1921 AVRANCHES MANUSCRIPT OF VACARIUS 549 some civil law (69-74), the second none. The second is spoken of by Ravaisson as a ' catalogue des MSS. de l'Abbaye du Bee au temps de saint Anselme ', by Bethmann * as entitled by a late twelfth-century hand, by Delisle 2 as written by one of the monks who executed the Avranches copy of Robert's chronicles. It would be odd if the catalogues were not Robert's, but they do not prove that there were no other books at Le Bee." Then, too, he may have taken his Vacarius away with him to Mont St. Michel. All direct proof of a Vacarius ab Le Bee before 1739 disappears. But may not P be, after all, Robert's Mont St. Michel copy, since A is too late ? It will be interesting to see P, but I am inclined from Stolzel's description to doubt its being old enough to have belonged to Robert. II. Description of A (a) Exterior marks. The binding is dark brown leather over paper boards, plain blind tooling on sides, gilt ornament on back and gilt title : MS. CODEX IVSTINIA ; probably early seventeenth century. 3 There are three white slips of paper on the back, the one indecipherable, the other two bearing numbers 142 and 2199 respectively. The inside of the binding is covered with a sheet of paper, which, besides inventory entries of 1884 and 1892 and the stamp of the Avranches Library, bears the following older entries : At the top in faded ink no. 72, and below that No. Mod ne . 2199. In the centre Q.O. 4 — 35 in faded ink. The inside of the binding at the end of the work is blank. 5 There is a paper fly-sheet at each end of the book, the first loose and with the town stamp, the second blank. The watermark of both is a cardinal's hat, more plausible and more elaborate than any shown by Briquet's Filigranes (up to 1600). There is a ribbon or cord round the crown showing two knots, while from the brim in front hang two clusters each of four tassels. Till 1600, according to Briquet, the cardinal's hat is an exclusively Italian watermark, in fact in the sixteenth century ex- clusively Venetian. But I am informed that it is found later in connexion with Mazarin. Fo. 1 recto has ' Chodex ' in a medieval hand to the left, and C D in the centre and D 17 to the right in faded red by a later hand. The only other writings distinct from the work itself are no. 162 (modern hand) in the right margin, and the library stamp at the foot of the page. There are no identification marks at the end of the book, or elsewhere that I have found. (b) Contents of text. Lacunae. The first thing that examination revealed was that there are 179, not 172 folios. The modern numbering (recto, top, right) misses a folio 1 Op. cit, vi. 293. 2 Op. cit. I. xlix. 3 My authorities are Mr. Strickland Gibson and Mr. Gordon Duff. 4 Or Q 2. 5 See above, p. 545. I cannot explain some of the entries.
