- Bodmin manumissions
The Bodmin manumissions or Bodmin Gospels is a manuscript supposed to be of the 9th century. The document is of interest to language scholars as it contains writing in
Latin , Saxon and Cornish texts.Recorded in the Old Cornish language are the names and details of slaves freed in
Bodmin ( the then principle town of Cornwall, an important religious centre) between the mid tenth and mid eleventh centuries. There is also an Old Cornish Vocabulary, an English - Latin vocabulary of C. AD 1000 to which was added about a century later a Cornish translation. Some 961 Cornish words are recorded, ranging fromcelestial bodies, through church and craft occupation, to plants and animals. [ Languages in Britain and Irelandby Glanville Price (2000) ISBN 100631215816]This, it is believed, is the only original record relating to
Cornwall , or itsBishopric ,anterior to the conquest. The volume is in quarto, of rather an oblong form, and is very neatly written, though evidently by a scribe not well informed, or of great learning, even for those times. The entries seem to be contemporaneous with the manumissions which they record. The practice of manumittingslave s in the church, as recorded in the entries, appears to have existed from the early part of the fourth century. [A complete parochial history of the county of Cornwall edited byJoseph Polsue ]Further reading
* "The Cornish Language and Its Literature." P. Berresford Ellis, .1974.
* "Language and History in Cornwall". Leicester University Press. Martyn F Wakelin, . 1975.
* "Die Freilassungsurkunden des Bodminevangeliars". "A Grammatical Miscellany Offered toOtto Jespersen ", London,George Allen & Unwin Ltd . Max Förster,. 1930.External links
* [http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/tangwystyl/bodmin/ Cornish (and Other) Personal Names from the 10th Century Bodmin Manumissions] by Heather Rose Jones
References
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