MS British Library Cotton Otho A. i.

ARTICLE:

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

[Acta Concilii Cuthberti archiepiscopi, etc.]

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

Belonged to Thomas Allen (d. 1632). Bodl., MS Arch. Selden B. 26 (S. C. 3340), f. 34, fragment of an 8th-century MS of Gregory's Regula Pastoralis, belonged to this volume; it has on it "Tho: Allen 1613^o", so Otho A. i must also have been acquired by Allen that year. [A. G. Watson, "Thomas Allen of Oxford and his Manuscripts", in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays presented to N. R. Ker, ed. M. B. Parkes and A. G. Watson (London, 1978), pp. 279-314, at 289.]

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

LITERATURE:

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. ii.

ARTICLE:

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

Cartulary of the Premonstratensian abbey of Bayham (co. Suss.)

ORIGIN:

DATING: Written in the 13th century ("c. 1245 ?": Davis, Medieval Cartularies).

PROVENANCE:

Owned by Cotton by 1627, when Sir E. Dering's calendar of it (now BL, MS Stowe 924, ff. 48-87) was made/copied? by Oliver Marshall (now BL, Add. MS 6037, ff. 75-121).

CODICOLOGY:

Burnt in the 1731 fire "almost to a crust. A very large portion of its leaves, however, in 1826, were washed and restored, so that much of this Manuscript will still be found useful." [Dugdale, Monasticon, new edn., VI (1830), pt. 2, p. 910.]

COPIES:

• BL, MS Stowe 924, ff. 48-87 (abstract of Otho A. ii, made by Sir Edward Dering (d. 1644)).
• BL, Add. MS 6037, ff. 75-121 (copy from Stowe 924, made by Oliver Marshall of Cambridge, 1627). Cambridge, University Library, Add. MS 4156 (transcript of Otho A. ii, made c. 1800).
• Oxford, Bodl., Sussex Charters 1-31 (original charters and other documents from Bayham,
• described in Catalogue of Charters and Rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library, ed. W. H. Turner and H. O. Coxe (Oxford, 1878), pp. 573-6).

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Dugdale, Monasticon, new edn., VI, pt. 2, pp. 911-13, nos. i-xvi. [Excerpts from ff. 17, 20, 34, 35, 36, 36^v and 39^v.]
• H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford, 1951), pp. 343-5, appx. I, nos. 10-11. [Excerpts from ff. 29^v and 49.]

LITERATURE:

• Colvin, White Canons, pp. 111-17, 378.
• Davis, Medieval Cartularies, no. 38.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. viii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 2

FOLIATION: ff. 1-5^v

CONTENT:

Goscelin of Canterbury, Vita Deo dilectae virginis Mildrethae. Life of St Mildred, abbess of Minster-in-Thanet (Kent), c. 700.

Begins (prologue): "Diuinus interpres Ieronimus, Iob secundo transferens..."

Begins (Vita): "Regum proles, dignissima uirgo Domini Mildritha."

Ends: "... Deo auctore qui in sanctis suis omnia cooperatur in bonum in secula seculorum."

ORIGIN:

DATING: 11th century.

PROVENANCE:

Ker, M.L.G.B., p. 47, rejected Otho A. viii from his list of books surviving from the library of St Augustine's abbey, Canterbury; but a case can be made for a St Augustine's provenance if D. Yerkes's identification of the scribal hand is correct. Yerkes has suggested that the scribe of this Life was also the scribe of Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O. 2. 51 (no. 1155) and Bodl., MS Ashmole 1431, which were at St Augustine's abbey, Canterbury.

CODICOLOGY:

Almost destroyed by fire. "The fragments of the Vita Mildrethae, which are not completely legible even under ultra-violet light, consist of passages from the list of chapter-headings, the prologue and chapters 2, 3, 4, 10, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27" (Rollason, Mildrith Legend, p. 107).

COPIES:

• BL, Cotton MS Vespasian B. xx, ff. 143-163^v
• BL, Harl. MS 105, ff. 134-153
• BL, Harl. MS 3908, ff. 1-35
• and see Rollason, Mildrith Legend, pp. 105-7.

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend. A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), pp. 108-43. [Based on Vespasian B. xx, collated with Otho A. viii and other copies.]

