Volume / Number: 2 / 270

• Dublin Ireland Trinity College MS 52

Written at Armagh ca. 807 at the bidding of Torbach ‘ΔΙΚΤΑΝΤΕ ΤΟΡΒΑΚͰ’ (fol. 53v) by Ferdomnach, who signs at the end of Mark and Luke and on foll. 215 and 221. He is doubtless correctly identified with the ‘Ferdomnach sapiens et scriba optimus Airddmachae’ of the Annals of Ulster who died in 845. But he apparently wrote only part of this MS. The MS was sold or pledged by the last of its hereditary keepers in or soon after 1680. Until 1853 it belonged to the Brownlow family, later to Bishop William Reeves, then to Lord John George Beresford, Primate of Ireland, who gave it to Trinity College in 1854.

Script is an elegant pointed Irish minuscule with not infrequent lapses into cursive: noteworthy are the form of t resembling a giraffe-like z, the form of e in ligature with the lower bow reversed, the fi ligature resembling a monogram of ꞅ and s, superior a in combination resembling letter e, the use of uncial A and even uncial M, and the use of Greek letters to spell Latin words (Pater Noster, colophons, amens, running title). Foll. 20–104 and 213–221 are by the scribe Ferdomnach; foll. 105–212 seem to be by another hand, and the opening 18 leaves (Patriciana) by still another.

☛Gamber, CLLA 146. ☛McGurk, Gospel books and early Latin manuscripts (1998) Article 2. ☛L. Bieler, ‘The Notulae in the Book of Armagh’ Scriptorium 8 (1954) 89–97. ☛Weber-Gryson, Vulgata MS D (Laod).

• https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/3j333696h?locale=en
• http://www.confessio.ie/manuscripts/dublin#1

• Text: MSS containing biblical text (including Gospels)
• Text: MSS containing Gospel text
• Script: MSS with named scribes (John 1995 with additions)
• Text: MS witnesses to Weber-Gryson, Vulgata text (Appendix)