Our best source for what was in the Cotton collection before the fire is the printed catalogue by Reverend Thomas Smith, who was a librarian working for Cotton’s grandson, Sir John Cotton. The catalogue was published in 1696. It is not the only pre-fire source for the collection, but it is the only complete one. While Sir Robert and his librarians did leave behind some records, none of these cover the entire library. Smith’s catalogue serves as an important document of what was in the collection before the fire. Unfortunately, it also contains some omissions which make you curious and sceptical. In fact, when it comes to English medieval literature, he completely skips two of the most celebrated medieval English works in the collection.
Smith’s description of Cotton Vitellius A XV - also known as the Nowell Codex, since before Cotton it was owned by his antiquary colleague Laurence Nowell (1530-1570) - reads:
4. Dialogus inter Saturnum & Solomonem, Saxonice
5. Translatio epistolarum Alexandri ad Aristotelem, cum picturis de monstrosis animalibus Indiæ, Saxonice.
6. Fragmentum de Juditha & Holopherne, Saxonice.
Præmittur annotatio brevis de expugnatione Caleti per R. Edwardum.
[4. Dialogue between Saturn and Solomon, in Saxon
5. Translation of Alexander’s letter to Aristotle, with pictures of the monstrous animals of India, in Saxon
6. A fragment of Judith and Holophernes, in Saxon
A brief annotation of the capture of Calais by King Edward is prefaced.]
As those who are familiar with Old English literature will no doubt notice, there is one more text between item 5, Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle and, item 6, the Old English poem we now know as Judit - a story of a heroic Geat called Beowulf who saves Danes from a monster called Grendel!
Smith’s description of Cotton Nero A X, likewise seems to skip the work that it is now famous for, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
3. Poema in lingua veteri Anglicana, in quo sub insomnii figmento, ad religionem, pietatem, & vitam probam hortatur Auctor; interspersis quibusdam historicis, & picturis, majoris illustrationis gratia, subinde additis.
[3. A composition in old English language (= Middle English), in which under the imagination of a dream, the Author urges towards religion, piety and good life; interspersed from time to time with some pictures added for greater clarity.]
What is going on in here? Why does Smith ignore these two works, which are now considered so important? A possible reason is that he just wasn’t so interested in texts like them. We get an idea of how Smith himself viewed the collection from his six-fold division.
- Manuscripts written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue
- Cartularies of monasteries
- Lives and passions of saints and martyrs
- Genealogical tables
- Histories, annals and chronicles
- Original records of the kingdom
According to Smith these six categories cover most of the manuscripts in the library, and “of the remainder I have only a few words to add, as they are a mixed lot on various subjects” (Smith 1696 [1984], p. 57).
He has this to say.
“There is entertainment too for the frivolous with time to spare, ready to waste a few hours reading the dreams of madmen whose wanton minds composed love stories or who babbled about unknown events due to occur in future ages, about the overthrow of empires, changes in royal families, wars, pestilence, floods and the end of the world. [...] There is such abundance of visions and prophecies of this sort in the library that I cannot tell if one is more inclined to burst out laughing or to grieve in pity or to blaze in anger, wondering how lies so dense could be thrust on the credulous populace or how the makers and sellers of trash could sink to such folly and shame” (Smith 1696 [1984], p. 58).
It is quite possible that much of the output of Gawain poet falls under “dreams of madmen who composed love stories” or “visions and prophecies”, which Smith did not consider worth much of his time.
There is, however, an even earlier source, which does seem to note Sir Gawain. The Arthurian poem is quite possibly mentioned in BL Harley 6018, which is an incomplete handwritten catalogue from the days of Sir Robert himself, but the reference is only “gesta arthurii regis et aliorum versu anglico” [Deeds of King Arthur and others in English verse], which would give very little indication of how much it stands out from other Arthurian literature (cf. Tite 2003, 131)
Smith’s omission of Beowulf is perhaps more surprising than that of Sir Gawain, since he does list manuscripts written in Anglo-Saxon tongue as number one in his list and speaks highly of Cotton’s role in the rescue of Old English manuscripts from reformation (see previous blog post). Notwithstanding, Smith is usually not listed among the pioneers of Old English scholarship in the seventeenth century but was rather just a clergyman competent in Latin. Perhaps he simply found it hard to read Beowulf and understand what was going on? It is written in a more sophisticated and harder to read, poetic language, than most other Old English works. Morever, since Judit is on a biblical topic, the story would have been more familiar to him. Furthermore, Beowulf is not illustrated like Alexander’s letter to Aristotle or Wonders of the East (which he also skips) and is rather plain looking. After all, at the time, it was not considered the canonised masterpiece it is today, so there was no particular reason for him to pay attention to Beowulf.
We can’t be sure, which, if any, of these reasons caused Smith to ignore Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Nonetheless, there are some interesting insights here on how perception of works changes. What Smith considered most important was not necessarily the same as what modern scholarship considers important. It is also interesting to note how perceptions and labels change. Smith, Cotton and their contemporaries, were accustomed to referring to Middle English as “old English” and they called Old English “saxon”. Sadly, it also leads us to the conclusion that, if either of these manuscripts had completely perished in the fire, we would have very little or no clue these texts ever existed!
Sources:
Smith, Thomas. 1696 [1984]. Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library (Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Cottonianae). Reprinted from Sir Robert Harley’s copy, annotated by Humfrey Wanley, together with documents relating to the fire of 1731. Ed. C. G. C. Tite. Suffolk, 1696[1984].
Tite, Colin G. C. 2003. The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use. London: British Library.