Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:19:22.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

English Square minuscule script: the mid-century phases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

David N. Dumville
David N. Dumville
Affiliation:
Girton College, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

I propose here to continue my exploration and survey of the history of that quintessentially tenth-century script form, English Square minuscule. Since 1987, when my account of the background and earliest phases of the script was published in this journal, new material and new thinking have encouraged continued investigations into Anglo-Saxon script of the 930s and the use of Square minuscule at Canterbury in particular. These factors must serve as a justification for taking a further look at Phase II before proceeding to a preliminary and provisional account of the styles of the 940s, 950s and early 960s. This is a self-contained era which concludes with the origination and propagation of Anglo-Caroline script. The closing phases of Square minuscule will have to await treatment in a third instalment of this essay, as will consideration of some of the larger issues advertised in 1987. However, since it is critically intertwined with the mid-century phases of script history, I shall discuss here (as promised at the outset) the role of the royal chancery in calligraphic developments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 23 , December 1994 , pp. 133 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘English Square Minuscule Script: the Background and Earliest Phases’, ASE 16 (1987), 147–79.Google Scholar

2 I take the ‘mid-century’ formula from Rand, E. K., Studies in the Script of Tours: I. A Survey of the Manuscripts of Tours, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1929)Google Scholar: see I, 60–6, on the ‘mid-century’ and ‘post-mid-century’ styles. On the origins of Anglo-Caroline, see my English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030, Stud. in AS Hist. 6 (Woodbridge, 1993)Google Scholar, where I have sought to develop and modify some of the views presented in the standard account, that of Bishop, T. A. M., English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar

3 In the meantime reference may be made to Wormald, F., ‘The Insular Script in Late Tenth Century English Latin MSS’, Atti del X Congresso Internazionale di scienze storiche, Roma, 4–11 Settembre 1955, ed. Ferrabino, A. (Rome, 1957), pp. 160–5Google Scholar; Dumville, D. N., ‘Beowulf come lately. Some Notes on the Palaeography of the Nowell Codex’, ASNSL 225 (1988), 49–63Google Scholar, repr. in my Britons and Anglo-Saxons in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1993), ch. VII.Google Scholar

4 For those larger issues, see Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 143, n. 1. To them should be added some further questions: the use of Square minuscule in glosses and commentary; hierarchy and grade within Square-minuscule usage; models, imitation and forgery.Google Scholar

5 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 155 and n. 39.Google Scholar

6 Gameson, R., ‘The Decoration of the Tanner Bede’, ASE 21 (1992), 115–59Google Scholar, and ‘The Fabric of the Tanner Bede’, Bodleian Lib. Record 14 (1991–1994), 176–206Google Scholar; The Tanner Bede, facs. ed. Bately, J., EEMF 24 (Copenhagen, 1992).Google Scholar

7 For my previous, and (given the unavailability of the manuscript) almost wholly derivative, account of this volume, see ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 168. In principle, one may compare the case of Cambridge, Trinity College B. 15. 33 (368), where transitional and Square minuscule hands are seen to have resulted from collaboration: ibid. pp. 165–6, 169–70 and 172.

8 Gameson, , ‘The Decoration’, pp. 129–30 and 154–5Google Scholar; cf. Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 167–9 (the fourth of the four styles considered).Google Scholar

9 Gjerløw, L., ‘Fragments of a Lectionary in Anglo-Saxon Script found in Oslo’, Nordisk Tidskrift för Bok- ocb Biblioteksväsen 44 (1957), 109–22, at 109–17 (with pls.)Google Scholar; Dumville, D. N., ‘On the Dating of Some Late Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Manuscripts’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 10 (1991–1995), 40–57, at 49.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.; Avril, F. and Stirnemann, P. D., Manuscrits enluminés d'origine insulaire, VIIe-XXe siècle (Paris, 1987), p. 11 (no. 12 bis).Google Scholar

11 ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 170–1. I should like to take this opportunity to correct two errors on p. 172 in that section of that paper. In attempting to correct Ker's inaccurat reference to a computistical addition of AD 912 in London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D. xiv, 223v, I myself fell into error (Ker's was 224v, mine 223r! – though not in Wessex and England, pp. 95–6 and pl. VIII). The following reference to an illustration of hand 2 of TCC B. 15. 33 (368) should read ‘pl. VII’, not ‘pl. VI’.

12 Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores, 11 vols. and Supp. (Oxford, 1934–1971; 2nd ed. of vol. II, 1972) II, no. 190Google Scholar; Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), pp. 256–7 (no. 194)Google Scholar; Rose-Troup, F., ‘The Ancient Monastery of St. Mary and St. Peter at Exeter (680–1050)’, Report and Trans. of the Devonshire Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 63 (1931), 179–220, for platesGoogle Scholar; Conner, P. W., Anglo-Saxon Exeter: a Tenthcentury Cultural History, Stud. in AS Hist. 4 (Woodbridge, 1993), 165–70.Google Scholar

