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The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey A STRATIGRAPHIC EDITION I. Introduction and Facsimile DAUVIT BROUN JULIAN HARRISON Scottish History Society 2007 fcs. SH/ SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY SIXTH SERIES VOLUME I The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey A Stratigraphic Edition Volume I Introduction and Facsimile Edition The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey is the principal source for Scottish history in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries; it is also a remark- able survival of a chronicle-manuscript that grew for over a century. It is thus of great importance to historians and palaeographers alike. This new edition is accompanied by a detailed introduction, offering a full account of scribes; a collation of the manuscript; a discussion of the manuscripts evolution and binding-history in the light of its disbinding in 2005-d; a new ‘stratigraphic’ approach to the chronicle’s development; and a full account of the manuscript’s history. There is also a discussion of Cistercian chronicling in the British Isles. Of particular interest is the recognition that the manu- script comprised part of British Library MS Cotton Julius B. XIII as well as Cotton Faustina B. IX, shedding new light on the nature of the original codex and its date. The book is accompanied by a DVD containing digitised images of the whole manuscript. Dr Dauvit Broun is a senior lecturer in Scottish History at the University of Glasgow Julian Harrison is a Research Fellow in Scottish History at the University of Glasgow and is attached to the Department of Western Manuscripts at the British Library SCOTTISH CHRONICLES PROJECT This is the first of a number of volumes on Scottish chronicles which will appear occasionally as part of the main series of annual volumes published by the Scottish History Society. An editorial board, consisting of scholars whose research embraces Scottish chronicles, or who were members of the Scotichronicon project led by Donald Watt, have been assembled to assist the society in the development of this occasional series. General Editor Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow Publications Secretary Sharon Adams, University of Edinburgh Editorial Board Stephen Boardman, University of Edinburgh Nicholas Evans, University of Glasgow Julian Harrison, University of Glasgow and The British Library Norman Shead, University of Glasgoiv Simon Taylor, University of Glasgow The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey A Stratigraphic Edition Volume I Introduction and Facsimile Edition Dauvit Broun & Julian Harrison SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY 2007 THE BOYDELL PRESS Scottish History Society 2007 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permis- sion of the copyright owner First published 2007 A Scottish History Society publication Published by The Boydell Press an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP 12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN: 978-0-90624-529-3 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire $ LDA (A CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements vi Guide to the DVD x Abbreviations xii Glossary xiv I Melrose Abbey and its World (Dauvit Broun) 1 II Cistercian Chronicling in the British Isles (Julian Harrison) 13 III Editing the Chronicle of Melrose (Dauvit Broun) 29 IV Recovering the Chronicle of Melrose (Dauvit Broun) 40 V The Original Codex (Julian Harrison) 56 VI The Physical Development of the Manuscript (Dauvit Broun) 68 VII Scribes (Dauvit Broun) 87 VTII Charting the Chronicle’s Physical Development (Dauvit Broun) 125 IX From Melrose Abbey to the British Library (Julian Harrison) 174 X Technical Overview and Points of Reference 193 (1) Descriptions of Julius B. XIII and Faustina B. IX (Julian Harrison) 193 (2) Summary Collation and Codicological Analysis (Dauvit Broun) 195 (3) Distribution of Strata in Volumes II and III (Dauvit Broun) 199 (4) Summary of Scribes and their Script (Dauvit Broun) 208 (5) Notes on Palaeographical Developments (Dauvit Broun) 223 (6) Reproductions, 1580-2000 (Dauvit Broun & Julian Harrison) 228 Manuscripts Cited 232 Printed Works Cited 238 Codicological and Palaeographical Index 251 General Index 257 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume represents a fresh departure for the Scottish History Society. There is no text and translation (except for a brief sample quoted in chapter IV): the Latin of the chronicle and its rendering into English are promised for volumes ii and hi, which are in progress (and will appear no earlier than 2010). Instead, readers are offered on the DVD a reproduction of the original manuscript as it survives today. Like