We are delighted to announce another forty-four Greek manuscripts have been digitised. As always, we are most grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, Sam Fogg, the Sylvia Ioannou Foundation, the Thriplow Charitable Trust, the Friends of the British Library, and our other generous benefactors for contributing to the digitisation project. Happy exploring!

Add MS 31921, Gospel Lectionary with ekphonetic notation (Gregory-Aland l 336), imperfect, 12^th century, with some leaves supplied in the 14^th century. Formerly in Blenheim Palace Library.

Add MS 34059, Gospel Lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 939), with ekphonetic neumes. 12^th century.,

Add MS 36660, Old Testament lectionary with ekphonetic notation, and fragments from a New Testament lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 1490). 12^th century.

Add MS 37320, Four Gospels (Gregory-Aland 2290). 10^th century, with additions from the 16th-17^th century.

Add MS 37486/1, Detached binding from Add MS 37486, 18^th century.

Add MS 39585, Octateuch (Rahlfs 426), imperfect. 11^th century, written by Georgios, a monk, possibly in Constantinople.

A much defaced miniature of the Psalmist, from a Psalter and Canticles, Eastern Mediterranean, early 11th century, Add MS 39586, f. 1v

Add MS 39586, Psalter and Canticles (Rahlfs 1090), with later additions on extra leaves, original and inserted, at beginning and end, and a much-defaced miniature of the Psalmist. Early 11^th century.

Detail of an illuminated headpiece, from a Gospel book, Greece (?Mount Athos), 12th century, Add MS 39594, f. 1r

Add MS 39594, Four Gospels (Gregory-Aland 551), with miniatures of the Evangelists. 12^th century, with paper additions from the 15^th century.

Add MS 39596, Four Gospels (Gregory-Aland 553). 13^th century.

Add MS 39598, New Testament, Acts and Epistles (Gregory-Aland 910), with Euthalian headings. Completed in February 1009.

Add MS 39601, Revelation (Gregory-Aland 911), imperfect at the end, with a marginal commentary by Andreas of Caesarea, Commentarii in Apocalypsin (TLG 3004.001). Originally part of Add MS 39599 (cut out by the Hegoumenos of the Karakallou Monastery), but the hand of the text (perhaps not that of the commentary) is different and a good deal smaller. 11^th century, possibly written at Mount Athos.

Add MS 39604, Gospel Lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 344), with notes of lessons and names of months in Arabic. 12^th-14^th century.

Add MS 39614, Xenophon, Hellenica. Early 16^th century, Venice.

Add MS 39615, Hermogenes, De constitutionibus (Περὶ στάσεων) (TLG 0592.002). Early 16^th century, Venice.

Add MS 39616, [Plutarch], De liberis educandis. Early 16^th century, Venice.

Add MS 39617, Demosthenes, Orationes, with the hypotheses of Libanius and occasional scholia and interlinear glosses. 15^th century, Greece.

Miniature of Jonah cast forth by the whale, from a Psalter and Canticles, Palestine/Cyprus, 2nd half of the 12th century, Add MS 40753, f. 159v

Add MS 40753, Psalter and Canticles, with twelve full-page miniatures, a member of the ‘2400 family’ of Byzantine illuminated manuscripts. 2^nd half of the 12^th century, probably created in Palestine or Cyprus.

Arundel MS 531, Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, with illuminated head- and tailpieces on f 1r. 2^nd half of the 15^th century, Italy.

Arundel MS 547, Gospel Lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 183; Scrivener evst. 257), imperfect, with full-page evangelist portraits, decorated headpieces, and zoomorphic initials. 4^th quarter of the 10^th century, perhaps Cappadocia or Southern Italy.

Arundel MS 536, Gospel Lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 187). 12^th-13^th century.

Miniature of David, from a Psalter, Italy (Florence), end of the 15th century, Burney MS 14, f. 3r

Burney MS 14, Psalter (Rahlfs 1657), with two Italian miniatures and foliate borders. End of the 15^th century, Florence.

Burney MS 15, Bilingual psalter (Rahlfs 1658), in Greek and Latin. 1^st half of the 16^th century.

