Parchment, 10 ff., ca. 28,4 × 19 cm; France (Landévennec), 10th century
The ten leaves of ms Thott 239 2° are the remnants left of a liturgical manuscript from the monastery founded around 500 by saint Winvaloeus (in French: Guénolé) in Landévennec in Bretagne. Only a couple of chronological tables and the leaves for the months of January to August have been preserved. The historic root in the monastery in Landévennec is discernible in the enhancement of particular feast days in the calendar, such as 3 March: Depositio Sancti Sancti Winvaloei, and 28 April: In cornu Galliae Natalis Winvaloei confessoris; and, indeed, in a note about a dramatic event in the history of the monastery, added in the outer margin to a line for the year 913 on f. 10r: “Eodem anno destruc[tum est] monasterium sancti [winva]loei a Normannis"
The order of the leaves has been disturbed in the present binding of the manuscript. Ff. 1 & 10 are single leaves; ff. 2+5, 3+4, 6+9, 7+8 are bifolia. The bifolia 6+9 and 7+8 have been turned in reverse order. At the same time the unit of four bifolia has been split into two units of two bifolia
Bibl.: Bibliotheca Thottiana, VII (1785), p. 296f. – L. Delisle, Litérature latine & histoire du Moyen Age, Paris 1890, p. 18f. - Katalog over Det Kongelige Biblioteks permanente Udstilling, 1908, p. 2 no. 13. - F. Duine, Bréviaires et missels des églises et abbayes bretonnes de France antérieurs au XVIIe siècle, Rennes 1906, p. 137-140. - F. Duine, Inventaire liturgique de l'hagiographie bretonne, Paris 1922, p. 50-56, no. XXXI. - Jean-Luc Deuffic, Les manuscrits de Landévennec, in: Marc Simon’s L’abbaye de Landévennec de saint Guénolé à nos jours, Rennes 1985, p. 272-274. - Not described in Ellen Jørgensen, Catalogus, 1926
Erik Petersen