05 April 2014
Royal Manuscripts Follow-on Project - Completed!
The Royal Manuscripts project team are pleased to announce that with the publication of 1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts, edited by Kathleen Doyle and Scot McKendrick, published by British Library Publications, the AHRC-funded follow-on to the Royal Manuscripts research project has been successfully concluded.
Kathleen Doyle, Scot McKendrick, and 1000 Years of Royal Books and Manuscripts
In February 2012, the AHRC made an additional grant to the Library under the Digital Equipment and Database Enhancement for Impact scheme, to enhance the research undertaken for the original Royal: Illuminated Manuscripts of the Kings and Queens of England project, and its dissemination. As a digital enhancement project, the principal goal was to augment the resources on Royal manuscripts available to researchers on the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts website. Regular readers of the blog will know that we have published regular updates on the project of this digitisation (see the links at the end of this post).
God the creator, from a Bible Historiale, Royal MS 19 D III, f. 3r
The goal of the follow-on project was to provide freely-accessible full online digital coverage of 24,750 pages from approximately 40-50 manuscripts featured in the Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illuminated exhibition held at the British Library 11 November 2011-13 March 2012. This objective was met and exceeded with 71 manuscripts now available on the website. Thanks to all of you who provided ideas for digitisation selection.
The project had two other objectives. The first was to convene two workshops to allow students and scholars to build on the existing research undertaken as part of the Royal project by analysing texts and images of these manuscripts in collaboration with other researchers. One workshop was held at Durham University on 6 June 2012, hosted by Professor Richard Gameson, Department of History. At the workshop eleven undergraduate students presented papers on manuscripts included in the Royal exhibition, and Roger Middleton, Lecturer Emeritus, Department of French Literature at the University of Nottingham, presented a live display of the new research capabilities of the Digitised Manuscripts website. The second workshop was designed for post-graduate students, and was held in London on 9 November 2012. This workshop explored the research possibilities of digitisation in a seminar examining three original manuscripts together with their magnified digital images.
The third output was the publication of the book, which is a collection of ten essays on the development of Royal libraries, enhancing and building on the research completed for the initial Royal project. Two of the essays (by Richard Gameson and Catherine Reynolds) were drawn from the new research presented at the Frank Davis lecture series held at the Courtauld Institute of Art in autumn 2011. Four (by Michael Wood, Nicholas Vincent, John Goldfinch, and Jane Roberts) grew out of lectures given as part of the British Library lecture series accompanying the exhibition. One (by James Carley) is on a royal manuscript that was once a part of the Old Royal Library but was not included in the exhibition, and so his research is presented in the volume for the first time. The remaining three contributions (by Joanna Fronska, Scot McKendrick, and Kathleen Doyle) build on research that was undertaken for the initial Royal Manuscripts project presented in the exhibition catalogue. Thanks to the grant provided by the AHRC, the book is extensive illustrated with ninety-four colour illustrations.
Previous Royal Manuscripts blog posts:
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/05/the-chosen-royals.html
- Kathleen Doyle
03 April 2014
Stuck in Limbo: Dante's Purgatorio
As was the case for the souls condemned to Hell in Dante’s Inferno (described in our previous post No Rest for the Wicked), the punishment for those in Purgatory matches the crime. But, unlike Hell, the punishments in Purgatory were intended to improve and purify the souls in question, those who could be saved but still needed a little improvement before making their way to Heaven. In one of the first scenes in Purgatory, the proud bear great stones upon their backs (see below).
Could the artist of this manuscript know that Dante included among the proud one Oderisi of Gubbio, a famed illustrator of illuminated manuscripts who took a little too much pride in his work! Is this a warning to all of us who work in the field of manuscripts studies?
The proud in Purgatory, Italy (Emilia or Padua), late 14th century, Egerton MS 943, f. 82r
In Purgatory, the avaricious and greedy are shown lying face down on the ground. Dante meets Pope Adrian V here. Dante certainly wasn’t afraid to take the powerful to task for their misdeed – he even sent another Pope, Boniface VIII, straight to Hell!
