06 July 2019
Medieval cures for lung disease, gout and vertigo
Even after the Normans conquered England, Old English (the oldest form of the vernacular) continued to be spoken throughout the country. It continued to be used in books produced in monasteries there for at least a century after William the Conqueror’s invasion.
One excellent example of this is found in the Old English Illustrated Herbal. Originally made in Canterbury in the early 11th century, this manuscript contains Old English translations of a collection of Latin remedies, illustrated with numerous paintings of plants and animals. You can read more about its history in Taylor McCall’s article on Medical knowledge in the early medieval period, as well as in this earlier blogpost.
Illustrations of a lion, a bull, a monkey, a bear and a dog alongside Old English medical recipes, in the Old English Illustrated Herbal (Canterbury, 1st quarter of the 11th century): Cotton MS Vitellius C III, ff. 81v–82r
To judge by its additions and annotations, this manuscript continued to be read for many years after its production. During the 12th century, scribes at Canterbury were still adding new recipes to it, which were also written in the vernacular.
One added remedy is a cure for lung disease (Wið lungen adle), made from a mixture of herbs with warm ale. Another claims to be seo seleste eahsalf wið ehpærce (the best eye salve for eye pain). There is even a medical treatment for gout, entitled Wið fot adle (Against foot disease).
A page of Old English medical recipes added in the 12th century, including a treatment for gout (column 2, lines 1–15): Cotton MS Vitellius C III, f. 83r
This remedy describes a recipe for a drink — a mixture of wine, leeks, cumin and laurel berries — that a patient should take every day until the disease is cured:
Wið fot adle 7 wið þone dropan nim datulus þa wyrt oðer nama titulosa þæt is on ure geþeoda þæt greata crauleac nim þes leaces heafda 7 dryg swiðe 7 nim ðer of þriddan healves penincges gewihte 7 peretreo 7 romanisce rinda 7 cymen 7 feorðan del lauwerberian 7 þera oðera wyrta ælces healves penincges gewihta 7 vi piper corn unwegen 7 grind ealle to duste 7 do win tra aeg faille fulle þis is foð læcæcræft fyle þan men drincan oþ ðæt he hal fy.
('Against foot rot (gout) and against wrist-drop: take the wort hermodactylus, known by another name titulosa that in our own language is called the ‘great crow leek’. Take the heads of this leek and dry them thoroughly, and take a weight amounting to two and a half pennies, and pyrethrum and Roman rinds and cumin and one fourth as much laurel berries, and of the other worts, each by weight of a half penny and six pepper corns, unweighed, and grind them all to dust. And add two egg shells full of wine: this is a true leechcraft. Give it to the man to drink till he is whole again.')
These 12th-century additions occur throughout the herbal. On one occasion, two medical recipes were added to a previously blank page, opposite a large illustration of a man and a centaur presenting a book in a landscape surrounded by animals. The image is captioned Escolapius Plato Centaurus.
Old English medical recipes added in the 12th century, facing a representation of a man and a centaur presenting a book: Cotton MS Vitellius C III, ff. 18v–19r
One of these added recipes purports to be a remedy for vertigo or giddiness. It instructs the reader to:
Nim betonica 7 wæll swyðe on win oþþa on ald ealað 7 wæse þæt heafod mid þam wose 7 leg fiððen þæt wyrt swa wærm abutan þæt heafod 7 wrið mid claðe 7 læt swab eon ealla niht.
('Take betony and boil it thoroughly in wine or in old ale, and wash the head with the infusion, and then lay the wort, so warm, about the head, and wreathe with it a cloth, and leave it there all night.')
While it is hard to determine the effectiveness of such cures, this addition to an older Anglo-Saxon book does reveal the continued use of English a century after William's victory at the Battle of Hastings. If you'd like to know more about writing in the vernacular in the 12th century, why not take a look at this article featured on our website.
