Saint Michael: Early Anglo-Saxon Tradition/General Introduction to Corpus 41

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41 (hereinafter referred to simply as ‘Corpus 41’) is an Anglo-Saxon manuscript fascinating to scholars of Old English, not so much for its workaday appearance or its principal text as for its marginalia. This marginal material consists of portions of a Latin missal, six homiletic texts in Old English, macaronic charms and loricas in Old English and Latin, a version of the Old English poem Solomon and Saturn, and fragments of an Old English martyrology. There is Coptic and Celtic as well as Roman influence on the marginalia, and one of the homiletic texts is a panegyric, unique to Christendom, extolling the Archangel St Michael. The text of this panegyric is contained in the margins of pages 402-17 of Corpus 41 and can be arranged editorially into twenty-eight sections.

Full appreciation of this unique encomium requires not only edition and detailed analysis of the text but also consideration of its wider context in the Norman, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic world of the later eleventh century, in the antiquarian life and political manoeuvring of Bishop Leofric of Exeter, and in the manuscript safely and faithfully preserved in the Parker Library in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The Library was established by a former master of Corpus, Archbishop Matthew Parker (1504-1575), and today is a wonderful storehouse of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts and early printed books in the care of Dr Christopher de Hamel, Donnelley Fellow Librarian, and Ms Gill Cannell, the Parker Sub-Librarian; by their grace the manuscript has been made readily available and publication of the St Michael text kindly permitted.

History
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41 was originally intended as a second-rate, working copy of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica in Old English translation which, with its unique ‘Metrical Epilogue,’ constitutes Corpus 41's sole original text, written by two scribes working simultaneously. The manuscript was made in the early eleventh century in a southern English Benedictine centre whose illuminators belonged to the ‘Winchester’ school. Corpus 41 was given to a particular person or institution and then had a number of texts of varied character and interest in both Old English and Latin added in its margins and blank spaces by a single scribe during the first half of the eleventh century. The additional material is confined to the margins except for two items entered on pages left blank at the end of the main Bede text; these are the Old English homily on the Passion and the bilingual Record of Gift to Exeter, which concludes the manuscript.

Little that is certain is known of the manuscript's history. On page 1, just above the large initial Ð, appears the number xxiiii in red ink, which has now undergone sulphidization; the number is most likely of the eleventh century, but to what it refers is unknown. The inscription on page 488 indicates that Corpus 41 was at Exeter in the possession of Leofric within half a century of its compilation. Although it is not included in the list of Leofric's gifts to Exeter, it is reasonable to assume that at some time between the middle of the eleventh century and his death in 1072 Leofric procured the volume as part of his drive to preserve English vernacular heritage and gave it to Exeter Cathedral's library. Nothing is known of the later mediaeval ownership of Corpus 41.

In the sixteenth century Corpus 41 came into the hands of Matthew Parker, under the terms of whose will it became the property of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on his death in 1575. Parker's will is in the form of a quadripartite indenture drawn up at the beginning of 1575 and signed by Parker, Corpus Christi College, Gonville and Caius College, and Trinity Hall. Corpus 41 bears on page 1 the later heading ‘Historia Bede Collegii Corp. Christi Cantabr. Sum incola’ and the shelfmark S. 2, the number assigned to it in the Parker Register.

The Parker Register (Corpus 575), the master copy of the catalogue of Parker's Library, is, unfortunately, confused. Corpus 41 is listed on page 62 under the press-letter S. 2, but is given the incipit ‘Gloriossissimo regi,’ the incipit of Bede's Latin dedicatory letter to King Ceolwulf of Northumbria. Corpus 41 lacks the dedication altogether, and has been confused with a Latin Bede, Corpus 359, which is listed in the Register on page 74 among ‘BOOKES in parchment closures as the lye on heapes’ as ‘9.5 Bede historia saxonica’ with the incipit ‘ÐIS IS CEO,’ an erratic copy of the incipit in Corpus 41, ‘ÐIS IS SEO.’ Corpus 359, in its turn, is confused with 17.4, Corpus 383. Raymond Page has suggested that Parker owned two copies of the Old English Bede and intended to send one of them to the Cambridge University Library; the one that was sent in 1574 was not what is now Corpus 41 but what is now Cambridge, University Library Kk. 3. 18, known as Ca. Corpus 41 is listed under S. 2, however, in the first printed catalogue of Corpus manuscripts, that by T(homas) I(ames); Corpus 41 is listed on page 89 as volume 278, ‘Historiæ Bedæ Saxonicè.’

It is not known for certain which of the Corpus manuscripts were bound while Parker owned them; the Parker Register and related inventories suggest that some were in poor shape and even disbound. Possibly that listed as S. 2 was bound, however, for its present binding leaves are from a sixteenth-century Parkerian Latin legal document on parchment, a case concerning marriage in the Church of St Clement's in Cambridge. Nasmith, in his Catalogue of 1777, remarks that the Corpus manuscripts were rebound ‘de novo paucis abhinc annis.’ The flyleaf, formerly a paste-down, contains on the recto side the sixteenth-century Latin, now only partly legible, and on the verso two seventeenth-century notes by the first editor of the Old English Bede, Abraham Wheloc; the notes compare the Bede text in Corpus 41 (B) with that in Cambridge, University Library Kk. 3. 18 (Ca), which Wheloc printed as his main text in 1643. The endleaf, also formerly a paste-down, contains on the recto side the number 646 from the older pagination and a note by Wheloc about the conclusion of the Old English St Michael homily on page 417 (former pagination 541), while the verso continues the only partly legible sixteenth-century Latin legal document.

