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a writing rougher and more careless than that of the previous century. Though unlike the writing of the 5th and 6th centuries, at the same time it seems quite different from the careful uncials which marked the revival of the 8th century and the Caroline times. The Editors of the Palaeographical Society's facsimiles 1 remark apropos of this 7th century, once past the year 600, the decay of uncial writing rapidly advances; the letters lose uniformity and become mis-shapen, and, though there is occasionally a calligraphic revival, as in MSS. of the 8th century, the trained eye detects the imitative character of the writing,' and they cite as a characteristic MS. of the 7th century the Ashburnham Pentateuch (pl. 234), a MS. which shews a strong general resemblance to the Codex Monacensis, and is supposed to have been written in North Italy. We may notice also that in the printed catalogue of the library, as we saw above, it is assigned to the 7th century, and also that another German scholar, in a small work containing notices of MSS. in the Munich Library 2, cites it as of the 6th or 7th century.

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The book contains in its present mutilated state 251 leaves of vellum, usually stout in texture and of a yellow tinge, though mixed with sheets of whiter and thinner skin; it measures 918 inches by 8 (in centimetres 25.1 x 21.1). The pages are divided into two columns, ruled on the average with about 20 lines; and there are from 12 to 16 letters in a line. The writing is on the whole well preserved, though in parts the ink has faded to a light brown colour. The writer is the same throughout, and though careless, as his numerous slips shew, had by no means an unpractised hand. The initial sentences of the Gospels, and of the chapters into which each Gospel is divided, are marked by capital letters, ornamented in colours, but without gold, while the two or three lines following them are also written in colours and in letters slightly larger than those of the rest of the book. The capital letters vary in size, but are always considerably larger than the rest of the text; the outlines are drawn in ink, and the colours laid on in diagonal patterns. They are frequently

The Palaeographical Society, Facsimiles. Series I, London, 1873-1878, p. viii.

2 Allgemeine Auskunft über die K. Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek zu München (München, 1846), p. 24. Cim. 13. Clm. 6224, sec. vi-vii, Quatuor Evangelia, oder vielmehr Theile derselben nach vorhieronymischer Uebersetzung in Halbuncialschrift wahrscheinlich des vi-vii Jahrhunderts, mit etwas spätern cursiven Rand bemerkungen.'

ornamented further by the addition of well-drawn, though rather primitive figures of birds, also roughly coloured; and the blank spaces at the end of the chapters and gospels are similarly ornamented with birds, beasts, and fishes; the drawing of the beasts and fishes however is far more primitive and schoolboy-like, and lacks the boldness and grace which characterise the birds. The titles of the gospels also, which are placed in the centre at the head of each page, are frequently inscribed within roughly drawn and uncoloured figures, generally of quite imaginary animals.

As regards the colours used for the capital letters and the initial sentences of the Gospels, green, brown, vermilion and crimson are the only colours employed throughout the MS.; with the exception of the brown they have all lasted well, though occasionally they have come off on to the opposite page.

The largest and most representative piece of ornamentation is on fol. 202 b, the page which originally ended the MS., and which contains the subscription of the scribe. A large cross occupies the middle of the page, and extends down the greater part of its length; it is divided by a vertical line along the upright part of the cross, and by a horizontal line running along the cross-beams, and one side of the cross is painted crimson, the other brown ; a large number of oblong and lozenge-shaped ornaments, apparently meant to represent jewels, are let into the cross, and these are painted green; in the head of the cross is placed the half-length portrait of a man, evidently intended for the scribe himself, and on the two arms are seated birds, while hanging from these arms are the A on the one side, the on the other. In the centre of the cross is written ‘ego ualerianus scripsi.' Silvestre notices that the signature of a scribe, though comparatively common in Greek MSS., is rare in Latin; but besides the well-known frequency of signatures in Irish1 and Saxon

