Title

Silense Glosses

Anonimous

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Inscriptions / Marks

The manuscript bears, on the front flyleaf, a purchase note reading: “Purchased of B. Quaritch, 15 June 1878.” Furthermore, on folio 2r, the location of the manuscript within the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos is recorded as Caja 7.

Object history

The origin of the library of the monastery of San Sebastián de Silos, later called Santo Domingo de Silos, can be found in the reconstruction carried out by the Castilian Count Fernán González in the middle of the 10th century. In 954 the count donated numerous lands and possessions to the monastery, as well as some books relevant to the cult (Senra, 2002). However, the peak of the monastery took place with the abbot Domingo Manso, who had been a monk of San Millán de la Cogolla. In 1041 Fernando I put him in charge of San Sebastián de Silos and under his mandate the monastic complex grew considerably. The library increased thanks to the donations received and the productions of the scriptorium itself (Castro, 2020), reaching its peak at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century (Sánchez Mariana, 1984; Boylan, 1992).

Precisely, the Silenses Glosses were made at the end of the 11th century (Fernández de la Cuesta, 1985). The Silense library suffered great losses throughout its history, such as this copy. Rodrigo Echevarría, the last abbot of the monastery before the exclaustration of 1835, was in charge of jealously preserving the manuscripts that were still treasured in Silos. According to Besse (1897), he was a manof"uncommon prudence and firmness, combined with an extensive knowledge, a great knowledge of the world and noble and distinguished manners". There is no doubt that his decision to protect the manuscripts helped to prevent them from being dispersed at first. However, their fate changed when he was appointed bishop of Segovia in 1857. Echevarría had to leave the monastery, and from then on the codices fell into disrepair.

Anastasio Rodrigo y Yusto, archbishop of Burgos, was impressed when he visited the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos. Its dilapidated state led him to appeal to the former monks of the abbey. It was at that moment that Sebastián Fernández, one of the exclaustrated monks and vicar of the church of San Martín (Madrid), intervened. Although he was responsible for protecting the manuscripts in the capital, he failed to appreciate their true value, which led him to contact a marquis in Madrid "plus ou moins authentique" who worked with Aunt Jesusa, a woman well known for selling antiquities (Besse, 1897; Ruiz and Gonzalez de Linares, 1978). Thus it was that in 1877 she sold 69 manuscripts for 16,000 pesetas, a figure that undoubtedly pleased the parish priest.

The Glosas Silenses were among these codices sold in Madrid. A year later, it appeared in number 19 of the Catalogue de libres rares parmi lesquels on remarque la Bible Mazarine premier livre imprimé par Gutenberg et des manuscrits du XIe au XVIIIe siècle rédigé par M. Bachelin-Deflorenne cited as follows:

PSALMI ET HYMNI et varia officia. Manuscrit sur vélin, in-fol., rel. À ais de bois recouv. de peau de v. (Incomplet du commencement et de la fin).

Manuscript from the 10th to the 11th century, on velvet, of a beautiful wisigothic script in small letters, and majuscules for the titles. It still contains 201 two-column text folios. The psaumes, hymns and songs are accompanied by neume music and should be of great interest to consult, especially as far as the songs are concerned. The volume is enriched with 141 large letters ornées d'une belle exécution (interlacements et treillis), with animal heads for a large number.

It is not surprising that the volume ended up in the hands of Antoine Bachelin-Deflorenne, since he was an antiquarian specializing in the sale of antique and rare books. Although his main store was located in Paris, at 10 Boulevard des Capucines, he had branches in London and Madrid. That is how he learned that Sebastian Fernandez was selling the Silenses manuscripts. The Silensian Glosses were offered for sale in Paris on June 1, 1878 at the Hotel des Commissaires-Priseurs (Paris) and were purchased on the 15th by Bernard Quaritch (Fernández de la Cuesta, 1985) for the British Museum (Whitehill, 1976). In the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1876-1881 they are mentioned as follows:

Homilies for the year and for particular occasions, from St. Augustine and others. Latin. Included also are:

"Epistola beati Clementis episcopi directa sancto Iacobo episcopo Ihrosolime": a passage," cauere et anteuenire - uite premia peruenire," from the first of the "Epistolae decretales" (Migne, Patrologia Grseca, vol. i., coll. 466 D- 468 C). f. 222 b.

"Incipit epistola sancti Saluatoris que directa est a domino et inuenta est super altare sancti Bauduli [Baudelii] in ciuitate Nimaso [Nimes]," beg. "Amen dico uobis, quia misi super populum brucos et locustas." Cf. Baluze, Capitularia regum Francorum, Paris, 1677, vol. ii., col. 1396; and Amaduzzi, Anecdota Litteraria, Rome, 1773, vol. i., p. 61. The genuineness of the letter is attested by "Petrus episcopus de ciuitate Nimaso"; but the first bishop of Nimes of this name appears to have been Pierre Ermengaud, circ. 1080-1095. f. 231.

Incipiunt capitulationes penitentiarum de diuersis criminibus": a penitential, beg. " i. de ebrietate uel euomitum (sic). Si quis Episcopus sut aliquis ordinatus ebrietatis uitium habuerit. Imperfect, about half the number of chapters being missing. [...].

Vellum; ff. 324. In Visigothic characters, with delicately drawn coloured initials, xith cent. Small Folio.

Finally, in 1973 the Silensian Glosses became part of the collection of the British Library (London), where they are still preserved today.

Description

The Glosas Silenses consists of 323 parchment folios, to which must be added the guard leaves. Except for the first folios, the state of conservation of the manuscript is good. It is composed of 41 notebooks: 39 of the Homiliario and 2 of the Penitencial (Ruiz Asencio, Herrero Jiménez and Ruiz Albi, 2020). Regarding the decoration, the combination of black and red colors predominates. The initials are highly ornamented and were probably made by different illuminators (Boylan, 1990). According to Ruiz Asencio, Herrero Jiménez and Ruiz Albi (2020), four illuminators worked on the Silenses Glosses: the first from folio 2r to 112v; the second in the 15th and 16th notebooks; the third intervened in different parts such as folios 129-136 and folios 285-292 and, finally, the last illuminator intervened in the 38th and 39th notebooks. As for the copyists, Ruiz Asencio (1993) affirmed that they had been copied by a single copyist in round Visigothic script. Regarding its chronology, this has been widely discussed, however, the latest studies consider that it should be dated between 1080-1090 (Vivancos, 1999; Ruiz Asencio, Herrero Jiménez and Ruiz Albi, 2020).

Locations

• XI^th c. - ca. 1857

  monastery

  Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, Santo Domingo de Silos (Spain)

• Mid XIX^th c. - 1877

  parish priest

  Sebastián Fernández, Madrid (Spain)

• ca. 1877 - ca. 1878

  dealer/antiquarian

  "Aunt Jesusa", Madrid (Spain) *

• ca. 1878

  dealer/antiquarian

  Antoine Bachelin-Deflorenne, Paris (France) *

• ca. 1878

  dealer/antiquarian

  Bernard Quaritch, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1878 - ca. 1973

  museum

  The British Museum, London (United Kingdom)

• ca. 1973 - present

  study center

  The British Library, London (United Kingdom)