Leiden,Universiteitsbibliotheek, BPL 88

A ninth-century parchment manuscript of De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella, heavily glossed especially in the books I, II and IX. The last two quires, containing the text of book IX, were originally part of another manuscript or were especially made to complete an already existing, incomplete one.[1] They contain a different corpus of glosses: in the books I-VIII a version is found of the Anonymous corpus, in book IX of John the Scot's commentary. The joining together of these parts must have taken place already in the ninth century. The last two quires may have been written in Reims.

Bibliography:

The manuscript consists of 23 quires; 22 of eight leaves, 1 of four (quire 21) and 1 of six (quire 23). In quire 1 a bifolium, which was added to the originally eight leaves, was numbered in the modern foliation: 1⁸ [1-10]. To quire 13 a single, smaller leaf is added after the sixth leaf in the quire, which was also numbered in the modern foliation (13⁸ [99-107]). For the rest the collation of this manuscript is regular.

Formula: 1⁸ [1-10]

2-12⁸ [11-98]

13⁸ [99-107]

14-20⁸ [108-155]

21⁴ [164-167]

22⁸ [168-175]

23⁶ [176-181]

All quires but the last carry an original quire-signature, written in the lower margin of their last versos: I (10v), II (18v), III (26v), IIII (34v), V (42v), VI (50v), VII (58v), VIII (66v), VIIII (74v), X (82v), XI (90v), XII (98v), XIII (107v), XIIII (115v) XV (123v), XVI (131v), XVII (139v), XVIII (147v), XVIIII (155v), XX (163v), XXI (167v). Quire 22 carries (by error?)[4] the number XXI (175v).

The foliation is modern, written in the upper right corner of each recto in pencil.

The leaves measure ca 253 x 235 mm. This must closely resemble the original size of at least the first part of the manuscript (books I-VIII), for the marginal glosses are all complete. Only on two folia in quire 23 are glosses in the lower margin damaged by cutting (ff 179r, 180v), which suggests that this part of the codex came originally from a slightly larger one.

The parchment is in general of fine quality. The leaves are relatively thick and stiff, some of the flesh-sides being perfectly white, some of the hair-sides perfectly smooth (e.g. quires 5 and 6).[5] The added bifolium (ff 1^2) and the last two quires are clearly of a lesser quality, thinner and more worn. The parchment has very few holes[6] and the margins of only a few leaves show the edge of the skin.[7] All quires of 8 leaves are arranged according to the pattern HFHF (2-12, 14-20, 22), and the quires of lesser leaves are arranged in the same manner, taking the number of their leaves into account: quire 21 has HF|HF, and quire 23 HFH|FHF.

Ruling is executed with a hard point per folium on the hair-side. The dominant pattern of furrows and ridges is ><><|><>< (1-20, 22).[8] The binio and ternio show the same pattern in fewer leaves: ><|>< (21), ><>|<>< (23). The pattern for the lay-out of the page is uniform from quire 1 to quire 21: double vertical through lines on either side of the text, pricked in the upper and lower margins; single horizontal through lines as the first and last textline, pricked in the outer margin; 21 rules, above topline, pricked along the edge of the leaves: 2-2/0/1-1/J, 26<9<135>9>55 x 32<170>50 mm; 21 lines, above topline, height per ten ca 83 mm.

There are only two exceptions: on f 55 the lower horizontal through line stops at the third vertical one (2-2/0/1A-1C/J) and on the bifolium 75^82 both horizontal through lines stop at the fourth vertical one (2-2/0/1-1:C/J).

In the last two quires five different lay-outs are found. In 22 the first and fourth bifolium (i.e. 168^175 and 171^172) have two vertical through lines on either side of the text, one horizontal through line at the head of the text, none below; 2-2/0/1-0/J. A double row of prickings can be seen along the edge of the first bifolium, a single row on the fourth one. The measurements are ca 25<8<142>7>53 x 27<196>29 mm, ten lines are ca 68 mm high. The second and third bifolium, however, have 2 horizontal through lines above, one below the text; 2-2/0/2-1/J, 22<7<142>7>54 x 28<195>28 mm. Again a double row of prickings is found on the one (169^174), a single row on the other bifolium (170^173).

