A FRAGMENT OF THE PARCIVAL. 119 
On a fragment of the Parcival of Wolfram von 
Eschenbach in the Mayer Museum. 
By R. Prresscu, Pa.D., 
Lecturer on the English Language in University College, Liverpool, 
(PLratres A—D). 
THROUGH the kindness of the Director of Museums I was enabled some 
little time ago to examine the MSS. preserved in the Mayer Collection of the 
Public Museums. The first results of this investigation are now presented to 
the readers of the bulletin in the accompanying photographic reproductions of 
four, pages of a very interesting fragment. They are fac-similes of 271 verses 
from the Old German—Hohes Lied des hittertums—the beautiful Parcival poem 
of Wolfram von Eschenbach.* 
Though there are a good many MSS. of the immortal poem preserved on 
the Continent, yet, so far as I know, the Liverpool fragment is the only portion 
of it preserved in any English library or museum. These pages now form 
the front and back fly-leavest of a Latin Psalter in the Mayer Museum, marked 
124°4, and must be regarded as the sorry remains of a fine quarto MS. of 
the Parcival cut ruthlessly into pieces by the monks to whose monastery the 
Latin book belonged, and perhaps at the time when they gave to the Psalter 
its present binding. 
There is no entry, however, in the Psalter to tell us either the name or 
the place of the monastery, but as the language of our fragment clearly 
betrays Suabian influence, and as, moreover, the last page of the Psalter 
(folio 145”) is covered with German writing in the same dialect,§ I have little 
doubt that it was in that part of Germany that its walls stood, or, maybe, 
still stand. 
When and under what circumstances the MS. came to England, and into 
Mr. Mayer’s possession, it is, unfortunately, impossible now to say ; there 
being neither a book-plate nor a written entry in the Codex, to afford us a 
clue, and Mr. Mayer, so far as I am aware, left no notes which might 
elucidate these questions. 
Our two leaves, cut on the upper and outer margins to fit the size of the 
Psalter, measure at present-—Folio I., 9,5, x 63%; inches ; folio IL, 958, x 6,4 
inches. Each page, as will be seen from the plates, contains two columns, 
and each column 34 verses (written upon and between the lines), with the 
exception of folio II.’, col. 2; which, as the first line has not been filled in, 
contains only 33 verses. Very likely this blank line was reserved for some 
heading—bvch XVI., perhaps ; for with the next line actually opens a new 
book.|| There are alternately red and blue initials, with blue and red 
flourishes, to mark the beginning of each new paragraph. 
The clear and elegant handwriting I am, for paleographical reasons, 
inclined to place in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. Folio I.” and 
II." are excellently preserved, but I. and II.” have suffered somewhat in conse- 
quence of having been pasted against the inside of the book-cover. On the 
upper margin of folio II.", a hand of the sixteenth century has scribbled : 
melchior erp (the name, perhaps, of a former possessor), and schraip sup (?) 

*(Qf., among other works, A History of German Literature. By W. Scherer. 
Edited by Max Miiller. Oxford, 1886. Vol. 1, p. 161. 
+ These pages have now been carefully removed from the Psalter, and preserved 
separately under the Catalogue number ‘2°. 
£Cf. Appendix, p. 121. 
§ Cf. Appendix, p. 121. 
|| The Parcival is divided into sixteen books. 
