358 



Armagh, it is to be observed that it does not necessarily indi- 

 cate a greater antiquity than Mr. Graves has assigned to this 

 manuscript. A decisive example of this kind occurs in the 

 case of the great Bible of the Abbey of St. Germain des Pres, 

 which, according to a note contained in it, was written in the 

 eighth year of the reign of Louis le Debonaire, that is, A. D. 

 822. The scribe of that manuscript has inserted in it two 

 Latin memoranda, which refer to the fact of its having been 

 executed by him, employing in both a Greek character, similar 

 to that used in the Book of Armagh. 



His reason for doing so seems, in one case, to have been 

 the desire to vindicate his right to the credit, of which some 

 other scribe was depriving him. " Obsecro te lector" he says, 

 " ne laborem manuum mearum despicias; sed quoeso deprecor 

 melliflitam charitatem tuam ut pro me Domini misericordiam 

 exores. Evio idemfero laborem, alius tollit honorem." It must 

 be inferred that the alius here spoken of was unacquainted 

 with the Greek character, in which these words were writ- 

 ten. In the other note the object of the scribe was plainly to 

 exhibit his own skill and learning, and, at the same time, to 

 test the intelligence of the reader. The passage, of which 

 the first part is written in a strangely elongated cursive hand, 

 and the last four words in Greek letters, runs as follows : 

 " Supplicamus omnibus in Christo fidelibus qui hunc libellum 

 ad volvendum ad legendum accipitis meam ne reprehendito 

 insipientiam ;" which is immediately followed by the penta- 

 meter, 



" Me quicunque capit rusticitate caret,"* 



written in the ordinary hand. 



Nor was it only in the use of Greek characters that the 

 scribes of those times displayed their pedantry. Sylvestre, in 

 his Faleographie Universelle, vol. iv., describes a manuscript 



* Fac-sirailes of these two passages are given in the Nouveau Traite de 

 Diplomatique of the Benedictines, vol. iii., pp. 186-437. 



