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Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 E 25 Lebor na hUidre

  • Irish, Latin
  • s. xi/xii
  • Irish manuscripts
  • vellum
Identifiers
Location
Shelfmark
23 E 25
Classification
Cat. no. 1229
Title
Lebor na hUidre
(modern: Leabhar na hUidhre), “The Book of the Dun Cow”
Type
manuscript miscellanies Irish narrative literature Irish religious literature
Description

The Lebor na hUidre takes pride of place as the earliest Irish manuscript in existence today which is written almost entirely in Irish. A good part of it is occupied with secular content. Tales of the Ulster Cycle are well represented with texts like Táin bó Cuailnge (first recension), Mesca Ulad, Fled Bricrenn, Táin bó Flidais, etc.; as are tales belonging to the so-called Cycles of the Kings, e.g. Togail bruidne Da Derga, Aided Nath Í ⁊ á adnacol insó, Genemain Áeda Sláne, the Mongán narratives, etc.; and works of pseudo-historical literature, e.g. Sex aetates mundi, Lebor Bretnach, Scél Tuain meic Cairill (and previously also the Lebor Gabála Érenn, now wanting).(1)n. 1 Thomas F. O'Rahilly • Kathleen Mulchrone • A. I. Pearson • Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, Catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy (1926–1970). Religious texts include Amra Choluim Chille, Dá brón flatha nime and a number of homilies.

Provenance and related aspects
Language
Irish Secondary: Latin
Date
s. xi/xii
11th/12th century
Hands, scribes
Anonymous [LU scribe A]
Anonymous ... LU scribe A
No short description available
See more Anonymous [LU scribe M]
Anonymous ... LU scribe M
No short description available
See more Anonymous [LU scribe H]
Anonymous ... LU scribe H
(s. xii)
Anonymous scribe, usually known simply as H or the Interpolator, who significantly annotated, revised and interpolated parts of the Lebor na hUidre (RIA MS 23 E 25) and sometimes intercalated leaves to add material. The modern name H stands for ‘Homilist’, which stems from the fact that he added two homilies, Scéla laí brátha and Scéla na hEsérgi. His identity, background and precise floruit remain uncertain.
See more
The manuscript is written in three principal hands, which are known since R. I. Best, ‘Notes on the script of Lebor na hUidre’, Ériu 6 (1912), a detailed study of the script, by the letters A, M and H.
Hands indexed:
Scribe A The scribe believed to have first written parts of the manuscript. Anonymous [LU scribe A]Anonymous ... LU scribe A
No short description available
See more
Scribe M The main scribe and compiler. Has been identified with Máel Muire mac Célechair (d. c. 1106) on account of pen-trials which identify their author as Máel Muire (pp. 69-70; cf. the late medieval note on p. 37b). A dissenting view is that of Tomás Ó Concheanainn, ‘LL and the date of the reviser of LU’, Éigse 20 (1984), who suggests that the pen-trials rather belong to scribe H. Anonymous [LU scribe M, Id:Máel Muire mac Céilechair]Anonymous ... LU scribe M, Id:Máel Muire mac Céilechair
Entry reserved for but not yet available from the subject index.

See more
Scribe H Scribe H, so called because his additions suggest a taste for homiletic writings (e.g. Scéla na hEsérgi and Scéla laí brátha). H thoroughly revised the work, intercalating leaves to add new texts, adding glosses and sometimes erasing texts added by his predecessors to make room for his own interpolations. While Best envisaged a single scribe for this work, recent investigations of the script (Elizabeth Duncan, ‘The palaeography of H in Lebor na hUidre’ in Lebor na hUidre... (2015)) suggest that it should be attributed to as many as six hands. Anonymous [LU scribe H]Anonymous ... LU scribe H
(s. xii)
Anonymous scribe, usually known simply as H or the Interpolator, who significantly annotated, revised and interpolated parts of the Lebor na hUidre (RIA MS 23 E 25) and sometimes intercalated leaves to add material. The modern name H stands for ‘Homilist’, which stems from the fact that he added two homilies, Scéla laí brátha and Scéla na hEsérgi. His identity, background and precise floruit remain uncertain.
See more
Exemplars
The manuscript sources used by the three scribes/compilers do not survive, but some of them are explicitly accredited or can be inferred otherwise:
  1. The now lost Cín Dromma Snechtai is named as a source for a number of tales.
  2. The now lost Lebor buide Sláni (The Yellow Book of Slane) is credited on p. 43a as the source for at least Serglige Con Culainn and possibly others.
  3. L's colophon on p. 39a tells that Aided Nath Í ⁊ a Adnacol was compiled by Flann Mainistrech and Eochaid úa Cerín, who drew on an indeterminate number of manuscripts in Armagh (belonging to Eochaid úa Flannacáin), in Monasterboice and elsewhere. Two such manuscripts are mentioned by name: the Lebor gerr (short book) in Monasterboice and the Lebor buide (yellow book) in Armagh. The colophon is also said to apply to Senchas na relec.
Codicological information
State of existence
fragmentary
Material
vellum
Condition
Fragmentary and disarrayed.
Table of contents
Legend
Texts

Links to texts use a standardised title for the catalogue and so may or may not reflect what is in the manuscript itself, hence the square brackets. Their appearance comes in three basic varieties, which are signalled through colour coding and the use of icons, , and :

  1. - If a catalogue entry is both available and accessible, a direct link will be made. Such links are blue-ish green and marked by a bookmark icon.
  2. - When a catalogue entry does not exist yet, a desert brown link with a different icon will take you to a page on which relevant information is aggregated, such as relevant publications and other manuscript witnesses if available.
  3. - When a text has been ‘captured’, that is, a catalogue entry exists but is still awaiting publication, the same behaviour applies and a crossed eye icon is added.

