Cambridge. Cambridge University Library, MS Kk.5.16
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- Cambridge Digital Library
- Library
- Cambridge. Cambridge University Library
- Shelfmark
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- MS Kk.5.16
- Biblissima authority file
- Date
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- mid-late 730s C.E.
- Language
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- Latin
- Old English
- Title
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- Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
- Moore Annals
- Caedmon's hymn
- Moore Memorandum
- De consanguinitate (Extract from Etymologiae)
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- Agent
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- Preferred form
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- Berhtwald (0650-0731)
- Original form
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- Archbishop Berctuald of Canterbury
- Berctuald, Archbishop of Canterbury, c. 693-731
- Biblissima authority file
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- Preferred form
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- Tatuinus Cantuariensis (06..-0734)
- Original form
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- Tawine
- Tawine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 731-734
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- Preferred form
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- Ceolwulf (06..?-0764)
- Original form
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- King Ceolwulf
- Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria, ca. 700-764
- Biblissima authority file
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- Preferred form
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- Acca Hagustaldensis (06..-0740)
- Original form
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- Bishop Acca
- Acca, Bishop of Hexham, ca. 660-740
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- Preferred form
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- Grégoire II (pape, 0669-0731)
- Original form
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- Pope Gregory II
- Gregory II, Pope, 669-731
- Other form
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- Grégoire II, pape
- GREGORIUS II papa
- GREGORIUS II Junior (s.), papa
- Author: Gregorius II, Papa
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- Preferred form
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- Alcuin (0732?-0804)
- Original form
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- Alcuin of York
- Alcuin, 735-804
- Other form
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- Alcuinus
- Alcuinus Flaccus (0732?-0804)
- Alcuin
- Alcuin (0732?-0804)
- Alcuinus Eboracensis
- ALCUINUS
- Alcuini
- Alcuinus Flaccus
- Alcuinus (Alcuin)
- Alcuin 0732?-0804
- Alcuinus, Flaccus
- Alcuí, ca. 735-804
- Alcuino
- Alcuinus, Flaccus fl.732-804
- Alcuinus van York
- Author: Alcuinus, Flaccus
- Alcuin of York, c 735-804
- Alcuinus, 730?-804
- Flaccus Alcuinus (735-804)
- Alkuin
- Alcuin (v. 735-804), écolâtre de l'archevêque d'York, abbé de Saint-Martin de Tours
- Alcuinus (ca. 735-804)
- Alcuinus, Flaccus, 735-804
- Alcuino, 735-804 > , co-autor
- Alcuinus Flaccus - 732 - 804 - auteur
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- Bède le Vénérable (saint, 0673?-0735)
- Role
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- Author
- Original form
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- The Venerable Bede
- Bede, the Venerable, Saint, 673-735
- Other form
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- Bède le Vénérable (saint ; 0673?-0735)
- Beda Venerabilis
- Beda Venerabilis (saint ; 0673?-0735)
- BEDA VENERABILIS
- BEDA
- Beda
- BEDA VENERABILIS (s.)
- Bède
- S. Beda venerabilis
- Venerabilis Bedae
- Bède le Vénérable (0673?-0735)
- Beda Venerabilis (ps.)
- S. Beda Venerabilis
- Venerabilis BEDE
- Bede
- Bedae
- Bedae venerabilis
- Bède le Vénérable saint 0673?-0735
- Beda, el Venerable, sant, 673-735
- Beda el Venerable, Santo
- Beda Venerabilis 672-735
- Author: Beda, Venerabilis
- Commentator: Beda, Venerabilis
- Bede (attributed to)
- Bede the Venerable, c 673-735, Saint
- Bede the Venerable
- Bede the Venerable (attrib.)
