Manuscripts

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B 512 Unit: section I, (a) ff. 101-122, (b) ff. 1-36, (c) ff. 45-52

  • Irish
  • s. xv/xvi
  • Irish manuscripts
  • vellum
Identifiers
Location
Type
manuscript miscellanies Irish religious literature
Provenance and related aspects
Language
Irish
Date
s. xv/xvi
15th or 16th century.
Origin, provenance
Origin: Ireland
Ireland
No short description available

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County Meath
County Meath/An Mhí
No short description available

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Baile na Cuilendtrach [unidentified]Baile na Cuilendtrach ... unidentified
Entry reserved for but not yet available from the subject index.

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In the upper margin of f. 33r, the main hand writes a note which identifies Baile na Cuilendtrach as the place of writing: A mBaili naCuilendt[ra]ch dam ag sc[ri]b na beth[ad]sa Naem Brigte ⁊ ara faesam dom anmain ⁊ dom churp ⁊ corom soera ar duailchib ⁊ duinebad (transcription by Ó Cuív). While the place cannot be securely identified, Ó Cuív suggests three candidates for identification, all in County Meath: ”two townlands named Cullendragh in Meath, one in the barony of Fore and the other in the barony of Upper Deece; there is also a townland named Cullentry in the barony of Lower Moyfenrath”.
Hands, scribes
Hands indexed:
Main hand

The main scribe, who is not named in the manuscript and was responsible for ff. 5-36, ff. 101-122 and possibly, ff. 45-52 (Ó Cuív).

  1. “hand varies greatly both in quality and in size, with large and small script at times alternating in the one column, citations in Latin being generally in large script” (Ó Cuív: 231).
  2. known for a “distinctive half-uncial d” in the copy of Bethu Brigte, “which probably reflects the influence of an exemplar dating from the ninth century” (Ó Cuív: 231); writes, on f. 33r, that he was in Baile na Cuilendtrach when writing this text.
  3. mentions Book of Dub Dá Leithe as the source for its copy of Baile in Scail.
Anonymous hand (f. 1r) First of three hands responsible for ff. 1-4; wrote text on f. 1r and remains anonymous (Ó Cuív).
Maelechlainn (ff. 1-4) Second of three hands responsible for ff. 1-4; wrote four items and signs as Maelechlainn on f. 2rb (Ó Cuív); identified by R. I. Best (1928) with the Maelechlainn Ua Maoilchonaire whose death is recorded s.a. 1489 (AFM). Maelechlainn Ó Maoil ChonaireÓ Maoil Chonaire (Maelechlainn)
Entry reserved for but not yet available from the subject index.

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Later, anonymous hand 3 (f. 4v) Third of three hands responsible for ff. 1-4; a “later scribe ... [in] a crude hand ... inserted a poem in which a Tadhg Óg Ó Dálaigh lamented a Seón Pluingcéad, possibly either the Seón Pluingett for whom Part IV of this manuscript was written or the son of Crisdóir Pluingcéad of Loughcrew in Meath who is mentioned by another late scribe in a note on f. 36vb which was written in 1572” (Ó Cuív: 230-231).
Later scribes (ff. 30, 36, 52v)

“In spaces left blank by the main scribe on ff. 30, 36 and 52v some short items have been inserted by later scribes” (Ó Cuív). Elsewhere, Ó Cuív attributes the item on f. 36rb.22ff to the “later scribe [singular] who also wrote items on f. 30ra-b”.

Later hand (f. 36v)

On f. 36v, an anonymous late hand responsible for the note on f. 36v, which was written in 1572 and mentions “the son of Crisdóir Pluingcéad of Loughcrew in Meath” (Ó Cuív: 230-231). Together with the entry on f. 4v, the note suggests that “Part I may have been in the possession of members of the Plunkett family in the 16th century” (Ó Cuív). The same hand wrote a number of other items.

Codicological information
Material
vellum
Table of contents
Legend
Texts

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  2. - When a catalogue entry does not exist yet, a desert brown link with a different icon will take you to a page on which relevant information is aggregated, such as relevant publications and other manuscript witnesses if available.
  3. - When a text has been ‘captured’, that is, a catalogue entry exists but is still awaiting publication, the same behaviour applies and a crossed eye icon is added.

The above method of differentiating between links has not been applied yet to texts or citations from texts which are included in the context of other texts, commonly verses.

Locus

While it is not a reality yet, CODECS seeks consistency in formatting references to locations of texts and other items of interest in manuscripts. Our preferences may be best explained with some examples:

  • f. 23ra.34: meaning folio 23 recto, first column, line 34
  • f. 96vb.m: meaning folio 96, verso, second column, middle of the page (s = top, m = middle, i = bottom)
    • Note that marg. = marginalia, while m = middle.
  • p. 67b.23: meaning page 67, second column, line 23
The list below has been collated from the table of contents, if available on this page,Progress in this area is being made piecemeal. Full and partial tables of contents are available for a small number of manuscripts. and incoming annotations for individual texts (again, if available).Whenever catalogue entries about texts are annotated with information about particular manuscript witnesses, these manuscripts can be queried for the texts that are linked to them.

Sources

See also the parent manuscript for further references.

Primary sources This section typically includes references to diplomatic editions, facsimiles and photographic reproductions, notably digital image archives, of at least a major portion of the manuscript. For editions of individual texts, see their separate entries.

[dig. img.] Oxford Digital Library, Early manuscripts at Oxford University, Online: University of Oxford, 2001–present. URL: <http://image.ox.ac.uk>.

Secondary sources (select)

Ó Cuív, Brian, Catalogue of Irish language manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Oxford college libraries. Part 1: Descriptions, Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, DIAS, 2001.
Best, Richard Irvine, “Notes on Rawlinson B. 512”, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 17 (1928): 389–402.
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
June 2013, last updated: December 2023