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A Frankish scholar in tenth-century England: Frithegod of Canterbury/Fredegaud of Brioude

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michael Lapidge
Michael Lapidge
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The University of Cambridge
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Extract

In 948 King Eadred of Wessex conducted a military campaign in Northumbria against Eric Blood-Axe. During the course of this campaign the minster church at Ripon – which had been founded by St Wilfrid and which housed his remains – was burnt down. This unfortunate incident was used as the pretext for a notorious furta sacra: the relics of St Wilfrid were seized and were duly conveyed to Archbishop Oda of Canterbury. In order to celebrate the acquisition of these distinguished relics, Oda built a new altar in honour of St Wilfrid and commissioned a member of his Canterbury household, one Frithegod, to compose a poem in honour of St Wilfrid. Frithegod responded by producing the Breuiloquium uitae Wilfridi, a poem of some 1,400 Latin hexameters which is closely based on the early eighth-century prose Vita S. Wilfridi by Stephanus or Stephen of Ripon. Since the poem bears in its closing lines a dedication to Archbishop Oda, it must have been finished before the archbishop's death on 2 June 958; in other words, it was written between 948 and 958.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 17 , December 1988 , pp. 45 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892–1899) 1, 112: ‘Her Eadred cyning oferhergode eall Norðhymbra land, for þæm þe hi hæfdon genumen him Yryc to cyninge.’Google Scholar

2 Ibid.: ‘7 þa on þære hergunge wæs þæt mære mynster forbærnd æt Rypon, þæt sancte Wilferd getimbrede.’

3 The evidence is Oda's own statement in his prefatory epistola to Frithegod's poem, where he says that when ‘certain men carried off the venerable relics of Wilfrid… I reverently received them’ (Breuiloquium, ed. Campbell (as cited below, n. 7), p. 2: ‘cum… quidam transtulissent, reuerenter excepi’). In the twelfth century both William of Malmesbury (Gesta pontificum, ed. Hamilton, N.E.S.A., RS (London, 1870), p. 22) andGoogle ScholarEadmer, (Historians of the Church of York, ed. Raine, J., 3 vols., RS (London, 1879–1894) 1, 224) state that Oda accompanied King Eadred on this northern expedition and thus was (presumably) present at the burning of the church and the theft of Wilfrid's relics, though Oda's own words contain no indication of his complicity. It is also curious that Byrhtferth, in his Vita S. Oswaldi (v.9), tells an entirely different story according to which Archbishop Oswald, while touring his diocese, came upon the ruined minster of Ripon and discovered there the remains of Wilfrid, which he duly honoured by constructing a magnificent reliquary (Historians, ed. Raine, p. 462). Oswald was Oda's nephew, and may have been with him on the Northumbrian expedition while still aGoogle Scholar young man. It is possible that Byrhtferth misunderstood the context of an anecdote told to him by Oswald many years after the event.

4 According to his prefatory epistola once again, Oda ‘thought it worthwhile… to glorify them with a more imposing shrine’ (Breuiloquium, ed. Campbell (as cited below, n. 7), p. 3: ‘editiore eas entheca decusare’). Eadmer gives details about the appearance and location of this shrine: ‘in “editiore entheca” (ut ipsemet scribit), hoc est in maiori altari, quod in orientali praesbiterii parte, parieti contiguum, de impolitis lapidibus et cemento extructum erat’ (Wilmart, A., ‘Edmeri Cantuariensis Cantoris noua opuscula de sanctorum ueneratione et obsecratione’, Revue des sciences religieuses 15 (1935), 184–219 and 354–79, at 365Google Scholar); see also Brooks, N., The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), pp. 53–4.Google Scholar

5 Listed by Schaller, D. and Könsgen, E., Initia Carminum Latinorum saeculo undecimo Antiquiorum (Göttingen, 1977), nos. 8137 and 922 respectively; and in the Bollandists’ Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1898–1901), no. 8892.Google Scholar

6 Line 1393: ‘Nunc oleate mihi faueas, industrius Odo.’

7 First by Mabillon, J., Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, 9 vols. (Paris, 1668–1701), SaeculumGoogle Scholar in, pars prima (1672), pp. 171–96 (from L), to be supplemented by Saeculum IV, pars prima (1677), pp. 722–6 (the deficiency of L made good by a transcript of lines 1219–1396 made for Mabillon by Thomas Gale; Mabillon's combined edition is rptd PL 133, 981–1012); secondly by Raine, Historians, 1, 105–59 (from C, but reporting variants from L and P); and lastly by Campbell, A., Frithegodi monachi Breuiloquium Vitae Beati Wilfredi et Wulfstani Cantoris Narratio Metrica de Sancto Swithuno(Zürich, 1950), pp. 1–62 (from L, but reporting variants from C and P).Google Scholar

