On the source of the Old English Christopher life
Pam Weisweiller, a King’s College London postgraduate who died while writing up her
PhD thesis, drew attention in her University of London M.A. dissertation (1985–86) to
Ker’s identification of BHL nos 1768 or 1769 as closer to the Old English St Christopher
than BHL no. 1766, the Acta Sanctorum text (25 July) supplied for comparison in Rypins
edition (1924). In her preliminary examination of sources Mrs Weisweiller identified
significant readings that point to a Munich text as perhaps being more closely related to
the Old English fragment than any so far in print.
As far as I can see this isn’t picked up in the SASLC volume, where there's no
reference to Ker. Pulsiano’, in his 2002 edition of this short Old English text, also
includes the Latin text from the Acta Sanctorum for comparison.
Clearly new work is needed between the Latin texts and the small bit of Old
English that survives. Weisweiller drew attention to three resemblances in particular:
Pulsiano l. 20 [Rypins 69: 4] tyn orcas fulle eles
f. 68v, col. b, ll. 14–15 decem orcas olei
Pulsiano ll. 66–67 [Rypins 71: 17–18] æt þæs halgan mannes swyðran healfe
f. 69r, col. a, l. 29 a dextris euis
Pulsiano ll. 109–10 [Rypins 74: 12–13] Þæt wæs eaht ⁊ feower þusenda manna ⁊
hundteontig ⁊ fiftyne
f. 69v, col. a, ll. 1–2 milia quadraginta .viii`to´. animę centum et quindecim
Bibliography:
Munich, Clm 22242, ff. 67–69v, S. Christofori mart’
(third volume of Legendarium Windburgense, s. xii)
Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture I: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-desPrés, and Acta Sanctorum, ed. Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, and Paul E.
Szarmach (Kalamazoo, MI, 2001), pp. 137–39 [SASLC]
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957, re-issued
with suppl. 1990)
Pulsiano, Phillip, ‘The Passion of Saint Christopher’, in Early Medieval English Texts
and Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, ed. Elaine Treharne and
Susan Rosser, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 252 (Tempe, AZ, 2002), pp.
167–99
Rypins, Stanley, ed., Three Old English Prose Texts in MS. Cotton Vitellius A xv, EETS
o.s. 161 (London, 1924)