TEI: Exercise 1

Codicological Description

The manuscript as it now stands consists of 181 parchment folios, plus two modern paper flyleaves at each end. Each page is approximately 315 mm x 205 mm. It is bound in a nineteenth-century binding, which is in need of repair, on five medieval sewing-stations.

Quires

The manuscript is arranged in twenty-three quires as follows: a singleton (fol. 1), I8 (fols. 2–9), II8 (fols. 10–17), III8 (fols. 18–25), IV8 (fols. 26–33), V8 (fols. 34–41), VI8 (fols. 42–49), VII8 (fols. 50–57), VIII8 (fols. 58–65), IX8 (fols. 66–73), X8 (fols. 74–81), XI8 (fols. 82–89), XII8 (fols. 90–97), XIII8 (fols. 98–105), XIV8 (fols. 106–13), XV8 (fols. 114–21), XVI8 (fols. 122–29), XVII8 (fols. 130–37), XVIII8 (fols. 138–45), XIX8 (fols. 146–53), XX8 (fols. 154–61), XXI4 (fols. 162–65), XXII8 (fols. presumably led to a mistake by the scribe.

Ruling

The manuscript is written in a single column, fols. 1–165 in 28 lines, and fols. 166–73 in 27 lines. 174r was ruled for 28 lines, but only 27 were written, and from 175r to the end of the manuscript there are 27 ruled lines per page. These were ruled drypoint before the parchment was folded. The prickings in the outer margin seem to have been made with a triangular point. The size of the writing area is approximately 250 x 145 mm, with 9–10 mm between ruled lines, and with a double vertical bounding line ruled to provide space for litterae notabiliores. On occasion the gap between lines is not regular, for example on fol. 180.

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Ink

The ink is shiny and black; this is more typical of the Anglo-Saxon than the Continental tradition at this time. Litterae notabiliores have been picked out in red (image).