Heavy Parkerian and post-Parkerian use has been made of Corpus 41. The older pagination is an early seventeenth-century ink pagination on rectos only, which, together with Parkerian red crayon numbering in books, is common to most Parker manuscripts. The red crayon also appears on pages 19, 49, 296, 392, and 393. Parker seems to be responsible for the underlining of words and phrases here and there throughout the text, on pages 61, 70, 73, 75-81, 83-88, 95-100, and 200.

In many places modern hands have corrected and supplemented the main text. The most frequent correcting hand is that of Wheloc, collating texts B, Ca, and C (British Library Cotton Otho B. xi) on the flyleaf verso and pages 85, 165, 167, 206, and 296. Wheloc has attempted to regularize the list of chapter headings on pages 1-4 and the Interrogationes of Book III on pages 199-219. Wheloc is also responsible for ‘corrections’ to B in early modern imitations of Old English lettering on pages 18, 22, 62, 166, 239, 241, 243, 245, 246, 247, 249, 252, 269, 277, 279, and 337; all these ‘corrections’ are taken from Ca.

Joscelyn is responsible for two notes on page 66 in the left margin in ink, and for the book and chapter headings in ink on pages 27-31, 39, 48, 52-3, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 80, 82, 88, 117-20, 122, and 128-9.

An early modern hand in ink divides Book IV into chapters on pages 230, 246, 248, 253-4, 256, 259, 261, 264, 266, 268, 272-3, 276, 282, 285, 289, and 292.

A seventeenth-century hand in pencil adds capitals omitted originally on pages 24, 27, 29-31, 39, 40, 45, and 46 and book and chapter headings from Ca on pages 55, 59, 61-4, and 66. This hand also makes a ‘correction’ on page 58.

Modern hands make marginal corrections on pages 176, 194, and 460 and interlinear corrections in imitation of Old English script on, for example, pages 17, 50, 317, and 425. A sixteenth-century scholar has experimented with the text on pages 22-23.

The majority of the Corpus manuscripts were (re)bound in the eighteenth century, and most have been bound again in recent years. The present binding of Corpus 41 replaced an eighteenth-century one, and was carried out by John P Gray of 10, Green Street, Cambridge, the work being completed on April 15, 1953. Funds for the job came from a Pilgrim Trust grant, and a note to this effect appears in the hand of JPT B(ury), then the Parker Librarian, on the opening paper pages of the 1953 binding. It is unfortunate that the rebinding has been carried out too tightly; Corpus 41 will not lie flat when opened near the beginning or the end, and often inner marginalia can be read only with great difficulty and the clandestine exercise of brute force.

Codicological Description
The first and last pages are very yellow and much-thumbed, as if they were at one time the outer covers of the manuscript, and the thumbed leaves throughout testify that the manuscript has been much used. The first few and the last few leaves contain a large number of worm-holes, but these disappear rapidly as one delves into the body of the manuscript. The quality of the vellum is variable. Several leaves are of good quality, but most of the vellum is distinctly second-rate. Some leaves are so thick and rough that it is virtually impossible to tell the hair side from the flesh side, and the manner in which the hair and flesh sides are arranged varies. Flesh faces flesh and hair faces hair within eleven quires (II, VII, X, XII-XVII, XIX, and XXII), with hair on the outside. In the other quires the arrangement is irregular. In fifteen quires the arrangement (citing the first four leaves only) is HF│FH│FH│HF (quires I, VI, VIII, IX, XI, XVIII, XX, XXI, XXIII-XXVII, XXIX, and XXX). In all quires, the outer bifolium has its hair side turned to the outside.

Many leaves have blemishes and holes, which have been avoided by the scribes and do not affect the main or added texts: the leaves involved are 3, 54, 70, 71, 78, 120, 135, 151, 167, 168, 170, 177, 211, 217, and 239. Holes and blemishes acquired while the skins were still on their beasts and not due to the ravages of time affect about twenty leaves, for example, pages 3-4, 139-142, 269-270, 337-340, 357-358, and 485-486. The quality of the vellum suggests that Corpus 41 was the product of a minor scriptorium.

Repairs have been carried out on the outer folios, 2-12 and 213-40. Folio 200 (pages 405-6) has a repair to a vertical tear in the centre tail. Page 488, previously the endleaf, has been so damaged that the conclusion of the final Old English homily and the bilingual Record of Gift to Exeter are not fully legible.

