Volume / Number: 2 / 273

• Dublin Ireland Trinity College MS 57 (A. IV. 5)

Written in Northumbria by a hand trained in the Irish manner, and copied from an exemplar in the hand of St Columba, the founder of Durrow, to judge by the two subscriptions on fol. 247v: ‘Rogo beatitudinem tuam sancte praesbiter patrici ut quicumque hunc libellum manu tenuerit meminerit columbae scriptoris. qui hoc scripsi himet euangelium. per xii dierum spatium. gratia domini nostri s.s.’; and under this, after a space of seven lines: ‘Ora pro me frater mi dominus tecum sit’. The silver cumdach, a gift from Flann, King of Ireland (†916), is now lost, but a copy of its dedicatory inscription to Columb Cille was entered on the MS in 1677. The MS came into the hands of Henry Jones, Scoutmaster-general to Cromwell’s army in Ireland and Vice-Chancellor of Dublin University, who became Bishop of Meath in 1661. He presented it to Trinity College. The Gospel text is of the Northumbrian family (A and Y). Palaeographically there is kinship with the Codex Epternacensis, Paris Lat. 9389 (CLA 5.578).

Script is an expert calligraphic majuscule using Ꝺ d, N n, R r, S ꞅ, with ꝺ, n, r, S perhaps the more frequent: g in ligature with n or r resembles an elongated S; uncial A is used here and there, preferably at the beginning of a word; uncial M lying sideways occurs at line-ends; ligatures of ae, nt and ui occur; occasionally Greek letters are used. A less stately, more fluent script is found on fol. 116.

☛CLA first-edition date (VIII) changed to follow CLA 6, p. X and second edition; folio of subscriptions (12v) changed to follow manuscript foliation. ☛R. Powell, ‘The Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow’ Scriptorium 10 (1956) pp. 3–21. ☛Gamber, CLLA 142. ☛McGurk, Gospel books no. 86. ☛Weber-Gryson, Vulgata MS D (Ev).

• https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/wm117t53k?locale=en

• Text: MSS containing biblical text (including Gospels)
• Text: MSS containing Gospel text
• CLA information changed
• Text: MS witnesses to Weber-Gryson, Vulgata text (New Testament)