Herbal with Old English glosses; St Augustine’s, Canterbury, 1070s × 1090s

Title

Herbal with Old English glosses; St Augustine’s, Canterbury, 1070s × 1090s

Shelfmark

MS. Ashmole 1431

Place of origin

England

English, Canterbury, St. Augustine’s

Date

14th century

1070s × 1090s

Language

Old English (ca. 450-1100)

Latin

English

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

viii (modern paper) + 1 (medieval flyleaf, fol. *1) + 2 (binding fragment) + 41 + v (modern paper) leaves

Hands

English Caroline minuscule. Ker, English manuscripts in the century after the Norman Conquest (1960), p. 30, classifies this as an example of the Christ Church script used at St Augustine’s. Dodwell, The Canterbury school of illumination, 1066–1200 (1954), p. 26, suggests that the hand can also be found in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS. O.2.51, part 2 (Priscian). Gameson, English manuscript art in the late eleventh century: Canterbury and its context, pp. 114, 125 affirms this, suggesting also that the artist might be the same as Durham, Cathedral Library, MS B.II.16.

Decoration

Each section opens with coloured illustrations of plants. (Pächt and Alexander iii. 50, pl. VI)

Illustrations not executed from the middle of fol. 36v onwards, with only space left by the scribe.

Names of plants in red.

Binding

Brown tanned calf over laminated pulpboard. Rebacked 30 May 1959.

Acquisition

Transferred to the Bodleian Library in 1860.

Provenance

Elias Ashmole (1617–1692): bequeathed by him to the Ashmolean Museum.