Homiliary (fragment)

HOMILIARY, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [southern Germany, 1st third 9th century] A fine example of early southern German Caroline minuscule, once in the library of Lambach Abbey. 2 leaves, each c.195 x 145mm, unruled, one column of 14 lines written in brown ink in an early Caroline minuscule of the southern German type, one-line uncials in the margins touched lightly in red, antiphons and responses for the Circumcision and for the Epiphany added in an 11th-century hand in the lower margins (two natural flaws in the vellum, a little wormholing, some words retraced, evidence of damp-staining). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery. Provenance: (1) Lambach Abbey: a sister-leaf to the present bifolium is at the Beinecke in Yale (see below). That leaf was formerly used in the binding of a volume from the Lambach Stiftsbibliothek with the shelf number '312'. Although the measurements of the Beinecke fragment correspond with those of Lambach Ccl 312, the flyleaf of Ccl 312 is from a Hebrew manuscript. The number '312' on MS 481.8 may therefore be an older Lambach number. Lambach Abbey was one of the great cultural centres of the early Middle Ages, and from the 12th century onwards boasted one of the finest scriptoria in Europe. (2) Kurt Merlander, Los Angeles, sold in March 1956 to: (3) Bernard Rosenthal, his 'I/39'. (4) Bernard Quaritch, Bookhands V, cat.1147 (1991), no 73. (5) Schøyen Collection, MS 625. Sister-leaves: The present bifolium contains the text immediately preceding a leaf at Yale, Beinecke Library MS 481.8, which begins 'Saluator noster fratres carissimi natus de Patre [...]' and continues the sermons on the Circumcision. That too has suffered water-damage, with the letters retraced perhaps in the 11th century when the antiphons and responses (as in the present bifolium) were added in the margins. Another early manuscript from Lambach with extensive water damage and retracing is Beinecke MS 481.21. Text: The sermons preserved here and in the Beinecke leaf (see above) are from a homiliary that circulated in southern Germany in the Carolingian period (see J.-P. Bouhot, 'Un sermonnaire carolingien,' Revue d'Histoire des Textes 4 (1974), pp.181-223 and G. Folliet, 'Deux nouveaux témoins du Sermonnaire carolingien récemment reconstitué,' Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes 23 (1977), pp.155-198). They are found here in the same order as in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6310 (Freising, first half 9th century) where they are homilies 1-3 (see Bouhot, 209), and in Berlin, Preussische Staatsbibliothek, Hamilton 56 (12th century; see Bouhot, 215-6 and Folliet, 178-9). In their 1991 catalogue, Quaritch suggested that the small format of the manuscript supported a hypothesis that this was perhaps produced as a personal handbook, a Carolingian preacher's manual. The bifolium, whose leaves are not consecutive, contains sermons on the Circumcision based on Luke 2:1-12 and on the Epiphany based on Matthew 2:16 and 2:13. Script: The script has not been localised to a specific centre, but its clearly spaced upright letters, with minims tending to curve around towards the left, the shaft of the 'r' dropping below the line and the 'g' in a somewhat clumsy 3-form suggests a southern German hand. There are numerous ligatures, a semicolon is used for the main pauses, and a punctus in the medial position for lesser pauses. A very similar hand can be seen in a leaf reused as a pastedown in a Lambach Prophetarium now in the monastic Library and Archives of Downside Abbey in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Somerset (see B. Pohl, 'Two Downside manuscripts and the liturgical culture of Lambach in the twelfth century' The Downside Review, 136(1), 2018, pp.41-79). In a letter of 9 December 1985, Bischoff dated the Beinecke fragment to the first third of the 9th century. Bibliography: R.G. Babcock, Reconstructing a Medieval Library: Fragments from Lambach, New Haven, 1993, pp.40 and 48.,Full pdf available, https://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A443174/datastream/PDF/view