8 See Bale, J., Scriptorum lllustrium Maioris Brytanniae quam nunc Angliam & Scotiam uocant Catalogus, 2 vols. (Basel, 1557–9) 1, 136–7, whose account is repeated byGoogle ScholarPits, J., Relation[es] Historic[ae] de rebus Anglicis (Paris, 1619), pp. 174–5;Google ScholarLeyser, P., Historia poetarum et poematum medii aevi (Halle, 1721), pp. 280–1;Google ScholarWright, T., Biographia Britannica Literaria, 2 vols. (London, 1842–6) 1, 433–4; andGoogle ScholarManitius, M., Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Munich, 1911–1931) 11, 497–501.Google Scholar

9 This suggestion was made by R. E. Zachrisson, ‘Notes on Early English Names in -god, -got’, Englische Studien 50 (1917), 341–58, at 347; but cf. below, n. 12.

10 Searle, W.G., Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Cambridge, 1897), p. 248.Google Scholar

11 Listed Sawyer, P.H., Anglo–Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography (London, 1968), no. 1506, and ptdGoogle ScholarBirch, W. deG., Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols. (London, 1885–1893), no. 1010, as well as byGoogle ScholarRobertson, A. J., Anglo-Saxon Charters (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 58–61 (no. 32); see discussion by Brooks, The Early History, pp. 236–7.Google Scholar

12 See Forssner, T., Continental-Germanic Personal Names in England (Uppsala, 1916), p. 94; E.Google Scholar Björkman, ‘Ältere englische Personennamen mid -god, -got im zweiten Gliede‘, Englische Studien 51 (1917), 161–79, esp 172. In face of the evidence adduced by Forssner and Björkman, Zachrisson withdrew his earlier arguments (above, n. 9), and conceded that English names in -got and -god are to be derived from continental Germanic names: see Englische Studien 52 (1918), 194–203.

13 In OHG final /t/ was shifted to become the affricate /z/ (see Braune, W., Althochdeutsche Grammatik, 13th edn, rev. H. Eggers (Tübingen, 1975), pp. 152–3), thereby producing forms in -goz, such as Fridegoz: seeGoogle ScholarFörstemann, E., Altdeutsches Namenbuch I. Personennamen, 2nd edn (Bonn, 1900), cols. 607–10, andGoogle ScholarSchützeichel, R., Die Grundlagen des westlichen Mitteldeutschen (Tübingen, 1961), pp. 259–64. This sound shift rules out the possibility, mooted by various scholars, that Frithegod was German: seeGoogle ScholarChaplais, P., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chancery: From the Diploma to the Writ’, in Prisca Munimenta, ed. Ranger, F. (London, 1973), pp. 43–62, at 46, and Brooks, The Early History, p. 229.Google Scholar

14 For attestations of this name in West Frankish sources, see Förstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch, col. 533, and Morlet, M.-T., Les Noms de personne sur le territoire de l' ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe siecle I: Les noms issus du germanique continental (Paris, 1968), p. 93.Google Scholar

15 Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. Macray, W. D., RS (London, 1886), p. 21; the same information is given by Eadmer (Historians of the Church of York, ed. Raine, 11, 5). It is not clear where and when the tutelage took place: presumably before Oswald's elevation to the bishopric of Worcester in 961, but before his trip to Fleury in the 950s? In any event it is curious that in his Vita S. Oswaldi Byrhtferth makes no mention of Frithegod.Google Scholar

16 Scriptorum lllustrium… Catalogus 1, 137, and Index Britanniae Scriptorum: John Bale's Index of British and Other Writers, ed. Poole, R. L. and Bateson, M. (Oxford, 1902), pp. 72–3 and 483. In the latter work, which was begun c. 1550 and finished after 1557, Bale is careful to specify sources of his information pertaining to all British authors. For Frithegod he cites three: William of Malmesbury, Gesta pontificum (see below, n. 26), the Venationes Nicolai Brigam. (that is, the lost treatise De venantionibus rerum memorabilium by the antiquary Nicholas Brigham (ob. 1558), which was evidently a record of Brigham's antiquarian searches for manuscripts); and two manuscripts ex officina Ioannis Cocke. I have been unable to trace either John Cocke or his two Frithegod manuscripts.Google Scholar

17 Scriptorum lllustrium… Catalogus 1, 137.

18 In his Index (ed. Poole and Bateson), Bale claims knowledge of the Breuiloquium from three sources: ex uenantionibus Nicolai Brigan. (p. 72), ex Guil. Malmesbury de Pont. (p. 73) and ex officina Ioannis Cocke (p. 483); see above, n. 16.

