Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 012: Alfred the Great's Old English Translation of Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali

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Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 012: Alfred the Great's Old English Translation of Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali

Alternate Title:

Gregorius de Cura Pastorali Saxonice

Language:

English, Old (ca. 450-1100) and Latin

Extent:

ff. 225 + 2

Dimensions:

410 Height (mm) and 260 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1000 - 1099]

Provenance:

From Worcester Priory, as will appear. and As to the tremulous hand, Wolfgang Keller (Die Litterarischen Bestrebungen von Worcester in Angel-Sächsischen Zeit: Quellen u. Forschungen 84, 1900, p. 20) gives a list of MSS. in which the same hand appears. They are Bodleian Junius 24, 121; Hatton 76, 113, 114, 115; C. C. C. 178,391; University Library Cambridge Kk. 3. 18. To these I can add C. C. C. 12 (the MS. before us) and 198: while I believe that Keller is mistaken in thinking that the hand occurs in MS 265 (which he also cites). The glossator whose hand it is was probably, as Keller points out, an old man who knew Anglo-Saxon, and added the glosses for the benefit of his brother-monks to whom it was unfamiliar. Several of the MSS. at Oxford in which the hand is found are certainly from Worcester Priory: thus it is safe to predicate of any MS. which shows it, that this, too, is a Worcester book; a remark which applies to the MS. no. 12.

Table of contents:

Alfred the Great's Old English Translation of Gregory the Great, De cura pastorali

Description:

This manuscript contains the Old English translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, with the famous preface setting out Alfred the Great's educational policy. Alfred arranged for translations to be made of the texts "most necessary for men to know", and this work by Gregory was probably one of the earliest to be produced. The translation claims to be the work of Alfred himself, although this has sometimes been challenged. MS 12 is one of only five manuscripts (and a fragment) of this work surviving from Anglo-Saxon England, and probably dates from the tenth century. It is not used in the standard edition by Sweet, who based his text on the two earliest manuscripts. The manuscript was certainly at Worcester in the thirteenth century, when it was annotated by the 'Worcester Tremulous Hand', whose glosses and marginal notes are found in several other Corpus manuscripts.