Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket Acc. 1996/12 Ælfric, "Catholic Homilies" (binding fragments) with 136. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 133 D 22 and 152a. Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, Middelaldersamlingen Aftagne Frag. Nr. 637-698

Abstract

150. Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket Acc. 1996/12

Ælfric, "Catholic Homilies" (binding fragments)

with 136. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 133 D 22 and

152a. Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, Middelaldersamlingen

Aftagne Frag. Nr. 637-698

[Ker -, Gneuss 811.5]

HISTORY: Parts of seven binding strips from an A-S manuscript of the early l lc, containing small fragments of two homilies by .IElfric from the enlarged first series of"Catholic homilies" (the order is the same as in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 188 [37], pp. 211-233). They were found in the Arnamagnaeanske Institut by Morten Grnnbech in the 1950s or 1960s, adhering to a discarded leather binding and restored and mounted by him (see The Arnamagrean Institute and Dictionary, Bulletin 20 [1996]: 14). This old binding of the 19c is a typical Kongelige Bibliotek binding of its time and bears its stamps. The book from which it came contained letters to the Danish diplomat Jonas Charisius (1571-1619). The significance of these fragments was realized when, in the 1980s, staff of the Rigsarkiv discovered fifty-six binding strips containing fragments of an Ælfric homiliary (now 152a as above) in the 17c bindings of numerous volumes of the collected diplomatic papers of Peder Charisius, Danish resident minister at The Hague, 1651-1659, and the son of the aforementioned Jonas; along with 136, similar fragments at The Hague, they are most likely from the same original A-S manuscript (Dumville 1989; Godden in Clemoes 1997: 59). The bits of the A-S manuscript received similar treatment in all three ensembles, reduced to oblong strips as spine-reinforcements, and all must have been utilized by the same Hague binder at about the same time (late 1650s). The Arnamagnaeanske Institut returned the fragments to the Kongelige Bibliotek in 1996. It is not known exactly how the binding and fragments that belonged to the Kongelige Bibliotek in the 19c came to be in the Arnamagnaean, but the volume was likely sent there for restoration in the mid-20c, as the rebound letters ofJ. Charisius are now in the KB.