13 The text was ed. Logeman, H., ‘Anglo-Saxonica Minora’, Anglia 11 (1989), 97–120, at 97–100Google Scholar. Ker, , Catalogue, p. 278 (no. 212), treated this part – which is physically separable and quite distinct in terms of script – mistakenly as contemporaneous with the Caroline minuscule of fols. 1–61 and as ‘generally like’ the Square minuscule of the Latin text on fols. 62–86.Google Scholar

14 It was dated ‘saec. ix’ by Lindsay, W. M., Notae Latinae (Cambridge, 1915), p. 462Google Scholar, and to the first half of the ninth century by James, M. R. and Jenkins, C., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace (Cambridge, 1930–1932), pp. 350–2Google Scholar. Wormald, , ‘The Insular Script’, pp. 161–2Google Scholar, placed this manuscript ‘in the early tenth century’, with which I concur (even though Wormald misreported M.R. James in the process). I do not find intelligible some recent datings of this manuscript to the later ninth century or c. 900:Gameson, , ‘The Fabric’, p. 202, n. 28Google Scholar, and ‘The Decoration’, pp. 118–19; Ganz, D., ‘An Anglo-Saxon Fragment of Alcuin's Letters in the Newberry Library, Chicago’, ASE 22 (1993), 167–77, at 169–71Google Scholar. On the Bury St Edmunds context, see Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 44–8 and 75–8. I am indebted to Donald Bullough and David Ganz for making me consider the Lambeth manuscript after I overlooked it in 1987.Google Scholar

15 ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 171; cf. Dumville, D. N., Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar, Stud. in AS Hist. 3 (Woodbridge, 1992), 67–71 and 91–7.Google Scholar

16 Another view of the question sees the spread of the script as occurring – from a single point of origin (placed at Winchester) – during the reign of Æthelstan: Parkes, M. B., ‘A Fragment of an Early-Tenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Manuscript and its Significance’, ASE 12 (1983), 129–40, at 137Google Scholar. For Parkes's full exposition of his point of view, see ‘The Palaeography of the Parker Manuscript of the Chronicle, Laws and Sedulius, and Historiography at Winchester in the Late Ninth and Tenth Centuries’, ASE 5 (1976), 149–71.Google Scholar

17 ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 173–8.

18 Two localizations mentioned there must now be withdrawn. There seems to be little reason to continue to sustain a southwestern, and especially a Somerset, origin for Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183 (and its fellow, BL Royal 7. D. XXIV, fols. 82–168): ibid. pp. 174–8. Southern England, perhaps Wessex (but not Winchester), perhaps Canterbury, seems to be all that can be deduced at the moment: see Dumville, D. N., Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England: Four Studies, Stud. in AS Hist. 5 (Woodbridge, 1992), 106–7, 108–10 and 143–4 (and cf. 75)Google Scholar. Secondly, following Bishop (English Caroline Minuscule, p. 20, n. 1), in 1987 I associated Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 448 with Worcester: ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 176; however, there now seems to be no evidence for this and the suggestion must be withdrawn (cf. Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 55 [–6], n. 245).Google Scholar

19 ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 171 (cf. pl. V); Wessex and England, pp. 94–5 (cf. pl. VI).

20 ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts’ (IV – VI), Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 2 (1954–1958), 323–36; 3 (1959–1963), 93–5 and 412–13Google Scholar; ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’, ibid. 4 (1964–8), 257–75; English Caroline Minuscule, pp. 3–8 (nos. 4–10), on Canterbury book production as a whole.

21 On the different methods of arranging parchment within a quire, see Ker, , Catalogue, pp. xxiii–xxv. Bishop's descriptions of the format of quires in these manuscripts are by no means wholly accurate.Google Scholar

22 In referring to provenance of manuscripts and documents in the tables of this article, I use the abbreviations employed by Gneuss, H., ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts written or owned in England up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1981), 1–60 (key on pp. 4–5).Google Scholar

23 Bishop, , ‘Notes’, pp. 324–6 and 93; on p. 93Google Scholar, Bishop drew Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697 (S.C. 12541), into the discussion of this group by reference to one of the glossing hands found in it - see further O'Keeffe, K. O'B., ‘The Text of Aldhelm's Enigma no.c in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697 and Exeter Riddle 40’, ASE 14 (1985), 61–73, at 67–8Google Scholar (the other manuscripts which she has named here I should also assign to Canterbury – Cambridge, University Library, Ee. 2. 4 and Exeter, Cathedral Library, 3501). TCC O. 4. 10 (1241) was the exemplar of an Anglo-Caroline copy of Persius, written at St Augustine's, Canterbury, c. AD 1000: Bishop, , ‘Notes’, pp.325–6 and 331Google Scholar. For the Trinity College manuscripts on this list, see Keynes, S., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Other Items of Related Interest in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 3rd ed. (Binghamton, NY, 1992), pp. 16–17 (no. 6)Google Scholar and pl. VI (B. 11. 2); pp. 17–18 (no. 7) and pl. VII (O. 2. 30); pp. 14–16 (no. 5) and pls. Va–Vb (O. 4. 10); see also James, M. R., The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1900–1904) IV, pl. I (top right = O. 2. 30), pl. IIIb (B. 11. 2), and pl. VII (O. 4. 10)Google Scholar. In 1957 Ker (Catalogue, pp. 182 and 283) showed that the Cotton Cleopatra and Vitellius manuscripts listed here shared a common provenance and probably also origin.

