Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket, Gl. Kgl. Sam. 1595 (4) "The Copenhagen Wulfstan Collection" containing Amalarius, "Eclogae de ordine Romano;' Abbo of St. Germain, Sermons, Ælfric, Pastoral Letters, etc.

Abstract

150a. Copenhagen, Kongelige Biblioteket,

GI. Kgl. Sam. 1595 (4° )

"The Copenhagen Wulfstan Collection"

containing Amalarius, "Eclogae de ordine Romano;'

Abbo of St. Germain, Sermons, Ælfric, Pastoral Letters, etc.

[Ker 99; Gneuss 814]

HISTORY: Dated to ca. 1002-23, associated with Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester (1002-1016) and archbishop of York (1002-1023). The sections were most likely written at Worcester (see below) at the instigation ofWulfstan and in addition to containing several works confidently ascribed to him (items 19, 27, 31/32) and others probably or possibly by him (items 4, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24), inserted in his own h and are OE and Latin texts (f. 66v/15-30), as well as his corrections, added headings, and glosses throughout the codex (see Ker 1971: 319-21, Cross and Tunberg 1993: 47-48). Two letters by JElfric addressed to Wulfstan (items 29, 30) are also found here (cf. Godden in Townend 2004). Almost all the other works can be associated in one way or another with Wulfstan (see Cross and Tunberg 1993: 13). [Note: A number of other late 10c / early l lc manuscripts associated with Worcester and/or Wulfstan seem to have been bishop's books containing similar collections of texts with much overlapping: along with earlier materials are carolingian and English juridical and penitential texts, homilies, letters, etc.: Brussels, BR 8558-63 (2498), ff. 80-131, 132-153 (20), cccc 190, pp 1-294 [38), cccc 265, pp. 1-268 [45], BL Nero A. 1, ff. 70-177 (202), BL Cotton Vespasian A. xiv, ff. 114-170 (239), Oxford, Bodi. Lib. Barlow 37, Bodley 718, Junius 121, ff. 9-1 lOv (391], Paris BN lat. 3182, Rouen, BM 1382 (U. 109); CCCC 265 and Barlow 37 have a basic common core, and our manuscript, which seems to have been a personal copy of Wulfstan's, shares a number of texts with them; see Sauer 2000: 340-3, 358, 371. On Wulfstan's agency in the basic compilation see Bethurum 1942: 927-9, Fowler 1963, Hill in Townend 2004: 320-4. On Wulfstan's scribal associates, see Stokes 2014: 97-102.)

The agglomeration of texts seems to have been written as separate quires by various scribes associated with Worcester (see Stokes 2014: 99- 102) and loosely associated or assembled and bound later in the 11c or early 12c, the book to this day retaining this ancient binding.

The subsequent medieval history of the manuscript is uncertain: Gerritsen (1998: 510) suggests that it might "have been made specifically to go to Denmark" for presentation at the consecration in 1022 of the bishop of Roskilde, which was the royal seat of Denmark in Wulfstan's and Cnut's day; there is an "east Frankish" ("Germanic") neumed responsory added on f. 82r indicating that it was probably on the continent at an early date (Roskilde was in the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen), and since the page with the responsary was heavily trimmed along the vertical edge, it was probably added before the present early binding was provided; Hartzell (2006: no. 76) dates the neumes as "s. xi ex - s. xii in:' Tunberg (in Cross and Tunberg 1993: 60) less plausibly notes that a monk with the German-looking name of Winrich was resident at Worcester during the priorate of St. Wulfstan, before 1062, and suggests he might have been responsible for the German neumes and also notes that Evesham, in the diocese of Worcester, established a daughter house at Odense in the 1190s. However this may be, the actual first notice of its being in Denmark is in the 1784-86 handwritten catalogue of the royal collection (MS "Catalogus manuscriptorum Bibliothecre Regire in quarto;' vol. 1: 182: '*1595 Apologius de Ordine Romano continens descriptionem ecclesiæ Romanæ, cum omnibus suis ceremoniis, ritibus circa sacra, indulgentiis, Pontifice Romano, et Sacerdotibus, variis tamen sermonibus diversi generis intermistis etc. Cod. Membr. in fine, ut viditur mutilus, litt. init. varie pictis').

Repaired in 1981 by the Copenhagen bookbinder Birgitte Dall, who tightened the binding and added the paper bifolia flyleaves front and back (according to a note on the fourth flyleaf), unfortunately discarding the old threads and leaving no detailed notes. The microfilm from which the images were made precedes this restoration and shows the binding looser than it is now, and of course without the flyleaves.