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02 July 2019
Insular Manuscripts: Networks of Knowledge
For the last three years, the ‘Insular Manuscripts: Networks of Knowledge’ project has been investigating the large number of manuscripts written in insular scripts between the mid-7th and the mid-9th centuries. The project aims to examine knowledge exchange in early medieval Europe through analysis of these manuscripts. Some of the manuscripts were written in Britain and Ireland, but many were written in Francia and northern Italy, in monasteries which had been founded by missionaries from Ireland and the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
A text page from the Lindisfarne Gospels, made around 700: Cotton MS Nero D IV, f. 31v. This manuscript is currently on display in the Library's major exhibition, Writing: Making Your Mark.
So far, the project has recorded 844 items originating from at least 668 different manuscripts that were written in insular scripts between 650 and 850, in addition to 72 original Anglo-Saxon charters written before 850. Only 321 (38%) of the 844 items were definitely or probably written in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms or Ireland, and only 136 of those are still held in Britain or Ireland. The other 185 items written in Ireland or the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms are now held elsewhere. The majority were apparently early medieval exports to Francia and many are now held in libraries alongside even greater numbers of manuscripts in insular scripts that were produced in Francia itself.
The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, in the Echternach Gospels: Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, ms lat. 9389, f. 20r
As a result of the programmes in many libraries to digitise their medieval manuscripts, over 60% of the manuscripts written in insular scripts have now been digitised in some form, transforming opportunities for new research. (In the case of the British Library, you can find all our digitised content on our Digitised Manuscripts site.)
Jerome's commentary on Isaiah (Marmoutiers, 2nd quarter of the 8th century: Egerton MS 2831, f. 110r
The third workshop in the project focused on ‘Knowledge Exchange: People and Places’, and was hosted last month in Vienna by Bernhard Zeller at the Institut für Mittelalterforschung der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. (Details of the programme and paper summaries are available on the project website.) The workshop included a visit to the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, to see a selection of manuscripts written in insular scripts, introduced by Andreas Fingernagel, Head of Manuscripts and Rare Books.
Members of the Insular Manuscripts workshop in Vienna
The meeting in Vienna was the final workshop in a series of three, as part of the project which has been generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust. This workshop followed the first in London in April 2017 on ‘Methods of Making’ and the second in Dublin and Galway in June 2018 on ‘Digital Potential’. As the project draws to a close, the project partners will be considering the next steps to take forward their research questions, and the data compiled by the project on all known manuscripts written in insular scripts will be posted on the project website by the end of this year.
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29 June 2019
Noah's Ark and the Anglo-Saxons
When our Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition ended recently, you might have been forgiven for thinking that little more remains to be discovered about this crucial period of early medieval history. It's highly unusual for unknown Anglo-Saxon manuscripts to come to light (although we did recently purchase a leaf formerly in private hands), while archaeological finds like the Staffordshire Hoard and the Winfarthing Pendant are still extreme rarities. We are delighted, therefore, to reveal that new technologies can enable us to uncover more about the Anglo-Saxon past.
Some of our readers may be familiar with the Old English Orosius, Add MS 47967 is the earliest surviving copy of a vernacular translation of the Historiarum adversus Paganos Libri Septem (Seven Books of History against the Pagans), a history of the world written by Paulus Orosius (d. after 418). This manuscript was probably copied in Winchester during the reign of King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) and it may have been part of Alfred’s programme to translate important Latin works into Old English.
At the very end of this copy is a faded page of text (f. 87v), nearly impossible to read, although N. R. Ker attempted a transcription in his Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (1957). Now, with the help of multi-spectral imaging technology employed by Dr Christina Duffy at the Library, we have been able to produce a clearer photograph of the page, unveiling more of the text it contains.
Before and after: the page of faded text at the end of the Old English Orosius, and after undergoing multispectral imaging: Add MS 47967, f. 87v
The Old English written here comprises a long note that provides details relating to the Bible, specifically the ages of Adam, Noah, his sons and their wives, and the dimensions of the Ark. The text reads as follows:
Adam lifede nigon hund geara 7 XXX geara [...] Noe lifede ær ðam flode syx hund geara 7 æfter ðam flode ðryo hund wintra 7 fiftig wintra 7 he wæs innan ðære earc feowertig daga he 7 his ðryo suna Sem. Cham. 7 Iapheh 7 hyra ðryo wif seo earc waes ðryo hund faeðma lang 7 fiftig faeðma wid. 7 ðryttig faeðma heah. 7 his sunu Sem. Lifede syx hund geara. 7 ðryo 7 ðryttig geara his sunu hatte Arfaxad se lifode feower hund geara 7 eahta 7 ðryttig geara. Ða gestrynde he sunu se hatte heber. Of him asprang ðaet ‘h’ebreisc folc.’