24 Bishop attributed these manuscripts to the mid-tenth century: ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’, pp. 259, 265 and 267 (where he assigned fols. 69–86 to ‘the middle of the third quarter’ of the tenth century, presumably a printing error for ‘middle or’). To these should perhaps be added Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 49 (S.C. 1946), at Winchester Cathedral in the late Middle Ages, but bearing an altered ex-libris inscription; I have not been able to recover the original reading.

25 Bishop dated these manuscripts c. 975. In Aethici Istrici Cosmographia Vergilio Salisburgensi rectius adscripta, Umbrae Codicum Occidentalium 10 (Amsterdam, 1966)Google Scholar, xiv, n. 24, he dated CCCC 389 to ‘saec. X. ex.’; in English Caroline Minuscule, p. 3 (no. 5), he placed the Oxford book in the third quarter of the century; ibid., he seemed (albeit in ambiguous prose) to place CCCC 389 slightly later than St John's 28. In 1978 Pierre Chaplais added a single sheet – London, British Library, Add. 7138 – to this group: cf. Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Keynes, S., AS Charters Supplementary Volume I (London, 1991), 5 (no. 9)Google Scholar; see Chaplais, P., Essays in Medieval Diplomacy and Administration (London, 1981), ch. XIV, p. 16Google Scholar, n. 24; cf., however, Conner, , Anglo-Saxon Exeter, pp. 215–25, who has shown good reason for doubting the identification.Google Scholar

26 Domitian and Royal contain both Square minuscule and Caroline minuscule. Bishop, (‘Notes’, p. 336Google Scholar) thought Royal to be the latest of the three; in 1966 (Aethici Istrici Cosmographia, p. xvii, n. 28) he dated CCCC 356 to ‘saec. X ex.’.

27 ‘Notes’, pp. 323 (‘certain mid-tenth-century diplomata’) and 325 (‘some diplomata off. 940– c. 970’).

28 Cf. Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 84–5.Google Scholar

29 See above, nn. 25–6, for references.

30 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 173–8.Google Scholar

31 For Phase 1, see ibid. pp. 169–73; for Phase III, see below, pp. 144–51 and 159–61.

32 For a specimen of Phase I from St Augustine's, see above, n. 19.

33 As will be apparent from the table on pp. 137–8, above, the attribution of these manuscripts as a group to St Augustine's is very slightly weakened by my detaching them from the other nine specimens, for among the five only TCC O. 4. 10 (1241) has a recorded provenance there, while TCC B. 11.2 (241) is found first at Exeter in the later eleventh century.

34 I specifically exclude fols. 69–86, written in another and later hand (cf. Bishop, , ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’, p. 266Google Scholar: ‘a nearly co-eval Square minuscule’). On the other hand, the scribe of fols. 19–28 (see my pl. I) was responsible also for the addition of rubrics in the original (Welsh) portion of the codex (Bishop, ibid. pp. 265–6).

35 For my recent discussions of this manuscript, see ‘On the Dating’, p. 43; Liturgy, pp. 116 and 135; Britons and Anglo-Saxons, ch. XIV, pp. 7–9; ‘Breton and English Manuscripts of Amalarius's Liber Officialis’, Mélanges François Kerlouégan, ed. Conso, D. et al. (Besançon, 1994), pp. 205–14.Google Scholar

36 See pl. II.

37 On this manuscript, see Bishop, ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’. A superior limit c. 850 for the work of the five principal Welsh scribes (who were also responsible for some 120 Old Welsh glosses) is demonstrated by their use of ‘late Celtic’ abbreviations and letter-forms, and by the fact that some of them wrote Welsh Reformed minuscule. A certain lower limit of date is provided only by the first English additions (for the later layer, see above, n. 34), but use of the characteristically ninth-century form of t in the Welsh portion may allow the date range to be narrowed slightly. The variety of Welsh script types in this manuscript is very striking: the evidence of the Welsh glosses' orthography suggests that no other specimen containing vernacular material survives from the same house. Cf. Jackson, K., Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh, 1953), p. 53.Google Scholar

38 Dumville, , Liturgy, pp. 111–23, esp. pp. 116–17 (cf. 133)Google Scholar, and English Caroline Script, p. 97. To that evidence, we should add also London, BL Cotton Vitellius A. vi, the (thirty-seven) charred remnants of a copy of Gildas, De excidio Britanniae, probably copied from a Welsh or Cornish exemplar, with (now lost) liturgical texts concerning St Augustine and of undoubted late medieval St Augustine's provenance: cf. Smith, T., Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ, ed. Tite, C. G. C., 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1984), p. 81Google Scholar; for a reduced pl. of 16v, see Brown, M. P., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London, 1991), p. 7 (no. 3). I am preparing a complete facsimile and diplomatic edition.Google Scholar

