Bodleian: Hebban olla vogala

"Hebban olla vogala" is not the name of a manuscript in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. It is part of a single line scribbled in the margin of a larger manuscript. In 1933, Kenneth Sisam, professor of Anglo-Saxon linguistics at Oxford, looked at a probatio pennae that had been jotted down on a manuscript page sometime before 1100. The manuscript was from St. Andrew's Church in Rochester, Kent. (Some trivia: one of Sisam's students was J.R.R.Tolkien.)

A probatio pennae is done to test a quill pen (see more here). This one was just a scribble. Although faded, this particular "test" is considered to be:

Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu

Directly above it is written a Latin translation:

(H)abent omnes uolucres nidos inceptos nisi ego et tu quid expectamus nu(nc)

which (to us) means:

All birds have begun nests, except me and you – what are we waiting for now?

Sisam recognized that 1) This was a line from a love song, and 2) it was not Old English, or (as originally assumed) Flemish, but instead was the earliest line in Old Dutch so far discovered. The line is not "pure" Old Dutch. The spelling suggests that the unknown monk working on the manuscript was likely from Flanders, working in Kent, and influenced by the Latin and Old English texts he was constantly copying.

The Dutch language was well-developed, but we have nothing of note earlier than this example.

The manuscript on which this "scribble" is found is a a collection of Old English sermons by Ælfric of Eynsham, who has been mentioned before, but not in great detail. Since it's sitting in the Bodleian, I think it's fair game to talk about these homilies and Ælfric next time. See you tomorrow.

Finding the Author

The scholar R.I.Best examined the penmanship of the Lebor na hUidre, the early Irish Book of the Dun Cow, and determined that there were three different writers involved. He labeled them A (for the first), and H (for one who added Homilies), and M. 

Rarely did early authors or historians sign their names to works, but Best believed he could definitively state the identity of M as as Máel Muire mac Céilechair meic Cuinn na mBocht. Máel Muire (Old Irish: "Servant of Mary") was a cleric at the monastery of Clonmacnoise, part of a family of clerics that had been connected to Clonmacnoise for centuries.

How was the identification made? Well, a marginal note written much later than the Lebor claims that Máel Muire was the person who wrote and compiled this book from diverse books. But notes that are added are not always reliable. In this case, however, there is also the evidence of the probationes pennae (Latin for "pen tests"; singular probatio pennae). When cutting a new quill pen, the scribe would test the point by scribbling something, maybe in the margin, maybe on a scrap of blotting paper. (Paper/parchment wasn't cheap, so it would be saved for use, perhaps as a binding.) There are two probationes pennae at Clonmacnoise where Máel Muire wrote his name, and Best said the penmanship in the autographical pen test was the same as the writer M in the Lebor.

One of the benefits of this identification is that, since we know Máel Muire's death, we know a date prior to which the Lebor was being written. The Annála na gCeithre Máistrí (Middle Irish: "Annals of the Four Masters"), covering Irish history from Noah's Deluge to 1616CE, claim Máel Muire was killed by Vikings at Clonmacnoise in 1106.

Poor Clonmacnoise! It suffered extensively, with attacks from the Irish, the Vikings, and the Normans. Let's look at its history tomorrow.