Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 023: Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Prudentius. Orosius
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- CCCC MS 23 consists of two volumes bound together. The first is a famous illustrated manuscript of works by Prudentius (fl. 384-410), most significantly his Psychomachia, a poem about spiritual warfare between personifications of the vices and virtues. Many line drawings in coloured ink illustrate events in the text. It was made in England probably in the late tenth century, and it shares an artist with Bodleian Library MS Junius 11, the Junius manuscript of Old English poetry. Art-historical evidence has tended to link the production of part one of CCCC MS 23 with Canterbury, but a presentation inscription gives the manuscript provenance at Malmesbury, and it has also been suggested that it could have been made there. In the eleventh century Old English captions were added to the pictures. The second volume is a copy of Orosius, Historia adversus paganos of 417-18, written by six scribes working at Dover in the second quarter of the twelfth century. One of these scribes is also found in CCCC MS 462. The two manuscripts were probably bound together by Parker.
- Contents
- Psychomachia -- Peristephanon, carmen 10 -- Peristephanon, carmina 1-9, 11-14 -- Epigram for the basilica of St Agnes -- Epigram for the basilica of St Agnes -- Contra Symmachum (incomplete) -- Historia aduersus paganos
Description
| Alternative title | Prudentius. Orosius |
|---|---|
| Type of resource | mixed material |
| Extent | ff. 2 + 104 + 55, ff. 104 + 2, ff. 55 |
| Date created | [ca. 1000 - 1099] |
| Language | Latin |
| Material | Vellum |
| Layout | 30 lines to a full page |
| Height (mm) | 365 |
| Width (mm) | 290 |
| Collation | Volume I: a(2) 1(8)-13(8).Volume II: a(8)-c(8) (8 canc.) d(8)-g(8) (1 and 8 bound after 7) |
| Writing | The hand is different, rounder and better |
| Foliation | ff. a-b + i-ii + 1-159 + c-d |
| Provenance | On f. iiv in square black capitals: Hunc quicumque librum Aedhelmo depresseris almoI suspect the scribe ought to have written Aldhelmo dempseris. Damnatus semper maneas cum sorte malorum Sit pietate dei sine qui vel portet ab isto Coenobio librum AedhelmiAltered I think from Aldhelmi. hunc vel vendere temptet Qui legis inscriptos versus rogitare memento Christum ac in requie semper die vivat Aðelƿerd Qui dedit hunc thomum AedhelmoRe-written on erasure. pro quo sibi Christus Munera larga ferat largitor crimina laxans. This fixes the provenance to Malmesbury Abbey with which Aldhelm was specially connected. There were two abbots Athelwerd, one about 982, the other 1040-1050. The latter is probably the giver of the book. |
| Research | Reproductions in Westwood, Miniatures and Ornaments 108, Camb. Ant. Soc. Comm., vol. VII, Strutt, Horda Angel-cynnan etc. |
| Additions | f. ir-iv is blank but for a note: Idem etiam manu exaratus reperitur in bibliotheca Cottoniana [Cleopatra C. VIII is meant] B. B. ... (name obliterated). On f. iir in a frame, in red and black capitals: Gennadii Presbyteri. Testimonium de historia inlustrium uirorum clviii. Prudentius vir secularis - agnoscitur palatinus miles fuisse. A good many corrections have been inserted in small red capitals. In lower margin a xvith cent. copy of Gennadius' note., On f. 1r, a piece of vellum is pasted: on it is a distich (xii): Tres tria dant celo lapis ignis et unda fuerunt. S. lapis undaque C. beat L. focus, his duce christo. (S = Stephanus, L = Laurentius, C = Clement.) Also a xvith cent. copy of the four last lines of the dedicatory inscription. Also an erased inscription which I cannot decipher, and a pencil sketch of half-length figure in helmet and cloak., Initials of lines are in red throughout.The Psychomachia is illustrated with a famous series of 89 drawings made by an English artist after originals which go back to the fifth century. Illustrated copies of the Psychomachia are numerous. An exhaustive study of them has been made by Richard Stettiner Die illustrierten Prudentiushandschriften, Berlin, Preuss 1895. The manuscript before us is described at pp. 17-22 and the illustrations in the third part of the work pp. 218-400., The pictures have descriptive titles in red capitals, and the first 47 of them have titles in Anglo-Saxon added at the end of cent. xi. Professor Zupitza has published these and one or two other fragmentary A.-S. inscriptions (on ff. 24v, 29r, 33v) in Zeitsch. f. Deutsch. Altert. 1876, pp. 36-45., There are marginal and interlinear glosses to the Psychomachia and, in less number, to the other poems. Some of these are later than the text (but still of cent. xi) but most are contemporary. |
| 2 fo. | accipiat |
Bibliographic information
| M.R. James Date | xi |
|---|---|
| Downloadable James Catalogue Record | |
| Superseded Interim Catalogue Record | |
| Contains |
|
| TJames | 45 |
| Stanley | F. 1 |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/nz663nv2057 |
| Location | MS 023 |
| Repository | UK, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Parker Library |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- Images courtesy of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For higher resolution images suitable for scholarly or commercial publication, either in print or in an electronic format, please contact the Parker Library directly at parker-library@corpus.cam.ac.uk
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Collection
Parker Manuscripts
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