Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 270: Missal of St Augustine's, Canterbury

purl.stanford.edu/zs345bj2650

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 270: Missal of St Augustine's, Canterbury

Alternate Title:

Missale (S. Aug. Cant.)

Language:

Latin

Extent:

ff. 195 + 2

Dimensions:

266 Height (mm) and 173 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1000 - 1099]

Provenance:

Main hand ischaracteristic of St Augustine's, Canterbury.

Table of contents:

Missal of St Augustine's, Canterbury

Description:

This Missal is written in the beautiful round script particularly associated with St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, in the second half of the eleventh century. We know that this manuscript was written after 1091 because it contains a mass for the translation of St Augustine in this year. As such it shows the typical English script of the eleventh century being written well after the Norman Conquest, in contrast to the spiky script written at nearby Christ Church at this time. T. A. M. Bishop identified the work of some of CCCC MS 270's scribes in other manuscripts from St Augustine's, Canterbury. Arguments on textual grounds that the manuscript must have been written before 1100 are unconvincing in themselves, but this style of script would not be expected to have lasted very long into the twelfth century. The manuscript has flyleaves written in late eleventh- or twelfth-century script, containing text from Bede's Historia ecclesiastica. It is possible that these leaves were not taken from a dismantled copy of Bede's work, but were rather leaves rejected during the production of a manuscript, and if so then they may have been used in the binding of MS 270 at an early date.