Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 557
557
General Information
73
117
Two fragments of the Anonymous Homilies, Homilies for Specified Occasions, Sanctorale: Invention of the Cross, used as strips in the binding. Most of another leaf from the same manuscript and text is in Lawrence, Pryce C2. 1. The text is otherwise known only in a twelfth-century copy in Bodley 343. Interlinear glosses are by the Tremulous Hand, written by one hand of Worcester provenance.
Item: Upper fragment fol. 1r
Addition: (fol. 1r) […]don. Ða færinga heom eallum on ha[...]| aspráng þær fyr on ðreo halfe þæs treopes. 7 forbærnde s[...] | manna þe hit ceorfan ƿoldon. 7 ðone preost forð mid. þe h[…] | heretoga ƿæs. Ða oþre for þære miclan fyrhto þe hi þær g[...]| ut æturnon. þa hi ðanon ut comon þa gesaƿon hi 7 eal seo[…] | ƿaru on hierusalem […]
Text Language: English
Item: Lower fragment fol. 1r
Addition: (fol. 1r) þa eodon hi in to ðam cyninge 7 him cyddon þæt hi o[..]allum| […]swulc treow findan [...] mihton swylc þær to sceolde | [...] þ[...] most[...] Salomon þæt he natoshwan þafian | [...] þing[...] iþe micle | [...]acun [...]ðer gehit on [...]gre oþre | [...]an mag [...]on. […] on seofon niht[…]n socne[…]
Text Language: English
Item: Upper fragment fol. 1v
Addition: (fol. 1v) […]rto. þe hit ær ametan hæf[don] [...]| [...]am fæðmon lengre ðonne þæt gemett ƿære. Ða ƿæron hi sƿyþe | […]am cyninge cyþdon. 7 se cyning ofostlice þider geƿende. | […]s soðef ƿære. Ða he ða þæt geseah. Þa ƿearþ he mid | [...]sse onstyred. 7 [...] þæt hi deaþes scyldige wæron | […] gebroht hæfdon […] Het hit ða up[…]
Text Language: English
- Item: Lower fragment fol. 1v
(fol. 1v) […]ascéndan ƿolde. 7 hi þa fóron. 7 ðam ylcan dæg. fundon eall[...] | 7 hi þa hit g[...] beon [...] 7 þæt hal[...]eow | þam temple læg. [...] seo tid com þe ure drihten ðrowian ƿol[...]| inne [...]geƿo[...]te wæron ðurh þæt [...]lige treoƿ| lamp[...]on þæt ðærto eodo[...]undtentig iude[...]ra mann[...]| nima[...]dan. 7 hit to ðæs [...]es botle ber[...]ƿoldon. þæ
Text Language: English
Object Description
Form: fragments
Support:
Extent:
74 mm x 145 mm (dimensions of Fragment 1 - size of leaf)
48 mm x 140 mm (dimensions of Fragment 1 - size of written space)
42 mm x 155 mm (dimensions of Fragment 2 - size of leaf)
42 mm x 135 mm (dimensions of Fragment 2 - size of written space)
Foliation/Pagination: Foliation does not survive. The strips are designated Fragment 2:1 and Fragment 2:2. In their current mounting, 2:2 is above 2:1 and 2:2 is mounted with the verso to the front.
Condition:
Note: Thick, stiff, yellowish or brownish vellum. The recto is the flesh side in both fragments. 2:1 shows part of the upper margin, six incomplete lines of text on each side and fragments of a seventh on the verso. At the top and bottom are three narrow channels to accommodate a binding thong. 2:2 is from further down the same leaf and is an irregular rectangle shape without channels. It contains four incomplete lines of text and parts of two more on each side. No prick marks survive. Each fragment is irregularly ruled in drypoint from the verso, about 11mm apart. Rectos are truncated on the left margin, versos on the right. The length of the written lines varies. In Lawrence, Pryce C2 the writing area is preserved, except for three lines cut from the top. With the three missing lines, there would have been 26 lines of writing per page. The recto of the fragments probably represent (2:1) lines 1-6 and (2:2) 16-21of a page.
