Two small cuttings from Hrabanus Maurus, Homilies 150 and 151, quoting Paterius' lost commentary on Luke 10, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [probably Italy, c. 900]

Two rectangular cuttings, recovered from reuse after the Middle Ages on the spine of a later book, each with remains of single column of 13 lines of a good Carolingian minuscule, with an et-ligature used integrally within words, and strong st- and ct-ligatures, remnants of red rubrics, one large initial 'F' (Fratres fiduciam talem ..., opening Homily 151) in intertwined bands of red and blank parchment on black grounds, with terminals ending in stylised penwork foliage sprays, scuffs, holes, tears to edges from reuse on later binding, overall fair condition, 77 by 43mm. and 72 by 39mm.; framed in Perspex

The theologian, poet and author Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780-856) was one of the cornerstones of the entire Carolingian Renaissance. He was a student of Alcuin of York (who gave him the byname 'Maurus' after the favourite disciple of St. Benedict), and served as school master of Fulda, overseeing the enrichment of the library there and teaching in turn Walafrid Strabo and Lupus of Ferrières, before serving as abbot of that house and then archbishop of Mainz. He wrote homilies, Latin poetry (in particular the In Honorem Sanctae Crucis, for a bifolium of which see our sale, 6 July 2021, lot 10), extensive Biblical commentaries, an encyclopedia following Isidore of Seville's work, interpretations of Scripture and an annotated version of Vegetius' De re militari intended to improve Frankish martial skills.

The homily here in part quotes the work of Paterius, a favourite author of Hrabanus who acted as secretary to Gregory the Great and died in 606. Paterius' commentary on the New Testament survives in its original format only in the parts from Genesis to the Song of Songs, with later sections partly recorded by excerpts made in the twelfth century by Aluphus of Tournai (the so-called pseudo-Paterio C), an abbreviation from Wisdom onwards (pseudo-Paterio A) and a revision by Bruno monachus (pseudo-Paterio B). Migne's edition for the Patrologia Latina was a collage of these (with the text quoted here at LXXXIX, 1849, col. 1062, chs. 25-26).

These fragments are thus of some importance as witnesses to a now-lost finely decorated manuscript of Hrabanus' homilies, made in the decades following his death, as well as to Paterius' long-lost text, read and used by Hrabanus in its original form.