Glossing the Psalms: The Emergence of the Written Vernaculars in Western Europe from the Seventh to the Twelfth Centuries 9783110501865, 9783110500370

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Alderik H. Blom Glossing the Psalms

Alderik H. Blom

Glossing the Psalms The Emergence of the Written Vernaculars in Western Europe from the Seventh to the Twelfth Centuries

ISBN 978-3-11-050037-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-050186-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-049826-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, C.301 inf, fol. 85r Typesetting: fidus Publikations-Service GmbH, Nördlingen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Κανένα πλάσμα ζωντανό τ’ αγριοπερίστερα φευγάτα κι ο βασιλιάς της Ασίνης που τον γυρεύουμε δυο χρόνια τώρα άγνωστος λησμονημένος απ’ όλους κι από τον Όμηρο μόνο μια λέξη στην Ιλιάδα κι εκείνη αβέβαιη ριγμένη εδώ σαν την εντάφια χρυσή προσωπίδα. George Seferis, The King of Asine Nullum opus exsurgit quod non annosa uetustas expugnet, quod non uertat iniqua dies. grammata sola carent fato, mortemque repellunt: preterita renouant grammata sola biblis. Hrabanus Maurus, Ad Eigilum

Acknowledgements This book could not have been written without the help of numerous people. I gratefully acknowledge the time, the work and the manifold suggestions for improvement of Valerio Luigi Alberizzi, Rolf Bergmann, Jacopo Bisagni, Liam Breatnach, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., Dagmar Bronner, Thomas Charles-Edwards, Franck Cinato, Michael Clarke, Simon Corcoran, David Cram, Richard Dance, David N. Dumville, Jan Fellerer, Jürg Fleischer, Elvira Glaser, Shami Gosh, Anna Grotans, Wolfgang Haubrichs, Marged Haycock, Ernst Hellgardt, Nikolaus Henkel, Dafydd Johnston, Teiji Kosukegawa, Henrike Lähnemann, Pierre-Yves Lambert, Rosamund McKitterick, Birgit Meineke, Pádraic Moran, Andreas Nievergelt, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Dáibhi Ó Cróinín, Pádraig P. Ó Néill, Andy Orchard, Nigel F. Palmer, Erich Poppe, Arend Quak, Elisabeth Rieken, Paul Russell, Richard Sharpe, Patrick Sims-Williams, Stephanie Stricker, Marieken Teeuwen, Heinrich Tiefenbach, Paolo Vaciago, Lothar Voetz, John Whitman, Claudia Wich-Reif, Mark Williams, Jürgen Wolf and Matthew Zink. Needless to say, none of these colleagues is responsible for any remaining errors in this work. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the British Academy, whose Postdoctoral Fellowship allowed me to undertake this project and to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, for hosting it. Furthermore I wish to thank Jesus College, Oxford, for their research grants, and the administrative staff of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford, whose support and efficiency enabled me to complete this book despite the pressures of teaching and administration. A special thanks is due to my colleagues at NINJAL, Tokyo and Toyama University, for generously hosting two truly inspiring research visits to Japan. The staff of various libraries have lent me their professional help: the Bodleian and Taylor Institution Library, Oxford; St John’s College Library, Cambridge; the University Library, Cambridge; University College Library, Dublin; the British Library; the Lambeth Palace Library, London; the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg; the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München; the Studienbibliothek Dillingen; the Bibliothèque nationale de France; the Universiteitsbibliotheek Groningen and the Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw. On a more personal level I am deeply indebted to my family for their support and encouragement throughout, and to Piers Baker-Bates, Carl-Joakim Gagnon, Michael Ledger-Lomas, Ioanna Papaki, Rory Rapple, Kostas Skordyles and Snoepie. I dedicate this book to the years I lived in Shotover Cleve, where most of this book was written, often ‘in dürftiger Zeit’: semper in aeternum, o mea cella, uale. Oxford, 4 October 2016

Table of Contents Acknowledgements  Table of Contents  List of Abbreviations 

 VII  IX  XV

Part I Chapter 1: Introduction and Scope   3 1.1 Introduction    3 1.2 Structure of the Book   5 1.3 Summary   6 Chapter 2: 2.1 2.2.1 2.2.2

 9 Glosses and Glossing  What is meant by the Word ‘Gloss’?   9 Glosses and Glossators   12 ‘Paratextual Networks’: Glosses, Glossaries and Commentaries    14 2.3 Glossing, Glosses and Glossaries in the Medieval West  2.4 Functions and Types of Glossing   26 2.4.1 Introduction   26 2.4.2 Formal Aspects of Glossing: Script, Form and Location   2.4.3 Functional Aspects of Glossing   29 2.4.3.1 Substitution Glosses   29 2.4.3.2 Supplement Glosses   32 2.4.3.3 Commentary Glosses   34  37 Chapter 3: The Psalms  3.1 The Psalms in Monastic Life   37 3.2 The Text of the Latin Psalter   38 3.2.1 Spread and Use of the Different Psalter Versions  3.2.2 The Canticles   42 3.3 Psalm Commentaries   42 3.3.1 Introduction   42 3.3.2 The Latin Fathers   44 3.3.3 The Early Middle Ages   46

 40

 16

 27

X  3.4 3.5

 Table of Contents

Psalm Headings (tituli), Collects and Prefaces   48 Manuscript Presentation: Layout and Punctuation   50

Chapter 4: Two Psalters with Text Glossing: The Southampton and St Caimín Psalters   55 4.1 Introduction   55 4.2 The Southampton Psalter    55 4.2.1 The mise-en-page   56 4.2.2 Analysis   58 4.2.2.1 Latin Glossing   58 4.2.2.1.1 The First Stratum (G1)   59 4.2.2.1.2 The Second Stratum (G2)   62 4.2.2.2 Irish Glossing   64 4.2.2.2.1 The First Stratum (G1)   65 4.2.2.2.2 The Second Stratum (G2)   69 4.2.2.2.3 A Sample Analysis of Ps 77:46–47   73 4.3 The Psalter of St Caimín   76 4.3.1 The mise-en-page   76 4.3.2 Analysis   79 4.3.2.1 Latin Glossing: Principal Text   79 4.3.2.2 Irish Glossing: Principal Text   82 4.3.2.3 Irish Glossing: Paratext   85 4.4 Conclusion   87 Chapter 5: Two Glossed Commentaries: The Milan and Vatican Commentaries   91 5.1 Introduction   91 5.2 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, C.301 inf    91 5.2.1 Text and mise-en-page   92 5.2.1.1 Principal Text   92 5.2.1.2 Paratext   93 5.2.2 Analysis   95 5.2.2.1 Example 1    95 5.2.2.2 Example 2   98 5.2.2.3 Example 3    101 5.2.3 Irish Glossing   104 5.2.3.1 Form   104 5.2.3.2 Function and Typology   108 5.2.4 Latin Glossing   110 5.3 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 68 

 112



Table of Contents 

 113 5.3.1 Principal Text  5.3.2 Analysis   114 5.3.2.1 Example 1    115 5.3.2.2 Example 2   117 5.3.3 Latin Glosses   118 5.3.4 Old English Glosses    120 5.3.5 Old Irish Glosses   122 5.3.5.1 Substitution Glosses   123 5.3.5.2 Commentary Glosses   126 5.4 Conclusion   127

Part II Chapter 6: Introduction to Interlinear Versions   131 6.1 Introduction   131 6.2 West Germanic Interlinear Versions   132 6.3 Layout, Structure and Function of Interlinear Versions   141 Chapter 7: The Old Alemannic Psalter Fragments  7.1 Manuscript and Principal Text   141 7.2 Dialectal Affiliation, Date and Provenance   143 7.3 Historical Background   145 7.4 Analysis   146 7.5 Punctuation   154  161 Chapter 8: The Vespasian Psalter  8.1 Manuscript and Principal Text   161 8.2 Dialect, Date and Provenance   162 8.3 Analysis   164 8.3.1 Substitution Glossing and Agreement   164 8.3.2 Supplement Glossing   168 8.3.3 Structure and Glossing Strategy   169 8.4 Conclusion   172  175 Chapter 9: The ‘Lublin/Wittenberg’ Fragments  9.1 Manuscript and Principal Text   175 9.2 Script, Dialect and Provenance   177 9.3 Analysis   180

 135

 XI

XII 

 Table of Contents

9.3.1 Types of Glossing and Agreement   180 9.3.2 Structure and Glossing Strategy   185 9.4 Conclusion   187  189 Chapter 10: The Regius Psalter  10.1 Introduction   189 10.2 Script and Text   190 10.3 Analysis   192 10.3.1 Layout, Substitution Glossing and Agreement   10.3.2 Other Types of Glossing   197 10.3.2.1 Supplement Glosses   197 10.3.2.2 Commentary Glosses    199 10.3.3 Structure and Glossing Strategy    200 10.4 Conclusion   202 Chapter 11: The Paderborn Fragment  11.1 Introduction   205 11.2 Analysis   206

 205

 209 Chapter 12: The Lambeth Psalter  12.1 Introduction    209 12.2 Text and mise-en-page   210 12.3 Analysis   213 12.3.1 Construe Marks in the Principal Text   214 12.3.2 Construe Marks in the Paratext   217 12.3.3 Types of Glossing   221 12.3.3.1 Substitution Glosses   221 12.3.3.2 Supplement Glosses   223 12.3.3.3 Commentary Glosses   226 12.3.4 Structure and Glossing Strategy   226 12.4 Conclusion   229 Chapter 13: The Old Frisian Psalter Fragment  13.1 Introduction   231 13.2 Analysis   233

 231

Chapter 14: Interlinear Versions: Conclusion 

 241

 192



Table of Contents 

 XIII

Part III Chapter 15: Glossaries   245 15.1 Introduction   245 15.2 The Leiden/Rz Family and the Mondsee Glossary (M)   246 15.3 The Relationship between Manuscripts Clm 19440 and Clm 18140   250 15.3.1 Introduction   250 15.3.2 The Manuscripts   252 15.3.2.1 Clm 19440 (BStK 665)   252 15.3.2.2 Clm 18140 (BStK 637)   255 15.3.3 Treatment of Material taken from Clm 19440   257 15.3.3.1 General   257 15.3.3.2 Glosses from Clm 10440 Altered in Transmission   260 15.3.4 Material Not Derived from Clm 19440   267 15.3.4.1 Substitution Glosses   267 15.3.4.2 Other Additional Entries   268 15.3.4.3 Commentary Glosses   270 15.3.5 Latin and Old High German in Clm 19440 and Clm 18140   273 15.3.6 Conclusion   281  285 Chapter 16: Glossing the Psalms: Comparisons and Conclusions  16.1 Processes of Glossing: Compilation, Copying and Transmission   285 16.2 Paratextual Networks   287 16.3 Glossing: A Formal and Functional Analysis   288 16.4 The Uses of Glossed Manuscripts and Glossaries    292 16.5 Epilogue    293 Appendix: Functions and Types of Glosses  Bibliography 

 297

Manuscript Index  Subject Index 

 323

 327

 295

List of Abbreviations abl. ablative acc. accusative adj. adjective adv. adverb BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City British Library, London BL Bibliothèque municipale BM Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris BnF Bodleian Library, Oxford Bodleian Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich BSB Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CCSL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticarum Latinarum CSEL dat. dative fem. feminine fut. future gen. genitive Classical Greek Grk. impf. imperfect impv. imperative ind. indicative Lat. Latin masc. masculine Middle Dutch MDu Middle High German MHG Milan Glosses Ml Middle Low German MLG neut. neuter nom. nominative OE Old English OFri Old Frisian OHG Old High German Old Irish OI ÖNB Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna OS Old Saxon part. participle pass. passive PBB Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur perf. perfect PL Patrologia Latina pl. plural poss. possessive pres. present pret. preterite

XVI 

 List of Abbreviations

pron. pronoun sg. singular St Gall Glosses Sg subj. subjunctive Würzburg Glosses Wb

Part I

Chapter 1: Introduction and Scope 1.1 Introduction For native speakers of Celtic and Germanic languages in early medieval Europe, Latin was a foreign language that needed to be learned: literacy meant first and foremost Latin literacy.1 However, in order to become literate in that Mediterranean language with its prestigious classical and Christian heritage, the surviving manuscript evidence suggests that, besides Latin itself, there was a developing role for the vernaculars. Some of the earliest manuscript attestations of the medieval vernaculars of Western Europe therefore occur in the form of glosses: annotations inserted into the Latin texts that were studied. Nonetheless, the unique window that glosses provide unto the emergence of the early European written vernaculars has yet to be explored. It is with this form of vernacular use, therefore, within an otherwise overwhelmingly Latinate context, that this book is concerned. The close study and comparison of these glossed manuscripts may tell us when and why scribes switched from Latin into the vernacular, how the vernacular was used in studying Latin, how verbal glosses interact with other elements on the manuscript page such as construe marks and punctuation, and how such manuscripts were intended to be read. Only recently has the study of glosses and marginalia started to focus on broader issues such as their value as witnesses to literary and textual culture, the history of reading and the medieval transfer of learning: whereas the study of early medieval vernacular glosses tended until recently to be dominated by lexicographers and historical linguists, the last few decades have seen a broader and more interdisciplinary approach. This new interest has involved a more ‘holistic’ analysis of the entire manuscript context, including Latin glossing and other forms of annotation present on the page. This renewed interest in glossing has by now broadened its scope to study, among other things, the value of glosses as witnesses to literary and textual culture, the ways in which glosses were compiled and redacted, and the way in which they were used in medieval libraries and classrooms.2 However, while individual

1 See, for example, Gneuss, ‘Study’; Brown, ‘Dynamics’, pp. 109–118. 2 Cf. Lapidge, ‘Study’; Wieland, ‘Glossed Manuscript’; Reynolds, ‘Glossing Horace’; Schiegg, Frühmittelalterliche Glossen. For the later Middle Ages, Hunt, Teaching, remains indispensable. A new milestone is Handbuch. DOI 10.1515/9783110501865-001

4 

 Chapter 1: Introduction and Scope

instances of this phenomenon have been discussed, a large-scale comparison of early medieval glossing has not yet been undertaken.3 The recent attempts to trace the dynamics and the Sitz im Leben of glossing activity has firmly placed it within the wider context of the history of reading, writing and teaching in the medieval monasteries.4 Indeed, glosses have come to be regarded as the most important extant source for the study of all these forms of medieval literacy. It is glossing, together with other traces of active use such as probationes pennae, corrections and other forms of annotation, which can tell us anything about whether and how manuscripts were read. Thus, glosses are both the handmaiden of, and prime witnesses to, the early medieval acquisition, structuring and exchange of knowledge and thought, as well as to its encyclopaedic compilation in the form of glossaries. The study of vernacular and Latin glossing therefore directly contributes, not only to the history of the book and that of literacy in general, but also to the history of the exchange and appropriation of Latin learning. Glossing provides glimpses into the intellectual workshop of the medieval monasteries and, more specifically, into textual appropriation, translation strategies and the role of multilingual communication, as they took place in the margins and between the lines of medieval manuscripts.5 This volume therefore presents an innovative and interdisciplinary study of the glossing on one of the most frequently used and most intensively studied Latin texts of the Middle Ages: the Psalter. The Latin Psalter is particularly suitable for such an undertaking, as the central importance of the psalms in monastic life in the Middle Ages has resulted in a large number of surviving glossed psalters, glossaries and commentaries from Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish territories,6 constituting an early medieval ‘paratextual network’ (see 2.2.2 below) which should be studied as a whole. While most of these individual texts have received some attention in the past, they have not been included in a large-scale cross-disciplinary assessment. Moreover, previous studies have mostly focused on the English and German sources, leaving out the pivotally important material written in the Celtic languages, especially Irish. Equally important is the fact that most of the existing studies have appeared in languages other than English. Many

3 Cf. Lambert, ‘Rencontres’; Lambert, ‘Commentaires’; Lapidge, ‘School’; Huws, ‘Welsh Manu­ script’; Dumville, ‘Writers’, pp. 56–60. Particularly relevant is Mittelalterliche volkssprachliche Glossen, ed. Bergmann/Glaser/Moulin. 4 For the role of scriptoria, see Scarpatetti, ‘St. Galler Scriptorium’, pp. 41–42. 5 Cf. Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 1–2; Irving, Textual Culture, pp. 390–393. 6 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 20–27; Gretsch, Intellectual Foundations, pp. 13–17.



1.2 Structure of the Book 

 5

of the glossed texts and their modern scholarship are therefore here presented to the English-speaking public for the first time. Combining historical sociolinguistics, comparative philology, manuscript studies and cultural history, this volume therefore assesses and compares the interface of Latin and several different European vernaculars in the context of medieval bilingual and multilingual textual culture. The extensive reach of the volume enables readers to explore and compare when, how and for what purpose the Old Irish, Old English and Continental Germanic vernaculars came to be employed. It seeks to recover, where possible, what criteria governed a scribe’s choice of glossing language and reading strategy in a period covering the seventh to the twelfth centuries and in an area stretching from Ireland to Central Europe.

1.2 Structure of the Book This volume presents a comparative study of the types and functions of Latin and vernacular glossing. It treats the mise-en-page of a manuscript as a complete unit and concentrates on the understanding of the location and function of the glosses within what are complex and multi-layered texts.7 Introducing a new glossing typology which includes Latin glossing as well as non-verbal glossing such as construe marks and punctuation (see 2.4 below), the uses of vernacular glossing are studied in their manuscript context. In a carefully selected corpus of manuscripts from Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and Germanic-speaking Europe, the written uses of Celtic (Old Irish) and Germanic (Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon and Old Frisian) vernaculars, hitherto mostly studied in isolation, are compared and contrasted in their interface with Latin. The important glossing materials in the Brittonic Celtic languages, Welsh and Breton, could not be included as they do not concern the psalms. This study consists of three parts. Each of the three concentrates on a selection of manuscripts representing a specific type of glossing activity: glossed psalters and glossed commentaries (part 1), interlinear versions (part 2) and a selection of glossaries (part 3), all written in a combination of Latin and various vernaculars. Individual chapters offer new insights into these texts and frequently challenge received ideas on how the glosses were compiled, transmitted and used. The book’s chapters present detailed studies of different types of glossing in a selection of manuscripts, adopting a stimulating variety of perspectives and themes. In part 1, the introductory chapters 2 and 3 form a unity with chap-

7 Draak, ‘Construe Marks’; Dumville, ‘Thesaurus’.

6 

 Chapter 1: Introduction and Scope

ters 4 and 5, in that the concepts and methods set out in chapter 2 are illustrated by means of two psalters and two commentaries with vernacular glossing from the Irish tradition. Part 2, consisting of ten short chapters, shifts the attention to interlinear versions. In part 3, finally, chapter 15 treats another type of glossing, namely that of text glossaries. The final chapter 16 puts all the varied evidence for glossing the Psalms together, evaluating the concepts and methodologies set out in the introduction, summarising the results and putting these in a comparative European context. The book closes with an appendix on glossing typology and a full bibliography.

1.3 Summary Chapter 2, ‘Glosses and Glossing’, provides the necessary historical, methodological and theoretical background to this volume. Thus, section 2.3 presents a general discussion and definition of glossing activity and introduces the concepts used in this book (paratext, textual stratigraphy and redaction, paratextual network), section 2.4 provides a short history and overview of the glossing and glossary tradition in the early medieval West, whereas section 2.5 describes the various forms and functions which glossing might take and proposes a new typo­ logy, based on textual and linguistic function (substitution, supplementation and commentary). Chapter 3, ‘The Psalms’, subsequently provides the necessary cultural, textual and historical background on the role of the Psalter in monastic life during the period covered by this book, and that immediately preceding it. Chapter 4, ‘Psalters with Text Glossing’, illustrates the concepts and methods presented in chapter 2 with a thorough analysis of two highly complex and multi-layered texts: the only surviving psalters containing glosses in the Irish vernacular as well as in Latin. The Southampton Psalter and the Psalter of St Caimín both date from the eleventh century, even if the glosses can be shown to be signi­ ficantly older. Following the method of comparative analysis set out in chapter 2, the analysis centres on the mise-en-page of the two manuscripts as a complete unit. Thus, various types of paratext are analysed and traced, the different layers of textual accretion in Latin and Irish are identified, and their interaction and interrelationship studied in section 4.3.3. The notion of ‘paratextual networks’ is illustrated by an analysis of the sources and interrelationships of the paratext, both Latin and Irish, with other extant, sometimes much older, manuscripts. Most importantly, however, the Latin and the vernacular paratext is compared and contrasted in terms of form, script and location on the page, as well as in terms of function (substitution, supplementation, commentary) and the extent to

1.3 Summary 

 7

which it is part of the matrix syntax of the principal text. It is likely that notions of textual hierarchy, which also applied to the use of script, informed the different uses of Latin and Irish. Perhaps the vernacular was not regarded as prestigious enough to be a means of commenting on the ipsissima verba of the Bible, but was regarded as a fitting means of glossing its authoritative paratext. Chapter 5, ‘Glossed Commentaries’, develops the concepts (principal versus paratext, textual stratigraphy and redaction, paratextual network) and methods (functional typology) introduced previously and extends the analysis presented in chapter  4 to a thorough study of the only two surviving psalter commentaries containing glosses in Latin and the Irish and, in the second case, Irish and Old English vernaculars: the Milan Commentary dating from around 800 and the Vatican Commentary from the mid-eighth century. Again the focus lies on the mise-en-page as a complete unit, demonstrating how the Latin and vernacular items and the non-verbal glossing (in the shape of punctuation and construe marks) function in relation to each other and to the principal text of the Latin Psalter they seek to explain. The chapter illustrates how the Milanese manuscript constitutes a highly complicated text in which Latin and Old Irish glosses, together with different systems of diacritical marks, form a complex reading system in aid of understanding the Latin commentary. A detailed discussion of the Vatican Commentary bears out that such commentaries, when seen as part of a paratextual network surrounding the Psalter consisting of Latin and vernacular material, are often very close to what are usually called glossaries. It is also demonstrated that some of the paratext in these commentaries, both Latin and Irish, also occurs in the two glossed psalters discussed in the previous chapter and is a further indication of the interconnectedness of psalters, commentaries and glossaries on the psalms. The second part of the book, consisting of chapters 6 to 14, shifts the attention to a different type of glossing only found in the West Germanic languages: the continuous interlinear gloss, or interlinear version. A theoretical introduction (chapter 6) synthesises previous scholarship – for the greater part never before discussed in English – and sets out this glossing technique’s antique roots and later medieval development. Subsequently a thorough linguistic analysis is presented of the layout, grammar, function and pragmatics of a selection of psalters with continuous vernacular glossing in Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon and Old Frisian from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. This selection of manuscripts shows that interlinear versions occur in psalters with many different uses: classroom book, liturgy, private study and devotion. The separate manuscript studies also add a wealth of new information on aspects such as the Latin text used, palaeography, punctuation, Latin glossing, and cultural and historical background. A comparison of these manuscripts, finally, illustrates the

8 

 Chapter 1: Introduction and Scope

resemblances and connections, but especially the striking differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Continental interlinear glossing strategies. It shows that the forms and uses of interlinear versions are much more variable and complicated than hitherto thought and in some cases show many resemblances to commentaries and glossaries. Chapter 16, ‘Glossaries’, forms the mainstay of the third part of the book, which treats a further type of glossing, namely the text glossary. Even though the biblical glossaries of early medieval Europe originated in the Anglo-Saxon world, this chapter focuses specifically on the tradition as it developed once it been introduced to the German-speaking area, as this material has rarely before been discussed in English. The chapter opens with a survey of the extant Continental material and the textual connections with both its Anglo-Saxon antecedents as well as its later development on the Continent. The remainder of the chapter focuses on two closely related eleventh-century manuscripts associated with the abbey of Tegernsee in southern Bavaria: Clm 19440 and Clm 18140. The glossaries in these two manuscripts, with entries in Latin and Old High German, are situated within their complex mutual paratextual relationships and the overarching tradition of biblical glossaries and commentaries as a whole. The case study contains a detailed analysis of the manner in which the scribe of Clm 18140 excerpted Latin and Old High German glosses from Clm 19440, as well as a thorough investigation of the material derived from other sources, both Latin and vernacular, which can be mostly identified within the library at Tegernsee itself. The chapter therefore provides a unique window unto those processes central to the book at large – the compilation of glosses and glossaries, the copying and adding of entries, and the language choices and changes of dialect this may have entailed – and thus sheds new light on the respective roles of Latin and vernacular in the compilation of glossaries and the study and teaching of Scripture in general. Chapter 17, ‘Glossing the Psalms: Comparisons and Conclusions’, finally, puts all the varied evidence for glossing the psalms together, evaluating the concepts and methodologies set out in the introduction, summarising the results and putting these in a comparative European context. The themes considered in this final chapter include the processes of glossing (compilation, copying and transmission); vernacular language use and language choice, including code-switching; glossing strategies (substitution, supplementation, commentary); reading strategies of glossed manuscripts (the pragmatics of punctuation, construe marks, and verbal glossing in their various combinations); the uses of glossed manuscripts and glossaries (classroom, liturgy, private devotion, study), and the coherence of the glossing tradition on the psalms in terms of paratextual networks in Latin and the various vernaculars. The chapter concludes with reflections on the significant cultural and historical role of glossing.

Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing 2.1 What is meant by the Word ‘Gloss’? The study of marginalia, and of glosses in particular, is still a rather marginal area of philological study. However, glossing is a very common, and perhaps even universal, activity in written cultures all over the world. Indeed, glossing is not only typical for the Western tradition, nor is it limited to the European Middle Ages.8 Moreover, glossing is not necessarily limited to written cultures. In fact, it has been suggested that glosses are intrinsic to language, functioning as a metalinguistic aid to elucidate inevitable complexities of homonymy and polysemy arising in any utterance. As such, glosses may ultimately find their origin in spoken language.9 Therefore, even though this study deals primarily with its written manifestations, it is helpful to think of glossing not only in terms of a final product, but as a recursive process, especially in those cases where paratextual elements are added, possibly repeatedly, onto other elements of precisely the same type, that is, gloss-on-gloss, or commentary-on-commentary. The recursive properties of glossing, as a process, link it theoretically to very powerful and pervasive reflexive properties in natural language.10 These features suggest that the practice of reading and writing glosses, summarised in the words of William of Conches (ca. 1090–after 1154) as aliorum superflua recidentes, pretermissa addentes, obscura elucidantes, male dicta remouentes, bene dicta imitantes ‘the cutting of superfluous additions by others, adding which has been omitted, elucidating obscure things, removing what is badly put, imitating what is well said’,11 must be regarded as a rule, rather than an exception, within any literate culture. In fact, glossing should be seen as a prototypical aspect of literary practice, and

8 Interesting parallels can be found, for example, in the early medieval Sinosphere. In Japan, a complicated system of kunten marks was used from the eighth century onwards to clarify the meaning and grammatical construction of texts in Classical Chinese; see Harumichi, ‘Japanese and Korean Devices’; Komai/Rohlich, Introduction. A similar system, known as kugyŏl, was used in Korea; see King, ‘kugyŏl Glosses’. On the East Asian glossing material in general, see Whitman, ‘Ubiquity’. For an attempt to apply Western terminology to the East Asian material, see Whitman/Oh/Park/Alberizzi/Tsukimoto/Kosukegawa/Takada, ‘International Vocabulary’. For a first comparison of the medieval European and East Asian traditions, see Whitman’s, Kosukegawa’s and Alberizzi’s contributions in Whitman/Cinato, Lecture vernaculaire. 9 Julia, Fixer le sens, p. 11. 10 D. Cram (p. c.). 11 William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem, prologus; cited in Caiazzo, Lectures, p. 51. DOI 10.1515/9783110501865-002

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its early medieval manifestations are part of a tradition which, despite many changes and transformations, continues until the present day. Even so, the term gloss is in need of closer definition. As a rule, a gloss cannot exist on its own, because its stands in a genetic, more or less specific, relation with a part of the text which carries it. The written utterance, whether a single word or a group of words, to which the gloss is responding, and to which it is inseparably linked, is called its lemma.12 A lemma can generate a large variety of different types of glosses. In order to account for this variety, therefore, a clear definition, as well as a typology of form and function needs to be outlined at the start. Scholarship on glossing has hitherto been somewhat hampered by the various uses of the term gloss.13 The word gloss itself is derived from Greek γλῶσσα, literally ‘tongue’ or ‘language’, but also an ‘(obscure) word’.14 Borrowed into Latin as glossa it came to mean ‘a difficult word to be explained’.15 A derived form glos­ (ul)a ‘commentary’ added further to the range of meanings attached to the term, with the result that long texts providing a running commentary on another text, for example the Glossa Ordinaria, a twelfth-century commentary on the Bible, are also known as a ‘gloss’. Even so, these definitions only account for a small part of the secondary additions which can be found in any annotated manuscript. Recent research has therefore indicated that the traditional ‘Isidorian’ definition of a gloss as an ‘explicative note on a rare or obscure word’,16 should be abandoned in favour of a (much) broader definition, in order to include anything on the page which is not text proper, but which is intended to comment on the text.17 In any annotated manuscript two types of graphic elements can be distinguished. On the one hand there is the principal text, on the other the paratext, which classifies a given manuscript as ‘annotated’ or ‘glossed’. Normally these paratextual elements are distinguished by their different script and position on the page, marking them as secondary elements provided to guide and facilitate the reading of the principal text.18 The use of a ‘hierarchy of scripts’ and differ-

12 Holtz, ‘Glossaires’, p. 20. 13 Cinato, GLOSE, pp. 77–81. 14 Liddell/Scott, Lexicon, p. 143. 15 Lewis/Short, Latin Dictionary, p. 818. 16 Isidore, Etymologiae 1.30.1, ed. Lindsay (no page nos). Discussed in Irving, Textual Culture, p. 221. 17 Tura, ‘Essai’, pp. 299–303; Holtz, ‘Glossaires’; Wieland, ‘Latin Lemma’, p. 96; Wieland, Glosses, pp. 6–7. 18 Holtz, ‘Manuscrits’, p. 142. Cf. Irvine, Textual Culture, p. 392: ‘The manuscript layout [of text and gloss] discloses that a text is a sign, the meaning of which can only be represented in an-



2.1 What is meant by the Word ‘Gloss’? 

 11

ent colours to indicate the differing status of principal and paratext predates the Caro­lingian period, but was formalised in the ninth century.19 Together with other secondary additions such as titles, rubrics, arguments, introductions, various accessus, but also corrections, correction notes and commentaries, glosses must be regarded as a subcategory of paratextual elements, which act as supplements to a particular principal text and dynamically interact with it.20 This subcategory eventually developed into the modern footnote, which started to replace marginal and interlinear paratext from the seventeenth century onwards.21 Glosses, like other forms of paratext, modify the reading and understanding of a given principal text by providing aids on various levels: lexical, morpho­ logical, syntactical and semantic. While glosses predominately consist of words, word-groups, or phrases in one or more languages, they can also appear as single letters or abstract graphic signs. This form of glossing is best referred to as non-verbal glossing, as opposed to verbal glossing.22 In some cases non-verbal glossing includes punctuation, which is in fact one of the most commonly attested forms of paratext.23 However, whereas punctuation is always part of the paratext, it does not necessarily constitute a form of glossing (see 2.5 below). For this reason in this book punctuation is only analysed in detail where it is part of the glossing paratext (in particular in 7.5 below). For all the above considerations, in this study I follow the usefully broad definition of a written gloss as formulated by Franck Cinato: ‘toute augmentation péri-textuelle qui précise ou diversifie l’information contenue dans un texte principal’:24 the sum of paratextual accretion which specifies and diversifies the information contained within a principal text.

other text – the gloss – in another textual space, a space in which the interior meaning of a text is disclosed.’ 19 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, pp. 27–28. Cf. Caillet, ‘Caractères’; Martin/Vezin, Mise en page. 20 Moulin, ‘Zwischenzeichen’, p. 1662; Genette, Paratexte, p. 12. 21 Grafton, Footnote; Genette, Paratexte, pp. 304–327. 22 By contrast, signes-de-renvoi are excluded from this category, because they visually guide the reader from the lemma to the gloss without commenting on the lemma. 23 Early medieval punctuation remains an understudied area, and more work needs to be done before its paratextual nature can be discussed more fully. See Garavelli, Storia; Parkes, Pause and Effect. 24 Cinato, GLOSE, p. 79; Cinato, ‘Gloses’, pp. 429–444.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

2.2.1 Glosses and Glossators The totality of glosses in any manuscript is the result of a process consisting of three different activities:25 the composition of original glosses, the selection and compilation of existing glosses and the physical copying of glosses. A glossator may undertake some or all of these activities while producing, editing, or revising a manuscript. One or more of these activities may also be undertaken by any subsequent specialist reader of the manuscript, most usually thought of as a glossator, either for personal use or for other readers. The process of transmission often gives rise to complex problems of chronology and authorship. Elements that have been added initially by the author of the principal text (frequently including titles and introductions), henceforth called ‘authorial paratext’ (paratexte auctorial), must therefore be differentiated from those which have been added later on by third parties, henceforth called ‘allogenic paratext’ (paratexte allogène).26 In her reflections on the author’s role in glossing, Anne Grondeux distinguished, at the level of content, the original gloss, perhaps no longer extant, from the extant written gloss, and, at the level of palaeography, between an anonymous hand and the hand of a known author. It follows that a gloss can only be ascribed to a known author when it is both original and in the hand of a known individual.27 Authorial glossing in Latin has survived from, for example, Boniface (672–754),28 John Scot Eriugena (815–877)29 and Heiric of Auxerre (841–876).30 Little of the kind has survived in Old Irish, but vernacular glosses survive from Eriugena,31 and Irish names are often recorded as authorities in marginal glosses. Old High German examples are Otfrid of Weissenburg (ca. 800–ca. 870),32 Notker of St Gall (950–1022), Froumund of Tegernsee (ca. 960–ca. 1008)33 and Ekkehart IV of St Gall (ca. 980–ca. 1056).34 Similarly, Old English glosses survive by Bishop Wulfstan of York (died 1023), whose hand – at least, the hand that Neil Ker convincingly argues is his – appears in a handful of

25 Holtz, ‘Manuscrits’, pp. 142–146. 26 Bain, ‘Paratexte biblique’. 27 Cinato, ‘Gloses’, pp. 439–440, referring to Grondeux, ‘Auctoritas’. 28 That is, if the hand of ‘Glossator A’ in the Fulda manuscript of the Latin version of Tatian’s Diatessaron is correctly identified as that of Boniface, see Parkes, ‘Handwriting’, pp. 161–179. 29 Jeauneau/Dutton, Autograph. 30 Hofman, ‘Glosses’. 31 Contreni/Ó Néill, Glossae, pp. 40–55. 32 Kleiber, ‘Otfrid’. 33 Moulin, ‘Froumund’. 34 Bergmann/Tax, ‘Ekkehart IV’.



2.1 What is meant by the Word ‘Gloss’? 

 13

manuscripts, most famously in MS Hatton 20, where it glosses Alfred’s Preface to the Pastoral Care.35 In other cases the identity of the scribe entering the glosses is known, even though it is likely that he copied them from an exemplar. An example is the case of Aldred, who entered the Old English glosses in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Durham Ritual Book somewhere between 950 and 970.36 In most cases, however, the question of authorship can only be answered in more general terms. The glossators discussed in this book are therefore mostly anonymous. They are carriers and mediators of early medieval written culture, mostly members of (Benedictine) monastic communities, who had access to the relevant texts in a scriptorium or library, either for the sake of teaching or for private study.37 However, even in the much more frequent anonymous cases questions such as: ‘Who wrote what?’, ‘For whom?’, ‘To what purpose?’ and ‘When and where?’ can be asked. Still, in order to answer such questions for any given manuscript, the basic matters of stratigraphy (palaeography) and redaction (textual history) need to be established first.38 The role of oral elaboration and transmission of glosses must also be taken into account, despite the written nature of the available evidence. Comparison with other glossed manuscripts of the same principal text will often reveal a great deal of overlap, but, while individual glosses often are not original, most manuscripts will contain an overall collection of glosses which is unique. If a manuscript had once been in the private ownership of, say, a master, then the addition of glosses in another hand may indicate a change of ownership. If it had been in common ownership in a monastery library, this is not necessarily the case. In both scenarios, however, a manuscript would normally have passed through several, often many, different hands. Frequently, therefore, glosses can be seen to form separate strata: diachronical sequences of layers written in separate hands, which can be identified on palaeographical grounds and which form the stratigraphy of a glossed manuscript (an example will be discussed under 4.3.3 below). Establishing this stratigraphy allows for a relative dating of the different layers of accretion. Furthermore, when new glosses were entered in a manuscript, existing glosses were sometimes corrected, or expanded with other material.39 Thus, by a gradual process of accretion and emendation, they form

35 Dance, ‘Wulfstan’s Language’. However, note that even for the later Middle Ages establishing authorial paratext is difficult; cf. Moulin, ‘Zwischenzeichen’, p. 1663 fn. 15. 36 Backhouse, Lindisfarne Gospels, p. 11; Kendrick, Codex Lindisfarnensis, I, p. 23 and II, p. 11; Ker, ‘Aldred’. 37 Bergmann, ‘Ansätze’, pp. 1544–1546. 38 For the following, see Cinato, GLOSE, pp. 103–105. 39 Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 4–5.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

different redactions which can only be established by detailed collation with other glossed manuscripts.40 Finally, glossing activity did not merely result from ‘spontaneous’ interaction with a given text in the form of interlinear and marginal additions, but constituted a carefully planned activity reflected in the layout of a manuscript page, for example, by deliberately leaving space for glosses and commentaries.41 Such manuscripts were not only mediators of a specific text or texts, but were meant to constitute ‘reservoirs of knowledge’ (Claudine Moulin calls them ‘Wissensräume’) resulting from a continuous, dynamic interaction with the principal text.42 Such manuscripts are scholarly collections as much as they are educational tools, and they generate new learning as much as they teach old learning.43 Glosses should therefore be regarded as three-way mediators between a principal text, its commentary tradition and the teachers or readers.

2.2.2 ‘Paratextual Networks’: Glosses, Glossaries and Commentaries It will be clear from the foregoing that written glosses rarely represent sponta­ neous reactions of a reader, whether a teacher or student. The dynamic relationship between a principal text and its glossing tradition may lead to what Claudine Moulin has dubbed paratextual networks (‘Paratextuelle Netzwerke’), especially when various layers of glossing are added subsequently.44 Furthermore, such ‘networks’ indicate that, although paratext cannot come into being without a principal text, it can nevertheless survive and develop further without one. A case in point is the compilation and subsequent transmission of glossaries. The term ‘glossary’ is a modern category distinction. In fact, the Latin term glossarium itself is not found until the thirteenth century, and what are now called glossaries were titled glossae or interpretationes in earlier manuscripts.45 Such glossaries came into being in different ways. On the one hand, the medieval acti­ vities of compilatio and ordo often led to the excerpting of glosses from glossed manuscripts (‘Textglossierung’) into collections of so-called glossae collectae.46

40 For this reason the representation of this type of material frequently leads to difficulties and variety in modern editorial practice; cf. Teeuwen, ‘Marginal Scholarship’, p. 20. 41 Bergmann, ‘Geplante Glossierung’. 42 Klaes/Moulin, ‘Wissensraum’. In general, see Ash, ‘Räume’. 43 Teeuwen, ‘Marginal Scholarship’, pp. 22–23. 44 Moulin, ‘Zwischenzeichen’, p. 1664; Moulin, ‘Paratextualle Netzwerke’. 45 Holtz, ‘Glossaires’. 46 Sauer, ‘Glosses’, pp. 22–23; Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 8–11; Lindsay, Glossaries, pp. 1–16.



2.1 What is meant by the Word ‘Gloss’? 

 15

Such collections consist of lemmas with their interpretations following the order of the principal text, and form text glossaries (‘Textglossare’).47 Such a collection could subsequently be organised on other principles, forming, for example, topical glossaries (‘Sachglossare’)48 or alphabetically-ordered glossaries.49 Alphabetisation existed in the ancient world, of course, but it appears to have been early medieval glossaries that marked a major phase in the development of this particular method of organizing information in Western texts.50 However, not all glossaries were composed from scratch, that is, not compiled from text glosses. Indeed, almost certainly the Greek-Latin Hermeneumata were not created in this way, as well as later glossaries such as the medieval Irish O’Mulconry Glossary (see 2.3 below).51 However, the transmission of glossaries is not merely one of passive copying from exemplars. The material was constantly in flux and adapted to various needs, implying an active role on behalf of the scribes (cf. chapter 15).52 Furthermore, material from glossaries would subsequently often find its way back into the marginal and interlinear glossing of the principal text, constituting a striking circular process between various genres of genetically related text-carriers. For this reason the present book discusses glossed psalters as well as glossaries and glossed commentaries on the psalms. Glossaries therefore have their own specific paratextual connection with their principal texts. Indeed, many text-glossaries follow the principal text closely and their lemmas are identical to those in the principal text. In these cases, the paratext, even though it is preserved within a different written medium, is very closely related, genetically speaking, to its principal text. This (grammatical, semantic, genetic) closeness shall be indicated as text proximity (‘Textnähe’), and its corresponding distance as text distance (‘Textferne’). To the latter category belong, for example, alphabetically ordered glossaries which have lost their genetic closeness to a specific principal text; its entries have become (almost) universally valid. The accretion of glossing activity into larger collections of glosses, which in themselves tended to grow into sizeable corpora, can be traced in various spheres throughout the course of the Middle Ages, especially for legal and biblical texts. This paratextual accretion developed into the typical presentation of a principal

47 Wich-Reif, ‘Textglossar’; Wich-Reif, Studien. 48 Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 12–14; Hüllen, English Dictionaries, pp. 60–66. 49 Stricker, ‘Zur Typisierung’; Stanton, Culture, pp. 16–22; Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 14–17. 50 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, p. 44. Cf. Daly, Contributions. 51 I follow the opinion of P. Moran (p. c.). 52 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, pp. 57–62. Cf. Bremmer, ‘Vossianus Lat. Q.69’, pp. 19–53.

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text simultaneously with extensive running paratext in the margins and between the lines.53 However, this development did not take place without criticism. Indeed, the relative overload and the increasing opaqueness of paratextual elements with regards to their principal texts led authors as far apart in time as Gott­ fried von Strassburg (ca. 1200) and Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) to complain bitterly about it.54

2.3 Glossing, Glosses and Glossaries in the Medieval West The early medieval practice of glossing Latin texts is rooted in the late-antique tradition, and more specifically in the Greek textual practice of compiling scholia, commentaries, lexica and grammatical treatises, in which it originates.55 Therefore, even though this book focuses primarily on vernacular glossing, Latin glossing and Latin glossaries are intricately related to this study: they form the necessary background to it and therefore have to be discussed in some detail. The antique sources of early medieval Latin glossing and glossaries were manifold, but the greater part by far was taken up by the work of late-antique lexicographers, above all the second-century grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus’ De significatu uerborum,56 as well as Nonius Marcellus’ fourth-century De compendiosa doctrina, mostly known through Paul the Deacon’s eighth-century epitome.57 Also used were Fulgentius’ Expositio sermonum antiquorum,58 Placidus’ Glossae,59 Eucherius of Lyon’s Glossae spiritales,60 and Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae,61 the last being one of the foundational works of medieval learning. Other important sources of Latin glossing were late-antique scholia on school authors cited by grammarians such as Servius and Priscian, as well as collections

53 For a relevant discussion of this typical mise-en-page, see Gibson, ‘Glossed Psalters’, pp. 78– 100. The classic study is Smalley, Study, pp. 46–52. On the tradition of the Glossa Ordinaria and its typical mise-en-page, see Gibson, ‘Place’; Gibson, ‘Glossed Bible’. Cf. Holtz, ‘Glosse’, pp. 80–83. 54 Based on Moulin, ‘Zwischenzeichen’, p. 1666. 55 Dickey, Greek Scholarship, pp. 1–7, and p. 11 fn. 25. 56 Festus, De verborum significatu, ed. Lindsay; cf. the report of the AHRC Festus Lexicon project, directed by F. Glinister, M. Crawford, J. North and C. Woods: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/history2/ research/festus/. 57 Nonius Marcellus, De compendiosa doctrina, ed. Lindsay. 58 Fulgentius, Opera, ed. Préaux/Helm, pp. 109–126. 59 CGL, V, pp. 3–158; GL, IV, pp. 3–35. 60 Eucherius, Instructiones, ed. Mandolfo; Eucherius, Opera, ed. Wotke, pp. 65–161. 61 Isidore, Etymologiae, ed. Lindsay.



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 17

of Latin synonyms (differentiae) such as the widespread Synonyma Ciceronis.62 Additionally, Latin explanations of Greek words and phrases could be found in the Cyrillus Glossary and the Hermeneumata, schoolbooks designed for the teaching of vocabulary and idiom in both languages.63 There were also a number of classical and late-antique discussions and compilations of specialized vocabulary in the fields of medicine, law and literature, as well as biblical names, such as Jerome’s Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum and Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos.64 The fact that the Bible became a major resource for glossary compilers is an obvious consequence of the process of Christianization in the late Roman and early medieval worlds.65 It is not entirely clear how these various sources came to be organized in the form of collections and glossaries, because of the dearth of manuscript evidence before the eighth century. Therefore, paradoxically, in many cases glossaries predate glossed manuscripts. As Rosamund McKitterick notes, ‘the gap between the first composition of any of the original Roman (or Greek) sources […] and their earliest manuscripts means that the new contexts for these texts and possible adaptations made to them need to be taken into account.’66 Also, the transmission of these collections should not be seen as static and copied like any other ancient text, but as an ‘inherited format from antiquity that lent itself to adaptation (by alphabetization or the modification of oblique lemmata to the standardized (usually nominative) forms), classification (by thematic groupings of words) and selection (by the transfer of particular words or groups of words into new lists)’ in order to serve different needs, and therefore difficult to date.67 These early medieval glossaries are predominantly Latin glossaries, with Latin words glossed in Latin, and compiled primarily in the areas ruled by the Franks and to a lesser extent in Anglo-Saxon England. However, some Latin-Latin glossaries, such as the Épinal, Erfurt and Werden glossaries, also contain items in the vernacular, either as integral parts of the definitions or as interlinear inser-

62 Synonima Ciceronis, ed. Gatti. 63 Dionisotti, ‘Hermeneumata’. Cf. Dionisotti, ‘Greek Grammars’; Dionisotti, ‘Schoolbook’. 64 Vaciago, Glossae Biblicae. Cf. O’Sullivan, Glosses, pp. 102–130. Jerome’s two works can be found in Jerome, Opera, ed. Morin, I, pp. 1–56 and 59–161, respectively. For analysis, see Kamesar, Jerome. 65 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, p. 50. 66 Ibid., pp. 51–52 lists the earliest manuscripts. 67 Ibid., p. 57; Dionisotti, ‘Nature’, pp. 205 and 242–247. Even so, alphabetisation is often regarded as a more ‘sophisticated’ way of ordering the material. However, since it is constitutes a very simple, mechanical process, the notion that it represents progress is very much a matter of perspective.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

tions, whereas other Latin-vernacular glossaries, like the Old High German Abrogans, are clearly based on Latin-Latin glossaries.68 Such vernacular glossaries will be discussed in more detail below. Several stages can be identified in the early medieval development of Latin-Latin glossaries, all of which are commonly referred to by their first lemma. The first of two main groups can be traced to two seventh-century glossaries, probably compiled in Spain, which were to become very influential: the Abolita,69 mainly based on Festus, and the Abstrusa,70 mainly compiled from scholia on Vergil and Terence. In the eighth century these two glossaries were combined in a manuscript of Central Italian provenance,71 which in its turn would form the basis for a number of further glossaries, such as Arma,72 Abauus,73 Abba,74 AA,75 and Affatim.76 The combination of Abolita and Abstrusa, together with material from Placidus, Isidore and a plethora of patristic writings, resulted in the most influential glossary of the early Middle Ages: the enormous Liber glossarum, or Glossarium Ansileubi, an encyclopedia-like dictionary.77 The second group of glossaries ultimately derives from the teaching, on the Bible and a range of other texts, of Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus and Abbot Hadrian in their school at Canterbury in the seventh century. Their notes survive in the shape of batches of glossae collectae, in Latin and Old English, in continental manuscripts. These glosses, ultimately from Canterbury, greatly influenced biblical exegesis in the West until they were finally replaced in the twelfth century by the Glossa Ordinaria.78 The Carolingian schools of the ninth century subsequently produced their own sizeable corpus of Latin glosses and glossaries, mostly on much-read school authors such as Boethius and Martianus Capella. Thus, marginal glosses and scholia were collected in order to compile commentaries, while the resulting com-

68 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, p. 41. 69 GL, II, pp. 91–183; Lindsay, ‘Abolita’. 70 GL, II, pp. 1–90. 71 CGL, IV, pp. 1–198. 72 GL, I, pp. 1–22. 73 GL, I, pp. 23–121. 74 GL, V, pp. 7–143; CGL, IV, pp. 199–298. 75 GL, V, pp. 145–388; CGL, V, pp. 433–490. 76 CGL, IV, pp. 471–581. 77 GL, I; excerpts in CGL V, pp. 159–255.Cf. Gantz, ‘Liber Glossarum’; Bishop, ‘Prototype’; Lindsay, ‘Abstrusa’; Goetz, ‘Liber Glossarum’. A new edition is currently being prepared by Anne Grondeux et al. Since this book went to press it has become clear that the date of the Liber and its relationship with other glossaries is radically different than outlined here. 78 Stanton, Culture, pp. 22–27; Lapidge/Bischoff, Biblical Commentaries.



2.3 Glossing, Glosses and Glossaries in the Medieval West 

 19

mentaries were excerpted again to be worked into marginal glosses. The most industrious Carolingian commentator and glossator was Remigius of Auxerre (841–908), but other notable scholars were John Scot Eriugena, Lupus of Ferrières (805–62) and Heiric of Auxerre. A parallel to this development can be seen in the Byzantine tradition as represented in the tenth-century Suda (Σοῦδα), which developed in a similar manner from earlier Greek compilations such as those of Aristophanes, Harpocration, Aelius Dionysius and a lost second-century work of Diogenianus.79 Even so, ‘from Byzantium there does not seem to be quite the same abundance and variety of early medieval glossaries, so diverse in their permutations and combinations, which survive from Western Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries.’80 However, a distinctive feature of glossing activity in the West is the developing role of the vernaculars. The custom of glossing in the vernacular as well as in Latin first occurs in Ireland, and subsequently in Britain. During the seventh century the Irish developed a written register of their vernacular for the expression of prose and poetry, as well as their own variety of the Latin script in order to write it. Thus, they used the majuscule (half uncial) for important biblical and liturgical manuscripts, and the smaller, less stately miniscule for all other types of writing, including glossing.81 The oldest extant vernacular Old Irish glosses occur in a manuscript of the Latin Gospels (the Ussher Gospels) of the late seventh century.82 Indeed, the practice of annotating Latin texts in Latin or Irish, or in combinations thereof, was widespread already by 700.83 From the eighth century Irish glosses have survived, among others, on the Gospel of Mark, Peter’s second Epistle and the Epistles of Paul (the Würzburg Glosses); from the ninth and tenth centuries considerably more, mostly continental, manuscripts survive with Irish glossing, including books of the Bible, but also Augustine’s Soliloquia, Bede’s De temporum ratione, canon law, Priscian (in the first place the St Gall Glosses, but Priscian manuscripts from Leiden, Karlsruhe, Paris and Milan also contain Irish glosses), Eutychius and a commentary on the psalms (the Milan Glosses, discussed under 5.2 below).84 Besides these glossed texts, three interrelated glossaries, compiled from the eighth century onwards, survive from early medieval

79 Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship; Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, pp. 145–147; Lemerle, Byzan­tine Humanism, pp. 309–346. 80 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, pp. 50–51. 81 Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland, pp. 171–173. 82 Ó Néill, ‘Dry-point Glosses’. 83 Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’. 84 Tabled in Ó Cróinín, ‘Glosses’, pp. 24–27. Now complemented by Bronner, Verzeichnis.

