Sir Robert Cotton Research Articles

Shorter notice. Sir Robert Cotton as Collector. Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy. CJ Wright [ed.

Shorter notice. Sir Robert Cotton as Collector. Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy. CJ Wright [ed.] Get access M Hunter M Hunter Birkbeck College, London, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 114, Issue 456, April 1999, Pages 437–438, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/114.456.437 Published: 01 April 1999

Shorter notice. Sir Robert Cotton as Collector. Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy. CJ Wright [ed.

Shorter notice. Sir Robert Cotton as Collector. Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy. CJ Wright [ed.

Early Modern

British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533–1707. Edited by Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts The English Renaissance: Identity and Representation in Elizabethan England. By Alistair Fox Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life‐cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. By David Cressy Youth and Authority: Formative Experiences in England 1560–1640. By Paul Griffiths The French Wars of Religion: Selected Documents. Edited and translated by David Potter Dissing Elizabeth: Negative Representations of Gloriana. Edited by Julia M. Walker English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580–1837. By E. A. Wrigley, R. S. Davies, J. E. Oeppen and R. S. Schofield Law‐making and Society in Late Elizabethan England: The Parliament of England, 1584–1601. By David Dean Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of Ragnhild Hatton. Edited by Robert Oresko, G. C. Gibbs and H. M. Scott Spenser and the Discourses of Reformation England. By Richard Mallette Church and Culture in Seventeenth‐century France. By Henry Phillips Liberty before Liberalism. By Quentin Skinner A History of the Modern British Isles 1603–1707: The Double Crown. By David L. Smith Sir Robert Cotton as Collector. Edited by C. J. Wright Soldiers, Writers and Statesmen of the English Revolution. Edited by Ian Gentles, John Morrill and Blair Worden Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration in Gloucestershire, 1640–72. By A. R. Warmington English Counties and Public Building 1650–1830. By Christopher Chalkin From Patriots to Unionists: Dublin Civil Politics and Irish Protestant Patriotism, 1660–1840. By Jacqueline Hill The Siege of Derry in Ulster Protestant Mythology. By Ian McBride Politics in Eighteenth‐century Wales. By Peter D. G. Thomas Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping and Business in the Eighteenth Century. By Elizabeth Kowaleski‐Wallace Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century. By Michèle Cohen A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1700–1918. By Jean Bérenger. Translated by C. A. Simpson Bolingbroke's Political Writings: The Conservative Enlightenment. Edited by Bernard Cottret The Moravian Church in England, 1728–1760. By Colin Podmore A History of the University of Cambridge. Volume III: 1750–1870. By Peter Searby The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley: A Study of his Life and Work from 1733 to 1773. By Robert E. Schofield Redcoats along the Hudson: The Struggle for North America 1754–63. By Noel St John Williams Battle for Empire: The Very First World War 1756–63. By Tom Pocock The Elder Pitt. By Marie Peters Edmund Burke: His Life and Legacy. Edited by Ian Crowe Scandal in the Church: Dr Edward Drax Free, 1764–1843. By R. B. Outhwaite William Pitt and the French Revolution, 1785–1795. By Jennifer Mori

Sir Robert Cotton as a Collector:

Sir Robert Cotton as a Collector:

Sir Robert Cotton as a Collector. Essays on an Early Stuart courtier and his legacy

Sir Robert Cotton as a Collector. Essays on an Early Stuart courtier and his legacy

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Fiscal Crises, Liberty, and Representative Government 1450–1789. The Birth of the Elizabethan Age: England in the 1560s. By Norman Jones Reading Holinshed's Chronicles. By Annabel Patterson The Manuscript Library of sir Robert Cotton (The Panizzi Lectures. 1993). By Colin G. C. Tite Scots and Britons. Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603. The Bishops' Wars: Charles I's Campaigns Against Scotland, 1638–1640. By Mark Charles Fissel John Locke. Resistance, Religion and Responsibility. By John Marshall The Language of Liberty, 1660–1832. Political Discourse and Social Dynamics in the Anglo‐American World. By J.C.D. Clark The Jacobites: Britain and Europe, 1688–1788. By Daniel Szechi Neither Kingdom nor Nation: The Irish Quest for Constitutional Rights, 1698–1800. By Neil Longley York The Birth of Britain: A New Nation 1700–1710. By W.A. Speck ‘Bought and Sold for English Gold’? Explaining the Union of 1707. By Christopher A. Whatley The Irish Constitutional Tradition: Responsible Government and Modern Ireland, 1782–1992. By Alan J Ward The Dundas Despotism. By Michael Fry The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain. By Jonathan Parry Joseph Chamberlain: Entrepreneur in Politics. By Peter T. Marsh The Last of the Whigs. A Political Biography of Lord Hartington, later Eighth Duke of Devonshire (1833–1908). By Patrick Jackson The Lost Prime Minister: A Life of Sir Charles Dilke. By David Nicholls Aspects of Aristocracy: Grandeur and Decline in Modern Britain. By David Cannadine Labour Women. Women in British Working‐Class Politics, 1918–1939. By Pamela M. Graves Reforming the Civil Service. The Fulton Committee on the British Home Civil Service, 1966–1968. By Geoffrey K. Fry