Hand Description
Number of hands: 1 in Old English
Summary: One hand writes the main text. The Tremulous Handprovides glosses in Latin in the early thirteenth century.
Methods of Alteration: The Tremulous Hand adds some punctuation, accents and diacritics.
Hand: main text
- Scope: major
- Scribe: Ker 73 SC1
- Script: English Vernacular Minuscule
- Summary of the characteristics of the hand: Ker (1957)describes this as 'a rather poor hand' (p. 122).
- e is high in the combination æ.
- Only long s is used.
Text initials are sometimes filled with a reddish- orange wash. On the upper left edge of 2:1r is a small decorative otif, drawn free-hand and in a different ink from the main text and the glosses (Doane 2002, p. 2).
In 1952 the two fragments were mounted in a paper frame by V. S. Stoakley. In 1991-2 Nicholas Hadgraft made a butterly pressure mount made of acid- free board with fitted recesses for each fragment (Doane 2002, p. 1).
Additional Information
Administration Information:
- Manuscript description by Hollie Morgan and Owen Roberson with the assistance of Sanne van der Schee, with reference to published scholarship (2010; 2012).
Surrogates:
- Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Stanford University, Parker Library on the Web (https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/; accessed in 2010) Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Series) (Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), vol. 7: Anglo- Saxon Bibles and "The Book of Cerne"
History
Origin:
The glosses by the Tremulous Hand suggest that the fragments come from Worcester. Ker (1940) observed a resemblance between the scripts of 2:2 and Ker's Scribe 9 of Cambridge, CCC 198, causing Colgrave and Hyde (1962) to suggest that the fragments were once bound with Cambridge, CCC 198 or 'a similar manuscript which has now disappeared' (p. 77).
Provenance:
May have remained in Worcester until Archbishop Parker's time. Ker 1957 argues that it is not unlikely that Parker would have discarded this leaf because it was part of a text that began or ended imperfectly.
Acquisition:
2:1 was used as strips in the binding of SP. 260, Fides Iesu et Iesuitarum &c. (Christlingæ 1573). It was found in the early 1950s. 2:2 was used as strips in the binding of SP. 4, Tertia pars chronici Carionis (Bas. 1563). It was found in 1936 and reported by Ker in 1940. Both books are from the library of Archbishop Parker, with 16th-century Parkerian bindings, and were given to Corpus Christi College in 1575 (Doane 2002, p. 1).
Worcester
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Stanford University, Parker Library on the Web (http://parkerweb.stanford.edu/parker/; accessed in 2010)
Colgrave, Bertram, and Anne Hyde, 'Two Recently Discovered Leaves from Old English Manuscripts', Speculum, 37 (1962), 60-78
Doane, Alger Nicolaus, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Renaissance Studies (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), vol. 7: Anglo-Saxon Bibles and 'The Book of Cerne'
Franzen, Christine, The Tremulous Hand of Worcester: A Study of Old English in the Thirteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)
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 117
Ker, N. R., 'An Eleventh-century Old English Legend of the Cross before Christ', Medium Ævum, 9 (1940), 84-85
---, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. 1990), item 73
Napier, Arthur Sampson, ed., History of the Holy Rood-Tree : A Twelfth-century Version of the Cross-legend with Notes on the Orthography of the Orumulum (with a facsimile) and a Middle English Compassio Mariae, EETS, OS 103 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1894)
Napier, Arthur Sampson, ed., History of the Holy Rood-Tree: A Twelfth-century Version of the Cross-legend with Notes on the Orthography of the Orumulum (with a facsimile) and a Middle English Compassio Mariae, EETS, OS 103 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1894)
Oldham, J. B., English Blind-stamped Bindings (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952)
Page, R. I., Mildred Budny, and Nicolas Hadgraft, 'Two Fragments of an Old English Manuscript in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge', Speculum, 70 (1995), 502-29
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)
Vaughan, Richard, and John Fines, 'A handlist of Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, not described by M. R. James', Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 3.2 (1960), 113-23
Hollie Morgan and Owen Roberson