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English Square minuscule script: the background and earliest phases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

David N. Dumville
David N. Dumville
Affiliation:
Girton College, Cambridge
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Extract

In the long history of the Insular system of scripts, the tenth century marks for England a decisive stage. Within the narrow confines of that eraq we may observe numerous ecclesiastical developments which bear on the history of book production: attempts at a scriptorial reform; the reception of external stimuli of an artistic and technical nature; the creation of a new ‘Square minuscule’ form of Insular script; the deliberate imitation in England (for the first time since its emergence in northwestern Francia in the later eighth century) of the Caroline minuscule, probably not unconnected with an increasing rate of impartation of foreign book; a monastic revolution within the English church (supported by the monarchy but led by Benedictine ideologues drawing inspiration in large part from continental models of reform) some of whose proponents probably favoured Caroline writing as a matter of principle; a growing tendency on the part of scribes to write different scripts for Latin and the vernacular; a considerable growth in the writing of vernacular manuscripts whose output seems to have increased geometrically during the 175 years from King Alfred's literary and educational reform to the Norman Conquest; and finally the abandonment of the Square minuscule as a vehicle for Latin writing, coincident with its transmutation into another variety of Insular script whose use in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was restricted to English-language matter.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 16 , December 1987 , pp. 147 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1 That sequel will appear in a future volume of Anglo-Saxon England. It will consider the script of the reigns of Edmund, Eadred and Eadwig (Square minuscule of Phase III), the interaction of Caroline and Square minuscule (Phase iv), informal Square minuscule, centres of production of the mature script (Phase v), scribal treatment of Latin and Old English, the latest phases (vi, vii) of Square minuscule, and the transmutation of the script into the forms characteristic of eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon minuscule. Other issues requiring discussion there are the role of the royal chancery in the development of this script form and the extent of 'Celtic' features in specimens of Square minuscule.

2 I have considered the date of hand I of the Parker Chronicle at some length elsewhere: Dumville, D.N., Wessex and England from Alfred to Edgar, Studies in Anglo-Saxon History i (Woodbridge, 1987),Google Scholar ch. 3. The outer limits of scribe 2's performance are 911, the last annal in his first stint, and c. 950, the approximate date of hand 3; scribe I is therefore to be dated between his last annal, 891, and the date of scribe 2; the two scribes may have collaborated in their work. The statement in the text represents the likeliest range of date for scribe I, but the possibility of dating him later is not to be overlooked.

3 I have discussed the latest specimens, with particular reference to the manuscript of Beowulf, in 'Beowulf Come Lately: Some Notes on the Palaeography of the Nowell Codex', forthcoming.

4 For the earliest phases of Insular script the repertory of Lowe, E.A., Codices Latini Antiquiores, ii vols. and suppl. (Oxford, 1934–1971)Google Scholar, remains standard; see especially the introduction to the 2nd ed. of vol.II (1972). We await posthumous publication of the Lyell Lectures of T.J. Brown, ‘The Insular System of Scripts to c. 890’, in which a comprehensive re-evaluation of the subject has been attempted. For ninth-century and later Celtic writing two volumes remaining useful are by Lindsay, W.M., Early Irisb Minuscule Script (Oxford, 1910),Google Scholar and Early Welsb Script (Oxford, 1912).Google Scholar More specific studies are mentioned in notes below.

5 The history of Northumbrian writing in this period is represented by a small number of manuscripts extending from Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 63 (S. C. 1664), written 867×892, via the additions in the Durham Ritual (see below, n. 112), through those in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183 and Cambridge, Sidney Susse College 100–on which see Bishop, T.A.M., Englisb Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. 14Google Scholar and pl. 16(b)–to the gospel-lectionary of St Margaret, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lat. liturg. f. 5 (S.C. 29744), facts. ed. W. Forbes-Leith (Edinburgh, 1896). Square minuscule has almost no role in this sequence.

6 To London may be referred London, British Library, Cotton Domitian A. ix, III, discussed below. From Worcester we know additions to Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 20 (S.C. 4117) and London, BL Royal 2. A. xx (the latter in informal Square minuscule); Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 448, fols. 1–86, was perhaps written there; Urbana, University of Illinois Library, 128, a specimen of Phase in, almost certainly was.

7 Their histories are attested either by direct evidence or by the survival to the eleventh century and beyond of house muniments from the period before the First Viking Age. For some further discussion of this question, see Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 2. Peterborough should perhaps be added to this list.

