Gripla - 20.12.2014, Blaðsíða 65

65
ELIzABEtH WALgEnBACH
BEInECKE MAnuSCrIPt 508
AnD oLE WorM’S
AntIQuArIAn WorLD
1. Introduction
whether by keeping medieval vellums or making their own copies,
early modern scholars curated the documents and narratives from the
Middle Ages that we have today. this article seeks to identify one of these
copies: A manuscript, Beinecke MS 508, that was purchased from private
hands in 1971 and is now a part of the collection at the Beinecke rare Book
and Manuscript Library at Yale university in new Haven, Connecticut.
Beinecke MS 508 is a small (190 by 162 mm) paper manuscript acquired
by the Beinecke Library in 1971 as a gift from the yale Library Associates.1
the manuscript consists of two separate texts that were bound together,
probably in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, although the current
binding is modern.2 the first section of the manuscript (fol. 1–16) contains
early Anglo-Saxon laws and documents copied from the Archaionomia, sive
de priscis legibus libri, a collection of Anglo-saxon documents in Old english
and Latin, first printed in London in 1568;3 the second section (fol. 17–89)
is a copy of northern Icelandic annals made in the seventeenth century.4
1 the manuscript was purchased from L. Larsen. See Albert Derolez, “Beinecke MS 508,” in
Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, General Collection of Rare Books
and Manuscripts, Pre-1600 Manuscripts last updated 2007, accessed September 25, 2014:
http://brbl-net.library.yale.edu/pre1600ms/docs/pre1600.ms508.htm. See also, Cora E.
Lutz, “Manuscripts Copied from Printed Books,” in her Essays on Manuscripts and Rare
Books (Hamden: Archon Books, 1975), 135. I would like to thank Professor Anders Winroth
and Dr. giselle gos for their help in the preparation of this article. All errors are my own.
2 Derolez suggests that the Anglo-Saxon laws were added ca. 1700, cf. “Beinecke MS 508.”
3 Archaionomia sive de priscis legibus libri, ed. William Lambarde (London, 1568). this book is
accessible through the Early English Books Online database.
4 Derolez, “Beinecke MS 508.”
Gripla XXV (2014): 65–86