The Prague Sacramentary: Culture, Religion, and Politics in Late Eighth-Century Bavaria, ed. Maximilian Diesenberger, Rob Meens and Els Rose
Ingrid Rembold
Prague, Archiv Pražského hradu, MS. O. 83, more commonly known as the Prague Sacramentary, forms subject of this tightly focused volume, edited by Maximilian Diesenberger, Rob Meens and Els Rose. This manuscript has long been interest to historians, palaeographers, liturgical scholars linguists alike; volume collects together such interdisciplinary perspectives form a rounded view remarkable historical artefact. microhistorical focus pays clear dividends, evoking not only context in which Sacramentary was produced late eighth-century Bavaria, but also wider trends, for example liturgy, early Caroline minuscule written Old High German. The is composite work. first part consists sacramentary Mass lectionary; second part, same scriptorium bound soon after its composition, includes Theodore Canterbury’s penitential Gregory Great’s Libellus responsionum. Subsequent additions include list names (notable unique inclusion Pippin Hunchback ‘Pippinus rex’), sermon (the so-called De creatione mundi) number German glosses. potential identification scribal hand with ‘scribe a’ suggests tight frame composition different constituent parts eighth century, at least one portion text, names, may be securely dated period between September 791 July 792. Such circumstances placed alongside various correspondences content, suggest that, while work, it not, Rosamond McKitterick notes (p. 16), miscellany, rather coherent whole.
The English Historical Review