Volume / Number: 10 / 1587

• Utrecht Netherlands University Library 32 (eccl. 484) (foll. 94–105)

Written in the Northumbrian monasteries of Wearmouth-Jarrow, during or just after the abbacy of Ceolfrid (†716). While our leaves were in the possession of Sir Robert Cotton (or possibly before this) they were bound with the famous illustrated psalter which originated in the ninth century presumably at Hautvilliers near Rheims and later may have been at Canterbury. The volume was bequeathed to the Utrecht library by Wilh. de Ridder (†1716).

Script is very calligraphic uncial of the unmistakable types which flourished in the twin Northumbrian abbeys of Wearmouth-Jarrow under Abbot Ceolfrid, who is responsible for the Codex Amiatinus (cf. CLA 3.299) with which our manuscript seems to have several scribes in common and with which it shares the same interesting hierarchy of uncial scripts: the Gospels are in bold, stately uncial in which there is strong contrast between thick and thin strokes; the prologues are in the same type on a somewhat smaller scale; the capitula (on foll. 97v–100v) are in an altogether different and more modest type, identical with that seen in the Stonyhurst St John (CLA 2.260) as well as in the capitula of the Codex Amiatinus: here there is little shading and a virtual absence of serifs; a feature common to these types is the occasional use of a shallow, sloping S in ligature at line-end; capital forms are sometimes used at line-ends when space is limited. Noteworthy is the occurrence of the Insular subscript i after M on fol. 96. Some minor corrections saec. XII.

• Text: MSS containing biblical text (including Gospels)
• Text: MSS containing Gospel text