The Cotton Library in the Seventeenth Century and its Manuscript Records of the English Parliament*

Parliamentary HistoryVolume 14, Issue 2 p. 121-138 The Cotton Library in the Seventeenth Century and its Manuscript Records of the English Parliament* COLIN G. C. TITE, COLIN G. C. TITESearch for more papers by this author COLIN G. C. TITE, COLIN G. C. TITESearch for more papers by this author First published: June 1995 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-0206.1995.tb00491.x † *This article does not deal with Sir Robert Cotton's own writings on Parliament, which circulated in a number of copies outside his library. I gratefully acknowledge the advice of Dr Nigel Ramsay and Dr Andrew Thrush, both of whom read a draft of the text of this paper and made valuable comments. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume14, Issue2June 1995Pages 121-138 RelatedInformation

UNRECORDED MIDDLE ENGLISH VERSE IN THE LIBRARY AT HOLKHAM HALL, NORFOLK

i 'Spes mea in deo est'A box on the shelves of the manuscript library at Holkham Hall, labelled 'Covers of Old Law MSS.', contains five vellum wrappers removed from manuscripts. A group of law manuscripts on an adjacent shelf were all rebound in the nineteenth century in identical style, using the same distinctive red cloth as the box containing the wrappers. The five manuscripts are the same size as the wrappers, .and all have pencil numbering at the foot of their first leaf corresponding to numbering on the removed covers. Clearly these are the 'Old Law MSS' from which the wrappers were removed.The five legal manuscripts are Holkham Hall, MS 751, Registrum brevium, with the ownership inscription of Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634); Holkham Hall, MS 75 z, Magna Carta, Statutes and Registrum brevium, with the ownership inscriptions of Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631) and Thomas Pagitt (f 1614); Holkham Hall, MS 75 3, an incomplete copy of the Statutes, with a mnemonic of the order of succession of the kings of England on the wrapper; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 30 (olim Holkham Hall, MS 754), Natura brevium, Brevia placita and other texts, with the ownership inscription of Sir Edward Coke; and Holkham Hall, MS 755, Natura brevium and other texts.1 The last of these manuscripts, Holkham Hall, MS 755, is a legal miscellany, on paper, including excerpts from the Statutes, a copy of the Natura brevium, forms of pleading, a Book of Tenures, a formulary of letters of attorney and other documents, a Register of Writs and other texts, in Latin and law French, with excerpts from the Statutes for 24 Henry VI in Middle English. The manuscript appears on palaeographical grounds to date from the last quarter of the fifteenth century.2The Book of Tenures is headed 'Tenures q#od Skarnyng', with a colophon 'Expliciunt Tenum quod R. S. Amen dico.' The Natura brevium is headed 'Natura Breuwm quod Skarnyng', and a set of legal notes in law French at the end of the manuscript has the colophon 'Quod Skarnyng'. The headings and colophons naming the scribe are in the same hand as copied the whole manuscript and the Middle English verse on the now detached wrapper. The wrapper also has the ownership inscription of Richard Skarnyng, in an engrossed version of his normal script, 'Iste liber constat Ricardo Skarnyng Amen', and the same individual is mentioned in a pen-trial opposite the opening of the copy of the Natura brevium·. 'Thomas Norris queritwr versus Kicardum Scarnyng in ploiito debiti.'The name Skarnyng in the heading of the Natura brevium and in the colophon to the set of legal notes in law French at the end of the manuscript were later crossed through and 'Straunge' written beneath in the same hand as appears elsewhere in the manuscript, including another ownership inscription on the page opposite the opening of the Natura brevium: 'Cest liuer apparteyn all Antony Straunge'. Other names appearing in pen-trials in the manuscript and on the now detached wrapper include Thomas Nether and Thomas Scarnyng, whose ownership inscription on the wrapper in an informal hand entirely unlike that of the text of the manuscript also appears later: 'Iste liber constat Thomas Scarnyng.'None of these names is specifically identifiable, but is seems reasonable to conclude that the family of Seaming originated in the village of that name a few miles west of East Dereham. To judge from the contents of the manuscript and its informal style and layout, it would seem likely that it was copied by Richard Scarnyng for his own use, possibly indicating that he was a lawyer or a local official with some knowledge of the law. Unless Richard Scarnyng had migrated to a centre such as Norwich, it seems probably that the manuscript was copied and remained in the vicinity of Seaming, before passing by the first half of the seventeenth century into the hands of Chief Justice Coke, who lived in the neighbouring village of Godwick.3Sixteen lines of macaronic Middle English and Latin verse were copied inside the now detached vellum wrapper in the same hand as that of the rest of the manuscript. …