The avaricious, Egerton MS 943, f. 97v
After passing through much of Purgatory, Dante, Virgil and another poet, Statius, must pass through a wall of fire to be worthy of reaching the Earthly Paradise, or the Garden of Eden, at the summit of Mount Purgatory (see below).
The wall of fire, Egerton MS 943, f. 112r
Below can be seen the Garden of Eden; Dante (and the capable artist of this manuscript) drew on some unusual biblical imagery to depict the Four Evangelists here as four-headed creatures. As the three observers in the Garden of Eden look on, a parade of Christian symbols pass them, re-enacting the drama of salvation – much like the parades that would have proceeded through Florence on every holy day. This parade seems to be building up to something… we sense someone important is on the way, but who could it be?
The four winged beasts in the Garden of Eden, Egerton MS 943, f. 116v
A griffin pulling a chariot, Egerton MS 943, f. 117r
It is Beatrice Portinari, in a chariot drawn by griffins! Beatrice was Dante’s muse and true love, despite the fact that they only met twice in real life (and those encounters were more or less in passing). It is here that many begin to feel a certain distance from the poem. Dante of course wrote in the tradition of courtly love, where the beloved was meant to be entirely unattainable, but it is difficult for the modern reader to be terribly sympathetic about Dante’s deep longing for Beatrice, considering she probably had no idea who he was. One also can’t help but feel some sympathy for Dante’s poor wife Gemma di Manetto Donati; she never got a single mention in any of his poetry (so it’s no wonder she didn’t accompany him when he was forced out of Florence!).
Note that Dante seems a little apprehensive in the miniature below. It almost appears as though he’s being dragged along; could it be that he senses that Beatrice isn’t very pleased to see him?
Dante is led to Beatrice, Egerton MS 943, f. 121r
Poor Dante. He has travelled all this way to get to his lady-love and she greets him with anger. Many consider this to be the funniest bit of the Purgatory – Dante cowering like a hen-pecked husband while Beatrice brutally scolds him for his conduct. She tells him that was sent by God so that her physical perfection would inspire him to contemplate the beauty of the divine, but instead he got distracted and chased after other girls. Though she’s presented elsewhere as an idealised and static muse for Dante, our manuscript’s artist perfectly captures something of Beatrice’s fire in this scene.
This moment really is the dramatic climax of the poem as a whole. The meeting with Beatrice represents a chance for everything Dante longed for most, forgiveness for his sins, and a final reconciliation with his love.
Dante and Beatrice meeting, Egerton MS 943, f. 124v
Dante is so contrite (and a little pathetic) that Beatrice eventually forgives him, and takes over from Virgil as his guide into the highest reaches of Purgatory and on to heaven. Dante’s adoration of Beatrice as they travel in the poem is so touching that we can almost forget the strangeness of their real-life acquaintance. Their second and final meeting, we are told, took place on a bridge in Florence, when Beatrice passed Dante by chance and smiled at him. That single moment was enough for Dante to make Beatrice’s smile the very image of divine beauty. Heaven is simply full of smiles and laughter, in the Paradiso, the third and final act of the poem.
Stay tuned for another post about Dante’s Paradiso!
- Arthur Westwell
01 April 2014
A Calendar Page for April 2014
Happy April everybody! And what better way to start the month than with some more sensational pages from the stupendous Huth Hours? If you have already been following our blog – and who hasn’t? – you’ll know that our calendar of the year is taken from this beautiful 15th-century manuscript (for more information, please see our post A Calendar Page for January 2014).
Calendar page for April, with a roundel miniature of an aristocratic couple courting, followed by a small child, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 4v
So what delights does April bring us? The promise of early spring often yields images of very pleasant labours indeed for this month, and these calendar pages from the Huth Hours are no exception. Our first folio gives us a roundel miniature of a well-dressed couple courting while walking along a garden path. The themes of fertility, birth, and rebirth are emphasised by the flowering branch being carried by the ardent young man, and by the small child following the couple (whether he is acting as chaperone or as a sign of things to come remains a bit of a mystery). The saints' days and feasts for April are continued on the following folio, along with a small painting of a bull for the zodiac sign Taurus. In the roundel below is a charming scene of a shepherd surrounded by his flock, playing a recorder for his appreciative dog. A similar musical shepherd can be found on the calendar page for April of 2013; we'll let you know if we encounter any other examples!
