London, British Library Harley 3376 (with 392 Oxford Bodleian, Lat. Misc. a. 3 f. 49 and 155 Lawrence, Kenneth Spencer Research Library Pryce MS P2A: 1) "The Harley Glossary"

Abstract

274. London, British Library Harley 3376

(with 392 Oxford Bodleian, Lat. Misc. a. 3 f. 49 and 155 Lawrence, Kenneth Spencer Research Library Pryce MS P2A: 1)

"The Harley Glossary"

[Ker 240, Gneuss 436]

HISTORY: A fragment (92 remaining leaves+ two dispersed single leaves) of an extensive and advanced alphabetical glossary (ABC [D] order) running from "A" to "F" and containing 5563 entries glossed in Latin and OE, about a third of the glosses being OE (Oliphant 1966:11-12); if it was ever completed it contained well over 20,000 items: Oliphant (1966: 12) estimates that it was once a third larger than the Corpus glossary. Written in the late 10c/ early 11c, most probably at Worcester, since it contains an early ME poem in Western dialect in the margins of ff. 16rv-17r (Stemmler 1977), perhaps in the hand of the 13c Worcester "Tremulous Hand" (Franzen 1991: 17, 73-74; Cooke 1997: 446). A contemporary "Celtic" gloss, 'corupeta' (guohi|oc), on f. 43r/2 (not in the hand of the main scribe) may also indicate a Western provenance (cf. Schlutter 1908: 521). The single hand responsible for the main text and secondary glosses was identified by Ker (Cat. lvii) as the same as that of BL Cotton Vespasian D. xv [246], ff. 102-21 (Amalarius, excerpts from "De ecclesiasticis officiis"), and Gneuss (List, no. 386) wondered if this hand did not also write BL Cotton Vespasian B. x [242], ff. 31-124 (Aethicus, "Cosmographia"), a book associated with Worcester. It appears to be a compiler's original copy, consisting of a core of earlier A-S glossary items as seen in the Corpus Glossary, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS. 144 [31] (Pheifer 197 4: xxxv-xxxvi) supplemented by original items culled from standard school texts (Cooke 1997a: 454-67).

Manuscript was used by John Joscelyn, Matthew Parker's librarian, who underlined and counted OE words on each page; his extracts from this manuscript are in Lambeth Palace MS 692, f. 34r. Came to the Harleian collection from Warburton in 1720, who according to Ker (Cat. 309) acquired it from William Howard of Naworth, along with Harley 2965 [271], Harley 3013 [272], Harley 3825 [276]. Two dispersed leaves containing "I" words are extant, both abstracted before the notations of Joscelyn; one leaf is at Oxford, Bodleian Lat. Misc. a. 3, f. 49 [392] and one leaf at Lawrence, Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library Price MS P2A:1 [155].