Cambridge, Trinity College, B.10.5 Pauline Epistles

Abstract

76. Cambridge, Trinity College, B.10.5 (216)

with

255. London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C. viii ff. 85-90

Pauline Epistles

[Ker 83, Gneuss 173]

HISTORY: A fragmentary copy of the Pauline Epistles, probably written in Northumbria, at a center under Irish influence, in the first half of the 8c. Wordsworth and White's "S." The last five leaves have been cut out and now form ff. 86-90 of Vitellius C. viii, as was first noticed by Wanley (1705: 241 ). A Durham Cathedral Library catalogue, compiled in 1391, mentions "L. Epistolx Pauli glo. De manu Bedx. II fo. 'Et post "' (B[otfield] 1838: 18). A 14c/15c note associated with the leaves in Vitellius reads "L. Epistolæ Pauli de manu Bedae." It would thus appear that in the 14c the manuscript was in the cathedral library at Durham, and was at that time thought to have been written by Bede himself. The book has lost two or three quires at the beginning, the text beginning at 1 Corinthians 7:32; a note in a hand of the 16c notes this loss. A modern hand has written in pencil in the top outer corner of each page the biblical reference to the chapter and verse with which each page begins (but it omitted ff. 10v-13r inclusive). There are many Latin glosses in the text, most perhaps in the hand of the main scribe, many derived from the gloss of Pelagius' "Expositiones XIII epistularum Pauli," and another roughly contemporary layer of glosses after f. 13r; there are also some roughly contemporary glosses to Hebrews. Two places have OE glosses: Keynes (1992: 8) says one apparently contemporary with the main gloss, and one apparently 9c; Ker, Cat., dates them both to 9c. The manuscript was given to Trinity College by Thomas Nevile (Master, 1593-1615), whose arms are on the binding. Formerly, there were slips in the binding from a service book. These were removed in 1982 and are now classed at B.11.34, and have been identified as fragments from Cambridge, University Library, Additional 5963. Photographs of the leaves removed to Vitellius C. viii are now classed as B.10.Sa.