20 

 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

Ireland: Sanas Cormaic (‘Cormac’s Glossary’), O’Mulconry’s Glossary and Dúil Dromma Cetta (‘the Collection of Druim Cett’).85 Glosses in Old Welsh are extant in Latin texts from the ninth century onward, such as the notes on weights and measures dating to around 820;86 glosses on Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Juvencus and Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.87 Glosses in Old Breton also survive in ninth and tenth-century manu­ scripts of Vergil, Eutychius, Bede, Priscian, Isidore, Orosius, Sedulius and the Collectio Canonum.88 However, glosses in Old Cornish are very rare. A handful of glosses survive in manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries, but at this stage the language is difficult to distinguish from Welsh and Breton.89A tenth-century manuscript of De raris fabulis, a Latin dialogue intended for teaching, contains some Old Cornish glosses among the Old English, Old Welsh and Latin ones.90 Text-glossing in Old English is very sparsely attested before the tenth century, even if some of the earliest extant glossaries reflect the fact that texts were supplied with Latin and vernacular paratext as early as the Canterbury school of Theodore and Hadrian.91 They indicate that the oldest known AngloSaxon school did not forbid the use of the vernacular in interpreting Latin texts, which continued to be used for the education of monks and clergy in the seventh and eighth centuries.92 A notable exception is the ninth-century Vespasian Psalter (see chapter 8) with a complete vernacular interlinear version. By contrast, the industrious glossing activity associated with the Benedictine Reforms of the tenth to the twelfth centuries is clearly visible in the extant record.93 Manuscripts with more or less dense occasional text-glossing or interlinear versions include two

85 Russell, ‘Cormac’s Glossary’; Russell, Glossaries. See now also www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/irishglossaries. 86 Falileyev, Vieux-Gallois, pp. 82–88; Falileyev, Древневаллийский язык, pp. 55–57. Cf. Lambert, ‘Old Welsh Glosses’. 87 Russell, Reading Ovid; Falileyev, Vieux-Gallois, pp. 78–81; Falileyev, Древневаллийский язык, pp. 53–55. 88 Fleuriot, Dictionnaire, I, p. 411; Jackson, Language and History, pp. 62–67. 89 Jackson, Language and History, pp. 59–62. 90 Gwara, De raris fabulis is over-edited and unreliable. The most reliable edition still is Stevenson, Early Scholastic Colloquies. Cf. Russell, ‘Views’, pp. 200–206; Lapidge, ‘Colloquial Latin’. 91 For the English Benedictine Reform movement, see Robertson, ‘Dunstan’; Knowles, Monastic Order, pp. 31–56; Kornexl, ‘Regularis Concordia’; Hill, ‘Regularis Concordia’, p. 299; Lapidge, ‘Schools’; Lapidge/Page, ‘Study’; Gatch, Preaching, pp. 4–11. The extant material is listed in Frank/Cameron, ‘List’, pp. 224–247 ‘interlinear gloss’, and pp. 248–254 ‘glossary’. 92 Stanton, Culture, p. 34; Brown, ‘Dynamics’, pp. 116–117. 93 Brown, ‘Psalms’, p. 2.



2.3 Glossing, Glosses and Glossaries in the Medieval West 

 21

Gospel manuscripts, Hymnals,94 the Canticles,95 prayers, the Benedictine Rule, the Regularis Concordia, but most of all the Psalter, which is glossed in more than fifteen extant manuscripts. Even so, many other Latin texts used in the curricula as ancillaries to biblical literacy received Old English glossing too, most of all school authors such as Arator, Prudentius, Sedulius and Prosper of Aquitaine, as well as Aldhelm’s Enigmata and De uirginitate. The early Old English glossary tradition has left more traces. A combination of continental material and the glosses derived from the teaching of Theodore and Hadrian constituted the corpus of glossae collectae which formed the basis for the earliest Old English glossaries in the seventh century.96 An intricate nexus of relationships connects the Anglo-Saxon glossaries and extends to the Continent, where this material spread in various different shapes and sizes to various centres of Anglo-Saxon missionary activity, where it was extensively copied and enjoyed widespread circulation for the following four centuries.97 This material is best represented in the Leiden Glossary (Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Voss. Lat. Q 69), written in St Gall around 800.98 Since the Leiden Glossary best represents the original late seventh-century material, the manuscripts which derive from this compilation, directly or not, are referred to as the ‘Leiden Family’ of glossaries (see 15.2 below).99 They form a group of five closely related manuscripts, even if their mutual relationships are manifold and difficult to disentangle: the Épinal Glossary (written in England in the seventh or eighth century),100 the Erfurt Glossary (from eighth-century Cologne), the fragmentary Werden Glossary (early ninth century, Cologne area) based on the former,101 and the Corpus Glossary (compiled in Canterbury at the end of the ninth century).102 The later glossaries of the tenth and eleventh centuries (such as Cleopatra, Harley, Brussels, and

94 Gneuss, Hymnar. 95 Korhammer, Cantica, pp. 129–138. 96 Stanton, Culture, pp. 22–27; Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 9–11. First pointed out by Lapidge, ‘School’, p. 57, who stressed that ‘it may be misleading to think of a single archetype of the collection’. 97 Digilio, ‘Fortune’; Lindsay, Glossaries; Lübke, ‘Beziehungen’. 98 Ed. Hessels, Leiden. On the date of the collection on which the Leiden Glossary draws, see Pheifer, ‘Glossaries’; Lapidge, ‘School’, p. 55. 99 Digilio, ‘Fortune’, p. 372. 100 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, pp. 53–54. On dating, see Pheifer, Glosses, pp. xxxi–xxv and lxxxix–xci. 101 Zechiel-Eckes, Katalog, p. 62. Cf. Doane, ‘Werden Glossary’; Tiefenbach, ‘Rückgewinnung’. 102 Ed. Hessels, Corpus. Cf. Alcamesi, ‘Entries’; Lindsay, Glossaries.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

Antwerp-London) still show a close relation with the oldest group, despite their partial organization into classes.103 Partly under insular influence, the practice of glossing in the vernacular was introduced on the European continent, where it is first visible in the Old High German-speaking area.104 This materialized first of all through the work of Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries such as Columbanus (543–615), Willibrord (658–739), Boniface and others, and in the ensuing foundation of monasteries and scribal centres such as Echternach and Fulda. The latter became the political beneficiary of Charlemagne’s Saxon Wars, and thus the seat of patronage for the whole area of what is now Hessen and Lower Saxony. Insular influence can be traced through the survival of insular manuscripts, including several glossed in Old Irish or Old English, in continental libraries,105 and the spread of the insular script and the works of insular authors such as Aldhelm and Bede.106 Other centres of early glossing activity were the monasteries in the Bodensee area, such as Reichenau and St Gall, and later, Ottonian foundations such as Tegernsee and St Pantaleon at Cologne. Old High German glossing can be traced from the eighth up to the twelfth century.107 Apart from the Bible, most Old High German text-glossing has survived in manuscripts of school authors and the grammarians Priscian and Donatus.108 For example, a rich corpus of glosses on Vergil developed from the ninth to the eleventh century,109 originating either in St Gall or Reichenau, and glosses on Boethius have survived from ninth-century St Gall.110 Prudentius is probably the most frequently glossed author,111 followed by Gregory’s Cura pastoralis and Sermones,112 and the Canones glosses.113 Worth mentioning, finally, are the lateele­venth century Old High German glosses on the Latin passages in Notker III’s

103 Porter, ‘Antwerp-London’; Lazzari, ‘Antwerp-London’; Porter, Antwerp-London. 104 Cf. Bergmann, ‘Ansätze’; Schmitt, ‘Glossen’. The fundamental reference work on the Ang­loSaxon missions on the Continent remains Baesecke, Vocabularius. Cf. McKitterick, ‘Anglo-Saxon Missionaries’; McKitterick, ‘Reflexions’; Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Background’; Talbot, Anglo-Saxon Missionaries; Levison, England. 105 Tiefenbach, ‘Zu den althochdeutschen Glossen’, pp. 114–123. 106 Bergmann, ‘Anfänge’, p. 1539. 107 Even so, OHG material sometimes kept being copied and reworked, see Meineke, Althochdeutsches. 108 Bergmann, ‘Bibel’; Bergmann, ‘Nichtbiblische Texte’. 109 Bergmann, ‘Ansätze’, p. 1548. 110 Tax, ‘Glossierungen’. 111 Stricker, ‘Prudentius-Glossierung’. 112 Bergmann, ‘Gregor-Glossierung’. 113 Bergmann/Blum, ‘Canones-Glossierung’.



2.3 Glossing, Glosses and Glossaries in the Medieval West 

 23

translation of the Psalter, possibly entered by Ekkehart IV of St Gall.114 Glossaries with Old High German material exist in the form of glossae collectae, alphabetical glossaries, for example the Glossae Salomonis,115 as well as topical glossaries such as the Summarium Heinrici.116 All three types of glossaries exist from the early period; in fact, the oldest surviving glossary, the Abrogans, is an Old High German version of a late-antique Latin alphabetical glossary.117 The Old Saxon glossing tradition is more difficult to identify because of its closeness to the Old High German textual tradition (with traffic in two directions) on the one hand, and, to a lesser extent, to Old English influence on the other.118 These influences are particularly evident in the case of glossaries, with their usual complex history of compiling, copying and adapting. Glosses therefore can only be identified as Old Saxon when they are linguistically unambiguous, even if palaeographical and codicological evidence can also be used to establish the provenance of Old Saxon material. After the strongly Old English-influenced beginnings in the second quarter of the ninth century, Old Saxon glossing flourished especially in the tenth and eleventh centuries, a development clearly related to the renaissance of learning under the Ottonian dynasty, and can be traced until the twelfth century. The greater and earlier part of the extant corpus can be located in the mona­ steries of Werden and Essen in the west of Saxony. Glossed manuscripts with a more eastern Saxon provenance are far fewer in number, but some can be located around Paderborn and Hildesheim (with the important abbey of Corvey unre­ presented), and two even on the eastern outskirts of the early medieval orbis christianus, in Merseburg and Magdeburg. Despite its much smaller corpus, Old Saxon glossing is similar to the Old High German tradition. Most of it consists of text-glossing, in the first place of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, with some possible echoes of the Canterbury school of Theodore and Hadrian. The school authors are represented in the first place by Prudentius, followed by Vergil and Isidore, Horace, Juvencus and several others. Text glossaries and glossae collectae are relatively rare, but the surviving evidence suggests there was a specific Old Saxon recension of the Épinal/Erfurt glossary in circulation. Similarly difficult to distinguish from both Franconian Old High German and Old Saxon, in terms of linguistic criteria as well as due to the scarcity of sources,

114 Glauch, ‘Notker III’, p. 298. See now Ekkehardt, ed. Müller/Kössinger/Krotz. 115 Meineke, ‘Glossae Salomonis’. 116 Hildebrandt, ‘Summarium Heinrici’. 117 Splett, ‘Abrogans’. 118 Based on Tiefenbach, ‘Überlieferung’; Tiefenbach, ‘Glossographie’.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

are glosses in Old Dutch.119 Unambiguous Dutch glosses in Latin texts survive from the tenth and eleventh centuries from monastic centres in North-Eastern Francia, such as St Omer and St Bertin, even if some possibly Old Dutch glosses survive from the ninth century.120 From the tenth century survive fragments of glosses on the psalms (see 6.2 below).121 The oldest Old Frisian glosses, apart from a few stray words embedded in Latin texts,122 survive in a fragment of a Latin psalter dating from around 1200 (see chapter 13) and in a recently discovered fragment which might date to the early twelfth century.123 This paucity can be partly explained by the fact that, despite the eighth-century missionary work of Willibrord, Boniface and Liudger (742–809), Frisia did not have its own monastic foundations until the second half of the twelfth century.124 Instead, during the period covered in this book, the ecclesiastical authority over the area was exercised by the bishops of Utrecht, Bremen and Münster. Moreover, the most influential monastic centres lay far outside the Frisian area, namely in Werden, Echternach and Fulda. Finally, vernacular glossing in Scandinavia is only attested in sources after 1200 and therefore falls outside the chronological scope of this book.125 While this study is geographically confined to Western Europe and chronologically focused on the period from the eighth to the twelfth century, the development of glossing in the languages and areas adjacent to those covered in this book should be outlined briefly in order to provide the broader geographical and cultural context. Glossing in the Romance dialects has not been included in this book. First of all because it starts later, but especially because it is rather unlike the kind of glossing found in Celtic and Germanic languages. The linguistic continuum of the Romance-speaking area, especially in the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, as well

119 Quak/Van der Horst, Inleiding, pp. 23–25; Quak, ‘Wortmaterial’, pp. 299–300. 120 Klein, ‘Überlieferung’. 121 Klein, ‘Psalter’. 122 Bremmer, Hir is eskriven, pp. 75–78; Looijenga/Quak, Frisian Runes; Nielsen, ‘Ante-Old Frisian’. 123 Bremmer, ‘Footprints’; Langbroek, ‘Altfriesische Psalmen’. The recently discovered fragments of a second psalter glossed in Old Frisian could not be considered in this book; see Langbroek, ‘Neue Entdeckung’. 124 See in general: Bremmer, Introduction, pp. 1–6; Bremmer, Hir is eskriven, pp. 25–27. 125 Relatively little work has hitherto been done in this area; see Raschellà, ‘Latin-Icelandic Glossary’; Raschellà, ‘Vernacular Gloss’.



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 25

as the complex but close relations between written Latin and spoken Romance,126 render this glossing tradition less compatible to those traditions in which Latin had to be learnt entirely as a foreign language.127 Similarly not covered in this book are the Arabic glosses found in Visigothic Latin manuscripts and Latin-Ara­ bic glossaries from the Iberian peninsula, which have only recently begun to be studied. They can mostly be attributed to scribes working in Toledo between the twelfth and the thirteenth century, but some of these annotations appear to date from a much earlier period.128 The Slavonic dialects, situated directly to the east of my area of study, also have been left out, even though glossing in those languages is much more similar to glossing in Germanic and Celtic. Generally speaking, the tradition of verna­ cular glossing in these areas starts somewhat later than in the West. Most extant glossing is in Old Czech and Church Slavonic129 and is found in Latin biblical130 and patristic texts,131 but medieval texts with Sorbian132 and Polish133 glosses have survived. Glossing in Hungarian starts in the late thirteenth century and is also not included here.134

126 For example in case of the tenth-century Glosas Emilianenses from the northern Spanish monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja), where the lexis and phonology are Romance despite the Latin morphology; see García Turza/Muro, Introducción. Similarly, the Reichenau Glosses from around 800 give interpretations of difficult Latin words which are Latinate in form, but phonetically, morphologically and lexically reflect the Romance vernacular; see Klein/Labhart/Raipach, Reichenauer Glossen. Cf. Varvaro, Banniard and Wright in: Maiden/Charles Smith/ Ledgeway, History. 127 From the sizeable body of secondary literature I cite: Wright, Sociophilological History; Banniard, Viva voce; Wright, Latin; Wright, Late Latin. 128 Koningsveld, Latin-Arabic Glossary contains a first list of about 30 Latin-Visigothic manuscripts with Arabic glosses. Cf. Aillet, ‘Quelques repères’; Aillet, ‘Glosas’; Aillet, ‘Recherches’. 129 Mareš, Anthology, pp. 211–216 for glosses on the Bible and Gregory; Flajšhans, Nejstarší památky, pp. 67–70. 130 Such as the eleventh- or twelfth-century Vienna or Jagić Glosses in the Rado-Bible (Vienna, ÖNB, 1190); cf. Schaeken, ‘Anmerkungen’; Vintr, ‘Glossen’; Hamm, ‘Glose’; Jagić, Glossen. On the very few Slavonic glosses found in manuscript Munich, BSB, Clm 14008, originally from St Emmeram and dated by Mareš to the eleventh century, see Mareš, ‘Glosses’. 131 Such as the Old Czech/Church Slavonic glosses on the Dialogues of Gregory (Prague, Metr. Kapitulní knihovna, A 173). Cf. Schaeken, ‘Patera-Glossen’; Patera, ‘České a starobulharské glossy’. 132 Schuster-Šews, Sprachdenkmäler, pp. 12 and 291. 133 Glossing in Polish is known to exist since the fifteenth century, see Belcarzowa, Glosy pol­ skie; Mazur, Geschichte, p. 169; Wydra/Rzepka, Crestomatia staropolska, pp. 197–202. 134 Imre, ‘Early Hungarian Texts’, pp. 342–344.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

It is important to realize that medieval vernacular glossing in the West was by no means confined to Christian spheres. For example, the eleventh-century Hebrew commentaries on Bible and Talmud by Raschi, Rabbi Salomon ben Isaac of Troyes, include embedded vernacular glossing, some of it in late Old High German but predominantly in Old French.135

2.4 Functions and Types of Glossing 2.4.1 Introduction Glosses have various functions and manifestations, all of which are in some way intended to facilitate the needs and requirements of present and future readers of a manuscript. To account for and classify this variety, a number of different glossing typologies have been proposed in the course of the last three decades. To a certain extent, however, all glossing typologies must be somewhat subjective, because they are superimposed on a fluent and amorphous phenomenon, and in the end absolute distinctions cannot be made between categories. However, as this book focuses on the pragmatic and linguistic function of the constituent elements on the manuscript page and their associated reading strategies, a typo­ logy can help the analysis of the linguistic and textual relationship of lemma and gloss. Such questions as: ‘to what extent is a gloss linguistically “part” of the principal text?’ and ‘how was the entire textual complex on the manuscript page supposed to be read?’ can be clarified with reference to a typology. With various caveats in mind, then, the use of glossing typologies can be justified on pragmatic grounds. However, while existing typologies have revealed many aspects of glossing which had hitherto escaped attention, as yet a consensus on the methodology, and the specifics of such a typology, has not been reached. For example, in his study of the Latin glosses on the Ars Prisciani, Franck Cinato combined the categories proposed by Gernot Wieland in his study of the Latin Arator glosses,136 and those of Rijcklof Hofman, largely based on Wieland’s, in his study of the Latin and Old Irish St Gall Glosses,137 into 120 subtypes, which can be organised into

135 Ed. Darmesteter/Blondheim, Gloses françaises. Cf. Przybilski, ‘Zwei Beispiele’, pp. 265–267; Timm, ‘Zur Frage’. 136 Wieland, Glosses. His typology is also used by Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, pp. 6–8. 137 Hofman, Priscian Commentary.



2.4 Functions and Types of Glossing 

 27

seven larger categories. 138 However, Cinato stressed that any typology should also reflect the specificity of the form and content of the gloss in relation to its lemma. Thus, while some glosses become utterly incomprehensible outside their specific context, others retain their basic meaning and could explain the same lemma in any given context. Also, a typology should reflect the possible variety of formal types of glosses, which can range from abstract signs to several phrases. For example, a gloss classified as ‘grammatical (morphological)’ in content could in fact take the form of a small commentary consisting of various phrases, but also of interlinearly supplied case-endings consisting of only two or three letters. While both types of gloss explain points of grammar to the reader, the method of explaining, and the nature of the relationship between gloss and lemma, differs significantly. A typology should therefore also take into account a gloss’s formal characteristics. To be useful to the line of questioning in this book, therefore, an alternative typology should focus on the method of glossing and on the nature of the textual and linguistic relation of the gloss to the metasyntax of the principal text in general. This type is represented by Schwarz’s study of Otfrid’s glosses on Priscian’s Institutio,139 Osterwalder’s study of the glossing of Ekkehart IV,140 Ralph Hexter’s study of the glosses on Ovid in St Dunstan’s Classbook,141 and Ernst Hellgardt’s study of the Tegernsee Vergil-glosses.142 In this book I therefore adopt a typology which conflates Hexter’s and Hellgardt’s typologies. It focuses on formal appearance (see 2.4.2 below) and linguistic and textual function and its associated reading strategies (see 2.4.3 below), but also takes into account Hofman’s and Cinato’s categorization of semantic content. The typology is summarized in Appendix I.

2.4.2 Formal Aspects of Glossing: Script, Form and Location The typology used in this book includes the description and analysis of the formal, that is, palaeographical and codicological, features of a gloss. Indeed, while the continuous addition of glosses may frequently have led to a rather chaotic mise-

138 Cinato, GLOSE, pp. 85–102. Summarised in Cinato, ‘Gloses’, pp. 432–435. 139 Schwarz, ‘Glossen’. 140 Osterwalder, ‘Ekkehardus glossator’. 141 Hexter, Ovid, pp. 36–39. 142 Hellgardt, ‘Exemplarische Analyse’, pp. 409–411.

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 Chapter 2: Glosses and Glossing

en-page even in those manuscripts laid out for glossing,143 generally the script of the glossing is in some way made distinct, through type, position, size and ink, from the script of the principal text.144 Also, while glosses can be written out with ink,145 they also occur as dry-point or stylus glosses,146 or written in a code or cypher.147 First of all, therefore, the various glossing hands and different glossing strata must be distinguished. Such a palaeographical analysis should also take into account the density of glossing.148 A specific from of dense glossing occurs in the so-called interlinear version, sometimes also known as a glossa continua or continuous gloss. Interlinear versions represent a specific Latin–vernacular interface, in which (almost) every lemma in the principal text has received an interlinear interpretation in the vernacular, giving the impression of a parallel vernacular text. Still, even in this type of glossing the two or more languages are often set apart from the principal text through the use of ink, script and space (see chapters 6–14 below). Secondly, there is an immense variety in the formal type, that is, the written manifestation, of glosses. Indeed, glosses cover a spectrum ranging from abstract signs and isolated letters or groups of letters on the one hand to long commentaries and excerpts from other works on the other. A common type is the abbreviated gloss, where only the beginning, ending, or middle part of an interpretation are given.149 Another type worth mentioning is the so-called coded gloss, unique for the High German-speaking area. In these glosses, the vowels were replaced by the following consonant of the alphabet. However, the exact reasons for their use are not well understood.150 A third formal aspect of glossing is its spatial closeness to the relevant section of the principal text, at least in origin: its location on the page. Generally speaking there are eight possible locations: the glosses have either been added in the left, right, top or bottom margins of the main text (and, in the case of manu­ scripts with two or more columns, between the columns as well), between the

143 Bergmann, ‘Geplante Glossierung’. 144 Nievergelt, ‘Glossenschrift’. 145 Nievergelt, ‘Farbstiftglossen’. 146 Nievergelt/Glaser, ‘Griffelglossen’. 147 Nievergelt, ‘Geheimschriftliche Glossen’. 148 Glaser, ‘Formales Verhältnis’. 149 Ernst, ‘Kürzung’, pp. 306–315; Henkel, ‘Glossierung’, pp. 483–493. 150 Nievergelt, ‘Tegernseer Glossenhandschriften’, p. 1409; Nievergelt, ‘Geheimschriftliche Glossen’, p. 251; Nievergelt, Glossierung, pp. 660–670.



2.4 Functions and Types of Glossing 

 29

lines (interlinear), or embedded in the main text.151 Interlinear glossing can occur both over the lemma (superlinear) and underneath it (sublinear). As Cinato points out, the relationship between the form and location of glosses is not arbitrary.152 Whereas longer glosses (consisting of more than phrase) are generally found in the margin, smaller units (from dots to single words to word groups) are most commonly found between the lines. Apart from reasons of space, however, location is also dictated by the specificity of the relation between lemma and gloss, ranging from very specific, that is, incomprehensible outside the immediate context of its lemma, to generally applicable outside its specific textual context.

2.4.3 Functional Aspects of Glossing In terms of function, it is here proposed that a gloss has three possible relations with regard to its principal text: a gloss substitutes, supplements, or comments on its lemma. Generally speaking the first two categories imply a greater degree of ‘text proximity’, whereas glosses in the third category may be syntactically and textually entirely independent from the principal text. In what follows I discuss these three main functions with their various subcategories. However, while examples in the following sections are sometimes transcribed diplomatically, in the rest of the book generally a more formulaic rendering is employed. A substitution gloss is indicated by the symbol ‘glossed by’: conuenit → adgladathar. In the case of supplement glosses, the supplemented elements are printed in bold: non derelinques quaerentes te → ðu ne forletes ða soecendan ðe. In cases where the elements are supplied from the margin, they are printed in bold and bracketed: beatus uir cui → eadig se wer þam þe. No such notation is used in the case of commentary glosses. Note that translations of glosses are supplied selectively in this book, and have only been added in those instances where they seemed essential for the discussion. Also, when a vernacular substitution gloss is thought to sufficiently reflect the semantics of its lemma, only the gloss has been translated. 2.4.3.1 Substitution Glosses Substitution glosses replace a lemma from the principal text with another term, in order to provide more or less exact lexical equivalents or perceived equivalents.