Beginning of the poems of Anacreon, from a collection of works by Greek lyric poets, France, 2nd half of the 16th century, Burney MS 61, f. 3r

Burney MS 61, Collection of works by Greek lyric poets, including Anacreon, Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, and Ibycus. Occasional marginal notes with variants of Henri Estienne and T. Faber. 2^nd half of the 16th century, France.

Burney MS 70, Basil of Caesarea, De legendis libris gentilium (TLG 2040.002), and other works. Large initials in colour and gold, partial foliate border on f 1r similar to that in Burney 14. 4^th quarter of the 15^th century, written by Ioannes Skoutariotes at Florence.

Burney MS 71,Callimachus, Hymns (TLG 0533.015-020). c 1500.

Burney MS 88, Libanius, Epistulae (TLG 2200.001). End of the 15^th century, Italy.

Burney MS 89, Lycophron, Alexandra, with the commentary of Ioannes or Isaac Tzetzes, imperfect. 1^st half of the 15^th century, Greece.

Burney MS 96, Minor Attic Orators. End of the 15^th century, Venice.

Life of Dionysius Periegetes including a note on the 12 winds, with diagram, from a manuscript of Pindar and geographical texts, Eastern Mediterranean, beginning of the 16th century, Burney MS 98, f. 42r

Burney MS 98, Pindar, Olympia (TLG 0033.001), imperfect, with interlinear and marginal scholia; Dionysius Periegetes, Orbis Descriptio (TLG 0084.001), with interlinear glosses and marginal paraphrase; Eustathius Thessalonicensis, Commentarium in Dionysii periegetae orbis descriptionem (TLG 4083.006); Strabo, Geographica (TLG 0099.001), extracts. Beginning of the 16^th century.

Burney MS 106, Sophocles, Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus, Antigone; [Aeschylus], Prometheus Vinctus; Pindar, Olympia. End of the 15^th century.

Burney MS 108, Aelian, Tactica; Leo VI, Tactica; Heron of Alexandria, Pneumatica, De automatis, with numerous diagrams. 1^st quarter of the 16^th century, possibly written at Venice.

Burney MS 109, Works by Theocritus, Hesiod, Pindar, Pythagoras and Aratus. 2^nd half of the 14^th century, Italy.

Burney MS 110, Zenobius, Epitome collectionum Luculli Tarrhaei et Didymi (TLG 0098.001). 4^th quarter of the 15^th century, Italy.

Egerton MS 2390, Sticherarion for the Immovable Feasts with musical notation, from February until 29 August, and of the Feasts of Triodion and Pentekostarion, attributed to Panagiotes the New Chrysaphes. 18^th century, Greece.

Egerton MS 2392, The Divine Liturgies and ordination services. Full-page portraits of John Chrysostom, Basil, and Gregory. The manuscript is worm-eaten throughout. Written in Sopoto, Kalavryta, in 1664.

Egerton MS 3125, Nomocanon fragment, comprising two gatherings. 11^th century.

Egerton MS 2625, Thucydides, Historiae (TLG 0003.001), with scholia, formerly forming a single manuscript with Add MS 5110. 15^th century, possibly written on Crete.

Text block in cruciform, from a Gospel Lectionary, Eastern Mediterranean, 995, Harley MS 5598, f. 248v

Harley MS 5598, Gospel Lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 150; Scrivener evst. 150) with Menologion and Gospels for some special services. 995, written by Constantine, the same scribe as Add MS 73525, ff 1-2.

Royal MS 16 C IV Part 1 and Part 2, John Tzetzes, Antehomerica, with a translation into Latin by Petrus Morellus. 1560-1603, France (Tours/Loches), in the hand of Petrus Morellus.

Royal MS 16 C VII, Constantine Manasses, Breviarium Chronicum , imperfect. Mid-15^th century, Italy? Probably formerly owned by Sir Robert Cotton.

Royal MS 16 C XIV, Apparatus Bellicus, followed by extracts from Byzantine authors. 1584, probably written in Italy.

Royal MS 16 C XIX, Simplicius, Commentarius in Epicteti Enchiridion. 1^st half of the 16^th century, Italy (Padua?)

