Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:17:29.613Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Laurence Nowell's transcript of BM Cotton Otho B. xi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Raymond J. S. Grant
Raymond J. S. Grant
Affiliation:
The University of Alberta
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Madden's note on the flyleaf of BM Cotton Otho B. xi introduces the scholar to the remnants of a most interesting manuscript: ‘Previous to the fire of 1731 this MS. consisted of 231 leaves. In 1734 Oxley reported it as “burned”, and Planta says “Desideratur”. A description of its contents when perfect is given by Dr. Smith in his Catalogue 1696 and more in detail by Wanley in his Cat. libb. Septentr. apud Hickes, p. 219.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 3 , December 1974 , pp. 111 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 111 note 1 I am indebted to Mr W. H. Kelliher, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, for the following information on the note on the flyleaf: ‘It is in the hand of Sir Frederick Madden, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the Museum in 1828 and Keeper from 1832 until his death in 1873. Despite the certificate of foliation entered in March 1884 at the back of the manuscript, the flyleaf upon which Madden wrote appears to belong to a binding added in August 1866. This then is the probable terminus a quo for Madden's note.’

page 111 note 2 Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), pp. 230–4Google Scholar, MS 180. Ker considers that the Statement in Madden's note that before the fire of 1731 the manuscript had 231 leaves is inaccurate since Wanley (see below, p. 112, n. 3) says that The Seasons for Fasting began on p. 353 and the poem is not long.

page 111 note 3 See Add. 43703 264V: ‘Haec scripsit Laurentius Nowellus propria manu in aedibus Cecillianis anno đni. 1562. Londini.’ ‘Haec … Cecillianis’ has been deleted and rewritten above the original note, which seems to have been identical. A reduced facsimile of this page appears in Wright, C. E., ‘The Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the Beginnings of Anglo-Saxon Studies’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc.. 1 (1949–1953), 235Google Scholar. In 1562 Nowell was resident in Cecil's house as tutor to the young earl of Oxford. For further information about Sir William Cecil (later Lord Burleigh or Burghley), his manuscripts and his relations with Nowell, and Parker, , see The Peterborough Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, Dorothy, EEMF 4 (1954), 25–6.Google Scholar

page 111 note 4 BM Harley 6018 records Cotton's book loans, and note 161 (148V) states that Otho B. xi was lent to ‘Mr Lill’ before 23 April 1621. See Brit. Museum Quarterly 14 (1939–1940), 81–2.Google Scholar For further information about William L'isle (1569?–1637), see Whitelock, , Peterborough Chronicle, pp. 24–5.Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 See BMQ 14 (1939–1940), 81–2Google Scholar, for notes on Otho B. x and Otho B. xi and a full account of Add. 54652. It would appear that L'isle detached this leaf when he borrowed Otho B. xi from Cotton and collated its Chronicle text with the Peterborough Chronicle.

page 112 note 2 Historiæ Ecclesiasticæ Gentis Anglorum Libri V, ed. Abraham, Wheloc (Cambridge, 1643–1944).Google Scholar

page 112 note 3 Humfrey Wanley's catalogue was published as the second volume of Hicke's, G.Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archæologicus (Oxford, 1705). The contents of Otho B. xi are described on p. 219.Google Scholar

page 112 note 4 Without Nowell's transcript we would not suspect that Otho B. xi had ever contained any recipes or leechdoms, for Wheloc places The Seasons for Fasting ‘ad finem Bedae Sax. MS. Cot.’ while Wanley states that the poem was ‘truncatum etiam in fine’ and lists no further contents.

page 112 note 5 He omitted all the preliminary matter and began with 1.1 of the Bede. He also omitted 23V and 24r, corresponding to biowesclice cuðon – ongunne bliapettan (The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Thomas, Miller, Early Eng. Text Soc. o.s. 95, 96, 110 and in (London, 1890–1891 and 1898, repr. 1959 and 1963), 1, 386.30 – 390.9).Google Scholar

page 112 note 6 Historiae Ecclesiasticae Gentis Anglorum Libri Quinque, ed. John, Smith (Cambridge, 1722)Google Scholar. I hope to investigate in a future article the possibility that Otho B. xi was also used by William Lambarde and William Somner before the Cottonian fire.

page 112 note 7 See Robin, Flower, ‘Laurence Nowell and the Discovery of England in Tudor Times’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 21 (1935), 47–73Google Scholar. London, Lambeth Palace 692, fol. 32, contains a word-list compiled from Otho B. xi by Nowell. On his dictionary of Anglo-Saxon in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Selden supra 63, see Laurence Novell's Vocabularium Saxonicum, ed. Marckwardt, Albert H. (Ann Arbor, 1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 113 note 1 2r bears the inscription, ‘Laurence Nowell the owner 1562’. On the gift by de Walden, see Robin, Flower, ‘Laurence Nowell and a Recovered Anglo-Saxon Poem’, BMQ 8 (1934), 130–2Google Scholar. On the contents of the transcript see Robin, Flower, ‘The Text of the Burghal Hidage’, London Med. Stud. 1 (1937), 60–4Google Scholar; Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 230–4Google Scholar; and The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1931–1935 (London, 1967), pp. 196–7.Google Scholar

page 113 note 2 Wheloc prints from Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 3.18, with a few readings from the other manuscripts. Where his main manuscript is in lacuna in 11.5–7 (Miller 110.30–118.16), Wheloc prints from Otho, giving us a check on Nowell for these pages and showing that he was guilty of omission by homoeoteleuton; for instance forhycgað … in þæt bæð Miller 112.15–17 and geclæsnunge fulwibtes bæðes þæm halgan (112.20–1) are in Wheloc but not in Nowell. Smith prints only a few variants from Otho.Google Scholar

page 113 note 3 König Alfreds Übersetzung von Bedas Kirchengeschichte, ed. Jacob, Schipper, Bibliothek der angel-sächsischen Prosa 4 (Leipzig, 1897 and 1899)Google Scholar. Schipper's attempt to print from five manuscripts at once proved disastrous and his edition cannot be used with any confidence.