1 In the Book of Durrow (7th or 8th century), there is at the end of the book the following subscription, Rogo beatitudinem tuam sce praesbitere patrici ut quicumque hunc libellum manu tenuerit meminerit columbae scriptoris. qui hoc scripsi liimet euangelium per xii dierum spatium, gtia dni nris. s.' (Abbott, Euangeliorum Versio Antehieron. (Dublin, 1884), p. xix. In a St. Gall MS. of the 9th century we have 'Psalterium hoc domino semper sancire curaui Wolfcoz, sic supplex nomine qui uocitor' (Wattenb. Schriftw. p. 419). The Book of Armagh (9th century) bears the name of the scribe 'Ferdomnach'; so do the Gospels of Macregol (also 9th century) and the Gospels of Mælbrigte (A. D. 1138).

MSS., the examples mentioned by Dr. Wattenbach seem to shew that the practice was usual in German MSS. also; in his Schriftwesen1 (p. 234) he mentions a MS. of the 11th century, in which the scribe begs the prayers of his readers, 'pro indigno clerico Reginpoldo, quia ipse laboravit in ipso libro'; also (p. 235) in an 8th century MSS., the prayer, 'Orate pro Martirio indignum sacerdotem uel scriptorem,' etc., and in another, 'Ego in dei nomine Uuarembertus scripsi'; nor must we forget the well-known inscription in the famous Vulgate Codex Amiatinus οκυρις σερβανδος αιποιησεν 2. Dr. Wattenbach indeed there mentions the subscription of Ualerianus in our manuscript amongst a number of other instances collected and brought forward by him, so we must conclude that signed Latin MSS. at any rate from the 7th century onwards were not so rare as Silvestre seemed to think. Of the scribe Valerianus however it seems impossible to obtain any information from other sources, and beyond the fact of his having been the writer of this MS., he must, it is to be feared, remain a 'vox et preterea nihil.'

The statement in his subscription' quia tribus digitis scribitur et totus membrus laborat' must not of course be taken of his having lost two fingers of his right hand, but simply of his method of holding the pen. Some ancient scribe, who had perhaps been twitted by his companions with his indolent life compared with their hard work in the fields, put the case of his class in an epigrammatic form which became almost proverbial. We might English it perhaps thus :

Three fingers only hold the reed

But every member toils indeed.

The expression seems to have been a common one, and Dr. Wattenbach adduces numerous examples of such subscriptions; a Würzburg. MS. of the Gospels of the 7th century has 'Tris digiti scribunt et totum corpus laborat. Hora pro me scribtore, sic deum habeas protectorem 3.' Warembert, mentioned above, explains the expression, 'Calamus tribus digitis continetur, totum corpus laborat.' We have also given us such variations 1 Leipzig, 1875.

2 Tischendorf, Proleg. in Nov. Test. Amiatinum (Lipsiae, 1854). The La Cava Vulgate MS. is also signed (Danila scriptor). Since writing this a new and interesting discussion has centred round this subject. See the Academy, Feb.-June, 1887.

'An account and collation of this MS. has lately been published by Dr. G. Schepps (Die Ältesten Evangelienhandschriften der Würzburger Universitätsbibliothek, Würzburg, 1887).

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of the expression as the following: 'Qui nescit scribere, nullum putat esse laborem, quia quod tris digiti scribunt totos corpus laborat'; or again put in hexameters, Scribere qui nescit nullum putat esse laborem ; tres digiti scribunt totum corpusque laborat'; or in an attempt at a pentameter, Tres digiti scribunt cetera membra languent.' Some waxed quite pathetic over their sufferings in the Scriptorium. 'Qui nescit scribere, putat hoc esse nullum laborem. O quam gravis est scriptura; oculos grauat, renes frangit, simul et omnia membra contristat. Tria digita scribunt, totus corpus laborat'; or, again, 'Tria digita scribunt, totus corpus laborat. Dorsum inclinat, costas in uentrem mergit, et omne fastidium corporis nutrit'; and also, ' Qui nescit scribere, putat nullus est et laborem sed qui habet intentos oculos et inclinata cervice. Tria digita scribunt, sed totum corpus laborat1. The prayer too seems to have been in common use, with slight variations; we have 'Karissime qui legis, peto te per ipsum qui plasmauit nos, ut oris pro me indigno peccatore et ultimo scriptore, si habeas partem cum domino saluatore'; also 'ora pro scriptore si christo habeas adiutore.'

