| Cotton Library |
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| 16th century | |
| middle english literature | |
| old english literature | |
| libraries in london | |
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The Cotton or '''Cottonian library''' was the by Henry VIII . Consequently, his collection is the single greatest resource of literature in Old English and Middle English we have. We owe '' Beowulf '', '' Pearl ,'' and the '' Lindisfarne Gospels '' to Cotton's collection. The leading scholars of the era came to use his library. Francis Bacon , Walter Raleigh , James Ussher and others came to use his works. Upon the foundation of the Bodleian Library , he made a substantial contribution. was all but destroyed in the Ashburnam House fire.]] His grandson, Sir John Cotton, gave the rest of the library to the nation of Great Britain . The library went first to Essex House, the Strand and then to Ashburnham House, Westminster . On 23 October 1731 , there was a fire in Ashburnam House, and many manuscripts were lost, while others were badly singed (about a quarter of the collection was either destroyed or damaged). The librarian, one Dr Bentley, escaped the inferno, clutching the Codex Alexandrinus under his arms, a scene witnessed and later described in a letter to Charlotte, Lady Sundon, by Robert Friend of Westminster School. Fortunately, copies had been made of some of the manuscripts, but by no means all, of those works that were lost. The Cotton library is now part of the British Library . Robert Cotton had organized his library according to the corner and shelf of a book. He had busts of the various Caesars in his library, and his scheme worked by Caesar-Shelf letter-Volume number from end. Thus, the two most famous of the manuscripts from the Cotton library are "Cotton Vitellius A.xv" and "Cotton Nero A.x." In Cotton's own day, that meant "Go to the bust of Vitellius , top shelf (A), and count fifteen over," for the ''monstrarum librarum'' of the ''Beowulf'' manuscript, or "Go to the bust of Nero , top shelf, tenth book" for the manuscript containing all the works of the Pearl Poet . In the British Museum, these two priceless books are still catalogued by these call numbers. SELECTED MANUSCRIPTS Notable manuscripts:
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