8 Within the term monasterium (or OE mynster) writers of the Anglo-Saxon period comprehended a wide variety of ecclesiastical houses, from minster churches, through proprietary houses of various sorts, to independent corporations living under a great variety of constitutions; I do not exclude any of these from the remarks in the text.

9 Like most historians I use this term in the sense defined by Sawyer, P. H., et al., ‘The Two Viking Ages of Britain’, MScand 2 (1969), 163–207.Google Scholar

10 For this point see the lists compiled by Keynes, S.D. in Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Fryde, E. B. et al. , 3rd ed. (London, 1986), pp. 216 and 219.Google Scholar

11 At least for Latin writing; but from one nursery of reform, Abingdon, we have evidence for the practice of Square minuscule in the second half of the tenth century.

12 See James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1909–1912)Google Scholar 1, 426 (on MS. 183), and II, 185 (on MS. 392, quoting Bradshaw), 189 (on MS. 396); by II, 360 (on MS. 448), ‘insular’ was being written without the accompanying inverted commas.

13 ibid. I, 148 (on MS. 69) and 344 (‘“Hiberno-Saxon”’, on one hand of MS. 153).

14 ibid. II, 239, on MS. 389.

15 This (Phase vii) will be discussed in the sequel mentioned in n. 1; for the moment, see my paper cited in n. 3.

16 James, , A Descriptive Catalogue, ii, 315, on MS. 422, pp. 1–26.Google Scholar

17 ibid. I, 344 (on MS. 153), quoting Bradshaw. On CCCC 153 and its reception in tenthcentury England, see further Bishop, T.A.M., ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliog. Soc. 4 (1964–1968), 257–75.Google Scholar

18 James, M.R., The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1900–1904)Google Scholar III, 127, on MS. O. 2. 30 (1134), fols. 129–172.

19 ibid. I, 166, on MS. B. 4. 27 (141).

20 Apart from his study mentioned in n. 17, see ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’. Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliog. Soc. 4 (1964–1968), 246–52,Google Scholar and ‘An Early Example of Insular Caroline’, ibid. pp. 396–406. I have discussed the broader context in my book, England and tbe Celtic World in the Nintb and tentb Centuries (O's Donnell Lectures 1978 and 1981: publication forthcoming).

21 See for example G.F. Warner's account of the palaeography of the Parker Chronicle in Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. C. Plummer, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892–1899), II, xxvii,Google Scholar n. 2.

22 Thompson, E.M., An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography (Oxford, 1912)Google ScholarKeller, W., Abgelsäcbsiscbe Palaeographie, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1906).Google Scholar

23 Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the Britisb Museum, ed. E.A. Bond, 4 vols. (London, 1873–1878),Google Scholar cited henceforth as BM Facts.; Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. W.B. Sanders, 3 vols. (Southampton, 1878–1884),Google Scholar henceforth OS Facs.

24 Ker, N.R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar supplement in ASE 5 (1976), 121–31.Google Scholar

25 See above, nn. 4, 5, 17, 20 and 24, for some of these; see also Parkes, M.B., ‘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 and his paper cited in n. 91 below.

26 Ker, , Catalogue, p. 59,Google Scholar no. 40 (eighth-century); p. 65, no. 42 (tenth-century); p. 48, no. 35 (eleventh-century).

27 ibid. p. 42, no. 30, on Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 12.

28 ibid. p. 120, no. 70 A, on CCCC 422.

29 ibid. p. 409, no. 335, on Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 27 (S.C. 5139).

30 ibid. pp. xx-xxi, for example.

31 ibid. p. 56, no. 38, on CCCC 162.

32 In ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’ and in Aethici Istrici Cosmographia: Codex Leidensis Scaligeranus 69, Umbrae Codicum Occidentalium 10 (Amsterdam, 1966).Google Scholar

33 For example, Ker was able to date the lost flyleaf of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 86 (S.C. 197) by reference to descriptions of this feature: Catalogue, pp. 411–12, no. 337. Bishop, T.A.M., ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts: the Early Minuscule of Christ Church, Canterbury’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliog. Soc. 3 (1959–1963), 413–23,Google Scholar remarks (on 9. 418) on the tendency of early Anglo-Caroline from Christ Church to preserve such ligatures: it is notable that the specimens to which he refers belong to the late tenth century.

34 Some impression of this may be gained by comparing the usage of the relevant manuscripts cited by Lindsay, W.M., Notae Latinae (Cambridge, 1915),Google Scholar on the period 700–850, and the supplement by D. Bains (Cambridge, 1936) on A.D. 850–1050.

