Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek Vossianus Lat. Q. 69 A composite miscellany of Christian Apocrypha; Hymns, Epitaphs, "The Leiden Glossary': theological extracts, Pliny, etc.

Abstract

157. Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek Vossianus Lat. Q. 69

A composite miscellany of

Christian Apocrypha; Hymns, Epitaphs,

"The Leiden Glossary': theological extracts, Pliny, etc.

[Ker, App. 18, Gneuss: -; CLA 1585]

HISTORY: A composite manuscript in six parts, containing a variety of texts dating from the 8c to the 13c. There are no explicit indications for the provenance of parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, but de Meyier (1973-1984: 2.158) suggested that they might well originate from the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, which is certainly the provenance of part 5, containing a list of the abbots of St. Gall up to 1521. Later in the 16c, the manuscript belonged to the German humanist and antiquarian Melchior Haiminsfeld Goldast (1578-1635), who added annotations to various places, and cited some glosses from the "Leiden Glossary" in his Paraeneticorum Veterum Pars I (Cologne, 1604). Goldast may well have discovered the various parts from the St. Gall library ( de Meyier 1973-1984: 2.158) during his visits to St. Gall, made between 1598 and 1606, when he transcribed from manuscripts and studied the work ofJoachim von Watt (Vadianus, 1484-1551), an early 16c magistrate, reformist, and burgomaster of St. Gall, whose annotations occur on ff. 52v and 54r (Hertenstein 1975: 120-25). In the 17c the manuscript formed part of the library of Queen Christina of Sweden, whence it passed into the hands of the Dutch philologist Isaac Vossius as part of a remuneration for debts Vossius had incurred on Christina's behalf. Its occurrence in the auction catalogue oflsaac's father Gerard Vossius does not prove that it formed part of the latter's library, for in 1656 Isaac used his father's name to sell part of the books from Sweden, including books not from his father's library. After Vossius's death in 1689, the trustees of Leiden University purchased his library, by then in Windsor, and shipped it to its present location. The "Leiden Glossary;' in part 2 of the manuscript, contains 48 sections of glossae collectae from biblical sources as well as Church Fathers, classical authors, and early medieval historians, including Gildas' "De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae" (cf. Goetz 1894: xxvii-xxviii). This part of the manuscript is almost certainly from St. Gall, since various entries also occur in other manuscripts from that monastery (Hessels 1906: xiii-xiv). Lapidge (1986: 63-64) claims that the "Leiden Glossary" was copied from a lost A-S exemplar, at St. Gall, around A.D. 800. Moreover, St. Gall is the provenance of six more manuscripts containing OE which are still preserved in its library today (Ker, Cat., pp. 480-81). The scribes who made this copy were presumably not too familiar with its contents, for one of them added on f. 36r: 'Sicut inueni scripsi ne reputes scriptori'. The OE and OHG words are often marked by either a horizontal stroke or a sign resembling av (explained by Hessels as "vernacule") above the gloss. In the 16c Melchior Goldast was the first to recogize its importance for Germanic philology. In the 1650s, Isaac Vossius lent it to his uncle, the renowned Francis Junius (1591- 1677), who transcribed a selection of its entries in alphabetical order, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 116d, ff. 5-36. Henry Sweet (1885) included the "Leiden Glossary" in his edition of"the oldest English texts:'