39 The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, ed. Scragg, D. G., EETS os 300 (Oxford, 1992), xxiii–xxv, xxxviii–xlii and lxxiv–lxxixGoogle Scholar. Scragg has placed the execution of the manuscript within the last quarter of the tenth century (ibid. pp. xli–xlii): I am not so sure – of the various Square minuscule manuscripts attributed to St Augustine's, CCCC 352 would appear to be the best comparandum. But Scragg's case for an origin at St Augustine's is decidedly circumstantial: one might think that at least as good a claim is held by Rochester Cathedral (ibid. pp. lxxiv–lxxv). For a complete facsimile, see The Vercelli Book, ed. Sisam, C., EEMF 19 (Copenhagen, 1976): on p. 36Google Scholar she assigned the manuscript to the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, observing also that ‘Script and language are consistent with a date of compilation late in the tenth century’; I am not at all clear why, between 1957 and 1976, Ker's date of ‘x2’ (Catalogue, pp. 460–4 (no. 394)) came to be subverted.

40 Ker, ibid. pp. 268–9 (no. 207).

41 These will be dealt with in the third instalment of this paper.

42 ‘Notes’, pp. 324–6 and 93.

43 Cf. Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 178Google Scholar, and ‘Breton and English Manuscripts’ (cf. above, n. 35), p. 212.

44 But CCCC 153, fols. 19–28, are arranged HFFH and pricked in both margins! TCC B. 11. 2 (241) is mostly HFFH, but q. IX (for example) is an exception. TCC O. 4. 10 (1241) is of thoroughly mixed construction. BL Cotton Vitellius A. xix is mostly HFFH, but qq. XI–XIII (of 14) are arranged without apparent order. In general, cf. above, n. 21. Very precise descriptions of the fabric of these manuscripts remain desiderata.

45 The classic specimen of flesh-side-outside arrangement from this period is provided by London, BL Add. 47967, Square minuscule in Phase I, which is ordered throughout in this fashion: Ker (Catalogue, pp. xxv and 165 (no. 133)) contradicted himself in his accounts of the construction of this manuscript.

46 On this point, see Bishop, , ‘Notes’, pp. 326–32 and 420–1Google Scholar, and the descriptions given in English Caroline Minuscule, pp. 1–8 (nos. 1–10). Before him, Ker, Catalogue, repeatedly noted Anglo-Caroline manuscripts with HFHF arrangements, clearly thinking this important but not yet realizing its significance (see, for example, pp. 50 (no. 37) and 381 (no. 320)). Cf. Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 147–8Google Scholar, and Liturgy, p. 72. However, the old Insular practice of pricking in both margins after folding did not reappear at this time.

47 See the table on pp. 137–8, above: Bishop's Groups 3 and 4 are consistently thus. Cf. Aethici Istrici Cosmographia, ed. Bishop, , p. vii.Google Scholar

48 Bishop, , ‘Notes’, p. 93Google Scholar, pointed out the division of hands in BL Cotton Cleopatra A. iii (1r–75va9, 75va10–117r, the second having a slightly earlier aspect). In TCCO. 4. 10 (1241) new hands begin qq. K, [L], and [N]: Bishop, ibid. pp. 324–6, seems to have regarded the manuscript as holograph, but mistakenly.

49 See below, pp. 158–9.

50 I shall take up that question in the third instalment of this paper.

51 Liturgy, ch. 1; Wessex and England, pp. 73–8.

52 Wessex and England, pp. 74, 92–3, 97 and 104–6. To mount an argument that Galba (fols. 3–20) could have been written as late as c. 930, one would have to consider that the script belonged rather to one of the transitional styles which I described in ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 162–9.

53 ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 173–8 (esp. p. 176); cf. Wessex and England, pp. 73–4. These folios contain texts which, 250 years earlier, had Canterbury associations! See Lapidge, M., ‘The School of Theodore and Hadrian’, ASE 15 (1986), 45–72, at 49–51.Google Scholar

54 Dumville, , Liturgy, pp. 36–8, 39–65, 82 and 90–4Google Scholar; English Caroline Script, pp. 86–110 and 143–4. In as much as the manuscript is no longer available to scholars, it must be approached via microfilm.

55 Ibid. pp. 86–98.

56 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 943: cf. Dumville, , Liturgy, pp. 82–4Google Scholar (and, for its scribal relatives, Conner, , Anglo-Saxon Exeter, pp. 33–47, with pls.)Google Scholar. London, BL Add. 37517 (perhaps written at Dunstan's Westminster Abbey): see Korhammer, P. M., ‘The Origin of the Bosworth Psalter’, ASE 2 (1973), 173–87 (with pls.).Google Scholar

57 ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 173–8.