19 According to a report by Eadmer, four clerics came to King Edgar, announcing that they possessed relics of St Ouen. Edgar sent for Oda, who in turn sent for a leper, so that the authenticity of the relics could be tested. When Oda made the sign of the cross over the leper with one of the relics, he was duly cured. Edgar then entrusted the relics to Oda for keeping at Christ Church, Canterbury, where the clerics subsequently became monks (see Wilmart, ‘Edmeri Cantuariensis Cantoris noua opuscula’, p. 364). On Eadmer's evidence the incident took place between Edgar's accession (957) and Oda's death (12 June 958). There are several surviving prose vitae of St Ouen (see Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, nos. 750–62), of which one has often been attributed to Frithegod (ptd Acta Sanctorum, August, IV, 810–19); but if Bale's report is accurate, Frithegod's work was in hexameters, and the various surviving prose vitae do not come into question.

20 Index, ed. Poole and Bateson, p. 73, where the work is described as being de muliere illa que lauit pedes Domini (a reference to John XII. 1–8), and its incipit is given more fully as ‘Dum pietate multimoda deus omnia gubernans’. These words do not constitute a hexameter (perhaps read ‘Multimoda pietate deus dum cuncta gubernans’? – but no such incipit is recorded in Schaller and Könsgen, Initia Carminum). Bale claims knowledge of this work ex officina Ioannis Cocke; see above, n. 16.

21 Ibid.: ‘De Hierusalem supera seu de uisione bonorum, li. i., “Ciues celestis patrie, regi regum”.’.

22 Schaller and Könsgen, Initia Carminum, no. 2326.

23 The poem has been printed many times, most recently by Dronke, P., ‘Tradition and Innovation in Medieval Western Colour Imagery’, Eranos Jahrbuch 41 (1972), 51–106, at 78–9 (rptd in his The Medieval Poet and his World (Rome, 1984), pp. 78–80), from CUL Gg. 5. 35; andGoogle ScholarKitson, P., ‘Lapidary Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: Part 11, Bede's Explanatio Apocalypsis and Related Works’, ASE 12 (1983), 73–123, at 109–23, from some sixteen manuscripts.Google Scholar

24 See Kitson, ibid. p. 122 (reporting my views).

25 See Gamber, K., Codices Liturgici Latini Antiquiores (Fribourg, 1963) no. 1672, andGoogle ScholarSalmon, P., Les Manuscrits liturgiques latins de la Bibliothèque Vaticane 1 (Vatican City, 1968), 52, where the manuscript (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossianus lat. 205) is dated respectively s. x/xi and s. Xex.Google Scholar

26 Gestapontificum, ed. Hamilton, p. 22. The quotation is not taken direct from Plautus (Pseudolus I.i.23) but indirectly from Jerome, Aduersus Iouinianum: see Thomson, R. [M.], William of Malmesbury (Woodbridge, 1987), p. 49, n. 70.Google Scholar

27 ‘Then that hostile faction – fit to be cast into eternal flame! – not content to have poured out the venom of its own wickedness (kakie), sent messengers on to the king of the Franks and sought to rob God's steward (oechonomum) with impunity. But, through the mercy of our heavenly Lord, these undertakings (proved to be) in vain: they were unable to inflict any disaster on the blessed man (machario). However, Bishop Winfrid was caught in the very same ambush (and) experienced the deadly snares lurking deceptively in the (roadside) ditches – having been betrayed by a single letter (monogrammate) in his name. Thereafter Wilfrid, with winds having fortunately changed direction, reached port on the pleasant shores of the Frisians. These pagans are astonished at his arrival; but the Highest Majesty (mekotes) rendered everyone – the king and his leaders – peaceable. Wilfrid, therefore, preaching (cathegorans) the Divine Word (sperma) to the people, infiltrated his sweet streams into the salty rocks …’

28 In Galen: see Sophocles, E. A., Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods (New York, 1900), s.v.Google Scholar

