Lawlor — The Cathach of St. Cotumba. 291 



Which is the more probable supposition, that they passed from their natural 

 home to alien surroundings, or that they took the contrary course ? I think 

 there can be no doubt. That the rubrics of A came to it from an ancestor 

 of C seems to me unquestionable. 



The Date of the Manusckipt. 



If the argument of the foregoing paragraphs is accepted, it appears that 

 several of the ancestors of A had lieadings of the type of those found in that 

 manuscript, but approaching more nearly in form to those of -y and C. The 

 earliest of these which we can assert with confidence to have been in 

 ISTorthumbria is j3, which was used by Bede when he was compiling his 

 Argumcnta Psalmorum. Now we have seen that A was probably at least 

 the fourth in descent fromjS in the direct line.' Allowing ten years for each 

 step in the transmission, this would give us about 660 as the date of [5 ; and 

 we may infer that the arrival of the Irish copy of the Amiatine rubrics in 

 Northumbria was not much later, if it was not earlier, than the middle of 

 the seventh century. 



The same conclusion may be reached in another waj'. Irish influence was 

 paramount in this district from the mission of Aidan from the Columban 

 establishment at lona in 635 to the Synod of Whitby in 664. That during 

 those thirty years copies of the Psalter were imported in considerable numbers 

 from lona, or from Ireland through lona, is more than likely. That they 

 should have come earlier than 635 may be pronounced impossible ; and every 

 year after 664, when Irish ecclesiastical influence in the kingdom was on the 

 wane, such importations of books from Ireland became more improbable. 

 Benedict Biscop and Ceolfrid, it is true, procured many manuscripts for the 

 monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow in 678 and later years, but they came 

 from Eome." 



It seems, therefore, that the manuscript containing the psalm-rubrics 

 which was used by Bede was written not later than about 650. The Irish 

 manuscript y, from which it was derived, must have been somewhat earlier ; 

 and there is nothing to hinder us from believing that it and C, the transcript 

 made from it, belonged to the early years of the seventh century, or even to 

 the sixth, if other evidence points to that conclusion. What has been 



1 See above, p. 288. 



^ Historia Abbatum aiictore Baeda, 6, 9, 11, 15 (with Plumraer's notes), Hist. Abb. 

 auctore Anonymo, 9, 20. I do not, of course, deny the possibility that books may have 

 been brought from Ireland to Northumbria after 664. For when Irish teachers ceased to 

 visit Northumbria, Anglian students flocked to Irelaiid. They seem to have come without 

 books ; but they may have returned better provided. Bede, H. E. iii. 27. 



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