- Page from Stowe MS 944, fol. 6, depicting King Cnut and Emma of Normandy
The Stowe manuscripts are a collection of about two thousand 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 antiquary and palaeographer Thomas Astle left his collection of manuscripts to the Duke when he died in 1803. The Duke subsequently purchased a collection of Irish manuscripts that had been acquired by Charles O'Conor. [1]
The entire collection was purchased by 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. In July 1883 the 5th Earl of Ashburnham sold the Stowe manuscript collection to the British government for £45,000. The English material was placed in the British Museum and the Irish manuscripts went, initially on loan, to the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. [2]
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. [3]
The 1085 Stowe manuscripts at the British Library continue to be catalogued as a separate, closed, collection.
All are illuminated, and are now in the British Library, unless stated:
Lebor na hUidre or the Book of the Dun Cow is an Irish vellum manuscript dating to the 12th century. It is the oldest extant manuscript in Irish. It is held in the Royal Irish Academy and is badly damaged: only 67 leaves remain and many of the texts are incomplete. It is named after an anachronistic legend that it was made from the hide of a dun cow by Saint Ciarán of Clonmacnoise.
A cumdach or book shrine is an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics. They are typically later than the book they contain, often by several centuries. In most surviving examples the book comes from the peak age of Irish monasticism before 800, and the extant cumdachs date from after 1000, although it is clear the form dates from considerably earlier. The majority are of Irish origin, with most surviving examples now in the National Museum of Ireland (NMI).
Stowe House is a grade I listed country house in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of the private Stowe School and is owned by the Stowe House Preservation Trust which, by 2013, had spent more than £25m on restoration. Stowe House is regularly open to the public.
The term "Celtic Rite" is applied to the various liturgical rites used in Celtic Christianity in Britain, Ireland and Brittany and the monasteries founded by St. Columbanus and Saint Catald in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy during the early middle ages. The term is not meant to imply homogeneity; instead it is used to describe a diverse range of liturgical practices united by lineage and geography.
The Stowe Missal, which is, strictly speaking, a sacramentary rather than a missal, is a small Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Old Irish in the late eighth or early ninth century, probably after 792. In the mid-11th century it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery in County Tipperary, Ireland. Between 1026 and 1033 the manuscript was encased within a protective cumdach, which was refurbished and embellished a number of times in the late medieval period, in particular before 1381, the year of death of Pilib O'Ceinneidigh, Lord of Ormond, who then had possession of the shrine.
The Stowe Psalter is a psalter from the "2nd or 3rd quarter of the 11th century", at the end of Anglo-Saxon art. The text includes the Gallican version of the Psalms, followed by the Canticles with an interlinear Old English gloss.
Charles O'Conor was an Irish priest and historical author. He was chaplain and librarian to the Marchioness of Buckingham and catalogued many manuscripts, including the famous Stowe Missal, now in the Royal Irish Academy. His grandfather was the historian Charles O'Connor, his brother the historian Matthew O'Conor.
Charles O'Conor,, also known as Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, was a member of the Gaelic nobility of Ireland and antiquarian who was enormously influential as a protagonist for the preservation of Irish culture and Irish mythology during the 18th-century. He combined an encyclopaedic knowledge of Irish manuscripts and Gaelic culture in demolishing many specious theories and suppositions concerning Irish history.
The British Library is a research library in London that is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the two largest libraries in the world, along with the Library of Congress. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Leabhar Ua Maine is an Irish genealogical compilation, created c. 1392–94.
The Irish Astronomical Tract is Irish text created in the first half of the 14th century. It was written in Early Modern Irish, and is based on a Latin translation of an Arabic work De Scientia Motus Orbis by Masha'allah ibn Atharī. Of its 40 chapters, 27 correspond to chapters in Masha'allah and the rest to various classical authors.
The Liber Flavus Fergusiorum is a medieval Irish text authored by the Ó Fearghuis, an Irish medical family of Connacht who were hereditary physicians to the Irish nobility.
The Bruges Garter Book is a 15th-century Anglo-Norman illuminated manuscript containing portraits of the founder knights of the Order of the Garter. It was created sometime between about 1430 to 1440, probably in London, to the order of William Bruges, Garter King of Arms, and constitutes the first armorial covering members of the Order. It has been held since 1883 by the British Library in London under catalogue reference Stowe MS 594, indicating its former existence within the Library of the Dukes of Buckingham at Stowe House.
The Petit Livre d'Amour is a collection of love poems, written in c. 1500 by Pierre Sala (1457–1529), an antiquary and valet de chambre of Louis XII
Lackeen Castle, a tower house within a bawn built in the 12th century as a Kennedy stronghold. The castle is a national monument in state ownership and is located in the townland of Abbeville near to Lorrha in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is occasionally open to the public. Close by, stands Lackeen House dating from around 1730.
Lebor Bretnach, formerly spelled Leabhar Breathnach and sometimes known as the Irish Nennius, is an 11th-century historical work in Gaelic, largely consisting of a translation of the Historia Brittonum. It may have originated in Scotland, although it has traditionally been attributed to the Irish poet Gilla Cóemáin.
Bertram Ashburnham, 4th Earl of Ashburnham was a British peer. He was the fourth son of George Ashburnham, 3rd Earl of Ashburnham. As the eldest son still living when his father died in 1830, he succeeded as Earl of Ashburnham, Viscount St. Asaph and Baron of Ashburnham.
The Book of Fenagh is a manuscript of prose and poetry written in Classical Irish by Muirgheas mac Pháidín Ó Maolconaire in the monastery at Fenagh, West Breifne. It was commissioned by Tadhg Ó Rodaighe, the coarb of the monastery, and is believed to derive from the "old Book of Caillín", a lost work about Caillín, founder of the monastery. Ó Maolconaire began work about 1516.
Sir George Frederic Warner, FBA, FSA was an English archivist; he was Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian at the British Museum from 1904 to 1911.