LITERATURE:

• Hardy, Descriptive Cat., I, pt. 1, pp. 376-9, no. 879. BHL, no. 5960.
• Rollason, The Mildrith Legend, pp. 20-1, 77-9.
• D. Yerkes, "Earliest Fragments of Goscelin's Writings on Mildreth", Revue Bénédictine, xciii (1983), pp. 128-31.
• D. Yerkes, "The Provenance of the Unique Copy of the Old English Translation of Bili, Vita Sancti Machuti", Manuscripta, xxx (1986), pp. 108-11.
• R. Sharpe, "Goscelin's St Augustine and St Mildreth: Hagiography and Liturgy in Context", Jnl. of Theological Studies, n. s. xli (1990), pp. 502-16, at 510.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. viii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 3

FOLIATION: f. 6

CONTENT:

Goscelin of Canterbury, Textus translationis et institutionis monasterii beatæ Mildrethæ cum miraculorum attestatione, an account of the history of Minster-in- Thanet (Kent) after Abbess Mildrith's (or Mildred's) death, the translation of her relics to St Augustine's abbey, Canterbury, and the miracles worked there by her intercession.

ORIGIN:

DATING: Composition datable to 1087x1091 (Rollason, Mildrith Legend, p. 20).

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• BL, Cotton MS Vespasian B. xx, on/after? f. 163^v
• BL, Harl. MS 105, on/after? f. 153
• BL, Harl. MS 3908, on/after? f. 35

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

LITERATURE:

• D. W. Rollason, The Mildrith Legend. A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), pp. 20-1, 62-7.
• D. Yerkes, "The Provenance of the Unique Copy of the Old English Translation of Bili, Vita Sancti Machuti", Manuscripta, xxx (1986), pp. 108-11.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. viii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 4

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

Cuthbert, abbot of Jarrow, letter about the death of Bede, AD 735 (Epistola de obitu Bædæ).

According to a note by H. Wanley in his copy of T. Smith's Catalogue (Bodl., Gough London 54, p. 66), this was in the hand of John Joscelin (manu Joannis Josselini).

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

LITERATURE:

• Hardy, Descriptive Cat., I, pt. 1, pp. 455-6, no. 996.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 8

FOLIATION: (pre-fire f. 139)

CONTENT:

"Passio undecim mille virginum, a Rogero Fordonensi Monacho scripta, anno 1181" [Smith, Catalogue].

The attribution to Roger of Ford (fl. 1170) is apparently erroneous.

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• BL, Arundel MS 91, ff. 152-156

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

LITERATURE:

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. x.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 1

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

Æthelweard, alderman of the West Saxons (fl. c. 975-1002), Chronicle, from the Creation to 975 or perhaps to the reign of Æthelred II. It is a Latin translation of a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle down to 893; it is of independent authority from 893 to 975.

Otho A. x was the only known copy of the chronicle. It therefore was presumably the copy printed by Savile, since the two texts agree very closely. E. E. Barker argued against this identification (and the uniquity of Otho A. x), on the ground that Savile's text impliedly ended with the death of Edgar in 975, while Otho A. x has chapter headings for two more reigns, Edward [the Martyr] and Æthelred [II; d. 1016]; but the differences between the rest of what survives of Otho A. x and Savile's text are otherwise very slight.

ORIGIN:

DATING: The chronicle cannot have been compiled later than 1011, since it is addressed to Matilda, who is identifiable as the wife of Obizzo, count of Milan, and she died in that year. The surviving fragments have been dated by Barker to the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century.

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

Eighteen fragments survive, from seventeen folios. Eleven of these fragments, from ten folios, are mounted, along with a leaf of some other text, as Otho A. x; the other seven fragments are mounted with fragments of other matter in Otho A. xii (presumably having been mistaken for parts of Asser's Life of King Alfred). In neither volume are they in the correct order, which is Otho A. x, ff. 1^*, 8, 2, 6, A. xii f. 1, A. x ff. 5, 3^*, 7, A. xii ff. 4, 5, 6, 7, 2^*, 3, A. x ff. 11^*, 4^*, 10^* and 9.