151 Bergmann, ‘Positionen’; Bergmann, ‘Glossierungen’. 152 Cinato, GLOSE, p. 88.

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The language choice of supplement glosses follow Roman Jakobson’s distinction between intra-lingual translation (re-wording within one and the same language, which may, at the extreme, merge into the next-adjacent category of paraphrase) and inter-lingual translation (re-wording in another language, translation ‘proper’).153 In case of a vernacular substitution the interpretation can focus on semantic content (rendering the meaning of the lemma as faithfully as possible; Henkel’s ‘Normalfunktion’), or instead copy the word formation or morphology and syntax of the principal text, sometimes to the point of disregarding the regular structure of the vernacular. This can happen when Latin syntax or word formation is imitated literally, often with the effect that the vernacular gloss itself is incorrect or even incomprehensible when not mapped form-for-form on the Latin original written underneath. These glosses were meant to illustrate to a reader the morphology of a Latin word (Henkel’s ‘Erschließung der Wortbildung’), or the syntax of a Latin phrase (Henkel’s ‘Grammatische Erschließung’), and not so much a translation of its content, which might have been given orally.154 With this in view, a description of substitution glosses should therefore also provide an account of the morphological and syntactical agreement between lemma and interpretation.155 In this book, three subcategories of supplement glossing are identified, always with the proviso that distinctions imposed by any typology are not absolute and often not clear-cut. Under subcategory SUB1 are classified substitution glosses which provide a synonym or translation of a noun (phrase), verb (phrase), preposition(al phrase), adverb, or conjunction. Typical examples occur in the Latin-Old High German glossary Clm 19440 (see chapter  15) on the noun (Ps 38:11) plagas ‘plagues, wounds, blows’ → haramscara ‘plagues, punishments, sorrow’, in the Old Alemannic Psalter Fragments (see chapter 7) on the verb (Ps 107:8) diuidam → ceteilo ‘I divide’ (both pres. ind. 1sg.), or in the Old Frisian Psalter Fragment (see chapter 13) on the prepositional phrase (Ps 17:12) in circuitu → inda umgebunge ‘in the vicinity’. Not always can the lemma be glossed exactly form-for-form, however. The next example, from the Milan Glosses (see 5.2 below), concerns a Latin ablative absolute construction. This construction does not exist in Old Irish, and it can be seen that the lemma has been faithfully rendered semantically, while the gloss disregards the form-for-form principle:156

153 Jakobson, ‘Linguistic Aspects’. 154 Henkel, ‘Glossierung’, pp. 479–493. 155 Glaser, ‘Formales Verhältnis’. 156 Ml 84d5.



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[…] et sequebatur corus sallentium traductís israhelitís .i. amtarmbati submersís ægiptiis […]157 Here the Latin ablative absolute construction aegiptiis submersis ‘after the Egyptians had been drowned’ has been glossed in Old Irish as a temporal clause a mbtar báitte ‘when they had been drowned’, which approximates the meaning of the lemma but is formally quite unlike the Latin nominal construction. Under type SUB2 are classified substitution glosses which provide an explanatory replacement. In the following example from the Irish Psalter of St Caimín (see 4.4 below) the Latin gloss amabiles ‘worthy of love’ is written over the lemma cantabiles ‘worthy of song’ in (Ps 118:54): cantabiles mihi erant iustificationes tuae ‘your justifications were to me worthy of song’. Instead of a lexical substitution gloss, this is an explanatory substitution, clearly derived from the commentary paratext in the left-hand margin, which runs: cantabiles, id est amabiles; non me prohibuit de laudibus tuis adflictio captiuitatis ‘worthy of song, that is, worthy of love: the torment of captivity has not prevented me from praising you’. Indeed, a great number of SUB2 glosses betray the influence of patristic exegesis. For example, in the Lambeth Psalter (see chapter  12), (Ps 77:43) in aegypto ‘in Egypt’ → on þeostrum ‘in darkness’ is derived from Jerome’s Liber interpretationis,158 whereas (Ps 73:15) aetham ‘Etham’ → i. diaboli . sceaþan ‘that is, of the devil [Latin], devil [Old English]’, agrees with the genitive of the place name and reflects the interpretation of the name by Cassiodorus as diaboli.159 It needs to be noted, however, that the distinction between SUB1 and SUB2 is often not that clear-cut. A synonym can also explain, and the correspondence between lemma and gloss is frequently not semantically exact. In certain cases, therefore, the SUB2 gloss specifies the meaning of the lemma, or attempts to clarify and even interpret it, as in the following examples from the Latin-Old High German glossary Clm 19440: rug(i)ebam ‘I was roaring, bellowing’ → flebam ‘I was weeping’. The entry abeam ‘I would depart’ → moriar ‘I would die, decay’, possi-

157 Fol. 84d (29–32): ‘[…] and a choir of praise singers followed after the Israelites had been led across and the Egyptians had been drowned.’ 158 In Psalm 79:9, for example, the same term is given a SUB1: uineam de aegypto → wingeard of ægiptalande. 159 Wiesenekker, Word be worde, p. 310; Stracke, Studies, p. 105.

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bly suggests that abeam is understood euphemistically; both forms, however, are present active subjunctive 1sg. Substitution glosses providing a paraphrase of a lemma are classed as SUB3. This type is more difficult to fit into a taxonomy, which is why this theoretically intriguing category deserves some further comment. It could be argued that the broad category of substitution gloss merges into a next-adjacent discourse category of paraphrase, which therefore constitutes a separate category. A preferable approach, however, is to say that the broad category of substitution glosses is typified by the paradigm case of the form-for-form gloss, but that it ranges downwards to elements smaller than words, such as morpheme glossing and diacritical marks, and upwards to elements much larger than the word, up to and inclu­ ding the category of paraphrase.160 The following example from the Milan Glosses illustrates the paraphrasing category:

.i. airnap árécin dagnet .i. airndib ar oas eadem repetit ut non auersis animis sed laetís studeant obedire161

Here the Irish phrase ‘that they may not do it under compulsion’ glosses auersis animis and ‘that they may be willing’ glosses laetis studeant obedire. While strictly speaking these glosses do not represent a form-for-form interpretation of their respective lemmas, or a direct approximation of the lemma’s semantics as in type SUB1, they clearly function as substitution glosses. 2.4.3.2 Supplement Glosses Supplement glosses elucidate the morphology and syntax of the principal text by supplying additional clarifying word forms, often repeated, or otherwise deduced, from context. The supplied elements can sometimes form complete constituents, words or a group of words that function as a single syntactic unit, such as an object, a subject, or a phrase, added to a sentence in the principal text. More often the supplement glosses complement constituents already existing in the principal text. Other than nominal forms, typically supplied elements are finite verb forms (often a copula), prepositions (mostly to provide syntactical and grammatical aids), conjunctions (such as Latin ut introducing a subjunctive), adverbs (such as a repeated negation non) and interjections. Typically, but not

160 I wish to thank David Cram for sharing with me his thoughts on this question. 161 Ml 83b14–15: ‘(He) repeated the same; that they should strive to obey not with contrary, but with glad spirits’.



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always, supplement glosses conform to the matrix syntax of the principal text. Two subcategories of supplement gloss can be identified, depending on whether the gloss supplies a constituent (SUP1), or whether it supplements a constituent (SUP2). An example of a SUP1 gloss, supplying a constituent, occurs in the following passage from the Milan Glosses, where the subject (Latin deus ‘God’) is repeated, whereas the object (filios israhel ‘the sons of Israel’) is supplied from context in order to elucidate the phrase nisi […] saluaret ex hostibus ‘unless […] he would save from enemies’, so that the whole utterance may be read as ‘‘God […] for unless he would not save the sons of Israel from enemies […]’: deus deus […] nisi enim sal i. filios israhel uaret ex hostibus […] Another example of SUP1 occurs in the Lambeth Psalter at (Ps 68:3) et non est substantia ‘and there is no substance’. Here an Old English dative object me ‘for me’ is supplied from the right margin, so that the vernacular interpretation reads: 7 nis sped ł edwist ‘there is for me not any power or substance’. A last example of SUP1 occurs in the Lublin/Wittenberg interlinear version (see chapter 9) added to (Ps 65:10) sicut examinatur argentum ‘as silver is tried’ → also man irsuokit siluer ‘as one tries silver’. Here the Latin passive is rendered as an Old Saxon impersonal construction, adding a SUP1 in the form of the indefinite pronoun man ‘one’. A common example of a SUP2 gloss, supplementing a constituent in the principal text, concerns the addition of a vernacular preposition to clarify the Latin ablative. In the Vespasian Psalter (see chapter 8) the Old English preposition mid ‘with’ is used to clarify a Latin instrumental ablative: (Ps 107:6) gloria tua → mid wuldre ðine ‘with your glory’. Similarly, Anglo-Saxon interlinear versions sometimes supply the Old English interjection eala ‘o! lo!’ to clarify a Latin vocative, as in the Lambeth Psalter: (Ps 8:2) domine dominus noster → eala drihten ure drihten ‘o Lord our Lord’. A final example of SUP2 is taken from the Milan Glosses: scilicet ille qui apparuit in Sina ‘namely, he who appeared on Sinai’. Here the noun monte ‘mountain’ is supplied to the constituent, namely, the prepositional phrase in Sina ‘on Sinai’. The supplied elements conform to the syntax of the principal text, monte taking the ablative singular from Sina. Also note that the finite verb form est, in the manuscript in the shape of the abbreviation , is also supplied, providing an example of a SUP1 gloss.

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A further subcategory of SUP2 glosses are syntactical glosses in the shape of ‘construe’ or ‘syntax-marks’. These non-verbal glosses are especially common in Irish and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, consisting of combinations of abstract signs (dots, commas, and dashes) and letters to explicate the syntactic context of a lemma.162 They can frequently be found in combination with verbal glosses, like the Old Irish Milan Glosses (see 5.2.2) or with an interlinear version, like the Anglo-Saxon Lambeth Psalter (see 12.3). Construe marks may occasionally even be found in glossaries.163 2.4.3.3 Commentary Glosses Commentary glosses provide new information to and elucidate a given lemma, but without substituting or supplementing the principal text. However, defining this category and the relation between commentary glosses, scholia and commentary proper is problematic, which results in these terms often being used interchangeably.164 However, I will henceforth refer to such forms of marginal or interlinear glossing commenting on elements in the principal text as a ‘commentary gloss’. Within this broad category of commentary glosses most of the content-based sub-types proposed by Cinato can be identified:165 COM1 glosses provide lexical or etymological commentary; COM2 glosses provide commentary on morphology and syntax; COM3 glosses provide variant readings or other text-critical information. Finally, COM4 glosses give explicative commentary, for example on exegesis or historical background. The following examples will illustrate these four different subcategories. Typical COM1 glosses providing etymological information occur, for example, in the Regius Psalter (see chapter 10) on (Ps 1:1) beatus ‘blessed’ is glossed beatus a beatitudine ‘blessed; (derived) from blessedness’, or in the Latin-Old High German glossary Clm 18140 (see chapter 15), on the same verse: et dicitur beatus quasi bene auctus […] et nihil uult mali. A longer COM1 gloss occurs in the Psalter of St Caimín, where the Latin past participle coagulatum ‘congealed’ occurring in Psalm 118:17, has received a bilingual gloss in the right-hand margin: agulum

162 Ó Néill, ‘Syntactical Glosses’; Korhammer, ‘Konstruktionshilfen’; Robinson, ‘Syntactical Glosses’; Draak, ‘Higher Teaching’; Draak, ‘Construe Marks’. Cf. Reynolds, ‘Syntactic Theory’. 163 As in the case of London, BL, Harley 110; see Di Sciacca, ‘Glossing’, pp. 321–323. 164 Tura, ‘Essai’, pp. 264–267; Law, Grammar, pp. 144 fn. 40 and 152; Holtz, ‘Grammairiens’, pp. 74–78. 165 These normally include glosses on prosody, often in the form of diacritics which indicate emphasis, or accentual marks indicating the correct stress of polysyllabic words. However, since they do not occur in my corpus, I have left them out of the present classification.



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.i. binten. coagulum compositum a co 7 agulum uel agelo cogilatum foeside. This gloss provides a lexical or etymological explication of the lemma coagulatum, which is connected to Latin **agulum, possibly a learned back-formation from coagulum ‘rennet’, and glossed with an Old Irish SUB1 gloss bindén ‘cheese-rennet’, followed by a COM1 gloss meaning ‘coagulum is composed of co and agulum, or rather: “congealed by the frost”’. COM2 glosses provide additional information on an aspect of morphology or syntax. A common COM2 gloss consists of the name of a case, tense, or mood, written interlinearly over an otherwise morphologically or syntactically ambi­ guous lemma. In an example from the Milan Glosses, where the Latin ā-stem noun uicinia ‘neighbourhood, resemblance’ could be both nominative and ablative sing­ular, the interlinear COM2 gloss ablatiuus ‘ablative (case)’ provides the correct interpretation. Similarly, in the Latin-Old High German glossary Clm 18140 the phrase (Ps 67:14) pinnae columbae deargentatae ‘the silver-plated wings of a dove’ is glossed by a Latin COM2 est species tropi  / quę uocatur syntaxis  / hiperbaton ‘(it) is a form of figurative use called hyperbaton’. The ecdotic commentary gloss of type COM3 provides information on textual aspects of lemmas. Most frequently, they provide variant readings from other Psalter versions (see 3.2 below) such as the Gallican, Old Latin, or, most frequently, Roman versions, as is the case in the Lambeth Psalter, where (Ps 34:10) a diripientibus eum ‘from them that strip him’ is glossed i. a rapientib[us] ‘from them that grab (him)’. A typical example of the explicative COM4 gloss, finally, is the Old Irish marginal gloss on (Ps 67:7) in Selmon in the Southampton Psalter: linn insen oc hiurusalem cach rí gaib[es] flaithius oc hiurusalem fothruicther esin lindsen. This gloss gives historical information on the biblical place name Selmon, and runs ‘in Selmon: that is, a pool at Jerusalem. Every king who takes the sovereignty at Jerusalem is bathed in that pool’. Another frequent type of commentary gloss consists of biblical quotations, such as the following COM4 from the Regius Psalter: (Ps 32:5) diligit misericordiam ‘he loves mercy’, which triggers a quotation from (Matthew 5:7) ut ait beati misericordies quoniam misericordiam consequentur ‘as he says, blessed are the merciful for they will obtain mercy’. A full description and analysis of form, function, glossing density, text-distance versus text-proximity and its associated reading strategy (that is, the ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’-oriented structure of the glossed text), finally, constitutes what in this book will be called the glossing strategy of a given manuscript. It is with the typology and descriptive approach outlined above that the vernacular glossing traditions of early medieval Western Europe, both Celtic and Germanic, and their relation to Latin principal texts and paratexts will be analysed in the chapters that follow.

Chapter 3: The Psalms 3.1 The Psalms in Monastic Life The Old Testament Book of Psalms, or Psalter (from Greek ψαλμοί ‘songs, accompanied by string music’, the Hebrew name is ‫ ְתִּהִלּים‬təhillîm ‘songs of praise’) contains 150 psalms, variously numbered. It has been used both in the public worship and the private prayer of the Christian Church since early times.166 The psalms played a central role in the medieval liturgy of both East and West.167 The entire run of 150 psalms was chanted each week in the Western Divine Office, and the five principal sung elements of the Mass (the introit, gradual, alleluia, offertory and communio) all came into existence as psalms.168 In monastic communities, especially, daily recitation of the entire Psalter, whether in private or in company, represented a pivotal element of ascetic discipline, even if the number of psalms to be recited varied in the earlier rules. However, the Rule of St Benedict stipulated that the entire Psalter should be recited once per week.169 Sermons on the psalms were common, and the recitation of the psalms also contributed considerably to the development of plainchant. Memorization of the Psalter therefore was a universal monastic requirement, one imposed on the monks and nuns as soon as they committed themselves to the ascetic life, as well as on novices and pupils.170 As such, the psalms served not only as the daily text in the recital of the Divine Office, but also came to be the educational primer, and thus the most studied text of the Middle Ages. Indeed, competing with classical and late-antique primers, the Psalter occupied a central role in clerical and monastic education.171 Anglo-Saxon sources, for example, suggest that only after mastering the Psalter the oblates were put to study the Disticha of Pseudo-Cato and other established schoolbooks.172

166 Hartenstein, ‘Psalmen/Psalter’. 167 McKinnon, ‘Book of Psalms’, pp. 54–56. 168 Häußling, ‘Psalmen/Psalter’, pp. 67–72. Note that in the secular churches only a selection of the Psalter was sung during the ‘cathedral’ offices of Morning Prayer and Vespers. 169 Curran, Antiphonary, pp. 159–195; Columbanus, Opera, ed. Walker, pp. 128–130. 170 Dyer, ‘Psalms’, p. 59. 171 The following section is based on Riché, Écoles, pp. 47–118. Cf. Riché, ‘Educazione’. 172 Lendinara, ‘Glosses’, p. 20. DOI 10.1515/9783110501865-003

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In medieval Western Christendom a child learned his reading from the Latin Psalter.173 Lives of the Irish saints, for example, suggest that seven was the usual age to begin learning and reading. In the classroom, as soon as a pupil had learned the alphabet, he was given the Psalter as his first book, and in due course the term psalteratus came to be identical to literatus.174 Gifted students might be expected to learn the Psalter within a year, but most boys took two or three years.175 Even before being able to read them, however, the novice learned both the psalms and the canticles (see 3.2.2) by heart in order to take part in the liturgical services.176 Thus, the Psalter not only furnished the text for learning to read, write and memorise: it also furnished the prime text for musical training. Indeed, the proper chanting of the psalms was emphasised in the various monastic rules.177 It would appear that this instruction was largely oral: students would get the information by word of mouth from their masters, rather than from written text.178 Even so, written text was certainly used.179 Instead of parchment, teachers and students alike mostly used waxed tablets for making notes and preparing works to be written later on parchment.180 A set of these tablets have survived from ca. 600 in Springmount Bog, Ireland.181 However, the reproduction and multiplication of Psalter manuscripts required scriptoria, which only the richer monasteries could afford.182

3.2 The Text of the Latin Psalter The textual tradition of the psalms represents a unique case within the Latin Bible, since in the medieval period three different versions of the Psalter were cur-

173 Riché, ‘Livre psautier’. 174 Gougaud, Christianity, pp. 244–247 at p. 244; Ryan, Irish Monasticism, p. 379; Riché, Écoles, pp. 223–234; Riché, ‘Rôle’, pp. 135–137; Fischer, ‘Psalter-Frömmigkeit’. 175 Riché, ‘Psautier’. 176 Gougaud, Christianity, pp. 244–245 with sources listed under fn. 1. 177 Bower, ‘Grammatical Model’; Pietzsch, Musik, pp. 64–101. 178 Gougaud, Christianity, pp. 247–249; Ryan, Irish Monasticism, pp. 378–383. 179 Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’, pp. 198 and 213. 180 Ryan, Irish Monasticism, p. 292 fn. 1 for Irish references. 181 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 31–33 and 116–119. 182 Hughes, ‘Distribution’, pp. 251–259; Gougaud, Christianity, pp. 361–370. Cf. Graham, Irish Monastic School, pp. 101–118.



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rent.183 The earliest Latin psalters, dating from the second century at the latest, translated literally and in unadorned language from the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek often indicated as LXX. These are collectively known as the Itala, Vetus Latina, or Old Latin versions.184 One of these was the Psalterium Romanum or Roman Psalter, so called because it was used at St Peter’s in Rome up to the sixteenth century.185 This translation served as the basis for Cassiodorus’ commentary on the Psalms (see 3.3.2) and is also cited by St Benedict and Pope Gregory.186 Jerome (ca. 347–419), having settled at Bethlehem in Palestine in the 380s, made an emendation of the Old Latin Psalter which was to become the official text of the medieval Church. He used the LXX text of the Hexapla, Origen’s ela­ borate edition of the Old Testament.187 Because of this version’s early acceptance in Gaul, which possibly took place under the influence of Gregory of Tours (538– 594), it became known as the Psalterium Gallicanum or Gallican Psalter.188 Subsequently, Jerome translated the psalms into Latin a second time, this time directly from the Hebrew. This version became known as the Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos or Hebraicum.189 It was never used in the liturgy, however, but gene­ rally included in so-called pandects, codices containing the entire Bible, from the time of Cassiodorus (ca. 490–583) onward.190 It was used as such by Carolingian scholars such as Theodulf of Orléans (ca. 750/60–821), and appears in this guise as late as the twelfth-century Eadwine Psalter.191 The Hebraicum text especially occurs in psalters produced for scholarly purposes, in which two or all the three different versions (Roman, Gallican and Hebrew) were set out in parallel columns (see 3.4).192 In this category belong the so-called ‘double psalters’ from the Irish tradition, with the Gallican and Hebraicum presented in parallel columns, for

183 Peppermüller, ‘Psalmen’, col. 296. 184 Allgeier, Psalterien. A different Old Latin translation was used in Milan, the so-called Psalterium Ambrosianum; see Fischer, ‘Überlieferung’, pp. 411–412. In Spain, until the twelfth century the so-called Psalterium Mozarabicum was in use; see Fischer, ‘Überlieferung’, pp. 413–414; Fischer, ‘Bibelausgaben’, p. 55 fn. 62. 185 Weber, Psautier romain; Allgeier, ‘Psalmübersetzung’; De Bruyne, ‘Problème’. 186 Kuhn, Vespasian, p. 45. 187 Estin, Psautiers. On Jerome’s activity as a translator, see Estin, ‘Traductions’. 188 Critical edition in Liber Psalmorum. 189 De Sainte-Marie, Sancti Hieronymi Psalterium. 190 Wilmart, ‘Psautier’, p. 354. 191 Fischer, ‘Überlieferung’, p. 407. 192 Gibson, ‘Glossed Psalters’, p. 78 fn. 2.

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example the tenth-century Double Psalter of St Ouen and the surviving fragment of its sister codex.193

3.2.1 Spread and Use of the Different Psalter Versions In Gaul the Gallicanum was probably already widespread as early as 500. In this region it had a strong influence on local liturgical texts still based on Old Latin versions, resulting in various mixed varieties.194 In the wake of the Carolingian liturgical reforms, however, the text of the Gallican Psalter itself gradually spread throughout Europe. Thus, in Germany, Central and Southern Italy it ousted the Romanum, in Northern Italy and Gaul it replaced various Old Latin versions and in Spain it finally took the place of the Mozarabic Psalter by the twelfth century. Its gradual introduction started under Pippin in the 750s, gained ground under Charlemagne and continued under Louis the Pious. The exact reasons for this spread are unknown, but the status of the Gallican Psalter as the ‘correct text’ as revised by Jerome may have contributed much.195 Bonifatius Fischer stressed, however, that its spread should not be attributed directly to Alcuin of York (ca. 735–804), as has hitherto often been the case.196 Nonetheless, the revised Gallican text is generally referred to as the ‘Alcuinian’ recension (siglum Φ) and the Gallicanum was used as the text of the Psalter in the very influential ‘Alcuin-Bibles’ produced at Tours.197 In Ireland, too, the Gallican Psalter was the most commonly used version from the late sixth or early seventh century onwards, and it became standard throughout the medieval Gaelic world.198 Fragments of the Gallicanum, possibly imported from Gaul, appear on the wax tablets found in Springmount Bog and in the famous Cathach of St Columba (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, s. n.) from around 630.199 Irish Gallican psalters are typically written per cola et commata

193 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 69–70. 194 Judging, for example, from the fragmentary Lyon Psalter, in Lyon, BM, 425 (351) and Paris, BnF, nouv. acq. lat. 1585. 195 Fischer, ‘Überlieferung’, pp. 408–411. 196 Fischer, ‘Bibeltext’, pp. 164–166; Fischer, ‘Bibelausgaben’, p. 91. 197 Fischer, ‘Alkuin-Bibeln’, pp. 363–367. 198 For an analysis of the text cited in early Irish sources, see McNamara, Psalms, pp. 98–101 with bibliography. 199 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 103–104 and 254–257. Indeed, the Irish text of the Gallicanum, represented by extant manuscripts dating from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, notably the Double Psalter of St Ouen, consists of at least two recensions, whereas the twelfth-century Can-



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and are often divided into the ‘three fifties’.200 By contrast, no copies of any Old Latin versions from Ireland have survived. Whereas St Patrick (fifth century) appears to have used a Gallic Old Latin text, it is unknown whether the Romanum ever reached Ireland. The Hebraicum, however, was known to the compilers of the Milan Glosses and occurs in various ‘double psalters’ associated with the Irish tradition.201 Instead, in Anglo-Saxon England the Psalter text of common use was the Romanum.202 Originally used in Rome, Central and Southern Italy, it was brought to England by St Augustine of Canterbury (died ca. 604), from which stems the entire English family of the Roman Psalter.203 This spread has been explained by the increasing influence of the Kentish Church, which was oriented on Rome especially after the ecclesiastical reorganisations of Theodore and Hadrian.204 Bede suggests that the Romanum was also taught by John the Archchanter of St Peter’s when he came from Rome to Wearmouth and Jarrow (ca. 680).205 This version was in common use until the tenth century, especially among the secular clergy, and was still being copied at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the twelfth century.206 Still, the Gallicanum was known in England through the Irish missions in Northumbria, and both Benedict Biscop (ca. 628–690) and Alcuin appear to have been acquainted with it. Even so, it was not until the second half of the tenth century that the Gallicanum began to oust the Roman Psalter in England, mainly under the influence of the Benedictine Revival associated with the names of Dunstan (909–988), Æthelwold (904/9–984) and Oswald (died 992).207 The Hebraicum, finally, was not used in the English church, even though it was known to scholars.208

terbury Psalter has three. The early eleventh-century Edinburgh Psalter was probably meant for devotional use. Note, finally, that there are also a few extant Greek or Greco-Latin Psalters: the ninth-century Basel Greco-Latin Psalter and the ninth-century Greek Psalter of Sedulius Scottus. 200 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 111–112; Bannister, ‘Irish Psalters’. 201 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 101–103 and 257–258. 202 Pulsiano, ‘Psalters’. 203 Sisam/Sisam, Salisbury Psalter, p. 48. 204 Weber, Psautier romain, p. xxii; Wildhagen, ‘Studien’, pp. 420–422. 205 Kuhn, Vespasian Psalter, p. 45. 206 Ó Néill, ‘English Version’, pp. 137–138; Sisam/Sisam, Salisbury Psalter, p. 49 fn. 1. 207 Sisam/Sisam, Salisbury Palter, p. 48; Kuhn, Vespasian Psalter, p. 46; Wildhagen, ‘Psalterium Gallicanum’, pp. 40–42; Wildhagen, ‘Psalterium Romanum’, p. 422. 208 Apart from the Codex Amiatinus, a Bible containing both Gallicanum and Hebraicum was written in Jarrow before 718; see Markey, ‘Anglo-Norman Version’, p. 139.

