Cologny, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, Bodmer 2
2
General Information
285, supp 124
828
The lower four-fifths of a leaf of Ælfric's Homily for Septuagesima Sunday.
Item: a single leaf
Title (B.1.2.6): Ælfric, Second Series of Homilies [Catholic Homilies II]: Septuagesima
Incipit: [me]rgen ond ƿolde hirian
Explicit: mid þam naman ys gesƿu
Text Language: English
Note: According to Ker 1957 the leaf is complete, except for probably five lines missing at the head (p. 347).
Bibliography:
Godden 1979, 41-42
Ker 1957, Item 285
Thorpe, 1844-46, pp. 72-74
Object Description
4/5 of a single leaf
Extent:
- 185 mm x 139 mm (dimensions of - size of leaf)
- 154 mm x 121 mm (dimensions of - size of written space)
Condition: 20 out of probably 25 lines remain. Lines 12-14 on the verso are partly illegible where the leaf had been folded. Ruling on the hair side (recto), single bounding lines (Ker 1957, p. 347).
Hand Description
Number of Hands: 1
Hand: main text
Scope: sole
Script: Insular Minuscule
Ker reference: Ker 285
Description: Ker 1957 describes the hand as 'ugly [...] round and upright and fairly large' (p. 347), and notes the following characteristics:
Summary of the characteristics of the hand:
- a often Caroline.
- e open at the top.
- f the cross-bar transects the shaft.
- s low, round and long forms used, but long only used in the ligature st.
- ð long upstroke.
- ascenders short.
- descenders short.
Abbreviations:
- gˉ used for ge-
- cw used for cwæð
- hwˉ used for hwæt
- fˉ used for for
Ligatures: long s used in st ligatures.
Date: s. xi2
Additional Information
Manuscript described by Orietta Da Rold with the assistance of Hollie Morgan and George Younge, with reference to published scholarship (2010; 2013).
History
Unknown.
Provenance: Formerly the wrapper of Mancinus, De quattuor virtutibus (London, R. Dexter, 1601). It formed part of lot 29 in the Howard of Corby sale, Sotheby's, 1st August 1934. The buyer, E. P. Goldschmidt, detatched it and sold it separately. It was part of the collection of Mr. Wilfred Merton, Slindon, Sussex until at least 1957 (Ker 1957, p. 347).
Unknown
Breslauer, Martin, 'Item 4', in Catalogue 90 (London, 1958)
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 828
Godden, Malcolm, ed., Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series; Text, EETS, SS 5 (London: Oxford University Press, 1979)
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 285
Thorpe, B., ed., The Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, Ælfric Society, 2 vols (1844-46)
Orietta Da Rold