27 August 2013
Anglo-Saxon Invasion
The British Library has one of the most comprehensive collections of manuscripts in Old English, many of which have already been catalogued online with images at the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. We have recently added catalogue entries and images for the Old English manuscripts in the Additional collection. There are relatively few of these, but some of these manuscripts contain unique or very important texts.
They are:
Add MS 47967: The Old English Orosius
Zoomorphic initial (A)'E'(ft) with four heads and interlaced bodies at
the beginning of Book III, Chapter i, from the Old English Orosius,
England (Winchester), c. 892-925, Add MS 47967, f. 31v
Add MS 37517: The 'Bosworth Psalter'
Opening page of Psalm 101 with a large decorated initial, display capitals, and interlinear gloss in Old English, from the Bosworth Psalter, England (Canterbury?), 4th quarter of the 10th century, Add MS 37517, f. 64v
Add MS 40000: The 'Thorney Gospels'
Large decorated initial 'Q'(uoniam) at the beginning of Luke's Gospel, with faint interlinear glosses, France (Brittany?), 1st quarter of the 10th century, Add MS 40000, f. 48r
The glosses in the Thorney Gospels, which are extremely faint, can be seen more clearly online by zooming in on the images, than they can in the manuscript itself. They are above lines 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 17, 18 and 24; if you are having trouble reading them, you can find details in N R Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), no. 131.
Inscription in Old English from the 2nd half of the 11th century referring to
the former binding of the manuscript: '+Aelfric 7 wulfwine. Eadgife goldsmides
geafen to broperraedenne twegen orn weghenes goldes daet is on pis ilce boc her
foruten gewired' (Aelfric and Wulfwine, goldsmiths of Eadgifu, gave for the
confraternity two oras of weighed gold which is wired without upon this same
book), Add MS 40000, f. 4r
Add MS 23211: Fragments of Saxon royal genealogies and a Martyrology in Old English
Fragment with decorated initial from the first page of a martyrology, England (south-west), 4th quarter of the 9th century, Add MS 23211, f. 2r
Add MS 34652: a leaf from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: the preface with a West-Saxon genealogy from Cerdic (494) to Alfred (899) (f. 2) and a leaf from the bilingual Rule of Chrodegang (chapters 60-62, incomplete) (f. 3)
Text page of Chrodegang's rule with initials and rubric, England (Winchester), 2nd half of the 11th century, Add MS 34652, f. 3v
Add MS 61735: Farming memoranda of Ely Abbey (also available on Digitised Manuscripts here, and please check out our recent blog post on the memoranda)
Recto of the 3 strips of parchment
containing an inventory and valuation of livestock supplied by Ely to Thorney
Abbey and a note of rents (payable in eels!), England (Ely), c. 1007-1025, Add MS 61735
Add MS 40165A: Martyrology fragment (ff. 6-7) (also available on Digitised Manuscripts here)
Martyrology fragment written in insular miniscule, England (south-west?), 4th quarter of the 9th century, Add MS 40165A, f. 6v
Add MS 9381: Bodmin Gospels (St Petroc Gospels), with records of grants of manumission in Old England and Latin added on blank leaves and in margins
Canon tables with Bodmin manumissions, France (Brittany), last quarter of the 9th century or 1st quarter of the 10th century, Add MS 9381, f. 13r
Add MS 32246: Part of Priscian's Excerptiones with Old English and Latin marginal glosses and Aelfric's Colloquy
Excerptiones with a Latin-Old English glossary, England, 1st half of the 11th century, Add MS 32246, f. 21v
- Chantry Westwell
24 August 2013
Mary, Queen of Scots Manuscripts On Loan
The British Library is delighted to have loaned a number of important historical documents to the excellent Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition at National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh. Our loans are displayed alongside jewellery, textiles, furniture, paintings, maps and manuscripts, all of which are used to re-examine the life and legacy of Scotland’s most famous Queen.
On 16 May 1568, Mary fled to England after being forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in favour of her one-year-old son, the future James I of England. As Elizabeth I’s cousin, Mary fully expected to be invited to court, but her Catholic faith and claim to the English throne made her a natural focus for discontented Catholics who refused to conform to Elizabeth's Protestant faith. For reasons of security, therefore, Mary was placed under house arrest and for the next nineteen years would be moved with her household from one secure location to another.
Sketch of Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire: London, British Library, MS Additional 33594, f. 174
One of the British Library loans currently on display in Edinburgh is this sketch of Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, in which Mary was first imprisoned in 1569 and again in 1584. Mary complained that ‘I am in a walled enclosure, on the top of a hill exposed to the winds and inclemencies of heaven’, and that her own apartments were ‘two little miserable rooms, so excessively cold, especially at night’. The castle bridge and gate-house are visible bottom-right and on the left the Queen’s presence chamber and bedchamber have been identified along with rooms for her gentlewomen of the chamber, surgeon, ‘poticary’ and her secretary, Claude Nau.
