Carolingian Bible Fragments in Dublin

Abstract

Fragments from an early-ninth century Carolingian Old Testament are used as sewing guards in two incunabula currently held in the Special Collections Department of the James Joyce Library, University College Dublin. The host volumes are part of the four-volume 1481–1482 Nuremberg printing of Alexander of Hales’ Summa. The provenance of the UCD incunabula establishes that the two volumes bearing the Carolingian fragments were in the Bavarian abbey of Benediktbeuern in the fifteenth century. The fragments in these books can be associated with similar material in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich and in the Sir George Grey Collection in Auckland Central Library.