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More pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

James P. Carley
James P. Carley
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
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Extract

Although St Dunstan's earliest biographer gave the impression that there was a major collection of books at Glastonbury Abbey before 956 and although it seems that St Dunstan imported books from abroad while abbot and that he himself was actively involved in correcting and illuminating, there is remarkably little hard evidence concerning surviving pre-Conquest books from the monastery. Indeed, the only book which can be said with certainty to have been produced there — Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 30 (S. C. 4076) — subsequently followed Dunstan to Worcester. Several years ago I was able to show that two pre-Conquest books written elsewhere were later imported to Glastonbury; in this article I shall add two more examples.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 23 , December 1994 , pp. 265 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 See B. 's Vita S. Dunstani, in Memorials of St Dunstan, ed. Stubbs, W. (London, 1874), pp. 3–52, at 10–11 and 49–50.Google Scholar For the most recent discussion of Hand D, said to be that of Dunstan himself, see Budny, M., ‘“St Dunstan's Classbook” and its Frontispiece: Dunstan's Portrait and Autograph’, St Dunstan. His Life, Times and Cult, ed. Ramsay, N.,'Sparks, M. and Tatton-Brown, T. (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 103–42, at 137–42.Google Scholar

2 Hatton 30 contains Caesarius of Aries on the Apocalypse (attributed here to St Augustine) and is inscribed ‘Dunstan abbas hunc libellum scribere iussit.’

3 ‘Two Pre-Conquest Manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey’, ASE 16 (1987), 197–212.Google Scholar

4 My authority for this information is the note supplied by Professor Bischoff, to Professor Gneuss, H. for his ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England Up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1981), 1–60, at 11 (no. 112)Google Scholar. Professor Gneuss generously sent me a copy of Professor Bischoff's findings: ‘s. ix 4/4 o[der] ix/x, S. Amand; s. x in England erg¨nzt’.

5 See Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 575, p. 63: ‘Martinus de quatuor uirtutibus/ Farrandus de uita militari/Ambrosius Ambertus de cupiditate: Gloriosissimo ac.’ On this register, see R. I. Page, ‘The Parker Register and Matthew Parker's Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 8 (1981–1985), 1–17Google Scholar. The script of the pressmark suggests that it is the work of a late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century hand. The same hand was responsible for related pressmarks in other Parkerian books. (I thank Tim Graham for this information.)

6 Ed. Barlow, C. W., Martini Episcopi Bracarensis Opera Omnia (New Haven, CT, 1950), pp. 236–50Google Scholar; manuscripts and early printed editions are discussed on pp. 210–35.

7 Magnanimitas is glossed as fortitudo, and continentia as temperantia. The same glosses are found in two eleventh-century continental manuscripts: Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, lat. 634, and Vienna, österreichische Nationalbibliothek, lat. 575: see Barlow, , Martini… Opera Omnia, p. 237.Google Scholar Presumably the later English annotator had a now lost copy related to these two continental manuscripts before him when he added the glosses.

8 Ed. Weber, R.Ambrosii Autperti Opera, Pars II, CCCM 27B (Turnhout, 1979), 963–81Google Scholar. For, a discussion of manuscripts, see pp. 882–3. Weber tended to be somewhat imprecise in his discussion and did not give actual numbers (p. 882): ‘On connaît une dizaine seulement de manuscrits de ce sermon. La plupart l’attribuent á Ambroise Autpert et plusieurs précisent qu’il est destiné á un auditoire séculier.’

9 Winandy, J., ‘L'oeuvre littéraire d'Ambroise Autpert’, RB 60 (1950), 93–119, at 102.Google Scholar Vienna, österreichische Nationalbibliothek, lat. 1010 (s. xi) should be added to the list.

10 Cambrai 221 shows a remnant of the quadripartite grouping and the Sermo de cupiditate is followed by De disciplina Christiana. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 14492 (s. ix2) contains Formula honestae uitae and De disciplina Christiana.

