The Abbé Saas, who published, in 1746, a catalogue of the manuscripts belonging to the library of the cathedral of Rouen, calls this Benedictionary, which then belonged to the metropolitan church, a _Penitential_; and gives it as his opinion, that it is a production of the eighth century, with which æra he says that the character of the writing wholly accords. Montfaucon, who never saw it, follows the Abbé; but the opinion of these learned men has recently been confuted by M. Gourdin[119], who has bestowed considerable pains upon the elucidation of the history and contents of this curious relic. He states that a sum of fifteen thousand francs had been offered for it, by a countryman of our own; but I should not hesitate to class this tale among the numberless idle reports which are current upon the continent, respecting the riches and the folly of English travellers. The famous Bedford Missal, at a time when the bibliomania was at its height[120], could hardly fetch a larger sum; and this of Rouen is in no point of view, except antiquity, to be put in competition with the English manuscript. Its illuminations are certainly beautiful; but they are equalled by many hundreds of similar works; and they are only three in number, the _Resurrection_, the _Descent of the Holy Ghost_, and the _Death of the Virgin_.--The volume appears to have been originally designed for the use of the cathedral of Canterbury; as it contains the service used at the consecration of our Anglo-Saxon sovereigns. The Missal, which is also the object of M. Gourdin's dissertation, is from the convent of Jumieges. Its date is established by the circumstance of the paschal table finishing with the year 1095. It contains eleven miniatures, inferior in execution to those in the Benedictionary; and it ends with the following anathema, in the hand-writing of the Abbot Robert, by whom it was given to the monastery:--"Quem si quis vi vel dolo seu quoque modo isti loco subtraxerit, animæ suæ propter quod fecerit detrimentum patiatur, atque de libro viventium deleatur et cum justis non scribatur."