INTRODUCTION

The manuscript

The earliest extant Vita of St Edburga of Winchester, composed in the twelfth century by Osbert of Clare, is preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 114 (fols. 85–120). The manuscript comprises 170 leaves; its collation is as follows: 18–48, 58 (7 cancelled), 68–118, 128 (wants 1), 138–148, 156 (wants 6), 168–218, 228 (3, 4, 8 cancelled). Its average page size is 260 × 165 mm., although quires 20 and 21 average about 259 × 160 mm. The size of the written space varies considerably. Quires 1–3, containing Augustine's De doctrina Christiana, have thirty lines to the page; elsewhere thirty-one is general.

The manuscript, containing in addition to the Augustine work a series of hagiographical texts, seems to be of Pershore provenance. N. R. Ker attributes it to that house on palaeographical grounds, and notes that the list of contents is in the same hand as that of Oxford, St John's College, MS 96, a manuscript known to have connections with Pershore. A late medieval hand has scribbled ‘Pershor’ on fol. 23. These indications of Pershore origin are of course corroborated by the inclusion of the Vita Edburge, composed specifically for the Pershore monks.