Filling the Silence: Shared Content in Four Related Manuscripts of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies

Abstract

In this article I analyze the contents and transmission of a group of related manuscripts containing copies of Ælfrician and anonymous homilies in order to demonstrate the linguistic potential of variant copies of texts. I consider them from a comparative textual and linguistic perspective in a way that privileges the scribe and scribal activity over traditional philology or editorial practice. The manuscripts are Oxford, Bodleian Library MSS Bodley 340 and 342, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MSS 162, 198, and 303. They date from Ælfric’s lifetime (c. 950–c. 1010) to the mid-twelfth century. I focus on three Ælfrician homilies that appear in sequence uniquely in this cluster alongside four anonymous texts that, similarly, are not found together elsewhere. This research, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, was conducted as part of a collaborative project that sought to refine digital technologies to aid consequential research in book and language history.