Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/482

 478 Klaeber century is the most unlikely one to which the passing of the manuscript from England to Italy could be ascribed. The negative part of Forster's argumentation is followed by a constructive essay, which aims to supply the missing link in the chain of evidence connecting the southern with the northern country. It is definitely established (by a notice entered in an almost contemporaneous handwriting) that a tenth century manuscript (Codex no. CLXXXI) of the cathedral library of Vercelli had been formerly in the possession of abbot Erkanbald of Fulda, who at one time (between 997 and 1011) loaned it to bishop Henry I of Wlirzburg. From either Wiirzburg or Fulda the volume could easily be transferred to Vercelli, since the intercourse between Germany and Upper Italy was exceed- ingly close in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It is known, e.g., that abbot Erkanbald in 989 accompanied emperor Otto III to Italy, and that in 1002 bishop Leo of Vercelli apeared in a Bavarian town (perhaps Regensburg) before emperor Henry II. Considering, on the other hand, that both Fulda and Wiirzburg were flourishing centers of the Irish-Anglo-Saxon mission, that Fulda, in Traube's words, was altogether British in its culture, and that ancient English manuscripts were brought to those German monasteries, it is easy to see that our Vercelli codex could very well have passed from England to Italy by way of either of those places. For the details of this whole discussion the reader is referred to Forster's own presen- tation, which is a model of philological method. Regarding the diversity of linguistic forms found in the manuscript West Saxon, with an admixture of Anglian and some Kentish forms the editor offers a noteworthy, though merely tentative explanation. He observes that the same sort of mixture occurs in the copies of Wulfstan's homilies made by Wulfgeat, namely the Oxford MSS Junius 121, Hatton 113, and Hatton 114. Since in the latter instance the author and the scribe belonged to the same locality, i.e. Worcester, it stands to reason that the dialectal mixture of the homilies cannot be owing to their transcription from one dialect into another, but represents the normal orthography used in the Worcester scriptoria, though not necessarily the language actually current in that district. Thus it seems entirely possible, to say the least, that the codex Vercellensis was also written in Worcester, which, in the latter half of the tenth century, enjoyed an unu- sual reputation for literary and educational activity. Of course, the question of the original dialect or dialects of the texts contained in the codex is not affected by these considerations. Turning to the description of the individual texts, the twenty-three homilies and six poems, we note that Forster has provided an admirable, concise introduction to each piece, including a statement of its contents, parallel versions, sources,