Detail of a calendar page for April, with a roundel miniature of an aristocratic couple courting, followed by a small child, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 4v
In the background is one of the earliest representations of the infamous Leaning Tower of Utrecht. Utrecht has often been called the “Pisa of the North”, and historians have long debated how the steeple of the church of St Ignatius the Cripple came to acquire its distinctive kink. Some have attributed the lean to a lightning strike, to subsidence, or to a giant ape climbing the tower. But the image shown here is equally plausible, and seems to confirm the testimony of Lionel the Imbecile, who reported seeing mysterious lights in the sky in 1483. (Lionel was subsequently burnt at the stake by order of the anti-Pope Anacletus III, following a show trial at the Fourth Council of Constance.)
And below is our second scene, featuring the shepherd and his musical dog. Look very closely, and you can also see a startled sheep, caught in the beam of a passing spaceship, and being transported to an uncertain fate. During the 15th century, alien abductions frequently took place during the month of April; and the Huth Hours provides splendid corroboration of that fact. The artist has drawn the alien craft hovering above the trees, with the sheep being captured in a red beam arcing through the sky.
Calendar page for April, with a roundel miniature of a shepherd playing music for his flock and his dog, with the zodiac sign Taurus, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 5r
Many critics have poured scorn on the veracity of such pictures (you can read a summary in the forthcoming festschrift for Prof. Wim van der Wende, No Pain, No Gain: Controversy and Subversion in Late Medieval Art). But we at the British Library have utter faith in their validity, and are on the hunt for other examples: let us know what you think @BLMedieval.
Detail of a calendar page for April, with a roundel miniature of a shepherd playing music for his flock and his dog, with the zodiac sign Taurus, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 5r
- Sarah J Biggs & Julian Harrison
29 March 2014
The Enemy of All Marriage
Last week, we announced that two important manuscripts had been saved for the nation by the British Library. One of these – a printed book filled with the manuscript notes of the religious reformer John Ponet (b. c. 1514, d. 1556) – has been digitised in its entirety, and is now available for all to study and enjoy through Digitised Manuscripts (the book is Add MS 89067). It joins another book annotated by Ponet in the British Library collections: a copy of the 1534 edition of the Historia Danorum Libri XVI (590.k.10).
John Ponet began his career at Queen’s College in Cambridge, where he graduated as Master of Arts in 1535. Yet no quiet life of scholarship awaited Ponet. A highly articulate advocate of reformed religion, and an inveterate controversialist to boot, Ponet placed himself at the centre of contemporary doctrinal debates, including the question of whether priests should be permitted to marry. Like Thomas Cranmer and Matthew Parker, Ponet took a wife well before clerical celibacy was swept away. He was later arraigned on charges of bigamy, his wife being already betrothed to a Nottingham butcher; he eventually divorced her and married another woman.
Frontispiece to John Ponet’s copy of Thomas Martin’s ‘Traictise’, containing Ponet’s annotations and an old library stamp from the Law Society’s Mendham Collection, printed in London, 1554, Add MS 89067, f. 1r
This book, published in 1554, is entitled A Traictise declaryng and plainly prouyng that the pretensed marriage of Priestes and professed persones is no marriage, but altogether unlawful, and in all ages, and al countreies of Christendome bothe forbidden and also punyshed. Written by Thomas Martin, a civil lawyer of conservative religious standing, this book represents an attempt by the regime of Mary Tudor to give intellectual justification to the undoing of doctrinal changes effected during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Five years earlier, in the year that clerical celibacy had been abolished by act of parliament, Ponet had published A Defence for Mariage of Priestes, by Scripture and aunciente wryters. Already married himself for at least a year, Ponet set out why ‘marriage and priesthood may stand together’ and how ‘marriage is no hindrance to a godly life’, drawing heavily on St Paul’s advice to the Corinthians to marry in order to avoid the sin of fornication.
