Paris, BnF, lat. 2796

Library	Paris, BnF
Shelfmark	lat. 2796
Century	saec. IX
Terminus post quem	813
Terminus ante quem	815
Provenance	unknown
Place of origin	France
General region of origin	France
Biblissima QID	Q118919
Collection	Fulgentius Ferrandus, Breviatio canonum
Collection 2	Collectio Bigotiana
Digital Images	gallica.bnf
Author	Bruno Schalekamp
Author	Lotte Kéry

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 2796 is a composite manuscript of 153 parchment folios plus nine paper folios. It consists of two separate parts, both written in the early ninth century, with the paper folios written and added in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. Part I: fols. 1r-107v; part II: 108r-153v. It was compiled in 1 col. with the following dimensions: 190 x 115 mm; at least 12 quires, quire structure as follows: 4 x IV⁴⁰ + II⁴⁵ + 2 x IV⁶¹ + ?^62-107 + 5 x IV¹⁴⁹ + ?¹⁵³ + ?¹⁶², quire signatures start at folio 8v, which was cut off at a later stage but can be assumed to have been I⁸, until VIII⁶¹, restarting at I¹¹⁵ until V¹⁴⁹; modern foliation in Arabic numerals.

Both parts were written in Caroline minuscule, for the most part by a single hand. The scribe's name has been identified as Salahardus, thanks to a self-reference on fol. 89v: ‘finit. saluhardus scripsit et uos qui legitis, orate pro scriptore si deum omnipotentem habeatis protectorem. amen. fiat. fiat.’ It has been argued by Mordek that Salahardus penned the work in (northern) France. Its provenance remains unknown as yet. The paper folios were written down by an unknown early modern hand.

Contents

The compendium is medium to large-sized and includes a varied corpus of canonical, computus, and preaching material, as well as a medical recipe and (unfinished) prognostic text. The legislative, mathematical, and expositional texts are mostly excerpts or derived from Hrabanus Maurus, Alcuin, Pseudo-Jerome, Bede, Isidore of Seville, and Ferrandus of Carthage.

The manuscript has been argued to have been used as an educational work to educate prospective priests by Van Rhijn, Hen, and Keefe. Some of the contents therefore might have reached the laity in the localities of the priests that studied it. It is especially interesting because part II consists solely of a canonical collection, the late sixth or early seventh-century Collectio Bigotianum, which includes exclusively canons from African, Gallican, and Oriental councils.

The reconstruction below is based to a large extent on Keefe's description of the manuscript.

folios	content
	Front cover and paper flyleaf with old signatures (Codex Bigotianus 383. and R. 4336. 2.)
	Parchment flyleaf with unknown text in Gothic textura and manuscript signature (2796.)
1r-44r	Pseudo-Jerome: Expositio quattuor Euangeliorum
44r-55v	Various anonymous texts on the computus
55v-56v	Grammatical fragment. One resembles Isidore of Seville’s dicta ‘on the six ages of life' (Origines, XI, II), another is unknown
56v-58r	Exposition on baptism
58r-65v	Exposition on the mass, possibly by Amalarius
66r-67v	Greek and Hebrew alphabets
67rv	Unknown text, possibly by Augustine, on Noah
68r-101v	Various texts, most of them anonymous, on the computus. Including:
70v-82v	Two treaties (De divisione temporum and De computo dialogus) falsely attributed to Bede
90v-92v	Bede: De bissexti praeparatione
102r-103v	Exposition on faith. On fol. 102rv: questions and answers on the Holy Trinity
103v-105r	Isidore of Seville: Origines, book V, chapters XXVIII-XXXIX
105v-107r	A medicinal remedy, a text on the saltus lunae, and other anonymous texts on the computus and prognostication. Including:
107r	The Sortes Sanctorum, of which only the first ten answers were including. Addition from about s.ixex-xin according to Van Rhijn
107v	Blank page
108r-153v	Collectio Bigotiana. Including:
118v-127r	Council of Carthage (419)
142v-144v and 145r	Fulgentius Ferrandus, Breviatio canonum
	Three paper flyleafs including a content description on the first two
	Back cover

Literature

Bischoff and Gorman, Manuscripts and libraries (1995), p. 108 n. 75; Borst, Schriften zur Komputistik im Frankenreich von 721 bis 818 Vol. 1 (Hannover 2006), p. 266; Kaiser, ‘Beobachtungen zur Collectio Corbeiensis und Collectio Bigotiana (HS. Paris BN lat. 12097 und Hs. Paris BN lat. 2796),’ Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung Vol. 92 (2006) p. 95; Keefe, A Catalogue of Works pertaining to the Explanation of the Creed in Carolingian Manuscripts (2012), p. 313; Keefe, ‘Creed Commentary Collections in Carolingian Manuscripts,’ (2004), p. 195; Kéry, Canonical Collections pp. 23 and 39; Philippe Lauer, Catalogue général des manuscrits latins Vol. 3 (Paris 1952) p. 95; Maassen, Geschichte, p. 611; Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform (1975), p. 148 n. 242; Mordek, ‘Studien zur fränkischen Herrschergesetzgebung,’ (2000), pp. 36 and 50; Porcher, Biblothèque Nationale: Catalogue Géneral des Manuscrits Latins Tome III (Nos 2693 à 3013A) (Paris 1952) pp. 90-95; Van Rhijn, Leading the Way to Heaven (2022), pp. 185-186.