Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Michael Lapidge
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- PART ONE ALTER ORBIS
- PART TWO TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY
- PART THREE THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM
- PART FOUR LEARNING, TEACHING AND WRITING
- 19 The Regular Life
- 20 The Bible in the West
- 21 The Northumbrian Bible
- 22 Education and the Grammarians
- 23 Reading and Psalmody
- 24 Number and Time
- 25 The Lives of Saints
- 26 Secular and Christian Books
- 27 Candela Ecclesiae
- Select Bibliography
- Index
21 - The Northumbrian Bible
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Michael Lapidge
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- PART ONE ALTER ORBIS
- PART TWO TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY
- PART THREE THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM
- PART FOUR LEARNING, TEACHING AND WRITING
- 19 The Regular Life
- 20 The Bible in the West
- 21 The Northumbrian Bible
- 22 Education and the Grammarians
- 23 Reading and Psalmody
- 24 Number and Time
- 25 The Lives of Saints
- 26 Secular and Christian Books
- 27 Candela Ecclesiae
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The presentation of the complete Latin Bible raised editorial problems as well as problems of translation, and it was to this aspect of Biblical studies that Cassiodorus devoted much time at Vivarium in southern Italy. We have already noted his description of the three Bibles to be found in the library there — one in nine separate volumes, a second contained in a single volume of smaller writing, and a third, also in a single volume but a larger book written in clearer writing. We have also seen that this last Bible, now known as the Codex Grandior, was used by Bede. It was presumably the sight of a complete copy of the whole Bible in a single volume which prompted Abbot Ceolfrith to a similar undertaking. His anonymous biographer records how he splendidly enlarged the collection of books which either he himself or Benedict Biscop had brought from Rome and how ‘amongst other things he caused three pandects to be transcribed, two of which he placed in the churches of his two monasteries, so that all who wished to read any chapter of either Testament might easily find what they wanted, whilst, as to the third, he decided when he was about to go to Rome, to offer it as a gift to St Peter, prince of the apostles.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The World of Bede , pp. 221 - 236Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990