St-Omer, Bibliotheque d'Aglomeration de St-Omer 150 Gregory, "Regula Pastoralis" and glossaries; Isidore, "Synonyma''; Augustine, "De Utilitate Credendi;' etc.; "Tractatus Origenis"

Abstract

453. St-Omer, Bibliotheque d'Aglomeration

de St-Omer 150

Gregory, "Regula Pastoralis" and glossaries; Isidore,

"Synonyma''; Augustine, "De Utilitate Credendi;' etc.;

"Tractatus Origenis"

[Ker App. 30; Gneuss -; Lowe, CLA 6.734]

HISTORY: This manuscript, comprising three parts, Part A (ff. 3-84) written by several hands in the 10c, Part B (ff. 85-150) written in the 12c, and Part C (ff. 151-192) written in the 13c, was at the abbey of St-Bertin at StOmer, as indicated by the inscriptions on ff. lv and 192v (items l(d) and 15(6) below). Part B shows signs of organized collaboration (e.g., there is a change of hand on f. 120 at line 6), and seems to have been deliberately added to Part A: Item 5 has a 'supply' ending on f. 85r written by a hand later than that off. 84v, the last leaf of quire XII in Part A. Item 6 begins on f. 85v, and continues in a very different format; and Item 8 ends with a bifolium on f. 126r, with f. 126v probably originally left blank, but when Item 9 was added it was convenient to fit Item 9(a), a diagram, on to f. 126v, with the main text beginning on the first leaf of quire XIX, f. 127r; the hand that takes up at f. 85r also does so at f. 126v. In the 13c it was decided to add Part C and ff. 1-2 were added at this time too, perhaps in an effort to rehabilitate the manuscript. Probably at this time some repairs were applied to quires II-III (ff. 3, 7, 10-11, 14-15, 18), and to Quires IV-VI (ff. 19-42), and f. 193 was added. In Quires II-III some uncial fragments that belong with one in Boulogne- sur-Mer, Bibi. Mun. 27 have been fused or sewn to the inner top corner of ff. 3, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18. These fragments date from the 6/7 c (Lowe 1953: 6, no. 734) and have been well studied by Wilmart 1925. In quires IV-VI some fragments from a 13c manuscript (perhaps that from which f. 193 was taken) have been fused or sewn to ff. 19-42 in the same position; see further below under "Contents" before item 3. There are annotations indicating subsequent use of the manuscript, e.g. on f. 85r 'omnis h<om>o p<ri>mum uinu<m> bonu<m> potat: and all round the text as commentary in the margins on ff. 123v-124r. An annotation in the right-hand margin of f. 145r has been partially cropped by a binder, and similar damage has affected the annotations in a very small cramped hand on ff. 146r-148r.

At the time of the French Revolution the manuscript was removed from St-Bertin and kept in the Jesuit College in St-Omer, which served as a depot for the nationalized books taken from religious houses and elsewhere. From there it joined the Bibliotheque Municipale in St-Omer (then in the same building), which opened in 1805, and which in turn became the Bibliotheque d'Aglomeration de St-Omer in 1997. The manuscript has been damaged by exposure to damp, probably prolonged, at some earlier stage or stages of its history ( quires II-VI perhaps earlier, and the whole in the 18c?), and many folios are stained and some of those near the beginning are difficult or impossible to read near the outer edges. The manuscript received its present binding of brown calf in the 19c. Previous descriptions in Catalogue 1849-1918: 3 (1861): 82, Bergmann and Stricker 2005: 3.1370- 72 (no. 718).