The vernacular translation of the Old English Bede, the main text of CCCC41, was written in the early eleventh century (s. xii) by “two scribes working simultaneously” (Grant 1), with each scribe commencing on page 1 and page 207 respectively. The two principal hands are described as being both “clear and black” (James 81), although one of which, specificially the hand beginning on page 207, is considered “remarkably large” (James 81). The marginal texts have been attributed to a third scribe who wrote these texts into the margins of the manuscript “at the same date [as the composition of the main text] or a little later, in the middle of the eleventh century” (Grant 1).

An inscription clearly addresses the reader in six verses on pages 483-4, however, explicitly asserting that a single scribe wrote this book with their two hands: “ic...þe ðas boc awrat bam handum twam”(CCCC41 483-4). This overt claim has and continues to perplex scholars as the palaeographical evidence seems to suggest that two scribes, working independently yet simultaneously, were responsible for writing the main text. The inscription on CCCC41's concluding pages, however, emphatically refutes this possibilty, insisting instead that the manuscript is the endeavour of a single individual. Moreover, the scribe's declaration is not accompanied by a signature and so the scribe - or scribes - of CCCC41, regrettably, remain anonymous.

While the composition of the manuscript cannot be traced to a single or specific group of individuals there is further evidence from the marginalia to associate it with a specific place. The final inscription on page 488 of the manuscript unambiguously states, in Latin and Old English, that this particular manuscript witness of the Old English Bede was gifted to St Peter’s Church in Exeter by Bishop Leofric.

The Latin inscription reads:

The vernacular translation of this Latin inscription is provided immediately underneath by the scribe and is as follows:

While this inscription plainly affiliates the manuscript with Bishop Leofric and St Peter’s Church in Exeter, CCCC41 is not listed as one of Leofric’s benefactions in the Codex Exoniensis; a codex which contains a detailed list of the various books gifted by Bishop Leofric to the different ecclesiastical centres in late Anglo-Saxon England. In spite of this scholars have accepted this manuscript witness of the Old English Bede as one of Bishop Leofric’s later benefactions, thereby interpreting the inscription “as fixing the date of the manuscript about the time of the Conquest” (Miller xvi).

There is further evidence yet to be drawn regarding the origin of the manuscript itself. Grant has remarked that CCCC41 is not made of the “finest-quality vellum” (1); this combined with the irregularly inserted decorative initials has led him and other scholars to surmise that the manuscript originated from “a provincial scriptorium of no great size” (Keefer 147). Although Grant does highlight that CCCC41 contains two “most interesting” drawings towards the end of the manuscript (1), namely the drawing of the Passion of Christ on p. 484 and what appears to be a cherub-figure on the adjacent p. 485. Wormwald assigns these two drawings to the “first” style and the “Winchester” school (1952 26-9, 1945 131-3). However, despite their association with the elegant style of line drawing characteristic of the Winchester school (Webster 177), the incomplete nature of both these drawings does indeed seem to support Grant and Keefer’s deduction that CCCC41 “is not the best work of a leading monastic house” (Grant 1).

Works Cited

Anzelark, Daniel ed. and trans. The Old English Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2009. Print.

Brown, Michelle. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600. London: The British Library, 1990. Print.

Grant, Raymond J. S. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41: The Loricas and the Missal. Amsterdam: Rodopi N. V., 1979. Print.

James, M. R. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 2 vols. Cambridge: University Press, 1912.

Keefer, Sarah Larratt. “Margin as Archive: The Liturgical Marginalia of a Manuscript of the Old English Bede.” Traditio 51 (1996): 147–177. Print.

Miller, Thomas, ed. The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. London: N. Trübner, 1890. Print. EETS nos 95, 96, 110, 111.

O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print. Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 4.

Webster, Leslie. Anglo-Saxon Art. London: The British Museum Press, 2012. Print.

Wormwald, Francis. “Decorated Initials in English MSS. from A. D. 900 to 1100,” Archaeologia 91 (1945): 131-3. Print.

---. English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. London: Faber and Faber, 1952. Print.