Edited by Orietta Da Rold, Takako Kato, Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne

(University of Leicester, 2010; last update 2013)

http://www.le.ac.uk/ee/em1060to1220, ISBN 095323195X

The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Takako Kato

Cambridge, University Library, Hh. 1. 10

Cambridge, University Library, Hh. 1. 10

The Production and Use of English Manuscripts: 1060 to 1220

© 2010-13 The Production and Use of

English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 |

Ed. by ODR, TK, MS & ET, ISBN 095323195X |

Back to List of MSS and Descriptions

Ælfric's Grammar and Glossary

Date: s. xi3/4-xiiiin

Summary:

Ælfric's Grammar and Glossary, which 'shows a clear and unified structure' (Lucas 2008). Copied in Exeter by five scribes (including the scribe who, according to Drage 1978, worked very closely with Leofric, bishop of Exeter 1050-72), all trained to write in Exeter style script. Some alterations and glosses in French, Latin and English are added to the text by contemporary and later hands. In the sixteenth century this manuscript was probably bound together with the Christ Church manuscript Domitian viii, which now contains an Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Ker 1957 and Lucas 2008 date it as s. xi2, but it can probably be dated more specifically to s. xi3/4 as Drage 1978, Robinson 1988 and Gneuss 2001 suggest.

Manuscript Items:

  1. Item: Fols 1r-93v/7

      Title (B.1.9.1): Ælfric's Grammar

      Incipit (Latin): (Fol. 1r/1-4) EGO ÆLFRICUS UT MINUS SAPIENS. HAS | excerptiones de prisciano minore uel | maiore uobis puerulis tenellis ad urām lin- | guam transferre studui

      Incipit: (Fol. 1v/4-5) Ic ælfric ƿolde þas lytlan boc aƿendan to engliscum | gereorde of þam stæf cræfte þe ys ge haten gram matica.

      Explicit: (Fol. 93v/ 4-7) ON leden sprete mænig fealde | ge tel acon englise nis nan þæra ge ƿunelic buton þriˉ | anum libra onleden ys ƿund onenglise Fif penegas | ge macigað ænne scillingc ˥ [xxx(unclear: illegible) penega ænne mancs

      Text Language: English and Latin

      Other versions of the text: Zupitza 1966 collates this as U.

      Date: s. xi3/4

      Hand: Copied by five scribes:

      Bibliography:

  2. Item: Fol. 93v/8-26

      Title (B.1.9.2): Ælfric's Glossary

      Rubric (initial): (Fol. 93v/8-9) INCIPIUNT GLOSVL (addition: interlinear) E MULTARUM RERUM ANGLICE EXPOSITĘ | A QUODAM SAPIENTIÆ

      Incipit: (Fol. 93v/9-10) DSˉ omnipotens. þæt is god ælmihtig. | Be ƿæs æfre unbegunnen. ˥ æfre beoð unge endod.

      Explicit: (Fol. 93v/26) Guttur · þrotu · mentum· cynn barba beard . (ends imperfectly)

      Text Language: English and Latin

      Other versions of the text:

      Date: s. xi2

      Hand: Hand 5

      Note: The glossary ends imperfectly at Zupitza 1966, p. 298, line 7, but excerpts by Joscelyn in Lambeth Palace MS 692, fol. 8v, include twenty-two quotations from the two missing leaves of the last quire (fols 94 and 95).

      Bibliography:

  3. Item: Fols 2v-93v interlinear & margin

      Title (B.27.4.1.EM): Interlinear and marginal additions, and alterations to the main text

      Text Language: English, Latin and French.

      Date: s. xiex-xiiiin

      Hand: See Methods of Alteration below.

      Note: Numerous additions in English, many by the main scribes, but also by later scribes. Examples of glosses by later scribes include: 'galnisse' (fol. 26r/17); 'geþr þæt', 'Incipit' (fol. 39v/9); 'sicige', 'cƿacige' (fol. 55r/10-11); 'getƿifilt' (fol. 59r/23); 'þas ƿord' (fol. 72v/10); 'palliatus mid pelle gescrid' (fol. 81r/24).

      Glosses in Latin throughout by various scribes. Particularly heavily glossed by a s. xiiiin hand in fol. 12v; many words in fol. 59v are marked by 'lectus'.

      Particularly heavily glossed in French by a s. xi3/4-s. xiiin hand in fols 41v-43 and fols 45r-46r.

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Codex

Support: Leaf ordering is hard to tell, but most of quires seem to be arranged HFHF. The flyleaves are paper of the date of binding.

Extent: Fols 1-93

Foliation and/or Pagination: A paper flyleaf without foliation, from the most recent binding + paper flyleaves numbered i-vi + fols 1-93, in pen and pencil + paper flyleaves foliated vii-viii.

Fols 1-20 are foliated in ink at the upper right corner (The facsimile of fol. 1 shows number '2', as piece of parchment (50 mm x 15 mm) has been cut from the outer top corner of fol. 1); fols 21-25 are foliated in pencil in the middle of the upper margin; fols 26-44 are foliated in ink in the middle, and in pencil at the right; and fols 45-92 are foliated in pen in the middle.

Collation:

Condition:

The manuscript contained 290 pages (145 leaves) in 1574, i.e., 52 leaves more than at present; and Ælfric's Glossary was followed by 'Historia Angliæ Saxon'. See the printed list of Parker's donation to the University, found in some copies of his De antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ Cantuariensis (1572/04).

Quire 12 now lacks its last two leaves, but there were present in the sixteenth century when Jocelyn included words excerpted from them in London, Lambeth Palace 692, fols 9v-10r.

A piece of parchment (50 mm x 15 mm) has been cut from the outer top corner of fol. 1.

Moderate cropping presumably occurred on the occasion of the earlier binding, as ink foliation numbers and the seventeenth-century annotations have suffered.

Layout description:

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