35 For some examples of Hybrid minuscule, see Lowe, , codices II, nos. 122, 199, 204, 214 and 241.Google Scholar

36 For a brief introduction to the history of Caroline minuscule script, see Bischoff, B., Paléographic de l' antiquité romaine et du moyen âge occidental, trans. Atsma, H. and Vezin, J. (Paris, 1985), pp. 127–43.Google Scholar

37 A useful starting point on this difficult question is now provided by Brown, M.P., ‘Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, lat. 10861 and the Scriptorium of Christ Church, Canterbury’, ASE 15 (1986), 119–37.Google Scholar

38 See, for example, Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., Alfred the Great (Harmondsworth, 1983), p. 265,Google Scholar n. 195, and Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford, 1971), pp. 124–51.Google Scholar

39 This question will be discussed in the sequel mentioned in n. 1.

40 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. xxiv–xxv.Google Scholar

41 This is seen most clearly in the charters of the period:for example, S 344 (OS Facs. iii. 19), 350 (OS Facs. i. 12), 1200 (BM Facs. ii. 19), and 1276 (Os Facs. i.II)-the designation ‘S’ refers to item numbers given by Sawyer, P.H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968).Google Scholar Poor West Saxon bookhand of Alfred's reign may be found in London, BL Add. 23211: a reproduction is given by Dumville, D.N., ‘The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List: Manuscripts and texts’. Anglia 104 (1986), 1–32, at 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 No manuscript is now known which is certainly attributable to Southumbrian England in the third quarter of the ninth century. Some charters do, of course, survive (such as those cited in n. 41) but specimens from the second half of the century are very much scarcer (and more disreputable) than those of an earlier period.

43 I have discussed these in Wessex and England, ch. 6, where I give a newly collated text of the Alfredian circular letter; the standard text and translation is that of Sweet, H., King Alfred's West Saxon Version of Gregor's Pastoral Care, 2 vols., EETS o.s. 45 and 50 (London, 1871–1872) i, 2–9.Google Scholar

44 See The Pastoral Care, facs. ed. N.R. Ker, EEMF 6 (Copenhagen, 1956), 19.Google Scholar

45 On this question see Sisam, K., Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953; rev. imp., 1962), pp. 140–7.Google Scholar

46 On Uncial writing in England and its models see Lowe, E.A., English Uncial (Oxford, 1960),Google Scholar and the relevant individual descriptions in Lowe, Codices. See also Bischoff, B. and Brown, V., ‘Addenda to Codices Latini Antiquiores’, MS 47 (1985), 317–66,Google Scholar nos. 1822 and 1849. Work more recent than Lowe's may be approached through The Stonyburst Gospel of Saint John, facs. ed. T.J. Brown (Oxford, 1969).Google Scholar For an unexpected fragment of continental Half-uncial in England, see Schauman, B. and Cameron, A., ‘A Newly-found Leaf of Old English from Louvain’, Anglia 95 (1977), 289–312.Google Scholar

47 It would be interesting to know what was the non-Insular, non-Caroline model which lies behind the script of the opening pages of the grammatical manuscript now London, BL, Cotton Cleopatra A. vi, fols. 2–53: Temple, E., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066 (London, 1976), p. 55 (no. 27).Google Scholar

48 See the references given above, nn. 43–5.

49 Keynes, and Lapidge, , Alfred the Great, pp. 26–9Google Scholar and notes.

50 The termini are provided by the accession of King Alfred and the death of Æthelred, archbishop of Canterbury, who are both named in the text: see S 1908 (OS Facs. iii. 20).

51 See n. 44 for facsimiles; more precise details of these manuscripts are given below.

52 Cf.Brooks, N., The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), p. 173.Google Scholar Brooks, ibid. pp. 173–4 and 214, considers two charters (S 1203: BM Facs. ii. 40: a copy of a document of A.D. 875, and S 1288: OS Facs. iii. 24: A.D. 905, subsequently altered) to display the improved scribal and educational standards of Archbishop Plegmund's Canterbury (A.D. 890×923). The two charters manifest very different styles of handwriting. It seems extremely doubtful to me that the extant copy of S 1203 should be assigned to Plegmund's pontificate. On the other hand, S 1288 does not seem at all improbable when placed alongside the original Worcester chirograph of A.D. 904 (S 1281: BM Facs. iii. 2).

53 The only single sheets arguably associable with Rochester in this period are S 327 (BM Facs. ii. 35), originally dated 860, S 331 (BM Facs. ii. 36), dated 862, and S 1276 (OS Facs. i. II, from the archive of Christ Church, Canterbury), dated 889. Only the last of these (cf. n. 41 above) can be regarded as undoubtedly original, but its archival provenance raises doubts about where it eas in fact written.

