The mystery of a woman’s name that appeared on the pages of a 1,300-year-old manuscript

The SM. Selden Supra 30 It is a medieval manuscript, a copy of the Acts of the Apostles of the Old Testament. The text was written, in Latin, in the 8th century and remains in the collection of the Bodleian Library, one of the oldest in Europe and the main research library of the University of Oxford.

The book is a small volume measuring just 229 by 176 millimeters, only slightly larger than a sheet of A5 paper. What’s interesting, though, isn’t its measurements, but what was hidden insidealmost invisible to the naked eye.

It took cutting-edge analysis to uncover some startling inscriptions hidden in the margins… written by a woman named Eadburg.

to writeuncial itura

Like most manuscripts of the time, this document has no notation indicating when, where and by whom it was written. But some characteristics, including its uncial (with capital letters) writing style, show that it was produced in Englandmost likely somewhere in the kingdom of Kent, probably between 700 and 750.

the ms. Selden Supra 30 has, however, a mark on the front page indicating that, in the 14th century, it was part of the monastery library of St Augustine in Canterbury. Later, on page 70, originally left blank, there are indications that the book belonged to a woman.

Researchers at the Bodleian Library say there are sentences copied in the same handwriting as the rest of the manuscript but made by a different scribe than the two responsible for copying the main text. The first sentence is a plea to God made by an anonymous woman, described as an “unworthy servant” of God (indignam famulam).

In 1935, Oxford paleography professor Elias Avery Lowe first recorded that the manuscript contained the letters EADB and +E+ etched into the bottom margin of page 47. They had been forcefully incised into the parchment, apparently using a knife, cutting the upper surface of the membrane.

Lowe has suggested that these letters were shortened forms of the female name Eadburh/Eadburg. This year 2022, PhD student Jessica Hodgkinson saw another inscription in the bottom margin of page 18. It was very small, almost invisible, but it appeared to contain the full name.

Advances in 3D technology applied in this investigation not only confirmed this markup, but also revealed that up to five full Eadburgs (plus 10 other shortened forms including E, EAD, or EADB) appear along with many more additions in the margins, and some had depth equivalent to less than one-fifth the width of a human hair.

The woman’s name was copied using common letterforms. The A is represented by an oblique line with an oval arc to the left and the angular U and G are distinctive. This suggests that the same scribe may have made all these additions. “It is possible that Eadburg herself was the scribe,” experts say.

“Early medieval readers and manuscript holders, both men and women, sometimes added their names to books, usually in ink, but occasionally, as here, in drypoint. Another early 8th-century example is the ink inscription recording, in Old English, that Abbess Cuthswitha possessed a copy of Jerome’s commentary on the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes.

Most of the inscriptions were almost imperceptible to the eye Most of the inscriptions were almost imperceptible to the eye Bodleian Libraries Eadburg is sometimes preceded by a cross (+). That the first time it appears or on page 1 suggests, specialists say, a deliberate action to show a connection from the very beginning between the name and the biblical text of the work.

Along with the woman’s name, several intriguing designs were also discovered. Some are clearly human figures, though Bodleian Library experts say more research is needed to establish exactly who or what they represent. All of the figures are very small and many appear to have been made by cutting a line around a thumb or finger to form the outline of the figure.

who was edburg

The question is, right now, find out who Eadburg was. Nine women of this name are known to have lived in England between the 7th and 10th centuries. One of them was the abbess of a female religious community at Minster-in-Thanet in Kent from at least 733 until her death in 748 and 748. 761.

This abbess may be the correspondent of Boniface, a West Saxon missionary bishop and Church reformer who became Archbishop of Mainz in 732 and was martyred by pagans in Friesland in 754. The letters between the two show that Boniface held Eadburg in high regard and that he sent him books to France.

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