11 At Glastonbury in 1247 there was at least one manuscript where this pairing occurred: ‘Rabanus de laude crucis libri tres, in quorum uno sunt eciam alia, scilicet de ortu beate Marie et natiuitate Christi saluatoris, liber Albini de diuinitate Christi utilis, liber eiusdem de racione anime, de compoto, Actus apostolorum, septem epistole canonice, Martinus episcopus de formula honeste uite, sermo Ambrosii de cupiditate utilis, Apocalipsis, Priscianus gramaticus de situ et nominibus terrarum cum mappa mundi. bonus.’ See Carley, J. P., ‘B.3. Catalogue of the Library in 1247/48’, = no. 169, in English Benedictine Libraries: Lesser Catalogues, ed. Sharpe, R. et al. , Corpus of Brit. Med. Lib. Catalogues (London, forthcoming).Google Scholar

12 Epistola VII is ptd PL 67, 928–50. See Dekkers, E. and Gaar, A., Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 2nd ed. (Steenbrugge, 1961), no. 848.Google Scholar The letters are not transmitted as a group and appear under separate titles in different manuscripts.

13 Although BN lat. 2024 does not contain the Sermo de cupiditate, Epistola VII is followed by Ambrosius Autpertus's De conflictu uitiorum et uirtutum in this manuscript.

14 ‘Uetus’ is a somewhat relative term as it is used in the 1247 catalogue, but it would almost certainly not apply to books written much after 1100.

15 It is not significant that the Formula honestae uitae is not mentioned. The 1247 list was not a catalogue in the modern sense of the word and many entries do not begin with the first item in the manuscripts to which they refer, but with the one which had dictated the category under which the manuscript was to be Listed. In this case it was the work of Ferrandus which provided the point of reference.

16 See Carley, J. P., ‘B44. Glastonbury Abbey. Select List of Works Noted by Leland’, = no. 11, in English Benedictine Libraries: Lesser Catalogues, ed. Shatpe, et al. Google Scholar The entry reads lsquo;Ferrandus diaconus ad Reginum comitem, qualis esse debeat dux religiosus in actibus militaribus.’ The text of Ferrandus's work in CCCC 430 does not contain the heading ‘Qualis esse debeat dux religiosus in actibus militaribus seu de septem regulis innocentiae’, which may suggest that Leland's reference was to the other Glastonbury copy.

17 ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts, Part IV: MSS Connected with St Augustine's Canterbury’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 2 (1954–1958), 323–36, at 329.Google Scholar

18 For an elaboration of Bishop's discussion of the development of scripts at St Augustine's during this period, see Dumville, D. N., English Caroline Script and Monastic History. Studies-in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030, Stud. in AS Hist. 6 (Woodbridge, 1993), esp. 88–91.Google Scholar

19 The only other book from Saint-Amand known to have arrived in England before 1100 (London, Lambeth Palace, 414, fols. 1–80 (s. x)) was also associated with St Augustine's Canterbury.

20 See Carley, ‘B44. Glastonbury Abbey. Select List of Works Noted by Leland’, = nos. 15–16. Leland also took notes from a copy of Bede's Historia abbatum at an unidentified location: see Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T., 3rd ed., 6 vols. (London, 1774) III, 160.Google Scholar For the place in the text from which the excerpt derives, see Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896) I, 380.Google Scholar

21 Hom. I.13 is ed. D. Hurst, Bedae Venerabilis Homeliarum Euangelii Libri II, in Bedae Opera. Pars III/IV, ed. Hurst, D. and Fraipont, J., CCSL 122 (Turnhout, 1955), 88–94Google Scholar. It was ptd as an independent text from Harley 3020 by Joseph, Stevenson in Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica, 2 vols. (London, 1841) II, 335–8.Google Scholar

22 On manuscripts, see Hurst, Homeliarum… Libri II, pp. xvii–xxi; also Laistner, M. L. W. and King, H. H., A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, NY, 1943), pp. 114–18.Google Scholar

23 See Morin, G., ‘Le Recueil primitif des homelies de Béde sur 1';,évangile’, RB 9 (1892), 316–26; as he noted (p. 317)Google Scholar: ‘au cours du moyen âge, la physionomie du recueil ne tarda pas á s'altérer au point de devenir entiérement méconnaissable’.