a number of other medieval manuscripts it has become divided in two, and is now London, British Library, MS. Cotton Julius B. XIII fos 2-47, and London, British Library, MS. Cotton Faustina B. IX fos 2-75. For centuries the Melrose Chronicle has been regarded as Faustina B. IX fos 2-75 alone. In this edition Julius B. XIII fos 2-47 is recognised for the first time as part of the codex. It shows that the manuscript originally consisted of a year-by-year chronicle beginning with the Incarnation of Christ (which originally ran up to the killing of Thomas Becket on 29 December 1170 and was subsequendy continued throughout most of the thirteenth century) conjoined with a copy of Hugh of Saint- Victor’s Chronicle. On the DVD Julius B. XIII fos 2—47 and Faustina B. IX fos 2-75 have been reunited for the first time in almost 500 years. The volume itself consists chiefly of a detailed analysis of the manuscript and a full account of its history from when it was created in 1173x4 to the disbinding of each of its two parts by Mariluz Beltran de Guevara of the British Library in 2005-6. The priority given here to providing an in-depth study of the manuscript-evidence before presenting the text itself is not only a reflection of the special challenge posed by the Melrose Chronicle; it is also indicative of an important shift in approach to medieval sources towards an ever greater awareness that any piece of writing is more than mere words, and has a physical dimension which is crucial to our understanding of it. The volume begins with two introductory scene-setting chapters: the first aims to situate the Cistercian abbey of Melrose in its world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the second serves to place the Melrose Chronicle within the context of other annalistic chronicles from Cistercian abbeys in Britain and Ireland. Chapter III turns the focus on the chronicle itself by discussing previous editions and arguing for the desirability of an innovative approach to the task of producing a new edition. The main aim is to place centre-stage the evidence provided by a close study of the manuscript, and it is proposed that this can best be achieved by basing the edition on the chronicle’s ‘stratigraphy’. What is meant by this, and how the stratigraphy can be established through the wealth of evidence provided by the remarkable survival of a chronicle-manuscript like that of Melrose, is discussed at length. The following chapters are concerned with the two most obvious novelties PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii of this edition: the stratigraphic approach, and the discovery of Julius B. XIII fos 2-47. Chapters IV and V are devoted to the latter. It is explained in chapter IV why Julius B. XIII fos 2—47 must be regarded as part of Melrose’s chronicle-manuscript, and what this contributes to our understanding of how the codex was originally produced. This includes a brief discussion of the sources used by the scribes who created the year-by-year chronicle in 1173x4, which serves to show that each may also be regarded as the author of their section of the text. A detailed account of the original manuscript of 1173x4 is provided in chapter V, complementing the attention devoted to the physical evidence of the additions to the chronicle which dominates the full account of its stratigraphy in chapter VIII. The dating of each stratum is drawn from information in the text; in all other respects the analysis of the stratigraphy is based on the essential contributions of codicology and palaeography which are the subjects of chapters VI and VII. Chapter VI arises from the exceptional opportunity provided by the disbinding of the manuscript to study its structure and binding, which are both vital to understanding its history. Chapter VII is chiefly devoted to the challenge of analysing what text was written by which scribes. The discussion of palaeography is limited to the identification of features that might be regarded as distinctive to an individual scribe or which are relevant to the history of script in this period. This material relating to palaeographical developments is drawn together in the fifth section of chapter X and is preceded in the fourth section by a summary of scribes and the date of their contributions (insofar as this is revealed in chapter VIII), along with a systematic classification of their script. The meat of the book finishes in chapter IX with a full discussion of the history of Julius B. XIII fos 2-47 and Faustina B. IX fos 2-75 from when the manuscript left Melrose during the wars of independence sometime during the English occupation of Roxburghshire (1296—1314). The volume concludes with a chapter providing useful points of reference: a brief description of Julius B.
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