London, British Library, Add. 8873

London, British Library, Add. 8873 is the sole extant copy of the Collectio Britannica which is names after it. Note that the older literature refers to it as being held by the British Museum; only in 1973, the British Museum Library was merged with other libraries to form the British Library.

The collection it contains was compiled in the early 1090s (as can be seen from its use by Ivo of Chartres), but the extant manuscript was written in the early twelfth century. As Rolker has argued, a series of excerpts from various chronicles found in the extant Britannica version goes back to a florilegium that was only compiled in the context of the coronation of Louis VI in 1108.

Links

• Online (until 2023) https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_8873_fs001r
• A digital copy of the b/w microfilm can be found here: https://archive.org/details/Britannica/CB-1/

Literature

Kéry, pp. 237