29 Cf., however, the valuable caveat of Dionisotti, A. C., ‘Greek Grammars and Dictionaries in Carolingian Europe’, The Sacred Nectar of the Greeks: The Study of Greek in the West in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Herren, M. (London, 1988), pp. 1–56, who stresses that our knowledge of what Greek–Latin glossaries were available in the tenth century is far from complete.Google Scholar

30 See Ker, N.R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), pp. 176–7 (no. 140).Google Scholar

31 See now Dumville, D.N., ‘English Square Minuscule Script: the Background and Earliest Phases’, ASE 16 (1987), 147–79, at 149–50.Google Scholar

32 Old English Glosses, Chiefly Unpublished, ed. Napier, A.S. (Oxford, 1900), no. 38.Google Scholar

33 Listed Schaller and Könsgen, Initia Carminum, no. 9116; ptd MGH, PLAC 1, 347.

34 A thirteenth–century scribe added on 5 r the title Vita sancti Wilfridi metricé, and this wording corresponds precisely to that in the 1247/8 Glastonbury catalogue (see below, n. 56), which may suggest that the manuscript was at Glastonbury at that time; it was subsequently seen there by the antiquary John Leland. It was also possibly seen by the antiquary Nicholas Brigham, who, on the evidence of Bale, recorded the identical title in his lost Venantiones. It subsequently came into the possession of John Joscelyn (Matthew Parker's Latin secretary) who added a note on 1 r to the effect that the work was written by Frithegod at Oda's command (‘conscripta per Fridegodum ad hoc rogatum a patrone suo Odone archiepiscopo Cantuariensi. Joannis Josselyn’). There is an unprinted list of libri saxonica lingua conscripti in Joscelyn's handwriting in BL, Cotton Nero C. iii, 208r, which includes the entry ‘Vita Wilfridi episcopi per Fridegodum’, no doubt a reference to Claudius A. i: see Wright, C. E., ‘The Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the Beginnings of Anglo-Saxon Studies’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Soc. 1 (1949–1953), 208–37, at 218.Google Scholar

35 See Staerk, A., Les Manuscrits latins du Ve au Xllle siècle conservés à la Bibliothèque Impériale de Saint Petersbourg, 2 vols. (Leningrad, 1910) 1, 222.Google Scholar

36 The script of Scribe III is illustrated ibid, II, pl. lxx.

37 L shares one gloss with P (cosmica: mundana in line 126), and a partial gloss with C (to Thetis in line 124 C3 adds the gloss. i.maris; L has the gloss dea maris). No link between the glossing in L and that in the other manuscripts can be established on the basis of this evidence.

38 See above, n. 31.

39 Chrismons in Anglo-Saxon charters are mainly a feature of the second half of the tenth century (from 956 onwards). The closest parallel to the chrismon in L is found in a cartulary copy of a charter dated 984 (Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 583), where the cartularist was imitating the appearance of a (now lost) charter of King Æthelred. I am grateful to Simon Keynes for advice on this matter.

40 See above, n. 7.

41 See Delisle, L., lnventaire des manuscrits de Saint-Germain–des-Prés conservés à la Bibliothèque Impériale (Paris, 1868), p. 127, andGoogle ScholarJeudy, C., ‘Nouveau complément à un catalogue récent des manuscrits de Priscien’, Scriptorium 38 (1984), 140–50, at 148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 See Holtz, L., Donat et la tradition de l'enseignement grammatical (Paris, 1981), pp. 378 and 493–7.Google Scholar

43 See Ker, N.R., ‘A Supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon’, ASE 5 (1976), 121–31, at 127.Google Scholar

44 The various ordines are described by Andrieu, M., Les Ordines Romani de haut moyen áge, 5 vols. (Louvain, 1931–1961) 1, 276–9.Google Scholar

45 See the Bollandists, ’ Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum …in Bibliotheca Nationali Parisiensi, 4 vols. (Brussels, 1889–1893) 11, 557. In the description of P which follows 1 owe much to the kind advice of Jean Vezin.Google Scholar

46 For example, to spermologus in 269: ‘sperma grece, sementum latine; logos. sermo uel ratio; inde spermalogus dicitur diuini sermonis seminator’ (27V); to monarchos in 618: ‘monarchus dicitur singularis princeps uel rex; monos grece unus, archos princeps’ (34r); and to eutices in 619: ‘eutices dicitur bene fortunatus uel felix; eu grece bonum uel bene; tichos fortuna’ (34r): and so on.

