The Scribal Work of Eadmer of Canterbury to 1109
THE SCRIBAL WORK OF EADMER OF
CANTERBURY TO 1109*
MICHAEL GULLICK
'...we know very little at present about the growth of the library at Christ
Church Canterbury during its great period from about 1080 to 1130, and
little can be known until the work of the main scribes has been identified
and arranged into a chronological sequence. In this inquiry the discovery of
manuscripts written by Eadmer has a special interest because his active life
spans the whole of the most important period...'
R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and his Biographer
(Cambridge, 1963), 373-2.
Eadmer, disciple, companion and biographer of Anselm, Archbishop
of Canterbury (1093-1109), was probably born about 1060, brought
up as a child at Christ Church, where he professed as a monk, and at
the end of his life was the Christ Church precentor. The date of his
death is unknown but he died probably in the late 1120s. His Historia
Novorum in Anglia is the most ambitious historical work written in
England since Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and his Vita Anselmi is
a fundamental source not only for Anselm's life but also his own.1
In one of several volumes of manuscript fragments assembled by
John Bagford (1650-1716), now at the British Library, is a one-leaf
This paper formed part of a more wide ranging paper on early Anglo-Norman book
production at Christ Church delivered to the London Medieval Manuscripts Seminar at
the University of London Library on 15 May, 1997.1 am very grateful to Professor A.
C. de la Mare for her invitation to address the Seminar. For their help in the preparation
of both papers I am grateful to Teresa Webber (for discussions extending back now
some years about Christ Church books) and Richard Gameson, and I also owe my best
thanks to all those who have allowed me to consult manuscripts in their care, in particular
the staff of the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Photographs are reproduced by permission of The Master and Fellows, Trinity College,
Cambridge, The Dean and Chapter, Durham Cathedral, and The British Library.
Eadmer's life is discussed by R.W. Southern, St Anselm. A Portrait in a Landscape
(Cambridge, 1990), 404-21.
173
MICHAEL GULLICK
fragment in the unmistakable hand of the historian. Its discovery
prompted me to examine virtually all the known late-eleventh and
early-twelfth century manuscripts and documents with a Christ
Church origin to determine whether further examples of his hand, in
addition to those already known, might be identified.2 This search
proved successful, for the one-leaf fragment is not the only hitherto
unknown example of the hand for there are others, all datable to
before the death of Anselm in 1109.
In 1963, Southern demonstrated that two manuscripts containing
Eadmer's works now at Cambridge were mostly written and amended
in the second and third decades of the twelfth century by the historian
himself (Corpus Christi College 371 and 452). He also pointed out
that the hand of the manuscripts was very like the hand found in some
Canterbury documents of the 1080s and his suspicion that the
manuscripts and documents were the work of the same scribe was
confirmed for him by T.A.M. Bishop.3 In 1979, N.R. Ker, building on
identifications made by Bishop in 1953, listed the manuscripts and
documents attributable to Eadmer and discussed his hand in one of
them in some detail.4 In the same year Martin Brett published a note
on the textual importance of one of two one-leaf fragments of
2 I have, I think, seen virtually all of the relevant manuscripts with a Christ Church
provenance listed in N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (London, 1964),
with its Supplement (Ed.) A.G. Watson (London, 1987), with the exception of London,
Inner Temple 511.10 (s.xii in.) and Windsor, St George's Chapel 5 (s.xii in.), and a
number of manuscripts of Christ Church origin but with a different provenance. There
is a useful list (which is not quite complete) of late eleventh- and early twelfth-century
Christ Church manuscripts in T. Webber, 'Script and Manuscript Production at Christ
Church, Canterbury, after the Norman Conquest' in (Eds.) R. Eales and R. Sharpe
Saints and Scholars, Canterbury and the Norman Conquest (London, 1995), at pp.
156-7.1 hope 1 have seen all of the relevant documents and I am grateful to Martin Brett
for letting me see his list of the surviving original charters issued by the archbishops
of Canterbury between 1070 and c.l 130, drawn up in connection with his forthcoming
contribution to the English Episcopal Acta series, and to Teresa Webber, who is preparing
palaeographical notes on the charters for Brett's edition, for showing me photographs
of them.
3 R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm and his Biographer (Cambridge, 1963), 371-3. For
reproductions see ibid, frontis. (Corpus Christi College 371), and P.R. Robinson,
Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, c. 737-1600, in Cambridge Libraries
(Cambridge, 1988), PI. 40 (Corpus Christi College 371) and PL 47 (Corpus Christi
College 452).
4 T.A.M. Bishop, 'Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts. Part I' Transactions of the
Cambridge Bibliographical Society 1 (1953), at 456-7, and N.R. Ker, 'Copying an
Exemplar: Two Manuscripts of Jerome on Habakkuk' in (Eds.) P. Cockshaw, M.C.
Garand and P. Jodogne Miscellanea Codicologica F. Masai Dicta (Ghent, 1979) i, pp.
203-10 with pis.