('Adam lived for 930 years. Noah lived 600 years before the Flood and 350 winters after it and he was in the Ark for 40 days, he and his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their three wives. The Ark was 300 fathoms long, 50 fathoms wide, and 30 fathoms high. And his son Shem lived 630 years and his son Arfaxad lived 438 years. Then he begat a son called Heber. From him sprung forth the ‘Hebrew’ people.')
Comparable examples of this type of Old English text survive from other early manuscripts. At the end of a 12th-century copy of excerpts from the Disticha Catonis (Cotton MS Julius A II) is a series of notes written in the vernacular.
A page of notes written in Old English: Cotton MS Julius A II, f. 140v
This text concerns a variety of subjects, including the names of the two thieves who were crucified next to Christ, the Temple of Solomon and the Church of St Peter in Rome, the dimensions of the world, and the number of bones in the human body. There is also a note that, like the faded text in the Old English Orosius, details the measurements of Noah’s Ark.
Noes arc waes iii hund fedma lang 7 fiftig wid 7 ðritig heah.
('Noah’s Ark was 300 fathoms long and 50 fathoms wide and 30 fathoms high.')
The story of Noah and his sons, and the building of the Ark, seems to have been popular in Anglo-Saxon England. Many of the surviving genealogical lists of Anglo-Saxon kings, for example, feature Noah prominently. The West Saxon Regnal List tell us that the line of the kings of Wessex, the dominant kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England from the late 9th century onwards, was descended from the Old Testament patriarch, through his fourth son Sceaf, said to have been born on the Ark itself. This work survives in a miscellany of astronomical, geographical and theological material, made in England during the second quarter of the 11th century.
This copy of the West Saxon Regnal List states that the West Saxon kings were descended from Noah, through his fourth son Sceaf: Cotton MS Tiberius B V/1, f. 23r
In the same manuscript, a mappa mundi or ‘map of the world’ shows where the Ark is thought to have come to land. Here, its final resting place (marked with a drawing of the Ark itself) is identified as east of the Black Sea, close to the mountain ranges of Armenia.
A map of the world from the Anglo-Saxon miscellany, showing the location of Noah’s Ark: Cotton MS Tiberius B V/1, f. 56v
Meanwhile, the artists of the Old English Hexateuch (Cotton MS Claudius B IV), written around the same time, were particularly inspired by Noah’s story and included several illustrations to accompany the account of Noah and his sons from the book of Genesis. These colourful framed images show the various phases of the Ark’s construction, the loading of the animals, the Ark at sea and the animals leaving the Ark with Noah and his family, once the waters had retreated.
The animals leaving the Ark after the Flood has subsided, from the Old English Hexateuch: Cotton MS Claudius B IV, f. 15v
We are very excited to have been able to read the page in the Orosius manuscript for perhaps the first time in a thousand years. This is proof that there are many more discoveries to be made, which collectively will enable us to build up a more detailed picture of pre-Conquest history.
Visit our Medieval England and France website to discover how to make a medieval manuscript, to read beastly tales from the medieval bestiary, and to learn about medieval science, medicine and monastic libraries.
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27 June 2019
Unexpected encounters of the fragmentary kind
Over the last few months, we have been progressively adding new descriptions of the Harley manuscripts to our online catalogue. We have been surprised on a regular basis by the number of medieval fragments we have encountered in some of these volumes. Many of these leaves were not previously described in the printed Catalogue of Harleian Manuscripts (1808–1812), and they have gone largely unnoticed in modern times.
One of our most unexpected discoveries comes from the collections of John Bagford (1650–1716), a shoemaker, bookseller and library agent for Hans Sloane (1660–1753) and Robert Harley (1661–1724), founders of the Library’s Sloane and Harley collections. For example, tucked between Bagford’s notes on the history of printing is a parchment fragment that features a decorated monogram of the letters Te Igitur followed by the words clementissime pater, the opening words of the Canon of the Mass (‘Thee, therefore, most merciful Father’).
