Vercelli Book Codex Vercellensis

VERCELLI BOOK (CODEX VERCELLENSIS), an O.E. ms. Con taining, besides homilies, Andreas, Fates of the Apostles, Address of the Soul to the Body, Falseness of Men, Dream of the Rood, Elene and a prose Life of Guthlac, found in the cathedral library of Vercelli, by Blume in 1822, and described in his Der Italicum (Berlin and Stettin, 1824-36). The hand-writing dates from the beginning of the 11th century. According to Willker the ms. probably belonged to the hospice for English pilgrims, founded by Cardinal Guala (d. 1227), a native of Vercelli and bishop of the city, in 1219, on his return from England, where he had been papal legate. The cardinal possessed a large library, which he left to the monastery; and the Vercelli codex may well have been included in it.

Its contents were partially

printed (by Thorpe from Blume's trans script) in Appendix B to Cooper's Report of Rymeri Foedera for 1836; by Kemble, Poetry of the Codex Vercellensis (Aelfric Soc., 1843 56), and in a text based directly on the ms. by Wiilker in his edition of Grein's Bibliothek der A.S. Poesie (Leipzig, 1894). Codex Vercellen sis, by Wiilker (Leipzig, 1894), is a facsimile.

For the description and history of the ms.

see also R. Wlllker, Grundriss der A.S. Litteratur (i885), pp. and A. Napier in Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum (1889, vol. 21, new series; old series, vol. 33, p. 66). See also CYNEWULF.