Stowe manuscripts

The Stowe manuscripts are a collection of about 2,000 Irish, Anglo-Saxon and later medieval manuscripts, nearly all now in the British Library. The manuscripts date from 1154 to the end of the 14th century.

The manuscripts were originally collected by The 1st Marquess of Buckingham (1753 - 1813) and his son, The 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776 - 1839), at Stowe House near Buckingham. The manuscripts were then sold to The 4th Earl of Ashburnham in 1849, having been prepared for sale by auction, following the bankruptcy of The 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. The printed books were auctioned over two days in 1849. The manuscripts were subsequently purchased by Parliament for the British Museum (since 1973 moved to the British Library) under Edward Augustus Bond in 1883 from The 5th Earl of Ashburnham.

Several Ireland-related manuscripts from the collection were allocated to the Royal Irish Academy (R.I.A.) in Dublin, with the cumdach or book-shrine of the Stowe Missal subsequently being transferred to the National Museum of Ireland. Amongst the manuscripts transferred by the British Government to the R.I.A. in 1883 was 'Manuscript C' of The Annals of the Four Masters, one of the four original manuscript volumes of that famous history of Ireland.^[1]

The 1085 Stowe manuscripts at the British Library continue to be catalogued as a separate, closed, collection.

Some manuscripts

All are illuminated, and are now in the British Library, unless stated:

• Stowe Missal - Irish c. 750, now RIA
• Stowe 2 (Psalter) - late Anglo-Saxon
• Stowe Breviary - English, early 14th century
• Stowe 54 (Histoire ancienne), early 15th century ancient history

Images

Page from Stowe MS 944, fol. 6, depicting King Cnut and Emma of Normandy

References

• Stowe manuscripts, British Library

External links

• Catalogue of the Stowe manuscripts in the British museum (1895) on Internet Archive
• British Library record for "Stowe 57" - General information as well as highly legible photographs.

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