Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale 8245-57 Historical miscellany, including Bede's "Historia Ecclesiastica" (with "Caedmon's Hymn" in OE), and a collection of Carthusian texts

Abstract

19a. Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale 8245-57 (3116)

Historical miscellany, including Bede's "Historia Ecclesiastica" (with

"Caedmon's Hymn" in OE), and a collection of Carthusian texts

[Ker -, Gneuss -]

HISTORY: This late 15c manuscript is composed of sections containing a series of early medieval histories, annals, and procedural treatises relating to the Order of the Carthusians, Saints' Lives, and repertories. The nonCarthusian historical works, items 1-5, were chosen and arranged to form a chronological series and doubtless were compiled as a sort of history of the Christian world. Included is a copy of Bede's "Ecclesiastical History" with a recently-noticed OE copy of "Caedmon's Hymn" (Humphreys and Ross 1975; O' Donnell 1996). The manuscript originates from the abbey of Our Lady of Corsendonck, near Turnhout, in Brabant (now Belgium), a house of regular Augustinian canons. It is first mentioned in an inventory of the library compiled in 1633 by Canon and Prior Jean Hoyberg. The first part of the manuscript (ff. 1-88) dates from 1489; on f. 87v it reads that it was finished on 15 December of that year by Brother Anthony of Bergen op Zoom, cantor in Corsendonck Abbey, who has been identified as Brother Antoine Vlamincx (1439-1504), a prolific copyist who signed 12 manuscripts between 1466 and 1498 (Wittick and Glorieux-De Gand 1982: 37, 1987: 33-34, 36-37, 112). The rest of the manuscript gives no scribal information as to date, but on the basis of the watermarks has been dated between 1480 and 1500 (Wittek and Glorieux-De Gand 1987:112). Before the suppression of the monasteries by Emperor Joseph II in 1784 the manuscript had moved from Corsendonck to Tongerloo Abbey (f. 1 v); afterwards it came into the library of the Dukes of Burgundy, nucleus of the present Royal Library (Hinnebusch 1972: 43).