Title

Martyrum gesta or Liber passionum

Anonimous

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Object history

Ambrosio de Morales, in his Coronica general de España, mentioned two Passionaries that were in the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña (Burgos) at the end of the 16th century. The first of these is currently in the British Library (London), while the second is in the Royal Library of the Monastery of El Escorial (RBME b-I-4).

The origin of the manuscript preserved in the British Library (Add. Ms. 25600) has been debated. In the early 18th century, one of the librarians at the monastery of Cardeña, Francisco de Berganza, claimed that the codex came from Córdoba:

"When the monks of Cardeña went to Cordoba to bring back the body of Count Garci Fernandez, they brought back a santoral in two volumes. The second, which Ambrosio de Morales praised highly, and from which the History of the Martyrdom of the Glorious Saint Pelayo was taken, was given to Lord Philip II to be placed in the Escorial: and I believe that it perished in the fire that ravaged that Royal Monastery: because although I searched the manuscript library for this volume, I did not find it. The first is preserved in our Archive in Cardeña and contains the Martyrium suffered in Cordoba by the Virgin Saint Argentea and Saint Vvulfura on May 5, 931. I have not seen any author or Martyrology that commemorates these saints, and so I will transcribe the story of their martyrdom as it appears in the Gothic Santoral, adapting it to the spelling that is now in use"(Berganza, 1719).

This statement led to the belief that the manuscript came from Cordoba, but in 1937 Gaiffier demonstrated that the codex had been produced in northern Spain, specifically in San Pedro de Cardeña (Burgos). This hypothesis was later confirmed by Fábrega (1953), who concluded that "it is difficult to explain how this manuscript could have been written in Córdoba, in view of the text of the Passions of Saint Acisclo and Victoria, Saint Zoilo, and Saint Argéntea."

The manuscript remained in the monastery until the first half of the 19th century, when it suffered the consequences of the confiscation. Although it is not known how it left Burgos, the codex ended up in the hands of bookseller Thomas Boone in 1862, thanks to an intermediary. Boone contacted Frederic Madden, curator of manuscripts at the British Museum (London), and informed him of the provenance of the copy (Shailor, 1979). On March 12, 1864, Madden purchased the manuscript and added it to the British Museum's collection. In the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1861-1875, it is mentioned as follows:

"25,600. Martyrum gesta, or Liber passionum, with interlineary and marginal glosses. In two parts; part i. containing passions of saints, from xv. Kal. Dec. [Nov. 17] to kal. [1] Nov. Ff. 3-261 b; part ii. passions of saints at Cordova in Spain, ff. 262-269. Imperfect and mutilated throughout. Vellum; written in double columns, in a fine Visigothic character, and with large illuminated initials, for the monastery of S. Pedro de Cardeña in Spain, at the command of Abbot Damian, by Gomes dictus Peccator on vi. kal. Dec. Era DCCCCLVII [Nov. 26, 919]. At f. 72 b is the stamp of a library to which the volume once belonged.

Finally, in 1973, the manuscript was transferred to the British Library (London), where it remains today.

Description

A passionary is a liturgical book containing the martyrdoms or passions of the saints (Serna, 2023). Some of the oldest, such as this manuscript, have been dated to the 10th century in the province of Burgos. Its chronology and authorship have been highly controversial: it was initially believed to have been compiled in 919 by the copyist Gómez (Domínguez Bordona, 1957), but other researchers pushed the date back to the mid-10th century and attributed it to Endura. To support this hypothesis, Gaiffier (1937) based his argument on a text written in the margin of folio 258v, which reads as follows: "O tu, lector sanctissime, quotiens unc librum arripueris ad legendum, pro me tandem Endura scriptoris non cesses Dominum exorare."

More recent works tend to question Endura's authorship and instead propose a copyist named Tello as the author. Similarly, they date its origin to the mid-10th century: "it seems clear that Gómez's authorship and the dating of the Cardeña Passionary to the year 919 must be rejected" (Serna, 2023).  

This manuscript consists of 269 folios divided into two columns. Inside are 55 passions of martyrs. It is composed of two parts: the first goes from folio 2 to folio 261v, while the second is from folio 262 to folio 269.

Locations

• Mid X^th c. - First half of the XIX^th c.

  monastery

  San Pedro de Cardeña Monastery, Castrillo del Val (Spain)

• ca. 1862 - 1864

  dealer/antiquarian

  T. & W. Boone, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1864 - 1973

  museum

  The British Museum, London (United Kingdom)

• 1973 - present

  study center

  The British Library, London (United Kingdom)