The Royal manuscripts are one of the "closed collections" of the British Library (i.e. historic collections to which new material is no longer added), consisting of some 2,000 manuscripts collected by the sovereigns of England in the "Old Royal Library" and given to the British Museum by George II in 1757. They are still catalogued with call numbers using the prefix "Royal" in the style "Royal MS 2. B. V".Record for Royal MS 2 B V, Manuscripts: Closed collections, British Library As a collection, the Royal manuscripts date back to Edward IV, though many earlier manuscripts were added to the collection before it was donated. Though the collection was therefore formed entirely after the invention of printing, luxury illuminated manuscripts continued to be commissioned by royalty in England as elsewhere until well into the 16th century. The collection was expanded under Henry VIII by confiscations in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and after the falls of Henry's ministers Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. Many older manuscripts were presented to monarchs as gifts; perhaps the most important manuscript in the collection, the Codex Alexandrinus, was presented to Charles I in recognition of the diplomatic efforts of his father James I to help the Eastern Orthodox churches under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The date and means of entry into the collection can only be guessed at in many if not most cases. Now the collection is closed in the sense that no new items have been added to it since it was donated to the nation.
The collection is not to be confused with the Royal Collection of various types of art still owned by the Crown, nor the King's Library of printed books, mostly assembled by George III, and given to the nation by his son George IV, which is also in the British Library, as is the Royal Music Library, a collection mostly of scores and parts both printed (about 4,500 items) and in manuscript (about 1,000), given in 1957.Royal Music Library, British Library
The Royal manuscripts were deposited in 1707 in Cotton House, Westminster with the Cotton Library, which was already a form of national collection under trustees, available for consultation by scholars and antiquaries; the site is now covered by the Houses of Parliament. The collection escaped relatively lightly in the fire of 1731 at Ashburnham House, to which the collections had been moved. The Cotton Library was one of the founding collections of the British Museum in 1753, and four years later the Royal collection was formally donated to the new institution by the king. It moved to the new British Library when this was established in 1973. The 9,000 printed books that formed the majority of the Old Royal Library were not kept as a distinct collection in the way the manuscripts were, and are dispersed among the library's holdings.
The Royal manuscripts, and those in other British Library collections with royal connections, were the focus of an exhibition at the British Library "Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination" in 2011–2012.Genius
Highlights Codex Alexandrinus, a 5th-century manuscript of the Greek Bible, one of the four Great uncial codices. Gospel Book (British Library, MS Royal 1. B. VII), an 8th-century illuminated Insular Gospel Book, closely related to the Lindisfarne Gospels Bald's Leechbook, an Old English medical text probably compiled in the 9th century Westminster Psalter, from Westminster Abbey, with important miniatures from about 1200 and then 1250 Rochester Bestiary, 13th century, English Matthew Paris, MS Royal 14.C.VII contains his Historia Anglorum (1250–59), 358 x 250 mm, ff 232, also the last volume of the Chronica Majora, and various other items. Queen Mary Psalter, a 14th-century English psalter, later owned by Mary I of England Talbot Shrewsbury Book a compilation of 15 secular texts in French, made in Rouen, Normandy in 1444/5 and presented by John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1453) to the French princess, Margaret of Anjou in honour of her betrothal to Henry VI Psalter of Henry VIII, from the 1540s
The Old Royal Library
Before Edward IV Edward IV is conventionally regarded as the founder of the "old Royal Library" which formed a continuous collection from his reign until its donation to the nation in the 18th century, though this view has been challenged.Stratford, 255, and 266 where she suggests Henry IV and Henry V as alternatives; Backhouse, 267 regards Edward IV as "clearly identifiable as the founder of the Old Royal Library". There are only about twenty surviving manuscripts that probably belonged to the English kings and queens between Edward I and Henry VI,Stratford, 256 though the number expands considerably when the princes and princesses are included. A few Anglo-Saxon manuscripts owned by royalty have survived after being presented to the church, among them a Gospel Book, Royal 1. B. VII, given to Christ Church, Canterbury by King Athelstan in the 920s, which probably rejoined the collection at the Dissolution of the Monasteries.Brown, 52, 87 However these works are scattered among a variety of libraries. By the late Middle Ages luxury manuscripts would generally include the heraldry of the commissioner, especially in the case of royalty, which is an important means of identifying the original owner. There are patchy documentary records which mention many more, though the royal library was from about 1318 covered in the records of the "Chamber", which have survived far less completely than the pipe rolls of the main Exchequer. The careful inventories of the French royal library have no English equivalent until a list compiled at Richmond Palace in 1535.Stratford, 255-256