Sketch of the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots: London, British Library, MS Additional 48027, f. 569*
In 1586, Mary was brought to trial for complicity in the Babington plot. The hearing took place on 14–15 October 1586 in the Great Chamber at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, and is illustrated in this pen-and-ink sketch from the papers of Robert Beale, Clerk of the Privy Council. Mary is shown twice: aided by two gentlewomen as she enters the court room (top-right), and sitting in a high-backed chair (upper-right, marked ‘A’). Elizabeth did not attend the trial and therefore her chair of state on the dais is empty (top-centre). The trial commissioners are identified by numbers. Elizabeth’s chief advisor, Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, shown seated opposite Mary, is ‘2’, and Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s principal secretary, shown opposite the vacant chair of state, is ‘28’. The commission of thirty-six peers, privy councillors and judges found Mary guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth.
Letter from James VI to Elizabeth I, 26, January 1587: London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula C IX, f. 192
On 26 January 1587, in a final attempt to save the life of the mother he barely knew, James VI of Scotland wrote to his ‘dearest sister’, Elizabeth I. Beginning two lines from the bottom of this page he asks, ‘Quhat thing, Madame, can greatlier touche me in honoure that is a king and a sonne than that my nearest neihboure, being in straittest [friend]shipp with me, shall rigouruslie putt to death a free souveraigne prince and my natural mother, alyke in estaite and sexe to hir that so uses her … to a harder fortune, and touching hir nearlie in proximitie of bloode?’
Sketch of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots: London, British Library, MS Additional 48027, f. 650*
Although Elizabeth signed Mary’s death warrant on 1 February 1587, she remained extremely reluctant to execute an anointed sovereign and instructed her secretary, William Davison, not to send it. Lord Burghley, however, acted quickly and had the death warrant carried to Fotheringhay by Robert Beale, who read it aloud to Mary on 7 February, the evening before her execution. This drawing shows Mary three times: entering the hall; being attended by her gentlewomen on the scaffold; and, finally, lying at the block with the executioner's axe raised ready to strike. The Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent are seated to the left (1 & 2) and Sir Amias Paulet, one of Mary’s guards, is seated behind the scaffold (3).
Letter from James VI to Elizabeth I, March 1587: London, British Library, MS Additional 23240, f. 65
When Elizabeth found out that Mary had been executed, she was furious and wrote to James VI apologising for ‘that miserable accident’ and protesting her innocence. This is James’s unsigned draft reply to Elizabeth, dated March 1587, in which he assures her that given ‘youre many & solemne attestationis of youre innocentie I darr not wronge you so farre as not to judge honorablie of youre unspotted pairt thairin …’ Then, seizing the opportunity to press his case to be named as Elizabeth’s heir, he added ‘I looke that ye will geve me at this tyme suche a full satisfaction in all respectis as sall be a meane to strenthin & unite this yle, establishe & maintaine the trew religion’.
The Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition is on at National Museums Scotland until 17 November 2013.
20 August 2013
St John the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels
St John the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D IV, f. 209v).
Now on show in Durham, until 30 September 2013, is this miniature of St John the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels. The page in question prefaces the Gospel of John in this famous, Anglo-Saxon gospelbook. John is depicted sitting on a blue cushion, with a scroll held in his left hand, and with his evangelist symbol (an eagle, imago aequilae) above his head. The pigments are as rich as the day they were painted, a combination of oranges, reds, blues and greens.
The Lindisfarne Gospels is the centrepiece of the Durham exhibition, staged in Palace Green Library, a stone's throw (literally) from the impressive Romanesque cathedral. Also are show are other British Library manuscripts, most notably the St Cuthbert Gospel (which we bought for the nation in 2012 for £9 million), plus treasures from the British Museum, Corpus Christi College Cambridge and other institutions, and items from the Staffordshire Hoard. Catch the exhibition while you can, it's a treat!
You can read more about the exhibition here. And you can see the Lindisfarne Gospels in its entirety on our Digitised Manuscripts site.
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, @blmedieval.
15 August 2013
Credo: British Library Manuscripts in Paderborn
Detail of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C II, f. 5v)
Detail of Alcuin's letter (London, British Library, MS Harley 208, f. 73v)
Image courtesy of the 'Credo' website.
13 August 2013
The Lady of the Mercians
Some of you may already have watched the first episode of Michael Wood's new series, King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons, which is still available on the BBC iPlayer. (We're very hopeful that the whole series will eventually be broadcast worldwide.)
Detail of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, from a 13th-century genealogical chronicle (London, British Library, MS Royal 14 B V).
King Alfred and his daughter Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (London, British Library, MS Royal 14 B V).
