Page:The Dream of the Rood - ed. Cook - 1905.djvu/9



The poem is contained in the Vercelli Book, or Codex Vercellensis, a manuscript volume of the early part of the eleventh century, discovered by Dr. Friedrich Blume in 1822 in the chapter library of the cathedral of Vercelli, where it still remains. It consists of 135 leaves, containing, besides a number of homilies and the life of St. Guthlac in prose, the following poems : Andreas, Fates of the Apostles, Address of the Soul to the Body, Falsehood of Men, Dream of the Rood, Elene.

How the manuscript reached Vercelli is a question upon which two leading hypotheses have been held. According to one, it would have been taken from England to Italy by Cardinal Guala-Bicchieri, who was Papal Legate in England from 1216 to 1218, who founded the monastery church of St. Andrew at Vercelli after his return from England, had it erected by an Englishman in the Early English style, and bestowed upon it relics of English saints. Moreover, he was the possessor of a library remarkable for that time, which he bequeathed to his monastery, and which contained a copy of the Bible in English handwriting. Finally, the monastery school, which in 1228 became a university, was attended by Englishmen, and, among others, by Adam de Marisco, the first teacher in the school which the Franciscans set up in Oxford; this must have been before 1226, the year of St. Francis's death, since it is expressly Rh