The approximate dimensions are as follows: leaves 13 7/10 x 8 1/2 in. (347 x 214 mm.), written space 12-9 4/5 x 5 7/10-5 3/10 in. (293-250 x 145-135 mm.). In quire X the text column is appreciably taller than in any other quire of the manuscript, its height being c. 295 mm. There are single bounding lines, and the drypoint ruling was on 1, 2, or 4 sheets at a time. The prickings have not all been trimmed off in (re)binding. Several folios have been trimmed after the writing of the marginalia──7, 19, 56, 95, 152, 156, 157, 162, 171, 174, 176, and 235. The leaves were pricked in the outer, upper, and lower margins only. The ruling is in drypoint. There are single vertical bounding lines at each side of the column. The first and last horizontal lines are ruled the full width of the page, and in several quires (III-X and XII-XIII) the second and penultimate lines are also ruled the full width; the remaining lines are ruled within the vertical bounding lines. On several pages of quire XIII, the text continues in an extra line entered below the last ruled line. This, like other idiosyncratic features of the quire, reflects the scribe's attempt to ensure that he could fit the required amount of text within the quire: quire XIII is the last quire of the first part of the manuscript, which was apportioned to its scribes in two parts for simultaneous copying. For most of the secondary texts, additional drypoint rulings have been entered.

There are regularly twenty-five long lines to the page, but there are exceptions to this. The primary text is laid out in single columns variously of twenty-two lines (page 206), twenty-three lines (pages 351-366), twenty-four lines (pages 53-54, 335-350, and 483), twenty-five lines (pages 1-52, 55-156, 199-200, 207-334, and 367-482), twenty-seven lines (pages 157-190 and 205), and twenty-eight lines (pages 191-198 and 201-204). The irregularity by which there are twenty-seven or twenty-eight lines on pages 157-189 and 201-5 and twenty-two lines on page 206 involves quires XI-XII, which include the end of the work of the first scribe and the completion of his work by the second scribe. For the variation whereby pages 335-50 (quire XXII) have twenty-four lines and pages 351-66 (quire XXIII) have twenty-three lines there is no obvious reason.

In light of the scribal comment on page 483, þe ðas boc aƿrat bam handum tƿam, Schipper suggested, ‘Soll das “bam handum twam” bedeuten, dass er abwechselnd die rechte und die linke Hand gebrauchte?’ This entertaining vision of an ambidextrous scribe using both hands alternately has, alas, to be rejected since the main Bede text was written in two parts simultaneously by two scribes in the first half of the eleventh century. The first began at page 1 and stopped at page 190, line 20, ‘on þam mynstre’: the second began his work at page 207, then to make the link went back to page 190 to take the work of his colleague to page 206, where the writing is spaced and lines 23-27 were originally blank. Old English and Latin are not distinguished in script, and both hands are rather rough, the second being of a generally later type than the first. The added texts are all in brown ink and by a third hand which had no role in the copying of the Historia Ecclesiastica and is of the same or only slightly later date than the two main hands. A fourth hand is, of course, responsible for the bilingual Leofric inscription.

The scribes of the main text are more than usually careless, adding meaningless alterations, omissions, and additions to the usual scribal faults of haplography, dittography, and homoeoteleuton. A favourite howler is at Miller 118.26, where the fusion of the exemplar's ær biscop to produce arcebysceop creates an archbishop of Rochester. The scribes never seem to have re-read what they had written except in one or two dubious instances where the text has been corrected; otherwise, the errors are simply permitted to glare. How one wishes that the scribes had taken to heart the admonition of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in the second century to a scribe copying one of the bishop's essays:

"I adjure you who shall copy out this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by his glorious advent when he comes to judge the living and the dead, that you compare what you transcribe, and correct it carefully against this manuscript from which you copy; and also that you transcribe this adjuration and insert it in the copy."

Illumination has been carried out in a most haphazard way. Rubrics and initials were often omitted during the writing of the texts, the scribes leaving appropriate spaces and intending either to supply the initials later themselves or to have them supplied by an experienced illuminator. In Corpus 41 only about 1/3 of the initials are supplied, and of these some are completed (in red and/or brown ink usually), some are supplied quite unadorned, some are fragmentary, and some are only vaguely scratched out on the vellum. Decoration consists usually of foliage and animal forms, with some knotwork and drapery. Illumination is complete only on pages 207-318, that is, on quires XIV-XX, the first complete quires for which the second scribe of the Bede was responsible. It is unlikely, in view of the general level of production of the manuscript, that more than one illuminator was at work, pace Temple. On several occasions a wrong initial is supplied (e.g., Þ for Ð on page 6) and on several other occasions a tiny, normal-sized letter is supplied instead of a large initial (e.g., a tiny Þ for a large one on page 11). Usually such tiny letters are added by modern editors, however, using pencil──examples on pages 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 40, 45, and 46. On page 392 there is a Parkerian supply of ‘ca. 8/ Ð’ in red crayon in a space left for a large þ.

The task of illumination and rubrication is begun very scrappily indeed with the list of chapters, some being omitted and others being marked wrongly. The Ð on page 1 is sparsely ornamented and may not be fully completed; red ink on the knotwork on the loop has sulphidized. The first really complete initial, therefore, is a B on page 61. The B is in light and dark ink, rather finely done; an animal's head bites the crossbar, and there are floral decorations within the upper and lower loops. Other noteworthy initials include the E on page 161, the Þ on page 175 (facsimile at the end of volume II of Schipper), the S on page 206, the B on page 246 (Temple's plate 258), the Þ on page 248, the ƿ on page 259, the M on page 264, the S on page 272, the ð on page 273, the O on page 292, the Ð on page 410, and the fascinating I on page 433. The upright of the I is a human figure with fetters round the legs; the Bede text (Miller 442.9 ff. T) deals with a smith imprisoned in Hell, and the leg fetters on the I recall the tale of Weland.

