St. Wulfstan's Homiliary, part 1

Title

St. Wulfstan's Homiliary, part 1

Shelfmark

MS. Hatton 113

Summary

St. Wulfstan's Homiliary, part 1, consisting originally of sixty sermons in Old English with Latin rubrics. The three additional sermons noted in the complete list, fol. 11v (and found at fol. 230), are perhaps contemporary with the rest. This volume, which is apparently in the hand of the Worcester scribe Wulfgeatus (see MS. Junius 121), includes some sermons written by Wulfstan, bishop of Worcester (d. 1023), and seems to have been compiled for the use of his successor of the same name (1062-95). The interlinear and marginal Latin glosses are in the Worcester 'tremulous' hand (see MSS. Hatton 20, Hatton 76, Hatton 115-116, Junius 121). There are indexes by Dugdale, dated Aug. 12, 1644 and Aug. 5, 1644, at the end of each volume.

At fol. 1 is a letter (printed by Wanley, p. 26) from the cardinal priests of St. Peter's to bishop Wulfstan of Worcester summoning him to the Council of Winchester in 1070, followed by two prayers, for the peace of the church and for the king, in a slightly later hand

Fols. 1v-11 contain a liturgical calendar, formerly thought by mr. Edmund Bishop (Bosworth Psalter, p. 161) to have emanated from Evesham, but shown by the rev. H. M. Bannister in Early Worcester MSS., pp. lx-lxii, to be from Worcester, and described by sir Ivor Atkins (in Archaeologia, vol. 78 (1928), pp. 219-54, with transcript and facsimile) as a copy of one made at Peterborough by the monk Ervenius or Arnwi (c.1020-5) with additions made at Worcester (c.1064-70)

With a number of Saxon obits it includes under Nov. 23 'Obiit Edricus monachus et sacerdos qui scripsit hunc compotum'. Of the sermons, nos. 2-46 follow the church's year from Christmas to Whitsunday, and nos. 47-60 are for saints' days from st. Gregory to All Saints

Date

Written in the 11th century at Worcester

Language

Old English (ca. 450-1100)

Physical facet

On parchment, binding, white leather on boards, 14th century

Physical extent

147 Leaves

Custodial history

This part (cf. MS. Hatton 115) has an erased 16th-cent. inscription on fol. ii: 'Liber ecclesiae Wygorn'.'These two volumes, with MSS. Haton 115-116, were given to Bodley by sir Christopher Hatton in 1675, but are said to have been lent shortly afterwards by the Library to Thomas Marshall and by him to Francis Junius, on whose death they passed again to the Bodleian. (See Wanley's Catalogue, p. 43.)