Western Medieval Manuscripts : Gesta pontificum Anglorum (Book Five)

William of Malmesbury

Western Medieval Manuscripts

This manuscript contains a 16th-century copy of the fifth Book of William of Malmesbury's Gesta pontificum Anglorum, which recounts the history of William's native abbey. The text of the fifth Book survives in full in only one medieval copy, William's own autograph, now <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/b18b9f25-baa4-4943-a641-5e184908a34d/'>Oxford, Magdalen College, MS lat. 172</a>; an abbreviated and probably not authorial version, is likewise found in one medieval copy, now London, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius A.v, entitled therein as a Life of St Aldhelm. Aldhelm was the founder of Malmesbury Abbey. It is one of three copies of Book Five commissioned by Matthew Parker (1504-1575), archbishop of Canterbury, in this instance to augment a copy of the rest of the text that he owned, now MS Ff.1.25(1) (the other two copies are now <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/jp667cv9012'>Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 43</a>, ff. 65r-112r, and <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/R.5.34'>Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.5.34</a>, ff. 209r-256v). As this shows, Parker was not only a collector of manuscripts: he also used them, annotating and cross-referencing, rebinding and rearranging the books that he owned. Besides adding this copy of the fifth Book of the Gesta pontificum Anglorum, Parker augmented the manuscript with additional works by William and other chronicles, including a further copy produced at his direction.The text of the Gesta pontificum Anglorum was first edited in 1596, using Parker's manuscript (<a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-00001-00025-00001/1'>MS Ff.1.25(1)</a>), by the antiquarian and book collector Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622). Savile elected not to include the fifth Book in his edition, despite its immediate availability here. The description of the manuscript in the <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/manuscripts-university-archives/subject-guides/medieval-manuscripts/early'>list of Parker's donations</a> confirms that this and the other additions were at that time bound together with the copy of the Gesta pontificum Anglorum in a single volume. They remained in this state until 1862, whereupon they were divided into five separate volumes, all of which are now available to view on the Cambridge Digital Library: <ul><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-00001-00025-00001/1'>MS Ff.1.25(1)</a>: William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum Anglorum (Books 1-4)</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-00001-00025-00003/1'>MS Ff.1.25(3)</a>: William of Malmesbury, Historia novella</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-00001-00025-00004/1'>MS Ff.1.25(4)</a>: compilation of Crusade texts</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-00001-00025-00005/1'>MS Ff.1.25(5)</a>: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia regum Britanniae</li></ul>Dr Suzanne Paul Keeper of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts Cambridge University Library