The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220

Mary Swan and Owen Roberson

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 211

Bede’s Death Song

Date: s. xii/xiii

Summary:

Old English text of Bede’s Death Song is part of Cuthbert’s letter De obitu Bedæ, which follows a copy of the Historia ecclesiastica. OE is in the same hand as the main text. Ker notes that ‘the Waltham Abbey ex-libris inscription […] is contemporary with the text’ (1957, p. 383).

Manuscript Items:

1. Item:

   Title (A.33.3): Bede's Death Song: West Saxon Version

   Addition: (fol. 108) For þam nedfere næni ƿyr | þeþ þances snotera þonne him þearf sy | to gehicgenne ær his heonengan | ge. hƿæt his gaste godes oþþe yfeles | æfter deaþe heonon demed ƿeorþe

   Text Language: English

   Bibliography:

   Ker 1942-45, plate III

   Ker 1957, p. 383

Administration Information:

Manuscript described by Mary Swan and Owen Roberson with the assistance of Sanne van der Schee, with reference to published scholarship (2010; 2012).

Bibliography:

Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 321

---, 'More Manuscripts from Essex Monastic Libraries: With Notes on Manuscripts Connected with Essex Parish Churches', Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 23 (1942-45), 298-311