Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T01:05:44.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A newly-found fragment of an Anglo-Saxon psalter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Helmut Gneuss
Helmut Gneuss
Affiliation:
University of Munich
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A notable addition to our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon manuscript fragments with Old English interlinear glosses has been made in a contribution by Professor Herbert Pilch of Freiburg to the recently-published Festschrift for Anatoly Liberman,1 and I hope to show that the leaf he describes and edits has deserved closer inspection.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 27 , December 1998 , pp. 273 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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 Pilch, H., ‘The Sondershäuser Psalter: a Newly Discovered Old English Interlinear Gloss’, Germanic Studies in Honor of Anatoly Liberman, ed. Goblirsch, K. G., Mayou, M. B. and Taylor, M. [= NOWELE 31/32] (Odense, 1997), pp. 313–23.Google Scholar Readers who have an opportunity to compare this article with the present paper will have no difficulty in seeing why a further description and edition seemed in order.

2 For the loss of text and for the following discussion, cf. pls. III and IV.

3 For Anglo-Caroline minuscule in the eleventh century, see Bishop, T. A. M., English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), esp. pp. xxiii–xxivGoogle Scholar, and Dumville, D. N., English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030 (Woodbridge, 1993)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 4. For the ra-ligature, see ibid. p. 147 and n. 38, and Ker, N. R., English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest. (Oxford, 1960), p. 22Google Scholar, who points out that this particular ligature ‘is hardly found after the Conquest’.

4 Not, as Pilch, (‘The Sondershäuser Psalter’, p. 314)Google Scholar remarks, ‘in the Irish minuscular script’.

5 For the punctuation system here used, see Clemoes, P., Liturgical Influence on Punctuation in Late Old English and Early Middle English Manuscripts, Dept of AS [Univ. of Cambridge] Occasional Papers 1 (Cambridge, 1952)Google Scholar, and now Parkes, M. B., Pause and Effect. An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Aldershot, 1992), esp. ch. 4 and pp. 301–7Google Scholar. The type of punctus versus employed in the Sondershausen fragment appears to be much less frequent than other types and does not seem to occur in the plates reproduced in Parkes's standard work.

6 For a survey of the history of Jechaburg, with bibliographical references, see Gresky, W., ‘Jechaburg’, in Handbuch der historischen Stätten Deutschlands. IX. Thüringen, ed. Patze, H. and Aufgebauer, P., 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1989), pp. 214–15Google Scholar, and cf. ibid. pp. 402–8 (Hartung, W. and Gresky, W., ‘Sondershausen’)Google Scholar. For the library and archives of Jechaburg, see Gresky, W., Der thüringische Archidiakonat Jechaburg. Grundzüge seiner Geschichte und Organisation (Sondershausen, 1932), p. 2Google Scholar, and Krämer, S., Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz: Ergänzungsband I, 3 vols. (Munich, 1989–1990) II, 731Google Scholar. See also Pilch, , ‘The Sondershäuser Psalter’, p. 313.Google Scholar

7 Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), no. 79Google Scholar; Dietz, K., ‘Die ae. Psalterglossen der Hs. Cambridge, Pembroke College 312’, Anglia 86 (1968), 273–9.Google Scholar See also the description by Clemoes, P., Manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England. An Exhibition in the University Library Cambridge (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 6–7Google Scholar, and The Salisbury Psalter, ed. C. and Sisam, K., EETS os 242 (London, 1959), 67, n. 1.Google Scholar The fragments are now kept at Cambridge University Library.

8 Derolez, R., ‘A New Psalter Fragment with O.E. Glosses’, ES 53 (1972), 401–8Google Scholar; see also Ker, N. R., ‘A Supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon’, ASE 5 (1976), 121–31, at 122.Google Scholar The shelfmark given erroneously for the fragment should be deleted from Pulsiano, P., ‘Psalters’, The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Pfaff, R. W., OEN Subsidia 23 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1995), 61–85, at 69 (no. 36).Google Scholar

9 It should be noted that Anglo-Saxon psalters of the tenth and eleventh centuries, glossed or unglossed, mostly of smaller size than the book from which our fragments come, have between twenty and twenty-seven lines of main text to the page. Only Lambeth Palace Library 427 has sixteen, but that is a considerably smaller manuscript (212 × 158 mm). The large Bosworth Psalter (Add. 37517), with twenty-five lines on pages of 390 × 265 mm, remains a special case.

10 For printed editions of the glossed psalters here briefly listed, see Gneuss, H., ‘Liturgical Books in Anglo-Saxon England and their Old English Terminology’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England. Studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 91–141, at 115–16Google Scholar, and Pulsiano, P., ‘Psalters’, pp. 61–70 and 76.Google Scholar Also see both articles for Anglo-Saxon psalter manuscripts without Old English glosses.