47 C could not have been copied from P, because P contains a number of errors not found in C, such as 458 theosopho C, theodopho P, or 1204 agalma C, agalalma P. None of the frequent erroneous readings in P are recorded by Campbell in the apparatus criticus to his edition (cited above, n. 7).

48 Jean Vezin has written to me as follows (4.7. 1987): ‘A première vue, on serait tenté de penser que le scribe était anglais; mais il ne s'agit que d'une impression. Seule, la lettre g ressemble bien à ce qu'on observe dans les manuscrits anglais contemporains … Toutefois, je ne pense pas que ce scribe soit français … Le scribe abrège pratiquement toujours qui de la façon suivante: q; ce n'est pas un usage français.’

49 I owe this information to Patricia Stirneman, who observes that .Lan. is also found in Paris, BN lat. 6401, a manuscript unquestionably of English (and probably Christ Church) origin.

50 Labbé, P., Nova Bibliotheca MSS. Librorum (Paris, 1653), p. 207, who describes it as follows:Google Scholar ‘Vita sanctae Benedictae Martyris metro scripta [ = fols. 1–20]. Item B. Wlfridi metro scripta ab Odone [ = fols. 21–48].’

51 In his Vita S. Wilfridi (Historians of the Church of York, ed. Raine, 1, 161–226), Eadmer quotes some fifty lines of the Breuiloquium. Unfortunately none of the quoted lines contain a significant variant, so it is not possible to tell which manuscript Eadmer was using.

52 See below, p. 62.

53 James, M.R., The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), p. 11 (no. 187).Google Scholar

54 An unsusual metrical cadence probably coined by Frithegod (caelica Tempe: line 980) is used by Lantfred and in two poems composed at Winchester during Æthelwold's bishopric, perhaps by Lantfred himself: see Lapidge, M., ‘Three Latin Poems from Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 85–137, at 89.Google Scholar

55 See above, n. 26.

56 See Williams, T. W., Somerset Medieval Libraries (Bristol, 1897), p. 76: ‘Vita sancti WilfridiGoogle Scholar metrice’. Note that this title agrees precisely with that added by a thirteenth-century scribe to Claudius A. i (5r). The same Glastonbury manuscript was subsequently seen by the antiquary John Leland: see Carley, J.P., ‘John Leland and the Contents of English Pre-Dissolution Libraries: Glastonbury Abbey’, Scriptorium 40 (1986), 107–20, at 115 (no. 17).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 James, The Ancient Libraries, p. 239. This St Augustine's manuscript is described as follows: ‘Beda de metrica arte et in eodem libro vita sancti Wilfridi metrice et Avianus’. This description does not correspond to any surviving Frithegod manuscript.

58 This question was treated brilliantly by Young, D.C.C., ‘Author's Variants and Interpretations in Frithegod’, Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 25 (1955), 71–98, who demonstrated that many of the eighty-odd alterations are to be understood as corrections made metri gratia. Several alterations, including the three treated below, defeated him, however.Google Scholar

59 Frithegodi monachi Breuiloquium, ed. Campbell, p. viii.

60 Ibid. p. ix, n. 7.

61 Juvenal, Sat. VII. 120; Gildas, De excidio Britanniae, ch. 23. It is perhaps worth noting that one of the few surviving manuscripts of Gildas was perhaps at St Augustine's, Canterbury, in the tenth century: London, BL, Cotton Vitellius A. vi.

62 Cf. Young, ‘Author’s Variants’, p. 84: ‘One has the impression in these corrections, not of a mere copyist’s caprice, but of a renewed attempt, by the original mind creating the whole poem, to express some difficult material found in his source’; and p. 89: ‘… one must conclude that, of some eighty changes, half are metrical corrections and the other half are amendments of sense or grammar consistent with the personality of Frithegod and attributable to his own revision.’

63 In line 1393 Frithegod spells his patron's name in the continental form (Odo) rather than the English (Oda), and in line 96 refers contemptuously to the English language as barbaries inculta.