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3.2.2 The Canticles The Latin Psalter was often joined in the manuscripts by the so-called canticles or cantica. These are passages taken from various parts of the Bible, including the ‘additional’ psalm 151 Pusillus eram, and were used like the psalms in both Eastern and Western liturgies. The canticles existed in various different redactions.209 First attested in Carolingian psalters, they gradually became canonical,210 and begin to appear in England by the mid-tenth century.211 All redactions were partly based on the Old Latin translations and partly on the Vulgate, the late fourth-century Latin translation of the entire Bible which was largely the work of Jerome. However, under Charlemagne the Old Latin texts were all replaced by their Vulgate counterparts, even if the old text partly survived in some later manuscripts and remains unaltered in the Antiphonarium up to the present day.212 Still, in Anglo-Saxon England the Roman Psalter continued to be accompanied by the canticles in an Old Latin version.213

3.3 Psalm Commentaries 3.3.1 Introduction In its use of the Psalter, the Western Church was to a large extent the heir of the Christian tradition of the East, particularly, if not exclusively, that of Alexandria.214 The Christian use of the psalms had to adapt their Jewish heritage, as in some instances the psalms could only be used as Christian prayer by giving them a new interpretation in a Christian sense.215 This process of appropriation can be traced to the very beginnings.216 Still, in the first two Christian centuries the Psalter appears to have been regarded as a collection of prophecies fulfilled in the

209 See in general Schneider, Cantica. 210 Mearns, Canticles, pp. 62–67. 211 Ó Néill, ‘Latin Learning’, p. 150 fn. 29. 212 Fischer, ‘Überlieferung’, pp. 414–415. Cf. Leroquais, Psautiers manuscrits, I, p. lv; Schneider, Cantica, pp. 50–58; Mearns, Canticles, pp. 62–67 (for a convenient summary of Irish usage, see pp. 68–70). 213 Pfaff, ‘Tituli’, pp. 103–107. 214 Walsh, ‘Christian Prayer’; Salmon, ‘Interpretation’; Salmon, Tituli Psalmorum. Cf. Simonetti, ‘Interpretazione’; Torjesen, ‘Interpretation’. 215 Zenger, Psalter; Fischer, Psalmen. 216 Janowski, ‘Psalmen/Psalter’; Trublet, ‘Psaumes’; Saint-Arnaud, ‘Psaumes’.



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ministry of Christ, rather than as a source of texts designed for sung public worship.217 Only recently has it become clear that Christians did not use the Psalter as a hymnal from the very beginning. The public observance of the morning and evening Office, and its associated rise to prominence of the psalms, appears to have originated only after the emancipation of the Church under Constantine in 313.218 As the psalms began to take on an important role in the prayer life of the Church, there gradually arose a considerable literature of psalm commentaries.219 Not only did these exegetical guides provide orthodox interpretations of every line of verse, they also served as models of text interpretation.220 The Western monastic rules, in particular, being generally less suspicious of the involvement of the intellect in the understanding of Scripture, encouraged the reading of commentaries by the Fathers during the hours devoted to the lectio divina.221 It is generally assumed that Christian exegesis and understanding of the psalms in the early centuries still built directly on a corpus of tradition about the Psalter existing among the Jews.222 Origen (died 253), the first great Christian scholar, was also the first to produce a continuous interpretation of the Psalter. While acknowledging that all sacred Scripture had a literal sense, he and his followers of the Alexandrian school regarded it as far more important to penetrate beneath the letter down to the spiritual sense.223 Thus, the work of the Alexandrian school is characterised by its strongly Christological interpretation of the psalms. The work of Origen exercised an enormous influence on all later writings on psalm exegesis and became dominant in the Western Church. In response to the allegorizing tendencies of the Alexandrians, however, the Antiochene school insisted on the literal and historical sense of Scripture, refusing to see the Old Testament merely as prophecies and types of Christ. Two of its

217 Fischer, ‘Christ’, p. 88. For more recent discussions of the issues involved, see Bradshaw, ‘First Three Centuries’; Bradshaw, Daily Prayer, pp. 43–46. 218 McKinnon, ‘Book’, pp. 44–45, referring to Grisbrook, ‘Formative Period’; Fischer, ‘Psalmenfrömmigkeit’. 219 Gelineau, ‘Psaumes’; Linton, ‘Interpretation’. 220 Dyer, ‘Psalms’, p. 66. For a survey of patristic commentaries on the psalms, see Rondeau, Commentaires. For list of patristic and medieval commentaries, see Knuth, Auslegungsgeschichte, pp. 396–403; McNally, Bible, pp. 100–101; Wolter, Psallite sapienter. The contents of the most important commentaries is summarised in Salmon, Office divin, pp. 103–111. However, a full evaluation of the psalms cannot begin in earnest before the completion of the indices to Stegmüller, Repertorium. 221 Dyer, ‘Psalms’, p. 67; Mundó, ‘Reglas’. 222 Cf. De Lange, Origen, pp. 119–120; De Lange,‘Origen’; Marmorstein, ‘Judaism’. 223 On Origen’s exegesis, see Simonetti, ‘Interpretazione’, pp. 25–31; Wiles, ‘Origen’.

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most famous exponents were John Chrysostom (ca. 307–407) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–428).224 Theodore’s influential commentary on the psalms, which has survived partly in the original Greek texts and partly through Latin and Syriac translations and adaptations,225 argued that only four of the psalms should be seen as direct prophecies of Christ. The others were to be understood morally and didactically, or otherwise as referring directly to events in Jewish history.226 Still, Antiochene influence made itself felt in the West chiefly through the Latin translation of Theodore’s commentary by Julian of Eclanum (ca. 386– 454).227 There was also an Epitome of this work, anonymously compiled sometime after the early fifth century and before the seventh, perhaps in Visigothic Spain or Southern France.228 However, by means of the Latin translation and its adaptation, Theodore’s approach to the psalms, and his emphasis on the supremacy of the literal and historical sense, was to make a very deep impact, on Irish exegesis in particular.229

3.3.2 The Latin Fathers The major Latin Fathers were directly influenced by the Greek and Eastern traditions, but the influence of Origen, and the Alexandrian school’s allegorical interpretation in particular, cannot be overestimated.230 The exegesis of the Latin Psalter begins with a commentary by Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–367/8),231 which clearly stands in the Alexandrian tradition of Origen, Eusebius and Athanasius.232 However, even though Hilary’s name was known, the text was only occasionally available in the early Middle Ages. Ambrose of Milan (ca. 340–397) also

224 Rondeau, Commentaires, pp. 126–130 and 102–106, respectively. 225 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Expositio, ed. De Coninck/D’Hont; Devreesse, Commentaire. 226 Bloemendaal, Headings, pp. 15–16 with further bibliography. Note, however, that other re­ presentatives of the Antiochene school, such as John Chrysostom and Theodoretus of Cyrrhus (ca 393–ca 458), avoided what they must have seen as the excesses of Theodore regarding the messianic psalms, taking the middle road between allegorism and literalism. 227 Rondeau, Commentaires, pp. 175–188. 228 Ó Néill, ‘Transmission’, pp. 68–70; Laistner, ‘Antiochene Exegesis’; Ramsey, ‘Theodore’. 229 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 93–94; McNamara, ‘Celtic Scriptures’. 230 For a general survey of commentaries by the Latin fathers, see Rondeau, Commentaires, pp. 144–202. 231 Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus, ed. Doignon. 232 Kannengieser, ‘Exégèse’, pp. 133–134; Kannengieser, ‘Héritage’; Goffinet, Utilisation.



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probed beneath the surface of the psalms’ literal meaning in order to draw out their moral teachings.233 Jerome, however, the major reviser and translator of the Latin Psalter, has left no full authentic commentary, but only a collection of smaller works. His Commentarioli in Psalmos are, by his own admission, only a supplement to the work of Origen,234 while the Tractatus siue homeliae in Psalmos, long considered to be an authentic work of Jerome, is now viewed as substantially a translation of Origen, too.235 Relevant for subsequent exegesis, however, was his Liber interpretationis Hebraicorum nominum, which is an authentic work.236 Jerome assumed various authors for the psalms, basing himself on the different psalm headings (see 3.3.2 below), even if it was generally assumed later that David was the author of the entire Psalter.237 Augustine of Hippo (354–430), moreover, took the psalms to be spoken by Christ.238 As such, he was a staunch adherent of the Alexandrian allegorical school, who followed an almost exclusively spiritual interpretation in his widely-read Ennarationes in Psalmos.239 While less influential commentaries were produced in this period by Prosper of Aquitaine (ca. 390–ca. 463)240 and Arnobius Iunior (died ca. 455),241 the commentary by Cassiodorus,242 who presented his Expositio Psalmorum as an abbreviation of Augustine’s Ennarationes, but used other sources as well, would become the most widely used in early medieval Europe.243 Cassiodorus came up with a series of marginal symbols to represent all the different disciplines involved in the exegesis of the psalms: grammar, etymology, rhetoric, dialectic and music amongst many others.244 The Western Church also inherited several works which were used for the exegesis of the Psalter, most importantly Eucherius of Lyon’s

233 Auf der Maur, Psalmenverständnis, for extensive bibliography. 234 Jerome, Opera, ed. Morin, I, pp. 163–245. 235 Peri, Omelie origeniane, p. 28. Cf. Jerome, Opera, ed. Morin, I, pp. 1–352; cf. Tractatuum in Psalmos series altera in Ibid., pp. 353–447. 236 Jerome, Opera, ed. Morin, I, pp. 57–161. 237 Sparks, ‘Jerome’. 238 Walsh, ‘Christian Prayer’, pp. 33–45; Salmon, ‘Interpretation’, pp. 46–47; Salmon, ‘Tituli’, pp. 24–25. Cf. Bonner, ‘Augustine’. 239 Augustine, Ennarationes, ed. Dekkers/Fraipont. 240 Prosper of Aquitaine, Expositio, ed. Callens, pp. 3–211. 241 Arnobius Iunior, Commentarii, ed. Daur. 242 Barnish, ‘Work’; Momigliano, ‘Cassiodoro’; Momigliano, ‘Cassiodorus’. 243 Cassiodorus, Expositio, ed. Adriaen. For a short study of the manuscript evidence of Cassiodorus’ Expositio in Anglo-Saxon England, see Rushforth, ‘Annotated Psalters’, pp. 59–61. 244 Cassiodorus, Expositio, ed. Adriaen, II, p. 1329; Halporn, ‘Methods’.

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(died ca. 450) Formulae spiritalis intelligentiae and Instructiones;245 Isidore of Seville’s (ca. 560–636) Etymologiae and Gregory the Great’s (died 604) Moralia in Iob.246

3.3.3 The Early Middle Ages This patristic inheritance was subsequently reworked into the earliest of the medieval Western commentaries, the Anonymi glosa psalmorum ex traditione seniorum, dating from the seventh century. Drawing principally on Augustine, it was composed in southern Gaul in the first half of the seventh century for a monastic audience.247 Even so, it was widely popular in Western Europe up to the early tenth century.248 A second early post-patristic commentary was the so-called Breuiarium in Psalmos. Sometime erroneously ascribed to Jerome, it was compiled in the mid-seventh century from different commentaries, including Latin translations of Origen’s commentaries, while it also borrowed heavily from the Anonymi glosa psalmorum and Cassiodorus.249 A third commonly used post-patristic work consisted of series of introductions to individual psalms, the so-called Argumenta, which, together with a set of non-biblical tituli (see 3.4) were often attributed to Bede (672/3–735). These Pseudo-Bedan Argumenta in psalmos provided a composite of two or three brief interpretations.250 Interestingly, the first interpretation reflected the literal and historical exegesis of the Antiochene school, derived via Julian of Eclanum from Theodore of Mopsuestia. By contrast, the second and third interpretations were generally moral and allegorical, the former reproducing the Christian tituli of the ‘Columban’ series (see 3.4) and the latter borrowing from works such as Jerome’s Commentarioli and Arnobius’ commentary. The ninth- and tenth-century Carolingian scholars produced further commentaries.251 The monastic scholar Smaragdus of St Mihiel (ca. 760–ca. 840) wrote a Spiritalis expositio of the Psalter, even if this work appears to have enjoyed

245 Eucherius, Instructiones, ed. Mandolfo. 246 Gregory the Great, Moralia, ed. Adriaen. 247 Boese, Anonyma glosa, I, pp. 9–15. 248 Ó Néill, Psalterium, p. lxx. 249 Pseudo-Jerome, Breuiarium, ed. Migne, cols 821–1270. On this text, for which Irish origins have been claimed, see McNamara, Psalms, pp. 49 and 307. 250 Ramsey, ‘Theodore’, pp. 471–474. 251 Chazelle/Van Name Edwards, ‘Introduction’.



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a restricted currency.252 Other commentaries were produced by Haymo of Halberstadt (died 853) and Remigius of Auxerre (ca. 841–908). 253 In southern Germany the exegetical tradition, established in St Gall and maintained in Tegernsee, consisted of Cassiodorus’s Expositio, sometimes together with the Pseudo-Bedan tituli. Extended with new material, it was developed into the ‘Tegernsee version’ attributed to Bruno, bishop of Würzburg (died 1045), even if this attribution may indicate the patron who commissioned the work, rather than its author.254 It should be noted that most of these early medieval commentaries were later replaced by the Glossa Ordinaria, the commentary on the Psalter of which, occasionally designated as the parua glossatura, has been attributed to Anselm of Laon (died 1117).255 It is commonly assumed that Ireland also produced a considerable body of psalm exegesis from the mid-seventh to the late twelfth century, which consisted mainly of commentary and gloss.256 The size and significance of this corpus of Hiberno-Latin exegesis, first pointed out by Bernhard Bischoff, has recently been the matter of some dispute.257 Irish Psalter exegetes frequently employed a system that contained two historical interpretations for any psalm, leading to a fourfold scheme of historical, mystical and moral interpretations.258 Even so, the Irish exegetical tradition stood apart from the general Western tendency in favouring a literal interpretation of the Scriptures. One of these putative Hiberno-Latin works must have been an anonymous commentary with such a historical bias. While its exact origin in time and place remain unclear, it seems to have been composed sometime during the seventh century. It had an Irish provenance, if not origin, judging by the presence of some of its interpretations in several Hiberno-Latin commentaries, such as the pauca problesmata de enigmatibus (called Das Bibelwerk or the ‘Reference Bible’ by Bis-

252 Rädle, Studien, pp. 99–100; Wilmart, ‘Smaragde’, p. 351. 253 Haymo of Halberstadt, Explanatio in Psalmos, ed. Migne, cols 191–696; Remigius of Auxerre, Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. Migne, cols 133–844. 254 Bruno of Würzburg, Expositio Psalmorum, ed. Migne, cols 49–530. It is included in four luxury Psalters written in Tegernsee around 1060 as well as in the glossary and commentary on the Psalms written in Tegernsee, now Munich, BSB, Clm 18140; cf. chapter 15 below. 255 Gibson, ‘Latin Apparatus’, p. 108; Smalley, ‘Glossa Ordinaria’. 256 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 96 and 367–368; Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’. 257 Bischoff’s notions have been criticised especially in Gorman, ‘Myth’; Gorman, ‘Critique’. Even so, his criticisms have met with strong defences in Ó Crónín, ‘Bischoff’s Wendepunkte’; Wright, ‘Bischoff’s Theory’; Silagi, ‘Bemerkungen’. For a balanced discussion, see Ó Néill, Psalterium, pp. lxxviii–lxxxv. 258 As enunciated in the Old Irish Treatise and the Pauca problesmata, see Ó Néill, ‘Old Irish Treatise’, p. 161.

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choff),259 and possibly in the eighth-century Vatican Commentary (see 5.3). It is best preserved in the glosses to the Hebraicum in the tenth-century Double Psalter of St Ouen.260 Furthermore, it was used for the compilation of the glosses in the Mondsee Psalter (before 778),261 and its influence can also be traced in the fragmentary Old Irish Treatise on the Psalter, written in the vernacular in the early ninth century.262 A different Hiberno-Latin commentary, probably composed in the seventh century, but still available in Ireland as late as the eleventh,263 also appears to underlie the Vatican Commentary, albeit in a condensed version.264 Finally, the commentary included in the Mondsee Psalter, for which Cassiodorus is again the prime source, is another witness to the systematic study of the Psalter within the Irish tradition.265

3.4 Psalm Headings (tituli), Collects and Prefaces In the Hebrew Bible the individual psalms had been provided with initial rubrics or headings (tituli). These sometimes contained directions for the choir, or identified the historical context of the psalm’s composition.266 These tituli were mostly translated in the Greek and Latin versions, including the Gallicanum, albeit often completely misunderstood.267 Still, they were not conventionally considered as ipsissima uerba of the Bible.268 In fact, the Syriac Church quite early rejected the biblical headings altogether and inserted new ones based on the commentary by Theodore of Mopsuestia.269 In the Latin Church, concurrent with their acceptance as Christian prayer under the influence of Origen via Ambrose, the psalms underwent a process of Christianisation known as ‘prosopological exegesis’. Thus, from about the third century onwards, the psalms began to be interpreted as the

259 Ed. MacGinty, Bibelwerk. 260 Ed. De Coninck, Expositiones. 261 Ed. De Coninck, Incerti auctoris expositio, I, p. xv. 262 Ed. Meyer, Hibernica minora. Cf. McNamara, Psalms, pp. 54–57; Ó Néill, ‘Old Irish Treatise’, pp. 148–164. 263 Ó Néill, ‘Glosses’. 264 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 236–237. 265 Ed. Unterkircher, Glossen. 266 Janowski, ‘Psalmen/Psalter’. 267 Pfaff, ‘Tituli’, p. 88. 268 Ó Néill, Psalterium, p. xli fn. 102. 269 Bloemendaal, Headings.



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uox ecclesiae, prayers addressed to Christ, or, alternatively, as the uox Christi, in which He united Himself with the prayers of the faithful. This interpretation is reflected in the development of at least six new series of psalm headings or tituli psalmorum, which constituted an important feature of medieval psalm study and devotion. These non-biblical tituli suggest in various ways the identity of the speaker (uox) of the individual psalm or its subject, and hence imply the way in which the singer should pray the psalm. They are frequently attested in Latin Psalter manuscripts, and often manuscripts contain more than one series of headings.270 The first series of psalm headings is the ‘mystical’ series of Columba,271 widely used in Ireland and included in the Cathach, but not originating there; the second is ascribed to Augustine of Canterbury, while the third series is clearly inspired by the work of Jerome. The fourth series, translated from the Greek, is derived from Eusebius of Caesarea’s (260–339) commentary; the fifth is inspired by Origen, whereas the sixth series, also much used in Ireland, is an adaptation of excerpts of Cassiodorus’ commentary, falsely ascribed to Bede and known as De titulis psalmorum.272 This work, as mentioned in section  3.3.3 above, combines historical headings, mainly dependent on the Epitome of Julian, with the Columba series, to which a moral application (argumentum) is added. Together with the Explanationes it circulated well into the eleventh century, both in its original form and as a constituent element in psalters cum sua expositione. Thus, it constituted a continuous commentary, dividing the exegesis for each psalm into three sections: the argumentum, the explanatio dealing with the psalm as a whole, and the commentarius proper.273 While there is no evidence that the tituli were read out during the liturgy, another type of addition to the psalms was actually employed in the Office. It consisted of the conclusion of a psalm with a silent private prayer or with a collect. The latter were set prayers after reading, spoken by the liturgist, and summarizing devotionally a theme taken from the psalm just recited. Collects only appear in a small percentage of psalters. As a manuscript feature, the collects do not

270 Walsh, ‘Christian Prayer’, pp. 29–73; Verbracken, ‘Lecture’; Salmon, ‘Tituli’. 271 McNamara, Psalms, pp. 34–36, 260–262 and 302–352. 272 Pseudo-Bede, Psalmorum librum exegesis, ed. Migne, cols 477–1098. See primarily Fischer, ‘Bedae de titulis’. Cf. McNamara, Psalms, pp. 37–39. 273 McNamara, ‘Five Irish Psalter Texts’, pp. 42–50; Gibson, ‘Glossed Psalters’, p. 97. Fischer, ‘Bedae de titulis’, p. 109 argued that Bede himself compiled the Explanationes, a suggestion rejected by Gorman, ‘Argumenta’, pp. 231–233.

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appear before the time of Charlemagne, but earlier sources for them have been traced, or at least inferred.274 The early medieval Latin Church also inherited various prefaces, or prologues, to the Psalter.275 These are first and foremost the two prefaces composed by Jerome, scio quosdam (to the Hebraicum) and psalterium Romae dudum positus (to the Gallicanum).276 A third commonly attested preface was erroneously attri­ buted to Bede, namely the Dauid filus Iesse.277

3.5 Manuscript Presentation: Layout and Punctuation In the surviving manuscripts the text of the Psalter and its associated corpus of ancillary texts (prefaces, tituli, canticles and other liturgical supplements, collects and commentaries) have been presented in various forms. As was seen already, parallel versions of the Psalter text (Greek and Latin) could be displayed in two, three, or four columns.278 This type of synoptic text-ensemble can be traced to the parallel versions of Origen’s Hexapla edition of the Old Testament. A similar type of synoptic presentation did not juxtapose different Latin versions, but involved a vernacular gloss on the principal text instead. In these so-called interlinear versions (‘Interlinearversionen’), most or every single lemma of the Latin text has received an interlinear lexical substitution gloss in the glossing language, giving the impression of a parallel horizontal, running text. It was noted that all early commentaries, patristic and medieval, were continuous. That is, they consisted of lemmas of the Psalter, each followed by its

274 Rondeau, Commentaires, pp. 198–200; Wilmart/Brou, Psalter Collects, pp. 174–22, now superseded by Pinell, Liber orationum; Verbracken, Oraisons. Cf. Mohrmann, ‘Collectes du psautier’, pp. 246–247. For doubts on the interpretation of the early evidence, see Pfaff, ‘Psalter Collects’. 275 Rondeau, Commentaires, pp. 196–197; Préfaces, pp. 42–45. 276 Ed. Liber Psalmorum, pp. 2–7. Cf. Schild, Bibelvorreden, pp. 16–18. 277 McNamara, Psalms, p. 356. Many more prefaces exist, such as St Basil’s preface in Rufinus’ Latin translation, the Omnis scriptura diuinitus inspirata. They are listed in Stegmüller, Repertorium, I, nos 358–452, but further study is needed. 278 For double psalters, see Bennett, Place, pp. 315–332. Triple and quadruple psalters in French libraries are conveniently listed in Leroquais, Psautiers manuscrits, II, p. 475. Outside France see, for example, the great quadruple psalter (Gallicanum, Romanum, Hebraicum, transliterated Greek) that was written in 909 for Abbot Salomo III of St Gall, now Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Bibl. 44 (A. I. 140). For an example from the Rhineland, note the twin quadruple psalters of the eleventh century, now Cologne, Domsbibliothek, 8 and Essen, Münsterschatz, s. n. See Kashnitz, Werdener Psalter, pp. 101–104; Drögereit, ‘Griechisch-Byzantinisches’, p. 114.



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exposition, and they are generally preserved in separate manuscripts.279 Moreover, many psalters typically would have marginal and interlinear notes, to be expanded and corrected over the years. Existing commentaries may have been worked into the marginal and interlinear annotation, but in many early psalters the page is ruled for the text alone, and the paratext is accommodated casually, as space permits, and is not visually integrated with the principal text. Thus, manuscripts containing commentaries, such as the Anonymi glosa psalmorum ex traditione seniorum, did not visually distinguish lemmas from their commentary in any way apart from rubrics.280 Another option, then, was to integrate the Psalter and its marginal annotation as a planned element in the mise-en-page: the so-called psalterium cum sua expositione, confusingly enough called ‘glossed psalters’ by some scholars.281 In such manuscripts the scripts of principal text and paratext were clearly differentiated, and the pages were ruled to accommodate a substantial marginal commentary.282 Most manuscripts of this type preferred Cassiodorus as their main source, which tended to be written out in the margins framing the principal text, but it sometimes also included the Pseudo-Bedan tituli which would precede each psalm.283 These psalters were the prototype for the Glossa Ordinaria to the Bible as a whole, even if this presentation was rarely applied to other books of the Bible, or other school texts, before that date.284 The confident execution of this format of integrating text and apparatus (Louis Holtz’s ‘édition commentée’) in, for example, the Frankfurt Psalter (Frankfurt, Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Barth. 32) written in Fulda, and several French manuscripts, implies that it was a well-established genre around the beginning of the ninth century.285 The final feature encountered in many psalters discussed in this book is their punctuation. Punctuation, as was discussed in 2.2 above, cannot always be regarded as a form of glossing. Even so, in some manuscripts it seems part of the glossing paratext, and has to be taken into account when reconstructing the reading strategy of a manuscript (see 7.5). In this context it is important to stress the separate status of the Psalter in terms of its reading or reciting, as compared

279 Ferrari, ‘Bibelhandschrift’, pp. 66–67. 280 Ibid., p. 66 fn. 56. 281 Gibson, ‘Glossed Psalters’. 282 Powitz, ‘Textus’. 283 Gibson, ‘Glossed Psalters’, p. 92. 284 Ibid., p. 99; Gibson, ‘Place’; Gibson, ‘Glossed Bible’. 285 Gibson, ‘Glossed Psalters’, pp. 79–80; Holtz, ‘Manuscrits’, pp. 157–167.