The opening of the Canon of the Mass and the Commemoration of the Living and the beginning of the Invocation of the Saints, from a fragmentary liturgical book (late 10th century or early 11th century): Harley MS 5910, ff. 79v, 79r
This fragment was cut from a manuscript used to celebrate Mass, probably a missal or sacramentary. Its script and the initial's design suggest that it was made in the late 10th century or early 11th century, probably in France. The script and initial bear close similarities with a 10th-century manuscript made in Stavelot (modern-day Belgium). That manuscript (Stowe MS 3) was recently digitised as part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project. It contains a copy of the Four Gospels and a lectionary (a collection of readings of Scripture used for worship on a particular day). Here, pencil sketches for a large initial Q and F mark the beginning of the Gospel of St Luke.
Sketches in pencil for a large initial Q and F marking the beginning of the Gospel of St Luke, from a 10th-century Gospel-book and Lectionary made in Stavelot: Stowe MS 3, ff. 111v–112r
During the Middle Ages, monasteries often recycled old liturgical manuscripts as binding materials. This may explain how a 15th-century manuscript of the Speculum Curatorum (Mirror for Curates) by the English Benedictine monk Ranulf Higden (d. 1364) came to include a flyleaf from a 12th-century Roman ritual, a manuscript containing the rites that were performed by priests. The fragment contains part of the rite of sprinkling a congregation with holy water (Asperges), followed by a blessing for pilgrims (‘Benedictio peregrinorum’).
A fragment from a Roman ritual (12th century): Harley MS 1004, f. 198r
The Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1536 and 1541 caused many religious manuscripts to be dispersed among lay owners. The latter often exploited such manuscripts as sources of binding materials for other books, resulting in some unusual pairings of medieval and early modern leaves. For example, we have found two flyleaves with a 13th-century glossary of plant names in an early modern manuscript of texts concerning the Church of England.
A glossary of plant names (13th century): Harley MS 828, f. 1*recto
Texts concerning the Church of England (late 16th century or early 17th century): Harley MS 828, f. 1r
In cataloguing a manuscript (Harley MS 6547) containing the Tractatus de Libero Arbitrio (Treatise on Free Will), we encountered a parchment fold-out that was taken from a 13th-century glossed Bible.
Romans 11:1-6 (13th century): Harley MS 6547, f. 36r
Tractatus de Libero Arbitrio (late 16th or early 17th century): Harley MS 6547, f. 1r
An unknown early modern English manuscript owner appears to have taken a leaf from a 13th-century lectionary to supply a flyleaf for a mid 16th-century survey of English counties (Harley MS 71).
Readings from the Gospels (13th century): Harley MS 71, f. 1r
A survey of English counties (1558-1559): Harley MS 71, f. 1r
A final example of an unusual pairing can be found in Harley MS 6355. This manuscript contains a 16th-century treatise on gunpowder, just as the printed catalogue describes. What the catalogue does not mention is that it also contains four flyleaves with texts and music notation for liturgical feasts, taken from a 14th-century manuscript.
Liturgical texts with music notation (14th century): Harley MS 6355, ff. 3v–4r
A treatise on making gunpowder, using cannons and mortars (16th century): Harley MS 6355, ff. 5v-6r
Many other Harleian binding fragments await further research. Not only do such leaves sometimes contain materials that are valuable sources for medieval history and art, but they also provide us with an insight into how they were used and re-used by their early owners. We hope to discover many more as our cataloguing project continues. Maybe you will have your own close encounters with some of these 'UFLs' (unidentified flyleaves).
Visit our Medieval England and France website to discover how to make a medieval manuscript, to read beastly tales from the medieval bestiary, and to learn about medieval science, medicine and monastic libraries.
