Celtic Rite - Irish (insular and Continental) Sources - Fragmentary Texts

Fragmentary Texts

The Turin Fragment is manuscript of the 7th century in the Turin Library. Mayer considers the fragment to have been written at Bobbio. It consists of six leaves and contains the canticles, "Cantemus Domino", "Benedicite", and "Te Deum", with collects to follow those and the Laudate psalms (cxlvii-cl) and the "Benedictus", the text of which is not given, two hymns with collects to follow them, and two other prayers.

There are two Karlsruhe Fragments: four pages in an Irish hand of the late 8th or early 9th century in the Library of Karlsruhe contain parts of three masses, one of which is "pro captivis". The arrangement resembles that of the Bobbio Missal, in that the Epistles and Gospels seem to have preceded the other variables under the title of lectiones ad misam. Another four pages in an Irish hand probably of the 9th century contain fragments of masses and a variant of the intercessions inserted in the Intercession for the Living in the Stowe Missal and in Witzel's extracts from the Fulda Manuscript. There are also some fragments in Irish.

The Piacenza Fragment consists of four pages (of which the two outer are illegible) in an Irish hand, possibly of the 10th century. The two inner pages contain parts of three Masses, one of which is headed "ordo missae sanctae mariae". In the others are contained the Prefaces of two of the Sunday Masses in the Bobbio Missal, one of which is used on the eighth Sunday after the Epiphany in the Mozarabic.

The St. Gall Fragments are 8th- and 9th-century fragments in Manuscripts 1394 and 1395 in the Library of St. Gallen. The first book (1394) contains part of an ordinary of the Mass which, as far as it goes, resembles that in the Stowe Missal. The second (1395) contains the confession and litany, which also begin the Stowe Missal, a fragment of a Mass of the Dead, a prayer at the Visitation of the Sick, and three forms for the blessing of salt and water.

The Basle Fragment is a 9th-century Greek Psalter with a Latin interlinear translation. On a fly-leaf at the beginning are two hymns in honour of Mary and of St. Bridget, a prayer to Mary and to the angels and saints, and a long prayer "De conscientiae reatu ante altare".

The Zurich Fragment is a 10th-century leaf containing part of an office for the profession of a nun.