MS 303

Summary

Described Thomas James 285; Bernard 284; Stanley S. 17; Nasmith 303; James, Corpus 303; Ker, Anglo-Saxon 57; Assmann (introduction by Peter Clemoes), pp. xix, xxv–xxvi; Pope, pp. 18–20; Godden, pp. xxxiii–xxxvii; Laing, p. 23; Clemoes, pp. 5–7; Treharne, pp. 28–31 and plates vi–viii (of pp. 50, 51, 231), see also pp. 13–17; Susan Irvine, ‘The Compilation and Use of Manuscripts Containing Old English in the Twefth Century’, CSASE 30, pp. 45–48.

[1]

p. 220

Glosses ‘senne’ to ‘leahter’ and ‘prude’ to ‘ofermodignysse’; dated by Ker to s. xiii/xiv. Their presence also listed by Cameron, p. 221, and by Laing.

A collection of Old English homilies, the majority by Ælfric. Laing notes, citing Patrick Stiles, that Ker's scribe C, who he thinks was responsible for p. 226, l. 27 to p. 231, l. 28, and for p. 251, l. 10 to p. 254, l. 5, ‘basically writes ME’. The view of Treharne (who thinks he wrote all of p. 231) is that C was the more senior of the three scribes, that he was the miniator, rubricator and main corrector of the MS, and that his ‘orthography and phonology is dissimilar from the late West Saxon forms regular in the work of scribes A and B’ (p. 29).

Ker dates MS s. xii¹; Treharne adjusts this to s. xii mid. (p. 30). ME glosses s. xiii/xiv. Ker suggests the MS was written at Rochester (Benedictine cathedral priory of St Andrew). Treharne (p. 28) supports this. MS not noted MLGB or MLGBS. MS given to the College by Matthew Parker.