54 The last dated charters relevant here are of 903 (S 367: OS Facs. iii. 23), 904 and 905 (on these two see above, n. 52). Among books one might mention London, BL Royal 5. F. III and Cotton Galba A. xviii, fols. 3–20, the latter written after 902.

55 Apart from the style which was to appear in the Pastoral Care manuscripts of the 890s, the witnesses are London, BL Add. 23211 (probably written in Alfred's reign, 871–99), Add. 40165 A.2, Cotton Domitian A. ix, II r (probably written at London and no doubt therefore after 883), and Louvain-la-Neuve, Université Catholique de Louvain, Fragmenta H. Omont 3. The last three of these contain Anglian texts but, apart from the London fragment, it is not clear in what area they were written.

56 The fullest discussion of this documentary corpus is that by Brooks, The Early History.

57 The proper dating and localization of some of the most important Hybrid minuscule specimens from Southumbria is a matter of dispute. From Northumbria, c. 840, we have the Liber Vitat Dunelmensis (London, BL Cotton Domitian A. vii), written at the episcopal church of St Cuthbert, perhaps then at Norham.

58 Lowe, , Codices II, no. 199Google Scholar on this point, cf. Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, p. 158.

59 ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, p. 251.

60 See his papers cited above, nn. 17 and 20.

61 I have considered this matter in my book cited above, n. 20. The point is made quite explicitly by Bishop, ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’, p. 258.

62 For a brief introduction to Asser, see Keynes, and Lapidge, , Alfred the Great, especially pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

63 James, , A Descriptive Catalogue I, 346,Google Scholar wished to attribute CCCC 153 to St Davids, but there seems to be no evidence to support him. Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 4. 42 was written and augmented in Wales (within c. 890×c. 950) under Irish influence, but one cannot allow that St Davids was the only centre whose intellectual traditions could be defined thus.

64 Asser, ch. 81.

65 Lindsay, , Early Welsb Script; Saint Dunstan's Classbook from Glastonbury, facs. ed. Hunt, R. W., Umbrae Codicum Occidentalium 4 (Amsterdam, 1961)Google Scholar Bishop, ‘The Corpus Martianus Capella’.

66 The earliest specimens, not precisely datable but no earlier than the mid-century, occur in annotations in Lichfield, Cathedral Library, Lich. 1: see n. 68 below.

67 I say this, perhaps unwisely, on the evidence of the latest approximately datable witness, Cambridge, University Library, Add. 4543, a poor specimen of script.

68 In the documentary additions to the Lichfield Gospels (n. 66 above): they are printed and facsimiled (as Chad 3, 4, 5 and 7) in The Text of the Book of Llan Dâv, ed. J.G. Evans and J. Rhys (Oxford, 1893), pp. xlii–xlvii.Google Scholar The Llandeilo Fawr provenance is thoroughly discussed by Jenkins, D. and Owen, M.E., ‘The Welsh Marginalia in the Lichfield Gospels’, CMCS 5 (1983), 37–66.Google Scholar

69 The main text of the presumptively Cornish ninth-century pocket gospel-book, Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 671, by two scribes, does not seem to display a (cursive) form of this script, nor does the Insular section of the tenth-century Cornish codex, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 572 (S.C. 2126), fols. 1–50: for facsimiles, see Lindsay, Early Welsh Script, pls. IV-V and xv.

70 ibid. pl. XI, and Hunt, Saint Dunstan's Classbook.

71 In the sequel to this paper, 1 discuss those specimens of tenth-century English script which display Celtic influence.

72 On the genre, see McGurk, P., ‘The Irish Pocket Gospel Book’, Sacris Erudiri 8 (1956), 249–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other Irish imports are Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D. 2. 19 (S.C. 3946) and London, Lambeth Palace 1370. For the first two of these see Lowe, , Codices ii, nos. 179 and 231.Google Scholar

73 See pl. III. These additions are discussed by Lowe, ibid. no. 179, Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 43–4(no. 15), and Alexander, J. J. G., Insular Manuscripts, 6th to the 9th Century (London, 1978), p. 68Google Scholar (no. 46).