In several places scribbles are to be seen, presumably made by a scribe or illuminator either breaking in a new quill or simply doodling in practice for the illuminations. Practising of this kind may also account for several sketches, which appear completely at random, and the similarly random occurrence of runes and neumes may be attributed to scribal joie de vivre or an illuminator's high spirits. Examples include the lamb's head at the bottom of page 61, the doodle at the bottom of page 175, the dead bird lying supine at the bottom of page 300 (presumably by the marginal hand), the neumes to aid the singing of the Responses, etc. on page 475, the partial Crucifixion sketch on page 484, the drawing on page 485 that has been taken variously to be a cherub standing on a cloud and St John preaching on the mountains, and the musical notation and scribbles on page 488. The drawings on pages 484 and 485 have been written over by the scribe of the final homily. Runic scribbles appear on pages 197 (the proper name Salomon), 436 (a b c d [e]), and 448 (xii. ‘⁊’.xxx. sƿiþor).

The illuminations are all fairly elaborate designs, in the ink of the text (that is, with no colouring save a little use of red), and involving human figures as well as acanthus foliage, knotwork, dragons, and birds. Ker notes that the elaborate tenth-century style of penwork initial occurs in a few manuscripts written about or soon after the turn of the century and that initials in the ink of the text on the scale of coloured initials occur in only a dozen manuscripts, most of which were written around AD 1000. Wormald dates Corpus 41 c. 1020-1050, says the initials are of ‘mixed types,’ and reports that the illuminations are of the ‘first’ style and belong to the ‘Winchester school.’ The so-called ‘Metrical Epilogue’ to the Bede on pages 483-84 originally had every other line in red rather than brown ink, and the red ink now has a silvery, metallic look to it. There is no chrysography here, pace Robinson; there has been rather severe sulphidization of the red ink. As a consequence, alternate lines of the ‘Metrical Epilogue’ are blurred and messy, and have caused staining of the adjoining skins. Similar reaction of red ink to light and time may be seen on the opening illuminated initial on page 1 and on pages 2-16 in the list of chapter headings.

If the scribes of the Bede worked simultaneously, the exemplar was either not bound or was in two volumes. The exemplar is followed fairly closely in order to get the two parts to line up so well; perhaps the scribes copied the quires of the original, too, and did their copying line by line. Perhaps the exemplar dictated the shapes left for large initials and was then taken back by the lending library. Was the exemplar a smaller format book, perhaps? The writing centre at which Corpus 41 was copied was probably one where variation, not standardisation, was the norm, and the practitioners were following their own devices and were responsible for their own productions. The result started out as a manuscript which was the ambitious project of a minor scriptorium rather than a second-rate product of a major scriptorium; then the attitude to the book changed. The Old English Bede text is not a luxurious one, anyway, and the entire manuscript may shortly afterwards have been used as a liturgical and homiletic archive. This shows a piecemeal process, one of flexibility in the function and use of a book outside a major scriptorium and maybe outside the influence of Regularis Concordia and the Benedictine Revival.

Collation
iii + 244 + iii. Two twentieth-century paper endleaves. One sixteenth-century vellum endleaf (formerly a pastedown). I8 pages 1-16; II8 (lacks 2, 6) pages 17-28; III8 pages 29-44; IV8 pages 45-60; V8 pages 61-76; VI8 pages 77-92; VII8 pages 93-108; VIII8 pages 109-124; IX10 (lacks 5, 7) pages 125-140; X8 pages 141-156; XI8 pages 157-172; XII8 pages 173-188; XIII10 (lacks 4) pages 189-206; XIV8 pages 207-222; XV8 pages 223-238; XVI10 (lacks 3, 7) pages 239-254; XVII8 pages 255-270; XVIII8 pages 271-286; XIX8 pages 287-302; XX8 pages 303-318; XXI8 pages 319-334; XXII8 pages 335-350; XXIII8 pages 351-366; XXIV8 pages 367-382; XXV8 pages 383-398; XXVI8 pages 399-414; XXVII8 pages 415-430; XXVIII8 pages 431-446; XXIX8 pages 447-462; XXX8 pages 463-478; XXXI6 (lacks 6) pages 479-488. One sixteenth-century vellum endleaf (formerly a pastedown). Two twentieth-century paper endleaves.

There are two original sets of quire signatures, entered in ink in the lower margin of the last page of each quire. Several quire signatures have been lost through the trimming of the lower margins. The surviving signatures run from F to M on the last pages of quires VI-XII, and from A to R on the last pages of quires XIV-XXX. The two sets correspond with the division of the manuscript into two parts for simultaneous copying. Most quires have a modern quire signature comprising an Arabic numeral entered in pencil in the lower outer corner. Quire VII is not marked; perhaps the number 7 was there, then the foliator simply put 4 in front of it to mark folio 47. Ker does not notice that quire VIII is signed H as the H is concealed in the marginal text on page 124.

