This is a vellum MS. of eighty-six folios, about six inches long by
three broad, discovered in the University Library of Cambridge, by
Mr Bradshaw, the librarian of the University. It had belonged to
a distinguished collector of books, Bishop Moore of Norwich, and
afterwards of Ely, whose library was presented to the University
more than a century ago. The chief portion of the book is in Latin,
and is said to be as old as the 9th century. This portion contains
the Gospel of St John, and portions of the other three Gospels. The
MS. also contains part of an Office for the visitation of the sick,
and the Apostles’ Creed. There is much interest in this portion
of the book as indicative of the state of learning in the Celtic
Church at the time. It shows that the ecclesiastics of that Church
kept pace with the age in which they lived, that they knew their
Bible, and could both write and read in Latin. The MS. belonged to
a Culdee establishment, and is therefore a memorial of the ancient
Celtic Church. It is a pity that we possess so few memorials of
that Church, convinced as we are that, did we know the truth, many
of the statements made regarding it by men of a different age, and
belonging to a differently constituted ecclesiastical system, would
be found to be unsupported by the evidence. It is strange that if
the Culdee establishments were what many modern writers make them to
have been, they should have had so many tokens of their popularity as
this volume exhibits; and we know well that that Church did not fall
before the assaults of a hostile population, but before those of a
hostile king.
But the more interesting portion of the _Book of Deer_, in connection
with our inquiry, will be found in the Gaelic entries on the margin
and in the vacant spaces of the volume. These have all been given
to the world in the recent publication of portions of the book by
the Spalding Club, under the editorship of Dr John Stuart. Celtic
scholars are deeply indebted to the Spalding Club for this admirable
publication, and although many of them will differ from the editor in
some of the views which he gives in his accompanying disquisitions,
and even in some of the readings of the Gaelic, they cannot but feel
indebted to him for the style in which he has furnished them with
the original, for it is really so, in the plates which the volume
contains. On these every man can comment for himself and form his own
inferences. We have given ours in this MS.
THE LEGEND OF DEER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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