Durham Cathedral Library B. III. 32 "The Durham Hymnal;' glossed in OE; Ælfric's "Grammar" [Ker 107, Gneuss 244]

Abstract

120. Durham Cathedral Library B. III. 32

"The Durham Hymnal;' glossed in OE; Ælfric's "Grammar"

[Ker 107, Gneuss 244]

HISTORY: This manuscript is made up of two discrete codices bound together by at least the 13c, and perhaps as early as their time of writing in the 1 lc; the hymn added on f. 127r in the 11c strongly suggests that the two parts were together then, and cf. contents inscription on f. 2r (bottom), in a hand similar to that of the contents inscription on f. 29r of CUL Ii.1.33 (98) (cf. Milfull 1996: 28; Ker, Cat., p. 23). It contains a Latin hymnal with some marginal Latin commentary and interlinear OE glosses, a collection of proverbs from the mid-11 c, glossed monastic canticles, single hymn fragments, and, in the second codex, a copy of Ælfric's "Grammar;' which shows southeastern dialect influence; the later-I le hymn addition on f. 127r was apparently included to supplement the earlier collection. The first part, probably once self-contained, consisted of the hymnal and canticles (ff. 1 r-SSv, with the proverbs added into blank pages 43v-45v later on in the mid-1 lc), and is written by two main hands, with the Latin hymn-texts in caroline minuscule and the vernacular glosses in Insular minuscule, "which may be [in a hand] identical with the hand of the text" (Ker). Some neuming occurs interlinearly (ff. 14v-1Sr) for one hymn only. Similar glossed collections of hymns appear in BL Cotton Julius A. vi (199) and Cotton Vespasian D. xii (244), while the glossed Canticles appear in Vespasian as well. The book(s) comprising this manuscript appear to originate in Canterbury, as shown by its scripts, Kentish influence on the OE glosses (Milfull 1996: 73-77), direct relationship to the Canterbury manuscript BL Cotton Tiberius A. iii (223) as seen in the drawing on f. 56v, Canterbury-style construe glosses, and the south-eastern type of ME added on f. 56v: perhaps from Christ Church, although Ker thinks that the better, rounder hand more likely belongs to a scribe of St. Augustine's Abbey. As Milfull (1996: 39) points out, the compilation was clearly intended early on as a school-book, as shown by the vernacular and construe glosses, by the addition of bilingual proverbs, and by the combination of the liturgical book with Ælfric's "Grammar:' (On construe glosses in general see Robinson 1973, esp. 462 and, more systematically, Korhammer 1980, esp. 37, 43, 57.) The manuscript was consulted in the 16c by John Joscelyn for his Anglo- Saxon dictionary (Gneuss 1968: 90) and owned in the 16c by one Thomas Aynesworth<y> (f. lr). The note on f. 127v indicates that it belonged to Richard Shuttleworth of Forcett, North Riding, Yorkshire, who died in 1681, and that on 19 March 1675, it came through loan into the hands of George Davenport, chaplain to Bishop Cosin of Durham (cf. Milfull 1996: 35). Ker points out that it came to Durham Cathedral Library after 1705 (not described by Wanley) and before 1725 (described by Rud [1825: 174], who says it was given by Thomas Wharton [not the famous Whig parliamentarian the first Marquess of Wharton (d. 1715), who was not connected to Durham and not known as a bibliophile]); the Durham ex libris on f. lr is of the early 18c.