- Bede (673/4–735)
- Beda Venerabilis, 673-735
- Beda<Venerabilis>
- Bède le Vénérable
- Beda <Venerabilis> (672-735)
- Bede, the Venerable, Saint 673-735
- Bede the Venerable (b. c. 673, d. 735), monk and theologian
- Bede the Venerable, Saint (673-735)
- Bede, the Venerable, Saint (673-735)
- Bède le Vénérable, saint (0673?-0735)
- Beda, Venerabilis, 672-735
- Beda <Venerabilis>
- Beda, O Venerável, 673-736
- Beda, O Venerável, 673-736 > , co-autor
- Beda Venerabilis - 673 - 735 - auteur
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- Caedmon (05..-0680?)
- Role
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- Author
- Original form
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- Caedmon
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- Isidore de Séville (saint, 0560?-0636)
- Role
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- Author
- Original form
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- Isidore of Seville
- Isidore, of Seville, Saint, -636
- Other form
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- Isidorus Hispalensis (saint ; 0560?-0636)
- S. Isidorus Hispalensis
- Isidorus Hispalensis
- Isidore de Séville (saint ; 0560?-0636)
- ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS (s.)
- ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS
- Sancti Isidori Hispalensis
- ISIDORE
- Isidore de Séville (0560?-0636 ; saint)
- Isidorus
- Isidore de Séville
- Isidori Hispalensis
- Isidori
- ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS (s)
- Isidorus Hispalensis (?),
- Isidore (Saint), de Séville
- Isidore de Séville saint 0560?-0636
- Isidor, de Sevilla, sant, ca. 560-636
- Isidore, of Seville, Saint, d. 636
- Isidoro, Santo, Arzobispo de Sevilla
- Isidorus Hispalensis 560-636
- Isidorus van Sevilla
- Author: Isidorus, Hispalensis
- Isidore
- Isodore of Seville
- Isidore of Seville, c 560-636, Saint, Bishop of Seville
- Isidorus Hispalensis, 560?-636
- Isidore de Séville (saint ; (0560?-0636)
- Isidorus<Hispalensis>
- Isidorus Hispalensis, 560-636
- Isidorus, Hispalensis, 560-636
- Isidore de Séville (saint)
- Isidorus <Hispalensis> (560-636)
- Isidore, of Seville, Saint, -636, author.
- Isidore of Seville, Saint (-636)
- Isidore de Séville (0560-0636)
- Isidore de Séville (0560-0636) > Père de l'Eglise
- Isidorus, Hispalensis (ca. 560-636)
- Isidoro, Santo, Arzobispo de Sevilla, ca. 560-636
- Isidorus <Hispalensis>
- Isidoro de Sevilha, Santo, ca 560-636
- Isidoro de Sevilha, Santo, ca 560-636 > , co-autor
- Isidorus Hispalensis - ca. 570 - 636 - auteur
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- Charlemagne (empereur d'Occident, 0742-0814)
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- Charlemagne
- Charlemagne, Emperor, 742-814
- Other form
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- Charlemagne (0742-0814 ; empereur d'Occident)
- Charlemagne (empereur d'Occident ; 0742-0814)
- Carolus Magnus (empereur d'Occident ; 0742-0814)
- Carolus Magnus
- CHARLES I er , empereur, dit Charlemagne
- CHARLES I er, empereur, dit Charlemagne
- Caroli Magni
- Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne)
- Charlemagne empereur d'Occident 0742-0814
- Carlemany, emperador d'Occident
- Carlomagno, Emperador
- Karl Römisch-Deutsches Reich, Kaiser, I. 747-814
- Patron: Karl I, Römisch-Deutsches Reich, Kaiser
- Author: Karl I, Römisch-Deutsches Reich, Kaiser
- Karl, I.<Römisch-Deutsches Reich, Kaiser>
- Karl <I., Heiliges Römisches Reich, Kaiser> (747-814)
- Karl I., Heiliges Römisches Reich, Kaiser, 747-814
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- Jean-Baptiste Hautin (1580?-1640)
- Role
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- Former owner
- Original form
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- Jean-Baptiste Hautin (approximately 1580-1640)
- Hautin, Jean-Baptiste, approximately 1580-1640
- Other form
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- Jean-Baptiste Hautin
- Hautin, Jean-Baptiste (1580?-1640)
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- Preferred form
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- John Moore (1646-1714)
- Role
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- Former owner
- Original form
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- John Moore, Bishop of Ely (1646-1714)
- Moore, John, 1646-1714
- Other form
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- John Moore
- John Moore (1646-1714)
- John Moore (d. 1714)
- Moore
- Moore, John 1646-1714
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- Alexander Cunningham (1655?-1730)
- Role
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- Former owner
- Original form
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- Alexander Cunningham (1655?-1730)
- Cunningham, Alexander, 1655?-1730
- Biblissima authority file
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- Preferred form
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- Georges I (roi de Grande-Bretagne, 1660-1727)
- Role
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- Former owner
- Original form
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- King George I
- George I, King of Great Britain, 1660-1727
- Biblissima authority file
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- Description
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Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (HE) is the earliest surviving account of English history. Its central theme is the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity and the establishment of the English Church. It was Bede’s last major work; he finished writing it in 731, and died a few years later on 25 May 735.
