Bern, Burgerbibliothek 258 Biblical Glossaries; Alphabetical Glossaries

Abstract

11. Bern, Burgerbibliothek 258

Biblical Glossaries; Alphabetical Glossaries

[Ker App. 5; Gneuss -]

HISTORY: The manuscript, of the late 9c or early 10c, comprises two similar but distinct units, as shown by the two sets of original quire signatures and the early modern ownership marks: quires 'i-iiii' [u-ui] (ff. 1-47) contain Old Testament glossae collectae with OE/OHG and Old Irish interpretations, while quires 'vii-xviii' (ff. 48-192) contain a number of alphabetical glossaries. The first part was owned in the mid-16c by the Huguenot scholar Pierre Daniel of Orleans, editor of "Querolus" and Servius' Virgil Commentary (f. 1r, 'Ex. libb. Petri Danielis Aurelii 1564'), who acquired the basis of his library as a result of the sack of the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire (Fleury) by Huguenot soldiers in 1562. This part may therefore have a Fleury provenance, but given the OHG color of many of the vernacular glosses, it or its exemplar must have migrated from the east. The second part is of similar date, layout, and script, but not necessarily of the same provenance as it was combined with part one in the early 17 c. In 1604 the Daniel collection was bought jointly by Paul Petau (1568-1614) and the French Protestant diplomat and philologist Jacques Bongars (1554-1612); Bongars it was who combined the two parts, the second part being independently inscribed at beginning and end 'Bongarsii' (ff. 48r and 192r), presumably before the two parts were combined. Bongars willed his library to Jakob Graviseth or Gravisset, who, in gratitude for municipal favors received, gave it to the city of Bern in 1624, the collection, consisting of about 500 manuscripts and more than 3000 printed books, arriving, after litigation, in 1632. An extensive handwritten catalogue, "Clavis Bibliothecae Bongarsianae;' was compiled by Samuel Hortin in 1634. The Stadtbibliothek/ Universitatsbibliothek was reorganized in 1951, the Bongars manuscripts going to the Burgerbibliothek (cf. von Steiger 1983). Described, Lowe 1876: 174-76, Goetz 1888-1923: 4.xxi-xxii, Steinmeyer and Sievers 1879-1922: 4.386-87, Bergmann and Stricker 2005: 1.258-59.