Note: The tenth-century List of Cornish parochial saints' names in Codex Vaticanus Reg. Lat. 191

Note The tenth-century List of Cornish parochial saints' names in Codex Vaticanus Reg. Lat. 191 My colloquium paper concentrated on the palaeographical aspects and context of a List of Cornish saints' names presented in Codex Vaticanus Reginensis Latinus 191: salamun • guenosawx • barmot • cuncar- • cioe • guenb[. ruaton • guicmor • iust • entenin • gerent • filii • rumon • comet • meler sibdlon • maucan • achobran • berion • en felec • guidian- erbec • nioth • propus • latoc • luidin • pierguin • geuedenoc • .. Jpaj • • • ] W • ]cu • iogarun gemun • lallu • be[.. Jen • entr.r. • bie • elenn • austoll • megunn • iodechall • crite • guron • euai • gu.ai • memai • iti • aboel • The text of this List has already been published, with transcription, commentary and photographs, by O. J. Padel and myself.1 What was not published in that article, however, is a photograph of f. 105r of the same codex (see below, Fig. 1) which shows, seven lines from the bottom, an Insular correction to the sloppy Breton Caroline text: the letters re written above the line immediately afterface to make face re. M y comment in the above-mentioned article was cautious: B. Lynette Olson and O. J. Padel, 'A Tenth-Century List of Cornish Parochial Saints', in Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 12 (1986), 33-71. In the transcription reproduced above, points below letters indicate uncertain readings, points below spaces represent illegible letters, and raised points are as they appear in the manuscript. P A R E R G O N ns 13.2, January 1996—Text, Scribe, Artefact 180 B. L. Olson The script of the correction re could (but need not) be in the same hand as that of the List.2 In fact the resemblance of these two letters to their counterparts in the distinctive Insular script of the List is striking: in their individual forms, the way in which the tail of the r runs into the middle stroke of the following e (also seen in the combinations le and re in the List), and the lighter colour of the ink in contrast to that of the Breton Caroline texts. It is therefore exceedingly likely that a tenth-century Insular scribe read the two Breton Carolinetextsinvolved—the De Moribus by pseudo-Seneca and the chapter on Seneca from the De Viris inlustribus by Jerome which follows it—with sufficient attention to emend the former, and that the same scribe added at the end of the latter text, on the same line without a break, the List of fortyeight Brittonic names. While the significance of the List is established as our earliest evidence for several of the saints of Cornwall and, through its geographical correlations, for certain cult sites and even parochial development there, its purpose is still a puzzle which refining the palaeographical context may help to elucidate. B. Lynette Olson Department of History University of Sydney 2 Ibid., p. 36, n. 7. The tenth-century List of Cornish parochial saints' names t NJ. .iivi J-- '^../. .. I# Fig. 1. Codex Vaticanus Reginensis Latinus 191, f. 105r ...