Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 389: Lives of the Hermits Paul and Guthlac

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Title:
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 389: Lives of the Hermits Paul and Guthlac
Alternate Title:
Vita Pauli. Vita Guthlaci
Language:
Latin and English, Old (ca. 450-1100)
Extent:
ff. 66
Dimensions:
230 Height (mm) and 140 Width (mm)
Approximate Date:
[ca. 800 CE - 899 CE]
Provenance:
From St Augustine's, Canterbury: on f. 1r at top: Di. IXa Gradu tercio V. Lower down (xii): Vita S. pauli primi heremite. Vita S. Guthlaci. (xiv) Liber S. Aug. Cant. Not entered in the old catalogue.
Table of contents:
  • Vita Sancti Pauli primi heremitae
  • Vita Sancti Guthlaci
Description:
CCCC MS 389 was written at St Augustine's, Canterbury in the late tenth century, and contains Jerome's Life of St Paul the First Hermit and the Life of St Guthlac by Felix of Crowland (eighth century). These are two very important texts for the anchoritic tradition: Jerome's Life of St Paul provided a model both for subsequent hermits and for those who wrote their uitae; while Guthlac was the original English hermit, pursuing his vocation in the wilderness of the fens rather than in the middle-eastern desert. This manuscript therefore shows an interest in the eremitical way of life at Canterbury at this time, further emphasised by the marking up of the Guthlac text into nine lections to be used on his feast day. It was written in late Square minuscule, the last type of Insular script to be used for Latin texts in England, and contains wonderful initials of Wormald's "Type II", with interlace work and grasping beast heads outlined in ink. In the second half of the eleventh century, perhaps circa 1070, an author portrait of St Jerome was added at the start of the manuscript in a late Anglo-Saxon style. The manuscript has a St Augustine's, Canterbury classmark, but is not included in the surviving catalogue.
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