Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 295: Thomas Becket, Epistolae (Alan of Tewkesbury's Collection, Recension III)

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Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 295: Thomas Becket, Epistolae (Alan of Tewkesbury's Collection, Recension III)

Alternate Title:

Epistolae Thomae Becket

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 1 + 7 + 207 + 1

Dimensions:

252 Height (mm) and 172 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1200 - 1225]

Provenance:

From Christ Church, Canterbury. See Ancient Libraries, p. 52, no. 358. I take this to be probably the copy there mentioned as Epistola(-e) S. Thome Alani Prioris belonging to the Cloister.

Table of contents:

Epistolae (Alan of Tewkesbury's Collection, Recension III)

Description:

CCCC MS 295 reflects Parker's obvious interest in the history of the English church and the See of Canterbury in particular. It contains an incomplete version of the Epistolae (Recension III) of Thomas Becket compiled by Alan of Tewkesbury (d. 1202) together with a few letters of John of Salisbury (c. 1115-80). The manuscript was copied in the early thirteenth century, probably at Christ Church, Canterbury, where it has been identified in the library catalogue drawn up by Henry of Eastry in the early fourteenth century. A curious inscription in a late fifteenth-century hand recording that the book was the property of 'ecclesiam Blavnsom' means that it cannot be certain that Parker acquired this manuscript directly from Christ Church.