Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B 502
| Rawlinson B 502 | |
|---|---|
| Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS B 502 | |
| Also known as | The Book of Glendalough, Saltair na Rann by Óengus Céile Dé (pt 2) |
| Type | codex, two miscellanies |
| Date | c. 1100 (pt 1); mid-12th century (pt 2) |
| Place of origin | a Leinster monastery |
| Language(s) | Middle Irish, Latin |
| Scribe(s) | two scribes (pt 1); one scribe (pt 2) |
| Material | vellum |
| Size | 175 folios on vellum and paper, including the binder's leaves |
| Format | double columns |
| Script | Irish minuscule |
| Additions | glosses; additions by Ware |
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B 502 is a medieval Irish manuscript which presently resides in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It ranks as one of the three major surviving Irish manuscripts to have been produced in pre-Norman Ireland, the two other works being the Lebor na hUidre and the Book of Leinster. Some scholars have also called it the Book of Glendalough, in Irish Lebar Glinne Dá Locha, after several allusions in medieval and early modern sources to a manuscript of that name. However, there is currently no agreement as to whether Rawlinson B 502, more precisely its second part, is to be identified as the manuscript referred to by that title.
It was described by Brian Ó Cuív as one of the "most important and most beautiful ... undoubtedly the most magnificent" of the surviving medieval Irish manuscripts.Pádraig Ó Riain states ".. a rich, as yet largely unworked, source of information on the concerns of the community at Glendalough in or about the year 1131, and a magnificent witness, as yet barely interrogated, to the high standard of scholarship attained by this monastic centre."
The manuscript as it exists today consists of two vellum codices which were originally separate works but were bound together sometime before 1648. This was done at the request of their new owner, Irish antiquarian Sir James Ware (d. 1666), who thanks to Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (d. 1671) had been able to assemble a fine collection of Irish manuscripts. Several leaves of paper with a (mainly) Latin commentary by Ware on aspects of Irish history (fos. 13–18) were inserted between the two manuscripts, possibly to preserve the appearance of two distinct works. Further paper folios were added at the end of the second manuscript (fos. 90–103), containing notes and transcripts of documents, part of which was written in Latin.
The first manuscript, which covers folios 1-12v (six bifolia), was compiled and written in the late 11th century or possibly at the beginning of the 12th. The fine minuscule script suggests the work of two professional scribes, and glosses were added by later hands. One of these glossators has been identified as the scribe "H" who was also responsible for adding glosses to the Lebor na hUidre. Like the latter work, this part of Rawlinson B 502 may therefore have been a product of the monastic scriptorium of Clonmacnoise, Co. Offaly.
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