The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Takako Kato

Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Additional 20

Bilingual Rule of Chrodegang (fragment)

Date: s. xi2

Summary:

A fragment of the Latin-Old English recension of the Rule of Chrodegang, containing parts of chapters 39, 40 and 43. There is a complete copy of Rule of Chrodegang in CCCC 191, and a copy of part of chapter 61 in BL, Add. 34652. Ker 1957 refers to the fragment as 'Canterbury, Cathedral, Box CCC no. xixa' (pp. 138-39).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 1r-2v

   Title (B.10.4.1): Chrodegang of Metz, Regula Canonicorum

   Incipit: (fol. 1r from ch. 39) Se healfa dæl þæra preosta | þe yldran beon ... ge | macan sceona finde man ælcum

   Explicit: (fol. 2v) 7 he him heora | [neode be his m]ihtum do. 7] georne ... [swa micle ma eo]wer ælc sceal oþres

   Note: Parts of chapters 39, 40, and 43. Four leaves missing between fols 1 and 2.

   Bibliography:

   Doane 1997, pp. 1-2

   Ker 1957, item 97

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Fragment of a bifolium

Support: Parchment

Extent: According to Ker 1957:

236 mm x 163 mm (dimensions of all - size of leaf)

224 mm x 115 mm (dimensions of all - size of written space)

Collation:

Quires: About four leaves are missing between folio 1 and 2; hence this bifolium was probably sheets 2 and 7 of the quire.

Condition: According to Ker 1957, it 'formed the wrapper of a small book' (p. 139).

Layout description:

19 lines.

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1

Hand: Main
• Scope: Major
• Script: Caroline Minuscule with Insular letters
• Ker reference: Ker 97 SC1
• Description: According to Doane 1997, 'a round Anglo-Caroline in the Latin and an Insular minuscule of similar character in the OE' (p. 1). Ker 1957 describes it as 'a large round hand' (p. 139).
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
• a in Old English is round and insular.
• a and e are the same height in the combination æ.
• d in Old English is round and its ascender is very short.
• e in Old Engish is round-backed (as in Latin); its head is very small.
• Insular g has a round loop which closes.
• Long and high forms of s are used indifferently.
• Rounded y in Latin, and straight-limbed y in Old English; both forms are dotted.
• ascenders are wedged and sometimes split.

Decoration Description:

Initial in scarlet, outlined in pale pink, rubrics in pale orange (Doane 1997, p. 1).

History:

Provenance:

Ker 1957 identifies it as the copy of Regula canonicorium among the Libri anglici in the early 14th-century catalogue of Christ Church, Canterbury, but James says that this entry presumably refers to 'the Rule of St. Augustine' (See Doane 1997, p. 1).

Acquisition:

Formerly 'Box CCC no. xixa'. It was discovered by William Urry in the 1940s in Canterbury (Ker 1957, p. vii).

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Described by Takako Kato, with reference to published scholarship (2010; 2013).

Surrogates:

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, '109. Canterbury Cathedral Library, Additional 20: "Bilingual Rule of Chrodegang" (fragment)', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1997), vol. 5: Latin Manuscripts with Anglo-Saxon Glosses

Bibliography:

Doane, Alger Nicolaus, '109. Canterbury Cathedral Library, Additional 20: "Bilingual Rule of Chrodegang" (fragment)', in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1997), vol. 5: Latin Manuscripts with Anglo-Saxon Glosses, pp. 1-2

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 Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), item 207

James, Montague Rhodes, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903)

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 97

Napier, Arthur S., ed., The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang together with the Latin Original; An Old English Version of the Capitula of Theodulf together with the Latin Original; An Interlinear Old English Rendering of the Epitome of Benedict of Aniane, EETS, OS 150 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1916)

---, 'The Rule of Chrodegang in Old English', Modern Language Notes, 18 (1903), 241

---, 'Two Old English Fragments', Modern Language Notes, 12 (1897), 105-14

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)