Clarck Drieshen & Calum Cockburn
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25 June 2019
Toads and ermine (and other coats of arms)
Heraldry, or the study and design of armorial bearings, sometimes has a dusty reputation. This is quite undeserved: heraldic manuscripts can give us a fascinating insight into the way in which history and legend were interwoven in the medieval mind. In the mid-15th century, Richard Strangways of the Inner Temple wrote a treatise on the rules of heraldry that he exemplified with ‘imaginary arms’: coats of arms that were attributed to the protagonists of medieval legends and heroes of romances, and, retroactively, kings who had lived before the beginning of the age of heraldry in the 12th century. His treatise survives uniquely in Harley MS 2259.
Richard Strangways’s heraldic treatise (1455): Harley MS 2259, f. 11r
Strangways included in his treatise the attributed arms of Brutus of Troy, a legendary figure who — according to the anonymous 9th-century Historia Brittonum and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Brittaniae — was a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, and the founder and first king of Britain. He also painted the attributed arms of William the Conqueror. Like the near-contemporary Men of Arms in Harley MS 4205, Strangways claimed that the Duke of Normandy bore a shield with silver and blue bars when he conquered England in 1066.
The arms of Brutus [left] and William the Conqueror [right]: Harley MS 2259, ff. 179v, 95v
Describing the arms of the kings of France, Strangways followed a popular medieval legend: the pre-Christian kings of the Franks would have borne a pagan shield with three black toads (resembling the attributed arms of Satan), which the Franks continued to use until ‘Kyng Lowes’ [Louis the Pious?] prayed for a new charge and an angel gave him fleurs-de-lis to replace the toads.
The pagan arms of the Frankish kings: Harley MS 2259, f. 163v
Arthurian literature was evidently another important source for Strangways. He formally described — or to put it in heraldic terms ‘blazons’ — the arms of the legendary King Arthur as a ‘gules three crowns in pale’. This means: a red shield with three golden crowns ordered vertically.
A blazon of King Arthur’s arms: Harley MS 2259, f. 183r
The arms of King Arthur (England, 4th quarter of the 15th century): Harley MS 2169, f. 5v
Strangways also showed the arms of Sir Geraint, who Welsh romances held to be one of Arthur’s most valiant knights, and those of Sir Gawain, one of the most renowned Knights of the Round Table. As the 14th-century Middle English romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in Cotton MS Nero A X has it, Gawain bore a red shield with a five-pointed golden star. But Strangways gave him a green shield with a golden bar that is covered with an ‘ermine’ — a heraldic pattern based on the winter coat of the stoat. He stated that adding this ‘fur’ was necessary because Gawain was born in bastardy, a claim corroborated by medieval works such as De Ortu Waluuanii Nepotis Arturi (The Rise of Sir Gawain, Nephew of Arthur). To put it in Strangways’s own words, ‘the rule in heraldry is that if he is born of a noble lady in bastardy and bears her arms he shall bear them with such a fur’ (‘the law of armys ys yf he come of a gret lady in bastardy and ber her armys he shall ber hem with such a furcot’).
The arms of Geraint [left] and of Gawain [right]: Harley MS 2259, ff. 134r, 73r
Harley MS 2259 also features the arms of Sir John Mandeville, the supposed author of a fictional travel memoir describing the wonders of the Holy Land, Africa and Asia. Mandeville’s Travels survives in hundreds of medieval manuscripts, but none of the illustrated versions (such as Harley MS 3954 and Add MS 24189) show Mandeville bearing arms. His shield was once displayed in the church of Guillemins near Liège (in modern-day Belgium), where Mandeville was supposedly buried, but the church was destroyed during the French Revolution. Strangways’s treatise includes one of only two extant illustrations of Mandeville's arms, and the only medieval one.
The arms of John Mandeville [‘maximus peregrinus’]: Harley MS 2259, f. 90r
Strangways made special mention of the attributed arms of Prester John. According to popular legend, he was the founder and ruler of a Christian kingdom in the Far East. A letter purportedly written by him to the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel Komnenos, describes a kingdom with mythical animals, monstrous races and marvels such as a fountain of youth. The letter survives in hundreds of medieval manuscripts, the oldest dating back to the 12th century (for example, Harley MS 3099). Prester John’s arms are exceptional because they display the Crucifixion of Christ, imagery that was reserved for only a few eminent bishops and religious institutions.
