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Some Notes on English Uncial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

David H. Wright
David H. Wright*
Affiliation:
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.
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Extract

Latin palaeography of the pre-Carolingian era must surely rank high among the branches of medieval studies which have made dramatic progress in recent decades, and preeminent among the contributions to that progress is of course Codices Latini Antiquiores by E. A. Lowe, of which nine volumes have already appeared and the final two are well under way. But Dr. Lowe is not the kind of scholar who is content merely to compile a corpus which is a model of usefulness and filled with intriguing discoveries; fortunately for us he is also moved from time to time to offer essays in which he gives a broader historical interpretation. Such a book is English Uncial, which the Clarendon Press of Oxford published in 1960, including a substantial introduction, a series of comments on specific manuscripts, and 40 excellent plates. Here the author returns to a phenomenon he has examined several times before, the use of the most calligraphic of classical book hands, scriptura uncialis, in England, beginning late in the seventh century, contemporary with the perfection of the Insular ‘national' scripts.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 17 , 1961 , pp. 441 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 The most important of Lowe's earlier publications describing the English use of uncial script are Regula Benedicti, S. (Oxford 1929); CLA II (1935) xvi; Art Bulletin 34 (1952) 237–238; Scriptorium 12 (1958) 182–190.Google Scholar

2 In my review of English Unical, in Speculum 36 (1961) 493–496, I have mentioned some additional details confirming Lowe's conclusions.Google Scholar

3 It would seem to me to go too far to suppose that the Codex Amiatiinus was specifically prepared as Ceolfrid's homage to the new Pope, Gregory II, who was elected on 19 January 715, as does Hans Blum in Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 64 (1950) 52–57. It is at least doubtful that it would have been possible to complete such a project between the time the news reached Northumbria and Ceolfrid's departure on 4 June 716; it is also difficult to see why Ceolfrid should undertake such special personal homage for Gregory II when in fact eight popes had come and gone since his previous trip to Rome, in the time of Pope Agatho.Google Scholar

4 For an explanation of this view cf. my review of The Relics of St. Cuthbert (ed. Battiscombe, C. F.) to appear in the Art Bulletin 43 (June 1961). See now p. 456 infra. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 My reasons for rejecting this view and returning to the 746 date are explained in an article to appear shortly in the Revue Bénédictine. Google Scholar

6 Cf. the highly perceptive discussion by Brown, T. J. in Codex Lindisfarnensis II (Olten and Lausanne: Urs Graf 1960) 34–43.Google Scholar

7 The fact that the late antique type of parchment is used instead of the familiar Insular vellum need not at this early date imply a Continental origin, for among others the Cathach of St. Columba, the Codex Usserianus Primus, and the Echternach Gospels are all written on comparable parchment; it does, however, argue against a specific attribution to Wearmouth-Jarrow, since all the other members of the Amiatinus and Utrecht groups are written on Insular vellum.Google Scholar

8 Zimmermann, E. H., Vorkarolingische Miniaturen (Berlin 1916) 177; it may be noted that on p. 50 he speaks of a Burgundian scriptorium towards the end of the seventh century, but this still less happy attribution does not seem to have troubled later literature.Google Scholar

9 Presumably this set came about by copying the marked passages in the Gospel text, not an actual capitulary; for parallel tabulation of the texts concerned cf. Sommaires, divisions et rubriques de la Bible latine (Namur 1914), an anonymous publication of Dom De Bruyne, D. Google Scholar

10 Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford 1955) 10, 92.Google Scholar

11 The last line on folio 51r; analysis of the scribes and correctors of this manuscript will be found in my unpublished Harvard dissertation ‘The Vespasian Psalter and the Eighth Century Renascence’ (1956), of which photographic copies may be consulted at the British Museum and in the Morgan Library; this detail is there illustrated in figure 43.Google Scholar

12 Neum, W.üller and Holter, K., Der Codex Millenarius (Graz 1959).Google Scholar

13 Koehler, W., Die Karolingischen Miniaturen III (Berlin 1960) 24–25.Google Scholar

14 McGurk, P., Latin Gospel Books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800 (Antwerp and Brussels 1961) 10, cites those in Ancona (CLA III 278), Cividale (CLA III 285) and Turin (CLA V 459).Google Scholar

Additional Note (see p. 448 n. 4 supra). — In the review there cited, Art Bulletin 43 (1961) 141–160, particularly p. 154, I have also pointed out that in 721, or shortly before, Bede wrote his prose Life of St. Cuthbert and dedicated it to Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne; this might have been the occasion for the gift of a miniature Gospel Book to the shrine of St. Cuthbert.Google Scholar