The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Mary Swan

London, British Library, Burney 277, fol. 42

Laws of Alfred and Ine

Date: s. xi2

Summary:

A fragment of the Alfred-Ine, which opens 'æfter þam  ƿære awen-dende' (chapter 44) and ends 'sunu oððe mæges' (chapter 47) (see Liebermann 1903, pp. 88-98, who refers to this copy as Bu). Chapter numbering matches that in other copies.

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fol. 42

   Title (B.14.4): Alfred-Ine

   Incipit: æfter þam ƿære aƿedende þas ure domas.

   Explicit: Gif mon elþeodigne ofslea se kining an cƿað ne dæl ƿeres ðriddan dæl sunu oððe mæges

   Text Language: English

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, item 136

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: A central bifolium, now laid flat as a single sheet, bound in sideways.

Extent:

203 mm x 130 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaves)

154 mm x 108 mm (dimensions of all - size of written space)

Note:

25 long lines; top line is written on. Double bounding lines at both margins. Both sides of the bifolium, but especially fol. 42r, which formed the outside of the wrapper, are damaged and stained and in places illegible. The bifolium must have been detached from its original codex and used as a wrapper. Ker (1957) notes that this probably happened in or before s. xiii, and refers to the Latin marginal notes and pen trials of this date. The area in the centre of the vertical fold in the bifolium will have formed the spine of the wrapper, and here there are traces of large upper-case letters, presumably from a title for the wrapper. Now only an upper-case S is clearly legible.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1

Hand: main text
• Scope: sole
• Scribe: Ker 136
• Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
• Description: fol. 42. 'A rough, ill-formed hand' (Ker 1957, p. 171). Script not completely controlled; aspect variable.
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
• d: often nearly the same size as ð.
• e: quite often high (Ker (1957) suggests that this is perhaps following the exemplar).
• descenders: elongated on the last line of each page.
• Ligatures:
• The ligatures of e and a following letter are described by Ker as ‘clumsy’ (Ker 1957).

Decoration Description:

Initials are black or red.

History:

Origin:

Ker (1957) reports Liebermann noting that the language and orthography suggest a Kentish origin (Liebermann 1903, p. xx)

Acquisition:

Now part of a bound volume of fragments which belonged to Charles Burney (d. 1814). This and other Burney manuscripts acquired by the British Museum in 1818.

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described and encoded by Mary Swan with the assistance of Hollie Morgan, Orietta Da Rold and Thom Gobbitt, and with reference to published scholarship (August 2010; September 2012).

Surrogates:

EM Project facsimile

Bibliography:

Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieavl and Renaissance Studies, 2001), item 307

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 136

Liebermann, F., ed., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1903), I: Text und Übersetzung

Manuscripts Catalogue (British Library, http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/; accessed in 2010)

Scragg, Donald, Alexander Rumble, and Kathryn Powell, C11 Database Project (Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies, http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/mancass/c11database/; accessed in 2009)