Strangways emphasized his heraldic charge’s rarity by explaining the distinction between a crucifix and a cross, which was commonly used on coats of arms: ‘It is called a crucifix because God is nailed upon it, because if it is so that God isn’t nailed upon it in person, then it should just be called a cross’ (‘hyt ys callyd a crucyfix be cause god ys naylyd and crucyfyd up on yt. For yf yt were so þat god were nat naylyd on yt in figure than yt shuld be callyd but a crosse’).
A blazon of the arms of Prester John: Harley MS 2259, f. 147r
The arms of Prester John (northern France, 15th century): Egerton MS 3030, f. 9v
Strangways’s treatise is just one of several late medieval English heraldic works to feature attributed arms. These ‘imaginary arms’ reflect the importance placed on symbolism by the late medieval gentry and aristocracy, and a desire to associate themselves with important figures in medieval history and legend.
We are currently creating new online records for manuscripts in the Harley collection (one of the foundation collections of the British Library). You can read more about this project, which includes Harley MS 2259 (containing Strangways's treatise), in our blogpost Cataloguing the Harley manuscripts.
Visit our Medieval England and France website to discover how to make a medieval manuscript, to read beastly tales from the medieval bestiary, and to learn about medieval science, medicine and monastic libraries.
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21 June 2019
Even more digitised manuscripts
Long-term readers of this Blog may be aware that we periodically publish lists of our digitised manuscripts. Our last one was published in July 2018 and the wait for a new one is over — here are up-to-date lists of manuscript hyperlinks to make it easier for you to explore our amazing digitised treasures.
Cause for celebration! Musicians and a dog play music and rejoice in a decorated initial at the opening of Psalm 80 (81), 13th-century Psalter, eastern England:
There are now 2,535 Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern manuscripts on our Digitised Manuscripts website and more being added all the time. For a full list of what is currently available, please see this PDF: Download Full list digitised MSS June 2019. This is also available as an Excel spreadsheet: Download Full list digitised MSS June 2019 (this format cannot be downloaded on all web browsers).
The Library's Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern team have been busy as ever over the last year, working to make more manuscripts available online. All the images included in this blogpost are from manuscripts that we digitised in 2018–19. To admire our most recent additions to the Digitised Manuscripts site, take a look at this list of manuscripts published since January 2018 (not including Polonsky Project manuscripts, for which see below).
St Martin dividing his cloak to share with a beggar, southern Netherlands, c. 1200: Add MS 15219, f. 12r (digitised by The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project)
In addition to these, we have also digitised 400 of our manuscripts as part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700–1200. You can browse the list of all 800 British Library and Bibliothèque nationale manuscripts digitised in the project as a PDF: Download Polonskypre1200_bl_bnf_800mss_urls and Excel spreadsheet: Download Polonskypre1200_bl_bnf_800mss_urls.
A siren luring a mariner to a watery grave and a centaur practising archery, 13th-century bestiary, northern France: Sloane MS 278, f. 47r
To find out how to make the most of Digitised Manuscripts, check out this blogpost. Many images of our manuscripts are also available to download from our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts which is searchable by keywords, dates, scribes and languages.
A cucumber, the Carrara Herbal, northern Italy, c. 1390-1404: Egerton MS 2020, f. 162v
We hope you enjoy exploring!
Visit our Medieval England and France website to discover how to make a medieval manuscript, to read beastly tales from the medieval bestiary, and to learn about medieval science, medicine and monastic libraries.
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11 June 2019
The Ruin of Britain
Very few texts survive that were written in Britain between the 5th and 7th centuries. We have works by just two named authors from that period. One was a shepherd, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery and became the patron saint of Ireland, none other than St Patrick. The other wrote one of the most influential rants in British history.
A page from the earliest substantial copy of Gildas's The Ruin of Britain, made possibly in Canterbury in the 10th century: Cotton MS Vitellius A VI, f. 14v
The ranter in question was Gildas, a Romano-British deacon and monk. Sometime between the late 5th century and the 6th century, he wrote The Ruin of Britain, which describes a time of dramatic change, when the Roman legions had left Britain and the Romano-British population was under attack from invaders:
‘I shall try, God willing, to say a little about the situation of Britain; about her obstinacy, subjection, and rebellion ... the destruction of cities; about those who survived’: Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and other works, ed. and trans. by Michael Winterbottom (London: Phillimore, 1978), p. 16.
