Collection of manuscripts held by the British Library
The Lindisfarne Gospels are but one of the treasures collected by Sir Robert Cotton. They are now in the British Library.
The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts that came into the hands of the antiquarian and bibliophile Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631). The collection of books and materials Sir Robert held was one of the three "foundation collections" of the British Museum in 1753. It is now one of the major collections of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library.[1] Cotton was of a Shropshire family[2] who originated near Wem[3] and were based in Alkington[4] and employed by the Geneva Bible publisher, statesman and polymath Sir Rowland Hill in the mid 16th century.[5]
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, many priceless and ancient manuscripts that had belonged to the monastic libraries began to be disseminated among various owners, many of whom were unaware of the cultural value of the manuscripts. Cotton's skill lay in finding, purchasing and preserving these ancient documents. The leading scholars of the era, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, and James Ussher, came to use Sir Robert's library. Richard James acted as his librarian.[6] The library is of special importance for having preserved the only copy of several works, including Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.[1]
In 1731 the collection was badly damaged by a fire in which 13 manuscripts were completely destroyed, and some 200 seriously damaged. The most important Anglo-Saxon manuscripts had already been copied; the original text of The Battle of Maldon was completely burned.
^ ab"Cotton Manuscripts". British Library. Archived from the original on 12 September 2016. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
^"COTTON, Rowland (1581-1634), of Crooked Lane, London; later of Alkington Hall, Whitchurch and Bellaport Hall, Norton-in-Hales, Salop | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
^"The (Almost) Complete Cotton Family Tree". Combermere Abbey. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
^"COTTON, Rowland (1581-1634), of Crooked Lane, London; later of Alkington Hall, Whitchurch and Bellaport Hall, Norton-in-Hales, Salop | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
^nortoninhales (2 June 2017). "History of Norton Parish". nortoninhales. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
^Aikin, John (1812). The Lives of John Selden, Esq., and Archbishop Usher. London: Mathews and Leigh. pp. 375.
The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts that came into the hands of the antiquarian and bibliophile Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631)...
of some of the manuscripts from the Cottonlibrary that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged...
manuscript. The manuscript is located within the British Library with the rest of the Cotton collection. The current codex is a composite of at least...
Act 1753 also incorporated the Cottonlibrary and the Harleian library. These were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library, assembled by various British monarchs...
The Pearl Manuscript (British Library MS Cotton Nero A X/2), also known as the Gawain manuscript, is an illuminated manuscript produced somewhere in northern...
the British Library, known as Cotton MS. Augustus II.106 and Cotton Charter XIII.31A, were acquired by the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton in the 17th century...
Together with the collections of Sir Robert Cotton (the Cottonlibrary) and Hans Sloane (the Sloane library) it formed the basis of the British Museum's...
A cotton gin — meaning "cotton engine" — is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity...
designation is "British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.XV" because it was one of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton's holdings in the Cottonlibrary in the middle of the...
The Cotton Genesis (London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B VI) is a 4th- or 5th-century Greek Illuminated manuscript copy of the Book of Genesis. It...
Act 1753 also incorporated the Cottonlibrary and the Harleian library. These were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library, assembled by various British monarchs...
the repository for the Cottonlibrary of historic legal and constitutional manuscripts originally assembled by Sir Robert Cotton), to which was later added...
antiquary and creator of the CottonLibrary Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Combermere (c. 1635–1712), MP for Cheshire Robert Cotton (MP) (1644–1717), English...
complete edition edited by Morton in 1853 was based on the British Library manuscript Cotton Nero A.xiv. Recent editors have favoured Corpus Christi College...
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British LibraryCotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720...
glossaries all found in the manuscript Cotton Cleopatra A.iii (once held in the Cottonlibrary, now held in the British Library). The glossaries constitute important...
that was among the manuscripts in the Cottonlibrary (MS. Tiberius B.V., fol. 56v), now in the British Library. It is not intended purely as an illustration...
best-known of those is a richly illuminated manuscript in the British Library, Cotton MS Claudius B.iv (from which the illustrations on this page are taken)...
movement, which advocated library user education. One of the early leaders was John Cotton Dana. The basic form of library instruction is sometimes known...
stanzas. The sole manuscript recording the poem, Cotton Otho B.x, was destroyed in the fire at the Cottonlibrary of 1731, and all editions of the poems are...
English texts. Before the Gawain manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile in Yorkshire. Little is known about its...
The Cotton Free Library is the public library serving the town of Weybridge, Vermont. It is located on Quaker Village Road, in a small architecturally...
"King Cotton" is a slogan that summarized the strategy used before the American Civil War (of 1861–1865) by secessionists in the southern states (the future...
The Tiberius Psalter (British LibraryCotton MS. Tiberius C.vi) is one of at least four surviving Gallican psalters produced at New Minster, Winchester...
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