With the 1953 rebinding came a new pagination, which was very badly needed. The older pagination is an early seventeenth-century ink pagination, on rectos only, which, together with Parkerian red crayon numbering in books, is common to most Parker manuscripts. The older pagination is extremely inaccurate but was used by commentators who wrote before 1953 as well as by all the cataloguers save Ker. Both the old and the new numbering of pages may be seen in the top right-hand corner of each opening. In the bottom right-hand corner of each opening may also be found a pencilled foliation (which has been carelessly executed) and the modern quire count. The older pagination was carried out after strips were cut from some outer margins (e.g., pages 315-7 [335-7]). The last twenty-eight folios (pages 431-87 [559-644]) have been repaired in the top right-hand corners, and these repairs obscure the older pagination on pages 433-45 [560-602], 467-73 [625-31], 481 [639], and 485 [642].

The pencilled foliation in the bottom right-hand corners of odd-numbered pages includes the flyleaf, so page 1 is marked folio 2. The foliation is carelessly done. There are two folios marked 11, which admittedly helps bring foliation and pagination into step up to folio 157 (page 313). Fol. 28 is not marked on page 55 but is counted. Pages 315 and 317, with their right margins cut off, are omitted from the foliation between folios marked 157 and 158 (pages 313 and 319) and are not counted. Pages 327 and 477, also with their right margins removed, are marked folios 162 and 235, and page 355, with a wide strip cut from the tail, is foliated folio 176. Page 381 is omitted from the foliation between folios 188 and 189 (pages 379 and 383) and is not counted; nor is page 457, between folios 225 and 226 (pages 455 and 459). The endleaf is not included in the foliation, which ends with folio 240 (page 487). Quire I (pages 125-40) is foliated 63-70 regularly enough in the bottom right-hand corner of each opening, but it has also been foliated upside down and therefore in reverse order in the top left-hand corner of each opening, from page 126, foliated 70, to page 140, foliated 63.

Detailed descriptions of the manuscript are offered by Wanley, Miller, Schipper, James, Ker, and Grant. Humphrey Wanley. ''Antiquæ Literaturæ Septentrionalis liber alter. seu Humphredi Wanleii Librorum Vett. Codd. Septentrionalium, qui in Angliæ Bibliothecis extant, nec non multorum Vett. Codd. Septentrionalium alibi extantium Catalogus Historico-Criticus, cum totius Thesauri Linguarum Septentrionalium sex Indicibus.'' (Oxford, 1705, reprinted New York, 1970). This is the second volume of George Hickes's ''Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archæologicus''.

Thomas Miller. The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 4 vols. (I.1, London: Oxford University Press, 1890, reprinted 1959, reprinted New York, 1976; I.2, London: Oxford University Press, 1891, reprinted 1959, reprinted New York, 1976; II.1 and 2, London: Oxford University Press, 1898, reprinted 1963). EETS, OS, nos. 95, 96, 110, and 111.

Jakob M Schipper, ed. König Alfreds Übersetzung von Bedas Kirchen-geschichte. Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa IV, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1897 [vol. 1] and 1899 [vol. 2]).

Montague Rhodes James. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), I. 81-5.

Neil R Ker. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957, reprinted with supplement 1990), no. 32, and ‘A supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon.’ Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp. 121-131. See also Mary Blockley. ‘Addenda and Corrigenda to NR Ker's “A supplement to Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon.”’ Notes and Queries n.s. 29 (1982), pp. 1-3. Raymond JS Grant, in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile, vol. 11, pp. 1-27, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, vol. 265 (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2003).

See also Helmut Gneuss. ‘Manuscripts written or owned in England up to 1100.’ Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1981), 1-60—Corpus 41 is his # 39; and Helmut Gneuss. Handlist of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: a list of manuscripts and manuscript fragments written or owned in England up to 1100. (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241), Tempe AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001. It may be viewed online at Parker Library on the Web, an undertaking of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the Stanford University Libraries, and the Cambridge University Library to produce a high-resolution digital copy of every imageable page in the 538 manuscripts described in MR James (op. cit.); the project was begun in 2005, and Parker on the Web 2.0 launched in January 2018.

The Old English Texts
A.	Pages 1-484 The Old English version of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica known as text B and its ‘Metrical Epilogue’ (Ker, art. 1)

B.	Charms:


 * 1) Page 182 Ƿið ymbe, beginning Nim eorþan (Ker, art. 4)
 * 2) Page 206 (no rubric), beginning Ne forstolen ne forholen (Ker, art. 6a)
 * 3) Page 206 (no rubric), beginning Ðis mon sceal cƿeðan (Ker, art. 6b)
 * 4) Pages 206-8 (no rubric), beginning Ȝif feoh sy undernumen (Ker, art. 7)
 * 5) Page 208 Ƿið eahƿ,ær ce, beginning Ȝenī læfre neoðoƿearde cnuƿa (Ker, art. 8)
 * 6) Pages 350-3 (no rubric), beginning Ic me on þisse ȝyrde beluce (Ker, art. 16)

C.	Pages 122-132 Selections from a Martyrology for the period 25-31 December, for the feasts of Christmas Day, St Anastasia, St Eugenia, St Stephen, St John Evangelist, The Holy Innocents, St Sylvester (Ker, art. 3)