74 For text and discussion see McGurk, P., ‘The Metrical Calendar of Hampson. A New Edition’, AB 104 (1986), 79–125.Google Scholar See also Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

75 London, BL, Cotton Galba A. xviii, fols. 3–20; see Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pls. 15–17. For comparanda see Bishop, T.A.M., ‘Autograph of John the Scot’, Jean Scot Érigéne et l'sHistoire de la Philosophie, ed. Roques, R., Colloques Internationaux du C.N.R.S. 961 (Paris, 1977), 89–94.Google Scholar See also below, n. 76.

76 For discussion see Hughes, K., Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages, Studies in Celtic History 2 (Woodbridge, 1980),Google Scholar ch. 2, and references given there.

77 Their hands are considered in some detail by Ker, The Pastoral Care.

78 Catalogue, pp. 385–6 (cf. pp. 258–9 on the hands of the companion manuscript, London, BL Cotton Tiberius B. xi×Kassel, Landesbibliothek, Anhang 19).

79 Catalogue, pp. 258 and 385.

80 For the issues in question see Sisam, , Studies, pp. 140–7Google Scholar, and Ker, The Pastoral Care.

81 Sisam, , Studies, p. 141Google Scholar, mentioned Winchester; cf.Ker, , Catalogue, p. 259.Google Scholar

82 The termini are provided by the accession of Archbishop Plegmund and the latest possible date for the death of Swithwulf, bishop of Rochester–cf. ibid. p. 257, but Ker's ‘897’ is to be corrected: Fryde et al., Handbook of British Chronology, p. 221.

83 Catalogue, p. 58; cf. p. 309 (no. 237).

84 In Wessex and England, ch. 3, I have called this script form ‘primitive Square minuscule’; I now think the term used here to be more appropriate.

85 Catalogue, p. 58.

86 The outer limits of date for scribe 2 are 911 and c. 950: cf. n. 2 above.

87 ibid. p. 59.

88 Cf. Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

89 Discussed Ibid. where I concluded that these bounds were inserted most likely after the book had come into the possession of the Nunnaminster. Unfortunately, however, we know too little about the constitution of the Nunnaminster in its early years. It was no doubt served by a priest (or more than one), perhaps from the Old Minster, and whether it rapidly developed its own scriptorium is perhaps doubtful. If “the other evidence for this script points to the Old Minster, that is the more likely place to look for the scribe of these added bounds.

90 On the original manuscript see Lowe, Codices II, no. 123. For the additions, see Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, and Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, pp. 151, 156, 159, 162 and pl. v; Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

91 Parkes, M.B., ‘A Fragment of an Early-tenth-century Anglo-Saxon Manuscript and its Significance’, ASE 12 (1983), 129–40.Google Scholar

92 Parkes (ibid.) has perhaps made unnecessarily heavy weather of the dating of Remigius's commentary on Martianus. It seems clear that it does not help us here, save (as Parkes accepts) to place this fragment in the tenth century. Nor does the inscription naming Frithestan the deacon (CCCC 173, 571) help to date the restoration of that manuscript before his accession in 909 to the see of Winchester (assuming, perhaps rashly, the identity of the two Frithestans), for there is no demonstrable relationship between the inscription (of ownership?) and the work of restoration.

93 Briefly described by James, , The Western Manuscripts i, 498–500Google Scholar cf.Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, and Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, pp. 156–62 p. VI.

94 See Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, pl. XVIII (b).

95 Cf. Dumville, D.N., ‘Motes and Beams: Two Insular Computistical Manuscripts’, Paritia 2 (1983), 248–56, at 249(–50)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 3. But the scribe also used another minuscule form of described by Keller, , Angelsäcbsiscbe Palaeographie i, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 33.Google Scholar

96 It is clear that a current grade of Insular minuscule was still being written in his scriptorium, as the corrections and additions attest: see, for example, pls. I and VII where open a and cursive t + i may be seen in the additions.

97 See James, , A Descriptive Catalogue II, 105–6.Google Scholar I am indebted to Nicholas Webb for drawing my attention to this manuscript in the present context. The book has been mistakenly dated to the ninth century by James (ibid.) and by Colgrave, B., Felix's Life of Saint Gutbac (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 26–7Google ScholarMorrish, , ‘King Alfred's Letter as a Source on Learning in England in the Ninth Century’, Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, P.E. (Albany, N.Y., 1986), pp. 87–107, at 94,Google Scholar inexplicably dates it to the second half of that century.

98 Such was the opinion of James, , A Descriptive Catalogue ii, 105.Google Scholar

99 Ker, , The Pastoral Care, p. 23.Google ScholarColgrave, , Felix's Life, pp. 49 and 51,Google Scholar suggested that CCCC 307, pt I (his C1), and London, BL Royal 13. A. xv, written in the second half of the tenth century and of Worcester provenance (his A), were copied from the same exemplar.Worcester is therefore also a possible point of origin for CCCC 307.pt I.

