Beinecke MS 320               England, s. X^^med
Pontifical (fragment)

Texts on the recto:

1.  [Oremus dilectissimi fratres...] vel seculari desiderio//...qui uiuit.

     Prayer "ad clericum faciendum," with variant beginning:  Praesta,
quaesumus.... Printed texts include D. H. Turner, ed., The Claudius
Pontificals [London, B. L. Cotton Claudius A. iii], HBS 97
(London, 1971) I, p. 55; F. E. Warren, ed., The Leofric Missal [Oxford,
Bodl. Lib. Bodley 579] (Oxford, 1883) p. 226; Z. Obertynski, ed., The
Cracow Pontifical, HBS 100 (London, 1977) no. 264;
H. A. Wilson, ed., Benedictionarius Roberti Archiepiscopi, Rouen,
Bibliotheque municipale 369 (Y. 7), HBS 24 (London, 1903)
p. 114; G. H. Doble, ed., Pontificale
Lanaletense, Rouen, Bibliotheque municipale 368 (A. 27), HBS 74 (London,
1937) p. 44.

2.  [Adesto domine] supplicationibus nostris//...et vitam percipere [mereatur]
aeternam. per.

     Prayer "ad clericum faciendum."  Printed texts include Turner, op. cit.,
II, p. 100 (in monasterio); Warren, op. cit., p. 226 (in ecclesia);
Obertynski, op. cit., no. 265 (in ecclesia);  Wilson, op. cit.,
p. 114; Doble, op. cit., p. 44.

3.  [Heading, in red, only partially visible:] [Dum tondis] eum dic[a]s
[antiphonam hanc]. [text in a smaller and different hand:]
//ias mihi hereditatem tuam.  Dominus pars heredi//

     Antiphon and Psalm (one line of text only).  Cf. Psalm 15.5; Warren, op.
cit., p. 226; Obertynski, op. cit., no. 266; Turner, op. cit.,
I, p. 55.  Art. 1 and the antiphon also occur in the ordination of monks of the
Rituale ecclesiae Dunelmensis (Durham Cathedral MS. A. iv. 19, U.
Lindeloeff and A. H. Thompson, eds., Publications of the Surtees Society 140
[Durham, 1927] p. 96).

Texts on verso:

4.  [Heading:] et cenubio se traden[tibus].  Praesta, domine quaesumus
famulis//...[mun]dum se gaudeant evasi[sse].

     Part of an "ordinatio monachi."  For printed text see Turner, op. cit.,
II, p. 98; Doble, op. cit., p. 46, and Wilson, op. cit., p. 132.

5.  [Heading:] Oratio super eum qui prius.  Deus cuius spiritu creatura//...
super hunc famulum [tuum...gaudeat et aeternae. per dominum].

     Prayer "ad barbas tonendas."  For printed texts see Turner, op. cit., I,
p. 61; Warren, op. cit., p. 226; Obertynski, op. cit., no. 269;
Wilson, op. cit., p. 115; Doble, op. cit., p. 45.

     Two fragments of a single parchment leaf measuring 179 x 131 mm. now crudely
patched together in their original format.  Written in a fine, large
Anglo-Saxon square minuscule with headings, in red square capitals (mostly
faded).  Removed from a binding; numerous sections spotted and discolored.

Written in England in the middle of the 10th century according to T. A. M.
Bishop; it presumably originated in one of the episcopal seats of the period and
perhaps in one of the monastic cathedrals.  For a list of Anglo-Saxon
pontificals surviving from the 10th and 11th centuries see H. Gneuss,
"Liturgical Books in Anglo-Saxon England," in Learning and Literature in
Anglo-Saxon England:  Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes, M. Lapidge and
H. Gneuss, eds. (Cambridge, 1985) pp. 131-33 (we thank H. Gneuss for his
assistance with the Beinecke fragment).  Beinecke MS 320 is apparently by
by the same scribe and probably from the same manuscript
as Cambridge, Trinity College B. 1. 30 (James 28), two strips of
parchment (binding fragments) that originally comprised a single leaf.
The Beinecke fragment is believed to have been in the collection of the English
jurist and archeologist John Selden (1584-1654).  A note in the margin of the
recto may be in his hand:  "Written ab^^t the middle of the 9th Century circa
A.D. 850."  It would therefore have been left, with other manuscripts and books,
to his executor Sir Matthew Hale, also a noted jurist (1609-76).
Bought at Sotheby's in June of 1963 (lot unknown) by
H. P. Kraus (Cat. 107, no. 2) from whom it was acquired in 1965
by Edwin J. Beinecke for the Beinecke Library.

Barbara A. Shailor