D.	Pages 196-8 The poem Solomon and Saturn (Ker, art. 5)

E.	Homilies:


 * 1) Pages 254-280 Last Judgment homily containing a dialogue between body and soul (Ker, art. 9)
 * 2) Pages 280-287 homily on the Assumption (Ker, art. 11)
 * 3) Pages 287-295 homily on Doomsday, based on the Apocalypse of Thomas (Ker, art. 12)
 * 4) Pages 295-301 homily for Easter, based on the Gospel of Nicodemus (Ker, art. 13)
 * 5) Pages 402-417 homily in the form of a panegyric praising St Michael (Ker, art. 17)
 * 6) Pages 484-488 the Passion story, based on Matthew 26 and 27 (Ker, art. 18)

F.	Pages 2, 21, 483 Rubrics for Latin masses and pages 272, 326 rubrics for the Latin charms 1-4 (Ker, arts. 2, 10, and 14)

The Latin Texts
A.	Charms:


 * 1) Page 272 Ƿið ealra feoda ȝrimnessum, beginning Dextera dni fecit uirtutē (Ker, art. 10)
 * 2) Page 326 Ƿið sarum eaȝum, beginning Dne sce pat omps aetne deus, sana occulos (Ker, art. 14)
 * 3) Page 326 Ƿið sarū  earum, beginning Rex glorie Xre Raphaelem anglm exclude fandor,aohel (Ker, art. 14)
 * 4) Page 326 Ƿið maȝan seocnesse, beginning Adiuua nos ds salutaris noster (Ker, art. 14)
 * 5) Page 329 (no rubric), beginning Creator & scificator Pater & Filius (Ker, art. 15)

B.	Pages 2-36, 38-9, 45-7, 60-71, 74-5, 134-9, 158, 182, 192-4, 224-5, 370-3, 475-8, 482-3 The missal (Ker, art. 2)

C.	Pages 287, 295 Rubrics for the Old English homilies 3 and 4 (Ker, arts. 12 and 13)

The Bilingual Text
A.	Page 488 The Record of Gift to Exeter (Ker, art. 19)

The above lists are convenient but also a little misleading in that they separate artificially Latin rubrics from their Old English homilies and Old English rubrics from their Latin masses and charms. They also obscure the true nature of the Old English charms 3 and 4, which contain portions in Latin. It should be borne in mind that the Old English item 1, the Bede translation, was the manuscript's sole original text and that all the other texts were entered in margins and blank spaces not long after the completion of the Bede.

This text of the Old English Bede is commonly referred to as B, presumably because Corpus Christi College used to be known as Bene't. B is one of five surviving Old English texts descended from a common exemplar which was in an Anglian (Mercian) dialect and was a close copy of the translator's autograph. There are in addition three extracts on a single page of British Library Cotton Domitian ix, folio 11 (Zu) and Laurence Nowell's transcript in British Library Addit. 43703 of British Library Cotton Otho B. xi (C) made before C fell victim to the Cotton fire of 1731. The Old English Bede has been edited by Wheloc (1643), Smith (1722, either George Smith or his son John), Schipper (1897 and 1899), and Miller (1890-98).

The text in Corpus 41 is closest to that in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner 10, but the stemma of Old English Bede manuscripts needs to be revised. The B text has a Late-West-Saxon, specifically eleventh-century phonological structure and has altered or dropped from its lexicon vocabulary items which are specifically Anglian or are out of date in West Saxon, preferring in their place West Saxon words. Many of the additions and omissions in B attest to confusion over accidence and syntax, and in B may be traced the decline of inflectional identity and the great tolerance on the part of the Late-West-Saxon Schriftsprache of spellings, sounds, inflections, syntactic structures, and lexical items from different dialects and from different dates. A study of the language of B has been carried out by Grant.

The B text ends on pages 482-4 with three petitions and the concluding words ''AMEN. Ȝeƿeorþe þæt''. The third, beginning [B]IDDe ic eac æȝhƿylcne mann, is unique to Corpus 41, and Robinson has demonstrated that this ‘Metrical Epilogue’ is to be taken along with the other two petitions as the concluding portion of a threefold ‘coda’ in the form of a tripartite prayer ending with the words ''AMEN. Ȝeƿeorþe þæt''. The dramatic voice speaking in the poem is identical with that in the preceding petitions and is therefore that of Bede, not that of a scribe. The first petition is addressed to the Saviour, the second to the reader of or listener to the Historia Ecclesiastica, and this third petition is to ‘each king, [each] ruler of men’ asking for material support in the completion of further copies whose production would be right praise of the Lord.

The margins of Corpus 41 contain six Old English and five Latin charms in various parts of the manuscript. Their selection has not been quite as random as it may at first appear, for the charms have three main interests. First, the Old English charms 1-4 are all concerned with theft. Second, the Old English charm 5 and the Latin charm 2 are both against the scribes' big worry, eye-strain, and belong with the Latin charms 3 and 4 against ear-ache and illness. Finally, the Latin portions of the Old English charm 4 were used to save the soul from demons or the body from yellow plague, that is, as a lorica for one's protection, which serves to link this charm in tone with the Old English journey charm 6, with the Latin charms 1 and 5, and with one possible interpretation of Solomon and Saturn. The compiler of the marginalia in Corpus 41 therefore either chose charms to be copied according to subject or copied from a set of charms already so ordered. Corpus 41 takes its place as one of the three major Old English charm collections alongside Lacnunȝa and Læceboc. The Corpus 41 charms have been frequently edited.