Royal MS 16 C XX, Isaac Argyrus, De Metris Poeticis, imperfect, with marginalia by Isaac Casaubon. End of the 16^th century, Italy?

- Cillian O'Hogan

Every year has its share of blockbuster movies where you can watch the human race meeting a sticky end, either from either a ghastly pandemic, forces of evil, whether human, alien or robotic, or a natural cataclysm.  Of course, this is nothing new.  The earliest Christians believed that the end of the world was imminent, and the last book of the Bible, Revelations, contains a vision of the struggle between good and evil leading up to the Final Judgment.  Otherwise known as the Apocalypse of St John the Divine, it is believed to have been completed during the reign of the Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD), while John was exiled on the island of Patmos.

Detail of St John on the island of Patmos, from the Abingdon Apocalypse, England (?London), 3rd quarter of the 13th century, Add MS 42555, f. 5r

The poetic imagery of the passages from the Bible, the symbols involving numbers, strange beasts and human and demonic characters, are open to a myriad of interpretations.  Beginning in the Carolingian era, illustrated manuscripts of the Apocalypse were made to help interpret the text.  At the British Library, we have a number of Apocalypse manuscripts with extensive cycles of images.  In this and a series of blog posts we will be looking at how the main themes and images are treated in some of them.

Digitised Apocalypse Manuscripts

Four of our Apocalypse manuscripts are fully digitised, and here is one of our favourite images from each:

The Silos Apocalypse

The woman clothed with the sun, Revelation 12:1-18, from the Silos Apocalypse, Spain, 1091-1109, Add MS 11695, ff. 147v-148r

The Abingdon Apocalypse

Detail of a priest blessing the Sacrament on the left and on the right Christ with the slaughtered Lamb, Adam weeping, Noah in the ark, Jonah and the whale, Add MS 42555, f. 10r

The Welles Apocalypse

Earthquake and kings hiding, with John beside, from the Welles Apocalypse, England, c. 1310, Royal 15 D II, f. 131r

The Queen Mary Apocalypse

Detail of a dragon, a woman in bed, and her child being caught up to heaven, from the Queen Mary Apocalypse, S.E. England or East Anglia, 1st quarter of the 14th century, Royal 19 B XV, f. 21r

Visions of Heaven and Hell

The dramatic imagery in Apocalypse manuscripts contrasts the mystical vision of peace in Heaven with the torments in store for wicked men on Earth in the events leading up to the Last Judgement.  For those who believed the end was nigh, these images left no question which side you should be on!

Heaven

The iconography varies from the well-known stairway to Heaven to hosts of angels with black wings to the many-storied New Jerusalem.

The Lamb and angels and the four living creatures with saints and the chosen of Israel below, Add MS 11695, ff. 112v-113r

Detail of the revelation of the heavenly Jerusalem to St John, Add MS 42555, f. 79v 

Detail of the Vision of Heaven, from the Yates Thompson Apocalypse, Paris, c. 1370-c. 1390, Yates Thompson MS 10, f. 19r

Heaven and Earth, and the new Jerusalem, Royal MS 19 B XV, f. 40v

A door opening to Heaven, Royal MS 15 D II, f. 117v

Hell

Hell on earth is filled with wonderfully ugly beasts, gaping mouths and lakes of fire.

Detail of the opening of the bottomless pit, Royal MS 19 B XV, f. 15v

Detail of a hell-mouth with three beasts, a devil and many souls inside; fire falls from above, Add MS 42555, f. 76v

Detail of the Rider on a pale horse, emerging from a hell-mouth, with John, Royal MS 15 D II, f. 129r

For more images of hell-mouths from our medieval manuscripts, check out our blog post Prepare to Meet Your Doom!

Birds including a peacock, a hawk, a raven, a dove, a cockerel, a pelican, and an owl are called to eat men’s flesh and the false prophet is cast into a lake of fire, Yates Thompson MS 10, f. 33v

- Chantry Westwell

Back in March this year, we announced that we had saved an important fifteenth-century manuscript from export: the only complete copy of the Catholicon Anglicum, one of the earliest Middle English-Latin dictionaries.  Inspired by this fascinating linguistic and lexicographical source, in the intervening months we have been cataloguing other late medieval dictionaries in our collection. 