24 Morin observed (ibid. p. 320): ‘On conçoit fort bien que des copistes étrangers aient assez tôt relégué au dernier rang, commeétant hors d’usage chez eux, I'homélie renfermant l'eloge du saint abbé de Wearmouth: on s'imagine moins aisément, au contraire, qu’on ait pris postérieurement la peine de reporter à son jour précis ce panègyrique d'un personnage qui n'a presque pas eu de culte en dehors de l'Angleterre.’ In his edition Hurst followed the putative original arrangement as found in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothéque Municipale, 75 (s. ix).

25 John Bale recorded a copy of‘Beda de uitis quinque abbatum’ from a register of Glastonbury books: see Carley, 'B45. Glastonbury Abbey, Select List of Books Compiled by John Bale ca 1550’, = no. 37, in English Benedictine Libraries: Lesser Catalogues, ed. Sharpe et al.

26 The standard edition is still that of Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica I, 364–87. The manuscripts were also listed by Laistner and King: see A Hand n.; and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mvnors, R. A. B. (Oxford. 1969). pp. xlix–1.Google Scholar

27 This is the title as it is given on Ir.

28 Harley 3020 also contains the Life of Ceolfrith (21r-34r21), which immediately follows Bede's Historia abbatum (7r-21r16). The heading for Historia abbatum reads: ‘Incipit uita beatorum abbatum Benedicts, Ceolfridi, Eosterpini, Sigfridi, atque Hpætberhti’; for the Life of Ceolfrith it reads: ‘Incipit uita sanctissimi Ceolfridi abbatis sub quo beatus Beda habitum percepit sanctæ religionis et post cuius obitum pro meritis cepit assumere palmam æternæ felicitatis.’ Presumably Leland was referring to both works in his second entry.

29 Dr D.N. Dumville and Professor A.G. Watson both commented on the peculiarities of the script, and Dr A.I. Doyle and Dr M.B. Parkes confirmed the dating. At approximately this same period an inscription was added in archaized script to 1 r of the Classbook of St Dunstan (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F. 4. 32 (S. C. 2176)). There is an undatable symbol (Ý) occurring in slightly differing forms in various places in Harley 3020 (2v, 47r, 82r, 84v, for example) which may provide a link between the first and second booklets at least. A sixteenth-century writer has made notes on 12r, 88r and 89r.

30 See Wright, C. E., Fontes Harleiani: a Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1972), p. 156.Google Scholar

31 Michelle Brown has referred in particular to the bordered staccato elements as guides to the dating.

32 On 8r the inscription runs ‘Guilielmus Foxus Glastoniensis me quasi e luto uindicauit ne tot Glastoniensis monasterii antiquitates perirent’; that on 126v reads ‘Guilielmus Foxus Glastoniensis me, ne pedibus conculcaret, conseruauit, quem non pauca, pro eo beneficii, Glastoniensis ecclesiæ, ac coenobii ibidem, initia et incrementa edocui.’

33 On this manuscript, see The Early History of Glastonbury. An Edition, Translation and Study of William of Malmesbury's ‘De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie’, ed. and trans. Scott, J. (Wood-bridge, 1981), pp. 37–9;Google Scholar also Crick, J., ‘The Marshalling of Antiquity: Glastonbury's Historical Dossier’, in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Abrams, L. and Carley, J. P. (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 217–43, at 237 and 241, n. 58.Google Scholar