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores Post Bedam..., ed. H. Savile (London, 1596), ff. 473- 483^v. [From the Creation to 975.]
• Monumenta Historica Britannica, ed. H. Petrie, I ([London], 1848), pp. 499-521. [Edition of the text printed by Savile.]
• Six Old English Chronicles, ed. J. A. Giles (London, 1848), pp. 1-40. [Engl. transln.] The Church Historians of England, ed. and transl. J. Stevenson, II, pt. 2 (London, 1854), pp. 407-40. [Engl. transln., from Savile's text.]
• E. E. Barker, "The Cottonian Fragments of Æthelweard's Chronicle", Bull., Inst. of Historical Research, xxiv (1951), pp. 46-62, at 56-62. [The surviving fragments of Otho A. x.]
• The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Alistair Campbell (London, etc., 1962). [Edn. and transln. of the surviving fragments, supplemented where necessary by Savile's text.]

LITERATURE:

• Hickes, Thesaurus, II, p. 232. [Description of Otho A. x, by Wanley.]
• Church Historians of England, ed. Stevenson, V, pt. 2, pp. vii-xi.
• [H. T. Riley], "The Chronicle of Fabius Ethelwerd", Gentleman's Mag., 3rd ser., iii (Jul. - Dec. 1857), pp. 120-31.
• Hardy, Descriptive Cat., I, pt. 2, pp. 571-4, no. 1160.
• F. M. Stenton, "Æthelwerd's Account of the Last Years of King Alfred's Reign", Eng. Hist. Rev., xxiv (1909), pp. 79-84. [Reprinted in id., Preparatory to Anglo- Saxon England, ed. D. M. Stenton (Oxford, 1970), pp. 8-13.]
• Barker, "Cottonian Fragments", Bull., Inst. of Historical Research, xxiv, pp. 46-62.
• Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Campbell, pp. ix-lxiii.
• L. Whitbread, "Aethelweard and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxiv (1959), pp. 577-89.
• M. Winterbottom, "The Style of Æthelweard", Medium Ævum, xxxvi (1967), pp. 109-18.
• A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, I, c. 550 to c. 1307 (London, 1974), pp. 42- 6.
• Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, transl. and ed. S. D. Keynes and M. Lapidge (Harmondsworth, 1983), pp. 189-91, 334-8. [Translated extract and discussion.]
• E. van Houts, "Women and the Writing of History in the Early Middle Ages: the Case of Abbess Matilda of Essen and Aethelweard", Early Medieval Europe, i (1992), pp. 53-68.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 3

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

Battle of Maldon.

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

Incomplete before the fire, lacking both beginning and end.

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• J.J. Campbell and J.L. Rosier, Poems in Old English (New York & Evanston, 1962), pp. 52-61. [Based on Anglo-Saxon Records, ed. G.P. Krapp and E. van Kirk Dobbie, 6 vols. ( , ).

LITERATURE:

• O.D. Macrae-Gibson, "How Historical Is The Battle of Maldon?", Medium Ævum, xxxix (1970), pp. 89-107.
• J. McKinnell, "The Date of The Battle of Maldon", Medium Ævum, xliv (1975), pp. 121-36. [Probably not before c. 1020.] N. Blake, "The Genesis of the Battle of Maldon", Anglo-Saxon England, vii (1978), pp. 119-29.
• M.A.L. Locherbie-Cameron, "Ælfwine's Kinsmen and The Battle of Maldon", N. & Q., xxv (1978), pp. 486-7.
• Cecily Clark, "On Dating The Battle of Maldon: Certain Evidence Reviewed", Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, xxvii (1983), pp. 1-22.
• J. Scattergood, "The Battle of Maldon and History", in Literature and Learning in Medieval and Renaissance England, ed. J. Scattergood (Blackrock, co. Dublin, 1984), pp. 11-24.
• M.A.L. Locherbie-Cameron, "Byrhtnoth, His Noble Companion, and His Sister's Son", Medium Ævum, lvii (1988), pp. 159-71.
• The Battle of Maldon: AD 991, ed. D. Scragg (Oxford, 1991).
• R.D. Fulk, A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia, Pa., 1992). [Pp. 415-18, appx. B, "The Date of the Battle of Maldon": accepts a dating of c. 991 for composition.]
• Anglo-Saxon Records, ed. G.P. Krapp and E. van Kirk Dobbie, 6 vols. ( , ), pp. 80-2.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xiv.

ARTICLE:

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

Possibly identifiable with "cronica yuonis carnotensis ex dono eiusdem" [i.e., M. Thomas Gascoigne, DD (d. 1458)], 2^o folio patriarcha, in the library of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1474. [R. Weiss, "The Earliest Catalogue of the Library of Lincoln College", Bodl. Quart. Rec., viii (1935-8), pp. 343-59, at 349, no. 52, and n. 77, citing the suggestion of W. A. Pronger in her Oxford B. Litt. thesis on Thomas Gascoigne.]