Opening of the first chapter, with Ponet’s annotations in English and Latin in the margins, Add MS 89067, f. 11r
It is Ponet’s extensive manuscript notes alongside the Traictise – in the margins and on blank leaves specially inserted into the book – that transform this book into a witness of the personal battles taking place within religious controversies of the mid-sixteenth century. Ponet’s rise to the bishopric of Winchester in 1551 had been at the expense of its former bishop Stephen Gardiner. It is probably no coincidence that the author of the Traictise was employed by Gardiner in his new role as Mary I’s Lord Chancellor.
Detail of an interleaved page containing Ponet’s annotations in English, Add MS 89067, f. 2r
Declaring on the title-page ‘Martin made me an enemy of all marriage’, Ponet left few leaves unmarked, writing notes in English, Latin and Greek that comprise a blow-by-blow response to the Traictise. Ponet was evidently keen to garner scurrilous gossip to pepper his response with some ad hominem remarks: ‘Martin played always the fool in Christmas in New College, Oxford’, he noted (see above).
Detail of an interleaved page containing Ponet’s annotations in English, Add MS 89067, f. 4r
He often directly addressed Martin in his annotations: ‘Your intent, as appearing by this title of your book, is to prove that the marriage of priests and professed persons is not marriage...you think you have made so profound a resolution in this matter by your canonical wisdom and sophistical cunning...ye may dedicate the first fruits of your fancy as...to a queen...not doubting belike that her grace’s ears will not be offended with your unchaste terms of filthy whoredom, your shameless shifts, [...] lechery et cetera, your ruffian-like talk and loud lies...’.
Detail of an interleaved page, containing Ponet’s annotations in English, Add MS 89067, f. 4r
Warming to his theme, Ponet continued, ‘Though the queen be contented with whatsoever you say, yet will learned men overlook you and judge what you ought to say, it is not your net that can hide your nakedness when you dance now as it was when you used to play in New College in Oxford the lords minion fool in Christmas. Belike there you learned your boldness and lost your wit and did then put off shame and put on impudency...’.
Detail of an interleaved page, containing Ponet’s annotations in English, Add MS 89067, f. 5r
Referring to the sacking under Mary of clerics who had legally married under Edward, Ponet wrote, with some sarcasm, ‘Now Mr Doctor ye must make some foul shift for your clients which be put in the possession of such men’s benefices as be deprived without a cause if your sayings be true...’.
Detail of an interleaved page, containing Ponet’s annotations in English, Add MS 89067, f. 5r
Ponet predicted that unrest would follow these changes, with attacks made both against priests’ replacements and those responsible, not least because of perceived foreign influence through Mary’s marriage to Philip II: ‘...if now you and your Spanions help not at a pinch, all such new beneficed shavelings [i.e. inexperienced young men] shall be thought to live in open extortion and wrongfully to withhold other men’s goods, for the which great damage is like to ensue not only to them but also to all such as have put out the one without a cause.’
Page of text, underlined and containing Ponet’s annotations in English and Latin, Add MS 89067, f. 46r
Ponet evidently saw the hand of his old adversary Gardiner at work in Martin’s Traictise. His notes in Add MS 89067 formed the basis of his response, published in 1556, An Apologie fully answeringe by Scriptures and aunceant Doctors, a blasphemose Book gathered by D. Steph. Gardiner...and other Papists...as by ther books appeareth and of late set furth under the name of T. Martin Doctor of the Civile lawes...against the godly mariadge of priests. Yet this new acquisition contains many other annotations by Ponet that were never printed and remain to be studied in detail. It thus offers fresh insights into a disputatious and very personal exchange during a febrile period in England’s religious history.
- James Freeman
22 March 2014
Blogtastic!
You may recall that we asked for your help earlier this year, when we asked for your votes in the inaugural National UK Blog Awards (Vote for Us Please). We're delighted to tell you that, thanks to your overwhelming support, we have made the list of finalists in the Arts and Culture category. We understand that more than 16,000 votes were cast in total (not all for us obviously), but we are hugely grateful for your support: every little vote really did count! You can read more about the National UK Blog Awards here.
The Benedictional of St Æthelwold, from our blogpost More Unique Than Most (4 February 2014)
The awards ceremony itself takes place on 25 April. We are dusting off our snappiest suits and poshest frocks, to make a good impression on the night itself. Most of our time we spend hovering over our computers, beavering away to make our collections available online or dreaming up ever more outlandish blogposts (and a thousand other things besides). It's great to know that somebody out there is impressed by what we have been doing.
Imaging the manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, from our blogpost Gawain Revealed (23 February 2014)
Since the time we asked for your votes, here are some of the stories we have posted on the Medieval Manuscripts Blog. We hope that there will be many more like these to come. Let us know your favourite by tweeting @BLMedieval.
A Papyrus Puzzle and Some Purple Parchment
An Illustrated Guide to Medieval Love
Medieval Drama Acquired by the British Library
More Unique Than Most: The Benedictional of St Æthelwold
She Cares Not a Turd: Notes on a 16th Century Squabble
Two Magnificent Manuscripts Saved for the Nation
The Mystère de la Vengeance, from our blogpost Medieval Drama Acquired by the British Library (6 March 2014)
Julian Harrison and Sarah J Biggs
20 March 2014
Update to the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Here in the British Library’s department of Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts, we work tirelessly to make our collections accessible and better known among scholars and the public. While much attention focuses on our Digitised Manuscripts resource, let’s not forget about the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.
Text page fragments in uncial script, from Cyprian’s Epistles, North Africa (Carthage?), 4th – 5th centuries, Add MS 40165A, f. 1r
Recently updated, CIM (as we like to call it) now boasts a total of 4,277 manuscripts and some 36,163 images. These range from a 4th/5th-century copy of Cyprian’s Epistles, perhaps brought to England by Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian of Canterbury (Add MS 40165A), to a collection of facsimile manuscript pages produced in 1873 by John Obadiah Westwood, a palaeographer and entomologist (Egerton MS 2263) – with a lot in between.
Since the last update in August 2013, we have been cataloguing Anglo-Norman manuscripts from the Additional collection. Although some of them only contain only decorated initials, the contents are wide-ranging and filled with surprises.
Here are a few favourites (with more to come, so stay tuned!):
The earliest English cookbooks? (Add MS 32085 and Royal MS 12 C XII)
Puzzle initial, from the legal text 'Sentencia Super Easdem Cartas', England, late 13th or early 14th century, Add MS 32085, f. 11r.
Both manuscripts contain a varied collection of miscellaneous texts – from prophecies to arithmetical puzzles, from charters to a lapidary – bound together after they were copied. They have one ingredient in common: collections of recipes in Anglo-Norman French, believed to be the earliest surviving examples of English cuisine. If you fancy trying your hand at medieval cookery, check out Constance B. Hieatt and Robin F. Jones’s edition and translation.
Some of the recipes are mouth-watering (but no roasted unicorn, sadly), and the names are especially appetising:
Teste de Tourk (Turk’s Head): a type of quiche filled with rabbits and poultry; add eels to ‘enhance’ the flavour!
Nag’s tail: the ingredients include pigs’ trotters and ears, grease and wine.
Sang Dragoun: dragon’s blood is a colourful name for what appears to be rice pudding.
Tardpolene: alas, no tadpoles, but just soft cheese, dates and almonds.
Scientific and chiromantic texts (Add MS 18210)
This scientific compilation contains Latin texts by Galen, the ‘Dragmaticon’ of William of Conches (tutor to Henry II), as well as some texts on telling the future. Two are unique to this manuscript: one on spatulomancy/scapulamancy (divination through the use of a shoulder-bone), and another on haematoscopy (prognostication through the examination of blood). A less visceral means of forecasting is recorded in a treatise on geomancy, where one must interpret the patterns formed by tossing handfuls of rocks on the ground. A handy table is provided as a guide:
Table of patterns, from a treatise on geomancy, England or N. France, c. 1275- c. 1325, Add MS 18210, f. 93r.
