Margin as Archive: The Liturgical Marginalia of a Manuscript of the Old English Bede

Abstract

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41 contains the B-text of the Old English Bede, and a sizeable body of marginalia that includes a substantial amount of liturgy. The main text is in a large format but remains incomplete in some of its artwork; it was copied in two parts by two different scribes in the early eleventh century and supplied with various decorated initials, not all of them finished. The book was given by Bishop Leofric to Exeter between 1050 and 1072. It is not immediately apparent whether the liturgical addenda were copied there or done earlier at some other center, but the nature of the marginalia suggests that the additions were made, as was perhaps the book itself, in a provincial scriptorium of no great size. The use of the margins of the text indicates a shortage of available vellum, thus suggesting that the original text of the Old English Bede may have been made for a smaller center with a minimal library, or possibly for an individual.