The Book of Deer

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.