MS. Bodl. 354
Summary Catalogue no.: 2432
Contents
Language(s): Latin
The lives of those of Saints commemorated between October 9 and December 31, with additions (fol. 205v, etc.)
Among them are several saints of NE France, including Richarius (Oct. 9, fol. 1), Winnocus (Nov. 6, fol. 29), Fuscianus ('Faustinus') and Victoricus (Dec. 11, fol. 165), Judocus (Dec. 13, fol. 201v) and Wandregisilus (Vandrille, July 22, a long account, fol. 254). A list of all the lives can be found under item 2432 in the Old Catalogue of 1697
Identified by Levison (MGH SS rer. Merov 7.545), as a recension of the so-called 'Cotton-Corpus Legendary' (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS. 9 + London, British Library Cotton MS. Nero E. i) preserving the final portion of the collection with additions. Cf. E. Gordon Whatley, "Cotton-Corpus Legendary," Sources of Old English and Anglo-Latin Literary Culture, 2023, https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:50591 (with full bibliography).
The contents of the present manuscript mostly inventoried in Patrick Zettel, 'Ælfric's hagiographic sources and the Latin legendary preserved in B.L. MS Cotton Nero E i + CCCC MS 9 and other manuscripts' (DPhil thesis, Oxford, 1980), pp. 27-34, nos. 118-161 (with notes 99, 106). The following list, from the Summary Catalogue, is selective.
Epistola or prologue; the Life of Martin; list of chapters and preface
Each with a list of chapters
Three accounts of Martin's death
Book 1, Chapter 6 of De Uirtutibus Sancti Martini
Among the remaining pieces are:
Life of Nicholas of Myra, chiefly from Methodius
Account of a miracle wrought by the Holy Cross in the time of Heraclius
From Eusebius
Physical Description
Layout
2 cols
Decoration
Initials
A figure of a kneeling monk is in the margin of fol. 119r
Binding
The binding was made for Henry VIII, and his librarian John Leland wrote a title for the volume ('Vitæ illustrium virorum ...') and also a short 'Carmen Joannis Leylandi Londinensis', a comparison of Plutarch and Sulpicius Severus as biographers (fol. ii verso). The sides (only) of the old binding are inlaid in the brown leather cover of the latter part of the 17th century, and each bears within a border of gold ornament the arms and badges of the king with: DIEV: ET: MON: DROIT .:. REX: HENRICVS: VIII', and twice a crowned rose between K and H.: there is now an American cloth cover. Illustrations of the binding, with accounts of it, are in W. S. Brassington's Historic Bindings in the Bodleian Library (London, 1891, Pl. viii), and C. Davenport's Royal English Bindings (London, 1896, Fig. 2)
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Owned by Henry VIII
Presented by Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, in 1604 (MLGB3)
Record Sources
Bibliography
Printed descriptions:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2022-12-06: Description revised to incorporate all the information in the Summary Catalogue (1922)