Who wouldn’t want the stones to predict ‘proesces ioie et leesce et richesces et si signifie grant profit’ (nobility, joy, gladness, riches and great profit)?
We have also continued to update and augment entries with further details on the contents, provenance and bibliographies relating to illuminated manuscripts. Tune in for some further highlights later on.
Don’t forget that it’s possible to find manuscripts in the Catalogue by means other than their shelfmarks. One can conduct advanced searches by keyword, date range, language, provenance, scribe, artist – and so on! You can bring together manuscripts of the same period in order to compare decorative styles, or see examples of a specific artist’s work at a glance. One of the best features is that you can search for keywords within the images (try searching for ‘snail’ and see what comes up!).
The Catalogue also includes virtual exhibitions of British Library manuscripts, and an illustrated glossary (most useful for getting to grips with tricky terminology). Enjoy!
- James Freeman and Chantry Westwell
18 March 2014
Two Magnificent Manuscripts Saved for the Nation
We are delighted to announce that the British Library has acquired two major manuscripts, following temporary export bars. One is the Catholicon Anglicum, a 15th-century English-Latin dictionary, and the other is a printed treatise on clerical marriage, owned and annotated by John Ponet, Bishop of Winchester.
The Catholicon Anglicum, a medieval dictionary newly-acquired by the British Library
Copied in 1483, and still in its original binding, the newly-acquired manuscript of the Catholicon Anglicum (Add MS 89074) is the only complete witness of that text. It had last been seen in 1881, when the text was edited, and its whereabouts were unknown for more than a century. The British Library already holds the only other copy known to survive, Add MS 15562, which is slightly earlier in date but lacks many of its leaves.
Detail of the Catholicon Anglicum
The newly-acquired dictionary comprises approximately 8,000 Middle English words, each written in red ink, followed by their Latin (and sometimes Greek) equivalents written in brown ink. The use of dialect words by the anonymous compiler indicates that the Catholicon Anglicum was of Yorkshire origin. Entries range from the mundane – for example, ‘a Milne stane’ (a millstone) – to the more conceptually complex – such as ‘a Mynde’. As one of the earliest examples of an English dictionary, the Catholicon Anglicum is of profound importance for the study of the development of both the English language and of English lexicography.
Also following a temporary export bar, the British Library has acquired John Ponet’s personal copy of a 1554 treatise against clerical marriage. Ponet (c. 1514-1556) was a Cambridge academic and a passionate exponent of religious reform, who became Bishop of Winchester under Edward VI in 1551. He had married in 1548, before clerical celibacy had been abolished, and published a treatise the following year, entitled A Defence for Marriage of Priests, by Scripture and Ancient Writers. Upon the accession of Mary I, Ponet went into exile in Strasbourg.
John Ponet's copy of a treatise denouncing clerical marriage
In 1554, Thomas Martin, a civil lawyer and religious conservative who had recently returned to England, published a refutation of Ponet’s treatise, entitled A Treatise declaring and plainly proving that the pretensed marriage of priests…is no marriage, but altogether unlawful. This new acquisition (Add MS 89067) is Ponet’s own, interleaved and annotated copy of Martin's treatise. Declaring angrily on the frontispiece ‘Martin made me the enemy of all marriage’, Ponet began a point-by-point attack upon Martin’s work and defence of his own, filling the blank leaves and margins with manuscript notes in English, Latin and Greek, which later formed the basis for his own printed response in 1556, An Apology fully answering…a blasphemous book…against the godly marriage of priests.
Full digital coverage of the Catholicon Anglicum and Ponet's book will be made available in the coming months on our Digitised Manuscripts site, and we will also make both items accessible to researchers using our Manuscripts Reading Room. We believe that study of both manuscripts will contribute enormously to knowledge of their respective fields, and anticipate that many researchers will profit from having access to these new acquisitions.