Most interesting of the charms is the Old English charm 4 with its Latin portions. The common impression that this charm is concerned with the recovery of stolen cattle derives from consideration of only the Old English prose introduction, beginning Ȝif feoh sy undernumen; but this is followed by a verse incantation in Latin and Old English, beginning ⁊ sinȝ ærest uprihte hit and invoking the aid of Irish saints, and by a third, Latin section, which consists of part of a hymn, beginning Xrs illum siue elegit, and a prose incantation, beginning Crux Xri reducat. The 'hymn' consists of the last three stanzas, the opening stanza and one antiphon of the Hymnus S. Secundini in Laudem S. Patricii, traditionally supposed to have been composed in praise of St Patrick's character by St Sechnall on the occasion of their reconciliation after a quarrel. The hymn was written secundum ordinem alphabeti, and the final three stanzas for X, Y, and Z enjoy a particular efficacy, for ‘“Its grace,” said Patrick, “shall be on the last three capitula.”’ These stanzas were used not to recover stolen cattle but to save the body from yellow plague or the soul from demons. Their appearance in charm 4 in Corpus 41 therefore converts that charm into a lorica for one's total protection during and after life and hints at an Irish influence on the selection of the Corpus 41 marginalia, which reappears in Solomon and Saturn, the Martyrology, and the homilies.

The portion of the Old English Martyrology for the period December 25-31 has been printed by Cockayne and Herzfeld. It is not as strange as it might at first appear that these short notices of the lives and martyrdoms of saints opposite their festival days in the Church year share a manuscript with the Historia Ecclesiastica in translation. Bede himself was very interested in Passiones martyrum and Vitae sanctorum, using some fifty hagiographical texts as authorities for his own Martyrologium, written after 725 and before 731 during his later life. He had in his library a copy of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, which may have been his model. None of the other surviving Old English manuscripts contains the Martyrology for the period December 25-31, so the text in Corpus 41 (D) has to be left out of the stemma of the Old English Martyrology texts; yet if Corpus 41 is indeed a Leofric donation, it is worth pointing out that text C (Corpus 196) is closely connected to Corpus 191 and 201 and that all three have been localised to Exeter. Günter Kotzor has demonstrated that Corpus 196, text C of the Old English Martyrology, originally contained an entry for March 17th on St Patrick.

The verse text, beginning Saturnus cwæð hwæt Ic iȝlanda eallra hæbbe boca onbyrȝed and continuing for some hundred lines, is part of the Old English poem Solomon and Saturn. Saturn, representing pagan tradition, questions Solomon, representative of Judaeo-Christian wisdom, about the power of the ‘palm-twigged’ Paternoster. In reply, Solomon enumerates the powers of the Paternoster letter by letter in a manner reminiscent in theme, tone, and alphabetic technique of the Old English charm 4 and the Latin charm 5. The text in Corpus 41 has been printed by Menner and Dobbie, and Grant has shown that the compiler of the marginalia has chosen to copy only that portion of Solomon and Saturn that can be used as a lorica. Grendon and Menner discuss the use of the Paternoster in charms, and Menner shows that the poem contains echoes of Irish apocryphal literature. Corpus 422 contains two verse dialogues between Solomon and Saturn, which are separated by a prose dialogue; the first verse dialogue coincides for some sixty-five lines with the text in Corpus 41. In the passage contained in common, Corpus 422 has the better text most of the time, yet Corpus 41 has a whole line omitted from 422 and at least one better reading, so it cannot be a copy of 422. It seems that both copied a common WS exemplar, written in the south of England in the late ninth century or early tenth century. Corpus 422 can be localised to Winchester.

Corpus 41 contains six Old English homilies, five in the margins and one written on the full pages at the end of the main (Bede) text. They are all of great interest, and nos. 2, 5, and 6 are unique; editions, however, are few. The homilies have a unity of interest in that they all are filled with apocryphal and apocalyptic ecclesiastical fiction of the type liked so much by the Celtic church.

Homily 1, beginning Men þa leofestan, ic eow bidde ⁊ eaðmodlice lære þ ȝe w,“e”pen, has as its principal topic penance to be done in prospect of the Last Judgment, and is noteworthy for containing the lengthiest dialogue between Body and Soul in Old English. The text shares a common archetype with Vercelli homily 4 and Corpus 201.

Homily 2, beginning Her saȝað ymbe þa halȝan Marian usses dryhnes modor, is a celebration of the festival of the Assumption based on apocryphal legends, particularly the De transitu Mariae or Dormitio Mariae. The Latin text translated into Old English and copied into Corpus 41 is the so-called Pseudo-Melito, attributed to the second-century Bishop Melito of Sardis and traced definitely as far back as the fifth century (Tischendorf B). The unique Old English text has been edited by Grant.

