What is it?

The Cotton Library was originally the private collection of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631). The dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII at the start of the Reformation meant that lots of priceless manuscripts were suddenly on the loose, which allowed Cotton to assemble a collection that was unique in its richness and scale.

The opening page of the catalogue of manuscripts in Cotton's library, 1621
©TopFoto.co.uk/ The British Library /HIP

What’s in it?

• The Lindisfarne Gospels (Cotton Nero D iv)
• Beowulf  (Cotton Vitellius A xiv)
• Pearl (Cotton Nero A x): this is also the only surviving manuscript of Gawain And The Green Knight
• Two of the four surviving manuscripts of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (Cotton Tiberius A. XIV, and Cotton Tiberius C. II)
• And much more…

A gift to the nation

When the Bodleian Library was founded in 1602, Cotton made a generous donation from his collection towards this new resource. The rest of the collection remained together and in the Cotton family’s hands until 1700. That was the year that Sir Robert’s grandson, Sir John Cotton, passed ownership of the collection to the nation.

For the next two decades this newly public collection remained in the Cotton family home, until 1721 when it was transferred to Essex House in the Strand, where it lived for a decade.

Then in 1731 it was moved to Ashburnham House at Westminster. Nowadays the house is a part of Westminster School, but in the 1730s it belonged to the Crown, and the royal librarian (one Mr Bentley) was housed in it. So the Cotton Library was moved again, to fall within the territory of the royal librarian. Which probably seemed like a good idea at the time…

A Cotton Library manuscript of benefactors to St Albans Abbey, c. 1380
©TopFoto.co.uk/ The British Library /HIP

Fire!

But that same year, The Gentleman’s Magazine reported: "A Fire broke out in the House of Mr Bently, adjoining to the King's School near Westminster Abbey, which burnt down that part of the House that contained the King's and Cottonian Libraries: almost all the printed Books were consumed and part of the Manuscripts. Amongst the latter, those which Dr Bentley had been collecting for his Greek Testament, for these last ten Years, valued at 2000£."

On October 23, 1731, a fire broke out in the library; one observer recalled seeing Dr Bentley running out of the blaze cradling a priceless manuscript he had salvaged in his arms (this was probably the Codex Alexandrinus, a unique early manuscript of the Greek Bible). The 1731 fire destroyed or damaged more than a quarter of the Cotton collection. One of the Bede’s suffered considerable fire damage.

The Cotton Library today

When the British Museum was founded in 1753, the survivors of the Cotton collection moved to its Bloomsbury home, where it remained until the opening of the new British Library building at St Pancras in 1998. Several items from the collection are on permanent public display there today.

And a surprisingly interesting note on the shelf-marks…

Cotton gave each item in his collection a shelf-mark that followed the format

which wasn’t some arcane code, but a set of practical directions as to where to find what you were looking for. Cotton had a collection of busts of Roman Emperors, you see, and the name in the shelf-mark told you where you should be starting your treasure hunt.

For instance, the Pearl manuscript was Cotton Nero A x. So if ever Sir Robert wanted to curl up with his manuscript copy of Gawain And The Green Knight, he just had to go to his bust of Nero, look at the top shelf (A=1), ten (x) items along… and there it is!

This system of classification for the Cotton collection remains in use at the British Library today.