Bede, Homilies, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Switzerland or southern Germany (most probably Lake Constance, perhaps Reichenau or St. Gall), middle third of the ninth century]

provenance

Helmuth Donizlaff (1902-83), Munich; sold to Bernard Breslauer in 1965 (his cat.100, no.1); bought in 1968 by Bernard Rosenthal; Quaritch cat.1088, no.2; Schøyen MS 75.

text

From a monumental and early copy of the Homiliarium of Bede (c.672-735), apparently in its earliest format, containing a collection of fifty of Bede's homilies, rather than a compilation with works by other authors. The text here is from Bede's homily for the vigil of St. John the Baptist (Hurst, Corpus Christianiorum, series Latina 122, 1955, pp.321-33; conforming to his class IB).

No English exemplar of this text survives from before the twelfth century (see lot 53), and so the Continental witnesses are of paramount importance. A single lost eighth-century exemplar stands behind the two Continental traditions: (a) Hurst IA: Zurich, Zentralbibl. C42 (second half of the ninth century, St. Gall) and Boulogne, Bib. mun. 75 (ninth-century), and (b) Hurst IB: Paris, BnF. n.a.1450 (eleventh-century, Cluny), lat.2369 (tenth-century, Jura) and lat. 2370 (c.1100; Jura). The present leaf is the earliest witness to the text of this second family, bringing the dating of the group back into the ninth century and adding considerably to our understanding of it. It shows that this line of descent, hitherto represented by French manuscripts, went from from the area of Lake Constance across the French border in the neighbouring region of Jura. This leaf was most probably a direct copy of the lost eighth-century original, perhaps housed in either Reichenau or St.Gall. That original may have been the copy which St. Boniface requested in 747-51 from Archbishop Egbert of York, and in payment for which he sent "two small casks of wine ... for a merry day with the brethren" (M. Tangl, Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius, 1916, no.91).