LIX. The Address of the Soul to the Body

PMLA ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 957-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolph Willard
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Body ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
English Poem ◽  
Conspicuous Feature ◽  
University Library ◽  
Intermediate Time ◽  
The Moment

There exist in Old English a number of compilations in which an address of the soul to its body is a conspicuous feature. The best known is the poem in the Vercelli and the Exeter Books, in which the soul returns to its body once a week and communes with it, the sinful soul reproaching it vituperatively, the righteous comforting it lovingly and joyously. The fourth Vercelli homily has a remarkable scene, an elaborated account of the judgement of the soul at Doomsday, in which the souls address their bodies as they stand in the presence of the Judge. The Last Judgement is again the scene of an address, and that in one of the homilies presented by Assmann. There is, finally, the Old English vision, printed by Thorpe and Napier, of the bringing forth of the soul, wherein the newly-released soul of a sinner vituperates the body it has just left. To this literature, I wish to add passages from two unpublished Old English homilies, in which the address is made, not at the moment of death, as in Thorpe and Napier, nor at the Last Judgement, as in Vercelli Homily iv and in Assmann, but at some intermediate time, when the soul returns intermittently to its body for that purpose, as in the Old English poem. These two texts are Homilies ii and iv of MS. Junius 85 of the Bodleian Library, and Homily xl of MS. Ii. 1.33 of the Cambridge University Library.

Junius's knowledge of the Old English poem Durham

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 231-245
Author(s):  
Daniel Paul O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old English ◽  
British Library ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
English Poem ◽  
University Library ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Original Manuscript

Until recently, the late Old English poem Durham was known to have been copied in two manuscripts of the twelfth century: Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 27 (C) and London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D. xx (V). C has been transcribed frequently and serves as the basis for Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie's standard edition of the poem in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. V was almost completely destroyed in the Cottonian fire of 1731. Its version is known to us solely from George Hickes's 1705 edition (H).In a recent article, however, Donald K. Fry announced the discovery of a third medieval text of the poem. Like V, the original manuscript of this ‘third’ version is now lost and can be reconstructed only from an early modern transcription - in this case a copy by Francis Junius no win the Stanford University Library (Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections, Misc. 010 [J1]). Unlike V, however, Junius's copy is our only record of this manuscript's existence. No other transcripts are known from medieval or early modern manuscript catalogues.

scholarly journals Scribal Intrusion in the Texts of Gamelyn

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Nila VáZquez
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
British Library ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
University Library ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
Physical Elements

Scribal Intrusion in the Texts of Gamelyn One of most important steps in the process of editing a manuscript is the identification and correction of the mistakes made by the scribe or scribes involved in its copying process in order to obtain the best text. In some cases, the changes introduced by the scribe, or by the editor who was supervising his work, can easily be noticed because we find out "physical" elements throughout the folio, such as dots under a word as a sign of expunction or carets indicating that a missing word is being added. However, there are many instances of scribal intrusion where only a detailed analysis of the text itself, or even the comparison of different manuscripts, can lead us to the identification of a modified reading. For instance, orthographical changes due to the dialectal provenance of the copyist, or altered lines with a regular aspect. The purpose of this article is to analyse the scribal amendments that appear in some of the earliest copies of The tale of Gamelyn: Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 198 (Cp), Christ Church Oxford MS 152 (Ch), Fitzwilliam Museum McClean 181 (Fi), British Library MS Harley 7334 (Ha4), Bodleian Library MS Hatton Donat. 1 (Ht), British Library MS Lansdowne 851 (La), Lichfield Cathedral MS 29 (Lc), Cambridge University Library Mm. 2.5 (Mm), Petworth House MS 7 (Pw) and British Library MS Royal 18 C.II (Ry2).

A new Latin source for the Old English ‘Three Utterances’ exemplum

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 187-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary F. Wack ◽  
Charles D. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Detailed Comparison ◽  
British Library ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
University College ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Latin Version

The so-called ‘Three Utterances’ exemplum, which tells of the exclamations of a good and a bad soul to the angels or demons who lead them to heaven or hell at the moment of death, was adapted independently by three Anglo-Saxon homilists. Versions of this legend survive in an Old English Rogationtide homily in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 114, 102v–105v, in a homilyBe heofonwarum and be helwarumin London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A. ix, 21v–23v, and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302, pp. 71–3, and in a Lenten homily in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 85/86, fos. 25–40. In 1935 Rudolf Willard published a study of the exemplum, with a detailed comparison between the three Old English versions, an Irish version, and a single Latin version in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 2628 (s. xi). Two years later Willard published a second Latin version from Oxford, University College 61 (s. xiv). Other texts of the Latin sermon have subsequently come to light.

