Volume / Number: 6 / 713

• Arras France Bibliothèque Municipale 644 (572)

Written presumably in Northern France in the centre which produced Einsiedeln 191 (277) containing the same collection of Canons; the two manuscripts agree in size, colour of decoration and other palaeographical features including the perculiar form of z. Provenance the abbey of St Vaast at Arras: the press-mark 'Bibliothecae Monasterii S. Vedasti Atrebatensis. 1628' stands on fol. 2.

Script is neat, careful, small Caroline minuscule by several hands: caroline a is the rule, open a the exception; the hasta of e at the end of words often turns up; z has two forms, one descends below the line and is crossed by a horizontal bar, the other has the first and last stroke crescent-shaped; ligatures nt, ta, ti, tr occur; the hand on foll. 109v–113v recalls St Amand minuscule. Uncial headings often have b minuscule; the tail of G frequently turns to the right; capital Q recalls the numeral 2. Contemporary corrections in olive-grey ink (foll. 47, etc.). Numerous corrections in ninth-century Caroline minuscule; extensive additions saec. IX on foll. 212v–213v. Notae Tironianae passim.

☛Bischoff, MAS 1 p. 83; MAS 3 p. 14. ☛Bischoff, Frühkarolingische Handschriften und ihre Heimat, p. 306. ☛Bischoff, Katalog 1 no. 88. ☛Index Tironianorum.