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to that of other literary and theological texts.286 The liturgical use of the Psalter in the context of the Mass and Office demanded a more elaborate form of recitation than did the recitation of other literary and theological texts, and the fact that the psalms were sung according to recitation tones gave a different structure to the whole text.287 This difference is typically borne out by the use of a discrete type of script and layout for the Psalter than customary for other text types, but also by its punctuation. Indeed, Nigel Palmer has recently argued that the punctuation of psalters predominantly reflects performance-related aspects, rather than indicating the logical and grammatical structure of a text, that is, its division into comma, colon, and sententia which Malcolm Parkes took as the basis for his analysis of early medieval punctuation in general, and which was subsequently applied to the psalms by other commentators.288 Palmer noted that, in manuscripts devised for use in the liturgy, punctuation instead appears to fall together with melodically fixed cadences at the end of phrases or periods.289 In other words, the punctuation of a psalter tends to follow the verse structure of the text, rather than its syntax. Even so, as shall be demonstrated in 7.5 below, the two interpretations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and to a certain extent even complementary.290 The basic conditions for the performance of the psalms arise from the two- or three-part structure which characterised psalm verses in their Hebrew original. In the later psalters researched by Palmer, such as those produced by the Cistercian order, the break between the two parts of a two-part psalm verse, the so-called metrum, is marked by punctuation. Moreover, in those verses consisting of three parts, a secondary minor pause is made: the so-called punctum, which is also marked by punctuation.291 Also marked by punctuation is the end of a verse, its so-called terminatio. The simplest form of punctuation used in psalters dating to the period covered in this book consists of a point placed at a lower to midway height, the punctus. Parkes’ general identification of these points with the distinctiones, ‘a system of punctuation developed in antiquity, based on the division of a sententia by punctūs placed at different heights in an ascending order of importance,’ rests

286 For the difference in dignity accorded to the various liturgical readings, see Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, I, pp. 524–532. 287 Dyer, ‘Psalm’; Van Dijk, ‘Medieval Terminology’. 288 Cf. Brown, ‘Psalms’, p. 10. 289 Palmer, ‘Zisterzienserinterpunktion’, pp. 494–495, responding to Parkes, Pause and Effect. 290 For seventeenth-century parallels, see Cram, ‘Punctuation Theory’. 291 Palmer, ‘Zisterzienserinterpunktion’, pp. 555–563, especially fn. 4.



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on his assumption that abstract notions about the logic of sententiae underlay the punctuation of manuscripts.292 However, this is highly unlikely in the case of the Psalter, or at least in need of further qualification. A more neutral term for this sign, such as punctus, is therefore more appropriate. Most of the punctuation marks can instead be identified as so-called positurae, that is, slightly more complex graphic symbols employed for the punctuation of liturgical texts in a system introduced in the course of the eighth century and initiated at the court of Charlemagne in Aachen.293 In liturgical manuscripts, these marks could indicate both fixed melodic figures and sense units, but there was some variation in the way in which the marks appeared.294 The type of positura most frequently encountered in the manuscripts discussed in this book is the sign rendered here in transcription as . This sign can more or less certainly be identified as the punctus elevatus, one of the positurae which in liturgical usage indicated a pause in the middle of the sententia,295 and, in later Cistercian usage, to mark the metrum in psalm verses.296 Occasionally, a sign similar to the punctus elevatus is used which resembles the punctus circumflexus, and which is here transcribed as .297 Its function and position in the verse appears to differ from manuscript to manuscript. Finally, the punctus versus or is encountered, ‘one of the positurae used to indicate the terminatio of a psalm verse’.298 Having sketched the historical, textual and cultural history of the Psalter during the period up to 1200, I now turn in more detail to two glossed psalters associated with the Irish tradition: the Southampton Psalter and the Psalter of St Caimín.

292 Parkes, Pause and Effect, p. 303; Lepschy/Lepschy, ‘Punteggiatura’. Indeed, Parkes, Pause and Effect, pp. 31–32 concluded that by the ninth century all distinctiones appeared to have fallen together, as in Oxford, Bodleian, Laud misc. 130, ‘where all medial points represent subdistinctiones […] the media distinctio fell into disuse because it was too fine a distinction to be made in miniscule script.’ 293 Parkes, Pause and Effect, pp. 35–36 and 306; cf. Geymonat, ‘Grafia’, p. 61; Treitler, ‘Reading’, pp. 153 and 189–192; Clemoes, Liturgical Influence. 294 Grotans, Reading, p. 192. 295 Palmer, ‘Zisterzienserinterpunktion’, p. 495. Parkes, Pause and Effect, p. 306 also defines the punctus elevatus with reference to logical structure of sentences: ‘[…] used to indicate a major medial pause […] where the sense is complete but the meaning is not’; cf. Grotans, Reading, pp. 242–243. 296 Palmer, ‘Zisterzienserinterpunktion’, p. 555. 297 Parkes, Pause and Effect, p. 306. 298 Ibid., p. 307.

Chapter 4: Two Psalters with Text Glossing: The Southampton and St Caimín Psalters 4.1 Introduction The following chapter will illustrate the concepts and methods introduced in chapter 2 with an analysis of two highly complex and multi-layered texts. These manuscripts are the only two surviving psalters containing glosses in Irish as well as in Latin: the Southampton Psalter and the Psalter of St Caimín. The former has recently been edited by Pádraig Ó Néill.299 This chapter will make full use of his work, but will focus on the function of the glossing rather than its sources. Psalters with glossing in Old English and other Germanic languages all belong to the genre of the interlinear version, which is why they are discussed separately in the second part of this book. The following analysis centres on the mise-en-page of the two manuscripts as a complete unit. Thus, various types of paratext are analysed and traced, and different layers of textual accretion in Latin and Irish are identified and their interrelationships studied. The notion of ‘paratextual networks’ is illustrated by an analysis of the sources and the interrelationships of the paratext, both Latin and Irish, with other extant manuscripts. Most importantly, however, the Latin and the vernacular paratext is compared and contrasted in terms of form, script and location on the page, as well as in terms of function (substitution, supplementing, commentary) and the extent to which it is part of the matrix syntax of the principal text (context-free versus context-bound), including mixed-language glossing.

4.2 The Southampton Psalter The illuminated manuscript known as the Southampton Psalter (henceforth SP), Cambridge, St John’s College, C.9, consists of nine quires forming 98 folios (plus one flyleaf) measuring 265 × 182 mm, and contains a complete text of the Latin Psalter.300 The first leaf after the flyleaf is numbered ‘4’ in an early modern hand, and the numbering runs to ‘101’. The lost leaves at the beginning most likely contained Jerome’s two prefaces (see 3.4).

299 Ó Néill, Psalterium. 300 Cf. Duncan, Southampton Psalter, pp. 24–30. DOI 10.1515/9783110501865-004

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The manuscript was acquired by St John’s College in the sixteenth century from St Martin’s Priory, Dover, but was undoubtedly written in Ireland.301 On the basis of the script and the artwork it can be dated to the early eleventh century, even if some scholars have argued for a late tenth-century date.302 As to the exact provenance of SP, ‘the evidence, such as it is, suggests a northern (Irish) connection’, that is, some of the variant readings in the Latin text most closely match Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, lat. 12910, a roughly contemporaneous psalter with a northern Irish provenance, and some of the canticles closely match those in the Bangor Antiphonary, another northern manuscript.303 The biblical text in SP has many variant readings associated with the Irish family of the Gallicanum, which is best represented by the Cathach (siglum C) and the Double Psalter of St Ouen (siglum I). However, sometimes SP departs from the readings associated with these manuscripts: like other later Irish psalters it has readings in common with the ‘Alcuinian’ recension (siglum Φ), constituting what Ó Néill termed a ‘later Irish Gallican’ text.304

4.2.1  The mise-en-page Like in many Irish psalters, the 150 psalms in SP are divided into three groups of fifty (the ‘three fifties’), each headed by a full-page miniature facing a text-page with decorated initial and border. Equally typically, each group of fifty psalms is followed by a Latin collect and three canticles (only one after Psalm 150).305 The collects are a mixture of several Old Latin and Vulgate versions, which is also typical for the Irish tradition. Even so, SP does not show any sign of the modernization of the Old Latin text of the canticles typical of later Irish psalters.306 The central section of each page, containing thirty to thirty-two lines written in a large insular half-uncial hand, displays the principal text of the Gallican

301 For the history of the manuscript, see Ó Néill, Psalterium, pp. xi–xiii. 302 Ibid., pp. xxxv–xxxvi; Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, pp. 108–109 and 253–254. The latter includes a description of SP, which Zimmermann believed to belong to the second half of the tenth century. See also the description in Gneuss, Handlist, no. 148. 303 Ó Néill, Psalterium, p. xxxvii. 304 Ibid., pp. xxxviii–xxxix. 305 Ibid., pp. xvii and xxxix. The same set of collects and canticles are partially attested in the Bangor Antiphonary and in the Vitellius, Galba, Coupar-Angus and Cormac psalters from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. On the typical arrangement of these collects and canticles, see Bannister, ‘Irish Psalters’, p. 280. 306 Ó Néill, Psalterium, p. xi; Mearns, Canticles, pp. 68–70.



4.2 The Southampton Psalter  

 57

Psalter, all written by the same scribe. The psalms themselves are divided into numbered sections, and the end of each section tends to be marked with a cross. The principal text of the psalms is divided into verses and half-verses, resulting in an orderly text. Punctuation is consistently used in the form of positurae, marking the terminatio with a punctus versus and the metrum with a punctus elevatus . Occasionally the metrum, or a smaller unit, is marked with a double punctus , as in the following example from Psalm 134:14–15 on fol. 92v, here transcribed without glossing. The metra fall after suum and aurum, the terminationes after deprecabitur and hominum: UIA IUDICABIT DOMINUS POPULUM SUUM ··~ ET IN SERUIS SUIS DEPRECABITUR .., IMULACRA GENTIUM ARGENTUM ET AURUM ·· OPERA MANUM HOMINUM .., The presence of positurae suggests an element of orality and performance, and the manuscript, or its exemplar, is likely to have been involved in monastic worship.307 The remaining principal text, consisting of the biblical and some of the Christian tituli of the first (‘Columban’) series, as well as the remaining collects, are written in an insular hybrid minuscule.308 These have received no punctuation, nor are positurae regularly used in the paratext.309 In the margins, the Pseudo-Bedan Argumenta, and in certain cases the Explanationes, are written in a large insular minuscule hand. These are typically located at the head of each psalm. The SP is also glossed interlinearly, primarily by two glossators (henceforth G1 and G2), both writing in a small insular minuscule. These additions are mostly in Latin, but both glossators also entered vernacular glosses (see 4.3.1 and 4.3.2). Except for Psalms 96–100, the principal text is glossed throughout, even though portions of individual psalms lack glosses, or are very thinly glossed.310

307 Indeed, scholarly psalters such as the Double Psalter of St Ouen and Psalter of St Caimín use no such punctuation. 308 For a discussion of SP’s tituli, see Ó Néill, Psalterium, pp. xlii–xliii. 309 An example is the use of the mark in the Argumentum for Ps 78 on fol. 57r to separate the different interpretations, and preceding the term aliter, of the psalm. 310 Ó Neill, Psalterium, p. xlviii.

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The first and primary stratum (G1) is spread throughout SP, covering Psalms 1:1–10:5 and 14:3–150:6. It may have been written by the same individual who produced the principal text. The second stratum (G2), added shortly after, was written in a smaller hand and is typically entered underneath the lemmas of the principal text. It occurs only in Psalms 41:7–135:15, with its main concentration in Psalms 67–68, 73–74 and 77. G2 sometimes added to the existing glosses of G1 (see 4.3.3). A third glossator (G3) replaced G1 for all the glosses on Psalms 10:3–14:2 and the Argumenta for Psalms 11–14. He also added alternative glosses for Psalms 5:2–3 and 11. A few glosses were added by the corrector of the principal text. Thus, as many as five scribes may have been involved in executing the manuscript as it now exists, or four, if the scribe of the main text was in fact the same person as G1.311 Even so, the use of three levels of script in a descending register (half-uncial, hybrid minuscule, minuscule) suggests ‘a deliberate attempt to reflect the hierarchy of importance accorded to the different texts.’312 The order of copying, as established by Ó Néill, must then have been as follows.313 First the principal text of the Psalter, collects and canticles was written by Scribe 1. Subsequently the major illuminated initials, marking the first word of each psalm, were added, followed by the rubrication (that is, the biblical and Chistian tituli, probably not entered by Scribe 1). After that the Argumenta and glosses of G1 were added, followed by those of G2 and G3. Finally, the main text was corrected, with the entry of occasional glosses by Scribe 2. In order to make a comparison of the glossing strategies employed by the two main glossators, this stratigraphy must be taken into account, and the following analysis will therefore discuss the additions by G1 and G2 separately.

4.2.2 Analysis 4.2.2.1 Latin Glossing SP is mainly glossed by the two glossators G1 and G2, both in the margins, and interlinearly in the principal text. These glosses are mostly Latin, and the vernacular glossing (see 4.2.3) represents no more than a tiny portion of the overall paratext. Moreover, the greater part of the Latin paratext added by G1 and G2 consists of commentary glosses.

311 Ibid., p. xxi. 312 Ibid., p. xxii. 313 Ibid., pp. xxii–xxvii.



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In his recent edition, Ó Néill established that the two strata of Latin glosses each depend on a single source, albeit not exclusively. However, the Latin glosses of the two strata ‘reveal very different exegetical approaches: the first is marked by a strong proclivity towards mystical interpretation, whereas the second is almost exclusively literal and historical. These differences reflect their respective sources.’314 These Latin sources will be discussed in more detail below, but it needs to be stressed here that, although it was entered soon after the copying of the principal text, the glossing was not originally composed for SP. This is borne out by the frequent misplacement of glosses, but also because some glosses were ostensibly composed for a different text, that is, Old Latin rather than Gallican. In fact, Ó Néill suggests that the glosses may well have been copied from a separate running commentary, as glosses often go into details ‘well beyond the requirements of their immediate context’.315 Indeed, he thinks that the glossing as a whole ‘seems to be a unified work composed by a single author, rather than an amorphous collection of glosses culled from disparate sources’ and that ‘the cumulative evidence of language, methodologies, motifs and sources indicate that [it] was composed by a native speaker of Irish, working in a Gaelic milieu’ around the middle of the ninth century.316 4.2.2.1.1 The First Stratum (G1) The first and primary stratum (G1), which is spread throughout SP, consists for the greatest part of COM4 glosses dependent on the Anonymi glosa psalmorum ex traditione seniorum (see 3.3.3), with the number of borrowings approaching about nine hundred. This borrowing is readily detectable in the content of the G1 glosses, if seldom verbatim. The presence of this commentary, often rather mechanically and repetitively, is characterized by its mystical, moral and Christ­ ological interpretation, the proposed scheme of interpretations for individual psalms, as well as certain themes, such as recurring reference to the ecclesia primitiua. It is especially visible, however, in its verbal formulae, often repeated in the exact same words. Even so, this preference for allegorical interpretations sets G1 apart from most other Irish exegetes of the Psalter, who tended to prefer literal and historical approaches (see 3.3.3).317 Various other patristic commentaries are also reflected in G1. The most significant are Jerome’s Commentarioli, Tractatus and Liber interpretationis, as well

314 Ibid., p. xlviii. 315 Ibid., pp. xlix–l. 316 Ibid., p. lxxxv. 317 Ibid., pp. li–lxii and lxx–lxxii.

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as Cassiodorus’ Expositio. The latter is also indirectly attested through the Pseudo-Bedan Explanationes in the margins, as these are mostly derived from Cassiodorus. Other commentaries used are those by Augustine, Gregory, Eucherius and Prosper of Aquitaine, but only in very limited sense. One post-patristic commentary detectable in the glossing is the Pseudo-Hieronymian Breuiarium. The glossing in SP also appears to reflect the anonymous Hiberno-Latin commentary dubbed Expositio psalmorum ignoti auctoris by Lucas De Coninck, which is also preserved in the Double Psalter of St Ouen (see 3.3.3).318 Note, however, that a substantial part of the Latin glossing cannot be traced or compared to any known source. The formal aspects of G1 glossing need only be discussed briefly. In terms of script and representation, the paratext added in the small minuscule hand of G1 is clearly set apart from the half-uncials of the principal text. Typically, the size of the glosses varies from single words to phrase(s). Morpheme-for-morpheme glossing, in the shape of groups of letters, does not occur, nor does non-verbal glossing in the form of abstract signs. Virtually all the glossing is verbal and added interlinearly over the lemmas, with some of the longer entries spilling over into the margins. Only the Pseudo-Bedan Argumenta are added entirely in the margins. There is no embedded glossing. I therefore turn to the functional analysis of G1 glosses, discussing the various types in order of their frequency. G1 glossing, whether or not it can be traced to extant sources, mainly consists of COM4 glosses. These mostly conform to the syntax of the principle text. A typical COM4 gloss, based on the Anonymi glosa, provides exegetical information on (Ps 135:5) ‘who made the heavens in understanding’:319 in suo intellectu uel intellectu sanctorum quantum intellegere possunt licet ex parte

UI FECIT CAELOS IN INTELLECTU ..~

The syntax of the COM4 gloss ‘in his understanding, or in the understanding of the saints so far as they are partly able to’, is defined by the preposition in, here taking the ablative (in suo intellectu, in intellectu sanctorum), and conforms to the syntax of the principal text. Exegetical SUB2 glosses, agreeing in case and number, and conforming to the matrix syntax, are also very common. I discuss three typical examples:

318 Ibid., pp. lxxii–lxxviii; De Coninck, Expositiones. Cf. De Coninck, ‘Composite Literal Gloss’, pp. 81–93. 319 Boese, Glosa, II, pp. 174 and 177, respectively.



4.2 The Southampton Psalter  

terram

 61

animabus sanctis

HEREDITATEM ISRAHEL POPULO SUO .., The first Latin gloss, terram ‘(the) earth’, is a SUB2 gloss, agreeing in case and number (acc. sg.) with hereditatem ‘heritage’, as is the second gloss animabus sanctis ‘to the sacred souls’, a SUB2 on Israhel populo suo ‘to his people Israel’, both dative. The entire sequence terram […] sanctis is based on the Anonymi glosa.320 sanctorum

ONFITEMIMI DOMINO DEORUM ..~ Similarly, in Psalm 135:2 above, the SUB2 sanctorum ‘of the saints’, in full agreement (gen. pl.) with deorum ‘of the gods’, is also taken from the Anonymi glosa:321 aeclesiam super babtismo uel fide[m] super scripturas

QUI FIRMAUIT TERRAM SUPER AQUAS ..~

The SUB2 glosses on Psalm 135:5 above likewise substitute the object terram ‘(the) earth’ with other terms in the accusative (aeclesiam ‘(the) Church’, fidem ‘(the) faith’), strung together with the conjunction uel, whereas super aquas ‘above the waters’ received the SUB2 interpretations super babtismo ‘above baptism’ and super scripturas ‘above the scriptures’. Other types of substitution glosses are rare. Even so, they, too, conform to the matrix syntax of the principal text and are in agreement with their lemmas. One example is (Ps 67:65) potens ‘mighty’ → fortis ‘strong’. In Psalm 135:1 below, bonus ‘good’ → beneuolus ‘benevolent’ is a SUB1 of unknown origin narrowing the semantic range of bonus, whereas confitemini ‘confess’ → laudamini ‘praise’ (both imperative 2pl.) is again a SUB2 based on the Anonymi glosa:322 laudamini

beneuolus

ONFITEMIMI DOMINUM QUONIAM BONUS

A rare example of a paraphrasing SUB3 occurs in Psalm 67:20 ‘blessed (be) the Lord day by day’, glossed as ‘from day to day’:

320 Ibid., II, p. 171. 321 Ibid., II, p. 174. 322 Ibid., II, p. 174.

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.i. de die in diem

DEUS BENEDICTUS DOMINUS DIE COTIDIE

Supplement glosses are also rare. Examples of SUP1 occur in Psalms 77:38 and 68:14, respectively: ab eis

[…] UT AUERTERET IRAM SUAM deuouio

GO UERO ORATIONEM MEAM AD TE DOMINE In both examples the supplement glosses conform to the syntax of the principal text, either by supplying a prepositional phrase with ablative (ab eis ‘from them’, supplied to ‘that he may avert his anger’) or by supplying a finite verb (deuouio recte deuoueo ‘(I) vow, devote’) to the subject ego, so that this passage reads ‘I (devote) my prayer to you, o Lord’. 4.2.2.1.2 The Second Stratum (G2) The Latin glosses entered by the second glossator (G2) are largely based on a source very closely related, but not identical to, the Vatican Commentary (see 5.6). G2 also had access to the Epitome of Julian of Eclanum’s commentary, although he did not use it very effectively. By contrast to G1, the commentary glosses entered by G2 are almost exclusively literal and historical in their exegesis. For example, (Ps 77:67) repulit tabernaculum ioseph ‘and he rejected Joseph’s tabernacle’ received a COM4 istorialiter non fuit rex ab eo ‘historically; he did not become king as a result’. G2 entered his glosses in a slightly smaller minuscule hand than G1 and, presumably for reasons of space, frequently entered his glosses sublinearly rather than over their lemmas. The reason for choosing this strategy, then, generally seems to have been practical. Occasionally, G2 added to a gloss previously entered by G1, both in Latin and Irish (for a case study of such interaction, see 4.3.3). Even so, the type of glossing is roughly similar to that of G1, and overwhelmingly consists of COM4 glosses. A typical example of an exegetical COM4 echoed in the Vatican Commentary is:323

323 Cf. McNamara, Glossa, pp. 167 and 170, respectively.



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de tribu iuda iect[o] saul

ELEGIT DAUID SERUUM SUUM ·~

This gloss on Psalm 77:70 ‘and he chose his servant David’, namely ‘Saul having been cast out from the tribe of Juda’, can be read as part of the text. Less syntactically bound, however, is the following gloss on coagulatus in Psalm 67:16 ‘a congealed mountain, a fat mountain’: .i. uel inposibile est casseum in licorem desolui ita enim mons in fecundidatem

MONS COAGOLATUS MONS PINGUIS

The gloss ‘it is impossible to dissolve cheese into liquor, thus also a mountain into fertility’ closely resembles the corresponding passage on this verse in the Epitome, which reads sicut inpossibile est casseum in originem suam .i. liquorem lactis resolui. The Epitome, however, cites this verse in an Old Latin version (mons caseatum mons pinguis), so that this gloss seems out of place in the Gallican text of SP. G2 also entered many SUB2 glosses, for example on (Ps 77:66) et percussit inimicos suos ‘and he smote his enemies’, where inimicos ‘enemies’ received a sublinear gloss .i. filistinos ‘that is, the Philistines’, both accusative plural and corresponding to the Vatican Commentary.324 Even so, in this case it was probably derived from the COM4 gloss on the preceding verse, (Ps 77:65) et excitatus est ‘and he was roused’, added by G1: .i. ad uindictam in philistinos ‘to punish the Philistines’. Another example of a SUB2 is the interpretation aeclesiam ‘the Church’ of (Ps 77:68) montem sion ‘Mount Sion’, both accusative singular, which may go back to Augustine’s Ennarationes and the Anonymi glosa.325 Other types of substitution gloss are much rarer. In Psalm 78:2 two SUB1 glosses were entered by G2, providing a more common synonym of the lemmas morticina ‘carcasses’ → cadauera ‘carcasses’ and caeli ‘of heaven’ → aeris ‘of the air’, the first of which resembles the Vatican Commentary.326 In the following example from Psalm 77:72 ‘in the skillfulness of his hands he conducted them’, a SUB1 in full agreement (intellectibus → sensibus) is added to by a SUP2 in the form of a preposition in, presumably to avoid ambiguity between the Latin dative and ablative, that is, to indicate that intellectibus and sensibus are here ablative rather than dative plural:

324 McNamara, Glossa, p. 168. 325 Ibid., p. 169. 326 Ibid., p. 170.

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in sensibus

ET INTELLECTIBUS MANUM SUARUM EDUXIT EOS The paraphrasing type SUB3 may be seen in Psalm 77:5 ‘what great things he commanded to our fathers in order to make [them] known to their sons’. Here nota facere, an infinitive ruled by the finite verb mandauit, is substituted by the imperfect subjunctive present 3pl. indicarent ‘so that they told their sons’: QUANTA MANDAUIT PATRIBUS NOSTRIS .i. ut indicarent filiis suis



NOTA FACERE FILIIS SUIS

One can speculate about the purpose of this SUB3. In Classical Latin usage mandare generally took ut plus the subjunctive, and not with an infinitive. Perhaps the gloss is trying to clarify this difference in style.327 Despite their different exegetical approach, then, G1 and G2 entered the same type of interlinear Latin glosses. These consist predominantly of exegetical COM4 and SUB2 glosses. SUB1 glosses and supplement glosses only present a small minority. In both glossing strata the Latin additions are mostly integrated into the principal text. 4.2.2.2 Irish Glossing G1 and G2 also entered glosses in Old Irish, whereas one vernacular gloss [10] was possibly entered by a third scribe.328 The majority of these glosses occur in the principal text, and only occasionally in the paratext of the Argumenta. Furthermore, almost three quarters of the vernacular glosses occur in the section from Psalms 51–84, although the reasons for this concentration are not clear. According to Ó Néill, with regard to the Old Irish material both G1 and G2 were mere copyists.329 This is indicated by certain scribal errors indicative of copying, for example, the Irish ghost-word aurlarcud, resulting from a misreading of uel, discussed in section 4.3.3 below. The notion that the glosses were copied from earlier exemplars also follows from the language of the Irish glosses, which can for the most part be assigned to the Classical Old Irish period, the eighth and early ninth century, which predates the manuscript by more than two hundred

327 P. Russell (p. c.). 328 Numbers in square brackets represent Ó Néill’s numbering of the vernacular glosses in SP. 329 Ó Néill, Psalterium, p. lxviii.



