Description
Alternative title
Regula Chrodegangi
Type of resource
mixed material
Extent
ff. 85 + 2
Date created
[ca. 1000 - 1025]
Language
Latin, English, Old (ca. 450-1100)
Material
Vellum
Layout
27 lines to a page
Height (mm)
290
Width (mm)
175
Collation
a(2) 1(8) (2 replaced by blank) 2(8)-11(8) (wants 6-8).
Writing
in two very good round upright hands
Foliation
ff. a-l + i-iii + pp. 1-4 + 4a-b + 5-6 + 6a-d + 7-8 + 8a-b + 9-170 + ff. m-x
Research
Miss Bateson (Eng. Hist. Rev. 1894, p. 699) has pointed out that this work is the Rule of Chrodegang of Metz as enlarged after the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817. Lord Selborne (Ancient Facts and Fictions concerning Tithes, edn 2, pp. 264-70) had also rightly identified the work, which previous writers had mistaken for the Benedictine Rule. A copy said to be by Whelock is in Harl. MS. 440. It contains the capitula complete (doubtless excerpted from the text, as they are in Wanley, p. 130). Another (Latin only) is in Vitellius D. VII, much burnt. This last was a volume of Collectanea of Laurence Nowell, and this text is described by him as copied from a book belonging to Exeter Cathedral. On this account the present MS. is identified (rightly, as it seems) with one of Leofric's gifts to Exeter: probably no. 21 in his list (Regula Canonicorum) but possibly no. 23 (Canon on Leden). There was also a copy at Christ Church, Canterbury, Regula Canonicorum Anglice (Ancient Libraries, p. 51, no. 317). The text is to be edited by Professor Napier for the Early English Text Society.
Additions
On the flyleaf (iiv) a Parkerian note attributing the work to Theodore.
Abstract/Contents
- Summary
- CCCC MS 191 is a copy of the bilingual version of the Rule for Canons of Chrodegang of Metz (d. 766). It was written in the third quarter of the eleventh century at Exeter, and is probably identifiable as one of the manuscripts given to Exeter by Bishop Leofric (1050-72). Leofric, who was probably from Cornwall although he has an English name, was brought up in Lotharingia, where he encountered Chrodegang's Rule, which sought to encourage communal life among the secular, rather than monastic, clergy. Leofric introduced this rule to Exeter, which he reconstituted as a community of clerics rather than monks when he moved his see there from Crediton in 1050. This manuscript was used by the Parkerian circle for its Old English vocabulary and was annotated by Parker when he was preparing his defence of priests' marriage.
- Contents
- Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang in Latin and Old English
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction:
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- License:
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).