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2.2.3 Deformational Writing Outside the Manuscript Context

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Outside the MS context, a sizable corpus of deformational writing from the Anglo-Saxon period has come down to us in the form of inscriptions. Both letters of the Roman alphabet and runes were carved into physical objects made of rock, metal, bone or wood throughout the Anglo-Saxon period.1 However, I have not been able to establish a direct link between that type of epigraphic deformational writing and dry-point writing in Anglo-Saxon MSS. An indirect reflex of the Anglo-Saxon practice of inscribing runic letters onto objects may be present in runic dry-point additions to Anglo-Saxon MSS, though. It is striking to see that a number of dry-point additions from different Anglo-Saxon MSS are in fact composed of runes (cf. below). It is conceivable that at least some of these short inscriptions may have been added in imitation of the Anglo-Saxon practice of inscribing objects in runes, especially since several of the MS specimens seem to represent personal names, which is reminiscent of a whole number of Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions, such as the Hartlepool name-stones, the Chester-le-Street stone or the Thames scramasax, in which personal names are added without any explicit description of the role that the named person plays with respect to the object itself (cf. Page 1999: 50, 58 and 113). It is to be hoped that further discoveries of similar runic entries in Anglo-Saxon MSS will allow us to arrive at a clearer picture of this phenomenon; for OHG dry-point runic writing in continental MSS, see Nievergelt (2011a).

An interesting example of Insular deformational writing outside MSS, whose purpose was probably not epigraphic but veritably practical, is presented by the Derrynaflan Paten inscriptions (cf. Brown 1993)Derrynaflan Paten. The Derrynaflan Paten – a large decorated silver dish used for holding the bread in eucharistic services – was found during metal-detecting activities at the ecclesiastical site of Derrynaflan, County Tipperary (IE) in 1980. It forms part of a hoard of valuable liturgical metalwork, now kept in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. During conservation works on the Paten, a series of half-uncial letters was discovered on the rim, on the rivet-stud cups and on the frames carrying the filigree panels set upon the rim. They are believed to have served as assembly marks for the 8th-c. artisan or artisans that built it. Interestingly, the lettering on the rim and on the (remaining) rivet-stud cups match, but the letters on the frames “do not conform in a straightforward fashion, entailing ambiguity as to the proposed original assembly” (Brown 1993: 162). A detailed palaeographical analysis of the letter forms allowed for a dating to the second half of the 8th c. Surprisingly, the rim also features a tiny L. inscription, which is only approximately 1 mm high. Brown (1993: 165) assumes that “[t]he scribe must, presumably, have been working blind at that scale”, but the writing even features wedges, giving the minute inscription a “degree of formality”. Brown’s reading is only partly successful and the microscopic enlargements that she provides (Brown 1993: 166) make one wonder whether the inscription was ever intended to be read; she deciphers omne et ig(itur) or omne et g(ratia) and O creator … n … omnium. Brown (1993: 165) finds some parallels in Bald’s Leechbook and in Lacnunga, where the writing of religious texts on patens is advised in spells against “fever”, “elfin tricks” and “temptations of the devil”, respectively. If the Derrynaflan Paten inscriptions are considered in this context, the legibility of the inscription may not have been considered necessary by the scribe; instead, the spiritual gesture alone may have served his or her purpose. Apart from two photographic details of the L. inscription, Brown (1993: 166) supplies a hand-drawn facsimile of the L. inscription as well as hand-drawn facsimiles of the letter forms and symbols found on the rim, the frames and the cups (Brown 1993: 162–163).

A Catalogue of Manuscripts Known to Contain Old English Dry-Point Glosses

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