Miller sed C for his main text in two places: with Oxford, Corpus Christi College 279 for 304.9–306.19; and for 472.27–486.15. Otherwise he prints C as variants in his part 11. A comparison of the readings of burnt C with Miller reveals over 200 differences. It is likely that Miller saw C in a better condition than it is in now and this supposition is supported when Nowell agrees with Miller, as he often does. When Miller and Nowell disagree, either may be correct, but Nowell is to be preferred only when C remains clear today and agrees with Nowell's transcript or when other manuscripts support Nowell's reading against that of Miller. Nevertheless it seems that Miller made errors where burnt C is quite legible. Although he does not have nearly the number of mistakes shown by Nowell, his errors are in the main of the same types: for example, like Nowell, he has difficulty over e and æ, i and y, a and o and other vowels and diphthongs, he adds and omits unaccented vowels, final -e, initial ge, various consonants and accent markings and does not distinguish þ and ð, single and double consonants, or contractions all of the time. He omits a considerable number of words.

page 114 note 1 See above, p. 112, n. 5.Google Scholar

page 114 note 2 For instance on 8v dalreadingas is glossed in the margin Dalreudini (Miller 28.29).

page 114 note 3 These pseudo-Anglo-Saxon passages are added between the lines and in the margins of 19V, 20r and v and 21r. They have been printed by Flower, ‘Nowell and the Discovery of England’, p. 73, n. 16. There are two errors in Flower: Nowell of ḡslægæne and ḡflitis; Flower ofgeslôgene and geflites (Miller 52.11 and 52.20). Flower (ibid.) points out that these passages confirm Sisam's theories (‘The Authenticity of Certain Texts in Lambard's Archaionomia, 1568’, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 232–58)Google Scholar that the ‘ghost’ manuscript of the laws of Athelstan used by Lambarde was in fact a translation by Nowell.

page 114 note 4 See above, p. 112, n. 1. See also Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 424–6, no. 346Google Scholar, and Whitelock, , Peterborough Chronicle, p. 24 and 29V and 34V.Google Scholar

page 114 note 5 See BMQ 14 (1939–1940), 81–2.Google Scholar

page 114 note 6 Napier, A. S., ‘Two Old English Fragments’, MLN 12 (1897), 53–6.Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 The view expressed by Kupferschmidt, M., ‘Über das Handschriftenverhältniss der Winchester Annalen’, EStn 13 (1889), 165–87, esp. 182Google Scholar, that this is not a copy of the Parker Chronicle and that a more elaborate relationship must be postulated, has been refuted by Horst, , EStn 24 (1898), 8–9Google Scholar, and is to be disregarded.

page 115 note 2 Wheloc corrects freely, his source often being the Parker Chronicle.

page 115 note 3 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Benjamin, Thorpe, Rolls Series (1861), 1, xx (his G)Google Scholar. The text is printed at the foot of pp. 110–41. Horst, K., ‘Die Reste der Handschrift G der Altenglischen Annalen’, EStn 22 (1896), 447–50.Google Scholar

page 115 note 4 Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1892–1899, repr. 1952 with additions by D. Whitelock); his A.Google Scholar

page 115 note 5 The Battle of Brunanburh, ed. Alistair, Campbell (London, 1958), pp. 153–44.Google Scholar

page 115 note 6 See Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 58 and 232Google Scholar. The list was compiled after 984 and probably before 988. Ker does not point out Nowell's transcript of this item.

page 115 note 7 Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford, 1696).Google Scholar

page 116 note 1 Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, F. (Halle, 1903–1916) 1.Google Scholar

page 116 note 2 LMS 1 (1937), 60–4.Google Scholar

page 116 note 3 Ibid. and Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1956), p. 246.Google Scholar

page 116 note 4 Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus 1, 109.

page 116 note 5 Charters, pp. 246 and 248.

page 117 note 1 See Grant, R. J. S., ‘A Note on The Seasons for Fasting’, RES n.s. 23 (1972), 302–4.Google Scholar

page 117 note 2 ‘Nowell and the Discovery of England’, p. 73, n. 20.

page 117 note 3 The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Dobbie, E. van K. (New York, 1942), pp. xcii–xciv, clxx, 98–104 and 194–8.Google Scholar

page 117 note 4 Studies, pp. 45–60 see also Leslie, Roy F., ‘Textual Notes on The Seasons for Fasting’, JEGP 52 (1953), 555–8.Google Scholar

page 117 note 5 See above, p. 112 and n. 4.

page 117 note 6 Lecchdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, ed. Cockayne, O., Rolls Series (1864–1866).Google Scholar

page 121 note 1 In one of these instances two words are omitted.

page 121 note 2 See Whitelock, D., ‘The Old English Bede’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 48 (1962), 79, n. 6.Google Scholar

page 121 note 3 See further Ekwall, E., English River Names (Oxford, 1928), pp. 421–3, s.v. ‘Tweed’.Google Scholar

page 124 note 1 Studies, p. 58 and n. and p. 60.

page 124 note 2 It confirms the closer connection of C with Miller's O and Ca than with his B or T. The current view of the relations between the manuscripts is given by Whitelock, , ‘The Old English Bede’, p. 81Google Scholar, n. 22. Professor Whitelock tells me that she is no longer satisfied with the stemma offered in her article and intends to publish a revision which will take into account the contamination to which she refers and may no longer maintain the close relationship between T and B which is normally assumed.

page 124 note 3 Minor Poems, p. xciv, n. i.Google Scholar