34 There are references, as Lynn Marston has pointed out to me, to various members of the Fox(e) family at Glastonbury, associated primarily with the Edgarleigh tithing, in the first half of the sixteenth century. In Richard Beere's very detailed survey of tenants in 1516/17 (British Library, Egerton 3034), a William Fox appears as a customary tenant in Chelkwell (14r), as holding a close in Prestmore (22r) and a close in Cowbridge (22v). The names of Edmund Foxe of Edgarleigh (24r) and Henry Foxe of Edgarleigh (29r) also appear. According to the court-rolls and court-books of 1526–32, John, Henry, Thomas and William Foxe all held land in Glastonbury. Thomas is described as ‘clericus’ c. 1530 (Longleat House, Marquess of Bath, NMR 10764, p. 100) and as ‘Thomas Foxe dicti Gromes’ 1530 x 1532 when he gave 13s. 4d. for a close of pasture in Prestmore in the hands of William Foxe which he and his son, John, were to hold for their lives (NMR 10765, p. 84). John Fox appears in the court-rolls and court-books of 1526–32 (NMR 10758 m., 2r + v, 5r + v; NMR 10759 m., lr + v; NMR 10764, pp. 159, 191, 245, 246). Edmund Fox, Henry Fox ‘called Clerke’ and Alice, widow of Henry Fox are also listed (NMR 10758 m., 2r + v, 5r + v; NMR 10764, pp. 159 and 191; NMR 10765, pp. 24 and 82). Dr K. Wyndham informed me that in 1600 a lease was granted in reversion to a Robert Nele of part of the manor of Glastonbury leased for lives to Richard Fox, his wife and son in 1588: see CPR (1600–1) C66/1519, mem. 10. For other references to Robert and John Fox, see Humphreys, A. L., Somersetshire Parishes (London, 1905), p. 332.Google Scholar

35 See Wright, , fontes Harleiani, pp. 253ndash;5.Google Scholar

36 Thomas Hearne borrowed Add. 22934 from Macro through Tanner's mediation when he was preparing his edition of William of Malmesbury and Adam of Damerham: see Adami de Domerham Historia de rebus Gestis Glastoniensibus, ed. Hearne, T., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1727) I, x.Google Scholar

37 ‘Cartularium abbatiae de Glastonia, continens in principio, Will. Malmsburiensem de antiquitate Glaston. multo emendatiorem codice Galeano: Dein, f.ll. sequitur libellus de rebus gestis Glastoniae per patrern Henricum abbatem et alios abbates usque ad A.D. 1270. cum cartis quamplurimis. fol. habens 125. in pergam. ms. quondam penes Thomam Clarges, A.M. aedis Christi Oxon. alumnum, postea rectorem de Belton in com. Suffolc. dein penes R. V. Joannem Novell rectorem de Hillington, nunc penes Cox Macro S.T.P. de Norton in com. Suff.’ Tanner, T., Notitia Monastica, ed. Nasmith, J. (Cambridge, 1787), n.p.Google Scholar (under Somersetshire XXII. Glastonbury, olim Avallonia).

38 See Foster, J., Alumni Oxonienses. The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1714, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1891–1892) I, 278.Google Scholar

39 Higgs also added the note ‘Farmer bolt shitt[e]s brick’; I have not been able to trace either Higgs or the unfortunate Bolt.

40 See Davis, G. R. C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), no. 440.Google Scholar The manuscript was later in the hands of Osmund Beauvoir. It was bought by the British Museum in the Dawson Turner sale of June 1859.

41 I am grateful to Dr C. G. C. Tite for this reference. On the exchanges of manuscripts between Cotton and Young, see Carley, J. P., ‘The Royal Library as a Source for Sir Robert Cotton's Collection: a Preliminary List of Acquisitions’, The Brit. Lib. Jnl 18 (1992), 52–73.Google Scholar

42 Dr R. Dunning, Editor of the Victoria History of Somerset, kindly provided me with the reference to Cavendish and Brooke. I am also grateful to Dr K. Wyndham for her assistance in tracking down these men.

43 In his study (see below, n. 63) T. A. M. Bishop distinguished between fols. 1–35 and the rest of the manuscript. Dumville, D. N. (Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies, Stud. in AS Hist. 5 (Woodbridge, 1992), 110–11, n. 92)Google Scholar, has described fols. 1–35 as a hagiographical libellus and has listed fols. 36–132 among early legendaries (p. 140), querying, however, how best to describe this libellus (p. 141).