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years. For example, the retention of deuterotonic verbal forms [21] etar-certa, [47] immus-ascnat, [16] inda-arben, the imperfect indicative [18] no-senditis, the deponents [37] aerme-suthigetar and [12] fothruicther, and the use of infixed pronouns in verbal forms [47] immu-s-ascnat and [16] in-da-arben make this clear. The retention of u-quality in the dative singulars of o-stems [4] formut, [30] aur […] arcud, [34] reuth, as well as the lenition of nouns following the conjunctions amal and nó [41] amal chochull […] nó chnó similarly point to the Classical Old Irish period.330 Considering that this linguistic profile matches that of Milan or the St Gall Glosses, this confirms that the Irish glosses in SP are not contemporary with the manuscript, but considerably older. 4.2.2.2.1 The First Stratum (G1) The twenty-three remaining glosses were added by the same scribe who was responsible for most of the Latin glossing (G1), namely [1, 3 4–6, 8–12, 20, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38–42, 44, 49 and 50].331 These vernacular glosses were mostly added superlinearly, especially in the principal text, in a small insular minuscule hand. Like the Latin glosses, the size of the vernacular glossing varies from single words to one or more phrases, with a preponderance of single words. No abbreviated or non-verbal glosses are used. Of the glosses added by G1, [3–9] occur in the marginal paratext of the Pseudo-Bedan Argumenta. They are added interlinearly and are for the most part (five out of seven) of type SUB1. Typical examples are glosses [7] and [8], both occurring on fol. 34v. They represent two interlinear additions, the first to iudicale ‘judicial’, the second to compellatio ‘charge’, both occurring in the Argumentum of Psalm 49:

brith imonda quasi tribunal iudicale discribens ut .i. atorgairm sit tota compellatio dei plena terroris

item legendus ad euangelium Mathei

330 For a full discussion of these linguistic features, see Ó Néill, Psalterium, pp. lxix–lxx. 331 Gloss [1] is a remark unrelated to the principal text. Gloss [10] is a separate comment concerning the date of Wednesday May 1st in the top margin, similarly with no direct bearing on the principal text.

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The first term is the Old Irish adjective [7] breithemanda, brithemandae ‘judicial, pertaining to judgment’, here presumably agreeing in case and number with iudicale ‘judicial’. The second term is [8] a to(r)gairm ‘the calling, appellation’ (neut.; here with SUP2 article aN to express the definiteness of the Latin lemma),332 derived from the verb do-gair and agreeing with compellatio ‘reprimand, rebuke’ in case and number. In terms of agreement, gloss [3] on the Argumentum of Psalm 35 is ambiguous: scyphum (acc. sg.) → cuach ‘goblet’, which can be nominative as well as accusative singular. Moreover, gloss [6] on the Argumentum of Psalm 43 exemologessim ‘confession’ (acc. sg. of exemologesis < Grk ἐξομολογέω ‘to confess in full’) → aithirge ‘act of doing penance, repentance’, is almost certainly not in agreement: the form aithirge (iā-stem, fem.) is nominative in Classical Old Irish usage, but may also represent a later spelling of the accusative singular aithirgi. Some of the glosses can be classified as COM4 and occur in the marginal paratext. For example, glosses [38] and [40] are part of a long Latin commentary section in the right margin of fol. 57r on (Ps 77:70) de post fetantes accepit eum ‘he brought them from ewes after giving birth’: quasi de post fetantibus .i. ministerium septimi cassus in accusatiuo ut pro uerbis dicitur primum in parabulas quasi in parabulis uel mo noptotus est sonus sed in articulis discernitur · uel in dispensatio ne sanatur .i. sustullit eum de gregibus ouium post fetantes .i. ances mesuthigetar ocus is oendlum de indrandgabal · de post fe tans a uerbo depostfeto · duobus enim apud ebreos oues procreantur fetus suos uel quasi dixiset de loco qui est postfetantes ut est in libro iob de ante domine aliter de postfetantes ersna suthaib

The whole commentary section gives various different explanations and derivations, presumably copied from various sources, of the uncommon Latin participle depostfetantes ‘having given birth’, strung together with , or aliter, and is worth discussing in some detail. First, the Latin grammatical COM2 gloss ministerium […] discernitur corresponds closely to the Vatican Commentary.333 The next Latin phrase uel in dispensatione […] post fetantes cannot be traced, but constitutes an exegetical COM4 gloss. The first string of Old Irish, here printed in bold, consists of several elements. The first element appears to be a SUB1 gloss [38a] ances mesuthigar, probably to be emended to a n-aerme-suthigar, as the extant

332 Note that superscript L and N respectively denote the leniting and nasalising initial consonant mutations in Old Irish. 333 Cf. McNamara, Glossa, p. 169.



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gloss shows such common copying mistakes as the confusion of and and insular and . If this is correct, then this gloss consists of the conjunction aN ‘when’ and the present indicative 3pl. of the unattested verb *íarmi-suthigedar ‘bring forth, produce afterwards’. As such, it constitutes a calque on postfetantes. Note, however, that the interpretation is not form-for-form, as the Latin present participle is rendered by an Irish temporal clause. It is an approximation of the semantics of the lemma, but not of its structure. This gloss is followed by a bilingual COM1 on word-formation: [38b] ocus is oendlum de ind randgabál depostfetans a uerbo depostfeto ‘and it is an aggregation (óen-dlum) from the participle depostfetans from the verb depostfeto’, which employs the Irish (randgabál) rather than the Latin (nomen compositum) grammatical terminology used in the corresponding passage from the Vatican Commentary.334 This is significant, as there are more vernacular glosses, such as [51] added by G2 and discussed in section 4.3.2 below, which correspond closely to Latin phrases in the Vatican Commentary, suggesting that some of its interpretations also circulated in vernacular form. However, the phrase de ind randgabál ‘from the participle’ suggests that the preposition de, and therefore the matrix language of this phrase, is Latin. Had the phrase been in Irish, dind randgabáil ‘from the participle’ would have been expected. Finally, gloss [40], written underneath this section of paratext, is another SUB1 gloss on Latin: de postfetantes → ersna suthaib ‘from the offspring’. This SUB1 renders the Latin participle construction by an Irish prepositional phrase. Again, this constitutes an approximation of the meaning, but not of the structure of the lemma. The Irish gloss implies a reading depost fetantes, which understands the preverb as the Late Latin composite preposition de post.335 In this commentary section, then, the vernacular is used for lexical substitutes, but, significantly, also as a meta-language within which Latin constructions can be clarified. By contrast, glosses [11–12, 20, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38–42, 44, 49 and 50] are all added to the principal text. Four of these represent marginal or interlinear SUB1 glosses, mostly consisting of single nominal forms: (Ps 70:18) senium ‘old age’ → [20] diblide ‘wretched, decrepit’ (here nom. or acc. sg; right margin); (Ps 77:56) crapulatus ‘drunk’ → [38] .i. ro olach ‘that is, very drunk’ (superlinear); (Ps 79:11) arbusta ‘shrubbery’ → [42] .i. fúalascach ‘that is, a bush/thicket’ (left margin), note that arbusta is plural but fúalascach is singular; (Ps 106:34) in salsuginem ‘into the salt-marsh’ → [49] .i. isin muirloch ‘that is, into the salt-marsh’. These vernacular interpretations agree with their lemmas in case and number.

334 Ibid., p. 169. For bilingual glosses in general, see Bisagni, ‘Prolegomena’, pp. 1–58. 335 P. Russell (p. c.).

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Some of the Irish SUB1 glosses are immediately followed by a Latin phrase in the same hand, often introduced by or : (Ps 80:9) contestificabor ‘I will testify’ (fut. ind. 3sg.) → [44] ad-selbem ‘I testify’ (pres. ind. 1sg.; note that there is no agreement in tense) is followed by: .i. quae sequuntur hic ‘which follow here’, a phrase which also occurs in the Vatican Commentary, suggesting that this composite gloss was not originally bilingual.336 The same probably applies to the bilingual SUB1 gloss (Ps 118:8) usquequaque ‘everywhere, always’ → [50] in mar uel magnopere. The adverb in már ‘greatly’ clearly is not a direct translation of usquequaque, but more a type of clarification. Note that it also occurs on the same lemma in the St Caimín Psalter (see 4.3.2.2). Its Old Irish formation of an adverb with in once more does not constitute a form-for-form interpretation of the Latin lemma. Latin magnopere ‘very, greatly’, on the other hand, is the Latin equivalent of in már. The use of uel suggests, again, that it is a composite gloss derived from different sources. The only example in G1 where the Irish element appears to be an integral part of an otherwise Latin phrase, and not a separate phrase added from a different source, occurs on fol. 43r in Psalm 59:9 ‘Galaad is mine, and Manasses is mine, and Ephraim is the strength of my head’:

.i. mons tribus mannases · aliter Christo galad .i. canoin diuinorum librorum et mannasse

MEUS EST GALAD ET MEUS EST MANASSES .i. obliuio malorum

.i. ex effraim fuerunt milites dauid qui regnum congregabant sibi ·uel inde fuerunt apostoli Christi ut quidam dicunt petrus et

ET EFFRAIM FORTITUDO CAPITIS MEI .., andrias

Most of the Latin paratext in this passage can be traced. The gloss mons […] manasses occurs in the Epitome of Julian and in the Vatican Commentary,337 whereas Christo galad depends on the Anonymi glosa.338 Subsequently, obliuio malorum is derived from Jerome’s Liber interpretationis,339 and the passage ex […] sibi once more follows the Epitome.340 Stokes and Strachan, and recently Ó Néill, identified the Irish term canóin (‘canon’, itself borrowed from Latin canon) in the otherwise Latin phrase canoin […] mannasse. If this is correct, this gloss should be regarded as a rare code-switch into Irish. However, the fact that the context hardly demands a specifically Irish term, which itself is a loan from Latin, rather suggests that the spelling of the Latin word canon was influenced, in copying, by

336 McNamara, Glossa, p. 174. 337 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Expositio, ed. De Coninck/D’Hont, p. 48; McNamara, Glossa, p. 9. 338 Cf. Boese, Glosa, I, p. 251. 339 Jerome, Liber interpretationis, ed. Morin, p. 137. 340 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Expositio, ed. De Coninck/D’Hont, pp. 56–58.



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the spelling of the Irish term. It seems more likely, then, that the word intended here is Latin canon, and that the matrix language of the utterance is Latin. Note that several glosses [2, 7, 22, 23, 25, 26, 45 and 52] contain recognisably Irish versions of biblical names inserted in Latin COM4 glosses giving historical clarifications, for example, (Ps 47:5) quoniam ecce reges terrae congregati sunt ‘for behold, the kings of the earth assembled themselves’ received the COM4 gloss .i. ad expugnandum Hiersualem uenit Sinichiriph cum suo excercitu ‘that is, Sennacherib and his army comes to capture Jerusalem’. In conclusion, the vernacular paratext added by G1 consists for the greater part of substitution glosses, especially in the principal text. If the lemma is a nominal form the vernacular appears to agree in case and number. However, since most forms are ambiguous this is often difficult to ascertain; it may be that the norm was to give the citation form. In the case of verbal forms the glosses generally approximate the meaning, but not the structure, of the lemma: a lexical and semantic interpretation is preferred over a grammatical one. Furthermore, it is clear that, in the marginal paratext, the vernacular can be used to explain a feature or meaning in the Latin. Even so, it appears that genuinely bilingual glosses do not occur. In fact, most of the bilingual phrases can be shown to have been compiled from separate sources. This does not imply, however, that these glosses were not read as one single utterance, but the compilatory nature of the gloss resulted in a paratactic structure (uel […] uel) in which the two languages are not integrated in terms of syntax. Noticeably absent in G1, finally, are longer supplement glosses in the vernacular. The only attested example is a SUP2 in the form of an added article in gloss [8], which serves to underline the definiteness of the Latin nominal form. 4.2.2.2.2 The Second Stratum (G2) The second stratum of glossing (G2), written in a slightly smaller hand and typically entered underneath the lemmas, occurs only in Psalms 41–91 with its main concentration in Psalms 67–68, 73–74 and 77. It consist of twenty vernacular additions, that is, glosses [13–19, 21, 24, 29, 31, 33, 35–37, 43, 46–48 and 51]. The main difference with G1 is that G2, shown in the following transcription in red colour, only glossed the principal text. One can only speculate about the reasons for this, but it may be attributed to the exemplar(s) available to G2. Even so, the style of vernacular glossing is very similar that of G1. Again, there are no supplement glosses, but eleven of the twenty vernacular additions are substitution glosses, all added interlinearly. Most of these concern noun phrases or single words: (Ps 67:20) deus salutarium nostrorum ‘the God of our salvation’, with a geni­tive plural, itself an awkward way of rendering LXX ὁ θεὸς τῶν σωτηρίων

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ἡμῶν ‘id.’, is glossed [14] .i. ar n-ic ‘that is, (of) our salvation’, here either nominative singular or genitive plural, probably the latter if it is to be in agreement; (Ps 68:4) ruce ‘hoarse’ (adj.; recte raucae, here nom. pl.) → [17] .i. druisc (sublinear). The Irish term is presumably trosc ‘disease’, an o-stem noun, here nominative plural, with confusion of d- and t- before -r-. This is one of the Irish glosses shared with the Vatican Commentary, where it occurs as truisc and glosses the same word.341 Furthermore, (Ps 68:13) psallebant ‘they used to play on a stringed instrument’ (impf. ind. 3pl.) → [18] .i. no-senditis ‘that is, they used to play music’ (impf. ind. 3pl.), is in agreement of tense and person; (Ps 77:40) uodtiens ‘often, frequently’ (adv.) → [29] .i. in menic ‘that is, often, frequently’, a close approximation in meaning but not in structure (SUP2 article plus adjective); (Ps 77:57) pactum ‘pact, covenant’ → [36] .i. cairde ‘that is, pact, covenant’, an io-stem noun, here presumably accusative singular and therefore probably in agreement; (Ps 79:14) depastus ‘grazed, consumed’ (past ptc. of depascor) → [43] .i. rogelt ‘grazed, consumed’ (t-preterite ind. 3sg. of gelid with perfective augment ro); again, the Irish finite verb approximates the meaning of the Latin lemma, but not its structure; (Ps 82:15) flamma ‘flame’ → [46] .i. luisse ‘that is, flame’, an iā-stem noun, presumably nominative singular and therefore in agreement; (Ps 84:11) ob[u]iauerunt ‘(they) met’ (perf. ind. 3pl.) → [47] immu-s-ascnat ‘(they) meet’ (pres. ind. 3pl. of inn-ascnai with a reflexive class A infix pronoun 3pl.), again with correspondence in meaning but not in terms of word formation and tense. In three cases the SUB1 consists of a prepositional phrase: (Ps 73:6) ascie ‘with an adze’ (here abl. sg.) → [24] ó thal ‘with an adze’; the preposition óL ‘through, with’ was often added as a SUP2 by Irish glossators to render a Latin ablative without preposition.342 In gloss [35] the lemma also has a preposition: (Ps 77:54) in funiculo distributionis ‘in a line of measurement’ → hi forrig (‘in a pole for measuring land’; dat. sg. of forrach). Despite the difficulty in determining the exact meaning of the Irish term,343 this vernacular gloss appears to be an attempt at lexical substitution of the entire Latin prepositional phrase in the dative. (Ps 106:29) in auram ‘into a breeze’ → [49] .i. hi feth ‘that is, into a breeze’ (acc. or dat. sg. of féth, when correctly identified as u-stem, masc.) constitutes a form-for-form substitution of the lemma. The remaining nine vernacular additions by G2 can be classified as commentary glosses. With the exception of [16] these are added interlinearly. Gloss [13], occurring on fol. 47r, is a typical Irish commentary gloss on Psalm 67:18 ‘the

341 McNamara, Glossa, p. 139. 342 Thurneysen, Old Irish Reader, p. 96. 343 Discussed in Kelly, Early Irish Farming, pp. 566–567.



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chariot of God [is attended] by tens of thousands, thousands of them that rejoice’, a passage which received complex layers of glossing:344  sedis dei .i. unusquisque multiplex scilicet decim milia .i. alrilur sloig in treib iuda .i. angelorum

CURRUS DEI DECIM MILLIBUS MULTIPLEX MILIA LETANTIUM .i. x·tribus subauditur

The Irish COM4 alrilur […] iuda ‘that is, on account of the multitude of the army of the tribe of Juda’ was added by G2.345 It follows directly after the Latin SUB2 currus dei ‘the chariot of God’ → sedis dei ‘the seat of God’ and COM4 unusquisque […] milia on the lemma multiplex ‘manifold’, which had been added previously by G1. The Irish addition probably constitutes a separate gloss on the same lemma. It is followed by a long marginal commentary, not transcribed here, corresponding to the Vatican Commentary.346 The sublinear COM4 gloss x […] subauditur was added by G2 to decim millibus, and it, too, corresponds literally to the Vatican Commentary.347 Gloss [15] occurs in a similarly heavily glossed passage on the same page, this time on Psalm 67:20: .i. christi christi non dei patris uel spiritus sancti sed christi passio mortis dum ipse passus aliter exitus domini

ET DOMINI DOMINI EXITUS MORTIS exitus mortis .i. quando suspensus in cruce

.i. ise conic bas 7 bethaith

alligatus est Satahel

The Latin COM4 passio […] passus, added by G2, resembles the corresponding passage in the Anonymi glosa,348 whereas the gloss quando […] Satahel cannot be traced, but also occurs in SP at Psalm 45:3. Instead, the Irish exegetical COM4 gloss on domini, namely is […] bethaith ‘that is, it is he who controls death and life’, closely resembles Jerome’s Commentarioli.349 Again, this suggests that some of the Irish (post-)patristic exegesis of the Psalter also circulated in the vernacular. Gloss [21] on fol. 51v is an interlinear commentary gloss on Psalm 72:11 ‘and they have said: how does God know? And if there is knowledge in heaven […]’:

344 The marginal Latin COM4 letantium .i. anglorum, added by G1, has been left out. 345 Note that the correct reading of is ar ilur and that there is a punctum delens over the first ; see Ó Néill, Psalterium, p. 168. 346 McNamara, Glossa, p. 139. 347 Ibid., p. 139. 348 Boese, Glosa, I, p. 286. 349 Pseudo-Jerome, Breuiarium, ed. Migne, col. 1078.

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quod loquimur non est qui cognouerit

ET DIXERUNT QVOMODO SCIT DEUS .i. uel interrogatibus .i. nietarcertadia

ET SI EST SCIENTIA IN EXCELSO .., The Irish phrase added by G2, .i. ní etar-certa Día ‘that is, God does not interpret’, is therefore an exegetical COM4 on the second line of the verse. It does not appear to interact with the Latin glossing added by G1. Two Irish glosses added by G2 are part of a bilingual utterance. Gloss [16] occurs in the left-hand margin of fol. 47v, and consists of a paraphrasing SUB3 in Irish followed by a short exegetical COM4 in Latin on (Ps 67:31) increpa feras arundinis, congregatio taurorum ‘rebuke the beasts of the reed, the multitude of bulls’: corrici cith besti beoa indaarben uainn dixit dauid

.i. pro hostibus feris

The Irish gloss means ‘to the extent of even living beasts, banish them from us, says David’. It paraphrases the verse, putting it in the mouth of David, even though prosopological exegesis in the principal text is normally in Latin. The code-switch into Irish appears to be triggered by the Latin verb dicere denoting reported speech. The Latin phrase pro hostibus feris ‘that is, for wild enemies’, written underneath, provides a small commentary gloss explaining the object expressed by the Irish infix pronoun 3pl. in inda-arben ‘banish them’. Whereas it could be argued that this is a genuinely bilingual utterance, with the Latin part having been triggered by the (abbreviated) form dixit, the use of suggests that the second gloss was added from elsewhere, or at least not part of the original gloss. Gloss [37] on fol. 56v is another bilingual commentary gloss on the main Latin text of Psalm 77:57 ‘even as their fathers they were turned aside as a deformed bow’: QUEM AD MODUM PATRES EORUM

.i. in cocad contra dominum

CONUERSI SUNT IN ARCUM PRAUUM The Irish COM4 here means ‘namely, in a conflict against the Lord’. The Latin part of this phrase consists mainly of highly abbreviated forms, which may indicate that the ‘Latin’ consists rather of two ‘short-hands’ in an otherwise Irish gloss. It could therefore be argued that this, too, is not a bilingual gloss. Note, moreover,



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that the reading is unclear; Ó Néill transcribes , which would render it Irish; even so, if my reading is correct, then this may rather indicate Latin in, making the gloss mostly Latin. The fact that OI iN ‘in’ is mostly rendered by G2 elsewhere in SP makes this even more likely. In glosses such as this, with their formulaic use of highly abbreviated forms, it is difficult to speculate about the intended matrix language. As in stratum G1, therefore, most bilingual glosses do not constitute an integrated mixture of Latin and Irish, but consist of separate phrases probably compiled from separate sources. Worthy of discussion, finally, is gloss [51], a sublinear COM4 gloss on (Ps 135:13) ‘who divided up the Red Sea in parts’: UI DIUISSIT RUBRUM MARE IN DIUISSIONES

.i. mile chemenn

Irish céimenn ‘stepping, steps’ is the nominative plural of the verbal noun of cingid. It represents another instance where a vernacular gloss closely reflects a corresponding Latin passage in the Vatican Commentary. This commentary applies the verse to the crossing of the Red Sea, which it presents as a journey of a thousand paces: quia litus per quod intrauerunt iter mille passus est ‘because the shore by which they entered was a journey of a thousand paces’.350 As was seen, the G1 glosses [12] and [38] similarly appeared to paraphrase in Irish the contents of a Latin gloss found in the Vatican Commentary. In conclusion, the type of vernacular glossing entered by G2 strongly resembles that of G1. It consists mostly of substitution glosses and occasional COM4 glosses. The glossing strategy appears to be very similar. 4.2.2.2.3 A Sample Analysis of Ps 77:46–47 In the previous section several examples indicated that the juxtaposition between principal text, G1 and G2 often suggests complex interaction between the different strata. In such instances the interaction of the two layers of glossing in SP can be studied, as in the following passage on fol. 56r (Ps 77:46–47). It contains the vernacular glosses [30–34] as well as Latin glosses of different derivations, and illustrates various issues concerning the interaction, language choice and sources of the two layers, shown in the following transcription as G1 and G2. Furthermore, this sample analysis illustrates how complicated the stratigraphy, textual affiliation and reading strategy of SP can be on certain pages:

350 Ó Néill, ‘Some Remarks’, p. 100.