11 Le Psautier romain et les autres anciens psautiers latins, ed. Weber, R., Collectanea Biblica Latina 10 (Rome, 1953).Google Scholar Three early English fragments of Roman Psalters are listed by Pulsiano, , ‘Psalters’, p. 69.Google Scholar For the Latin texts of the psalter, see The Salisbury Psalter, ed. Sisam, and Sisam, , pp. 47–52Google Scholar, and especially for the Romanum, Gretsch, M., The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform, CSASE 25 (Cambridge, 1999), 21–5 and n. 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Biblia Sacra iuxta Latinam Vulgatam Versionem. X. Liber Psalmorum (Rome, 1953).Google Scholar

13 Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. Weber, R., 4th ed. prepared by R. Gryson (Stuttgart, 1994), pp. 770–954.Google Scholar

14 There is now a voluminous literature on the textual relationship of the Anglo-Saxon psalter glosses, beginning with the studies of Lindelöf and Wildhagen early in the present century. Most of this work has been briefly discussed, with bibliographical references, by Pulsiano, , ‘Psalters’, pp. 74–7Google Scholar. For the relationship of the manuscripts with D-type glosses, Salisbury Psalter, ed. Sisam, and Sisam, , pp. 52–75Google Scholar, remains important. See also Berghaus, F.-G., Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der altenglischen Interlinearversionen des Psalters und der Cantica, Palaestra 272 (Göttingen, 1979)Google Scholar, and Hofstetter, W., Winchester und der spätaltenglische Sprachgebrauch, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 14 (Munich, 1987), esp. 67–88.Google Scholar

15 For the significance of the Old English gloss in D, see now Gretsch, , The Intellectual FoundationsGoogle Scholar. The gloss is no doubt a product of the tenth-century Benedictine reform, and the possibility of a ninth-century forerunner can now safely be rejected. See the very cautious note on this question by Schabram, H., Superbia. Studien zum altenglischen Wortschatz, Teil I: Die dialektale und zeitliche Verbreitung des Wortguts (Munich, 1965), p. 23.Google Scholar

16 For this gloss, see now O'Neill, P. P., ‘The English Version’, The Eadwine Psalter. Text, Image and Monastic Culture in Twelfth-Century Canterbury, ed. Gibson, M., Heslop, T. A. and Pfaff, R. W. (London, 1992), pp. 123–38.Google Scholar

17 See Pulsiano, P., ‘Defining the A-Type (Vespasian) and D-Type (Regius) Psalter-Gloss Traditions’, ES 72 (1991), 308–27, at 327.Google Scholar

18 See Dietz, , ‘Die ae. Psalterglossen’, pp. 275–6Google Scholar; Derolez, , ‘A New Psalter Fragment’, p. 408Google Scholar, and Bergbaus, , Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse, p. 89Google Scholar. For the Haarlem fragment, H could not be drawn upon because the text after Ps. CXIII B.11 is lost in this manuscript.

19 Cf. , Pilch, ‘The Sondershäuser Psalter’, p. 316Google Scholar, who considers the form in Ns ‘dialectally significant’. For the Anglian elements in D, see Wildhagen, K., ‘Studien zum Psalterium Romanum in England und zu seinen Glossierungen’, Festschrift für Lorenz Morsbach, ed. Holthausen, F. and Spies, H., Studien zur englischen Philologie 50 (Halle, 1913), 418–72, at 449–51Google Scholar; for Anglian traits in the vocabulary of the gloss in D, see Wenisch, F., Spezifisch anglisches Wortgut in den nordhumbrischen Interlinearglossierungen des Lukasevangeliums, Anglistische Forschungen 132 (Heidelberg, 1979), 66, 327 and passimGoogle Scholar. For psalter glosses and the political background to the linguistic situation in tenth-century England, see now Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations, ch. 8. In the Haarlem fragment, at PS. CXXII.3, ancillae is glossed by the Anglian dialect word mennene. Again, forms of this word are not only found in ABC CXXII.3, but also in DGJ; Derolez, cf., ‘A New Psalter Fragment’, p. 406Google Scholar, and Wenisch, , Spezifisch anglisches Wortgut, pp. 167, 199 and 303, with notes.Google Scholar

20 In stating that the spelling find (Ps. VI.11) has been noted for the dative singular only, Pilch seems to have misunderstood Sievers, E. and Brunner, K., Altenglische Grammatik, 3rd ed. (Tübingen, 1965: Pilch refers to the 1st ed. of 1942), § 286Google Scholar, n. 2. For Brunner, as for Campbell, , Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), § 632Google Scholar, find and related spellings are of course the regular forms for nominative and accusative plural, too.

21 No reason for his emendation, phonological or semantic, is given by Pilch.

22 For ablysian and aswarnian, see Dictionary of old English, ed. Cameron, A., Amos, A. C., Healey, A. diP. et al. (Toronto, 1986–)Google Scholar, s.vv. For the employment of poetic words in the tenth-century D-rype gloss, see now Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations, ch. 3.

23 See above, p. 277, nn. 11–12.

24 I wish to thank all those who very kindly helped me in the preparation of this article: Ms Christa Hirschler, Deputy Director of the Schlossmuseum at Sondershausen, who sent me photographs of the fragment here discussed, patiently replied to all my enquiries and allowed me to go through the numerous manuscript fragments in her care; Ms Jayne Ringrose of the Department of Manuscripts, Cambridge University Library, and Mr Rob Dekkers of the Stadsbibliotheek Haarlem, who supplied me with photographs of the Pembroke and Haarlem fragments; Professor Michael Lapidge, whose advice on palaeographical questions was important; Mechthild Gretsch, who knows more about Anglo-Saxon psalters than I do; and Carolin Schreiber, who produced a perfect computer version from my handwritten exemplar.