100 S264 (BM Facs. ii. 3)Google Scholar. The archival provenance of this document is uncertain: Malmesbury or Glastonbury would seem to be the obvious choice. Once again I am indebted to Nicholas Webb for drawing this specimen to my attention.

101 See further below, and also Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3, for an extensive discussion.

102 See Ker, , The Pastoral Care, pp. 21–2Google Scholar, and Catalogue, pp. 258–9.

103 For the text see Miller, T., The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 4 vols., EETS os. 95, 96, 110 and 111 (London, 1890–1898).Google Scholar

104 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 188–9 (no. 151).Google Scholar

105 Whitelock, D., Some Anglo-Saxon Bishops of London (London, 1975), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

106 Ker, Catalogue, pl. I, and Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pls. 35–6 and 39–40, illustrate hand I.

107 Temple, ibid. pl. 37, illustrates hand 2, and as pl. 34 gives a detail of 13 Ir. Scribe 3, the fifth in time, wrote in the second half of the tenth century, supplying fols. 105–114 to fill a lacuna in the text. For a description of the manuscript and separation of the hands, see Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 428–9 (no. 351).Google Scholar

108 Cf.Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, p. 40 (no. 9).Google Scholar

109 The flyleaves, recording library loans at Thorney in the 1320s, were created from the mortuary roll of an abbot who died in 1293: they are now kept separately as MS. Tanner 10* (S.C. 27694).

110 Cf. above, nn. 72–3. See also McGurk, P., Latin Gospel Books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800 (Paris, 1961), pp. 32–3 (no. 20).Google Scholar

111 Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, p. 43Google Scholar, is responsible for the Canterbury suggestion. Only Lowe, , Codices 11, no. 179Google Scholar, has kept separate the two phases of addition.

112 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 144–6 (no. 106)Google ScholarTemple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 35–6 (no. 3).Google Scholar For a complete facsimile, see The Durham Ritual, ed. T. J. Brown, EEMF 16 (Copenhagen, 1969).Google Scholar

113 For the date and early circulation of the Old English Bede, see Whitelock, D., From Bede to Alfred, Variorum Collected Studies 121 (London, 1980),Google Scholar chs. VI-IX. However, the earlier terminus is unevidenced and requires reconsideration.

114 See above, n. 93.

115 Sixteen preceding folios seem, on the evidence of the Parkerian foliation, to have been lost since the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Whether this book ever contained a complete copy of the Etymologiae must be considered doubtful. For another possible fragment of this manuscript, once in the Fischer collection at Weinheim, see Lindsay, , Notae Latinae, p. 492Google Scholar, and Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, p. 252: it contained I.iii-ix, however.

116 This letter may be seen illustrated ibid. pl. XVIII(a), line 8, and pl. XIX(b), line 3; cf. Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, pl. VI, lower margin.

117 Parkes, ‘A Fragment’, p. 131 and n. 8; cf. Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, p. 248. For the PRO manuscript see Roper, M., ‘A Fragment of Bede's De temporum ratione in the Public Record Office’, ASE 12 (1983), 125–8 and pl. I.Google Scholar

118 Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, pp. 157–8 and pls. VI-VII.

119 Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

120 ibid.; Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, pl. XIX.

121 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 4–5Google Scholar (no. 6); Parkes, ‘A Fragment’, p. 137, n. 51. For further illustration, see Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3. The scribe of 76v was also that of the will of Wulfgar, S 1533 (BM Facs. iii.3[b]) and perhaps of CCCC 173, 25rI-7.

122 Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, p. 55Google Scholar (no. 29) and pls. 101–2. Cf. nn. 168 and 172, below.

123 See The Parker Chronicle and Laws, facs. ed. R. Flower and H. Smith (London, 1941).Google Scholar This section, by a single scribe in two stints, is discussed at length by Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

124 The rest of the page is illustrated ibid.; for the additions to this manuscript, see Lowe, Codices 11, no. 126, and Ker, , Catalogue, p. 95Google Scholar (no. 55).

125 S 1445 (OS Facs. i. 13): before further progress can be made with this document, it is necessary for us to discover why its archival provenance is Christ Church, Canterbury. I hope to return to this item in another paper.

126 Discussed and illustrated by Keynes, S., ‘King Athelstan's Books’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 143–201, at 189–93Google Scholar and pl. XII.

