London, British Library, Cotton Nero D. ii Rochester Chronicles, Battle Abbey Chronicles, etc.

Abstract

205. London, British Library, Cotton Nero D. ii

Rochester Chronicles, Battle Abbey Crhonicles, etc.

(with B. L. Cotton Tiberius B.v [229])

[Ker 193]

HISTORY: A miscellaneous compilation of manuscripts, including a collection of chronicles written mainly at Rochester in the early 14c, chivalric texts in French of the early 15c (item 23 relates to an event that is dated 25 December 1400 by Gillmeister 1990: 184), and a paper manuscript of the 16c (Part VII). Marginal notes in the hand of Polydore Vergil (ca. 1470-1555) in Part 1 (Luard 1890: xxvii). Used by Matthew Parker for his edition of the "Flores Historiarum" (London: Thomas Marshe, 1570). This manuscript is included in the series because the fifth item (ff 238-241), the Battle Abbey Chronicles of c. 1120, relates to Cotton Tiberius B.v, part I [229]. The Tiberius MS, written in the first half of the 11c at either Winchester or Christ Church, Canterbury, was at Battle Abbey by the 12c, where these chronicles were added. The chronicles are laid out up to 1220, with entries occurring up to 1206. One scribe was responsible for the work up to 1120. Lord Lumley owned the Tiberius MS in the 16-17c and it appears under item no. 1295 in his 1609 catalog Qayne and Johnson 1956: 162). At this time, the Battle Abbey Chronicles appeared at the begfnning of Tiberius and this was "presumably" the layout of the manuscript in the Middle Ages (McGurk et al. 1983: 28).