Episode two will be shown tonight on BBC Four (21.00–22.00), and is entitled "The Lady of the Mercians". Æthelflæd (d. 918) was the daughter of Alfred of Wessex, and the wife of Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. Having become sole ruler of the Mercians following her husband's death in 911, Æthelflæd is credited with helping to reconquer the Danelaw (the English lands under Viking rule) in tandem with her younger brother Edward the Elder, king of Wessex (reigned 899–924). As Michael Wood concludes, without her "England might never have happened".
Roundels depicting Alfred, Æthelflæd and Edward the Elder, from a 14th-century genealogical chronicle (London, British Library, MS Royal 14 B VI).
Episode three of Michaels Wood's King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons will be shown next week. Many of the manuscripts featured in the series are held at the British Library, and some of them can be explored in more detail on our Digitised Manuscripts site or the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.
This manuscript of Aldhelm's De laudibus virginitatis was made around AD 900, possibly in Mercia, and later belonged to Worcester Cathedral Priory (London, British Library, MS Royal 5 F III, f. 35r).
09 August 2013
The Eyes Have It
Here's a poser for you. Below are the evangelist portraits from the famous Lindisfarne Gospels, reputedly painted (according to a 10th-century colophon) by Bishop Eadfrith (698-c. 721).
The question is: can you spot the difference? The answer is found at the foot of this post.
St Matthew the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D IV, f. 25v)
St Mark the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D IV, f. 93v)
St Luke the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D IV, f. 137v)
St John the Evangelist in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D IV, f. 209v)
To find out more about the making of the Lindisfarne Gospels, we highly recommend that you read Richard Gameson's new book, From Holy Island to Durham: The Contexts and Meanings of the Lindisfarne Gospels (Third Millennium, 2013). Or why not visit Durham itself, where the manuscript itself is on display until September 2013? Meanwhile, don't forget that you can view all the pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts site.
So, the answer to our poser is ... well, it's a bit of a trick question. All the eyes are blue, except ... you'll have to work that one out!
06 August 2013
Michael Wood and King Alfred
The opening words of King Alfred's will, beginning "Ic Ælfred cinge", in an 11th-century copy: London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, f. 29v.
Earlier this year, Michael Wood, the historian and broadcaster, came to film some of the British Library's Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for his new television series, King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons. Some of you may know Michael's previous books and programmes, such as The Story of England, The Story of India, Conquistadors, and In Search of the Dark Ages; and he is a familiar face at the British Library (for instance, he chaired a discussion with Seamus Heaney, Michael Morpurgo and Benjamin Bagby at our Beowulf festival in 2009, and he was a speaker at our Royal manuscripts conference in 2011).
Two of our curators, one conservator and several British Library manuscripts feature in episode one of the new series, to be broadcast tonight on BBC Four (21.00–22.00). It's always a pleasure to work with Michael Wood, who is a trained Anglo-Saxonist, and we look forward (like everyone else!) to watching his new programme, entitled "Alfred of Wessex". As ever, it will be available subsequently on the BBC iPlayer (United Kingdom viewers only).
Meanwhile, you might like to know that can see the whole of King Alfred's will on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts site ... and you can read more about it here.
02 August 2013
King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons on BBC Four
A major television series featuring some of the British Library's Anglo-Saxon manuscripts is to air soon on BBC Four. Presented by Michael Wood, King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons examines the careers of King Alfred the Great, the Lady Æthelflæd and King Athelstan respectively. Episode one, entitled "King Alfred", will be broadcast on Tuesday 6 August (21.00–22.00), and will then be available on the BBC iPlayer.
The beginning of King Alfred's will (London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, f. 29v).
Alfred the Great (reigned 871–899) is perhaps the best-known Anglo-Saxon king. The son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex, Alfred succeeded his three older brothers to the throne in 871. At that time, Viking invaders had conquered much of England, and Alfred struggled to prevent Wessex from succumbing to the same fate, until his victory over the Vikings at Edington in 878. Alfred's reign is also marked by the revival of learning – for example, he instructed that certain works be translated from Latin into English – and by the reform of the coinage, the issuing of new laws, and the creation of fortified towns (or "burghs"). Alfred's defence of Wessex, combined with his administrative reforms, ultimately paved the way for the formation of the kingdom of England during the 10th century.
A page from Bald's Leechbook (London, British Library, MS Royal 12 D XVII, f. 71r).
Much of Michael Wood's television series was filmed on location at the British Library. The first episode promises to include Bald's Leechbook (BL MS Royal 12 D XVII) and the copy of Alfred's will found in the New Minster Liber Vitae (BL MS Stowe 944), the second of which can be seen in full on our Digitised Manuscripts site. (You may also recall that we featured the other medieval copy of King Alfred's will in a recent blogpost.)
Episode one of King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons is broadcast on BBC Four on 6 August (21:00–22:00). Episodes two and three will be screened on 13 August and 20 August.
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