| Sumario: | The Hatton and e Musaeo manuscript collections are important donations given to the Bodleian Library during its formative years in the seventeenth century, contributing substantially to its status as a national and international archive. The Hatton collection, associated with the aristocratic family that traces its lineage to Sir Christopher Hatton, chancellor of England during the reign of Elizabeth I, is best known for its Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, including King Alfred's translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, the oldest extant manuscript of Benedict's Rule, as well as collections of Old English homilies of Wulfstan and Aelfric (with glosses by the "Tremulous Hand of Worcester"). Among its Middle English manuscripts are religious texts, including Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, commentaries by Richard Rolle on the psalms and ten commandments, chronicles such as the Brut and an assortment of manuscripts ranging from political prophecies and grammar treatises to compendia of medical recipes. The e Musaeo collection, so called because it was originally an eclectic group of manuscripts stored in the librarian's study, also has a variety of significant texts, ranging from the religious and devotional (a Wycliffite New Testament, Love's Mirror, and Heinrich Suso's treatise The Seven Points of True Love and Everlasting Wisdom); to the scientific and medicinal: Chaucer's Astrolabe, Friar Henry Daniel's Liber Uricrisiarum; and to the historical and the popular: the Brut and Mandeville's Travels. Patrick J. Horner, FSC (a De LaSalle Christian Brother) is Professor of English at Manhattan College.
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