The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Orietta Da Rold

Lincoln, Cathedral Library, 298. B

Hexateuch fragment

Date: s. xi2

Summary:

MS 298 is a portfolio of different material. It includes flyleaves, pastedowns, loose leaves, etc. (Thomson 1989).

B is a fragment from a copy of two cut leaves of the Old English Heptateuch. Fol. 1 includes numbers 10:28 to 12:12, and fol. 1r begins 'Ða hi þa utforan of egipta lande'. Fol. 2 includes numbers 12:12 to 16:3. Fol. 2v ends '˥ god wunað on him' (See: Ker 1957, p. 159, and Marsden 2008, p. lxiv).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item: fols 1r-2v

   Title (B.8.1.3): Heptateuch

   Incipit: (fol. 1r) Ða hi þa utforan of egipta lande

   Explicit: (fol. 2v) ondgod wunað on him

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1957, item 125

   Crawford 1921, p. 2

   Crawford 1922, p. 308

Physical Description:

Object Description:

Form: Fragment

Support: Parchment

Extent:

300 mm x 209 mm mm (dimensions of fol. 2 - size of leaves)

277 mm x 189-97 mm (dimensions of fol. 2 - size of written space)

Note:

Two adjacent leaves probably originally joint in a complete central bifolium, because, as Marsden observes, the text continues across the two leaves, which suggests they were a central bifolium of a quire. The parchment is trimmed with loss of text on the outer margin. Internal margin 18 mm. The leaves have been torn on the lower margin, causing a loss of almost all the last ten long lines of the leaves. Folios are ruled in dry point and the text is written on 37 long lines per folio (See: Marsden 2008, lxiii).

Hand description:

Number of hands: 1

Summary:
Hand: main text
• Scope: sole
• Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
• Ker reference: Ker 125 SC1
• Description: An insular minuscule with some Caroline influences. Crawford (1922, p. 183) noted 'a fine regular hand', but Ker (1957, p. 159) and Marsden (2008, p. lxiii) agree that the hand is 'ill- formed'. Script is in dark brown ink, and is 'large and rather untidy' (Marsden 2008, p. lxiii).
• Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
• d squat, rounded, short.
• e round-backed.
• m terminal m often suspended. The suspension mark is a zigzag.
• s broken-shafted Caroline s, beside low. Long s is rare, and it has split-topped ascenders.
• y fine descending stroke, upturned at the end.
• D occurs in both minuscule and rustic.
• M there are three forms.
• ascenders split-topped.
• descenders a hair-line slopes up to the right from the ends of the descenders.
• Abbreviations: There is regular contraction of: þæt, cwæþ and þonne.
• Correcting technique: There are some corrections, possibly contemporary and by the copyist (Marsden 2008, p. lxv).

Decoration Description:

Tinted letter is red at the beginning of each sentence.

Binding Description:

Now bound as the second item in a portfolio of twelve fragments, collected in the early twentieth century. The fragments have been described in Thomson (1989, pp. 205-07).

Additional Information:

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Orietta Da Rold with the assistance of Hollie Morgan and Johanna Green, and with reference to published scholarship (2010; 2013).

Bibliography:

Crawford, S. J., ed., The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, Ælfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament, and his Preface to Genesis, EETS, OS 160 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922)

---, Exameron Anglice, or the Old English Hexameron, Bibliotek der angelsächsischen Prosa (Hamburg: H. Grand 1921), vol. 10

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 276

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 125

Marsden, Richard, ed., The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric's Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novo, EETS, OS 330 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)

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)

Thomson, Rodney Malcolm, Catalogue of the manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Published on behalf of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester Cathedral by D.S. Brewer, 1989), p. 205

Wanley, H., Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus (1705)