58 Complete facsimile in The Parker Chronicle and Laws, ed. Flower, R. and Smith, H. (London, 1941)Google Scholar; detailed assessment by Dumville, , Wessex and England, pp. 135–9.Google Scholar

59 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 119–21 (no. 70A), who dated it ‘s. X med.’. See pl. III.Google Scholar

60 Dumville, , ‘On the Dating’, pp. 42–3Google Scholar, and Liturgy, p. 76. For description and illustration, see Keynes, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, p. 11 (no. 3) and pl. III. This specimen stands on the borderline with Phase I and should therefore be dated c. 930. See pl. IV.Google Scholar

61 Ganz, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Fragment’, with pls.

62 These are to be added to the entry noticing 12r–v in ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 176, which I inserted at the proof-stage (thanks to t he eagle-eye of Patrick Conner) but could not therefore comment on. See further Pächt, O. et al. , Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1966–1974) III, 3 (no. 20), and pl. II, on 154v. Cf. above, n. 54.Google Scholar

63 See below, p. 159.

64 For an apparent exception, see ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 173–4 (and n. 148). I have studied this item at greater length in ‘An Anomalous Diploma of King Edmund I’, Northamptonshire Past and Present, forthcoming.

65 See the last item in the table below, pp. 145–6.

66 Dumville, , English Caroline Script, p. 142.Google Scholar

67 Catalogue, p. 333 (no. 264).

68 The reference-numbers (S 470, etc.) are those given by Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968).Google Scholar

69 Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, ed. Bond, E. A., 4 vols. (London, 1873–1878), cited as ‘BM’Google Scholar; Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. Sanders, W. B., 3 vols. (Southampton, 1878–1884), cited as ‘OS’; Facsimiles, ed. Keynes (cited above, n. 25), cited as ‘BA’.Google Scholar

70 For the abbreviation system used, see above, n. 22.

71 On the basis of their script alone, I have rejected the following documents from this corpus as not written in Phase III or non-contemporary or imitative: S 495 (see above, n. 64), 540 (imitative), 546 (MSS 1 and 2: see Lapidge, M., Anglo-Latin Literature 900–1066 (London, 1993), pp. 185–6), 587 (Anglo-Caroline Style IV, of the mid-eleventh century), 602 (imitative; cf. Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, no. 4), 618 (not Phase III or mid-tenth-century: s. x2?), 623 (imitative), 669 (imitative), 670 (non-contemporary Square minuscule; not mid-tenthcentury) and 671 (non-contemporary Square minuscule).Google Scholar

72 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 173; see also below, pp. 159–60.Google Scholar

73 For discussion, see Keynes, S., The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’, 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 14–19 and 39–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 174.Google Scholar

75 I have rejected the following undated vernacular documents in Square minuscule as not belonging to Phase III: S 1447 (later Square minuscule: see Korhammer, , ‘The Origin of the Bosworth Psalter’, p. 183)Google Scholar, 1497 (later Square minuscule: Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, no. 15), 1539 (Sawyer's date ‘?c. A.D. 950’ is speculative and too early: Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 431).

76 Sawyer's narrow dating to 958 (Anglo-Saxon Charters, pp. 421–2 (no. 1506)) is to be rejected: the only dating is provided by Archbishop Oda's pontificate.

77 S 1533: see Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 174Google Scholar; cf. Wessex and England, pp. 78–82.

78 I shall return to the issue in the third instalment of this paper.

79 And perhaps in relation to the development of Square minuscule in the Canterbury churches. It will be considered further in the third instalment of this article.

80 Nos. 1 (AD 946 × 955) and 10 (AD 940 × 956), the former in Old English, the latter in Latin.

81 Facsimile in The Parker Chronicle and Laws, ed. Flower and Smith. See also 9r13–14 (pl. V), and below, n. 92.

82 Dumville, , Liturgy, pp. 76, 84–5 and 146–7Google Scholar. This manuscript could as easily have been listed under an earlier phase, for the reasons given. For an illustration, see Sotheby's sale catalogue for 21 November 1972, pp. 17–18 (lot 532; pl. 3). For further discussion, see Dumville, D. N., ‘John Bale, Owner of St Dunstan's Benedictional’, N&Q 239 (1994), 291–5.Google Scholar

83 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 157, n. 47Google Scholar; cf. Temple, E., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900–1066 (London, 1976), p. 55 (no. 27)Google Scholar, with illustration. I place this manuscript here by an act of near desperation: it is a remarkably and inconsistently anomalous item within the corpus of Square minuscule. See also Gameson, , ‘The Decoration’, pp. 127, 140, 143–4 and 147, n. 147.Google Scholar

84 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 217–18 (no. 167)Google Scholar; for illustration, see Smith, A. H., ‘The Photography of Manuscripts’, London Med. Stud. 1 (1937–1939), 179–207, pl. VII–VIIIGoogle Scholar

85 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 230–4 (no. 180)Google Scholar, who indicated the proper order of the leaves, dislocated during reconstruction of the burnt manuscript. For a pre-photographic facsimile of 33v5–10, see König Alfreds Übersetzung von Bedas Kirchengeschichte, ed. Schipper, J., Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 4 (Leipzig, 1897–1899), pl. [2c].Google Scholar

86 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 318–20 (no. 249)Google Scholar; illustrated by Warner, G. F. and Gilson, J. P., British Museum Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal & King's Collections, 4 vols. (London, 1921) IV, pl. 22 (description at I, 49–50).Google Scholar

87 Ker, , Catalogue, p. 320 (no. 250), with inaccurate foliation; illustrated by Warner and Gilson, British Museum Catalogue IV, pl. 34 (description at I, 81–2).Google Scholar