As this quotation suggests, The Ruin of Britain is a moralising polemic that condemned the British lay and ecclesiastical leaders. The text is full of examples and quotations from the Bible. Although Gildas's account is vivid, he was not an eyewitness: most of the events he described occurred before he was born.
A fragment of The Ruin of Britain survives in a late 9th- or early 10th-century continental copy (now in Bibliothèque Carnegie de Reims, MS 414). The oldest substantial copy was made in southern England in the mid-10th century (British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A VI). Sadly, this manuscript was significantly damaged by fire in 1731.
The pages of this manuscript of The Ruin of Britain were damaged by fire in 1731, before being placed in paper mounts in the 19th century: Cotton MS Vitellius A VI, f. 7v
In The Ruin of Britain, Gildas depicted the defeats and natural disasters suffered by the Britons as divine punishment for their sins. He claimed that Romano-British leaders had invited three ship-loads of Saxons to protect them from Pictish invaders, but these Saxons had turned on their hosts and become an even worse enemy. Gildas described vividly how whole settlements were put to the sword, ‘fragments of bodies covered with coagulated clots of red blood, in confusion as if in some kind of horrible wine press’ (translated by Hugh Williams, Gildas (London, 1899)). Some Britons surrendered to the invaders, others fled into the mountains or deep into forests, others still migrated to the continent. Some resisted, such as Ambrosius Aurelianus, who reputedly defeated the invaders at Mons Badonicus in the year that Gildas was born.
While Gildas praised leaders like Ambrosius, he did not mince his words about the Romano-British kings and churchmen of his own day: ‘Britain has kings, but they are tyrants: she has judges, but they are unrighteous men’. Gildas singled out five kings in particular for condemnation: Constantine, king of Dumnonia (the area around modern Cornwall and Devon); Aurelius Caninus; grey-haired Vortipor of the Demetae (in what is now Pembrokeshire); Cuneglas, who probably ruled the area around the Dinarth Rhos peninsula; and Maelgwn of Gwynedd. Gildas accused all these men of murder and adultery. He saved his fiercest criticism for the most powerful British king, Maelgwn:
‘And you, island dragon … greater than almost all the kings of Britain, but worse in morality ... You are certainly not lacking in warnings, since you were taught by the finest teacher in almost all of Britain.’
It is unclear what happened to Gildas after he wrote The Ruin of Britain. Some have suggested that he migrated to Brittany, like many other Britons, since there was a Breton monastery dedicated to St Gildas. But there is no firm evidence for this. Gildas was remembered as a saint by the Anglo-Saxons, and his name is found in eight pre-Conquest calendars of saints' days.
Ironically, Gildas’s writings survive to this day in part because the Anglo-Saxons that he so despised continued to quote him. For example, Bede (d. 735) used The Ruin of Britain as one of his sources for the history of post-Roman Britain.
The most substantial surviving manuscript of The Ruin of Britain was copied in England in the 10th century: Cotton MS Vitellius A VI, f. 15r
Three centuries years later, Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023) used Gildas as cautionary tale, to try to galvanise English resistance to the Scandinavian invasions:
‘There was a historian in the time of the Britons, Gildas, who wrote about their misdeeds, how they exasperated God with their sins so much that He finally allowed the English army to conquer their land … Let us take warning from this: it is true what I say, we know of worse deeds among the English than we have heard of among the Britons.’
The Ruin of Britain had long-lasting effects, even they were not what Gildas intended. He may not have swayed the leaders of his own day, and it is clear that the Germanic invaders became dominant in southern Britannia. The Ruin of Britain nonetheless had a major impact on some later writers. It remains the principal (near) contemporary narrative account of the momentous events of the 5th and 6th centuries.
Visit our Medieval England and France website to discover how to make a medieval manuscript, to read beastly tales from the medieval bestiary, and to learn about medieval science, medicine and monastic libraries.