Sir Robert Cotton as Collector of Manuscripts and the Question of Dismemberment: British Library MSS Royal 13 D. I and Cotton Otho D. VIII.

Sir Robert Cotton as Collector of Manuscripts and the Question of Dismemberment: British Library MSS Royal 13 D. I and Cotton Otho D. VIII.

A ‘Loan’ of Printed Books From Sir Robert Cotton to John Selden

A ‘Loan’ of Printed Books From Sir Robert Cotton to John Selden

Antiquarianism and the Seigneurial Reaction: Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Cotton and their Tenants

Antiquarianism and the Seigneurial Reaction: Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Cotton and their Tenants

Treasures of the British Library

In this highly-illustrated account, Nicolas Barker reveals the history of the British Library's treasure house of books and manuscripts. The Library's holdings cover collections spanning almost three millennia, from the establishment of the British Museum, which brought together the libraries of Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Robert Cotton and Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, to the foundation of the British Library in 1973 and to some outstanding acquisitions of the present day.

Foreword

FOREWORD The history of literature is littered with mistakes and oversights— great works lost or forgotten, some to be discovered years, or centuries, after they were written, others lost forever to time and circumstance. The fact is that we do not have all the great writing in our language; we have a smaller percentage of it than we may imagine; and the ideal canon of our literature, the truly Greatest and Most Worthy of All We Have Written, contains texts never yet seen, and more that never will be seen. The fact that we periodically "find" previously unknown greats is one evidence of this. One early American poet, Edward Taylor, was discovered over two hundred years after his death. No one knows how many authors live and die having managed to keep their genius a secret, but the number who almost succeed implies that they may be numerous. A celebrated example of near success is Emily Dickinson, whose desk, after her death, was found to contain several neat little bundles which turned out to be almost two thousand poems of great power and, once they were published, influence. Writings of real antiquity, of course, have had an enormously poor chance of survival. If they weren't lost to use in the kitchen or jakes, if they weren't destroyed by monks during some era of bookburning enthusiasm, if they survived the attentions of careless antiquarians, they had yet to survive the more certain destructions of rodents, insects, damp climates, and fires. Among Old English works, physical survival alone has merited a position in the canon of our literature. Consider the known history of one of the four surviving Old English manuscripts of literary value, the Beowulf manuscript. One of the greatest of the early antiquarians, Sir Robert Cotton, collected it along with hundreds of others (Cotton named his manuscripts according to the classical statue that stood above them in his library, then the shelf and location of the shelf; thus today we still call the Beowulf manuscript "Vitellius A. xv"). According to Richard Altick in The Scholar Adventurers (from which I take other information in this preface), Cotton's residence was considered to be a firetrap, therefore after his death, his entire collection was moved to Ashburnam house, which promptly burned down. The Beowulf manuscript—the only one in the world, uncopied— survived, but its leaves were dried and charred. In 1786, the first known transcript of the manuscript was made by a Danish scholar who later was in the process of printing the first edition of the poem in Copenhagen when English gunners, in a battle against Napoleon, blew up his house and destroyed the edition. Later, in the 1830s, John M. Kemble decided to try to print Beowulf, but in the fifty years since the 4 · The Missouri Review Ashburnam house fire, its leaves had grown so thin and dry that they were crumbling and transparent, making the manuscript very difficult to read. The Danish scholar's transcript, however, had fortunately survived the English gunners, and thus, by the skin of its teeth, this most important of known Old English poems survived to be published. Whereas today we devote significant resources to the established literary documents in our language, we seem to care relatively less about new work by living authors. It is hard for us even to imagine that ifJohn Keats had received two packages in the mail one day, one containing new poems by Shelley and the other being "Vitellius A. xv," complete with gloss and introduction, John Keats might well have put aside Beowulf for later perusal and read his contemporary first. A measure of the success of contemporary scholarship and the changed attitude in the marketplace is that there are probably not two poets in the Englishspeaking world today who would regard receiving Beowulfin the mail as anything but an extraordinary event, not even comparable to receiving the latest collection of poems from some highly admired contemporary. Some believe that there is no relative devaluation of contemporary work, and that this is evidenced by the fact that more books are being published than ever before. One cannot possibly read them all as it is...

