DCL MS. C.IV.15Annals of Metz; Regino of Prüm, Chronicon
Held by: Durham Cathedral Library: Durham Cathedral Manuscripts

Two German chronicles

Digitised: https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1m6969z077b.html

Physical description of manuscript
Support

Parchment

Extent: ii+70+i f.
Size: 270 mm x 160 mm

Foliation
Secundo folio: manifestat minas
Collation

I-VIII8, IX6 (=8 with 7-8 (blanks) cancelled).

Layout

Two columns, 44 lines

Script

Written in Caroline minuscule by three scribes.

Corrections and annotation

Water damage to upper and outer margins; fire damage to bottom of leaves at spine. The manuscript page size has been heavily cut down, perhaps to remove signs of damage.

Binding

Standard Tuckett binding, mid 19th century full brown calf over thick wooden boards (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century). Tiny strips of 13th century parchment (evidently recycled in an earlier binding) are bound in between f.70 and the endleaf.

Manuscript history
Creation

Written in Northern Germany or the Low Countries, early 12th century.

Provenance

Inscriptions: f.2r, “Cronica pipini”, 14th/15th century; “liber ... Cuthberti de dunelm” (cropped and faded), 14th century; pressmark: “1.7 E (?)”, 15th century (top left).

Manuscript contents
(a)     f.2r-28v
Modern title: Annales Mettenses priores (AD 688-831)
Incipit: Anno ab incarnatione domini nostri iesu Christi dclxxxviii.
Explicit: predictam iudith imperatricem recepit, atque eam pristine honori restituit
Language: Latin
Edited: Annales Mettenses, 1-98
(b)     f.29-70
Original title: Chronicon
Author: Regino, Abbot of Prüm, 840-915
Incipit: Anno imperii octauiani cesaris xlii iesus christus filius dei natus est
Explicit: quibus successerunt in pontificali cathedra otbertus in strazburgiensi ciuitate et druo in tullensi
Language: Latin

Edited: Reginonis Abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon, 2-153

Microfilm
Microfilmed in 1985/86 by the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Copies held by them and Durham University Library.

Digitised material for Durham Cathedral Library MS. C.IV.15 - Frankish-German chronicles
Digitised in December 2016 as part of the Durham Priory Library Recreated project. For roughly the first 18 rectos, part of some of the capital letters cannot be seen in the image because of the binding, although some of them are visible on the over-lap on the preceding verso image. There are four small fragments bound into the back of the volume, three of which may be upside down (the image is correct). These have been shot in a single image and, although none of them are numbered, the image has been foliated as f.72 r and v (this can be removed in Photoshop if necessary). The two images have been left the same size as all the others, the additional black space could be cropped out but the Digitisation Assistant decided to leave it in as it more clearly shows the fragments in proportion, indicating how small they are.
https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t1m6969z077b.html
Bibliography

Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.   OCLC citation, Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).

Annales Mettenses Priores   OCLC citation, ed. B. de Simson, MGH Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum 10 (Hannover and Leipzig, 1905)

Mynors, R.A.B., Durham Cathedral manuscripts to the end of the twelfth century. Ten plates in colour and forty-seven in monochrome. With an introduction [including a list of all known Durham manuscripts before 1200]   OCLC citation, (Durham: 1939)

Reginonis Abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon: cum continuatione Treverensi   OCLC citation, ed. F. Kurze, MGH Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum ad usum scholarum 50 (Hannover, 1890)

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