88 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 332–3 (no. 264)Google Scholar; complete facsimile in Bald's Leechbook, ed. Wright, C. E., EEMF 5 (Copenhagen, 1955).Google Scholar

89 On this manuscript, see above, n. 54.

90 Watson, A. G., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 435–1600 in Oxford Libraries, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1984) I, 84–5Google Scholar (no. 519) and II, pl. 14 (part of 46r). For comment, see Gameson, , ‘The Fabric’, p. 206, n. 87Google Scholar, and ‘The Decoration’, p. 158. The remarks of Budny, M., ‘“St Dunstan's Classbook” and its Frontispiece: Dunstan's Portrait and Autograph’, St Dunstan, his Life, Times and Cult, ed. Ramsay, N. et al. (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 103–42, esp. 137–8, are mistaken: ‘Hand D’ (presumptively Dunstan's) is not to be found in this manuscript.Google Scholar

91 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 149Google Scholar, n. 6. For illustration, see Kraus, H. P., Catalogue 88: Fifty Mediaeval and Renaissance Manuscripts (New York 1958), pp. 8–10 and 124 (three of the four pages); the fourth side was reproduced in an article by L. Wallach (below, n. 95).Google Scholar

92 For discussion of this section of CCCC 173, see Dumville, , Wessex and England, pp. 62–6.Google Scholar

93 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 58–9, 233–4 and 333.Google Scholar

94 Ibid. p. 333.

95 The attribution of Urbana 128 (cf. above, n. 91) to Worcester Cathedral rests on the history of the sylloge which it contains: see the studies by Wallach, L., ‘The Urbana Anglo-Latin Sylloge of Latin Inscriptions’, Poetry and Poetics from Ancient Greece to the Renaissance: Studies in Honor of James Hutton, ed. Kirkwood, G. M. (Ithaca, NY, 1975), pp. 134–51Google Scholar; Lapidge, M., ‘Some Remnants of Bede's Lost Liber Epigrammatum’, EHR 90 (1975), 798–820CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sheerin, D. J., ‘John Leland and Milred of Worcester’, Manuscripta 21 (1977), 172–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schaller, D., ‘Bemerkungen zur Inschriften-Sylloge von Urbana’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 12 (1977), 9–21Google Scholar; Sims-Williams, P., ‘Milred of Worcester's Collection of Latin Epigrams and its Continental Counterparts’, ASE 10 (1982), 21–38Google Scholar, and ‘William of Malmesbury and La Silloge Epigrafica di Cambridge’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 21 (1983), 9–33Google Scholar, and Religion and Literature in Western England 600–800, CSASE 3 (Cambridge, 1990), ch. 11.Google Scholar

96 For recognition of their identity, see The Salisbury Psalter, ed. Sisam, C. and Sisam, K. (London, 1959), pp. 52–3Google Scholar; cf. Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 318–20 (nos. 249–50).Google Scholar

97 Dumville, , ‘On the Dating’, p. 48Google Scholar, and English Caroline Script, p. 14, n. 33.

98 Warner, and Gilson, , British Museum Catalogue I, 33–6, and IV, pl. 18(a), which shows part of 12r.Google Scholar

99 Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 76–7 and 143, n. 14, with pl. I (part of 14v).Google Scholar

100 I have rejected the following items, sometimes dated in the first half or middle of the tenth century, as not being specimens of Phase III: Durham, Cathedral Library, B. IV. 9 (Insular, but not Square, minuscule, although one of the glossing hands may qualify); London, BL Cotton Vespasian D. vi, fols. 2–77 (much later), D. xv, fols. 68–101 (in collaboration with a Caroline scribe), Royal 13. A. XV (in collaboration with a Caroline scribe: cf. Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, p. 167, n. 99Google Scholar; Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 4–5, 53–4, 76)Google Scholar; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 49 (see above, n. 24), Tanner 10, 105r–115r (Ker, , Catalogue, p. 429Google Scholar; Parkes, , ‘The Palaeography’, pp. 162–3 and 166–7Google Scholar, on S 552 – cf. Dumville, , Wessex and England, pp. 136–7Google Scholar; Gameson, , ‘The Fabric’, pp. 197 and 205Google Scholar, and ‘The Decoration’, p. 129; The Tanner Bede, ed. Bately, , pp. 22–4)Google Scholar, Oxford, Trinity College 54 (Phase V; for comment, see Gameson, , ‘The Fabric’, p. 205, n. 68)Google Scholar; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 10575 (Dumville, , ‘On the Dating’, p. 51Google Scholar, and Liturgy, pp. 85–6: Phase VI, written c. 1000).