CODICOLOGY:

Destroyed in 1731.

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

LITERATURE:

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xiv.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 1

FOLIATION: Richard James described this as written on a blank page of the chronicle of Ivo of Chartres [Bodl., MS James 8, p. 134: "in vacua pagina MS. Cron. Ivonis"].

CONTENT:

Account of the death and exhumation of John Wyclif (1384), written down by, and in the hand of, Thomas Gascoigne (d. 1458).

Began (Bodl., MS James 8): "Magister Iohannes Wicliff Anglicus per dominum Thomam Arundell Episcopum Cantuar' fuit post mortem suam excommunicatus..."

Ended (Bodl., MS James 8): "Hoc ille dixit mihi Doctori Gascoigne anno Domini 1441^o."

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• Bodl., MS James 8 (S.C. 3845), p. 134 (doubtless transcribed from Otho A. xiv)

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• John Lewis, History of the Life and Sufferings of... John Wicliffe (London, 1720), pp. 286-7, Collection of Papers and Records no. xix**. [From Otho A. xiv.]

LITERATURE:

• Lewis, Wicliffe (1720), pp. 101-2.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xiv.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 6

FOLIATION:

CONTENT:

Thomas Gascoigne (d. 1458), Annotata quaedam de S. Brigita & miraculis eius.

Gascoigne's translation of the life of St Briget, written for the nuns of Syon abbey (co. Midd.), is mentioned in Loci e Libro Veritatum: Passages selected from Gascoigne's Theological Dictionary, ed. J. E. Thorold Rogers (Oxford, 1881), p. 140.

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

LITERATURE:

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xv [Smith: Otho A. xvi].

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 11

FOLIATION: pre-fire ff. 81-

CONTENT:

Constitutions of Pope Benedict XII for Augustinian canons regular.

Begins: "Ad decorem Ecclesiae sponsae Dei, & sanctarum religionum fundatarum in ea..."

ORIGIN:

DATING: Promulgated at Avignon, 15 May 1339.

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

Destroyed by fire.

COPIES:

• BL, Cotton MS Vespasian D. i, ff. 2-
• Bodl., MS Rawl. Stat. 34 (S.C. 15889), f. 38 (extracts)
• Bodl., MS Tanner 196 (S.C. 10022), ff. 72-
• Bodl., MS Wood empt. 21 (S.C. 8609), pp. 182-

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Bullarium Romanum, 8 vols. (Luxemburg, 1727), I, pp. 237-53. Wilkins, Concilia, II, pp. 629-51. [From a faulty transcript of Otho A. xv: see Salter, p. 214.]
• Chapters of the Augustinian Canons..., ed. H. E. Salter (Oxford Historical Soc., o. s., lxxiv, for 1920 (1922)), pp. 214-67. [From the four other copies listed above, collated with Wilkins's text.]

LITERATURE:

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xvi [formerly Otho A. xv].

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 8

FOLIATION: pre-fire f. 58

CONTENT:

Canons of the council of the province of Canterbury held at Oxford, 17 April 1222, under the authority of Archbishop Stephen Langton.

Cheney noted that "only one of the extant texts follows exactly the sequence of ... Otho A. xvi, and all but two differ from the Cotton manuscript in arrangement of chapters 42 to 50."

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• At least 60 MSS; see Cheney, "Legislation of the Medieval English Church", p. 390.

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Spelman, Concilia, II, pp. 181-9. [Stated to be from Otho A. xv, f. 58.]
• Wilkins, Concilia, I, pp. 585-93. [Stated to be from Otho A. xv, but actually based on the text printed by Spelman, conflated with: Lambeth Palace Library, MS 538, f. 55^v; Bodl., MS Hatton 109, f. 46; Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg. 6. 21, f. 1 (Councils & Synods, II, pt. 1, p. 101).]
• Councils & Synods, With Other Documents Relating to the English Church, II, A.D. 1205- 1313, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1964), pt. 1, pp. 106-25.

LITERATURE:

• C. R. Cheney, "Legislation of the Medieval English Church", Eng. Hist. Rev., l (1935), pp. 193-224, 385-417, at 390-1. [Reprinted in id., The English Church and its Laws, 12th-14th Centuries (London, 1982), ch. 1.]
• Councils & Synods, II, 1205-1313, pt. 1, pp. 100-4, at 101.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xv [Smith: Otho A. xvi].

