Volume / Number: 11 / 1606

• St Petersburg Russia Russian National Library Lat. F. v. I. 11 (foll. 1–249)

Written doubtless by Corbie scribes who, if the following inscriptions be genuine, must have worked on the island of Noirmoutier (Hero) for Abbot Adalhard while he was exiled there (814–21). The inscriptions read: ‘hic codex iubente adalardo hero fuit scriptus’ (saec. XI–XII) and ‘hic codex hero insula scriptus fuit iubente sco patre Adalhardo dum exularet ibi’ (saec. XII). These inscriptions, it should be noted, are a much later addition, but it is a proven fact that this curious artificial script did actually survive into the second decade of the ninth century. The manuscript was taken from Corbie to Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1638, where it bore the numbers 507 and 460. Acquired by Peter Dubrowsky in 1791 and by the Imperial Library in 1805.

Script, by numerous scribes, is minuscule of a special type called a-b from its distinguishing letters which is fully described in CLA 5.554; for a list of manuscripts in this script see CLA, 6, p. xxv f. A change of hand is seen even in mid-quire and at the beginning of as many as thirteen quires.

☛Bischoff, Katalog 2 no. 2308. ☛Index Tironianorum.

• Provenance: Corbie library—MSS in a-b script (Ganz 1990)