bavarikon4UDescription
This miscellany manuscript was written in the time of Bishop Arbeo (circa 764-83) in the Bavarian diocesan town of Freising. It is remarkable especially for its script, a form of Anglo-Saxon minuscule, and its typically insular decoration: initials are adorned with animals and interlace patterns and surrounded by red dots. These insular features must be attributed to an English scribe active in the Freising scriptorium at that time, which is remarkable because Freising lay outside the area where the influence of English missionaries was strong in the eighth century. Unusually for this early period, the name of the scribe has come down to us. In other manuscripts in this hand, the scribe added a colophon at the end of his work, in which he mentioned his name: Peregrinus ("Pilgrim"). The Latin text includes writings by Isidore of Seville (circa 560-636), including his Synonyma, a spiritual meditation. Saint Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, was a scholar and theologian who is considered the last of the great Latin Church Fathers. His work would have been known to the Anglo-Saxon missionaries who played the major role in spreading Christianity to Germany in the eighth century.