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 17

FOLIATION: pre-fire ff. 120-

CONTENT:

Statutes issued by the provincial council of the English Church, in London, 16 October 1342.

ORIGIN:

DATING: It has been suggested (Haines, Archbishop Stratford, pp. 397-8) that Wilkins's date, Wednesday after the feast of St Edward king and martyr, 1342 (i.e., March 1343), was an error for Wednesday after the translation of St Edward king and martyr (i.e., 16 October 1342); but it is puzzling that Smith's Catalogue records two separate articles, the one dated 10 October 1342 (the conventional date for one set of canons: cf. Cheney, "Legislation of the Medieval English Church", p. 416), and the other dated Wednesday after the feast of St Edward king and martyr.

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• Lambeth Palace Library, MS 538, ff. 176^v-
• Cambridge U.L., MS Gg. vi. 21
• Bodl., MS Digby 81 (S.C. 1682), ff. 89-
• Trowbridge, Wilts. C.R.O., Reg. Bp. Wyville, 1, ff. 128-131^v

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Spelman, Concilia, p. 581. [Based on Otho A. xv (i.e. xvi.] Wilkins, Concilia, II, p. 702. [Based on Otho A. xv (i.e. xvi), collated with Lambeth MS 538, C.U.L. MS Gg. vi. 21, and Bodl., MS Digby 81.]

LITERATURE:

• C. R. Cheney, "Legislation of the Medieval English Church", Eng. Hist. Rev., l (1935), pp. 193-224, 385-417, at p. 416. [Reprinted in id., The English Church and its Laws, 12th - 14th Centuries (London, 1982), ch. 1.] R. M. Haines, Archbishop John Stratford... (Toronto: Pontifical Inst. of Medieval Studies, 1986), pp. 397-8.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xvi.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 18

FOLIATION: (pre-fire f. 127^v)

CONTENT:

Canons of the Council of Westminster, May 1175 (misdated 1065 in Smith's Catalogue, doubtless following the manuscript); in an abbreviated text.

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Councils & Synods, with other Documents relating to the English Church, I, A.D. 871- 1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, pt. 2, 1066-1204, pp. 965-93, at 983-92.

LITERATURE:

• C. R. Cheney, Medieval Texts and Studies (Oxford, 1973), pp. 166-7.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xvii [formerly Otho A. xvi].

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 2

FOLIATION: ff. 4-

CONTENT:

History of the foundation of the Augustinian priory of Stone (co. Staff.), beginning with an account of Sts Wulfad and Rufinus, sons of the founder of Peterborough abbey.

Entitled (Smith): "Passio sanctorum Ulfadi et Ruffini, filiorum Wlferi Regis, fundatoris istius domus, quorum passio erat occasio fundationis."

Selden, in his notes to Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (1612), attributed authorship to Robert Swapham, monk of Peterborough; this was rightly denied by Sparke, since, for one thing, there is no copy of the text in Swapham's MS (Peterborough Cathedral, MS 1).

Begins (prologue): "Si Tulliane facultatis fecunda facundia."

Begins (vita): "Beatos adulescentulos Wlfadum et Ruffinum natura generando."

Ends (vita): "in illo autem loco, vocabulo Stanes [etc.] Amen."

Begins (appx.): "Omnipotens Deus irritatus."

Ends (appx.): "in caelo manere cunctis innotuit."

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• BL, Add. MS 39758, art. 2 (early 14th century; perhaps copied from Otho A. xvii)

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Dugdale, Monasticon, orig. edn., II, pp. 119-26; new edn., VI, pt. 1, pp. 226-30. [From Otho A. "xvi", i.e. Otho A. xvii.]

LITERATURE:

• Hardy, Descriptive Cat., I, pp. 269-71, no. 695; III, p. 103, no. 201.
• BHL, nos. 8735-6.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xvii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 3

FOLIATION: ff. 21-

CONTENT:

Hugo Albus, known in modern times as Hugh Candidus, monk of Peterborough (d. c. 1175), Chronicle, A.D. 655-1177.

Begins: "Est nobile monasterium in regione Gyruiorum quod quondam Medeshamstede nunc autem Burch uocatur."

