Angers, Bibliotheque Municipale 477 (olim 461) Glossarium Andegavense"; Bede, "De rerum natura;' "De temporibus;' "De temporum ratione;' with Breton glosses; fragment of Justinian, "Institutiones" (flyleaf and pastedown)

Abstract

3. Angers, Bibliotheque Municipale 477 (olim 461)

"Glossarium Andegavense"; Bede, "De rerum natura;'

"De temporibus;' "De temporum ratione;'

with Breton glosses; fragment of Justinian,

"Institutiones" (flyleaf and pastedown)

[Ker Supp. App. 40; Gneuss - ]

HISTORY: The main part of this manuscript (Part B, ff. 9-87), a well-designed and much-used collection of Bede's scientific work with related computistica and kalendar, was written towards the end of the 9c in Brittany, dated to about 897 by Fleuriot (1964: 9) because an early glossator ,who can be identified as the scribe of the main texts, added on f. 21 r a calculation of the present year A.D. The presence of saints' names suggests provenance if not origin at the abbey of Landevennec in western Brittany (Fleuriot 1964: 9-10). Irish material seems to have been available in its compilation ( 0 Cr6inin 1983: 77-79). The scribe of Part B is notable for his use of construe- marks (syntactical glosses), found in Breton as well as in other manuscripts of the period (on which see Le Due 1994, Lemoine 1994). Quire I (Part A) was added to the beginning of the manuscript, and preserves the most valuable collection of surviving glosses from Britanny (Lambert 1983). Saints' names also suggest that the manuscript may have been for a time in the area of St. Malo, and others that later it was at the Benedictine abbey of St-Aubin in Angers (Fleuriot 1964: 10-11). Its sojourn at St-Aubin is confirmed by Montfaucon (1739: 2: 1225), where it is to be identified with no.125 "in-f. Bedre librum de computo:' From St-Aubin, after a period of storage in damp conditions at St-Martin, it would have come to the Bibliotheque Municipale (founded 1798) after the French Revolution. From f. 87 onwards there occurs a ragbag of notes, additions and diagrams from the 10c/11c. On f.96r are some scribbles in OE.

The binding of brown calf on stiff thick press-board sewn on five bands probably dates from the early 16c. For the endboard, a bifolium (Part C, ff. 100-101, containing item 14, a sheet, not the central sheet, from a quire in a dismembered 13c manuscript) has been used as flyleaf and pastedown to cover the anchorage of the sewing bands by sticking the second leaf over the board. F or the same purpose a strip of membrane, almost certainly containing another fragment of the same text, appears stuck over the hinge-side part of the front board to cover the anchorage of the sewing bands, but to judge from the writing reflected on to the board and on the strip there was originally another leaf in place, almost certainly the other half of the bifoliurn to which the surviving strip belonged.

Previous description by Auguste Molinier in Catalogue 1849-1918: n.s. 31 (1898): 349; also Fleuriot 1964: 8-11 and Jones 1975-1980: 3.175-76, no. 4.