Homily 3, beginning Men ð l, twa ceastra wæron from fruman worode, deals with the fate of the souls at the Day of Judgment. The description of impending Doom is taken from the Apocalypse of Thomas, Old English versions of all or part of which may be found in four homilies: Vercelli homily 15, Corpus 41, Blickling homily 7, and a text preserved in Corpus 162 and Oxford, Bodleian Hatton 116, no. 3. The Old English texts represent four independent translations from the Latin text(s) lying behind them and written as long ago as the fourth century or even the third century or second century. The surviving Old English versions have a pre-Ælfrician flavour and seem to belong to the middle or first half of the tenth century. The text of Corpus 41 has been printed by Förster and Willard.

Homily 4, beginning Men þa leofestan, her saȝað an þissū bocum ym ða miclan ȝewird, deals with the Ascension and with much pseudepigraphal material from the Gospel of Nicodemus. The text of Corpus 41 has been printed by Hulme, and shares the address of Christ to the sinners, beginning Ego te, O homo, with Christ III in the Exeter Book and three texts of Vercelli homily 8. The Corpus 41 text is close in meaning to the Vercelli text but very different in wording, coming probably from an exemplar containing a different translation of some Latin homily based on Caesarius and perhaps St Gregory's Homelia Prima.

Homily 5, beginning Men ða leofestan, us is to worðianne ⁊ to mærsianne seo ȝemind þæs halȝan heahenȝles Sce Michaeles, enumerates the functions of St Michael. It is not so much a homily but a hymn or incantation that may be arranged into twenty-eight sections of varying length, of which twenty-five open with the formula Ðis is se halȝa heahenȝel Scs Michael, which is probably derived from the Roman liturgy's Hic est Michael Archangelus. This unique encomium has been edited by Grant, and in its apocryphal and Celtic interest takes its place in Corpus 41 alongside the other rare apocryphal homilies on the Assumption, Doomsday, and the Ascension and alongside the Latin portion of charm 4.

Homily 6, beginning MEN Ð L, ȝehirað nu hu Drihten wæs sprecende on þas tid to his ȝeferum, is a very close translation of Matthew 26.1-27.65 with homiletic introduction and conclusion. The unique text has been edited by Grant. The last nineteen lines of this homily are partly illegible because page 488 previously served as endleaf and suffered accordingly. The bulk of the text is preserved legibly enough, however, on the blank pages at the end of the Old English Bede text.

The Old English rubrics on pages 2, 21, and 483 for Latin masses and on pages 272 and 326 for Latin charms are of no great significance.

Latin charm 1, wið ealra feoda ȝrimnessum, beginning Dextera dni fecit uirtutē, has been edited by Cockayne, Grant, and Storms. Lines 1-3 are from Psalm 118.16-17 and lines 4-7 are from Exodus 15.6-7. The whole text is a lorica for protection in this life and the next. Lines 11-29, Cedite a capite to ll effuie, are also found in Læceboc and Lacnunȝa, the text of Corpus 41 being closer to that of Lacnunȝa, but the longer extracts in Læceboc and Lacnunȝa are for quite different purposes from the Corpus 41 lorica.

Latin charm 2, wið sarum eaȝum, beginning Dne sce pat omps aetne deus, sana occulos, has been edited by Cockayne and Storms. This charm is also found in Lacnunȝa and in the Durham Ritual. The charm in Lacnunȝa is found directly after the Old English charm corresponding to Corpus 41, Old English charm 3, serving to confirm a relationship between the two manuscripts.

Latin charm 3, wið sarū earum, beginning Rex glorie Xre Raphaelem anglm exclude fandor,aohel, and Latin charm 4, wið maȝan seocnesse, beginning Adiuua nos ds salutaris noster, are unique to Corpus 41 and have been edited by Cockayne and Storms.

Latin charm 5, beginning Creator & scificator Pater & Filius, has been edited by Grant and Storms and is unique to Corpus 41 in Old English. This is another lorica, noteworthy for its containing the 'sator' formula, the palindrome sator arepo tenet opera rotas.

The missal texts are selected from the Temporale, Sanctorale, and Missae Votivae sections of the supplemented Roman Sacramentary of the tenth century and eleventh century. The missal extracts have been identified and collated by Grant, and constitute a considerable portion of the Temporale of a regular missal in continuous form and several other masses from the Temporale, Sanctorale, and Missae Votivae more haphazardly and irregularly. Comparison with the other three English missals surviving from before the Conquest, The Leofric Missal (Oxford, Bodleian 579), the Missal of Robert of Jumièges (Rouen, Public Library Y. 6), and the Red Book of Darley (Corpus 422) suggests that Corpus 41's principal exemplar for the marginal liturgical material belonged to the same Continental (and probably Lotharingian) tradition as the Jumièges and Leofric Missals.

The Latin rubric on page 287 before homily 3 and that on page 295 before homily 4 are of no great importance.

The bilingual text appears on page 488 just after the closing lines of the final homily. It has been printed by Förster, James, Miller, and Schipper, and records the gift of Corpus 41 to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric. Corpus 41 is not mentioned in the list of Leofric's benefactions, which was drawn up during his lifetime. The greatest likelihood is that the additional matter was already in the margins when Leofric obtained the manuscript and subsequently donated it to Exeter Cathedral after the compilation of the list of his donations. The presence of the Leofric inscription does not localise Corpus 41 to Exeter but permits one to state that the manuscript was at Exeter in the possession of Leofric within less than half a century of its compilation.