Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/54

 34 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. the sixth century, though a "late instance" of three is noted in the ninth century.'^ The frequent attachment of a short word or two to a following longer word is another early trait that persisted through the ninth and tenth centuries.! The bulk of the text is in the hand known as the Carlo- vingian Minuscule, interspersed with a few quasi-uncial forms, and without any signs of English or Irish influence. The ink is brown. There are no rubrications, but on piece 6 (in which I have combined four fragments) a large initial " I " is ornamented with interlaced strapwork and dragons' heads, verv smiilarly to a " T " on fol. 6i verso of the Bodleian " Leofric, " and the headings or titles are imitative of Roman rustics and uncials, and are heavily written in black with a metallic (? silver) sheen. The MS. was doubtless executed in some Continental Scriptorium indebted to the School of St. Martin of Tours for its calligraphical models, and I should be inclined to assign it to c. 875, but Sir E Maunde Thompson himself (pp. 258, 262) confesses to a difficulty in distinguishing between MSS. of the ninth and tenth centuries. The " Leofric Missal " now at the Bodleian is a composite volume, of which part "A "-a Sacramentary — was, in Warren's opinion, written in the first half of the tenth centuryj in a Lotharingian Benedictine Abbey, probably at Arras; and he conjectures it to have been brought to England in 1042 by Leofric, who had been educated in Lotharingia.§ Though evidently not penned by the same scribe, I know no reason why the MS. now under discussion might not also possibly have been brought hither by Leofric. It may be interesting to compare the photograph, kindly given me by the Rev. F. E. Warren, of a page of " Leofric A " with that of a portion of the MS. discovered by Mr. Langhorne. • Vuie Sir E. Maunde Thompson's Handbook of Greek and Latin Palcrofiraf>hy, p. 64. t E.g., in piece I, cxoratus ; 2, dcmedio ; 5, nonloquatur, ctnoiipec . . . ; 6, quiscininat, etcuncalcatus. . . ; 6d, cli>ivolue. J Mr. Falconer Madan. Librarian of the Bodleian, and Mr. H. H. E. Crastcr, Sub-Librarian, agree with Mr. Wan en's dating, which has been adopted in the Summary Catalogue of the Western MSS. at the Bodleian (in progress). § See Warren, pp. xxxi.x. (and do. note i), xl. and hv.