Bede — 10th century, first quarter to middle; England(place of origin unknown)

Title

Bede — 10th century, first quarter to middle; England(place of origin unknown)

Shelfmark

MS. Tanner 10

Place of origin

England(place of origin unknown)

Date

10th century, first quarter to middle

Language

Old English (ca. 450-1100)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment, generally arranged in the insular fashion (HFHF) except in quire 16 (Gameson, 1992, pp. 194-5)

Physical extent

i + 139 + i leaves

Hands

Scribe 1, main hand (fols 1r-102v, 104r/7-104v; 116v/13 (word 6}-17; 116v/1-12. "Revived Insular minuscule" (Gameson). The high e ligatures include ea, ec, eo, but in the ligatures eg and et the e is of normal height, the join being achieved by making the headstrokes of g and t with an upward slope: a is square in the ligature ea, but elsewhere more or less rounded : the tall i is used in the word in: the three forms of s are used, but long s is never used finally and round s is infrequent: y is rounded and without dot: at a line-end the second stroke of n and h is often prolonged downwards: descenders are long and tapering: abbreviations include ō (on or ond), n3 (nus, in proper names) : the writing extends to the outer of the two bounding lines.

Scribe 2: 103r-104r/5; 115v-116r/13 (word 5); 116r/17 - the bottom of the folio; 116v/13-117v/I3 (word 2). "Early Square minuscule" (Gameson). Features of hand (2) which alternates with the main hand on fols 103r, 104r, 115r-17r are the square, straight-topped a, the use of ae for æ often, the outward twist to the end of the curve of final t, and the doubling of long vowels (doomes, haam, uut)

Scribe 3: is of a skilled mid-tenth-century type, Caroline minuscule, rather like that of Tib. A. vi: it occurs only on the inserted quire, fols 105r-14r, and on the rewritten page which follows it (fol. 115r).

Scribe 4, "poor" (Ker). 117v/13 (word 3}-126r; 132r-139v. A deeply split low s and makes frequent use of a ‘horned’ a, in which the 'horn' is little more than a dot on a level with the top of the letter on the right side

Scribe 5, fols. 126v-131v. Slopes and has an exaggeratedly tall form of the high e.

Decoration

A lively zoomorphic initial in red, green, and brown begins each paragraph throughout quires 1-14, except on the inserted leaves 105-14, where spaces for initials have been left blank, and on fols 58r-66r (Interrogationes Augustini), where the initials are alternately red and black. The decoration of fols 117r-39r is crude and incomplete. For further description and analysis see R. Gameson 'The decoration of the Tanner Bede', Anglo-Saxon England (21) 1992, 115-159; for analysis of pigments, R. Gameson et al., The Pigments of British Medieval Illuminators (London, 2023), 115.

Binding

Late 18th- or early 19th century binding, repaired 1898, rebacked 1954, kept separately with the manuscript.

Disbound and repaired at the Bodleian, 1975-9; further treatment including rebinding, 1996-2003 (conservation documentation is available).

Acquisition

Bequeathed by him to the Bodleian in 1735.

Provenance

Thorney, Cambridgeshire, Benedictine Abbey of Saint Mary the Virgin and St Botolph : former binding leaves are from a mortuary roll of William abbot of Thorney (now Tanner 10*), cf. Royal 15 A.x. ( MLGB3: evidence from binding or elements of a binding typical of a particular library, or pastedowns bearing evidence of provenance).

Thomas Tanner, 1674–1735

Title

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica

Shelfmark

MS. Tanner 10

Date

first half of the 10th century

Language

Old English (ca. 450-1100)

Physical extent

1 item