Volume / Number: 5 / 524

• Paris France Bibliothèque Nationale de France Lat. 256 (foll. 1–168)

Written in France and most likely in the North. The manuscript was certainly in Gaul by the eighth century as liturgical entries in Merovingian charter hand suggest. On fol. 1 is seen the fifteenth-century St Denis press-mark: XIII. IIIc. IIIIxx. VI. The manuscript had the number 1895 in the Colbert collection and 3706.3.3 in the Royal collection (see fol. 1).

Script is a rather stiff and formal uncial in most of the manuscript, less formal on foll. 104–131v; descenders are long and thin; A in the formal hand recalls the Missale Gallicanum Vetus (CLA 1.92 and 93); U at line-ends is V-shaped here and there; Y, occasionally dotted, descends below the line and resembles half-uncial ꞅ. The end of a lesson on foll. 49v, 51v, is marked by ‘finit’ in unmistakable Merovingian cursive; similar cursive entries passim. Notae Tironianae on many pages (16v, 118, 167, I67v). On fol. 103v a Collect and Preface of a Missa de defunctis were added in crude cursive minuscule saec. VIII, with most barbaric spelling, e.g . hab, hanimam, haccipe, haquila, hysraillitas, hysaac, gabole (diaboli), gacob (jacob), gerusalem, uilculis (uinculis), segrita (secreta), conlogare, cahtoligam (catholicam), ecum (equum); ci occurs for ti.

☛Index Tironianorum.

• http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426032f

• Origin: Merovingian MSS, a provisional handlist (Wood 2017)
• Text: MSS containing biblical text (including Gospels)
• Text: MSS containing Gospel text