London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A. xiv Troper; Troper/Sequentiary; OE Lives of Saints (fragmentary)

Abstract

178. London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A. xiv

Troper; Troper/Sequentiary;

OE Lives of Saints (fragmentary)

[Ker 138, Gneuss 309/310]

HISTORY: Compilation of three manuscripts: (1) ff, 1-36, a fragmentary but sumptuously illustrated and decorated A-S troper of the third quarter of the 11c containing feasts of the proprium de tempore and the proprium sanctorum, from Winchester or Worcester (though Canterbury and Hereford have also been proposed, see Planchart 1977: 1.45-49, Teviotdale 1992: 409-11); as this part shows no occasions for a specific locale, all English saints apparently having been omitted, and liturgical mistakes are not corrected, Planchart suggests it was intended for "a high dignitary:' perhaps Edward the Confessor, and he calls it "not so much a service book as a vast anthology of tropes" (Planchart 1977: 1.55); (2) ff. 37-92, a fragmentary English collection of the second half of the 12c containing sequences prefaced by troped Kyries and Glorias, probably from Worcester; (3) ff. 93-130, a fragmentary collection of saints' lives in OE of the mid-11c. Fol. 1r shows signs of glue; similar but fewer such signs on the back outside page, f. 92v suggest that the first two parts may have been together before Cotton's time and in fact were probably joined together some time towards the end of the 12c at Worcester, as is indicated by a series of lead point annotations made in both parts 1 and 2 in the early 13c (Teviotdale 1998: 220). It is not certain when or by whom the entire manuscript was compiled. Part 3 belonged to Thomas Allen (1540-1632); extracts in Bodleian James 6 (3843), pp. 5-10 are said to be from "MS. Th. All:' and the number '67' on f. 93r agrees with "4° MS 67" in the catalogue of Allen's manuscripts of 1622, now Bodleian Wood F. 26 (8488), at p. 8 (Watson 1978: 285, a facsimile of Wood F. 26, p. 8, showing the entry: '67: Quadriloqui(um) Vita S. Thomre: cf. f. 111). This part was consulted by Brian Twyne (1581-1644) for his Saxon vocabulary. By 1696 the compiled manuscript was in the Cotton library, cf. Thomas Smith's Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Cottonianae, p. 34 (ed. Tite 1984).