Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/53

 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. 33 33. Ancient Liturgical MS. discovered in Exeter Cathedral Library. — The Rev. R. W. B. Langhorne, Sub- Librarian of the Cathedral Library, whose contents he has been cataloguing, is to be congratulated on his discovery of some remains of a very ancient Liturgical Manuscript, which had been ruthlessly cut up and utilised for lining the backs of the Works of Galen. This set of books was printed in Venice in 1541, but may well have been bound or re-bound in Exeter, where, if any defective or obsolete MSS. had been discarded from the Library at the Reformation, such might have found their way into the binder's hands. On recognising the exceptional nature of the fragments, the idea at once struck Mr. Langhorne that they might possibly represent the long " missing " o?ie'-^^ of the two plenary Missals, " ii fulle maesse bee," which were given to this Cathedral by Leofric, its first Bishop (1050-1072) ; and, hastily comparing them with the printed transcriptf of the one which was made over in 1602 to the Bodleian Library (where it remains as No. 579), he found that certain portions of them corresponded, in the main, to the Collect for the Ninth Hour of Christmas Eve,X and the Ad Complendnm and Super Populum for the Wednesday after the third Sunday in Lent,§ as set forth in that work, while others proved to be passages from Matt, xv., and 2 Cor. xii.ll But not having, for the present, leisure to pursue such investigations farther, Mr. Langhorne has kindly delegated to me both this task and the honour of introducing his trouvaille to students in general. There are eighteen fragments in all, eight being strips about 12 inches by 2 inches or 4 inches (two horizontal, the others vertical), and the rest mere scraps. The complete pages must have been 16 or 17 inches square, which is considerably larger than any of the Liturgical MSS. described by Warren or Wilson. The (virtual) equality of width with height is an early characteristic, as is the arrangement of the text in three columns, two being more usual after Burscough's, now Harl. 2961. t The Leofric Missal, Rev. F. E. Warren, B.D., F.S.A., 1883. X Piece I, cf. Warren, p, 62. § Piece 5, cf. Warren, p. 83. || Piece 5. D
 * Warren has demonstrated, p. xxix, that this is not the MS., once