DPL Reed MMF1

Bible, Latin. Northern France, late ninth century

3 leaves (bifolium and single leaf). 265 by 195mm and 300 by 215mm (trimmed). Single column, 30 lines, ruled in blind, written space 224 by 140mm; Carolingian minuscule.

Text: (leaf 1a, f.1), Matthew 26:46–75; (leaf 1a, f. 2), Mark 1:1–27.  (leaf 1b), John 3:29–4:28.
Provenance: (leaf 1a, f.1) marked with tiny letters: c (cantor), s (sacerdos) and + (for recitation of the Passion sequence on Palm Sunday). Leaves recovered from a binding, and were evidently used as wrappers for legal papers in late seventeenth-century France. The lower margin of the manuscript is titled (upside-down) ‘1697. Minutte de souslavache & rive [?], Se 1697’. Purchased from Maggs in July 1957.
References: Manion, Vines, de Hamel no. 65; Reed Early Bibles no. 8; R. Gameson. ‘The Oldest Medieval Manuscript in New Zealand (Dunedin Public Libraries, Reed Fragment 1)’ in Migrations: Medieval Manuscripts in New Zealand edited by Stephanie Hollis and Alexandra Barratt (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), 147–64.
Shelfmark: RMM Fragment 1a.

Description reproduced from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (London, 1989) by permission of the authors (Christopher de Hamel, Margaret Manion, and the family of Vera F. Vines).

Manuscript date established by Professor Richard Gameson (Durham University).