Cologny-Geneve, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, MS Bodmer 2 Fragment of Ælfric, Homily for Septuagesima Sunday

Abstract

112. Cologny-Geneve, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana,

MS Bodmer 2

Fragment of Ælfric, Homily for Septuagesima Sunday

[Ker 285 & Supp., Gneuss 828]

HISTORY: A late 11c fragment consisting of one leaf trimmed at the top containing most of the Gospel text of Ælfric's Homily for Septuagesima Sunday from the second series (on Matt. 20.1-15, the parable of the workers in the vineyard). The leaf had formed the wrapper of Domenico Mancini, De quattuor virtutibus (London: R. Dexter, 1601); the volume was bought in the Howard of Corby Sale at Sotheby's, Lot 29, August 1, 1934 by the book dealer E. P. Goldschmidt and the leaf, detached, sold separately by him to the collector Wilfrid Merton; later bought by the book dealer Martin Breslauer (no. 4 in his 1958 catalogue) (see Ker 1962: 77). It was purchased for the Bodmeriana by auction in July 1958 for £250. The verso was pasted to the binding. It is now preserved between sheets of plate glass, kept in a box labeled 'M. MS. 1.6 cod. Bodmer 2'. The text varies slightly in grammatical details and vocabulary from the received text (see Ker 1962: 78-79, Potter 1964: 67), enough so that Godden did not attempt to collate variants from it (Godden 1979: 348-49). [Note: Ker ( 1962: 77) notes that this copy "does not set out to be a faithful transcript of what Ælfric wrote;' that the scribe was simplifying the text. The Bodmer text is related to the tradition preserved in such manuscripts as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340,342 [358]. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MSS 162 [33]. 198 [41]. 303 [49], and other of the "B group" of the "first recension" of manuscripts of Ælfric's second series of Catholic Homilies (cf. Godden 1979: xxv-lxv). Manuscripts of this group probably go back to a south-eastern ancestor but the type spread to the West Midlands and Worcester (Godden 1979: lx-lxii). Though the Bodmer fragment is a slender sample, dialectal variants and corrections point to a south-western scriptorium in possession of a lW-S first-recension copy of the second series.]