406 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



kind would (according to his own theory) be sure to designate St. Patrick 

 " episeopus," and not merely " presbyter." 



And now to discuss the date of the MS. In the dating of Insular half- 

 uncial, about which learned doctors so greatly differ, abbreviation-symbols 

 (excluding " nomina sacra "), if the lis. contains any, may often give the best 

 clue. The first subscription luckily offers (in the crowded final line) the symbol 

 nfi, " nostri," a form which prevents us from putting the MS. much before 700. 

 For the earlier form was ni, and (still earlier) n. The first appearances of nri 

 in Insular script seem to be : in the half uncial Lindisfarne Gospels (probably 

 before 698), once (usually ni) ; in the uncial Codex Amiatinus (c. 700), once 

 (usually ni) ; in St. Gall 908, pp. 79 ff., a palimpsest half-uncial fragment, 

 often ; in the Synoptic Gospels of the Book of ilulliug (if these were written 

 at the same time as the Fourth Gospel, before 696), usually (but sometimes 

 ni) ; in the Bobbio script (not properly Insular) of Milan C 105 inf. Hegesippus 

 (in the part assigned to 686-700), sometimes (but usually ni). The Durrow 

 scribe cannot have reproduced the original entry's form with perfect exactness 

 here. Columba, in a crowded line, must have used n, which in the trau- 

 scriber's time would mean only " non," or n. or ni, and not nri. On 

 the other hand, the symbol s.s " subscripsi " is redolent of antiquity, and it 

 is sti'ange that the transcriber resisted the impulse to make it s's (with a 

 suprascript stroke' substituted for the dot). 



Apropos of abbreviation, let me mention that the symbol qd " quod " on 

 fol. 116'' of the Book of Durrow (" Fasec transitiis quod nos dicimus pascha ") 

 tells a tale. It is not an Irish symbol, but an Anglo-Saxon (and Continental). 

 It appears here in a Glossary of Hebrew names which is written in a script of 

 (or nearly of) minuscule size, a script that must be taken into account in any 

 estimate of the date of the MS. I would guess that this Glossary was copied 

 from some English (or Continental) sis., and tliat the transcriber left the 

 " quod " symbol unaltered because he was not sure that it was not designed 

 for " quidem " (or " quondam "). 



Whether the long, illegible Irish entry on fol. 13'^ offers any evidence 

 for the history of the us. is impossible to determine until it has been 

 deciphered. I am told that it rather has the appearance of some sort of 

 charter or covenant (like the charters entered in the Book of Kells or the 

 covenant entered in the Hereford Gospels : see New Pal. Soc. i, pi. 234). 

 The other historical e\'idence, now available, will be found in the preface 



' As in Bishop Liudger's jotting in a Berlin MS., theol. lat. F 366. If I rightly under- 

 stand Dr. Rose's account in the Berlin Catalogue, this MS. was written for (not "by") 

 the Bishop, who presented it to his new foundation, Werden Abbey, and scribbled on the 

 first leaf: m(anu) p(ropria) ss liudgerus. 



