Page:Gospel of Saint John in West-Saxon.djvu/20

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xvi

Introduction

face to the Gospel of St. Mark:^[1] "At the beginning of the MS. (but added afterwards) are certain forms of manumissions. All of them are connected with St. Peter's Abbey-church at Bath.... At the end of the Gospel of St. John are two Latin documents of later date, both referring to Bath. At the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew is this note - Ego Ælfricus scripsi hunc librum in Monasterio Baðþonio et dedi Brihtwoldo preposito. Seemingly conclusive evidence is thus furnished that this copy of the Version was made at, or near, Bath; but hitherto neither Ælfric the scribe^[2] nor Brihtwold the prior has been identified. There is also a homily, "Scriptum de Coelo Delapsum," at the end of the Gospel of St. Mark; but from this nothing has been learned with reference to the Gospels. This is true also of the "lists of popes and of English archbishops and bishops" at the end of the Gospel of St. Luke. As to the date of the Corpus MS. copy of the Version, it may be placed, with considerable certainty, within the last decade of the tenth century or the first decade of the eleventh, with some degree of probability in favor of the second of these decades. This copy stands closest to the original and is therefore the primary authority for the text.

B. - MS. Bodley 441 (formerly NE. F. 3. 15) of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was also doubtless once in Archbishop Parker's possession. The provenance of the MS.has not been determined. When it came into the hands of

↑ The Gospel according to Saint Mark in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions (Cambridge, University Press, 1871), pp. v, vi. In further references to Professor Skeat's edition of these Gospels (see the Bibliography), the titles and dates of the separate volumes will not be given.
↑ "It deserves to be mentioned that the scribe Ælfric did not write the whole of the Gospels himself; for in the Gospel of St. Mark, from the word gorst-beam [beginning with -beam] (xii, 26) to he [i.e. ending with sæde] (xli, 38), there is a single page written in a different and inferior hand." Skeat, Preface to Mark p. v.

[1] The Gospel according to Saint Mark in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions (Cambridge, University Press, 1871), pp. v, vi. In further references to Professor Skeat's edition of these Gospels (see the Bibliography), the titles and dates of the separate volumes will not be given.

[2] "It deserves to be mentioned that the scribe Ælfric did not write the whole of the Gospels himself; for in the Gospel of St. Mark, from the word gorst-beam [beginning with -beam] (xii, 26) to he [i.e. ending with sæde] (xli, 38), there is a single page written in a different and inferior hand." Skeat, Preface to Mark p. v.

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