Volume / Number: 8 / 1048

• Berlin Germany Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz Hamilton Lat. fol. 553

Written in Northumbria. Belonged later to the monastery of St John at Laon, but there is no evidence for the tradition connecting it with St Salaberga (†665), the founder and abbess of that monastery; a twelfth-century inventory of St John’s is entered on fol. 26v. Bought by the Berlin Royal Library with the Hamilton Collection in 1883.

Script is a bold Anglo-Saxon majuscule by several scribes: d has both majuscule and minuscule forms, N and R are regularly majuscule, S mostly; uncial A occurs at line-ends; g has two forms, noteworthy is the uncial form with its curious tail; ligatures include NM and NS (in dnm, dns), NN (with a stroke above for nomen), and NT; the letters at line-ends and especially on the last line often assume fantastic forms and have lace-like arabesques hanging from the shafts (a Northumbrian feature). Corrections in eighth-century Insular majuscule and minuscule.

☛Gamber, CLLA 1613.

• Text: MSS containing biblical text (including Gospels)