The Homiliary of the Taunton Fragments

Abstract

THREE years ago, Professor Simon Keynes made a remarkable discovery at the Somerset County Record Office at Taunton, where he found four leaves of what must have been a bilingual, Latin and Old English, collection of expositions of gospel pericopes. The leaves, now with the shelfmark DD/SAS C/1193/77, which were presumably acquired by the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society at some time in the second half of the nineteenth century, had remained unknown to Anglo-Saxonists throughout the twentieth century. They were written about the middle or, more probably, in the second half of the eleventh century and contain parts of the expositions of the gospel pericopes for the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Each exposition begins with the incipit of the gospel pericope (lost in the case of the fifth Sunday); the following exposition, or homily, is divided into brief passages in Latin, alternating with their Old English translations.