DCL MS. B.III.9Gregory the Great, Register
Held by: Durham Cathedral Library: Durham Cathedral Manuscripts

Register of Pope Gregory the Great, one of the books given by William of St Calais to Durham Priory before 1096.

Digitised: https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1mg158bh34s.html

Physical description of manuscript
Support

Parchment

Extent: i+299+i f
Size: 310 mm x 205 mm

Foliation

Modern pencil foliation: 1-174, 174*-228. Parchment tab (inscribed ‘S’) attached to f.117. Fragment of a tab remains on f.127.


Secundo folio: tentem deum rogo
Collation

I-XXII10, XXIII9 (10 with leaf 10, doubtless blank, lost or cancelled)

Layout

36 lines

Script

Written in late Caroline minuscule by a single hand also responsible for National Library of Scotland Adv. 18.4.3 f.1-52 and 90-120.
Simeon of Durham “rubricated with red rustic capitals, may have executed some of the initials, and probably wrote the running titles” (Gullick 1998, p.24)

Decoration

Single-colour capitals or decorated initials, 5+ lines high, head most books. Contemporary running headings, stating Book number in Roman numerals.

Corrections and annotation

Light contemporary marginal annotations. Other passages flagged by difficult-to-date but probably late medieval triangles of dots plus a wavy line. Occasional late medieval annotation.

Binding

Standard Tuckett binding, mid 19th century full brown calf over thick wooden boards (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century)

Manuscript history
Creation

Written in England, Durham, end 11th century (before 1096).

Provenance

Inscriptions: Liber sancti Cuthbertj de Dunelmo, late 12th century, f.1r, top centre. D Registrum gregorii De communi libraria monachorum dunelm, severely cropped, early 15th century, f.1r, top.
Pressmarks: D and 1.3.O ’, 15th century, f.1r, top right.
In 1395 Cloister catalogue.

Manuscript contents
(a)     f.1r
Original title: Symbolum fidei
Author: Pseudo-Gregory
Incipit: Credo in unum deum omnipotentem patrem et filium
Explicit: in qua sola possunt laxari peccata in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti
Rubric: Symbolum Fidei Dictatum a Beato Gregorio Papa
Language: Latin
(b)     f.1v-228v
Original title: Registrum
Author: Gregory I, Pope, approximately 540-604
Incipit: Valde necessarium esse perspeximus
Explicit: perceptum vobis moribus servare concedat. Amen. Data kalendis novembris, indictione xii
Rubric: Registri Beati Gregorii Papae Urbis Romae
Language: Latin

Book I-XIV (689 letters)


Microfilm
Microfilmed in 1985/86 by the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Copies held by them and Durham Cathedral Library.

Digitised material for Durham Cathedral Library MS. B.III.9 - Gregory the Great, Register
Digitised May 2015 as part of the Durham Priory Librayr Recreated project
https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1mg158bh34s.html
Bibliography

Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.   OCLC citation, Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).

Gullick, Michael, "The hand of Symeon of Durham: further observations on the Durham Martyrology scribe", in Rollason, David, ed., Symeon of Durham: historian of Durham and the North (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 1998), 14-31

Mynors, R.A.B., Durham Cathedral manuscripts to the end of the twelfth century. Ten plates in colour and forty-seven in monochrome. With an introduction [including a list of all known Durham manuscripts before 1200]   OCLC citation, (Durham: 1939)

Index terms