Ælfric and late Old English verse

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 77-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Bredehoft
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
University Library ◽  
Prose Style ◽  
English Verse

In his discussion of the formal structures characteristic of Ælfric's ‘rhythmical prose’ style, John C. Pope prints the following passage from Ælfric's homily on Cuthbert, calling attention especially to the pointing, given as it appears in Cambridge, University Library, Gg. 3. 28 (?Cerne, s. x/xi):Ac an ðære fugela. eft fleogende com.ymbe ðry dagas. þearle dreorig.fleah to his foton. friðes biddende.þæt he on ðam lande. lybban moste.symle unscæððig. and his gefera samod.

The originality of the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter and its relation to the gloss of the Junius Psalter

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 37-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Pulsiano
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Direct Relationship ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
British Library ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Extended Study ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Full Form ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

In a brief discussion of the Vespasian Psalter in 1898, Albert S. Cook offered a statement that set the tone for subsequent debate about the relationship between the Old English gloss of the Vespasian Psalter (A = London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A. i) and that of the junius Psalter (B = Oxford, Bodleian Library, junius 27): ‘It seems not improbable that it [i.e. the gloss to the Vespasian Psalter] is the original from which all later Old English glosses on the Psalms have been derived, undergoing in the process such modifications as were due to the language of the particular dialect or epoch.’ With regard to the Junius gloss specifically, Cook printed the text of Psalm XCIX [C] from the Vespasian Psalter, which he collated with the Junius, Cambridge (C = Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1.23), Regius (D = London, British Library, Royal 2. B.V), and Eadwine (E = Cambridge, Trinity College R. 17.1) psalters; he concluded that ‘B stands nearest to A, but is carelessly written, and changes Anglian peculiarities in the direction of West Saxon (in to on, all to eall, &c.) while retaining, in general, a comparatively early and Anglian cast (weotað, scep, leswe, &c.)’. Although Otto Heinzel, writing in 1926, disagreed with Cook's assertion that the Vespasian gloss was the source from which all other psalters ultimately derived their glosses, he reiterated, after a fashion, the idea that the Junius gloss is related to that of the Vespasian Psalter, although, like Cook, he did not argue for a direct relationship between these two works. In Heinzel's stemma, from the Urtext*0 derive *α, which stands as the model for B, and *β, which in turn stands as the model for both A and C. The stemma, in its full form, taking the Dtype (Regius Psalter) tradition into account, has justly been termed ‘fanciful’ by Kenneth Sisam. The relationship between the glosses in these two psalters formed the subject of an extended study by Uno Lindelöf published in 1901.

scholarly journals Copying strategies of late Middle English scribes: Hand(s) and language(s) of two 15th-century manuscripts

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-172
Author(s):  
María José Carrillo-Linares
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
University Library ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour

The purpose of this paper is to compare two 15th-century manuscripts, Cambridge, University Library Kk.1.3 and Oxford, Bodleian Library Hatton 50, focusing on both paleographical and linguistic aspects. Samples from different sections of both manuscripts have been transcribed from either the original manuscripts or digital photographic reproductions. Each word and morpheme have been lexico-grammatically tagged to evaluate the scribe’s linguistic behaviour with respect to spelling, phonology, and morphology. Paleographical and linguistic data to support the two main conclusions of the study are offered. With this analysis, I conclude that both manuscripts are, almost certainly, copied by the same person. Comparison of the different copying strategies generated by this single scribe allows us to achieve a better understanding of the written material in which Middle English has been preserved.

Adam Easton’s Manuscripts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Zutshi
Keyword(s):  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
University Library

After a brief introduction, this article provides descriptions of the eight extant Latin manuscripts which are known to have been in the possession of Adam Easton, as well as one manuscript where his ownership is questionable. The manuscripts passed to Norwich Cathedral Priory and are now divided between Cambridge University Library; Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Balliol College, Oxford; the Bodleian Library; and the Bibliothèque Municipale, Avignon.

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