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Add MS 29972
- Record Id:
- 032-002021554
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002021554
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000034.0x0001ea
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100064567807.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 29972
- Title:
-
St Augustine, Homilies
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains a fragmentary collection of sermons by St Augustine of Hippo (b. 354, d. 430). It was produced in the 1st quarter of the 8th century, and written in a type of Merovingian minuscule cursive that is associated with the Benedictine abbey of Luxeuil, one of the oldest monasteries in Burgundy, founded by the Irish missionary Columbanus (b. 543, d. 615). Two other fragments of the original manuscript, containing sermons by Caesarius of Arles (b. 468/70, d. 542) and Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403), have been identified in Metz, Bibliothèque Municipale Salis, MS 140 I (1 leaf; destroyed in 1944) and New Haven, Beinecke Library, MS 481, Box 1 No. 2 (1 leaf). Another early 8th-century manuscript written in Luxeuil miniscule (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 17) may be the continuation of this collection of sermons.
Contents:
ff. 26r-28v: St Augustine, De Passione Sancti Stephani (On the Martyrdom of St Stephen).
ff. 28v-30v: St Augustine, De Die Epiphania (On the Day of the Epiphany).
ff. 30v-31r: St Augustine, De Die Paschali (On the Day of Easter).
ff. 31r-32v: St Augustine, De Die Quadragesima Ascensionis (On the Forty Days before the Ascension).
ff. 32v-35v: St Augustine, De kalendis Januarii (On the Kalends of January).
ff. 35v-36r: St Augustine, Excarpsum de libro Salomonis (Selection from the Book of Wisdom).
ff. 36r-38v: St Augustine, Epistula humiliarum (Letter on Humility), imperfect.
[Damage to the script throughout the manuscript].
The manuscript contains a number of 19th-century additions in French:
ff. 1r and 2r: Title pages (‘Manuscrit Merovingien’).
ff. 3r-12v: An introduction to the manuscript.
ff. 13r-25v: A transcription of St Augustine’s homilies.
ff. 39r-48r: Variant readings from a 17th-century printed version.
ff. 49r-65r: A translation of St Augustine’s homilies.
ff. 66r-71v: A palaeographical study.
ff. 72r-77v: Notes on papyrus, parchment, and paper.
ff. 78r-81r: Appendices, including facsimiles of contemporary manuscripts and transcriptions.
ff. 82r-82v: A table of contents.
[ff. 1v, 2v, [25a] recto, [25a] verso, 65v, [65a] recto, [65a] verso, and 76v are empty].
Decoration:
1 large decorated capital with motifs in red and brown ink on f. 35v. Large brown initials. Large display capitals in red (some oxidized) and brown ink. A pen-drawing in brown ink in the lower margin of f. 38v: two crosses, birds and a monstrance (?).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002021554", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 29972: St Augustine, Homilies" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002021554
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002021554
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100064567807.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0700
- End Date:
- 0724
- Date Range:
- 1st quarter of the 8th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment and paper.
Dimensions: 230 x 140 mm (text space: 170 x 100 mm).
Foliation: ff. 82 ( + 2 unfoliated paper leaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); 1 unfoliated modern paper leaf between f. 25 and f. 26 (f. [25a]); and f. 65 and f. 66 (f. [65a]); a paper with bibliographical notes pasted on f. [ii] recto; ff. 1-26, 39-82 are modern paper leaves; ff. 27-38 are parchment leaves; old foliation (crossed out) throughout the manuscript;
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: Post-1600. Black gold–tooled, blind- and gold-stamped leather, the spine inscribed in gold at the British Museum: ‘S. AUGUSTINI HOMILIÆ’; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: ?Luxeuil-les-Bains, Central France.
Provenance:
Luxueil, Central France: probably produced at the abbey, as the manuscript has been written in a type of Merovingian minuscule cursive that is associated with the Benedictine abbey of Luxeuil.
An unknown 17th-century (?) owner: a note in Greek in the upper margin of f. 33v:, added in the 17th century (?).
'Moët', unidentified owner, owned in 1831: his name and date inscribed on f. 81v: ‘Paris 17 septembre 1831 Moët’; a round stamp with a coat of arms (faded) and the text: 'SIGILLUM MOËT’ pasted on f. 81v; the stamp also occurs in incunable The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KW 150 G 25 [1].
Eliza Holmes (née Sutch), wife of Alfred Holmes (b. 1837, d. 1876), violinist and composer, owned in 1876 in Paris: purchased from her by the British Museum on 11 March 1876 (note on f. [ii] recto: ‘Purchased of Madame Holmes. 11 March 1876.’) for £70.0.0.
- Information About Copies:
- Complete digital coverage available for this manuscript; see Digitised Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1882), p. 175.
Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, 2 vols (London: British Museum, 1884), II, p. 49.
Germain Morin, ‘Un écrit de Saint Césaire d'Arles renfermant un témoignage sur les fondateurs des églises des Gaules’, in Mélanges de littérature et d'histoire religieuses, publiés à l'occasion du jubilé épiscopal de Mgr de Cabrières, évêque de Montpellier (1871-1899), 3 vols (Paris: Picard, 1899), I, pp. 109-24 (p. 116).
Elias Avery Lowe, Studia Palaeographica: a Contribution to the History of Early Latin Minuscule and to the Dating of Visigothic MSS (Munich: Verlag der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1910), p. 32.
Ernst Heinrich Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst: Malerei, 3 (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1916), p. 170.
Codices Latini Antiquiores, ed. by Elias Avery Lowe, 11 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934-1966), II (1935): Great Britain and Ireland, p. 16 (no. 173).
Raymond Étaix, ‘Sermon pour l'Epiphanie tire d'un homiliaire en ecriture de Luxeuil’, Revue Benedictine, 81 (1971), 7-13.
Marc Drogin, Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique (New York: Dover Publications, 1980), p. 120, pl. 101.
David Ganz, 'Texts and Scripts in Surviving Manuscripts in the Script of Luxeuil', in Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Ttransmissions / Irland und Europa im früheren Mittelalter: Texte und Überlieferung, ed. by Ní Chatháin, Próinséas, and Michael Richter (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), pp. 186-202 (p. 201).
Babette Tewes, Die Handschriften der Schule von Luxeuil: Kunst und Ikonographie eines frühmittelalterlichen Skriptoriums. Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 22 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), pp. 44-45, 150-51.
Ian Wood, ‘The Problem of Late Merovingian Culture’, in Exzerpieren - Kompilieren - Tradieren: Transformationen des Wissens zwischen Spätantike und Frühmittelalter, ed. by Stephan Dusil, Gerald Schwedler and Raphael Schwitter, Millennium-Studien, 64 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), pp. 199-222 (p. 220).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.