64 See above, n. 14.

65 Oda's embassy to the continent is described by Richer of Rheims in his Historia Francorum, ed. Latouche, R., Richer: Histoire de France 888–995, 2 vols., Les classiques de l‘histoire de France au moyen âge 12 and 17 (Paris, 1930–1937) 1, 130.Google Scholar

66 See Ker, Catalogue, p. 5 (no 7), and Meritt, H. D., The Old English Prudentius Glosses at Boulogne-sur Mer (New York, 1967). The epistola is ptd from this manuscript byGoogle ScholarHolder, A., ‘Die Bouloneser angelsächsischen Glossen zu Prudentius’, Germania 11 (1878), 385–403, at 386–7. Collation indicates that the epistola in Boulogne 189 was copied from that in C. The Boulogne manuscript was unknown to Campbell; I owe my knowledge of it to David Dumville.Google Scholar

67 See Bischoff, B., ‘Caritas-Lieder’, in his Mittelalterliche Studien, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1966–1981) 11, 56–77, at 60.Google Scholar

68 The poem is listed by Schaller and Könsgen, Initia Carminum, no. 4819; it is ptd Dümmler, E., ‘Lateinische Gedichte des neunten bis elften Jahrhunderts’, Neues Archiv 10 (1885), 353–57, at 347–51; and by P. von Winterfeld, MGH, PLAC IV, 350–3. Both editions are based solely on the Vatican manuscript (see below); neither editor was aware of the Boulogne manuscript.Google Scholar

69 See Wilmart, A., Codices Reginenses Latini, 2 vols. (Vatican City, 1937–1945) 11, 219–21. It would be interesting to collate the texts of Prudentius in this manuscript with those in Boulogne 189.Google Scholar

70 MGH, PLAC IV, 550–1: ‘The Book of Daniel (x. 13) and the Apocalypse of John (XII.7) indicates that St Michael rightly is especially (εἰδικ⋯ς) celebrated on earth. And we benefit from his authority (σταϑμ⋯) wondrously (ϑαυναστικ⋯ς) enacted on earth, that he himself should have devoted such veneration to himself.’

71 Ibid. p. 353 (lines 97–8): ‘Theotocos kai partonos, cosmi basilissa, / ypsyleon arkos, si sit katfige per eon.’ These lines may be rendered in Greek as follows:

ϑεοτóκoς καì παρϑένος, κóσμον, βασíλισσα

úψηλω⌢ν ⋯ρχòς, σοí sit κατα ϕυγή per αἰω⌢ν[α].

72 With theosebia in line 50 compare pseudotheosebia in the Breuiloquium (line 630), and with summipotens in line 93 compare summipotentis in the revised text o f the Breuiloquium (line 161 CP).

73 I am cautioned by Neil Wright that the commemorative verses contain a number of serious metrical faults, worse probably than any in the Breuiloquium (e.g. īn arce in line 73, pectōribus in line 75, gēnere in line 99), which in his view makes Frithegod's authorship of the verses unlikely. However, it is important to recall that Frithegod worked systematically through his Breuiloquium with the express purpose of removing metrical errors; he may have intended to do likewise with the commemorative verses.

74 See Acta Sanctorum, Febr. III, 364–6.

75 See the Dictionnaire d‘archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie VIII, 407–12, s.v. ‘Julien’, and Delehaye, H., Les Origines du culte des martyrs (Brussels, 1933), pp. 343–4.Google Scholar

76 See Chassaing, A., Spicilegium Brivatense (Paris, 1886);Google ScholarA.-M., and Baudot, M., Grand Cartulaire du chapitre Saint-Julien de Brioude. Essai de restitution (Clermont-Ferrand, 1935), p. 157, s.v.Google Scholar ‘Guillemus dux et abbas’, and the charters there cited; Auzias, L., L' Aquitaine carolingienne (778–987) (Toulouse and Paris, 1937), pp. 453 and 459; andGoogle ScholarLauranson-Rosaz, C., L' Auvergne et ses marges (Velay, Gévaudan) du VIIIe au XI siècle (Le Puy, 1987), pp. 252–9, 356–64 and passim.Google Scholar

77 Baluze, S., Histoire généalogique de la maison d’ Auvergne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1708) 1, 27–8, and Auzias, L.' Aquitaine, pp. 508–18. Note that I dissent from the opinion of von Winterfeld, and agree with that of Dümmler (above, n. 68) concerning the identity of the Duke William addressed in these verses.Google Scholar

78 It is also worth recording that the famous Franks Casket was at Brioude no later than the French Revolution. No satisfactory explanation has ever been given of how it got there, for Brioude is not on any pilgrimage route. Could it have been carried there by Frithegod himself? I am grateful to Ian Wood for this tantalizing (but as yet unprovable) suggestion.