62. Leviticus with the ordinary gloss

The biblical text in this manuscript from the latter half of the twelfth century is surrounded by the “Ordinary Gloss,” explanatory notes by the Fathers of the Church and later medieval commentators. Formerly in the Benedictine Abbey of St. Blaise at Admont, Styria in Germany, but possibly of Parisian origin (see Laura Light, The Bible in the Twelfth Century Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988 pp. 87-88) it was written in a formal minuscule hand in black ink in a central column of varying width and varying number of lines per page. The gloss, in a much smaller script, is arranged in columns flanking the biblical text and sometimes creeping between the lines. Having the Gloss and the Bible text on the same page was not just a convenience for the reader, but helped to assure that the interpretation at hand was apt and approved.