44 On liturgical contexts in which this blessing was used, see Hughes, A., Medieval Manuscripts for the Mass and Office: A Guide to Their Organization and Terminology (Toronto, 1982), pp. 39, 68, 74, 93, 95, 131, 133, 148, 153 and 246.Google ScholarProfessor Hartzell, K. D. has informed me that a close parallel to the script of the Benedicamus Domino in Harley 3020 can be found in BL Cotton Cleopatra B. xiii, 89v (St Augustine's, Canterbury, s. xi1).Google Scholar

45 The dating, based on the script which is a transitional Anglo-Caroline similar to that being produced at St Augustine's, suggests a book more or less contemporary with Harley 3020. Presumably there was a serious error in the text and the bifolium was scraped for re-use, but then abandoned and recycled as a cover. Professor Hartzell identified the troper and its contents. The two initials on 35v, one green decorated with the drawing of a head, are particularly clear.

46 Plummet divided the manuscripts into two main families — an H-text (based on Harley 3020 and including Digby 112), and a D-text (based on Durham Cathedral, B. II. 35 and including all the other manuscripts). Tiberius D. iii seems similar enough to form part of the D-group, but has ‘a character of its own’ (Opera bistorica, ed. Plummer, I, cxxxii–cxxxviii).Google Scholar

47 See Opera historica, ed. Plummer, I, cxxxiv.Google Scholar

48 Ibid. I, cxli. There are, as Plummer acknowledged, readings which seem somewhat difficult to explain if Digby is a direct copy of Harley 3020.

49 See Lapidge, M., ‘The Cult of St Indract at Glastonbury’, in Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe. Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, ed., Whitelock, D. et al. (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 179–212Google Scholar; repr. in Lapidge, , Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066 (London, 1993), pp. 419–52.Google Scholar In my discussion I refer to the reprint. For a description of the manuscript, see pp. 424–5.

50 On Godfrey of Winchester, who joined the community of St Swithun's at Winchester c. 1070, see Rigg, A. G., A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066–1422 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 17–20Google Scholar. Digby 112, pt ii, contains the earliest known copy of Godfrey's verse.

51 The script of this contents list has some similarities with that of the scribe who entered the title ‘Vita sancti Wilfridi metrice’ in London, BL Cotton Claudius A. i, 5r. Claudius A. i may well have been at Glastonbury by the mid-thirteenth century: see Lapidge, M., ‘A Frankish Scholar in Tenth-Century England: Frithegod of Canterbury/Fredegaud of Brioude’, ASE 17 (1988), 45–65, at 53, n. 34 and 57, n. 56.Google Scholar

52 This litany — perhaps belonging to the nuns at Shaftesbury — occurs in London, BL Cotton Galba A. xiv: it has been ptd Lapidge, M., Anolo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, HBS 106 (London, 1991), 161–71 (no. XVI.ii);Google Scholar St Indract's name occurs in line 268. St Indract appears in one other slightly later eleventh-century litany, found in BL Arundel 60 (almost certainly written at the New Minster, Winchester): ptd Lapidge, , Anglo-Saxon Litanies, pp. 142–7 (no. XII), line 76.Google Scholar

53 See Lapidge, , Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066, p. 436Google Scholar

54 Ibid. p. 444; also p. 425.

55 Ibid. pp. 424 and 438.

56 This is not to say that the vitae are not provided with a relationship within the context of Digby 112 itself, whose compiler saw the vita of Ceolfrith and the Historia abbatum as a pair of ‘homiletic discourses’ in a series of homilies for saints’ days: see McClure, J., ‘Bede and the Life of Ceolfrid’, Peritia 3 (1984), 71–84, at 73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Although Doble, G. H. (‘Saint Indract and Saint Dominic’, Collectanea III, Somerset Record Soc. 57 (1942), 1–24, at 4Google Scholar) thought that Digby 112 was written at Glastonbury on the evidence of its contents, most scholars have attributed it to Winchester: see Rhygyfarch. Life of St. David, ed. James, J. W. (Cardiff, 1967), p. xixGoogle Scholar; Ciggaar, K. N., ‘Une description de Constantinople traduite par un pélerin anglais’, Revue des études byzantines 34 (1976), 211–67, at 212 and 215CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Byzance et l'Angleterre (Leiden, 1976), pp. 72–5Google Scholar; Lapidge, M., ‘The Medieval Hagiography of St. Ecgwine’, Vale of Eve sham Hist. Soc. Research Papers 6 (1977), 77–93, at 88;Google ScholarTownsend, D., ‘An Eleventh-Century Life of Birinus of Wessex’, AB 107 (1989), 129–59, at 132–3;Google Scholar and Lapidge, , Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066, p. 425.Google Scholar With the exception of Lapidge these scholars have treated the whole codex as a single entity, and although Godfrey's poetry in pt ii must certainly derive ultimately from Winchester, the grounds for attributing pt i to Winchester are very circumstantial.

