Beda, Venerabilis (Author)

Florus, Lugdunensis (Annotator)

The manuscript 788 of Lyon's City Library is not a codex, but an unbound collection of fragments. The circumstances of their gathering are not known. At some point, the fragments were folioted as they stood, from 1 to 101.

But lateron, it was noticed that some of these fragments actually came from codices that are preserved in the very same library (Exupère Caillemer, «Notices et extraits de manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de Lyon», in Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Lyon, Classe des Lettres 20, 1881). Those fragments were then taken out of MS. Lyon 788 and put back in the bigger codices they originated from:

• f. 35-40 were «relocated» in Lyon 602
• f. 49-58, in Lyon 604
• f. 75-76, in Lyon 336
• f. 77-82, in Lyon 483

This is the conservation status described in the Catalogue général des manuscrits, t. 30,1 (1900).

But this dismantling of Lyon 788 went on: it was noticed that its f. 67-74 actually preceded Lyon 603, a manuscript that is damaged in its beginning, and the quire was also relocated in its original body. At last, for reasons I am not aware of, it was decided to take out of Lyon 788 the f. 89-90, and give this bifolium a new shelfmark : Lyon, BM, 6207.

As a result, Lyon 788 now contains 67 leaves numbered as follows: f. 1-34, 41-48, 59-66, 83-88, 91-101. But we may fear that another relocation could be decided in the future, since Bernhard Bischoff suggested that Lyon 788, f. 98-99, actually originate from Lyon, BM, 601 (KFH II, 2569).

Anyway, a good number of Lyon 788's remaining fragments actually are related to fragments gathered by Étienne Baluze (1630-1719):

• Lyon 788 f. 23-26 complete Paris, BNF, lat. 7536 (olim Baluze 542)
• f. 27-34 complete Paris, BNF, lat. 5288 (olim Baluze 439), f. 1-12
• f. 41-48 and 59-66 complete Paris, BNF, Baluze 270, f. 105-106 and 112-113
• f. 87-88 complete Paris, BNF, Baluze 270, f. 107-108 and 132-158

(Also Lyon 336, where Lyon 788 f. 75-76 were relocated, is the original body of Paris, BNF, Baluze 270 f. 74-75. At last, a part of Lyon 604, where Lyon 788 f. 49-58 were relocated, is now Paris, BNF, nal 1594, but Libri is the author of this one butchering.)

All of these manuscripts were written in the IXth century or prior. It can be suspected that other, younger fragments of these collections (Lyon 788 and Baluze's) could also be related.

Manuscripts who survive only as parts of these are virtually reconstructed here on Fragmentarium.