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The Vespasian Psalter Gloss: Original or Copy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Sherman M. Kuhn*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Extract

The Interlinear gloss of the Vespasian Psalter (in British Museum MS. Cotton Vespasian A. 1) is generally regarded as a Mercian text; indeed, it seems to be our best written record of the one Old English dialect which comes closest of any to being the direct ancestor of the standard language of modern England. Where so important a text is concerned, we should like to know as much as possible about the date, the provenience, and all other matters having any bearing upon our linguistic interpretation of the written symbols. One of the more crucial questions at the present time is whether the gloss is an original work of the ninth century or a ninth-century copy of an earlier (? eighth-century) gloss. It is important that we know whether this text represents the more or less homogeneous dialect of a single period or whether it is a mixture of earlier and later forms.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1959

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