SOURCE: Bethurum, Dorothy. “Archbishop Wulfstan's Commonplace Book.” PMLA 57, no. 4, part 1 (December 1942): 916-29.

In the following essay, Bethurum studies the collection of manuscripts known as Wulfstan's ‘commonplace book,’ suggesting Wulfstan's use of its mostly Latin contents in composing his homilies and other works, including the Canons of Edgar and Institutes of Polity.

MSS CCCC 190 and 265, Bodley 718 (2632), Junius 121 (5232), Nero A 1, and Bibl. Paris MS Fonds Latin 3182, all from the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, contain a great many common entries relating to the affairs of a bishop and have been studied with some care by several scholars.¹ Miss Mary Bateson nearly fifty years ago made it clear that the theological and legal material in these MSS really constituted a sort of bishop's commonplace book, and she identified a number of the random excerpts found here in such bewildering confusion. It is my purpose to present...