Gripla - 20.12.2018, Page 296

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antiquity and in the Middle ages. Documented dry point inscriptions
have been found in Latin and in vernacular languages and include refer-
ences to the main text of a given manuscript, for example, or abc-verses
and ownership statements without any connection to the manuscript’s
main text.8 Dry point glosses (Griffelglossen in German) in the vernacular
are perhaps the best-known group of dry point annotations. these are
amongst the oldest and most important original sources for old High
German, old English, old Slavic and old Irish, although their geographi-
cal distribution is not restricted to Europe – they have also been found in
Chinese, Japanese and Korean manuscripts.9 Of all these, the Old High
German Griffelglossen are perhaps the best-known examples, such as those
in manuscripts in the collection of St Gall in Switzerland. the oldest old
High German dry point glosses are from the area where anglo-Saxon mis-
sionaries were active, and it is thus possible that the technique of writing
with dry point came to the old High German language area from anglo-
Saxon England, or perhaps from Ireland.10 More than 160 manuscripts
8 Bernhard Bischoff, “Über Einritzungen in Handschriften des frühen Mittelalters,” Mittel-
alterliche Studien: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, by Bernhard
Bischoff. 3 vols (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966–1981), I 88–193.
9 Ibid., 228 and 205.
10 Ibid., 204 and 223.
Figure 2a: Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Boreal 91, fol. 83v, lower margin. © Silvia
Hufnagel and Isabella Buben, with friendly permission of the Bodleian Library.