127 Described by Ker, N. R., Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1969–) II, 845.Google Scholar I am much obliged to Mrs A.M. Erskine for taking great pains to obtain satisfactory photographic reproductions of these fragments for me.

128 Described by Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 164–6 (no. 133)Google ScholarTemple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 39–40Google Scholar (no. 8). For a complete facsimile see The Tollemache Orosius, ed. A. Campbell, EEMF 3 (Copenhagen 1953).Google Scholar See further Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3, and the references given there.

129 Parkes, ‘A Fragment’, p. 131 and pl. IIIa.

130 Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 185–9 and pl. XI. For text and translation see also Harmer, F. E., Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1914)Google Scholar, no. 19. Cf. Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

131 Roper, ‘A Fragment’.

132 Ker, , The Pastoral Care, p. 24Google Scholar cf. Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 158–9 and 199 n. 5.

133 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 408–9Google Scholar (no. 335); Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 38–9Google Scholar (no. 7) and pls. I (a superb colour reproduction of 135v), 20–4 and 26; Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, pp. 156–63 (a rather muddled account of a manuscript crucial to his argument) with pl. VII (77v); Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

134 Ker, , Catalogue, p. 277Google Scholar (no. 210).

135 The computus (on 223r, not 224vas Ker states ibid.) is illustrated and discussed by Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3. The Boethian matter is drawn from De consolatione I. i and III.viii, both on old age; a refrain from the latter has been inserted into the former; the texts are very corrupt. I owe all this information to Michael Lapidge.

136 ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, p. 248, and see his pl. xix(b).

137 Etymologiae v.39 (6r4–9r17). See also 9r-v (capitula to bk vi), 21r-v, 4 or (bk vii), 77V (bk viii).

138 Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, pp. 154–9, especially 158–9.

139 It is perhaps unlikely to have been coincidental that major developments in English politics, diplomatic, latinity, and scriptorial activity occurred together in Æthelstan's reign, that of the first king of England. I have considered some of these questions in Wessex and England, ch. 4.

140 See n. 41.

141 See n. 23.

142 The archival provenance of this document is the Old Minster, Winchester.

143 Archival provenance: Christ Church, Canterbury.

144 Archival provenance: Christ Church, Canterbury.

145 Archival provenance: the Old Minster, Winchester.

146 See Keynes, S., The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 14–19,CrossRefGoogle Scholar with reference to earlier scholarship. The scribe of S 416 and 425 is conventionally known as ‘Æthelstan A’.

147 ‘Æthelstan C’: Keynes, ibid. If this is correct, it implies that royal office staff might be retained from one reign to another. The same may be observed during the currency of Square minuscule of Phase III. I return to these questions in the sequel to this paper.

148 S 495 (BM Facs. iii. 11)Google Scholar, from the Evesham archive. One wonders whether it is significant that this is the one Midland charter of this group. But, as Simon Keynes points out to me, in its formulation S 495 sits squarely with the other royal diplomas of the 940s.

149 On this see Keynes, , The Diplomas, pp. 24–5 and 42–4.Google Scholar

150 Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 180–5 and pls. IX-X; Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 64–5Google Scholar (no. 42).

151 ibid. p. 330 (no. 259); Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, p. 36Google Scholar (no. 4) and pls. 11–14.

152 Bishop, ‘An Early Example of the Square Minuscule’, p. 247.

153 Archival provenance: the New Minster, Winchester.

154 Archival provenance: the Old Minster, Winchester. For the scribal connexions of this with other manuscripts, see above, n. 121, and Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3.

155 On the chirograph see Hazeltine, H. D. in Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. and transl. Whitelock, D. (Cambridge, 1930), pp. xxiii–xxv.Google Scholar

156 This question will be discussed in the sequel mentioned in n. 1.

157 Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’.

158 There are other books bearing different indications of the king's munificence, such as an inscription in Capitals or a picture of the king making his gift.

159 ibid. pp. 159–65 and pl. VI.

160 ibid. pp. 147–53 pl. II. (On 15r is added in continental Caroline minuscule the poem Rex pius Æòelstan: cf. his pl. IV.)

161 ibid. pp. 165–70 and pl. VII. But the script is imitative and probably Early Modern.

162 ibid. pp. 170–9 and pl. VIII. The script is Insular, but it is not Square minuscule, as befits its Irish and Northumbrian contexts.

163 ibid. pp. 144–5 and pl. I, and the references given there.

164 Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 40–1Google Scholar (no. 10) and pl. 38; cf. Brownrigg, L. L., ‘Manuscripts containing English Decoration 871–1066, catalogued and illustrated: a Review’, ASE 7 (1978), 239–66,Google Scholar at 251.

