An Insular fragment of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica

Abstract

What remains of a single fragmentary folio, consisting of a vision from Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, is discussed from the palaeographical and philological points of view. The writing of the fragment is placed within the context of Insular books written on the Continent, probably Werden, in the first half of the ninth century. Visual identification of script is made with another contemporary half-leaf. The three fragments are regarded as débris of a book of excerpts gathered from various writers. The formation of the collection as a whole is considered as reaching back behind the extant fragments to a lost eighth-century Insular source.