101 On those manuscripts and phases, see Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 169–78.Google Scholar

102 See Ker, , Catalogue, pp. xxxii–xxxiiiGoogle Scholar, for a radical statement of this position. Cf. Dumville, , ‘Beowulf come lately’ (cited above, n. 3), p. 58.Google Scholar

103 Cf. Dumville, English Caroline Script, ch. 2, for discussion.

104 ‘An Early Example of Insular - Caroline’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 4 (1964–1968), 396–400Google Scholar; English Caroline Minuscule, pp. xviii, xxii–xxiii and 1–2. Cf. Saint Dunstan's Classbookfrom Glastonbury, Codex Biblioth. Bodleianae Oxon. Auct. FA.32, facs. ed. Hunt, R. W., Umbrae Codicum Occidentalium 4 (Amsterdam, 1961), vi–vii and xiv–xvi.Google Scholar

105 On all this, see my discussion in English Caroline Script, ch. 3. For plates illustrating manuscripts of the work of Frithegod, produced at Oda's Canterbury, see Lapidge, , Anglo-Latin Literature, 900–1066, frontispiece and pp. 164–7.Google Scholar

106 Dumville, , Liturgy, p. 147.Google Scholar

107 See Keynes, , The Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 70–9Google Scholar, on ‘Edgar A’. To the five items tabluated here should be added the exemplar of S 702, whose extant non-contemporaneous single sheet (in later Square minuscule) was written at either Canterbury Cathedral or (its archival provenance) Westminster Abbey: ibid. p. 71; Korhammer, , ‘The Origin of the Bosworth Psalter’, p. 182.Google Scholar

108 This diploma's second endorsement, in a late Square minuscule, explains its archival provenance: ‘+ Ðas boc sealde Ingram mid lande Dunstane arcebisceope’.

109 Bishop, , English Caroline Minuscule, p. 9 (no. 11) and pl. IXGoogle Scholar; Lapidge, , Anglo-Latin Literature, 900–1066, pp. 167–8Google Scholar; Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

110 See pl. VI. For the context, see The Parker Chronicle and Laws, facs. ed. Flower and Smith.

111 For discussion of the hands and their localization, see Dumville, , Wessex and England, p. 61.Google Scholar

112 On these forms, see Dumville, , ‘Beowulf come lately’, pp. 53–4.Google Scholar

113 In other words, that in retirement from the chancery ‘Edgar A’ was a scribe where CCCC 173, 28r, was written, presumptively at Winchester Cathedral.

114 Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, no. 6.

115 The evidence is provided by S 681 (surviving only in cartulary-form): Keynes, , The Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 75–6.Google Scholar

116 Ibid. pp. 70–9, for this reconstruction. Nevertheless, the style of ‘Edgar A’ was to remain diplomatically very influential in the period 965–75.

117 Apart from S 702 (see above, n. 107), only two other single-sheet documents are known from these years. S 684 of AD 960 from the Exeter Archive (Exeter, Cathedral Library, 2522: OS Facs. ii. Ex. 5) and S 697 of AD 961 from the WiOM archive (BL Harley Charter 43. C. 2: BM Facs. iv. 11) are in late styles of Square minuscule. No other single sheets claiming to belong to AD 962–4 are known. From AD 965 we have S 736 (Dorchester, Dorset Record Office, D. 124/1: OS Facs. ii. Ilch. 1) from the Abbotsbury archive, in a style not dissimilar from that of S 697 (cf. Keynes, , The Diplomas of King Ætbelred, p. 76, n. 153).Google Scholar

118 Where scribes took their lead from Bishops Æthelwold and Oswald: cf. Dumville, English Caroline Script, chs. 1–2 and 5.

119 Where scribes took their lead from Archbishop Dunstan and did not wish wholly to reject their native inheritance: ibid. chs. 1, 3 and 5.

120 This is apparent from S 1211 (above, pp. 146–7), a semi-private, semi-royal document. On royal diplomas, cf. above, n. 117.

121 Cf. above, pp. 136–42.

122 Cf. S 697, 736 and 1211, for examples of performances in Phase V.

123 It is not difficult to see from S 677 (Phase III: AD 958) how Phase VI arose. For examples of the latter in charters, see S 1215 (archive: CaCC) of AD 968 (BL Stowe Charter 30: OS Facs. iii. 31) and S 1326 (archive: Worcester) of AD 969 (BL Add. Charter 19792: BM Facs. iii. 28).

124 On late Square minuscule, cf. above, n. 3.

125 The last unambiguously Square minuscule royal diplomata are S 1450 (AD 986) and S 864 (AD 987), but there is an evidential gap for AD 988–92.

126 Cf. Dumville, , English Caroline Script, p. 53, n. 235: ‘The role of the royal chancery as a creator of fashion and arbiter of taste in script-development in this period is not to be underrated’.Google Scholar

127 Ibid. esp. ch. 5.

128 On all this see Dumville, ‘English Square Minuscule’.

129 Brown, J., A Palaeographer's View (London, 1993), for his classification. I shall return to the question of grade in Square minuscule in the third instalment of this paper.Google ScholarPubMed

130 Keynes, , The Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 14–83.Google Scholar

131 See the discussions by Kelly, S., ‘Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word’, The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, ed. McKitterick, R. (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 36–62Google Scholar, and S. Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, ibid. pp. 226–57.

