 1430
Royal 1 E. vi	The Canterbury Royal Bible, England (Canterbury), first half of the 9^th century
Royal 11 E. xi	Motets for Henry VIII, Netherlands (Antwerp?), 1516
Royal 14 B. v	Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings, England, last quarter of the 13^th century
Royal 14 B. vi	Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings. England, c. 1300
Royal 14 C. vii	Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, Chronica majora, Part III, England (St Albans), 1250 – 1259
Royal 2 A. xvi	The Psalter of Henry VIII, England (London), c. 1540
Royal 2 B. vii	The Queen Mary Psalter, England (London / Westminster or East Anglia?), between 1310 - 1320

Harley 1498	Quadripartite Indenture for Henry VII’s Chapel (The Harley Indenture), England (London), 1504
Egerton 3277	The Bohun Psalter and Hours, England (London?), after 1356 and probably before 1373

Hello, and well-done for obtaining that grant, this is a wonderful and important preservation endeavour.

If not mistaken, the book titled 'Henry VII’s Book of Astrology' from your exhibition is not among the 41 you chose so far. Should you have the time, I feel it would be an interesting one to digitize, in particular to illustrate that both superstitions and religion influenced the King on a daily basis.

Posted by: Thomas | 23 February 2012 at 01:32 PM

It would be nice if the BL would digitise some of the NON-illuminated mss. These are much more likely to be of scholarly interest; illuminated mss of the pretty-pretty sort tend to be worthless as textual witnesses. It would be good to see the imbalance towards late art mss corrected, in favour of the duller but more useful text mss.

Thus the oldest Tertullian in the library, Ms. Royal 5 F XVIII (11th century) is not illuminated, but it would be very helpful to have it online.

Posted by: Roger Pearse | 23 February 2012 at 04:04 PM

I'm a little sad to see that there aren't any illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts on the list, as there are three in the Royal collection. Nevertheless, my vote is for Matthew Paris' Historia Anglorum.

Posted by: Nancy R. | 23 February 2012 at 04:37 PM

Dear Nancy R.,
Matthew Paris' Historia Anglorum is on the list of definite selections, but there is still room for further suggestions - please do recommend an Apocalypse for us!

Posted by: Sarah J Biggs | 23 February 2012 at 04:44 PM

I sent a message to the address above ([email protected]) but it was returned as a bad mailbox. Please check the link.

My suggestion is Royal 1 B.xii (Bible of William of Hales), of interest both for its text and images.

Posted by: HH | 23 February 2012 at 08:52 PM

I vote for digitizing Royal 18 E. ii and Addl 18850.

Posted by: Kristin | 23 February 2012 at 09:07 PM

I would like to suggest Royal 19 D 1 for digitization, which is an extremely important MS for its text and illustrations of Marco Polo as well of other texts about the Orient. I think a digitized version would be consulted often by scholars of Old French, by art historians, and by historians. Although the illustrations are deemed by some art historians not to be of the finest quality, they are thematically extremely interesting and the MS was produced in a Parisian workshop that is thought to have been very influential. The MS is also known to have been brought to London at an early stage in its life and is therefore also important evidence for the international book trade.

Posted by: Simon Gaunt | 24 February 2012 at 08:04 AM

It is a real shame that Royal 2 B.iv could not be digitised; this is a beautiful and important twelfth-century music manuscript from St Albans which would be of invaluable use to Medieval musicians and musicologists, as well as showing how finely made such manuscripts could be. I would also put in a plea for the small but fascinating Royal 8 C.xiii.

Unfortunately neither of these are in the exhibition (understandable in the latter case)...

Posted by: Matthew Ward | 24 February 2012 at 12:06 PM

Limiting my choice to those in the exhibition, Cotton Claudius D.ii and Royal 20.A.ii form a pair of historiographical manuscripts with connections to the Queen Mary Psalter (Royal 2.B.vii, scheduled to be fully digitised). The Millimete _Secretum secretorum_ (Additional 47680) would also be a good addition to the existing list.

Posted by: Matthew Fisher | 25 February 2012 at 07:47 PM

Medieval manuscripts blog

Which Royal Manuscripts Should We Digitise?

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