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06 June 2019
The curse of the spiritual sword
We have previously reported about our fascination with medieval book curses, added in monastic libraries to ward off thieves and warn careless users. Book curses typically state that those who stole or damaged a book would be spiritually condemned, often including the Greek-Aramaic formula ‘Anathema Maranatha'. For example, during the 12th and 13th centuries monks at Reading Abbey systematically added such curses to their manuscripts containing biblical commentaries (examples include Add MS 38687, Harley MS 101 and Harley MS 1246).
Pontigny Abbey’s book curse in a commentary on Deuteronomy and Joshua (1st quarter of the 13th century): Add MS 38687, f. 150r
We would like to share some new findings that will enable you to protect your favourite books, as well as other prized possessions. One example comes from the so-called ‘Noyon Sacramentary’ (Add MS 82956). This 10th-century manuscript, produced by the monastic community at Noyon Cathedral in northern France, contains masses and prayers for blessings and ceremonies. The manuscript opens with a wrathful curse that would bring down a series of spiritual punishments upon those who stole from or committed any other crime against Noyon Cathedral.
Noyon Cathedral’s ‘Curse of the Spiritual Sword’ (4th quarter of the 10th century): Add MS 82956, f. 1v
The Noyon Cathedral curse begins: ‘excommunicamus eos et gladio sancti spiritus a vertice capitis usque ad plantam pedis transverberamus’ (‘We will excommunicate them and cut through them with the sword of the Holy Spirit, from the top of the head to the sole of the feet').
It then declares that book-thieves would be condemned to burn in the eternal fire of Hell together with Judas Iscariot, perhaps because they, like Judas, committed betrayal for material gain. Finally, to top it off, these thieves were to remain in the darkness of Hell where they would keep the devil company.
Perhaps an even more powerful curse for protecting your belongings comes from a 12th-century lectionary (containing readings from the Gospels for the Mass) from the Benedictine abbey of Tholey in western Germany (Add MS 29276). The curse is preceded by an itemised list of the monastery’s relics and sacred objects: ‘We have in this monastery of St Peter and St Mauritius eight bookcases of silver, four books of silver, and ten chalices’. Protecting this treasure is a curse that the community would collectively cast upon anyone who stole from the monastery:
a sancte matris ecclesiae segregamus ac perpetuae maledictionis anathemate condempnamus . sit que maledictus in domo . in agro . veniantque super eum omnes ille maledictiones . quas dominus per moysen in populum divin[a]e legis prevaricatione se esse missurum. Sitque anathema maranatha . id est pereat in secundo adventu domini. Stix sit ei potus. Amen.
We will segregate him from the mother church and condemn him with the eternal curse of anathema: may he be cursed in the house and on the land, and let all the curses that the Lord cast through Moses onto the transgressors of the Divine Law come upon him. May he be anathema maranatha. That means: may he be damned at the Second Coming of Our Lord (the Last Judgement); may the Styx be his drink. Amen.
Tholey Abbey’s ‘Styx-Curse’ (c. 1100–c. 1175): Add MS 29276, f. 162v
This curse encompasses both the eternal sentence to Hell, at the Last Judgement, and the Styx, the principal river of the Underworld. While it may seem unexpected to find a medieval monk referring to the Styx, monasteries gained knowledge about the Underworld through their copies of works such as Virgil's Aeneid . For example, in a 12th-century theological miscellany from the Cistercian abbey of Thame in Oxfordshire (Burney MS 357), the Styx is listed as one of the rivers in Hell, and its name is defined as ‘sadness’ (tristicia).
The ‘Stix’ among the ‘Names of the Infernal Waters’ (Nomina Humorum Infernalium) (1st half of the 12th century): Burney MS 357, f. 4v
It's clear that some medieval monks were very resourceful when it came to protecting their most precious treasures. The book curses that they devised indicate not only their knowledge of religious and Classical works, but also the importance they attributed to their sacred books and objects.
To learn more about medieval monastic libraries, and how books were acquired, used and stored, read this article on Medieval monastic libraries by Alison Ray, created as part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700–1200. Together with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, we have digitised 800 manuscripts from our collections, which you can learn more about on our dedicated Medieval England and France webspace.
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