Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries: Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 5948

Early fragment of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae

Introduction: This fragment contains a section from book IV of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville, one of the most important Latin medieval encyclopaedias. Compiled originally in the first half of the seventh century in Spain, the Etymologiae quickly became a bestseller across Europe: within perhaps fifty years of its composition, copies had reached Ireland and France and soon enough also became available in England and Italy. The present fragment is one of more than 400 surviving manuscripts and fragments of Isidore's encyclopaedia that were made before the year 1000. This exceptionally large number of surviving witnesses confirms that the Etymologiae was one of the most popular Latin texts of the early Middle Ages. The fragment preserved in the University Library is a single leaf measuring approximately 258 x 203 mm. This is all that is known to survive from what must have once been a codex containing the entire encyclopaedia, and thus comprising perhaps two or three hundred leaves. The fourth book of the Etymologiae, dealing with medicine, was also commonly transmitted separately as a medical handbook. Excerpts from it can be found in early medieval medical compendia. In this case, however, we can be fairly sure this is not a remnant of such a manuscript. In the upper margin on the verso of the leaf, one can see a decorated running header ‘IIII’, a feature that would be found only in manuscripts transmitting the entire encyclopaedia. Nevertheless, the codex, from which the single leaf comes, was fairly small for a copy of the entire Etymologiae. Such copies usually have leaves with the height of at least 300 mm. The script of the fragment is full of ligatures and other features that suggest that it was produced at the end of the eighth century. Bernhard Bischoff and Virginia Brown, who produced its first description, thought that it was copied in France. The fragment was acquired by the University Library in 1916. Earlier, it had belonged to the famous nineteenth-century collector, Sir Thomas Phillipps. Phillipps’s old classmark 15105² is still visible on the recto. Dr Evina Steinova Postdoctoral Researcher, Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam Innovating Knowledge: database of early medieval copies of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae

Recto and verso

Etymologiae Isidore of Seville

Language(s): Latin

Incipit: ||Recto: ut non habeat spagum temporis

Explicit: Verso: elefanturum cumque siue||

Book IV, vi.19-viii.12

Lindsay (1911, repr. 1971)

TM 68688

Not listed by J.M.F. Caton, Las Etimologias en la tradicion manuscrita medieval (León, 1966).

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Parchment

Extent: Fragment 1 leaves. 254-256 × 199-204 mm.

Foliation: The fragment has not been foliated

Layout

Written space 207 × 164-167 mm. No pricking marks visible. Ruled in hardpoint. Two columns, 45 lines to the page, written above top line.

Hand(s)

Early Caroline minuscule. Further description available in Bischoff and Brown (1985), p. 323, no. 1818 , reproduced in part on Earlier Latin Manuscripts (NUI Galway).

Headings in 'small fine uncials' (Ringrose) / 'cultivated...uncial' (Bischoff and Brown), in red or black.

Decoration

One- and two-line initials in black.

Binding

The fragment is mounted in a melinex folder.

History

Origin: Late 8th century, ; probably England

Dated by Bischoff and Brown to 'saec. viii ex.' and described as 'written presumably in France' (Bischoff and Brown (1985), p. 323, no. 1818).

Provenance and Acquisition

Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): classmark 'Phillipps MS 15105²' on the verso.

Phillipps sale, Sotheby's, 19 May 1913, lot. 743 (where it was one of three fragments offered for sale together).

Fragment purchased by 'H.A. Selden', bookseller of 18 Sicilian Avenue, London, W.C. (i.e. R.B. (Reginald Berti) Haselden , 306 Earl's Court Road, London, SW; later Curator of Manuscripts, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. (Price of the fragment, with the two others, was £11 10s. See annotated sale catalogues, British Library).

Presented to the University Library on 16 February 1916 by Stephen Gaselee and other members of the Senate.

Additional Information

Record Sources

This record draws on Jayne Ringrose, Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library acquired before 1940 (Woodbridge, 2009), by kind permission of the Boydell Press, and on unpublished descriptions by Charles Sayle and H.L. Pink (UA ULIB 7/3/72 and 7/3/75).

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library). For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.

Bibliography

Addenda to 'Codices Latini Antiquiores' Mediaeval Studies, Bischoff, BernhardBrown, Virginia (47, 317-366, 1985)

Summary catalogue of the additional medieval manuscripts in Cambridge University Library acquired before 1940, Ringrose, Jayne (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2009)

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 5948

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