Single large leaf, with double column of 31 lines originally in a squat and square Carolingian minuscule, mostly overwritten by a fourteenth-century hand who also erased short sections of text to update and replace them, early rubrics and initials in pale orange capitals, later ones in brighter red, one natural hole in vellum, trimmed at base with loss of most of a line there, some folds, spots and stains, 290 by 220mm
On first glance this is a confusing leaf. It began life as part of a large and fine Carolingian service book, most probably produced somewhere in northern Germany, which appears to have remained in use in a community for some centuries. Then in the fourteenth century, a user decided to foliate it (with this leaf fol. 'xliii') and update it, erasing and replacing short readings. Close study reveals that they also overwrote almost all the script here (sometimes revealed by a differing hue of ink in the extensions of letters, sometimes through slightly messy later penstrokes) apparently making it easier for a later medieval reader to use. In fact, this left only the first four words at the head of the verso here untouched. It may well have been a treasured heirloom of the community, and rather than discard it for a newer copy, the whole volume was laboriously updated
