Volume / Number: 6 / 765

• Laon France Bibliothèque Municipale 137

Written probably at Laon. Provenance apparently the Carthusian monastery of Val S Pierre near Laon. Members of the same group are Laon 423 (see next item), Colmar 45 + Bern 380 (CLA 6.752), Cambridge, C.C.C. 334 (CLA 2.128), London B.M. Add. 31031 (CLA 2.174), Paris Lat. 2024 (fol. 130) (CLA 5.539), Lat. 12168 from Corbie (CLA 5.630), Basel NI 4 A + Freiburg im Breisgau 483, 12.

Script is a pre-Caroline French minuscule of a distinct type, known as Laon a-z: open a is formed by two angular c's; the stem of d goes below the line and its bow is open when preceded by o; e has a knob-like fore-stroke; sickle-shaped suprascript u in the endings -bus, -mus, -tur; y has two forms; z in this manuscript has the normal minuscule form; ligatures with ꞇ and enclitic i— fi, gi, ri, ti, are frequent; final t after i and n is often reduced to a mere virgula; ti ligature is used mostly for the hard sound; the cedilla of e is drop-shaped. G with the tail turned to the right and capital H with the arched middle stroke recall forms found in Corbie manuscripts. Capital M with the second stroke extending far beyond the third is strongly reminiscent of Luxeuil. A cryptogram with the letters ꞅ, s, and s, and a sequence of dotted shapes which spells 'Orosius' occurs after the last Explicit.

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