Canon law

Title

Canon law

Shelfmark

MS. Hatton 42

Place of origin

French, Brittany(Bischoff, no. 3798)

England

French, North(?) (Bischoff, no. 3798)

Date

9th century, first half

late 10th or early 11th century

9th century, first third (?)

Language

Old Breton

Latin

Old English (ca. 450-1100)

Contents

Physical extent

iii + 207 leaves

Decoration

Fols. 56v, 79: good marginal drawings in pen and with a hard point, saec. x/xi. Between these on fol. 79 is the inscription ' Wulfrid cild'. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 29)

Binding

White leather on wooden boards, rebacked, possibly contemporary with the supply of fols. 1-7 in the late 10th or early 11th century: see C. Clarkson, 'Further studies in Anglo-Saxon and Norman bookbinding: board attachment methods re-examined', in Roger Powell. The Compleat Binder, ed. John L. Sharpe (1996), 154-214 at 163-5, comparing, following Graham Pollard, the binding of MS. Auct. F. 1. 15.

Acquisition

Sold after Hatton's death to the London bookseller Robert Scot; sold by him to the Bodleian Library in 1671

Provenance

In England by the late 10th or early 11th century when fols. 1-7 were supplied in English Caroline minuscule. A Glastonbury provenance was suggested in the Summary Catalogue, based mainly on an inscription on the former spine (now preserved on the lower pastedown) read as Liber Sc Dunsani and understood as referring to St Dunstan. Bruce Barker-Benfield (https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/40-4-431) argued that the correct reading was Liber S' Ƿufsani, identified as Wulfstan II of Worcester (d. 1095).

A Canterbury (Christ Church) provenance for the volume has been suggested with reference to St Dunstan and also on palaeographical grounds based on the script of fols. 1-7 and of annotations on fols. 133v, 134r (Summary Catalogue; T. A. M. Bishop, 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts VI', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 3/5 (1963), 412-423 at 415).

The manuscript was certainly at Worcester Cathedral by the early 11th century, when annotated by Wulfstan I, and probably remained there until there at least 1623, when recorded by Patrick Young.

Christopher, lord Hatton: borrowed by him from Worcester.