174
THE SCRIBAL WORK OF EADMER OF CANTERBURY TO 1109
Eadmer's own works (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 341)
written by the historian.5 The most recent discovery has been the
attribution to Eadmer of eight fragments from a manuscript of
Augustine's commentary on the Psalms in a sale catalogue, published
subsequently by their owner (Tokyo, Takymia 55).6
Before his identity had been established, it was thought that
Eadmer's early work may have been the crucial link between the
script of a Norman manuscript and the mature form of the local Christ
Church script, which appeared about the middle of the 1090s. The
Norman manuscript contains a collection of canon law, known as the
Collectio Lanfranci, and has a contemporary note stating that it was
purchased by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury (1070-1089), from
the monastery at Bee and given to Christ Church (Cambridge, Trinity
College B. 16.44).7 It has been shown that this manuscript was almost
certainly in England by 1075.8
However, it has been proposed
recently that a more seminal influence upon the development of the
script may have been the work of a scribe who is known to have
worked at Christ Church and may also have worked during the 1080s
and earlier at Caen, where Lanfranc was abbot of St. Etienne before
coming to Canterbury.9
The newly identified one-leaf fragment written by Eadmer is
possibly his earliest extant scribal work, dating from in or about the
mid-1080s, perhaps a year or two before 1085 (London, British Library
Harley 5915 f. 12). The recto of the fragment contains the end of
5 M. Brett, 'A note on the Historia Novorum of Eadmer' Scriptorium, 33 (1979), 56-8
with pi.
6 Sotheby's 24.vi.80, lot 68 (which mistakenly attributed the text to Jerome), and T.
Takymia in Reports of the Keio Institute of Linguistic and Cultural Studies 21 (1989),
175-89 with pi. [in Japanese]. There are photographs of several of the fragments
(which I have not seen) in the Conway Library of the Courtauld Institute in London.
N.R. Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest (Oxford
1960), 25-6. The earliest datable manuscript in mature Christ Church script is Durham
Cathedral B.ii.IO (Jerome, Epistolae), almost certainly a gift to Durham from Bishop
William of St Calais (1081-1096), see R.A.B. Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts
to the end of the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1939), no. 38 and PL 26. Its scribe has been
identified elsewhere, see Webber, 'Script and Manuscript Production', 152, and it is
likely that the manuscript was written in the 1090s, probably closer to 1096 than 1090.
C.N.L. Brooke, 'Archbishop Lanfranc, the English Bishops and the Council of London
of 1075', Studio Gratiani 12 (1967), 56-8.
9 Webber, 'Script and Manuscript Production', 149-50, where attention is drawn to the
similarity of the hand of the scribe of Cambridge University Library Kk.1.23 ff.67-134
with the hand of the scribe of two charters written for St. Etienne, Caen, datable 1066
x 1077 and 1081 x 1087, respectively.
175
MICHAEL GULLICK
Plate I.
Iiilaru• na-lvmict.li)pbanu tAux ncctiuiWwfytn
ica-twbL:1pkTOtf1pblaiyhc!iiurilVc^ia'CTu^1*fcitV
rn* toluintnc itfpuautm-'tnrujvArlct cenmnu<|ur b « ijk> f
SAHcrtTXCt TVAf CtffrtJCOff vfHfKAM&i PAV:
rut'«^twmicIrt(m|H^{H^fi<>tntitcl*fili^nrc r«ti
item poltr CUKJ; yoft-mottt. ^attjniliwifaptkil
toccntabfce vtiitu lucinotua. pcmictarp&ftmcw MKI
con(jUnfcj.m-d^; cni. tmncunf d*c cicLtuav rulcttftuucn
idfecru dcfuJoniutr cffcaipUru- ire lhltccr itil'ctnifum rclutf
occtfun w facrutn eft *jr£«tfClcj>bra!ief I ttroaru cti4l
ni^ero-4* liutulcmwdt ijuctWiic -.aq: ur vcfyonAax ^uti mdc mutd
ccufifrfc quicllhicuf* IVrnxixafutdcn Aktum-e^uuncfmocufami
ilcUtt-0uti*^b»airaiict«- A4tuti5ifauti4c«rt rtfwfic ^cfumucrii
«ptttitcutc-ur lunc Adlud coniayoffir- boimt;vpklte pof r m.
A M
London, British Library Harley 5915 f.l2r (detail, actual size)
General aspect: Narrowish proportion and regular, the effect is roundish
and a little soft. The writing has the characteristics of a disciplined young
scribe, in particular a controlled deliberation, rhythmic, but not exuberant.
Features: The arches of the m and n, the lower part of the u and the serifs at
the feet of the minims are rounded. The bowls of b, d, p and q, and the
backs of c, e and / tend to be roundish.
Letters: The st ligature has a rounded top, the stem of the * descends below
the base line and the stem of the t is vertical. The rounded lower bowl of
the g appears to be a continuation of the left hand side of the upper bowl.
The ampersand (see last line) is squarish. The punctus is placed high.
Note: In line 2 from the foot, the lower bowl of the g in Adiungis is a
reversed-c, a feature of Anglo-caroline minuscule. There are several other
similar gs in the leaf and these prompt the question whether Eadmer was
first taught to write an English script.
176
THE SCRIBAL WORK OF EADMER OF CANTERBURY TO 1109
Plate II.
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• mrtrmicrf urcuUtquul ucnuUr fninjar' jctir^klr urrtuf. ctm ur mcc uto
"ciiJjf-Vu4iuin4 rdi^wnc uim^ui .nriiiw* ctTc irtnowlu Lonirtl'u ticuc DIUJA
:idciTU'tic:lKmiuUatfl'Ji"Uulu'tKcnuUiKljrt»mAl