As regards the birthplace of the MS., it has every appearance of having been written in Germany; the handwriting, the colours and tints used in the ornamentation, as well as the style of the subscription, seem to point to its having been written not very far from its present resting-place; there seems every reason, too, to believe that it belonged to the Freising Library from an early time. One point however which seems at first to militate against this supposition, and to suggest a Spanish origin to the MS., is the use of the term 'apparitio' for Epiphany in the lectionary note written by the first hand against St. Matthew iii. 13 (p. 3). 'Apparitio' seems to have been a Spanish expression; in the Mozarabic missal the mass for the Festival of the Epiphany is headed in apparitione seu Epiphania domini nostri Iesu Christi, the title in the Breviary being in festo apparitionis domini3.

1 Schriftwesen, pp. 232–236, 418, 424 (note 2). In a MS. of St. Augustine from Luxeuil of the 7th century we have ‘Ignorat quis sacros conscribere libros tribus namque digitis sulcante membrana,' etc. See Notice sur un MS de l'abbaye de Luxeuil copié en 625, par M. Léopold Deslisle (Extrait des notices et extraits des manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale, &c. Tome xxxi. 2o partie).

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Schriftw. p. 232; see note 4 on that page; also p. 418.

The Host in the Mozarabic Liturgy is divided into nine portions, arranged in the form of a cross, and named respectively:-1. Corporatio, 2. nativitas, 3. circumcisio, 4. apparitio, 5.

But though 'apparitio' seems to be a Spanish word, and is given by Isidore of Seville in his Etymologies, yet it is difficult to imagine that the MS. has a Spanish origin; it is not written in Visigothic characters, as one would expect in a Spanish MS. of that date, and the colours employed in the illumination are not bright and startling as in Spanish work. The existence of 'apparitio' then must point not to a Spanish origin of the MS., but to a more widely diffused use of the term than has been hitherto supposed.

Gatherings. The gatherings are rather hard to unravel, partly because I was unable to discover any signatures, and partly from the ruthless manner in which the various parts of the book have been cut about and transposed by a later hand, who re-bound it. The binder, being unable to appreciate the order in which the Gospels were placed, viz. the usual OldLatin order of Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark, tried to rearrange them in the order familiar to us, or at any rate to bring in St. John at the end, for, after all, he has made St. Mark come after St. Luke. Of course he could not succeed, as the same leaf more than once contains the end of one Gospel on the one side and the beginning of the next on the other, and this in the Old-Latin order1; so that his efforts have only succeeded in cutting up most of the Gospels into fragments, and introducing a general appearance of confusion into the Book. Probably it was during this forcible arrangement of the gatherings that most of the leaves now missing fell out. A little calculation will however enable us to form a fair idea as to the original gatherings and their order.

The Manuscript opens with a ternion (Fol. 1-6); then comes what appears now as a complete quaternion, but is really a quaternion made up largely of odd leaves from different parts of the book. The first two, and also the fifth and sixth leaves of the quaternion proper, are missing; and these four leaves have for some unknown reason been filled in from the last two chapters of St. Luke. It must be noticed too that this gathering was originally irregular, and contained nine leaves, for Fol. 15, which naturally would be the beginning of a new gathering, is missing; passio, 6. mors, 7. resurrectio, 8. gloria, 9. regnum. On this the note is made: Apparitio idem ac Epiphania seu manifestatio.' Much the same is said by Isidore of Seville, Origines, vi. 18. 6, 'Epiphania Graece, Latine apparitio sive manifestatio vocatur'; see also Ducange, art. apparitio.

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1 E. g. Fol. 82 contains the last verses of St. John, Fol. 82 b the first verses of St. Luke.

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