This manuscript is the earliest extant copy of Bede’s History, and may well have been copied at his own monastery, at Wearmouth or Jarrow, within a few years of his death, perhaps as early as 737. It is usually called the Moore Bede because, prior to entering the collections of the University of Cambridge in 1715 as a gift from George I, it had been owned by John Moore, bishop of Ely (1707–1714). Moore had acquired it sometime between 1697 and 1702, and before that it had been in France, in the library of the cathedral of St. Julien at Le Mans. The ex libris of St. Julien can be seen at the foot of the last complete folio (128v). Other evidence on that same page shows that the manuscript had been in France for a very long time, perhaps even since the reign of Charlemagne (r. 768–814). The travels of the book, as well as its very early date and proximity to the life of Bede himself, make it one of the most important surviving medieval English manuscripts.
The book was written by a single scribe using a form of script known as insular minuscule. This type of script facilitated rapid writing, and it may have been deployed at Wearmouth Jarrow in order to service demand for copies of Bede’s works. It made more economical use of the page than the higher-grade uncial script that was used there for the production of elite, biblical manuscripts, such as the Codex Amiatinus (now in Florence) or the St. Cuthbert Gospels (now in the British Library). Uncial is used in the Moore Bede occasionally (e.g. fol. 24r), for the dating clauses of some of the papal letters that Bede had transcribed into his History. This variation in script for the dating clauses reflects the practices of the papal chancery, and it is another indication that Bede had taken great care to copy his papal sources extremely accurately.
The scribe of the Moore Bede wrote in long lines and without word breaks, picking out the beginnings of chapters with simple, large initials, that were sometimes decorated with red dots; book and chapter headings are also rubricated, and longer quotations are marked out with horizontal red bars in the margin (eg: 22r-v). There is no other form of decoration in the manuscript, and there are no illustrations. The scribe also made many small spelling mistakes. All of these features, alongside the choice of script, add to the impression of a manuscript that was produced at speed, perhaps in response to demand for the works of the great scholar. This is a high quality manuscript, but not a deluxe copy.
The last complete folio (fol. 128) is especially important, because it contains several clues to the date of the manuscript and to its subsequent history.
The main text finishes near the end of fol. 128r with the explicit, written in red, to the entire work. After this the same scribe wrote six more lines, describing events that took place in 731, 732, 733, and 734. These are called the ‘Moore Annals’, and they provide additional information to Bede’s text, which had concluded (on fol. 127r) with news of the death of Archbishop Berctuald of Canterbury in 731 and the consecration of Tawine in his place. These ‘Moore Annals’ add new, tantalizing information for the year 731, saying that ‘King Ceolwulf was captured, tonsured, and restored to the throne of Northumbria, and Bishop Acca fled from his see’. Bede had dedicated the HE to Ceolwulf (fol. 1r) and Acca was his most important patron. The events of 731 that are described in the Moore Annals, but which are not mentioned in the HE proper, must have been a rupture in Bede’s world, and may even hint at why he concluded his great work in that year. The date of the last of these extra annals, records an eclipse of the moon on the second kalends of February 734 (30 Jan), showing that the manuscript cannot have been written before that date.