165 Cf. n. 168 below; Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, p. 55Google Scholar (no. 29) and pls. 101–2.

166 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 8–10Google Scholar (no. 10).

167 James, , A Descriptive Catalogue ii, 360–3.Google Scholar

168 James, , The Western Manuscripts i, 516–17Google ScholarKeynes, S., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and Other Items of Related Interest in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (Cambridge, privately printed, 1985), pp. 10–12.Google Scholar Keynes reports Linda Brownrigg's identification of the scribe of this manuscript with scribe 2 of Boulogne 82 (above, n. 165). See also Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 42–3Google Scholar (no. 14).

169 Ker, N. R., ‘A Supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon’, ASE 5 (1976), 121–31,Google Scholar at 127 (no. 415).

170 Thompson, E. M. and Warner, G. F., Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, Part II: Latin (London, 1884), pp. 12–13Google ScholarWatson, A. G., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts in the Department of Manuscripts, the British Library, 2 vols. (London, 1979) I, 102Google Scholar (no. 532), and II, pl. 13, and ‘A Sixteenth-century Collector: Thomas Dackomb, 1496–c. 1572’, The Library 5th ser. 18 (1963), 204–17Google Scholar Dumville, Wessex and England, ch. 3; Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 193–6; Lapidge, M., ‘The School of Theodore and Hadrian’, ASE 15 (1986), 45–72,Google Scholar at 49–51.

171 Troncarelli, F., Tradizioni Perdute (Padua, 1981), pl. XIII (opposite p. 98).Google Scholar

172 See Keynes, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, p. 10Google Scholar, reporting Linda Brownrigg. I have discussed this manuscript and the transmission of Amalarius's work more fully in a forthcoming paper, ‘L'Ecriture des scribes bretons au dixième siècle: le cas de l' Amalaire provenant de Landevennec’, which deals also with another Square minuscule manuscript, Cambridge, Trinity College B. 11. 2 (241), of rather later date (see Keynes, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 14–16Google Scholar).

173 Bishop, , English Caroline Minuscule, p. 20,Google Scholar n. 1.

174 James, , A Descriptive Catalogue ii, 363.Google Scholar

175 I am indebted to Dr Antonette Healey (Dictionary of Old English, University of Toronto) for giving me access to the photograph of 15r.

176 I am indebted to Nicholas Webb for encouraging me to state this interim conclusion. For the Welsh attribution see Parkes, M. B., ‘A Note on MS Vatican, Bibl. Apost., lat. 3363’, Boethius: his Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Gibson, M. (Oxford, 1981), pp. 425–7.Google Scholar

177 Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, pp. 37–8Google Scholar (no. 6); Parkes, ‘The Palaeography’, p. 163, n. 4, and ‘A Fragment’, p. 137; Deshman, R., ‘Anglo-Saxon Art after Alfred’, Art Bull. 56 (1974), 176–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 195.

178 Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 180–5.

179 ibid.; see further the important paper by Higgitt, J., ‘Glastonbury, Dunstan, Monasticism and Manuscripts’, Art History 2 (1979), 275–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

180 Keynes, ‘King Athelstan's Books’, pp. 184–5. In this context one might well ask who ‘owned’ Glastonbury Abbey in the 930s: was it the king, as Osbern of Canterbury stated 150 years later? Finberg, Cf. H. P. R., West-Country Historical Studies (Newton Abbot, 1969), pp. 74–8.Google Scholar

181 Cf. Bischoff, , Paléographie, pp. 116–21, 127–9,Google Scholar for a brief introduction.

182 I am indebted to Michael Lapidge for reading and criticizing a draft of this paper, to its great advantage, as well as for invaluable discussions of related matters over many years. I should also like to thank Julia Crick for providing the final stimulus which persuaded me to start writing up the conclusions about the history of Square minuscule which I had been developing over the last several years. I have discussed the general context and specific manuscripts with many scholars, in particular Peter Baker, Janet Bately, Nicholas Brooks, Michelle Brown, Linda Brownrigg, Robert Deshman, Helmut Gneuss, John Higgitt, Simon Keynes, Patrick McGurk, Raymond Page and Nicholas Webb, to all of whom I should like to express my gratitude without wishing to implicate them in any of my conclusions. My obligations to the late Julian Brown, Neil Ker and Dorothy Whitelock, for their generous help and support, can now only be recorded. To T. A. M. Bishop I owe a special debt for first introducing me to this subject and encouraging me to write about it.