In 23 three different types of lay-out occur in three bifolia:

* ff 176^181: 2-1/0/2-1/J, 19-21A,[9] a single row of prickings along the edge of the leaf, 30 lines, atl (ca 69 mm per ten), 23<7<145>52 x 25<198>22 mm.

* ff 177^180: 2(+2)-2(+2)/0/5-1/J,[10] a double row of prickings along the edge of the leaf, 31 lines, atl (ca 68 mm per ten), 25<8<140>7>52 x 21<205>28 mm.

* ff 178^179: 2-2/0/3-2/J, 19-21A, a single row of prickings along the edge of the leaf, 30 lines, atl (ca 69 mm per ten), 20<7<143>8>52 x 25<200>28 mm.

The many different kinds of lay-out in these two quires may suggest that these were newly composed in order to complete an incomplete or damaged manuscript. These bifolia were, perhaps, prepared for other manuscripts, but not yet used.

The text is written by several scribes in Carolingian minuscule.[11] The general appearance, however, is relatively uniform, with a small, upright letter (ca 2 mm high), 3-shaped g's, x's with long descenders to the left, r's which are tilted to the right and sometimes descend below the line, uncial capital M's and D's (besides rustic capital ones), and lightly clubbed ascenders. The letters are somewhat suspended above the lines. Some of the scribes carefully executed high-quality, very regular letters (e.g. ff 3-19r), others more of a scribbling, wavering script (e.g. ff 46v-48r). Striking are the differences in ink-colour, which varies between an almost faded light brown and nearly black.

In the glosses, several hands can be detected. The main glossing-activity of the first part of the manuscript took place contemporarily with or shortly after its making, by two contemporary glossators. The one who wrote the first layer of glosses wrote his additions in a tiny, very regular Carolingian minuscule of only 1 mm high. He used both the margins and the space between the lines and is precise in tying lemma and gloss together with a sign. The ink he used has a light-brown colour and has occasionally almost faded. The second layer of glosses must have been added only a few years later, for the script of this second glossator closely resembles that of the first one. His glosses are executed in darker ink, seemingly with less care, for the script does not look as regular as that of the first layer. This hand can also be found emending and filling in lacunae in the text. Throughout the codex headers are added which identify the number of the book (verso) and its content (recto). In the margins one sometimes finds subtitles written in rustic capitals, which were probably written by the second glossator. The headers, which look very similar, may also have been written by him.

These two glossators seem to have worked their way through the manuscript, including the additional last two quires containing book IX. They are especially active in books I, II, IV, and at the beginning of VIII. In books I, II and VIII the two hands are approximately equally active, whereas in III, V, VI and VII hand 2 is by far the most active.

In book IX, finally, the first hand disappears after the first page and the second hand appears to have been working together with a third one. This third hand shows many Irish characteristics, such as a high, open e, a low and open a, an r with a relatively long descender and a straight T-shaped t. His letters are low, broad, widely spaced and look as if written in haste. The script was once identified as the autograph of John the Scot Eriugene, then as I², the hand of a student of John.[12]

In addition to the three hands, contemporary with the manuscript, several notes of later hands can be detected. First of all the Wichardian hands can be observed, who copied large schemes on the topic of Dialectica on ff 1v and 2r, a figure representing the planets and the zodiac on f 2r, an accessus ad auctorem, the refrain Scande celi templa with musical notation[13] and a Greek alphabet with numerical values on f 2v. They have also been active in some of the books of the encyclopedia, as can be seen e.g. on ff 63r and 78r. Several later readers of this manuscript wrote their occasional notes in the margins of Leiden, BPL 88, e.g. on ff 18v, 22r-v, 33v, 43r, 84r, 115r.

The punctuation is partly original, partly added by the (second?) glossator. Majuscules are used for explicits/incipits, at the beginning of verses, passages and “sentences”, for titles and subtitles, headers, refrains, etc. They are written in rustic capital, with occasional uncial M's and D's. Initial letters of 1.5-3 lines high are found at the head of books or prose-passages after verses. In book IX, the initial letters of the verses stand out because of their placement between the double vertical through lines. Colours are used to mark beginnings of books, poems and prose-passages. There are several titles and initials in red ink,[14] and passages with capital letters in brown ink, coloured with ochre.[15] Sometimes the two colours are found together, as for example on ff 96r-96v, where red capital letters are marked with ochre.

