The principal discussions of manuscripts featuring Orderic's hand to date are those listed in works by Léopold Delisle, Marjorie Chibnall and Denis Escudier. The following appendix aims to provide a more detailed picture of the precise nature and locations of Orderic's contributions within the surviving manuscript corpus, including the addition of Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 540, as discussed by Weston, above. The manuscripts are listed according to institution. Each entry contains the shelfmark, approximate date of production, dimensions, total number of folia, textual contents, as well as a brief description of Orderic's contribution with precise folia numbers.

Alençon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS

(1100–1200; 300×192 mm; 148 fols.; Old Testament book of Prophets, with prologue of St Jerome)

Fols. 30v–32v: Orderic added three poems or hymns; one on the transient nature of worldly glory, one penitential piece, and one litany.

All three pieces are presented in a uniform format, with the text in two columns and with green and red capitals at the beginning of each line. Indications of pitch were added to the first three lines of the text beginning ‘Mundi forma’ on fol. 30v, though it is almost impossible to know whether Orderic was responsible for these.

Either Orderic or another scribe with a very similar hand revised or corrected the first poem at a later date. This is shown by the erasure of previous text and the addition of new lines in a much darker ink on fol. 30v, at: col. 1, lines 26–7; col. 2, lines 15 and 17; col. 2, lines 19–20.

The third poem may be incomplete. While the main text ends a quarter of the way down the page, coloured capitals were added to the remaining space but with no additional text. These coloured capitals have been either much damaged or partly erased.

References

Delisle, ‘Matériaux’, pp. 497–500

HE, I, p. 202

Escudier, ‘L'oeuvre entre les lignes’

Escudier, ‘Orderic et le scriptorium’, pp. 24, 26–7