At the start of Edward III's reign there was a significant library kept in the Privy Wardrobe of the Tower of London, partly built up from confiscations from difficult members of the nobility, which were often later returned. Many books were given away, as diplomatic, political or family gifts, but also (especially if in Latin rather than French) to "clerks" or civil servants of the royal administration, some receiving several at a time, such as Richard de Bury, perhaps England's leading bibliophile at the time as well as an important figure in the government, who received 14 books in 1328. By 1340 there were only 18 books left, although this probably did not include Edward's personal books.Stratford, 258-259
Despite the cultured nature of his court, and his encouragement of English poets, little is known of the royal books under Richard II, although one illuminated manuscript created in Paris for Charles VI of France to present to Richard, the Epistre au roi Richart of Philippe de Mézières (Royal 20. B. VI), was at Richmond in 1535, and is in the British Library Royal manuscripts.Stratford, 260 The reign of Henry IV has left records of the building of a novum studium ("new study") at Eltham Palace finely decorated with more than 78 square feet of stained glass, at a cost of £13, and a prosecution involving nine missing royal books, including bibles in Latin and English, valued respectively at £10 and £5, the high figures suggesting they were illuminated.Stratford, 260-261 The wills of Henry's son, Henry V refer to a Biblia Magna ("Big" or "Great Bible"), which had belonged to Henry IV and was to be left to the nuns of Henry V's foundation at Syon. This may be Royal MS 1. E. IX, with fine historiated initials illuminated in London by several artists from the school of Herman Scheerre of Cologne.See: A considerable number of religious texts were left to family members, staff and his many chaplains.Stratford, 263
Two of Henry V's younger brothers were notable collectors. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390-1447), who had commissioned translations from Greek into Latin and gave most of his collection, 281 books, to the library at Oxford University, where the Bodleian Library later grew around Duke Humfrey's Library. At his death his remaining books mostly went to his nephew Henry VI's new King's College, Cambridge, but some illuminated books in French were kept for the royal library, and are still in the Royal manuscripts. John, Duke of Bedford took over as English commander in France after Henry V's death in 1422, and commissioned two important manuscripts which have reached the British Library by other routes, the Parisian Bedford Hours (Ms Add 18850, in fact presented to Henry VI in 1431) and the English Bedford Psalter and Hours (BL Ms Add 42131). He also used the dominant English position in France to buy the French royal library of the Louvre, from which a few examples remain in the Royal manuscripts.Stratford, 266
Edward IV to Henry VII
About fifty of the Royal manuscripts were acquired by Edward IV (1442-1483), a far larger and more coherent group than survive from any of his predecessors. He was not a scholarly man, and had to fight his way to the throne after inheriting the Yorkist claim to the throne at the age of eighteen after his father and elder brother died in battle. He reigned from 1461 until 1470, when machinations among the leading nobles forced a six-month period of exile in Burgundy. He stayed for some of this period in Bruges at the house of Louis de Gruuthuse, a leading nobleman in the intimate circle of Philip the Good, who had died three years before. Philip had the largest and finest library of illuminated manuscripts in Europe, with perhaps 600, and Gruuthuse was one of several Burgundian nobles who had begun to collect seriously in emulation. In 1470 his library (much of it now in Paris) was in its early stages, but must already have been very impressive for Edward. The Flemish illuminating workshops had by this date clearly overtaken those of Paris to become the leading centre in northern Europe, and English illumination had probably come to seem somewhat provincial. The Burgundian collectors were especially attracted to secular works, often with a military or chivalric flavour, that were illustrated with a lavishness rarely found in earlier manuscripts on such subjects. As well as generous numbers of miniatures, the borders were decorated in increasingly inventive and elaborate fashion, with much use of the heraldry of the commissioner.Backhouse, 267-268; Kren & McKendrick, 68-71 and generally
Many of Edward's manuscripts reflected this taste; like that of Philip, his court displayed an increase in ceremonial formality, and interest in chivalry. Most of his books are large-format popular works in French, with several modern and ancient histories, and authors such as Boccaccio, Christine de Pisan and Alain Chartier. They are too large to hold comfortably, and may have been read aloud from lecterns, though the large miniatures were certainly intended to be appreciated. The largest purchases were probably made from about April 1479, when a part-payment is recorded to a foreign ("stranger") "merchant" or dealer for £80 to "merchant stranger Philip Maisertuell in partie of paiement of £240 of certaine bokes by the said Philip to be provided to the kyngs use in the parties beyond the see." This was perhaps Philippe de Mazerolles, a leading illuminator who had moved from France to Flanders. At least six of Edward's Flemish books are dated to 1479 and 1480; such large books naturally took a considerable time to produce. Further payments totalling £10 are recorded in 1480 for binding eight books, for which other payments record the transport to Eltham in special pine chests.Backhouse, 269 Other manuscripts are no longer in the Royal collection, such as the "Soane Josephus" (MS 1, Sir John Soane's Museum), which remained in the collection until after an inventory in 1666.Kren & McKendrick, 292-294 One of the most splendid books made for Edward in Bruges in the 1470s is a Bible historiale in French in three volumes (Royal MS 15 D i, 18 D ix-x), which was probably begun for another patron, then completed for Edward.Kren & McKendrick, 297-303