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The Boethius Book


A LIGHT ON SCOTLAND’S LOST LITERARY CULTURE


S


COTLAND’S intellectual and liter- ary culture was flourishing more


than 300 years earlier than previously thought. New research into the origins of an ancient ornate manuscript in the archive of the University of Glasgow’s Special Collections has identified it as the oldest surviving non-biblical manuscript from Scotland.


The discovery by Dr Kylie Murray, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow from Balliol College, Oxford, currently at Glasgow on a visiting fellowship, has shed new light on Scotland’s earliest literary culture.


The manuscript is a 12th century copy of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, a statesman of the late Roman Empire.


The Consolation of Philosophy, thought to have been writen in 524 AD by Boethius while he was awaiting execution for a crime he did not commit, was


medieval Europe’s best known Right: Illustration


depicting Boethius imprisonment


and where ‘Te Consolation of Philosophy’, was written


under conditions of enormous


duress, leading


up to his torture and subsequent execution.


intellectual text, second in influence only to the Bible. It discusses free will, fate, and the idea of the wheel of fortune in a meditation on how to cope with adversity and injustice.


Although the Boethius manuscript, which dates to between 1130 and 1150, was known and previously had been catalogued, scholars had believed it to be English, with Durham being the most likely place of origin. However, closer inspection has revealed the manuscript’s handwriting and illustrations do not match those of Durham, or other English books, from this period.


Dr Murray argues that the manuscript


suggests


a connection with the Scotish kingdom. Its unique illustrations more closely resemble


the famous Kelso


Charter, writen at Kelso Abbey in 1159. This charter, which portrays an image of David I (1124-53) and Malcolm IV (1153- 65), is the earliest illustrated documentary charter in the history of the British Isles.


September 2015 89


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