“Sixteenth-Century Interventions
in Anglo-Saxon and Related Manuscripts”

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
(13 April 1990)
Invitation in pdf

The previous seminar in the series considered Facsimiles, Diplomatic Texts and Editions.

[First published on 5 January 2015, with updates]

The Plan

The invitation to the seminar observed:

“We hope that this subject may interest those concerned with early manuscripts as well as those concerned with later uses made of them.”

The speakers and their subjects:

• R.I. Page: introduction
• Andrew Watson: the sixteenth-century dispersal of manuscript collections
• Catherine Hall: the use which Matthew Parker and John Joscelyn made of historical sources and archives
• Nigel Ramsay: the Cotton manuscripts, including cases handled by Parker or shared between the Parker and Cotton Collections

As promised in the invitation, we were able to consider a variety of interventions, both in manuscripts, and, correspondingly, in printed books in Matthew Parker’s collection.

We examined:

MS 12 (the Cura Pastoralis in Old English)
MS 173 (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
MS 197B (the Corpus portion of the Cambridge-London Gospels)
MS 9 (the Corpus portion of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary)
MS 449 (Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary)
MS 452 (Eadmer’s Historia novorum)
MSS 162, 188, and 178 (Old English homily collections)

Invitations were sent to:

David Wilson, Mildred Budny, Christine Fell, R.I. Page, Andrew Watson, Patrick Wormald, Leslie French, Nicholas Hadgraft, Patrick Collinson, Nigel Wilkins, Catherine Hall, Nigel Ramsay, Simon Keynes, Kathryn Lowe, Richard Sharpe, and Malcolm Godden.

Present:

David Wilson, Mildred Budny, Christine Fell, R.I. Page, Andrew Watson, Patrick Wormald, Leslie French, Nicholas Hadgraft, Nigel Wilkins, Catherine Hall, Nigel Ramsay, Simon Keynes, Kathryn Lowe, and Malcolm Godden.

*****

The copy of a signed, typescript letter of 14 April 1991 in the Research Group archives records the experience of one of the presenters and participants.  Andrew Watson wrote:

This is a bread-and-gateau (or gateau-and-butter) letter, to thank you and your colleagues for a highly enjoyable day yesterday.  Although I have handled a good many manuscripts in my time I was more than a little impressed by those you produced for us, and by the nature of the work you are doing on them.  I have always been a firm believer in examining manuscripts within their family circle as it were, and in the Parker Library you have the ideal situation for that.  So very best wishes for your progress.

[Note:
In time, all but one of these manuscripts came to figure in the Illustrated Catalogue (2 volumes, 1997) emanating from the long-term, integrated research work on selected Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.  (The stages of the research work are recorded, for example, in the Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust, described in our Publications.)

The manuscripts are:

MS 12 = Budny Number 13
MS 173, Parts I and II = Budny Numbers 4 and 11
MS 197B = Budny Number 3
MS 9 = Budny Number 41
MS 162, Part I = Budny Number 28
MS 188 = Budny Number 37
MS 178, Part II = Budny Number 35 ]
*****

[Note:
In time, with the development of the website of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (You are Here), our blog on Manuscript Studies (also with a Contents List), one of the early posts recorded another memorable conversation with Andrew Watson: “Foundling Hospital” for Manuscript Fragments.]

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The next Seminar considered “Corpus Christi College MS 139, A Twelfth-Century Historical Miscellany” (Parker Library, September 1990).

*****