Birds, birds, birds: The dissemination and transformation of Old English Leviticus glosses on the Continent

Abstract

This paper traces the dissemination of Old English glosses on the birds and animals listed in Leviticus 11 on the Continent. The starting point is a small collection of bird names transmitted in St Gall, StiftsB, Cod. Sang. 913. This glossary consists of two sets, both of which belong to the biblical commentaries of the Leiden (or Rz) family, which originated at the school of Theodore and Hadrian in Canterbury. The first set is connected to glosses in Paris, BnF, lat. 2685 as well as other manuscripts. Walahfrid Strabo consulted a version of this glossary, which may well have been the exemplar from which the first set in Cod. Sang. 913 was copied. What this version was like and how Walahfrid used his Anglo-Saxon source is investigated in this paper.