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Description
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Smaragdus of St. Mihiel, Haimo of Auxerre, Ambrose Autpert and others, Homilies for Easter, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [France (probably Tours), second half of the tenth century] 64 leaves, 320mm. by 255mm., wanting a number of leaves from the first gathering, 2 leaves after fol.3 and one after fol.57, else complete, collation: i9 (partly a later reconstruction, the first leaf now a singleton, but once the last leaf of a lost preceeding quire), ii-vii8, viii7 (last a singleton), double column, 37 lines in dark brown ink in a fine Carolingian minuscule, capitals touched in yellow, 2-line initials in red, larger initials (mostly 4- to 5-line) in red ornamental capitals, some with yellow wash infill and others enclosing smaller capitals, accompanied by lines of similar capitals, one initial enclosing a later sketch of a human face (fol.9r), blank margins of fols.1 and 59 cut away, small repairs to borders of fols.2, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 23, 25-8, 31-4, 36-7, 39, 42, 46, 50, 52-3 and 55-7 and repairs to other areas of fols.1, 22, 30 (with only slight affect to text on a few leaves), a few marginalia showing signs of late medieval use, else in fine and outstanding condition, modern red leather over wooden boards, two clasps
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Lot Note
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text Almost no Carolingian codices have emerged from complete obscurity in the last century, and the great discoveries have predominantly been made in fragments of leaves from once magnificent books. It is thus quite remarkable that a tenth-century codex from an important Carolingian scriptorium should emerge from the chaos of leaves that was once Phillipps MS.6653. This may well be the last great unrecognised Carolingian book to emerge and come to the market. The Homiliary was a fundamentally important text for the Carolingian Renaissance. The reestablishment and re-enforcement of Christianity throughout the empire had to come before other studies, and from 802 lawcodes increasingly insisted that priests should know the homilies to be read out as part of the services every Sunday and feastday. The identified authors in the present manuscript are among the leading lights of ninth-century scholarship. Foremost is the Irish scholar Smaragdus (c.760-c.840), abbot of the community of St. Mihiel, Verdun, and close counsellor of both Charlemagne and his son, Louis the Pious. The homilies ascribed to him run from fols.1r to 23r, 25r to 27v, and 36v. Another intellectual giant of the Carolingian world, Haimo of Auxerre (d. c.855), composed almost all the remainder of the homilies here (fols.23v, 28v to 35r, and 40r to 61r). He studied under the Irish grammarian Murethach, and in founding the school of Auxerre brought Carolingian biblical exegesis to its zenith, producing many works in his own name, as well as underpinning those composed by his pupils Haimo of Halberstadt (d.853; many of whose published works may in fact be by Haimo of Auxerre), Heiric of Auxerre (841-76) and Remigius of Auxerre (c.841-908). To these has been appended a homily on fol.61v on the Assumption of the Virgin by the Frankish biblical exegete, Autpert Ambrose (c.730-84), who was imposed as abbot of San Vicenzo in southern Italy by Charlemagne and Pope Stephen III, and who was the subject of a homily read by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's square in 2009. This homilary was almost certainly assembled in the mid ninth century, but this is its oldest recorded manuscript of it, as the well as the only extant Carolingian copy: the next oldest is BnF, n.a.l. ms.464, which dates to c.1150.
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