MS. Canon. Misc. 353
Summary Catalogue no.: 19829
Rabanus Maurus, De computo; Germany, Fulda, 9th century, second quarter
Contents
Language(s): Latin
Ruled, but blank except for pen-trials. Transcribed as part of a detailed study by W. M. Stevens, ‘A ninth-century manuscript from Fulda: MS. Canonici Miscellaneous 353’, BLR, 9 (1973–78), 9–16; reprinted in his collected studies, Cycles of time and scientific learning in medieval Europe (Aldershot, 1995), Ch. VII; drawing heavily on his ‘Fulda scribes at work: Bodleian Library Manuscript Canonici Miscellaneous 353’, Bibliothek und Wissenschaft, 9 (1972), 287–316.
Composed at Fulda in AD 820. Ed. W. M. Stevens, CCCM 44 (1979) 199–321.
Prologue
Chapter list
Chapter numbers not indicated after ‘VII’, rubrics often omitted.
Added astrological/calendrical notes
List of solar regulars
Two series of notes on the Ides and Nones of the month
The title (only) of a set of rules
The text and its authorship are discussed by H. Le Bourdellès, L’Aratus latinus: Étude sur la culture et la langue latines dans le Nord de la France au VIIIe siècle (Lille, 1985), pp. 85–89; text ed. Ivana Dobcheva, 'Excerptum de astrologia' (2019), in Aratea Digital, Editions.
Fol. 55v blank.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Ruled in blind for 30 lines per page. Ruled space 180 × 95–100 mm.
Hand(s)
Caroline minuscule. Analysed in detail by Stevens, who differentiates ‘three mature Fulda hands … two mature non-Fulda hands … and six other novices’. He shows, from the use of some Insular forms and some misreadings, that the exemplar was written in Insular script.
Decoration
None.
Binding
Italian 18th-century (before 1761) plain undecorated parchment over pasteboards, with overlapping fore-edges. The endpapers block printed with reserved foliate designs on a ground of red, blue, and yellow. The spine with a red leather title-piece lettered in gilt capitals ‘IUVEBAN | PECCAT. | MACH. MO | DE COMP | COD. M’: the first word is a misreading of the prologue incipit, in which Hrabanus’s name has an ‘ra’ ligature.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Stevens (who had advice from Bernhard Bischoff, and compared the script to several dated examples, including charters in the Fulda Cartulary) dated the MS. to ‘the decade before A.D. 836’; Bischoff seems to have accepted this: Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, II: Laon–Paderborn (Wiesbaden, 2004), p. 362 no. 3790: ‘Fulda, spätestens 836’.
Jacopo Soranzo, -1761; the 4th item under no. 744 in the catalogue of his library; Stevens records that traces of a Soranzo shelfmark, no longer present, were still visible on the lower spine.
Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805
Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Bibliography
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2021-03-09: Revised description by Peter Kidd for Polonsky German digitization project.