Cambridge. Corpus Christi College, Parker Library MS 12

  • Other Form of the Shelfmark :
    • MS 012
    • Cambridge. Corpus Christi College, Parker Library MS 12
    • CCCC MS 12
    • Parker Library MS 12
  • Held at : Cambridge. Corpus Christi College, Parker Library
  • Languages : English, Old (ca.450-1100), Latin
  • Author : Alfred le Grand (roi d'Angleterre, 0849-0899) | Grégoire I (pape, 0540?-0604)
  • Date of Origin :
  • Script :
    • in a very large bold black hand
  • Support Material : Vellum
  • Composition :
    • ff. 225 + 2
  • Dimensions :
    • 260 x 410
  • Codicological details :
    • 27 lines to a page
    • ff. a-b + i-ii + 1-225 + iii-iv + c-d
    • 1 flyleaf, i(8) (wants 1) ii(8)-xxvii(8) xxviii(6) xxix(4), 1 flyleaf. Quires marked in original hand on last leaf of each.

Contents

Data Source: Parker on the Web

  • Résumé : This manuscript contains the Old English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, with the famous preface setting out Alfred the Great's educational policy. Alfred arranged for translations to be made of the texts "most necessary for men to know", and this work by Gregory was probably one of the earliest to be produced. The translation claims to be the work of Alfred himself, although this has sometimes been challenged. MS 12 is one of only five manuscripts (and a fragment) of this work surviving from Anglo-Saxon England, and probably dates from the tenth century. It is not used in the standard edition by Sweet, who based his text on the two earliest manuscripts. The manuscript was certainly at Worcester in the thirteenth century, when it was annotated by the 'Worcester Tremulous Hand', whose glosses and marginal notes are found in several other Corpus manuscripts.


    Contenu :


    Langue(s) des textes : anglais, latin


    Intervenants :

    Alfred the Great - author

    Gregory the Great - author

    1r-225v - Alfred the Great's Old English Translation of Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali

    Note : Prologue

    incipit : (1r) ÆLFRED (in red) cyning hateð gretan

    explicit : (3v) oððe hƿa oðre biþrite

    incipit : (3v) Ðis ærend geþrit agustinus

    explicit : (4r) ðaðe læden spræce læste cuðon

    Note : (Capitula lxv)

    incipit : (4r) I Ðæt te unlærede etc.

    Note : (Prologue)

    incipit : (8v) Ðu leofesta broðor

    explicit : (9v) ðe hie nane geleornedon

    Note : (Text)

    incipit : (9v) FOR ðon ðe nan cræft nis

    Note : A small blank (of 3 or 4 lines) is left at the beginnings of the subsequent chapters, for titles and initials which were no doubt meant to be inserted in red

    Note : Pars secunda begins f. 30r

    Note : Pars tertia begins f. 72r. Pars quarta begins f. 220v

    Note : Ends

    explicit : (225r) oððe him liefes drync forloren þeorðe (erased)

    Note : f. 225v blank

    Note : A good many edges of leaves have been cut off and replaced in cent. xvi or later

Participants

Provenance

Data Source: Parker on the Web

  • From Worcester Priory, as will appear.
  • As to the tremulous hand, Wolfgang Keller (Die Litterarischen Bestrebungen von Worcester in Angel-Sächsischen Zeit: Quellen u. Forschungen 84, 1900, p. 20) gives a list of MSS. in which the same hand appears. They are Bodleian Junius 24, 121; Hatton 76, 113, 114, 115; C. C. C. 178,391; University Library Cambridge Kk. 3. 18. To these I can add C. C. C. 12 (the MS. before us) and 198: while I believe that Keller is mistaken in thinking that the hand occurs in MS 265 (which he also cites). The glossator whose hand it is was probably, as Keller points out, an old man who knew Anglo-Saxon, and added the glosses for the benefit of his brother-monks to whom it was unfamiliar. Several of the MSS. at Oxford in which the hand is found are certainly from Worcester Priory: thus it is safe to predicate of any MS. which shows it, that this, too, is a Worcester book; a remark which applies to the MS. no. 12.

Notes

Data Source: Parker on the Web

  • Research: The MS. was not used for the edition by Sweet (E.E.T.S.).
  • Additions: In last cover a note in Parkerian hand: Werferthus Ep. Wigorn. viiio Ixxii Qui erat unus magistrorum Ælfredi Regis et iussu illius libros dialogorum beati Pape Gregorii de latina in anglicam linguam transtulit. Ex annalibus ecclesie Wigorn. et affirmatur a Rogero Houenden et aliis.

Data source