Digby 23, part 2, given by Sir Kenelm Digby in 1634). It holds one of the foremost monuments of French literary culture in the shape of the earliest surviving manuscript of La Chanson de Roland, a small and scruffy manuscript which might have been carried in the pocket of a travelling jongleur ( MS. But the library’s collection is just as important for its texts. The bequest of Francis Douce is the richest single source of illuminated manuscripts, particularly French and Flemish manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries. The Bodleian is also strong in its collections of medieval manuscripts from continental Europe north of the Alps. This document is of outstanding importance both for the history of the administrative organization of the late Roman Empire and for the Renaissance rediscovery of classical antiquity. Canonici’s manuscripts include such treasures as the copy of the Notitia Dignitatum made in 1436 for Pietro Donato, Bishop of Padua ( MS. In 1817 the library bought the greater part of the collection of the Venetian one-time Jesuit Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727–c.1806). This is largely the result of the biggest single purchase of manuscripts (numbering over 2,000) ever made by the Bodleian. Second in number only to the manuscripts from the British Isles are those from Italy. Rawlinson’s manuscripts include some of the principal sources for the early and medieval history of Ireland, such as the Annals of Inisfallen ( MS. For Irish manuscripts, the richness of the Bodleian’s collection derives above all from the bequest of Richard Rawlinson (1690–1755). These include four official 13th-century exemplars of Magna Carta.Īmongst the many additions over the years to the Bodleian’s holdings of English medieval manuscripts, perhaps the most famous are the illuminated manuscripts bequeathed by Francis Douce (1757–1834), which include masterpieces such as the early Gothic Douce Apocalypse ( MS. The library also acquired administrative documents, including charters (some with seals) from a number of religious houses. Junius 11), given by the pioneering 17th-century Dutch philologist Francis Junius. 1-2), and the only one of the four major sources of Old English poetry to be illustrated – the so-called ‘Caedmon manuscript' ( MS. In this sense, the description of Bodley by his friend Francis Bacon as one who had ‘built an ark to save learning from deluge’ is particularly apt.īooks of monastic provenance which entered the library in its first century include treasures such as the monumental Romanesque Bible from Winchester (MSS. Bodley’s library, founded only a few decades later, was identified by religious and antiquarian book-collectors as a means of preserving the medieval written heritage. Most of the medieval manuscripts acquired in the library’s early years were English in origin, for one reason: the dissolution of the monasteries (and thus of their libraries) under Henry VIII. Although the illuminated books attract the greatest public attention, it is the library’s accumulation through the centuries of more modest text manuscripts – the pastoral manual, the copy of a classical play, the vernacular poem, the charter, the legal textbook, the medical treatise – which makes it such a rich resource for the study of medieval culture. The University’s library, ever since its re-foundation by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602, has continued to acquire medieval manuscripts, mostly through gift and bequest. Only a handful of Duke Humfrey’s books survive today. The collecting of manuscripts by the University of Oxford (as distinct from individual colleges) goes back to the construction of the room above the Divinity School to house the manuscript books donated by Duke Humfrey of Gloucester in the 15th century. The manuscripts are mostly on parchment or paper and in codex form, and are written both in Latin and Greek and in the European vernaculars. It is the largest to be found in any university library in the world, and within the United Kingdom second only to the British Library. The Bodleian Library holds a highly important collection of manuscripts from medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |