EsPosiTO — On the Earliest Latin Life of S't. Bnc/id of K Hilar e. '6\7 



Vita is followed by the hymn in fourteen lines, commencing Brvjida nomcn 

 habet, etc.' Three other copies of this hymn occur in MSS. at Eome.'^ They 

 will be mentioned below. The ancient St. Cecilia MS. is now apparently lost. 

 According to Cardinal Baronius the Vita was divided into twenty-four 

 chapters, and the closing phrase contained the name Cogitosus. The hymn 

 came at the end of the Vita.^ In addition to Alexandrinus 91 there are two 

 other copies of the text of the Vita made from the St. Cecilia i\is. They are 

 Vallicellanus H. 25 and Vaticanus 6075, both of which will be described 

 presently. 



Eome, Biblioteca Corsiniana. 

 MS. No. 777. Membr. saec. xiii, fols. 40 a-51 a. Written in a Beneventine 

 hand. From the ancient monastery of St. Severinus near Naples. In this 

 copy the prologue and Vita proper are separated in a different fashion from 

 that adopted in the other MSS. and in the printed editions.* The prologue ends 

 with the words, guod non valet ingeniwm ferre didantis (section 1, last line, 

 according to the edition of the Bollandists). The Vita begins, Haec sanda d 

 Deo dicata virgo Brigida cgregiis crcscens virtutihis, etc. (section 2, line 1). A 

 similar mode of separation is found in the two Vatican MSS., Nos. 5772 and 6075, 

 to be described presently. In the usual text the Vita proper begins with 

 section 3, Sanda itaque Brigida quam Deus 'prescivit, etc. At the end of the 

 Vita the Corsini MS. has the hymn Brigida nmnen hahet already mentioned. 

 It is thus apparently the most ancient extant copy of this hymn. 



. Eome, E. liiblioteca Vallicelliana. 

 This Library possesses three copies of the Vita S. Brigidae. 

 (1.; MS. Tiimus xxi. Membr. saec. xi/xii, fols. 203a-207b. Written in a 

 Beneventine hand. Some folios have been lost at the beginning, and the Vita 

 commences with the words, ut cum ipsa non possd reddere (section 28). The 

 closing phrase reads, Orate pro me Gogitoso nepote cidpahili haedo, d ut audaciae 

 meae indidgeatis atque orationum vestrarum clypeo me Domino commenddis 

 cxoro.° This was followed by sixteen verses which have been erased." 



' Fiist published by Colgaii (Acta Sanctorum Hibeiniae, t. ii, Trias Thauniaturga, 1647, p. 642) ; 

 reprinted by Kelly (Caiendiir of Irish Saints, the Martyrology of Tallagh, Dublin [1857], pp. 188-1 89); 

 of. Chevalier, Eepertorium Hymnohigicum, i, 1892, p. 147, No. 2512. 



- Colgan printed the hymn from a MS. in the monastery of St. Antbertua at Cambrai. His 

 attribution to St. Ultan (loc. cit., p. 545 n. 82) is more than doubtful. [His ms. is now Cambrai, 

 No. 857.] 



^ Baronius alludes to this ms. in his edition of the Martyrologium Eomanum (Antverpiae, fol. 1613, 

 p. 62). 



* Poncelet, Catalogus cod. hag. lat. Bibl. Rom., etc., p. 279. 



= Cf. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, etc., i, pt. T, 1862, p. 108. 



' Poncelet, Catal. cod. hag. lat. Bibl. Eom., etc., p. 360. 