Entries beginning with the letter ‘G’, from the ‘Promptorium parvulorum’, England (Norfolk), 15th century, Add MS 22556, f. 47r 

The Promptorium parvulorum (‘The Students’ Storehouse’), like the Catholicon, had its Middle English entries arranged alphabetically, but in two sections: 'nomina' (nouns, but also adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections) coming first, followed by 'verba' (verbs).  The British Library has four copies of this text in the collection: Add MS 22556, Harley MS 221, Harley MS 2274 (a fragment) and Add MS 37789. 

The prologue (‘preambulum’) to the ‘Promptorium parvulorum’, England (Norfolk), late 15th century, Add MS 37789, f. 1r

The prologue to the Promptorium tells us that its compiler lived as a Dominican friar in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, in 1440.  Two of our copies – Add MS 22556 and Add MS 37789 – can be localised to Norfolk on the basis of linguistic evidence.  The compiler described himself as a recluse, and perhaps lived in an anchorage attached to the order’s house.  Although his name is unknown, the Promptorium is commonly assigned to ‘Geoffrey the Grammarian’ on the basis of an annotation in a printed edition of 1499.    

The explicit to the ‘Promptorium parvulorum’ and incipit to the ‘Medulla grammaticae’, with scribal colophon of John Broke, Add MS 37789, f. 84r 

In the sixteenth century, John Bale attributed the authorship of another late medieval dictionary to Geoffrey: the Medulla grammaticae.  The two texts had a close relationship in both manuscript and print.  In Add MS 37789, they are bound together within the same manuscript.  The title ‘Medulla grammaticae’ is sometimes attached as an alternative in early printed editions of the Promptorium parvulorum.  However, there is ultimately no evidence to support Bale’s attribution, which has proven more confusing than helpful to scholars. 

The end of the list of entries beginning with ‘H’ and beginning of the list of entries beginning with ‘I’, with a pen-flourished initial, from the ‘Medulla grammaticae’, England, mid-15th century, Harley MS 2257, f. 65r 

The Medulla grammaticae enjoyed a broader circulation than either the Catholicon or the Promptorium.  As its name suggests – Medulla grammaticae means ‘The Core of Grammar’ – its purpose was to aid the understanding of Latin grammar rather than composition, so logically the entries are arranged Latin-Middle English.  We have published detailed catalogue descriptions for each of our Medulla manuscripts, as follows: Add MS 24640, Add MS 33534, Add MS 37789, Add MS 62080, Harley MS 1000, Harley MS 1738, Harley MS 2181, Harley MS 2257, and Harley MS 2270. 

Front endleaf (the former pastedown) bearing ownership inscriptions (Edward Lyster, Thomas Gayner), with pink-stained leather covering of the medieval binding visible at the edges, from the Medulla grammaticae, England (?Nottingham), Add MS 62080, f. 1v 

The manuscripts of these dictionaries are functional, unelaborate objects – written for the most part in cursive scripts, usually on paper, with decoration rarely extending beyond plain coloured initials – but they are intriguing nonetheless.  Add MS 62080 (a Medulla), which retains its medieval binding, appears to have passed through several hands in the Nottingham area.

Detail of the opening of the ‘Medulla grammaticae’, with a grotesque figure chewing on the cadels of the intertwined letters ‘H’ and ‘A’, Add MS 62080, f. 2r 

This copy of the Medulla also has some amusing grotesques in its initials. 

Prognostication calendar relating to ‘metalles, quoynes and apparel and other necessaries’, from a composite miscellany containing a fragment of the ‘Promptorium parvulorum’, England, 2nd half of the 15th century, Harley MS 2274, f. 61v 

The fragment of the Promptorium at the end of Harley MS 2274 is accompanied by an array of liturgical, devotional, medical and prognostication texts: including a curious zodiac calendar that advised when would be a good or bad time to ‘begynne all fyry workis’ (i.e. involving furnaces), ‘to lende mony to have it a gayne’, ‘to bye woll or woolyn clothe’, or ‘to put on nwe apparel’. 

