Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/226

218 April The Arras MS. of Herbert of Bosham The third volume of the Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, edited by the late Canon J. C. Robertson for the Rolls Series, contains the life of the archbishop by Herbert of Bosham. The main authority used by the editor is the Arras MS. (Bibl. de la Ville, 649), which unfortunately was mutilated by an unscrupulous librarian, who is said by Dr. Giles to have removed every tenth leaf .^ Robertson accordingly supplemented it by making use of a manuscript which formerly belonged to the monastery of Aulne, but which afterwards found its way into the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (no. 4622). This is, however, only an abridgement. But Sir Thomas Phillipps also recovered some of the missing leaves of the Arras MS. itself. About these Dr. Giles says, I have been informed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Baronet, whose splendid collection of MSS. is an honour to himself and to the nation, that in passing through Arras many years ago, he was so fortimate as to recover the very leaves which had been cut out by the librarian, of Herbert de Bosham's Life of Becket, and that the authorities of Arras declined to repay him the small sum of money which he gave the tailor from whom he purchased them, choosing rather to have their valuable volume imper- fect, and to suffer the recovered leaves to be conveyed to England. The most unlucky part of this story is, that Sir Thomas Phillipps has since mislaid these leaves, and as yet is unable to discover in what part, of his immense library they have been misplaced. ^ Fortunately Sir Thomas Phillipps wrote two letters to Mr. Henry Petrie, the keeper of the records in the Tower, dated ' Rouen 7 December 1828 ' and *. . . 1829 ', describing his discovery and giving a transcript of considerable portions of the leaves recovered. These agree to some extent with the Aulne MS., but contain long passages which it omits. I give below a copy of these passages, and a collation of Sir Thomas Phillipps's transcript with the printed text where the readings differ. Dots are placed at the end of the fragment where there appears to be a gap not filled up : where there is no gap the next word of the printed text is added in brackets. The punctuation and capitals of the transcript have not been exactly f oUowed. The two letters are now preserved among the Petrie transcripts presented by Miss Sharpe to the Public Record Office. I should like to acknowledge the great assistance I have received from Mr. Charles Johnson of the Public Record Office in deciphering a large number of the words. Theodore Craib. ^ Herbert de Boaham Opera Omnia, i. xii ■ loc cil