Sir Robert Cotton 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England by Kevin Sharpe

"Sir Robert Cotton 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England by Kevin Sharpe." Canadian Journal of History, 17(2), pp. 332–333

Sir Edward Dering's Milton

Between May 1630, when he posted an original of the Magna Carta to Sir Robert Cotton (I have closed King John in a box and sent him away),1 and February 1642, when he lost his seat in the Long Parliament and thereafter his fortune by committing to print his own book of speeches, Sir Edward Dering, Bart., 15991644, amassed a great collection of books, manuscripts, and legal documents. This collection has been dispersed.2 A hint of its original value remains in the Folger Shakespeare Library, MS V.b. 297, a catalog of Dering's books compiled circa 1635-1642, which consists of eighteen leaves, not in order, listing hundreds of volumes, most of them on religious subjects. This manuscript, autograph in part, gives the date, place of publication, cost, location by classis and volume number, and, usually, the size of each volume. Dering and his scribe were conservative catalogers, generally including only information that could be obtained by perusing the item. I should like to concentrate on an exception to this policy. On folio 17v, call number 49.21 (i.e., vol. 21 in classis 49) refers to fourteen quarto pamphlets bound together, for which Dering paid seven shillings. The first item in this volume, whose contents Dering's scribe has entered in the catalog, is De emendatione Ecclesiae [libellus], by Petrus de Aliaco, Cardinaliso Cameracensis [Valentin Curio, Basle, 1525], undated in the catalog. The last title in the volume, an edition of Abraham Ortell's Deorum dearumque capita e veteribus numismatibus, dated Antwerp, 1612, is the only nontheological item, except insofar as it provides accounts of divinities represented on coins. Twelve of the pamphlets deal with current affairs in the church of Archbishop Laud, whom Dering vigorously opposed. The place and date of publication of eleven of these, including Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnnuus, are correctly given as London, 1641. The remaining item, the seventh pamphlet in the volume, is identified as Milton: the plott discovered. London 1640. Mrs. Laetitia Yeandle, Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger, first showed me this item; and the Columbia edition of works, which lists The Plot Discovered among the prose works erroneously ascribed to Milton, led me to a letter in the London TLS, dated October 24, 1936, and headed Milton's Library.3 In this letter, Mr. Kenneth W. Cameron announced his discovery of eleven tracts bound in one volume in the rare book room of the General Theological Seminary, Chelsea Square, New York City. Claiming to have found an unrecorded Milton

Sir Robert Cotton, 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. Kevin Sharpe

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsSir Robert Cotton, 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. Kevin Sharpe Mark A. KishlanskyMark A. Kishlansky Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 53, Number 4Dec., 1981 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/242384 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1981 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Sir Robert Cotton 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. By Kevin Sharpe. Oxford University Press, 1980. Pp. 293. £12.50.

Sir Robert Cotton 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. By Kevin Sharpe. Oxford University Press, 1980. Pp. 293. £12.50.

Kevin Sharpe. <italic>Sir Robert Cotton, 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England</italic>. (Oxford Historical Monographs.) New York: Oxford University Press. 1979. Pp. xiv, 293. $36.00

Journal Article Kevin Sharpe. Sir Robert Cotton, 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. (Oxford Historical Monographs.) New York: Oxford University Press. 1979. Pp. xiv, 293. $36.00 Get access Sharpe Kevin. Sir Robert Cotton, 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England. (Oxford Historical Monographs.) New York: Oxford University Press. 1979. Pp. xiv, 293. $36.00. F. J. Levy F. J. Levy University of Washington Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 86, Issue 1, February 1981, Page 127, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/86.1.127 Published: 01 February 1981

Kevin Sharpe. Sir Robert Cotton, 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern History England

Kevin Sharpe. Sir Robert Cotton, 1586-1631: History and Politics in Early Modern History England

Reviews Of Books

Journal Article Reviews Of Books Get access Sir Robert Cotton, 1586‐1631. History and Politics in Early Modern England. By KEVIN SHARPE (Oxford: University Press 1979. £12.50). H. C. TOMLINSON H. C. TOMLINSON Wellington CollegeBerkshire Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume XCVI, Issue CCCLXXIX, April 1981, Pages 394–398, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/XCVI.CCCLXXIX.394 Published: 01 April 1981