Detail of a list of ‘holsome herbes for the potte in tempore pestilenciali’, ‘a soverayne medicynne for the swetyng sekenesse’ from Master Walter Hyllum, and another ‘for the frenche pockis’, from an endleaf to the ‘Promptorium parvulorum’, England, 15th century, Harley MS 221, f. 206r 

Harley MS 221 (a Promptorium) was one of the manuscripts acquired by Robert Harley from Sir Symonds d’Ewes on 4^th October 1705, in the first of several ‘block purchases’ from other manuscript collectors.  It is one of the few dictionary manuscripts on parchment, and is written in a fine Textura script.  The last leaf contains a number of medical recipes for dealing with pestilence, sweating sickness and ‘the french pocks’ (i.e. syphilis). 

Detail of a scribal colophon, from the ‘Medulla grammaticae’, England, late 15th century, Harley MS 1738, f. 81v 

Some evidence of the production and early provenance of Harley MS 1738 (a Medulla) survives.  It may have been written by a scribe called William Harper, who wrote his name and the following verse upside-down at the bottom of the last page: ‘Si mean penna valet, melior mea littera fiet’ (‘If my pen is strong, my letter will be better’) (f. 81v).  

Detail of an inscription relating to the ordering of paper, Harley MS 1738, f. 1r 

It seems that at same point in the late fifteenth century someone wished to make a copy of this manuscript, and asked their brother Thomas to acquire the materials for them to do so: ‘Thomas brother I pray yow of halgentylnesse that yow wyl do the labor for to by me ii bokys in lyn papir for wrytyng [...] ad verssus the pralaying bokys and wel that ys callyd Medulla gramatice’ (f. 1r).  It is of particular interest to our study of book production that it was possible in the fifteenth century to purchase not just plain paper, but quires that had been already ruled and lined for writing.

Detail of an inscription relating to the binding of the manuscript, from the ‘Medulla grammaticae’, England, mid-15th century, Add MS 33534, f. 1r 

A similar instruction survives in another Medulla manuscript: Add MS 33534.  This is another copy with a medieval binding, probably of the mid-fifteenth century, that once featured straps and labels on the exterior.  An inscription on f. 1r reads: ‘Brothur William Barkere I pray youe lett thys booke be bound at the utmost by myddyll Lent and my brother shall pay for the byndyng’.  The wording appears to indicate that William Barker was a monk, who perhaps was being given the book by a layman, whose brother in turn would foot the bill for its binding.

Detail of the head of a woman within a pen-flourished initial ‘C’, Add MS 62080, f. 31v 

These dictionaries are an important reminder that Latin learning was not confined the cloister, cathedral or church.  Laymen too required a functional command of the language in order to conduct business, to read and understand legal documents such as charters and wills.  There is growing evidence as well – that the Catholicon Anglicum, Promptorium parvulorum and Medulla grammaticae together reinforce – that to understand lay reading habits we must go beyond vernacular texts.  The laity did not content themselves with reading in the vernacular, but sought out and consumed popular and broadly circulating historical, literary, and religious texts in Latin for their own entertainment and edification.

- James Freeman

For more information about the Huth Hours, please see our post A Calendar Page for January 2014.

September marks the beginning of the wine-making season in the northern hemisphere, and this is as true today as it was on the pages of our medieval calendar.  In the opening folio, the process is beginning in earnest, as three women are busy picking grapes in a vineyard, loading them into the basket of a waiting man.  Behind them are several grand buildings, while the oenophilic theme of the month is mirrored by the acanthus vines circling round the page.  The labour continues on the facing folio.  Below the saints’ days for September and a woman holding a balance (for the zodiac sign Libra), a man is bringing a full basket of grapes into a barn.  He is greeted by a fellow worker, who stands in a tub full of grapes, crushing them beneath his feet.

Calendar page for September, with a roundel miniature of people harvesting grapes, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 9v

Calendar page for September, with a roundel miniature of a men making wine, with the zodiac sign Libra, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 10r

- Sarah J Biggs