The St Botolph manuscript at the British Library – the road and railway to access

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The last manuscript known to me of the “Life” of St Botolph resides in the British Library in London.  It has the shelfmark Cotton MS Tiberius D III, and was damaged by fire with most of the Cotton manuscripts.

I wrote to the manuscripts department enquiring about access, in order to get photographs of the text.  This will involve an actual visit on my part, it seems, and also obtaining a reader’s card, and supplying a letter of introduction in order to see the manuscript.  Thankfully a kind colleague has supplied the latter, as I find that my old letter of introduction dates from 1998 (!)

I have had a number of very useful responses from the manuscripts reference desk, which may be of wider interest.

Cotton MS Tiberius D III is a Special Access (Select) manuscript, so I’m afraid it’s not permitted to take photographs of that. However, there is a surrogate microfilm, Microfilm 2492, which you could take photos of for personal reference use.

Cotton MS Tiberius E I has been divided into two volumes, and it looks like the “Life” of St Botulf [Botulph] is now in Volume 2, at ff.14v-15v:

Cotton MS Tiberius E I/2    John Tynemouth, Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et Hiberniae
ff. 1r: Sts Petroc (Bibliotheca Hagiogrphica Latina 6640), continued from the previous volume; ff. 1r–3v: Boniface (BHL 1406); ff. 3v–4v: Gudwal (BHL 3690); ff. 4v–6v: Robert of Newminster (BHL 7269); ff. 6v–7v: William of York (BHL 8910); ff. 7v–10r: Columba (BHL 1891); ff. 10r–11v: Ivo (BHL 4624); ff. 11v–13v: Margaret of Scotland, with marginal genealogies (BHL 5326); ff. 13v–14v: Odulphus (BHL 6321); ff. 14v–15v: Botulph (BHL 1429); ff. 15v–19r: Alban; … …
Decoration: Each life opens with an initial, either red with blue pen-work or blue with red pen-work. Small initials in blue and red throughout.    A parchment codex.    2nd half of the 14th century    Latin

There are no access restrictions for this, so you can take photos from the original manuscript.

And:

I’ve had a look at both the manuscript (Cotton MS Tiberius D III) and the microfilm (Microfilm 2492). As you surmise, the manuscript is fire damaged. The fragments are mounted on paper in a large volume. It is fragile but in a better state than some of the others; with careful handling it can be viewed without damaging it further.

Most of the text of folios 223v-225v remains and is readable, although some parts are missing altogether or are charred beyond legibility.

The microfilm is quite good quality, though obviously what is badly charred on the original is even less legible.

I suggest ordering both the microfilm and the original manuscript. The microfilm images were taken before the manuscript was (re)foliated, so you will actually need to consult the original first to recognise the same folios on the microfilm. If you take photos of the microfilm then you could transcribe the legible parts from those and focus on the illegible parts with the original.

We have one digital microfilm reader in the Manuscripts Reading Room now, so it might be worth playing around with the settings on that to see if you can enhance the text.

Which is really very helpful information indeed, considering that this is a government department.

What a nuisance that I will have to look through the entire microfilm in order to locate the pages to copy!  Hundreds of images, in a random order.  Is this even really possible to do this in a day trip?  But I hate the idea of staying in a horrible London hotel, especially in hot weather.

I must take a magnifying glass with me, for my eyes are not what they were.  Probably a laptop, so that, for each page of microfilm, I can do Ctrl-F and check if it is part of the text.

I cannot say that I am looking forward to what will certainly be an exhausting trip for one no longer young.  I am wary of injuring myself.  It will take at least three hours to get there, then an unknown time in reception to get a pass, then another hour until the items are ordered up.  And then the task is only beginning.  But there does not seem to be a way around all this.  What must be must be.

Share

4 thoughts on “The St Botolph manuscript at the British Library – the road and railway to access”

  1. They sound very helpful, and because your time is limited in a day trip, I think it would be worth telling them this, advising them of your likely arrival time and asking if the ms. and the microfilm could be ready for you when you come. This can sometimes save a very long wait. It has worked for me in the past (usually, though I haven’t tried it at the BL).

  3. It probably isn’t as bad as you think. Registering for a reader’s pass is a relatively quick and easy process (unless you are unfortunate to arrive at an unusually busy time). They will take your photograph, though, so make sure your appearance is such as you would like it to appear on your pass! Furthermore, it says that the MS was (re)foliated, not reordered, which implies that the relevant leaves are still in the same place in the MS, just with numbers that were not there when the microfilm was made. I would recommend consulting the microfilm in conjunction with Thos. Smith’s catalogue (1696, but there is a recent reprint), which on pp. 26-27 gives a complete list of the contents of the MS, though without folio numbers (probably there weren’t any). This will immediately enable you to see where you are in the microfilm, and whether you need to go forward or back to find St Botolph (who is no. 53).

  4. That’s actually very encouraging – thank you. Good catch on “refoliating” – that would make things much simpler. I’d better take a copy of the relevant catalogue pages, I agree.

    I don’t think there’s time for plastic surgery tho…. 🙂

Leave a Reply