58 If the new edition of the Historia abbatum and the Life of Ceolfrith which D. N. Dumville is preparing shows that the Digby version cannot be a direct copy of Harley 3020, then the question of the origin of Digby 112, pt i, may be more complicated and stand in need of re-examination.

59 The text normally runs:

1 Nato canunt omnia Domino pie agmina

2 Sillibatim neumata perstringendo organica.

3 Haec dies sacrata, in qua noua sunt gaudia mundo plene dedita…

See Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, ed. Dreves, G. M. et al. , 58 vols. (Leipzig, 1886–1978) LIII, 41 (no. 24).Google Scholar

60 The text normally runs: ‘Cornelius centurio, uir religiosus ac timens Deum….’ See Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, ed. Hesbert, R.-J., 6 vols. (Rome, 1963–1979) IV, 87–8 (no. 6340).Google Scholar In his note Hesbert pointed out that the composition of this text has been ascribed to King Robert II of Frances c. 1020.

61 For the passiones, see Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, ed. Socii, Bollandiani, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1898–1901, with cumulative supplement ed. Fros, H., 1986)Google Scholar, hereafter cited as BHL: nos. 1523 (Callistus); 7845 (Stephen); 6 (Abdon and Sennen); 2853 (Felicity and her seven children); 7790 (Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrice); 2857 (Felix II); 125 (Agapitus); and 1958 (Cornelius), respectively.

62 Although the roman numeral given at the beginning of the passio reads incorrectly 28 July, the conclusion has the correct date, ‘quarta kalendas August!’.

63 See Bishop, T. A. M., ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts. Part VII: the Early Minuscule of Christ Church Canterbury’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 3 (1959–1963), 413–23, at 421 and 423.Google Scholar It is worth noting that in ‘agapitum’ (85v10) the ‘g’ has been corrected as an Insular ‘g’. Concerning Worcester Q.5, Bishop observed (p. 414): ‘The present location of (10) Worcester Q.5 is prima facie evidence that it was written at Worcester; the aspect is unlike that of other Worcester MSS, and the Worcester attribution must give away before the evidence that attributes at least seven items of stemma A to a scriptorium at Christ Church Canterbury’.

64 The distich is taken from the Anthologia Latina: ed. A. Riese, Anthologia Latina siue Poesis Latinae Supplementum, ed. Buecheler, F. and Riese, A., 3 vols. in 5 (Leipzig, 1894–1926), 1.2, no. 738Google Scholar (olim 770): ‘Prima sonat quartae, respondet quinta secundae, / Tertia cum sexta; nomen habebit auis.’ In Harley 3020 there appears to be erased material after ‘aui’, but it is not revealed by ultra-violet light. The solution to the riddle is turtur. On the distich, see also Schaller, D. and Könsgen, E., Initia Carminum Latinorum saeculo undecimo Antiquiorum (Göttingen, 1977), no. 12505.Google Scholar One English manuscript, Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv. 18. 6. 12(Thorney, s. xiiin), 35v, contains a pair of riddles of which this is one: see Vernet, A., ‘Notice et extraits d' un manuscrit d'Edimbourg’, Bibliothéque de l'Ecole des Chartes 107 (1947/1948), 33–54, at 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 See BHL, nos. 4523 (Juliana) and 8121 (Theophilus). For a discussion of Passio S. Iutianae, see Whatley, E. G., ‘Juliana’, Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: a Trial Version, ed. Biggs, F. M. et al. (Binghamton, NY, 1990), pp. 13–15Google Scholar; also Price, J. G., ‘The Liflade of Seinte Iuliene and Hagiographical Convention’, Medievalia et Humanistica 14 (1986), 37–58.Google Scholar For Theophili Actus, see Ward, H. L. D. and Herbert, J. A., Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols. (London, 1883–1910) II, 595–7.Google Scholar

66 On the four distinct types of decorated initials in English manuscripts c. 900–c. 1080, see Gameson, R., ‘The Decoration of the Tanner Bede’, ASE 21 (1992), 115–59;Google Scholar Gameson referred to this initial at p. 117, n. 10. He has also pointed out to me that, ‘Although, theoretically, it could have been inspired by an initial in the exemplar (which would presumably then be northern French), the form argues against this. It includes an acanthus boss, a distinctive Anglo-Saxon feature, one, moreover, which appears to have been adopted much later at Canterbury (s. xi) than at Winchester’ (pers. comm.). Mildred Budny has suggested that ‘the Harley initial and the initials-plus-frameworks in both the Benedictional of St Æthelwold and the Gospel lectionary fragment in London, College of Arms, Arundel 22, fols. 84–5 share much the same approach, notably including the medallions with the same acanthus-type foliate “friezes” which radiate about a circular centre. Because the resemblance is so close, because the combination is so unusual among surviving books and because the quality of execution in the Harley initial is similarly skilled, I would attribute the booklet to Winchester or its sphere of influence’ (pers. comm.).

67 Gameson also maintains that ‘at its best, the second scribe/stint looks positively Æthelwoldian (113r reminded me of the Benedictional of St Æthelwold itself; other passages reminded me of the unprovenanced Add. 24199 Prudentius; while as a parallel for general aspect I noted Royal Catalogue IV, pl. 92 [BL Royal 15. C. VII])’(pers. comm.). Gameson, in other words, favours Winchester or its orbit, although he has not made a categoric identification.

68 See Geith, K.-E., ‘Priester Arnoks Legende von der Heiligen Juliana’ (unpubl. Phil. Diss., Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1965), pp. 57–8.Google Scholar

69 See ‘Priester Arnolts Legende’, p. 59, for the stemma. Geith would also put Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 285 (S.C. 2430) within the same grouping, as the descendant of a lost manuscript which also generated Harley 3020. The earliest surviving English manuscript containing Passio S. Iulianae, Paris, BN lat. 10861 (s. ix in), was almost certainly written at Christ Church, Canterbury, and has a version belonging to Geith's Würzburg family of manuscripts (see Geith, , ‘Priester Arnolts Legende, pp. 37–9Google Scholar). It later migrated to the Continent and was at Beauvais by the late twelfth or thirteenth century: see Brown, M. P., ‘Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, lat. 10861 and the Scriptorium of Christ Church, Canterbury’, ASE 15 (1986), 119–37, at 121.Google Scholar

70 On this collection, see Jackson, P. and Lapidge, M., ‘The Contents of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary’, Old English Prose Saints' Lives and their Contexts: Fifteen Contributions, ed. Szarmach, P. E. (Albany, NY, forthcoming).Google Scholar

71 I am very grateful to Gordon Whatley for this information. There is also a number of significant differences, however, and it is not a question of lineal descent from Harley 3020. Scribal correction could account for the substitution of the more normal date of 16 February in the Cotton-Corpus version.

72 There are differing views on the origin of the ‘Cotton-Corpus Legendary’: see most recently Brett, M., ‘The Use of Universal Chronicle at Worcester’, L'historiographie médievale en Europe, ed. Genet, J.-P. (Paris, 1991), pp. 277–85, at 283, n. 28Google Scholar; Dumville, , Liturgy, p. 141;Google Scholar Jackson and Lapidge, ‘The Contents of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary’.

73 There is one peculiarity in this booklet which at first would seem to argue that it is the remnant of a once larger collection of vitae. In its present form, the first text, Passio S. Iulianae, is undecorated, whereas the second, Theophili Actus, has a visually distinctive initial. Normally, one would assume that the decoration would come at the beginning of the book. The fact that the wrapper (fol. 95) was always part of the booklet (and the distich is also by the first scribe of Passio S. Iulianae) shows that Passio S. lulianae must originally have been the first text in a booklet. What this may suggest, then, is that there was an illuminated initial in the lost exemplar at the beginning of Theophili Actus and that the exemplar had other vitae with similar illuminations preceding Passio S. Iulianae.

74 Indeed, Hurst argued that there was an early substitution of Benedict of Nutsia in the case of Horn. 1.13 precisely because ‘fieri tamen potest ut etiam in Anglia extra Norhumbriam hic sanctus notus non fuerit’ (Homeliarum… Libri II, ed. Hurst, , p. xix).Google Scholar

75 See The Early History, ed. Scott, , pp. 68–9 and 194Google Scholar; also The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey. An Edition, Translation and Study of John of Glastonbury's ‘Cronica sive Antiquitates Glastoniensis Ecclesie’;, ed. Carley, J. P., trans. Townsend, D. (Woodbridge, 1985), pp. 291–2, n. 265.Google Scholar

76 On dating, see Dumville, , Liturgy, p. 44;Google Scholar he has transcribed the citations of Aidan and Ceolfrith on p. 47. In the later Middle Ages there was more than one version of how the Northumbrian relics got to Glastonbury. D.W. Rollason would assign their arrival to the period of King Edmund I's military campaigns in the north as part of a show of political dominance: see his ‘Relic-Cults as an Instrument of Royal Policy c.900—c.1050’, ASE 15 (1986), 91–103, at 95Google Scholar; also Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989), p. 152.Google Scholar

77 See McClure, , ‘Bede and the Life of Ceolfrid’, pp. 72–3 and 82–3.Google Scholar

78 Ibid. pp. 72–3: ‘The omission of the Life of Ceolfrid from the bibliography at the end of the Ecclesiastical history would be explained by its being, in Bede's view, subsumed into the fuller History of the abbots, and no longer an independent work.’

79 On the function of the hagiographical libellus, see Dumville, , Liturgy, p. 108:Google Scholar ‘It is a nice question whether the usual role of such a book, when owned by a community, would have been in refectory or library or church. The last must be considered a strong possibility and we may wonder whether a copy of the patron-saint's uita might reside on the tomb of a saint or (in the absence of the holy body) on his principal altar’.

80 Dumville assigned pt i ‘presumptively’ to Canterbury on the grounds that the only examples of Style II Anglo-Caroline minuscule whose place of origin can be securely located derive from Canterbury: see Liturgy, pp. 110–11.n. 92. Hartzell has suggested to me that the style of neumes found on 34v finds its nearest analogues in St Augustine's books. The erased texts on fol. 35, moreover, fit into the transitional phase of Anglo-Caroline script located by Bishop at St Augustine's.

81 Among books known to have been at Glastonbury in 1247, as it happens, is one deriving from Christ Church, Canterbury (London, BL Royal 12. C. XXIII), and one from Winchester (Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 5. 34): see Carley, ‘Two Pre-Conquest Manuscripts’. There are almost certainly other examples to be found.

82 See Carley, ‘B39. Catalogue of the Library in 1247/48’, nos. 230–52. At the end of the list of legendaries the cataloguer noted:rsquo; ‘memorandum quod hii omnes libri de uitis sanctorum licet uetusti sint legi tamen possunt.’ I should like to thank the following individuals for their assistance in the preparation of this paper: Martin Brett, Michelle Brown, Mildred O. Budny, J.E. Cross, David Dumville, Robert Dunning, Richard Gameson, Timothy Graham, K. D. Hartzell, Peter Jackson, Kristian Jensen, Shelley Jones, Michael Lapidge, Lynn Marston, Malcolm Parkes, Susan Rankin, Patricia Stirnemann, Colin Tite, Gordon Whatley and Katherine Wyndham. I am also grateful to the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, who elected me a Visiting Fellow Commoner during the period I wrote the paper.