The Extent of Fire Damage to Middle English Prose in the Cotton Library
The library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1570/1-1631) has been described as the most impor- tant collection of manuscripts assembled by a single person in Britain. The collection was partly destroyed in a library fire in 1731. While the Cotton collection has been celebrated (and the damage it suffere...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) |
| Repositorio: | RIULL. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:riull.ull.es:915/34487 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/34487 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Middle English Index of Middle English Prose Manuscript Studies Cotton library bibliography |
| Sumario: | The library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1570/1-1631) has been described as the most impor- tant collection of manuscripts assembled by a single person in Britain. The collection was partly destroyed in a library fire in 1731. While the Cotton collection has been celebrated (and the damage it suffered lamented) for its Old English manuscripts, the extent of fire damage to Middle English prose within the collection has not been systematically explored. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a comprehensive comparison of surviv- ing manuscripts which are now part of the Cotton collection in the British Library with surviving pre- and post-fire catalogues, book lists and reports of Cotton’s manuscripts. The investigation was undertaken during the compilation of an Index of Middle English Prose (IMEP) volume dedicated to the Cotton collection. |
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