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The construction of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Barbara C. Raw
Barbara C. Raw
Affiliation:
The University of Keele
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Extract

In recent years a number of books and articles has appeared in which new and contradictory claims have been made about the compilation of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius II. In view of these contradictions it is necessary to re-examine the manuscript and to set out what information can be gained from it and what can reasonably be inferred from that information.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 13 , December 1984 , pp. 187 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 My thanks are due to the staff of the Bodleian Library, and especially to Dr B. C. Barker-Benfield, for their help while I was preparing this article.

2 Doane, A. R., Genesis A: a New Edition (Madison, Wisc., 1978), p. 6Google Scholar, accepts the fifteenth-century date given by Stoddard, F. H., ‘The Caedmon Poems in MS Junius 11’, Anglia 10 (1887), 157–67, at 158Google Scholar, and followed by Gollancz, I., The Caedmon Manuscript (Oxford, 1927), p. xxxvGoogle Scholar, and Timmer, B. J., The Later Genesis (Oxford, 1948), p. 3Google Scholar. Lucas, P. J., Exodus (London, 1977), p. 4Google Scholar, claims that the binding dates from 1025 × 50. Pächt, O. and Alexander, J. J. G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford 111 (Oxford, 1973), 5Google Scholar, date the re-sewing and, presumably, the binding to c. 1200.

3 Farrell, R. T., Daniel and Azarias (London, 1974), pp. 5–6Google Scholar; Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 407Google Scholar; Hall, J. R., ‘The Old English Epic of Redemption: the Theological Unity of MS Junius 11’, Traditio 32 (1976), 185–208, at 186CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lucas, P. J., ‘On the Incomplete Ending of Daniel and the Addition of Christ and Satan to MS Junius 11’, Anglia 97 (1979), 46–59, at 52.Google Scholar

4 Hall, ‘Old English Epic of Redemption’, p. 208; Lucas, , ‘Incomplete Ending of Daniel’, pp. 49 and 57Google Scholar. See also Clubb, M. D., Christ and Satan (New Haven, Conn., 1925; repr. 1972), pp. xiv–xvGoogle Scholar, for evidence that the poem was a separate manuscript, and Finnegan, R. E., Christ and Satan (Waterloo, Ont., 1977), pp. 4, 9 and 10Google Scholar, for the view that Christ and Satan probably formed part of the original plan for the manuscript.

5 Gollancz, , Caedmon Manuscript, pp. 1–liiGoogle Scholar, suggests that the two remaining leaves were nos. 5 and 7 of the original gathering and that parts of the gathering were lost at the time the manuscript was written, perhaps as the result of ‘some error of transcription, or some change of plan’. Timmer, , Later Genesis, pp. 13–15Google Scholar, like Gollancz, suggests that some at least of the missing leaves were lost at the time of writing, probably as the result of the interpolation of Genesis B into Genesis A, but he considers the present leaves to be nos. 4 and 6. Doane, Genesis A, pp. 7–10, argues that they were nos. 2 and 6 and that there was a gap of three folios rather than one at Genesis, line 205.

6 Cf. Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 407–8Google Scholar. Ker argues that these leaves were originally singletons, whereas I argue that leaves have been lost.

7 It is usually claimed that p. 229 was written by a third scribe. This hand is very close to that of pp. 216–28 – the main difference is that the y is not dotted – and the late Francis Wormald believed that the hands were the same (private communication). The identity of the hands is not crucial to my argument that Christ and Satan was not originally a separate manuscript.

8 The texts are fairly well known: ‘Amen dico vobis quoniam super omnia bona sua constituet eum’ (Matthew xxiv.47); ‘Domine Dominus noster quam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra’ (Psalm viii.1); ‘Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius’ (Psalm cvi. 1); and ‘Sciant presentes et futuri’ (a formula frequently found at the beginning of charters).

9 Gollancz, , Caedmon Manuscript, p. lii.Google Scholar

10 Ibid. p. liii, and Timmer, , Later Genesis, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

11 ‘The width of the margins in gathering 17 varies a good deal, and it is not possible to say with any certainty whether the margins of pp. 217/218 and 223/224 are wider than those on the adjacent pages or not.

12 For the term ‘third mitres’, see Pollard, Graham, ‘Describing Medieval Bookbindings’, Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to R. W. Hunt, ed. Alexander, J. J. G. and Gibson, M. T. (Oxford, 1976), pp. 50–65, at 59.Google Scholar

13 James, M. R., Tie Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), p. xxv.Google Scholar

14 Timmer, , Later Genesis, p. 3Google Scholar, and Ker, , Catalogue, p. 408Google Scholar. The strip of vellum which projects between pp. 210 and 211 may be the remains of this paste-down; there is a similar, though narrower, fragment of vellum at the back of gathering 1.

15 Pollard, ‘Bookbindings’, pp. 54–6; the Junius 11 binding is closest to Pollard's fig. 5 on p. 57. In view of Lucas's claim that the binding is Anglo-Saxon it should perhaps be pointed out that Pollard did not include Junius 11 in his study ‘Some Anglo-Saxon Bookbindings’, Book Collector 24 (1975), 130–59.Google Scholar

16 The Hereford library is illustrated in Streeter, B. H., The Chained Library (London, 1931), p. 59Google Scholar. For the different positions of the chaining mechanism, see Ker, N., ‘Chaining from a Staple on the Back Cover’, Bodleian Lib. Record 3 (1950–1951), 104–7.Google Scholar

17 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F. 1. 15 and Bodley 97; London, British Library, Add. 37517 and 34890, nos. 4, 7, 8 and 9 in Pollard, ‘Anglo-Saxon Bookbindings’, pp. 144–5 and 148–51.

18 James, , Ancient Libraries, pp. 7–12.Google Scholar

19 Lucas, , ‘Incomplete Ending of Daniel’, pp. 49 and 57.Google Scholar

20 Ker, Catalogue, no. 164.

21 Ibid. pp. xlvi–xlvii.

22 Streeter, , Chained Library, pp. 9–12.Google Scholar

23 Wormald, F., ‘The Monastic Library’, Wormald, F. and Wright, C. E., The English Library before 1700 (London, 1958), pp. 15–51, at 17Google Scholar, and Clark, J. W., The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1901), p. 105.Google Scholar