Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 012: Alfred the Great's Old English Translation of Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- This manuscript contains the Old English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, with the famous preface setting out Alfred the Great's educational policy. Alfred arranged for translations to be made of the texts "most necessary for men to know", and this work by Gregory was probably one of the earliest to be produced. The translation claims to be the work of Alfred himself, although this has sometimes been challenged. MS 12 is one of only five manuscripts (and a fragment) of this work surviving from Anglo-Saxon England, and probably dates from the tenth century. It is not used in the standard edition by Sweet, who based his text on the two earliest manuscripts. The manuscript was certainly at Worcester in the thirteenth century, when it was annotated by the 'Worcester Tremulous Hand', whose glosses and marginal notes are found in several other Corpus manuscripts.
- Contents
- Alfred the Great's Old English Translation of Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali
Description
| Alternative title | Gregorius de Cura Pastorali Saxonice |
|---|---|
| Type of resource | mixed material |
| Extent | ff. 225 + 2 |
| Date created | [ca. 1000 - 1099] |
| Language | English, Old (ca. 450-1100); Latin |
| Material | Vellum |
| Layout | 27 lines to a page |
| Height (mm) | 410 |
| Width (mm) | 260 |
| Collation | 1 flyleaf, i(8) (wants 1) ii(8)-xxvii(8) xxviii(6) xxix(4), 1 flyleaf. Quires marked in original hand on last leaf of each. |
| Writing | in a very large bold black hand |
| Foliation | ff. a-b + i-ii + 1-225 + iii-iv + c-d |
| Provenance | From Worcester Priory, as will appear., As to the tremulous hand, Wolfgang Keller (Die Litterarischen Bestrebungen von Worcester in Angel-Sächsischen Zeit: Quellen u. Forschungen 84, 1900, p. 20) gives a list of MSS. in which the same hand appears. They are Bodleian Junius 24, 121; Hatton 76, 113, 114, 115; C. C. C. 178,391; University Library Cambridge Kk. 3. 18. To these I can add C. C. C. 12 (the MS. before us) and 198: while I believe that Keller is mistaken in thinking that the hand occurs in MS 265 (which he also cites). The glossator whose hand it is was probably, as Keller points out, an old man who knew Anglo-Saxon, and added the glosses for the benefit of his brother-monks to whom it was unfamiliar. Several of the MSS. at Oxford in which the hand is found are certainly from Worcester Priory: thus it is safe to predicate of any MS. which shows it, that this, too, is a Worcester book; a remark which applies to the MS. no. 12. |
| Research | The MS. was not used for the edition by Sweet (E.E.T.S.). |
| Additions | In last cover a note in Parkerian hand: Werferthus Ep. Wigorn. viiio Ixxii Qui erat unus magistrorum Ælfredi Regis et iussu illius libros dialogorum beati Pape Gregorii de latina in anglicam linguam transtulit. Ex annalibus ecclesie Wigorn. et affirmatur a Rogero Houenden et aliis. |
Bibliographic information
| M.R. James Date | xi? |
|---|---|
| Downloadable James Catalogue Record | |
| Superseded Interim Catalogue Record | |
| Contains |
|
| TJames | 280 |
| Stanley | S. 1 |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/wd443nz9456 |
| Location | MS 012 |
| 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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