The news of the British Library’s acquisition of Ponet's book has been greeted by Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford: ‘I am delighted and relieved that the British Library has stepped in as guardian angel for a very precious book. This printed work has an especial significance for our national history, as it is annotated in manuscript by one of its author's principal enemies. Two major players in England's Reformation have an angry conversation before our eyes, the first married Bishop of Winchester combatting the arguments of his unmarried predecessor-Bishop's Chancellor against clerical marriage. Now this unique document is not just safe in public custody, but will be easily available for all to read.'
An opening from Ponet's book, showing how he had it interleaved to add his own comments
Ponet's book was offered for auction in the Mendham sale at Sotheby's, London, on 5 June 2013, at which the British Library had bought four lots. The Library's view was that the sale was regrettable, but once it became clear that the sale would go ahead, a decision was made to try to purchase certain lots, in order to preserve some of the Mendham books for the national collection and to maintain public access to them. The dispersal of the collection involved the risk that books hitherto available for research in the United Kingdom would leave the country or disappear into private hands.
Today's announcement comes hot on the heels of our exciting recent acquisition of the Mystère de la Vengeance, a beautiful 15th-century illuminated drama. You can already see images of the Mystère on Digitised Manuscripts (Add MS 89066/1 and Add MS 89066/2).
17 March 2014
The Legacy of St Patrick
The story of Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, is well known: how, as a young man, he was kidnapped from Britain and spent years enslaved as a shepherd in Ireland; and how, after escaping home, he returned to convert the Irish to Christianity. On this St Patrick’s Day, we thought we’d tell you a bit about some of the British Library’s holdings that relate to the life and legend of the saint himself.
St Patrick asleep, with a figure holding a book. France, 2nd quarter of the 13th century (London, British Library, MS Royal 20 D VI, f 213v)
Two surviving Latin works are now generally believed to be by Patrick, namely the Confessio and his letter to Coroticus. These works are preserved in 8 manuscripts, and one of them is held here at the British Library: Cotton MS Nero E I, part I, ff 169v-174v, contains the Confessio followed by Patrick's letter to Coroticus among a collection of other saints' Lives, copied at Worcester Cathedral Priory in the 2nd half of the 11th century. You can view the Patrick sections of this manuscript, together with all the other manuscripts of Patrick’s works and much more, on the marvellous Saint Patrick’s Confessio website hosted by the Royal Irish Academy.
Patrick was an extremely popular saint throughout the Middle Ages, and was frequently depicted in medieval art. Above is an example taken from a lavishly-illuminated volume of the Lives of the Saints, showing Patrick asleep on a knoll. Next to him is a figure holding a book, who has not so far been identified.
Here is a second example, also from our Royal Manuscripts collection:
St Patrick standing on a snake in Purgatory: England, 1451 (London, British Library, MS Royal 17 B XLIII, f 132v)
This image comes at the beginning of an account of a vision of St Patrick in Purgatory, as seen by William Staunton of county Durham on Friday, 20 September 1409 (ff 133r-148v). It is one of a number of medieval accounts of St Patrick’s visit to Purgatory, the entrance to which was located, according to legend, on Station Island in Lough Derg. Unusually in this image, the depiction of Patrick in Purgatory is combined with an image of Patrick trampling on a snake, a reference to the traditional belief that Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.
Patrick’s popularity is also reflected in the numerous later stories, poems and hymns about him written in Irish. There is not space here to detail all of them (you can find a full list in the Index to the Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum), but it’s worth noting the numerous instances of the Ossianic poems Agallamh Oisín is Pádraig (The conversation of Oisín and Patrick) found in later manuscripts, and also the important Egerton MS 93, a 15th-16th century manuscript containing the Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick.
A fitting place to end our survey is this translation of the Latin couplet on the saints buried at Downpatrick, from Egerton MS 146, f 117v (18th-19th century):
hi tres in Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno
Brigida, Patricius atque Columba pius
Rendered into Irish as
Triur naomh sa dún ann aon uaidh taid na luighe,
Naomh Pádruicc clumhail, Naom Colum Cilli is Bríghitt.
(Three saints are lying in one grave in this stronghold, the famous St Patrick, St Colum Cille and Brigid.)
Happy St Patrick's Day, wherever you may be!
Cillian O'Hogan
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- Writing