Again there are few sources which reveal the history of this manuscript. As was noted above, the codex contains parts from two different manuscripts, bound together in the ninth century. Bischoff noted that the script of book I-IV resembled that of Tours, and suggested that the second part could have been written in Reims.[16] Although Préaux argued for a break later in the manuscript — i.e. from book IX onwards —, he accepted the localization in Reims. Like Vatican, Reg.lat. 1987, Leiden, BPL 88 was part of the library of St. Peter's abbey in Ghent in the eleventh century, as can be concluded from the presence of ‘Wichardian’ script in the added bifolium and the anathema on f 2v (the same as that found in Vatican, Reg.lat. 1987 on f 146v):

Liber s. petri gandensis ecclesiae. Servanti benedictio. Tollenti maledictio. Qui folium ex eo tulerit. vel curtaverit. anathema sit.

(Book of the church of Saint Peter of Ghent. A blessing to the keeper, a curse to the thief. May he who took or cut a folium from it be damned.)

In an early article Préaux voiced the hypothesis that the manuscript could have been written in St.-Omer or Laon, two places to which the monks of St. Peter's fled for hostile Norman invasions in the 880's.[17] In later articles, however, he opted for a second hypothesis, which dates the arrival of the manuscript in St. Peter's abbey in Ghent in the period when Wichard was abbot, i.e. 1034/35-1058, and seeks the place of origin among its sister abbeys, Corbie or Reims. Because the two ways of establishing the origin of the manuscript, i.e. Bischoff's hypothesis based on paleographical evidence and Préaux' hypothesis based on historical evidence, partly concur, Reims is now generally accepted as the place of origin of the second part, that is, the last two quires, of the manuscript.[18]

Again like Vatican, Reg.lat. 1987, the codex was in the sixteenth century obtained by the humanist scholar Franciscus Nansius, from whose heirs the university library of Leiden bought the manuscript ca. 1600. There it received the signature Biblioteca Publica Leiden, Latina 88. A schidula with this signature is attached to the spine of the codex and a stamp of the library can be seen in the lower margin of f 3r.

Today, the codex has a parchment spine and cardboard covers, covered with marbled paper. On the inside, paper leaves are glued to the covers. Two paper fly-leaves open the book, the second one watermarked with a bunch of grapes. The codex has five double cords (spaced 55-42-44-48-42-36 mm). The sewing is not original, for several now unused sewing stations can be seen in the gutters of the quires.[19] In the back of the codex, no paper fly-leaves are present, but there is a parchment folium which carries the signature BPL 88 and the number 182 (i.e. the 182^nd folium of the codex). On it is a Leiden, Latin text in a fourteenth-century cursiva.[20] Its measurements do not concur with the manuscript: it is part of a bifolium, from which the first leaf is cut to a strip of only 35 mm wide, the second measures 200 (width) x 240 (height) mm. Its prickings are enigmatic: they run along the edge of the strip and form a rectangle on the edge of the preserved folium. Perhaps another piece of parchment was sewn onto it to make it large enough to serve as a cover. The leaf is now fixed to the sewing with one piece of string.

The manuscript contains:

• two paper fly-leaves;
• f 1r: empty, offset of a strip of a missal, used to strengthen the binding;[21]
• f 1v-2r: ninth-century annotations: schemes highlighting the ars dialectica, a figure of the planets and the zodiac, made by use of a pair of compasses;
• f 2v: eleventh-century annotations in ‘Wichardian’ hands: an accessus ad auctorem from the Anonymous corpus, the refrain Scande celi with neumes, a Greek alphabet with numerical values, the anathema of St. Peter's abbey, Ghent;
• f 3r-181v: Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, with many glosses taken from the Anonymous corpus (books I-VIII) and John the Scot's commentary (book IX).

  I 3r-18v; II 18v-34r; III 34r-58v; IV 59r-80r; V 80r-106r; VI 106v-133r; VII 133v-152v; VIII 152v-167v;

  (in a different script and with different glosses) IX 168r-181v;

• f 182r-v: bifolium cut to size with a Latin text in fourteenth-century cursiva, perhaps once used as a cover.