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An Old English fragment from Westminster Abbey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

R. I. Page
R. I. Page
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
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Extract

Westminster Abbey Muniment 67209 is a strip of parchment sliced from an Old English manuscript, perhaps to be dated to the first half of the eleventh century (pl. IX a and b). It has top and bottom margins preserved, possibly in full, but no part of either side margin. The height of the fragment is 268mm, with top margin measuring 32mm (recto)/34mm (verso) and bottom 46mm (recto)/45mm (verso). Thus the height of the text block is c. 190mm. The strip is unevenly cut, so its width varies, top, 38mm, bottom 42mm, minimum 31mm.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 25 , December 1996 , pp. 201 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Venezky, R. L. and diPaolo Healey, A., A Microfilm Concordance to Old English (Toronto, 1980).Google Scholar

2 Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugescbriebenen Homilien, ed. Napier, A. [S.], Sammlung englischer Denkmäler 4 (Berlin, 1883), at 186, line 19 – 187, line 4Google Scholar; cf. also Stanley, E. G., ‘The Judgement of the Damned (from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201 and Other Manuscripts), and the Definition of Old English Verse’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 363–91 at 374Google Scholar (repr. in Stanley, E. G., A Collection of Papers with Emphasis on Old English Literature, Publ. of the Dictionary of Old English 3 (Toronto, 1987), 352–83.Google Scholar Bately references are to J. Bately, Anonymous Old English Homilies: a Preliminary Bibliography of Source Studies, compiled for Fontes Anglo-Saxonici and Sources of Anglo-Saxon literary Culture (Binghamton, NY, 1993).Google Scholar Bately's references to ‘Ker’ are to Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957).Google Scholar

3 Hulme, W. H., ‘The Old English Gospel of Nicodemus’, MP 1 (1903–1904), 579–614, item IV at 612, line 26–613, line 16.Google Scholar

4 Bately, , Anonymous Homilies, p.43.Google Scholar

5 Scragg, D. G., ‘The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints' Lives before Ælfric’, ASE 8 (1979), 223–77.Google Scholar

6 Stanley, , ‘Judgement of the Damned’, pp. 384–5.Google Scholar

7 The Vercelli Homilies and related Texts, ed. Scragg, D. G., EETS os 300 (Oxford, 1992), 56 and 58.Google Scholar

8 Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, ed. Morin, G., 2nd ed., 2 vols., CCSL 103–4 (Turnhout, 1953) I, 253–4 (no. 57)Google Scholar; but see p. 250 n. On this subject, see Trahern, J. B., ‘Caesarius of Aries and Old English Literature’, ASE 5 (1976), 105–19, esp. 118Google Scholar; also, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies ed. Bazire, J. and Cross, J. E., Toronto Old English Series 7 (Toronto, 1982), xvii, 9 and 126–7Google Scholar; Scragg, , Vercelli Homilies, pp. 139–41.Google Scholar

9 Godden, M. R., ‘Old English Composite Homilies from Winchester’,.ASE 4 (1975), 57–65, at 57.Google Scholar

10 I am indebted to Dr S. D. Keynes for drawing my attention to this fragment after a seminar in the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in which I had incautiously said it was unlikely we would find very much more Old English manuscript material in the future; to Dr Michelle Brown for advice on palaeography and to Professor D. G. Scragg for comment on an earlier draft of this paper. I also thank the Keeper of the Muniments of Westminster Abbey and his staff for so courteously helping me to study the fragment, and the Librarians of the British Library, Lambeth Palace, London, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for giving me access to parallel materials. The plates are reproduced here by courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.