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"For every man must say what he says and do what he does according
to the capacity of his intellect and the
amount of time available to him"
-- (From King Alfred's prose preface in his translation
of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, trans. Lapidge and Keynes)
My phone's alarm goes off at 8am on the dot. I go downstairs and shower. Pour a bowl of Crispy Minis and eat it in the quiet house. It's always quiet in the mornings here. Bayram has a noon-to-midnight schedule running the restaurant, and the rest of the family seems to plan around him. I'm usually the first one up and the first one to bed. This morning is no exception. I self-pressure myself to be as quiet as I can as I scurry through the kitchen and living room like some sort of lost dog. I attempt to ninja upstairs, but he twelve or so creaky steps to my bedroom are indifferent to my efforts. I manage, and once in my room I gather my gear and put on my nice clothes and head down the creaky steps and out the door.
The goal of this trip is to take photos of several manuscripts at Corpus Christi. Each of these manuscripts are related, in some manner, to the no longer extant Cotton Otho A.xii manuscript, which was destroyed in the Ashburnham House fire of 1731. The manuscript is so named because it was for many years in the possession of Sir Robert Cotton. His famous collection at the Cotton Library (at the aforementioned House) was where the Beowulf Manuscript was also damaged, which contained Beowulf, Judith, and many other important literature from the Anglo-Saxon period. My interest is in a work of the late 9th century called the Vita Alfredi (The Life of King Alfred) which was written by Asser (pronounced Asher) a Welshman from St. David's in the kingdom of Dyfed. He and several other theologians and thinkers were summoned to Alfred's court (born 849; reign 871-899; Asser is summoned in 885) in an effort to rejuvenate the educational system of England, which had due to the ravages of Vikings and internal dispute been reduced to a remember-when. In his prose preface to his translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care, Alfred writes, tellingly, "And I would have it known that very often it has come to my mind what men of learning there were formerly throughout England, both in religious and secular orders; and how there were happy times then throughout England." The king was so struck by the disaster of the learning of England (actually, mainly Wessex, East Anglia, and Northumbria, but most of England shared a similar lacking of learning in letters).
Alfred, mainly known for his prowess in battle and the establishing of a system of burhs (fortified areas) that neighboring villages could flee to in case of Viking attack, is also known personally in Asser's biography of the king. The biography, which was begun some time around 893, toward the tail-end of Alfred's reign, is arguably the first biography of an English king--arguable due to some outstanding debates over the text's authenticity (It's my professional opinion that it's authentic but problematical). Remember when I said we don't have this regal biography anymore? That's true. The version that Sir Robert Cotton once owned was destroyed, but several copies had been made before it's destruction. Basically, I'm here to collate and take notes on every one of these copies.
Some of the copies are more useful than others, but each represents a witness to the Vita before it was destroyed. The most valuable manuscript, MS 100, is the one I am going to examine today.
Unfortunately, they don't allow photography of the manuscripts, but I can download the digital images from a University computer (right...). But anyhoo, here are my helpful archivists posing innocuously with some new acquisitions to the library:
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| Ms. Gill Cannell and Dr. Suzanne Paul |
I spend from 10am to 12:30, and from 2:30 to 4:30 working with my manuscript. Sitting in a chair, staring at Latin words that had been copied out by Archbishop Parker's scribe in the 16th century. The manuscript I'm looking at is called "Co" in William H. Stevenson's 1904 edition of the Life, and he has called it the most valuable as it marks a version before it had been interpolated by Parker. I take care and a great deal of time to copy out the Latin; I get a few pages in before I have to leave. Holy crap, copying out Latin takes longer than I expected (granted I spent a lot of time with the rest of the codex as well, but still...). If you're interested in what the codex looks like and want to browse it, here's a link.
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| Here's the beginning of the transcription of the Vita. The red underlines are in chalk by Parker. |
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| My return to the Eagle Pub |
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| Ale and meat pie, chips, and peas: tastes better than it looks. |
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| I find a footbridge across the Cam |
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| I meander through secret West Chesterton footpaths |
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