DCL MS. B.IV.24Durham Cantor's Book
Held by: Durham Cathedral Library: Durham Cathedral Manuscripts

The Durham Cantor's Book

Digitised: https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1mcr56n0965.html

Physical description of manuscript
Support

Parchment

Extent: 130 f.
Size: 265 mm x 180 mm
Manuscript contents
SECTION: (A)    
(i)     f.ir
Original title: Hic leo
Date: [mid 12th century]
Language: Latin

16 lines of verse

(ii)     f.iv
Modern title: List of books read at collatio
Date: [mid 12th century]
Language: Latin
(iii)     f.1r-2r
Modern title: List of books
Original title: Vetus catalogus librorum qui in armariolo Ecclesiae Cathedralis Dunelmensis olim habebantur
Date: [mid 12th century]
Language: Latin

The earliest library catalogue.

Edited: Catalogi veteres, 1-10
(iv)     f.2*
Modern title: Record of confraternity
Date: 1175
Language: Latin
(v)     f.3v
Modern title: Papal letter on ending of schism
Author: Pope Alexander III, -1181
Date: 1177
Language: Latin
(vi)     f.4v
Modern title: Form of profession
Date: [12th century]
Language: Latin
(vii)     f.5r-5v
Modern title: Agreements for suffrages
Date: [late 11th - early 12th century]
Language: Latin
(viii)     f.5v
Modern title: Liturgical ordinance
Date: [early 12th century]
Language: Latin
SECTION: (B)    
(1)     f.6r-11v
Modern title: Kalendar
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Latin
(2)     f.12r-39v
Original title: Martyrologium
Author: Usuard, -876 or 877
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Latin

Notes of deaths added in margins in 11th and 12th centuries

Edited: Usuard 1965
(3)     f.39v-45r
Modern title: Lectionary of chapter gospels
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Latin
(ix)     f.46v
Modern title: Liturgical ordinance
Date: [early 12th century]
Language: Latin

Added later

(4)     f.47r-71v
Modern title: Monastic constitutions
Original title: Consuetudines
Author: Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1005?-1089
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Latin
Edited: Lanfranc 2002
(x)     f.72r
Modern title: Liturgical ordinance
Date: [early 12th century]
Language: Latin

Added later

(xi)     f.74r
Modern title: Omitted part of prologue to Rule of St Benedict
Date: [late 11th / early 12th century]
Language: Latin
(xii)     f.74r
Modern title: Letter to the monks of Durham
Author: William of St Calais, -1096
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Latin
(5)     f.74v-95r
Modern title: Rule of St Benedict
Original title: Regula
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Latin
(xiii)     f.95v
Modern title: Rule of St Benedict (chapter 62)
Date: [late 11th / early 12th century]
Language: Latin

Omitted in the copying of (5)

(xiv)     f.95v-96r
Modern title: Two letters of Anselm
Date: [early 12th century]
Language: Latin
(xv)     f.96r
Modern title: On types of monks
Date: [early 12th century]
Language: Latin
(xvi)     f.96r
Modern title: Letter by Bernard of Clairvaux
Date: [approximately 1143]
Language: Latin
(xvii)     f.96v
Modern title: Maundy ordinance
Date: [between 1154 and 1159]
Language: Latin
(6)     f.98v-123v
Modern title: Rule of St Benedict
Original title: Regula
Date: [before 1096]
Language: Old English
(xviii)     f.124r
Modern title: Letter from P of Cluny to L of Nottingham
Date: [mid 12th century]
Language: Latin
(xix)     f.124r-124v
Modern title: Liturgical ordinances
Date: [mid 12th century]
Language: Latin
(xx)     f.126r-126v
Modern title: Liturgical ordinances
Date: [late 11th / early 12th century]
Language: Latin
(xxi)     f.127r
Modern title: Miscellanea
Date: [late 11th / early 12th century]
Language: Latin

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 University Library.

Digitised material for Durham Cathedral Library MS B.IV.24 The Durham Cantor's Book
Digitised as part of the Durham Priory Library Recreated project
https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1mcr56n0965.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]).

Gneuss, Helmut and Lapidge, Michael, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: a bibliographical handlist of manuscripts and manuscript fragments written or owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014)

Gullick, Michael, "The scribes of the Durham Cantor's Book (Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS B.IV.24) and the Durham Martyrology Scribe", in Rollason, David, Harvey, Margaret and Prestwich, Michael, ed., Anglo-Norman Durham 1093-1193 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1994), 93-109

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

Keefer, S. L., Rollason, D. W., Doane, A. N., Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in microfiche facsimile. 14 Manuscripts of Durham, Ripon, and York (Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS, 2007)

Lanfranc, The monastic constitutions of Lanfranc   OCLC citation, ed. D. Knowles and C.N.L. Brooke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Mynors, R., 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)

Usuard, Le martyrologe d'Usuard: texte et commentaire   OCLC citation, ed. Jacques Dubois (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1965)

Index terms