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Figure 1: C.9, fol. 56r @2016 Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

iiii plaga .i. glasar .i. doaurlarcud aura est noxia

DEDIT ERUGINI FRUCTUS EORUM .~ v. plaga.. nocentes frugibus

ET LABORES EORUM LOCUSTAE .., vi. plaga

OCCIDIT IN GRANDINE UINIAS EORUM .~ .i. cun ar lansuth

n u .i. fructus sicomiris uel merten . uel pro omni feraci arbore possuit .i. inre th

ET MOROS EORUM IN PRUINA ..,

The Latin interlinear COM4 glosses, referring to the ten plagues (plagae) of Egypt (cf. Exodus 7:8–11:10), closely resemble the Vatican Commentary on the same verses.351 Note that the somewhat surprising Gallicanum use of Latin aerugo ‘rust’ goes back to the LXX rendering of (Ps 77:46) καὶ ἔδωκεν τῃ ἐρυσίβῃ τὸν καρπὸν αὐτῶν ‘and he rendered their fruit to the rust’, which translates the Hebrew ‫ָחִסיל‬ ḥāsîl ‘a kind of locust’ as ἐρυσίβης ‘rust’. This puzzling translation may explain why gloss [30] glasar appears to be a lexical substitution of Latin erugini (dat. sg. of (a)erugo), even if the Old Irish hapax is itself obscure, perhaps meaning ‘mildew in wheat’, a ‘type of mould’, or indeed ‘rust’.352 Perhaps it refers to a ‘greenish-bluish oxidation that attacks gold and silver’, as may be deduced from the gloss on this word provided by G2, namely [31] doaurlarcud. In its current form this Old Irish gloss appears to be corrupt. According to Ó Néill, himself referring to Stokes and Strachan, who in turn refer to Thurneysen, it should be read do aur uel arcud ‘to gold or silver’ (dat. sg. of ór and arcad), with the abbreviation for Latin uel here misunderstood and copied as . Ó Néill takes this entry as a COM4 on the preceding SUB1 glasar form added by G1. Arguably, however, the Old Irish phrase should be taken together with the following

351 McNamara, Glossa, p. 166. 352 DIL s. v. glasar.



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Latin phrase, also added by G2: aura est noxia, constituting a bilingual COM4 meaning ‘to gold and silver the vapour is damaging’, but the Latin phrase closely resembles Augustine’s Ennarationes.353 It may therefore also be read separately and taken as a COM4 gloss on either glasar or erugini. Gloss [32] fructus sicomiris uel merenn ‘the fruit of the mulberry [Latin] or mulberry [OI]’, then, consists of two SUB1 glosses added by G2 on moros ‘berries’, originally probably derived from separate sources, as is suggested by the use of uel. This strategy is frequently attested in SP and is not unlike the ‘double glossing’ attested in some of the Old English Psalters (see chapters 10 and 12 below). Arguably, the noun phrase fructus sicomiris may be classified rather as a COM1. Gloss [33] cunar lansuth, also added by G2, consists of conar ‘so that not’, and a compound adjective from lán ‘full’ and suth ‘fruit’, and means ‘so that it did not (yield) its full fruit’. I take this COM4 gloss to refer to the principal text et occidit […] uinias eorum ‘and he killed off their vines’ and not to the G1 gloss glasar. Even so, its content appears to mirror the Epitome of Julian, again suggesting that some of its Latin interpretations were also mediated through Irish.354 The prepositional phrase [34] i reuth ‘in hoar-frost’ (dat. sg. of o-stem reód, with retention of u-quality, although the is only added in superscript, perhaps suggesting that G2 was no longer familiar with this feature) is a marginal SUB1, giving a form-for-form rendering of the Latin prepositional phrase in pruina ‘in frost, hoar’, including the preposition. It does not seem to be in any way connected with the Latin interlinear COM4 gloss pro […] possuit, written over in pruina, which itself corresponds to the Vatican Commentary.355 In conclusion, then, it appears that the glossing in SP reflects a consistent strategy by both glossing hands. Moreover, it was seen that the layers frequently interact. Despite the different exegetical approach in terms of content, G1 and G2 entered the same type of interlinear Latin glosses. These consist predominantly of exegetical COM4 and SUB2 glosses. SUB1 glosses and supplement glosses only present a small minority. In both glossing strata the Latin additions are mostly integrated into the principal text. The use of the vernacular by both glossators is also very similar and consists mostly of SUB1 and occasional COM4 glosses. I now turn to the second surviving Irish psalter with glosses in Latin and the vernacular: the Psalter of St Caimín.

353 Augustine, Ennarationes, ed. Dekkers/Fraipont, p. 27: aura est enim noxia, quae […] in fructibus latenter operator. 354 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Expositio, ed. De Coninck/D’Hont, p. 283. 355 McNamara, Glossa, p. 166.

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4.3 The Psalter of St Caimín The manuscript known as the Psalter of St Caimín (henceforth StC), University College Dublin, Franciscan A 1, consists of a single quire of six large folios containing portions of Psalm 118, namely, verses 1–16 and 33–116.356 It was first mentioned by Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) in 1639 and must have been part of the library of the Franciscan convent of St Anthony in Louvain around that time, when it received a short annotation by Mícheál Ó Cléirigh (ca. 1590–1643). During the French Revolution the manuscript was brought to St Isidore’s in Rome, from where it returned to Ireland in 1872.357 On the basis of the combined evidence of script, abbreviations and decoration it is generally dated to the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The style of the illuminations led Françoise Henry to assign it to the monastery of Clonmacnoise, or further down the Shannon, at Inis Cealtra (Holy Island) in Lough Derg, even if none of these attributions can be substantiated in any detail.358 Martin McNamara has suggested it is not impossible that the text was intended as a glossed manuscript of Psalm 118 only, as the Beati immaculati was an extremely popular psalm in Ireland and was often recited separately.359 However, Pádraig Ó Néill recently argued convincingly that StC must have been part of a manuscript of the entire Psalter.360

4.3.1 The mise-en-page The central section of each page displays the manuscript’s principal text: the Gallican Psalter, written in a large half-uncial majuscule, with 14 to 18 lines per page. Like the eleventh-century SP, the principal text of StC shows affinities with

356 See Esposito, ‘Psalter’, pp. 78–88 for an account of the distribution of verses in the manuscript. Cf. Kenney, Sources, pp. 646–647. 357 Esposito, ‘Psalter’, pp. 78–81. For more information on its history, see McNamara, Psalms, p. 79. 358 While there is no decisive evidence available on the question of StC’s provenance, it may be remarked here that its decoration and script show significant similarities with two other manu­ scripts, both written in Clonmacnoise: Lebor na h-Uidre (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 23E 25) and the first part of Oxford, Bodleian, Rawlinson B. 502. Cf. Ó Néill, ‘Glosses’, p. 21. For a study and dating of the decorations see Henry, Irish Art, pp. 41, 48, 50; Henry and Marsh-Micheli, ‘Irish Illumination’, pp. 116–117. 359 McNamara, ‘Five Psalter Texts’, p. 82; McNamara, Psalms, p. 79. 360 Ó Néill, ‘Glosses’, p. 26.



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the specifically Irish recension of the Gallicanum represented by the Cathach, but also with other so-called ‘pre-Alcuinian’ Gallican psalters. Considering the date of the manuscript, therefore, the StC can be regarded as textually old-fashioned, reflecting a version that predates the introduction of readings of the ‘Alcuinian’, that is, Carolingian, recension in Ireland.361 This is a significant difference with the slightly earlier SP, which does contain ‘Alcuinian’ readings. Therefore, StC is not just ‘old-fashioned’, but also textually conservative. Psalm 118 is divided into 22 sections according to the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, each section beginning with the appropriate letter. This division is followed in StC. As Figure 2 illustrates, the mise-en-page of StC suggests that the manuscript was meant for extensive glossing from the outset. Indeed, its folios are very densely glossed in a small minuscule hand, especially in the left-hand margins, slightly less so in the right-hand margins. The marginal paratext is therefore clearly set apart from the principal text in terms of script. Generally speaking, marginal paratext is syntactically independent from the principal text: it forms separate blocks and consists of commentary glossing containing one or more phrases. To guide the reader, each commentary gloss begins with the first word of the lemma, which itself is indicated in the principal text by signes-de-renvoi. While the marginal paratext contains some glosses in Old Irish, it is otherwise almost completely written in Latin. The sources for these Latin commentaries can mostly be traced. Historical interpretations of the principal text are found in the left margin. A significant part of the Latin glossing in the left-hand margin corresponds, almost verbatim, to the catena on the Psalter found in the Vatican Commentary, or at least to one of its immediate sources. Indeed, 153 of the 315 Latin glosses are of this type.362 Additionally, about fourteen commentaries in the left-hand margin are derived from the Epitome of Julian of Eclanum’s commentary.363 Allegorical interpretation is confined to the right margin. Virtually all of these glosses are derived from Cassiodorus’ Expositio. Some of these are introduced by the letters , presumably indicating Senator Cassiodorus, as the use of abbreviated names of authorities as marginal reference tools is known since the late eighth century, especially in biblical exegesis.364

361 Ó Néill, ‘Glosses’, pp. 23–24; McNamara, Psalms, pp. 79–80. 362 Cf. McNamara, ‘Ireland and Northumbria’, pp. 278–281. 363 Ó Néill, ‘Irish Transmission’, pp. 68–70. Cf. Smalley, Study, pp. 14–20; Laistner, ‘Antiochene Exegesis’; Ramsey, ‘Theodore’. 364 McKitterick, ‘Glossaries’, p. 25.

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Figure 2: Franciscan A 1, fol. 3r ©2016 Irish Script On Screen, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies



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Furthermore, each of the subsections of Psalm 118 is introduced by its appropriate Pseudo-Bedan Explanatio, written in a large minuscule. Also, written at the top of each page in a slightly smaller minuscule hand is the, sometimes heavily abbreviated, text of the Hebraicum version corresponding to the Gallican principal text. This presumably meant to facilitate comparison of the two versions, a fact also borne out by the use of obeli in the principal text, and indicates that StC was intended for scholarly rather than liturgical purposes, which is further suggested by its dense glossing and its lack of ancillary liturgical texts, such as collects. There are also interlinear glosses entered in the principal text, predominately in Latin, but also in Old Irish. All of these appear to be written in the same hand, but, as will become apparent, the Irish glosses occur underneath their lemmas, whereas the Latin ones occur above them. I will analyse the various types of glossing in turn, focusing on their function and, where possible, their transmission.

4.3.2  Analysis 4.3.2.1 Latin Glossing: Principal Text The interlinear glosses in the principal text, which are far fewer in number than those in the margins, are also much more difficult to trace. This may partly be due to the fact that they are frequently made to fit the matrix syntax of the principal text, from which they are otherwise clearly set apart by the use of a small minuscule hand. The glosses range from single words to one or more phrases, and are generally written over their lemmas. Most common are various types of COM4. A specific type of COM4 gloss occurs above the opening word of each section of Psalm 118 and identifies the speaker (uox) of the verses and/or the circumstances of their composition.365 These COM4 glosses correspond, frequently verbatim, with parallel passages of prosopological exegesis found in the Vatican Commentary.366 They tend to be syntactically independent and are therefore similar to the marginal paratext, such as the following gloss on Psalm 118:63 ‘I am a partaker with all them that fear you, and that keep your commandments’, which places the verse in the mouth of Christ: ‘says Christ, who is a partaker in human flesh or temptation in order that men would keep and fear the commandments’:

365 Ó Néill, ‘Glosses’, p. 27. 366 Ibid., p. 28.

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Christus dicit qui particeps carnis humanę uel temptationis ut homines mandata custodirent et timer[ent]



PARTICEPS EGO SUM OMNIUM TIMENTIUM

TE ET CUSTODIENTIUM MANDATA TUA Some such interlinear COM4 glosses are instead derived from, or are related to, the commentary on the Psalter by Prosper of Aquitaine. In many instances, however, the citation is not direct. Between direct citations and probable references, there are about 59 instances of borrowing from Prosper.367 There are about thirteen instances where such glosses seem to cite or draw on Augustine’s Enarrationes:368 All these sources represent the allegorical and Christological tradition of Psalter exegesis. Some of the interlinear COM4 glosses clearly resemble, or repeat, the historical commentary in the left-hand margin, for example in case of the following gloss on Psalm 118:59 ‘I have thought on my ways and turned my feet unto your testimonies’:



inuenit quod petit dum non obliuiscitur opera dei .i. quia ego non potui a uia iniquitatis sensus meos

COGITAUI UIAS MEAS ET CONUERTI in hanc uitam ueni

PEDES MEOS IN TESTIMONIA TUA Thus, while inuenit […] dei represents a separate exegetical COM4 gloss ‘he found that he asks not to forget the works of God’, the second COM4 gloss quia […] meos mirrors the COM4 in the left-hand margin: id est sensus meos a uia iniquitatis, quia ego non potui nisi me conuertisses ‘that is, my understanding from the way of iniquity, because I could not do [it] unless you converted me’.369 In other instances the COM4 glosses refer to biblical passages, albeit probably through the left-hand commentary, as in the following gloss on Psalm 118:70 ‘but I have meditated on your law’:

367 McNamara, ‘Five Psalter Texts’, p. 91. 368 Ibid., p. 91. 369 Agrees verbatim with McNamara, Glossa, p. 251.



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ut deus superbis resistit

EGO UERO LEGEM TUAM MEDITATUS SUM This gloss constitutes a partial citation from 1 Peter 5:5, but the full citation occurs in the left-hand margin on the headword : uero sciendum quod deus superbis resistit humilibus autem dat gratiam ‘for it should be known that God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble’.370 Similarly, in at least one case a verse from Psalm 118 is brought to bear on another passage in the same psalm, as in the case of Psalm 118:48 exercebar in mirabilibus tuis ‘I was exercised in your miracles’ which is glossed with the words of the previous verse, meditabar in mandatis [tuis] ‘I meditated on your commandments’. The most common type of Latin interlinear gloss in StC, however, can be defined as a COM4 which gives a short ‘spiritual’ interpretation of a section of the text, as in the following examples from Psalms 118:12, 38 and 64:

ut opere perficiam

BENEDICTUS ES DOMINE DOCE ME/IUSTIFICATIONES TUAS stabile fac ut perficiam

STATUE SERUO TUO ELOQUIUM dum iustificat impios

ut perficiam

MISERICORDIA DOMINI PLENA EST TERRA/IUSTIFICATIONES TUAS DOCE ME

Most of these COM4 glosses consist of independent clauses introduced by dum ‘while, as’ or ut ‘so that’ with the verb perficiam ‘(that) I may accomplish (it)’, but they can be taken as part of the matrix syntax of the principal text. Furthermore, even if this type of glosses cannot be traced, it is worth pointing out that similar ‘spiritual’ COM4 glosses also occur in the, as yet unedited, interlinear glosses to the Gallican text of the Double Psalter of St Ouen from the tenth century.371 Latin substitution glosses are relatively rare. They tend to conform to the syntax of the principal text, for example in the following SUB1 gloss Psalm 118:97,

370 Agrees almost verbatim with McNamara, Glossa, p. 252. 371 De Coninck, Expositiones, p. xii: ‘quae et ipsae “spiritualem” psalmorum sensum aperiunt, quarumque nonnullae etiam in scholiis ad Ps CXVIII S. Caimin legentur.’ However, this ‘commentarius interlinearis’ unfortunately has not been included by De Coninck in his edition and can therefore not be compared here.

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with both lemma die ‘by day’ and gloss tempore ‘during the time’ in the ablative singular: tempore

TOTO DIE MEDITATIO MEA EST However, in virtually every other case the substitution glosses are of type SUB2. For example, in (Ps 118:65) domine secundum uerbum tuum ‘Lord, according to your word’, uerbum is glossed interlinearly as promissionem ‘promise’ which, though it is in agreement (acc. sg.), represents an exegetical interpretation rather than a synonym. This gloss appears to be influenced by the commentary gloss in the left margin, and corresponds to the Vatican Commentary.372 The same holds true for the gloss on (Ps 118:42) et custodiam legem tuam semper ‘I will always guard your law’, where legem is glossed interlinearly as caritatem ‘charity’, both accusative singular forms. This exegetical SUB2 is clearly influenced by the commentary of Prosper of Aquitaine.373 Note that in both of these cases the gloss conforms to the syntax of the principal text. In conclusion, Latin interlinear glossing in StC mostly consists of longer or shorter COM4 glosses providing exegetical explanations of a word or phrase. The greater part of these glosses can be traced to pre-existing commentaries, notably the Vatican Commentary or one of its immediate sources. By contrast, substitution glosses are relatively rare. Furthermore, in most instances substitution glosses do not appear to give a Latin synonym (SUB1), but rather an exegetical interpretation (SUB2). In many cases the interlinear Latin glosses are adapted to the matrix syntax of the principal text. 4.3.2.2 Irish Glossing: Principal Text Compared to the voluminous Latin paratext in StC, the ten Irish glosses, here numbered [1–10], represent only a very small minority.374 As was the case in SP, some of them exhibit linguistic features that can be assigned to the Classical Old Irish period. For example, the retention of u-quality in the dative singulars of o-stems (purt),375 the retention of long ā (in már with long /a:/ rather than later long /o:/:

372 McNamara, Glossa, p. 252: secundum uerbum tuum: id est quod promissisti ad Abracham, quod semini eius misericordiam faceres. 373 Prosper of Aquitaine, Expositio, ed. Callens, p. 96: lex autem quam in perpetuo custodire desiderat, caritas accipienda est. 374 Thesaurus, I, p. 6. 375 GOI, pp. 106–109.



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in mór),376 the use of the form ind of the article before lenited r (scél ind rechto),377 the archaic genitive singular u-stem ending -o rather than later -a (rechto), the adverbial use of the article (in már),378 and the lenition of nouns following the conjunction amal (amail chath súla; note the archaic spelling of amail).379 This linguistic profile closely matches that of Milan and the St Gall Glosses, even if some features in StC are more compatible with later Old Irish. Still, it follows, as in SP, that the vernacular glosses may be significantly older than the manuscript itself. Indeed, some of these glosses occur in other Irish manuscripts as well, suggesting that they were in circulation over several centuries. Like the Latin glosses, vernacular glosses are entered in a small insular minuscule hand, both in the margins and interlinearly. Even so, the type of vernacular gloss associated with the position on the page is clearly rather different. Glosses [1–6] on folios 1r–5r occur in the marginal paratext, two as interlinear glosses on the Pseudo-Bedan Argumenta and Explanationes in the right margin, one embedded in a passage from Cassiodorus in the right margin, and three more in other marginal blocks of paratext. All remaining glosses [7–10] are SUB1 glosses, added interlinearly underneath their Latin lemmas in the principal text. In the remainder of this section I discuss the interlinear glosses to the principal text. (Ps 118:96) consummationi ‘end, perfection’ (dat. sg.) is glossed sublinearly as [8] forbe. This SUB1 forba(e), an io-stem neuter noun ‘end, culmination, perfection’,380 is either nominative or accusative singular, and probably not in the dative singular of the Latin headword. The expected dative singular of the Irish term is forb(i)u, although it may be argued that, if this gloss represents later Old Irish, it could in fact be dative singular. However, it is probably not in agreement with its lemma.381 Similarly, (Ps 118:107) usquequaque ‘in everything, on every occasion’, is glossed sublinearly as [10] inmar ‘very great, greatly’, with the Classical Old Irish usage of the article to derive an adverb from an adjective. This suggests that the prime aim of this gloss was to render the meaning of the lemma, not its morphological structure. As said, the archaic vocalism suggests that the gloss may derive

376 GOI, p. 52; LEIA, M-18. 377 GOI, p. 294. 378 GOI, pp. 238–239. 379 GOI, p. 563. 380 DIL, s. v. forbae. 381 Note that the spelling also occurs in the Würzburg Glosses (cf. Wb b3d5). Different spellings occur in the St Gall Glosses and Milan. If, however, the gloss is not Classical Old Irish, but later, it might represent a dative singular form after all.

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from (much) older sources.382 Indeed, the same interpretation occurs twice in the eighth-century Würzburg Glosses as in maar (Wb 12d28) and in mar (Wb 18a5). Most significantly, however, a very similar SUB1 occurs in SP as ínmár, glossing the same word usquequaque in Psalm 118:8 (cf. 4.2.2.2).383 An interesting case occurs in Psalm 118:97, which is glossed superlinearly in Latin and sublinearly in Irish: uox doctorum legem Christi praedicantium uel exprementium384 fidem

QUOMODO DILEXI LEGEM TUAM DOMINE ciacruth

The Latin gloss partly corresponds to the heading for this section of Psalm 118 in the Vatican Commentary and is an exegetical COM4.385 The Irish gloss is SUB1: quomodo ‘in what manner, how’ → [9] cia cruth ‘what form, how’, a common Irish rendering of quomodo, for example as ciachruth in the St Gall Glosses (Sg 212a1). Once more the Irish gloss is written underneath the Latin headword. The first word of Psalm 118:87 ‘they had almost made an end of me upon earth’, finally, has also received two interlinear glosses: pene

PAULO MINUS CONSUMMAUERUNT ME IN TERRA bagair

In this case Latin paulo minus ‘almost’ is uniquely supplied with two SUB1 glosses: Latin → paene ‘almost’, as well as Irish → [7] bagair. According to McNamara, OI bagair is to be read as a copular phrase ba gaire ‘(it) was almost’, with gaire ‘nearness, proximity’ or gair ‘shortness, short’.386 If so, the gloss would be synonymous with Latin paene, which itself is not entirely equivalent to paulo minus, and, as such, bagair would appear to refer to the Latin gloss rather than to the lemma. It may therefore be preferable to regard the Irish gloss as an adverbial genitive gair of the o-stem noun gar, meaning ‘it was a short time’,387 in which case the gloss

382 Ó Néill, Review of McNamara, Psalms, p. 102. 383 Thesaurus, I, p. 6. 384 Leg. exprimentium. 385 McNamara, Glossa, p. 255: Hic capitulum doctorum legem praebentium … MEM, ex ipsis interpraetatur quod conuenit huic capitulo id est ut ex ipsis praeceptis legis, id est fidei, quae per dilectionem Dei operatur. 386 DIL, s. v. gaire, gair. 387 DIL, s. v. gar.



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would be of type SUB1. Alternatively, if the reading bagair is taken as given, OI bacar (also attested as bagair ← Lat minae) ‘threat, threatening’ could be meant here.388 If so, the Irish gloss should rather be seen as a COM4 on (Ps 118:86–87) persecuti sunt me adiuua me / paulo post consummauerunt me in terra ego autem non dereliqui mandata tua ‘they have persecuted me, help me / they had almost made an end of me upon earth, but I have not forsaken your commandments.’ On balance, however, the second explanation ‘it was a short time’ seems the most likely one. It is certainly interesting to speculate why the glossator should have entered this unique bilingual gloss. Whatever its exact interpretation, the SUB1 bagair presents the only case in StC where Latin and Old Irish occur in the same function, namely, that of lexical substitution. 4.3.2.3 Irish Glossing: Paratext By contrast, the vernacular additions to the paratext show a much more varied and less subservient use of Irish, even if their exact interpretation is not always clear. On fol. 1r, for example, the first line of Psalm 118 is preceded by the Pseudo-Bedan Explanatio. One sentence from the Explanatio, ‘moreover, Joseph relates in the Jewish Antiquities that this psalm, (psalm) 143 and the canticle in Deuteronomy, are composed in an elegiac metre’, is glossed twice in Irish, fitted around and set apart from the larger minuscule of the Latin by a smaller minuscule hand: dell scelindrechto stairscribnid libuir ­historiarum isintibata fui

[…] Ioseph autem refert in libris αρχαιολογιας hunc psalmum et cxliii et deuitoronomi389 canticum elegiaco metro esse compossitos […]390 caintech

The name of the author Ioseph[us] carries a vernacular COM4 stairscribnid libuir historiarum; is intib atá fuidell scél ind rechto ‘a writer of a book of histories; in them are remnants of stories of the Law’. This COM4 provides factual background instead of the more usual exegesis, as the glossator refers to the first-century

388 DIL, s. v. bacar. 389 Leg. deuteronomii. 390 Pseudo-Bede, Psalmorum librum exegesis, ed. Migne, col. 1052c.

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author Flavius Josephus and his Jewish Antiquities. It is interesting to note that the scribe switches to Latin within this short sentence (stairscribnid libuir historiarum). It is not entirely clear why, as the Latin name of the work is Antiquitates Iudaicae and the use of the word historia is neither suggested by the Latin (Anti­ quitates) nor by the Greek name (ἀρχαιολογία) of Josephus’ work. It should here be taken as a generic Latin term for works of history, or literal historical explanation. Perhaps it is this specific meaning of historia that prompted the scribe to use a Latin rather than an Irish term. The Latin adjective elegiaco ‘elegiac’ (abl. sg.), is glossed with the Irish adjective [2] caíntech ‘mournful’.391 This is a sublinear SUB1 giving a vernacular translation of a Latin technical term. It was seen already that the morphology of Irish glosses in StC does not necessarily conform to the syntax of the principal text. This case is ambiguous, however, as adjectives in -ech are not usually marked for the dative singular.392 Another vernacular commentary gloss occurs on fol. 3r. In the right-hand margin next to Psalm 118:54–55 is written a composite bilingual gloss on (Ps 118:57) portio mea domine dixi custodire legem tuam ‘O Lord, my portion, I have said, I would keep your law’. This commentary gloss, all written in the same hand, includes a sentence in Irish (here in bold): portio a parte393 dicta est illius enim partis sumus cuius uoluntatibus obaudimus.394 quod uerbum frequenter inuenis dictum ut est illud filliis leui non erit portio neque sors in medio fratrum eorum quia dominus deus est pars eorum uel portio ainm errannais nech de phurt choitchent

The commentary running from portio […] pars eorum is derived verbatim from Cassiodorus.395 The Irish therefore must have been a separate original gloss on Latin portio ‘part’, copied from elsewhere and added at the end of Cassiodorus’ exegesis; this is also borne out by the abbreviated Latin conjunction uel. This Irish phrase could be regarded as a double gloss, namely, a SUB1 gloss on Latin portio → ainm erranais ‘portio: the name/term of a portion’ (airranus, a derived form of airann ‘part, division, portion’)396 together with a short COM4 nech de phurt choitchent ‘a person[?]/anyone from a common part’. However, if neich is

391 DIL, s. v. caíntech. 392 GOI, pp. 223–224. 393 Leg. a parte for aparte, as a parte is providing the etymology of portio. 394 Leg. oboedimus. 395 Cassiodorus, Expositio, ed. Adriaen, II, p. 1082. 396 DIL, s. v. airann.

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read for nech, then the entire phrase can be taken as a COM4 gloss. In any case, purt needs to be regarded as dative singular of port ‘abode, storehouse’,397 not of part ‘meaning’.398 Thus, the entire Irish phrase would come to mean ‘the share of anyone from a common store/provision’. On balance, this interpretation seems more likely. Finally, on fol. 5r a commentary gloss on (Ps 118:82) defecerunt oculi mei in eloquium tuum / dicentes quando consolaberis me ‘my eyes have failed for your word, saying: when will you comfort me?’ in the left margin runs defec