Glossing Abbo with Ælfric’s Grammar/Glossary

Abstract

The essay identifies the Grammar/Glossary of the homilist Ælfric as the source for the continuous Old English gloss to the prose version of Abbo of St Germain’s Bella Parisiacae urbis Book III, which occurs in two manuscripts. The borrowings are very frequent, amounting to more than 250 in an edited text of just 90 lines. Analysis shows Ælfrician Old English matching sometimes Abbo’s main text, sometimes Abbo’s original Latin glosses. The essay argues that the Abbo gloss was executed by the scribes of the similar glossing to Aldhelm’s prose De virginitate in Brussels, RL 1650, those same scribes who wrote the Antwerp-London Glossaries. A conclusion contextualizes the Abbo glossing within the curriculum of a monastic school.