Turning over the page (128v), readers are confronted with an abrupt change; the main text scribe wrote the uppermost 12 lines, using two grades of insular minuscule. But the second part, the lower 18 lines, is in a different script, known as Carolingian (or Caroline) minuscule. Both parts are important.
The first scribe copied three texts on this page: Cadmon’s Hymn, in the Northumbrian Old English dialect, on lines 1–3 (this is one of the earliest surviving pieces of English verse); an ascription of the Hymn to Cadmon, plus three glosses on line 4; a Memorandum relating to Northumbrian history. This last item incorporates a Northumbrian kinglist from the accession of Ida in 547 to Ceolwulf (r. 729–737), who it says had reigned 8 years, plus a set of calculations giving the number of years since an event had happened (e.g.: ‘the monastery at Wearmouth, 63 years ago’). All these calculations work back from a common date, 737. Because both Hymn and Memorandum were written by the scribe who had also copied the main part of the manuscript, this set of calculations provides the earliest possible date for the copying of the book. Also, since the Memorandum would have made little sense had it been transcribed very much after the common date which it provides, most scholars have concluded, on palaeographic as well as textual grounds, that the scribe of the Moore Bede worked in or not long after 737.
The remainder of the folio reveals what happened next. The texts on the lower part of the page were written by a Carolingian scribe, whose hand, Bernhard Bischoff thought, was very similar to those that had worked on manuscripts linked to Charlemagne’s court, c. 800 (e.g.: British Library, MS Harley 2788). This suggests that the manuscript had left Anglo-Saxon England before the end of the eighth century. The Carolingian scribe copied two texts: an extract from Isidore’s Etymologiae on consanguinity, and part of the decree of Pope Gregory II from the Roman council of 721, which had also discussed the prohibited degrees of marriage. This continued onto the next page, of which only a stub now survives, and which had been lost before the St Julien ex libris was added to the foot of fol. 128v. These additions concerning acceptable marital relationships were doubtless added to the Moore Bede as commentary on Gregory the Great’s contentious discussion of exactly these issues in the Libellus Responsionum, which Bede had quoted in full in HE I.27.
There are other Carolingian interventions in the book, which show that Frankish readers were using it carefully. In the early pages there are many interlinear glosses made by a Carolingian scribe. These glosses often expand idiosyncratic insular abbreviations, or spell out words made difficult by unfamiliar ligatures. For example, on fol. 22r the text scribe had used a hooked ‘h’ which the Carolingian scribe correctly glossed with the word ‘autem’. These interventions show a scribe working through the strange insular script, and making notes to make it easier for others to follow. Twice a Carolingian scribe used a late antique system of shorthand, known as Tironian notes, to make a longer annotation; in the outer margins of fol. 17v these read de consanguinitate referring (yet again) to answer 5 of Gregory’s Libellus Responsionum alongside, and on fol. 20v they are used to rectify an extensive scribal omission from Gregory’s ninth answer.
The Moore Bede left another important footprint in Francia; the vast majority of the continental copies of Bede’s HE can be shown, through collation of textual variants, to have been derived from a handful of early exports. The Moore Bede dominates the ‘Continental stemma’, and multiple copies were made of it, including the supplementary material on permissible marriage. This suggests that the Moore Bede was kept (initially at least) in a place which had the capacity to make and distribute authoritative copies. Charlemagne’s court, or a scriptorium associated with it, would make sense in this context, and a scholar, such as Alcuin of York, might well have been responsible for supplying a book of this type, to be copied and transmitted throughout the churches of Francia.
Professor Joanna Story
University of Leicester
- Place
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- Preferred form
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- Wearmouth-Jarrow Abbey (United Kingdom)
- Original form
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- Wearmouth Jarrow
- Biblissima authority file
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- Rights
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- Provided by Cambridge University Library. Zooming image © Cambridge University Library, All rights reserved. Images made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 3.0) This metadata is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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