Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 204 Bede's verse "Life of St. Cuthbert" with glosses, etc.

Abstract

477. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 204

Bede's verse "Life of St. Cuthbert" with glosses, etc.

[Ker 389; Gneuss 913]

HISTORY: Written at St. Augustine's, Canterbury, at the beginning of the 11c (cf. Bishop 1963: 413,417, but the attribution is queried by Barker-Benfield 2008: 3.1818; see also Sole 1998: 124-28, Lapidge 1995: 143, Stokes: 2014: 70). There are sixteen contemporary glosses in OE in the same hand as sporadic Latin glosses; all of these glosses except 'stif ' also appear among the 47 glosses found in Harley 1117 [268] printed by Meritt 1945: no. 7. The office relating to Cuthbert on f. lr was probably added by the glossator. Owned in the 14c by the abbey of Bonneval (nr. Chartres), France: 'Hie lib<er> est s<an>c<t>o<rum> florentini hil<arii> 7 m<art>i<ru>m. bonevall<is>' (f. 24v/14). Subsequently it was in the collections of the French antiquaries Paul Petau (1568-1614) and his son Alexandre (d. 1672), as Paul's classmark 'Y.42: occurs at the top f.lr (and his handwriting on f.1r-v; see below), although Alexandre's class-mark (926) is no longer present. All the manuscripts in the Petau library were sold in 1650 ( the sale catalogue being now Leiden University Library, Voss. lat. Q 76) to Queen Christina of Sweden, whose note of accession, '1651; occurs cropped on f. lr, and crossed through on f. 2r; she died in Rome in 1689 and the manuscript went with the rest of her collection to the Vatican in 1690, where it received the stamp of Pope Alexander VIII (1689-91) on f. lr (for the Petau's see Callmer 1977: 156, 170-1; for the transfer of Christina's library in Rome to the Vatican see Callmer 1977: 217-34; for the subsequent history of the manuscripts in the Vatican 1690-1814, see Callmer 1977: 220-22). Binding of brown calf with gold tooling on the spine provided in the Vatican. Annotations at the top of ff. 1-2 cropped by the binder. Modern foliation in ink in the top right-hand corner of recto leaves.