Thread by @wyrdwritere

Since I can't resist an #AdventCalendar, I'm going to try to do an alphabet from Anglo-Saxon manuscripts from now until Christmas. First up:

A is for 'appropinquabat' (approached). From a prayerbook that was owned-- and possibly made-- by women blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…

B is for beatus (blessed). From a Psalter made about 1000 years ago (Arundel MS 155, f. 12r).
You can see a video showing how to make this page-- from cutting your quills to gilding-- thanks to @LovettPatricia bl.uk/medieval-engli…
#PolonskyPre1200
#BLAngloSaxons

C is for 'cantate' (chant! or sing!) We can see how an 11th-century scribe translated this word, in an Old English gloss just above the Latin: 'Singath!'

From a fabulous mid-11th-century Psalter:
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
#BLAngloSaxons

D is for 'dixit' (declared, said). D is also for 'dominus', 'domino' (lord), 'dextris' (right hand side), 'donec' (until).

From a Psalter associated with St Dunstan (d. 988), or at least one of his churches. manuscrits-france-angleterre.org/view3if/pl/ark…
#PolonskyPre1200

E is for 'Eadmund' (Edmund). From Ælfric's Life of St Edmund, about the king who was killed by vikings and who gave his name to the monastery and town of Bury St Edmunds.

bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
#BLAngloSaxons

F is for festiva (festive).

Another initial from the glorious Bosworth Psalter manuscrits-france-angleterre.org/view3if/pl/ark…
#PolonskyPre1200
#BLAngloSaxons

G is for 'gif' (if), as in, 'If anyone sees a serious evilness in his home, let him take a mandrake into the middle of the house...'

H/t to @For_the_Wynn for spotting this snaky initial in the Lacnunga, a collection of medical remedies in Old English forthewynnblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/sol…

H is for 'his' (these), as in 'In these times...'. From Book 2 of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Below, Bede gives the date as 605 A[nno] D[ominicae incarnationis]. He pioneered the use of the AD dating system.
bl.uk/medieval-engli…
#PolonskyPre1200

I is for ‘initium’, inception or beginning. From a gospelbook made about 1000 years ago. You can see it open to a page with some rather seasonal angels in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Fu…
#BLAngloSaxons

Fyi, there won't be a 'j' in this #AdventCalendar, because it does not seem to have been used as a separate letter in this period. For example, it's missing from this alphabet copied by a student in York in the late 10th/early 11th century.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
#BLAngloSaxons

K is for kalenda/kalends (the root of 'calendar'). The kalends was the name for the 1st day of the solar month in the Roman calendar. This system was also used in medieval calendars:
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…
#PolonskyPre1200
#BLAngloSaxons

L is for liber (book).

From the Grimbald Gospels, an astonishingly lavish book made at Canterbury in the early 11th century by Eadwig Basan, one of the greatest English scribes. This page alone used gold, silver + lapis lazuli.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Fu…

#BLAngloSaxons

M is for middan eard (Middle Earth, the realm of men).

From Ælfric's De temporibus anni, an Old English handbook about timekeeping and natural science. This copy is part of a fascinating manuscript that also includes maps + monsters
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…
#BLAngloSaxons

N is for 'Nu' ('now'). From Ælfric's account of the Middle Eastern King Abgar in Lives of the Saints. 'Nu we spraecon' is also appropriate after the wonderful papers on the first day of #MSSinASK
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

O is for 'Omnipotens' (omnipotent). From Æthelwold's Benedictional.

Æthelwold was a fascinating figure: church/governmental reformer, beer lover, civil engineer and writer (and suitably he's already been mentioned several times at #MSSinASK)
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

P is for 'principium'. From a copy of Bede's Prose Life of St Cuthbert, copied in Canterbury in the late 10th or early 11th century (Harley MS 1117)
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

Q is for 'quoniam' (because, since, forasmuch).
From the Cnut Gospels, so-called because they include notes recording King Cnut's friendship towards the archbishop and his cathedral.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

R is for 'roboratus' (reinforced). From a late 8th- or early 9th-century copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, possibly made at Wearmouth-Jarrow.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

S is for 'Salvum me fac' ('save me').
From an 8th-century Psalter made in Kent (Cotton MS Vespasian A I, f. 64v)
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…
#BLAngloSaxons
#TuesdayMotivation

T is for 'tertius' (third), as in, 'The third [gospel writer] is Luke, the physician, by birth from Antioch, in Syria.' Loving the scribe Eadwig Basan's ligature.

From Jerome's Prologue, as copied in the Grimbald Gospels.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
#BLAngloSaxons

U is for 'universa', from a charter of 1018, again copied by our friend Eadwig Basan. And yes, that is a 'u': u and v shaped-characters seem to have been used interchangeably in this period.
For example...
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
#BLAngloSaxons

... here is 'ubi' next to 'vbi', from a copy of Sulpicius Severus's Dialogi made c. 1000
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
Add MS 40074, f. 72r

In keeping with the alphabet in Harley MS 208, we won't feature 'w' here, even though early English speakers did use the 'w' sound (see Wulfstan, Wynflaed, wyrdwritere, etc).
Stay tuned for a treat on 24 December...
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…

X is for Christ. The Greek letters chi and rho were used to represent Christ's name in medieval manuscripts and are still sometimes used today: hence Xmas.
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

Y for 'ymnus' (hymn). From the Eadui Psalter, made about 1000 years ago in Canterbury.
manuscrits-france-angleterre.org/view3if/pl/ark…
#PolonskyPre1200

Z is for Zacharias (or Zacharians, in this manuscript). From part of a Bible made in the early 9th century:
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
#BLAngloSaxons

1000 years ago, English schoolchildren's alphabets did not end with z. They included two signs for 'and': an ampersand and a Tironian nota that looks a bit like 7. I've heard that's why '&' appears above '7' on QWERTY keyboards
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

1000 years ago, English schoolchildren's alphabets included some runes, too, to cover sounds not yet represented in the Roman alphabet. For example, W could be represented with the runic letter 'wynn'. So wynn is for 'with'!
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…

Sometimes in early medieval manuscripts, 'w' sounds were represented with 'uu' (hence 'double u') or even some intersecting letters that start to look a bit like a 'W'. For example, here's how Archbishop Wulfstan wrote his name:
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…

þ is for þis ('this'). Another rune used in early English manuscripts was 'thorn', used to represent 'th'
bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi…
Royal MS 7 C XII, f. 83v

Æ is for ær (ere, before): as in, '60 winters before Christ's incarnation, Gaius Julius Caesar sought Britain...' From the C manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Cotton MS Tiberius B I, f. 115v)
blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanus…