Volume / Number: 6 / 762

• Epinal France Bibliothèque Municipale 149 (68)

Written at Tours in the year 744/5 at the order of an abbot Aricus who himself collated the manuscript and noted the fact in the familiar Tours manner. The manuscript belongs to a group which is on sound palaeographic grounds assignable to Tours (see CLA 5.682). The subscription on fol. 208v reads: ‘(A)ricus hunc librum scribere abba rogavit anno III regni Childirici regis. quicumque legerit obsecro ut pro ipso et obędientiam implentibus orare dignetur.' Provenance Murbach: two saec. XV ex-libris read: 'Iste liber est monasterii Morbacen. ordinis sancti Benedicti' (fol. 5) and 'Anno gratie MCCCCLXIIII reverendus dominus Bartolomeus de Andolo hunc librum renovavit. Orate pro eo.' Seen at Murbach by Th. Ruinart in 1696. Brought soon after to Moyenmoutier near St Dié: 'Mediani monasterii. 1717' (fol. 2).

Script is for the most part pre-Caroline semi-cursive minuscule by several expert hands recalling the Tours Eugippius (CLA 5.682); half-uncial is seen on some opening lines (foll. 59, 98, etc.): a has the open form (the Caroline a is first seen in the Hague Philippus of this group); c is often broken-backed; both N and n are used; sickle-shaped u is frequent even when not suprascript; curious forms of z occur with the middle intersected or tagged to the right; ti ligature is used. Greek letters occur as numerals on fol. 97v. Early corrections in greenish ink, seen also in other manuscripts of the same school. Marginalia in Notae Tironianae passim. Gromatical texts on the 'casae litterarum' are seen on foll. 2, 3, 3v, 4, 209, 209v, saec. IX in.; the same hand copied at the foot of fol. 208v the Aricus entry on the opposite page (fol. 209) where one still reads: 'ere . . . III regni Childerici'.

☛Index Tironianorum. ☛CLA date (VIII med) changed to follow K. Wallenwein 'Subscriptiones in karolingischen Codices' in Karolingische Klöster. ed. J. Becker et al. 23–37, who identifies Chilperic as Chilperic II of Neustria and the abbot as Agyricus.

• Origin: Merovingian MSS, a provisional handlist (Wood 2017)
• Script: MSS with reverse beta ti ligature
• CLA information changed