The above method of differentiating between links has not been applied yet to texts or citations from texts which are included in the context of other texts, commonly verses.

Locus

While it is not a reality yet, CODECS seeks consistency in formatting references to locations of texts and other items of interest in manuscripts. Our preferences may be best explained with some examples:

  • f. 23ra.34: meaning folio 23 recto, first column, line 34
  • f. 96vb.m: meaning folio 96, verso, second column, middle of the page (s = top, m = middle, i = bottom)
    • Note that marg. = marginalia, while m = middle.
  • p. 67b.23: meaning page 67, second column, line 23
The following is a table of contents based primarily on the description in the Catalogue of manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy (fasc. 27, 1943) and the diplomatic edition by R. I. Best and Osborn Bergin (1929). The first title in italics refers to a normalised title or description, which is usually that of the corresponding entry in the present catalogue. Heading, incipit and explicit are written as given in the diplomatic edition, including expansion of abbreviations (indicated in italics).
The list below has been collated from the table of contents, if available on this page,Progress in this area is being made piecemeal. Full and partial tables of contents are available for a small number of manuscripts. and incoming annotations for individual texts (again, if available).Whenever catalogue entries about texts are annotated with information about particular manuscript witnesses, these manuscripts can be queried for the texts that are linked to them.
Irish manuscripts

Sources

Notes

1.
Thomas F. O'Rahilly • Kathleen Mulchrone • A. I. Pearson • Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, Catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy (1926–1970).

Primary sources This section typically includes references to diplomatic editions, facsimiles and photographic reproductions, notably digital image archives, of at least a major portion of the manuscript. For editions of individual texts, see their separate entries.

[dipl. ed.] Best, Richard Irvine, and Osborn Bergin [eds.], Lebor na hUidre: Book of the Dun Cow, Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1929.
CELT – edition (pp. 1-338): <link> Internet Archive: <link>
Diplomatic edition.
[facs.] OʼLongan, Joseph, and Brian OʼLooney, Leabhar na h-Uidhri, a collection of pieces in prose and verse in the Irish language, compiled and transcribed about A. D. 1100 by Moelmuiri mac Ceileachar, Dublin, 1870.  
Facsimile reproduction by Joseph O’Longan; collated by Brian O'Looney; preface by J. T. Gilbert.
HathiTrust: <link> Digitale-sammlungen.de: <link> Digitale-sammlungen.de: View in Mirador
Facsimile.
[dig. img.] “Royal Irish Academy”, Anne-Marie OʼBrien, and Pádraig Ó Macháin, Irish Script on Screen (ISOS) – Meamrám Páipéar Ríomhaire, Online: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1999–present. URL: <https://www.isos.dias.ie/collection/ria.html>.
direct link

Secondary sources (select)

Best, R. I., “Notes on the script of Lebor na hUidre”, Ériu 6 (1912): 161–174.
Internet Archive: <link>
Mac Eoin, Gearóid, “The interpolator H in Lebor na hUidre”, in: James P. Mallory, and Gearóid Stockman (eds), Ulidia: proceedings of the First International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, Belfast and Emain Macha, 8–12 April 1994, Belfast: December, 1994. 39–46.
Mulchrone, Kathleen, Thomas F. OʼRahilly, Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, and A. I. Pearson, Catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy, 8 vols, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1926–1970.  
8 volumes: Vol. 1, pp. 1–654 (fasc. 1-5) -- Vol. 2, pp. 655–1294 (fasc. 6-10) -- Vol. 3, pp. 1295–1938 (fasc. 11-15) -- Vol. 4, pp. 1939–2578 (fasc. 16-20) -- Vol. 5, pp. 2579–3220 (fasc. 21-25) -- Vol. 6, pp. 3221–3500 (fasc. 26-27) -- Vol. 7 (index 1) -- Vol. 8 (index 2).
Vol. 6, 3367–3379 (fasc. 27, 1943) [id. 1229.] Reproduced on ISOS supra.
Ó Concheanainn, Tomás, “LL and the date of the reviser of LU”, Éigse 20 (1984): 212–225.
Ó Concheanainn, Tomás, “Textual and historical associations of Leabhar na hUidhre”, Éigse 29 (1996): 65–120.
Ó Concheanainn, Tomás, “Leabhar na hUidhre: further textual associations”, Éigse 30 (1997): 27–91.
Oskamp, Hans P. A., “Notes on the history of Lebor na hUidre”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 65 C (1966–1967): 117–137.
Oskamp, Hans P. A., “On the collation of Lebor na hUidre”, Ériu 25 (1974): 147–156.
Oskamp, Hans P. A., “Mael Muire: compiler or reviser?”, Éigse 16:3 (1975–1976/1976): 177–182.
Thurneysen, Rudolf, Die irische Helden- und Königsage bis zum siebzehnten Jahrhundert, Halle: Niemeyer, 1921.  

Contents: Part 1 (chapters 1-23): Allgemeines; Part 2 (chapters 1-85): Die Ulter Sage.

Internet Archive: <link>
27–32
Walsh, Paul, “The Book of the Dun Cow”, The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th series, 34 (1929): 449–464.
Walsh, Paul, “Restoration of LU, 1380”, The Catholic Bulletin 29 (November, 1939): 732–736.

External links

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IIIF Manifest URL – isos.dias.ie.
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    Wikidata (Q1811195)
      web page identifiers
      Contributors
      C. A., Dennis Groenewegen, Patrick Brown
      Page created
      December 2010, last updated: September 2024
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