132 I have discussed this issue in Wessex and England, pp. 151–3.

133 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 157–8.Google Scholar

134 Cf. Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 1.

135 Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 173–4.Google Scholar

136 Ibid. pp. 173–8.

137 Dumville, , Wessex and England, pp. 104–6.Google Scholar

138 Ibid. pp. 67–71 and 91–7; cf. Dumville, , ‘English Square Minuscule’, pp. 169–73.Google Scholar On the specimens associated with Æthelstan, see Keynes, S., ‘King Athelstan's Books’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England. Studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixtyfifth Birthday, ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 143–201, with illustrations.Google Scholar

139 In work which I have been privileged to see in advance of publication; for his earlier remarks, see The Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 42–4.

140 Cf. Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 4.

141 ‘Gab es eine angelsächsische Königskanzlei?’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 13 (1933–1935), 335–436.Google Scholar

142 See above, pp. 145–6.

143 See above, pp. 144–51.

144 On the ‘alliterative’ series of charters, associated with Worcester and Bishop Cenwald, see Keynes, , The Diplomas of King Æthelred, p. 82, n. 165Google Scholar, and ‘King Athelstan's Books’; Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters 2 (London, 1979), xlvii–xlixGoogle Scholar; Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, , p. 12, no. 43Google Scholar. On the ‘Dunstan B’ series, associated with Glastonbury Abbey, see Keynes, S., ‘The “Dunstan B” Charters’, below, pp. 165–93Google Scholar. See also below, pp. 162 – 3, and The Diplomas of King Æthelred, pp. 46–8.

145 See above, pp. 151–5.

146 S 801 (BL Harley Charter 43. C. 6: BM Facs. iii. 31) of AD 975 (WiOM archive) might be held to be a representative of similar influence: Caroline-influenced ct and st ligatures are a noticeable feature of its script. Sawyer (Anglo-Saxon Charters, p. 255) considered it to belong to the first half of the eleventh century.

147 But a political motivation may be conjectured to lie behind such radical change: see above, p. 154.

148 On the question of the paradigm of a scribe's life, see Dumville, D. N., ‘English Libraries before 1066: Use and Abuse of the Manuscript Evidence’, in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, ed. Richards, M. P. (New York, forthcoming).Google Scholar

149 It may indeed be a non-contemporary copy. The archival context does not inspire confidence: cf. Chaplais, Essays, ch. XV.

150 S 1450, 864, 1863, 876, 880, 884, 878–9, 890, 892, 898, 905–6, 916 and 922. Cf. S 939.

151 But two diplomata from the Coventry Abbey archive (S 892, AD 998; S 898, AD 1001) are in strongly hybrid Insular-Caroline script, the former more than the latter.

152 Keynes, , ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 147–53 and pl. IVGoogle Scholar; cf. Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 16, 92 and 141.Google Scholar

153 ‘Notes’, p. 333.

154 Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

155 On S 690, see above, pp. 152–3. On S 745, see Dumville, , English Caroline Script, p. 143.Google Scholar

156 Cf. above, n. 144.

157 Facsimiles, ed. Keynes, , p. 12 (no. 43). But could the exemplar have been of, say, the second half of the eleventh century?Google Scholar

158 The ‘alliterative’ charters run across that boundary.

159 See above, n. 105.

160 The documents rejected here are: S 669 (hybrid), 731, 753 (late Square minuscule), 768 (imitation Square minuscule), 772 (see Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 70–3), 774 (imitation Square minuscule), 779, 794 (hybrid), 801 (not Caroline: see above, n. 146), 804 and 808 – a desperate ragbag of documents of later date. S 745 is wholly Caroline but not a single sheet.Google Scholar

161 By the reign of Æthelred, however, the chancery scribes were clearly having second thoughts: it is even possible that Caroline minuscule was the official script of Æthelred's chancery. For developments in that office in the latter part of his reign, see Dumville, ibid. pp. 132–5.

162 The English Church 1000–1066, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 120–9Google Scholar. For changes in the script style of charters in the period after 1016, see the summary offered by Dumville, , English Caroline Script, pp. 132–40.Google Scholar

163 Publication of Stevenson's famous lectures given in 1898 remains a desideratum: cf. Keynes, , The Diplomas of King ÆEthelred, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

164 See also ‘Regenbald the Chancellor (sic)’, Anglo-Norman Stud. 10 (1987), 185–222.Google Scholar

165 Politics and Script. Aspects of Authority and Freedom in the Development of Graeco-Latin Script from the Sixth Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. (Oxford, 1972).Google Scholar

166 I am particularly obliged to the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College and of Trinity College, Cambridge, for their permission to reproduce photographs of their manuscripts. As before, I am indebted to Michael Lapidge for a critical reading of this paper, and for discussion of this subject over many years. The last section of the article is a revised version of a paper which I delivered at the conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (Oxford, Summer 1993): I am grateful to my audience for a helpful response. Particular manuscripts and issues I have discussed with various scholars, to all of whom I should like to offer my thanks: Donald Bullough, James Carley, Patrick Conner, Julia Crick, Richard Gameson, David Ganz, Helmut Gneuss, Geoffrey Harlow, Susan Kelly, Simon Keynes, Vivien Law, Patrick McGurk, Lynette Olson, Donald Scragg, Patrick Sims Williams and, last but not least, Yoko Wada.