The chronicle was copied, with alterations and a continuation down to 1256, by Robert of Swaffham (Peterborough Cathedral, MS 1); a third version was made, with a continuation to 1330, in the register of Walter of Whittlesey (BL, Add. MS 39758, art. 4).

ORIGIN:

DATING:

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• BL, MS Lansdowne 992, ff. 12-
• BL, MS Lansdowne 994, ff. 8-
• Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd. 14. 28 (transcript made by or for George Davenport, 1652, either from Otho A. xvii or from Peterborough Cathedral MS 1)

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Varii, ed. Joseph Sparke, 2 vols. (London, 1723), II, pp. 1-94. [Based on BL, Add. MS 39758.]
• Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. W. T. Mellows, with La Geste de Burch, ed. A. Bell (London, etc., 1949), pp. 3-131. [Based on C.U.L., MS Dd. 14. 28, collated with the two later versions.]

LITERATURE:

• Hardy, Descriptive Cat., II, pp. 412-13, no. 556. F. Liebermann, "Über Ostenglische Geschichtsquellen des 12. 13. 14. Jahrhunderts", Neues Archiv, xviii (1892), pp. 225-67.
• Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, pp. xv-xxxvi.
• Janet D. Martin, The Cartularies and Registers of Peterborough Abbey (Northamptonshire Record Soc., xxviii, 1978), pp. 34-5.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xvii.

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 6

FOLIATION: ff. 78-

CONTENT:

Versified history of Peterborough abbey to 1132, entitled La Geste de Burch. The verses are described by Bell as "a condensed translation of the first recension of [the chronicle of] Hugo Candidus" [Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, p. 177].

615 lines of Anglo-Norman verse.

Begins: "Cumencement de geste fort est a truver".

Ends (imperf.): "E cil s'en departat dolent e curcé."

ORIGIN:

DATING: Perhaps composed in about the late 13th century, as Bell suggested [Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, p. 179].

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

COPIES:

• Bodl. MS Rawl. B. 333 (S.C. 11671), f. 59 (shorter version).

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Varii, ed. Joseph Sparke, 2 vols. (London, 1723), II, pp. 241-56.
• Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. W. T. Mellows, with La Geste de Burch, ed. Alexander Bell (London, etc., 1949), pp. 180-99. [Based on Sparke's text with an Engl. transln., pp. 204-18.]

LITERATURE:

• Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. Mellows, pp. 177-9, 200-3.

EXHIBITED:

MS British Library Cotton Otho A. xviii [formerly xvii].

ARTICLE: Smith's art. 8

FOLIATION: f. 132^r

CONTENT:

The foundation charter of Sherborne abbey (co. Dorset) as a Benedictine monastery.

King Æthelred "the Unready" to Bishop Wulfsige and the abbey of Sherborne: permission to convert the community to the Benedictine rule, and confirmation of various estates in Devon and Dorset.

ORIGIN:

DATING: The charter is dated 998; it is copied in a hand of the first half of the 12th century (dated by T.A.M. Bishop to the first quarter of the 12th century, according to O'Donovan, p. xviii n. 13).

PROVENANCE:

CODICOLOGY:

Damaged by fire, with the loss of much of the text.

COPIES:

• BL, Add. MS 46487, ff. 3-4^r (12th century)

ILLUSTRATED:

PRINTED:

• Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I, pp. 170-1. [From Otho A. "xvii."] John Leland, Itinerary, ed. T. Hearne, 9 vols., 3rd edn. (Oxford, 1768-9) II, pp. 80-1. [From BL, Add. MS 46487.]
• Dugdale, Monasticon, new edn., I, p. 337, no. ii. [Reprinted from Hearne's text of Otho A. xviii.]
• Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, III, pp. 309-11, no. 701. [Reprinted from Hearne's text of Otho A. xviii.]
• Charters of Sherborne, ed. M.A. O'Donovan, Anglo-Saxon Charters, III (Oxford, etc., 1988), pp. 39-41, no. 11. [From BL, Add. MS 46487, with variants from Otho A. xviii (where legible) and Wharton, Anglia Sacra.]

LITERATURE:

• Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I, p. xxv, no. xxvii. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 895. [With further references to secondary literature.]
• S. D. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred "the Unready" ... (Cambridge, etc., 1980), pp. 103 n. 58. 107 n. 67, 122 n. 125 and 256.
• Charters of Sherborne, ed. O'Donovan, pp. xviii-xx, 41-4.

EXHIBITED: