Durham University Library Archives & Special Collections Catalogue
Single leaf from a mid 9th century manuscript of Bede's Homilies on the gospels, copied in Fulda.
Parchment
Single text column, 28 lines.
Written in an erect and angular Carolingian minuscule with distinctively German wedges at the end of some ascenders and the “&” in a form identified by Bischoff as indicating a Fulda provenance (his “schwungvolle &-ligatur”) and numerous Insular features. Significant breaks marked with large rustic capitals, neume-like penmarks above two words in lines 21 and 23 on recto suggest early use in community for public reading.
Some general parallels can be found in other Fulda manuscripts from the second part of this period (including a copy of Gaudentius, Tractatus, from the middle of the ninth-century, reproduced in Brozinski, Fuldische Handschriften, no. 33; and Fulgentius, Mitologiae, third quarter of ninth century, Brozinski no. 34). However, Insular influences on the script here are quite pronounced, including “q”s with descenders that curve to the left, “g”s which seem to take their zigzag-shaped tails from Insular forms, and overall a pronounced angularity to the letters. These probably echo the letter-forms of the Northumbrian exemplar, and indeed several other fragments from Fulda of other works by Bede are in hands strongly influenced by Insular scripts (Brozinski nos. 29 and 39). They also suggest a date before the mid ninth century when such features appear to have been in decline.
Mounted in matted folder.
Written in Fulda, between 825 and 875, based upon the handwriting of the manuscript.
A leaf from an early and important manuscript of the homiliary of Bede, copied in Fulda, probably within the circle of the Carolingian scholar Rabanus Maurus (approximately 780-856) from an eighth-century Northumbrian exemplar once owned by St. Boniface (approximately 680-754).
Probably written in the imperial abbey of Fulda, founded in 751 and one of the preeminent centres of scholarship and book production in Western Europe, and possibly identified with item 170 in their library catalogue of ca.1550: “liber omeliarum Bede presbiteri numero XXV” (Vatican MS Palat. lat. 1928, edited K. Christ, Die Bibliothek des Klosters Fulda (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1933). If the present manuscript dates to the second rather than the third quarter of the ninth century, then it was written during the abbacy of Rabanus Maurus.
Parchment has been reused in a binding, somewhat stained and rubbed on verso, some small holes and traces of resin, trimmed at base removing some of the last line.
Purchased at Sotheby's auction, 6 July 2010: lot 1 (DUL ASC acquisition Misc.2010/11.6).
This leaf contains Homily I, 21, lines 180-239, for Epiphany (Opera exegetica, ed. D. Hurst, pp. 153-4), from the homiliary of Bede. Laistner (Handlist of Bede Manuscripts, pp. 114-18) records some 21 manuscripts, all of which are in institutional ownership; and to these might be added the 5 fragments in Quaritch: Bookhands of the Middle Ages III (cat.1088), items 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 (ca. 800 to twelfth century). The present manuscript is of great textual importance. As no copies survive from England before the twelfth century, our earliest witnesses are Continental. Of these, 6 complete manuscripts and 2 of the fragments listed above are of comparable antiquity, but only one other can be located to a particular scriptorium: the St.Gallen copy (Zurich, Zentralbibl. C42, second half of ninth century). In a letter written in 747-51, St. Boniface requested from one of Bede's students and followers, Archbishop Egbert of York, "some of the works which Bede, the inspired priest and student of Sacred Scripture, has composed" including "his book of homilies for the year, because it would be a very handy and useful manual for us in our preaching" (Die briefe des heiligen Bonifatius, no. 91). In exchange for the volumes he sent "two small casks of wine ... for a merry day with the brethren". Boniface was instrumental in the foundation of Fulda, near his missionary outpost at Fritzlar, and retired and was buried there. His copy of the text most probably remained in the monastery. That lost manuscript was an extremely important witness to the text, doubtless written in the same scriptorium in which Bede worked, within a decade or so of his death by scribes who probably knew the author. The present manuscript's readings are consistent with those of the St. Gallen copy (Hurst's class IA) and both must have had Boniface's copy as their exemplar. St. Gallen's library was expanded in the ninth century and received numerous copies of books from Fulda. They are probably the sole surviving witnesses to this important lost exemplar.
Bede, ed. Hurst, D. and Fraipont, J., Opera homiletica; Opera rhythmica 
Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 122 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955)
Tangl, M., ed., Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1916)
Bookhands of the Middle Ages Pt. 3 Medieval manuscript leaves principally from the Rosenthal collection (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1988)
Broszinski, H., Fuldische Handschriften aus Hessen mit weiteren Leihgaben aus Basel, Oslo, dem Vatikan und Wolfenbüttel. Katalog zur Ausstellung anlässlich des Jubiläums "1250 Jahre Fulda", Hessische Landesbibliothek Fulda, 19. April bis 31. Mai 1994 ,
(Fulda: Hessische Landesbibliothek, 1994).
Christ, K., Die Bibliothek des Klosters Fulda im 16. Jahrhundert: die Handschriften-Verzeichnisse (Leipzig : O. Harrassowitz, 1933)
Laistner, M. L. and King, H., A hand-list of Bede manuscripts (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1943)