| Reference Number | 195 |
| Title | The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer |
| Author | N/A (Edited work) |
| Editor | Jackson, Kenneth |
| Date Of Edition | 1972 |
| Date Of Language | 12c |
| Date Of Language Ed | 12th c. |
| DateMacro | 12th c. |
| Date Of Language Notes | |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Place Published | Cambridge |
| Volume | N/A |
| Location | National, academic, and local libraries (Mitchell Reference). |
| Geographical Origins | Buchan (Aberdeenshire) |
| Geographical Origins Ed | N/A |
| GeoMacro | Other |
| GeoX | |
| GeoY | |
| Geographical Origins Notes | |
| Register | Prose, legal |
| Register Ed | Formal, Prose |
| Genre | Information |
| Medium | Prose |
| Rating | A This text is the earliest example of continuous Gaelic written in Scotland. The text consists of seven sets of 12th-century Gaelic notes in five different hands, written in the margins of a 9th century Latin religious text associated with the monastery of Deer in Aberdeenshire. It is uncertain whether this text’s language is better described as an erratic example Late Middle Irish or a very early example of Scottish Gaelic. It certainly differs in certain phonetic and morphological respects from the Middle Irish codices the time. At all events, this text may be seen as a unique source for twelfth-century Gaelic as used in Scotland. The text contains place-names, personal names, and titles. The first item is an origin legend for the Columban monasteries of Aberdour and Deer. The following six items relate to records of grants of land to the monastery of Deer. The last item is a Latin charter relating to land owned by the monastery, and contains a list of Gaelic names. |
| Alternative Author Name | N/A |
| Manuscript Or Edition | Ed. |
| Size And Condition | 22cm x 14.5cm |
| Short Title | Book of Deer |
| Reference Details | EUL: .89163:.27112 Boo.Jac.; Cambridge University Library: MS no. I.i.6.32 |
| Number Of Pages | xv, 164. The MS is ‘a small octavo of 43 folios, which has been recently repaired and handsomely re-bound’. |
| Gaelic Text By | N/A |
| Illustrator | N/A |
| Social Context | The Book of Deer is now housed in Cambridge University Library. The MS was acquired by Cambridge University in 1715, having been in the possession of John Moore, Bishop of Ely. It is likely that it was previously in the possession of Dr. Gale, High Master of St. Paul’s School. The MS was re-discovered in Cambridge University Library in 1860, by the librarian, Henry Bradshaw. The old monastery of Deer (in Buchan in north-east Aberdeenshire), to which this book and its charters belonged, no longer exists. The MS contains ‘the complete Gospel of St John, portions of the other three Gospels, fragments of a prayer for the visitation of the sick and the charter granted by David I (1124-53) to the clerics of Deer’ (Thomson 1994, p. 60). The main body of the text is written in Latin and dates from the ninth century. In addition, the MS contains a number of Gaelic notes, written by five different hands, in the blank spaces and margins of the Book. The Gaelic notes were added in the twelfth century. The Gaelic entries are numbered I to VII by the editor of this text. They are described on the Book of Deer Project website as follows: ‘The first item provides an origin-legend for a monastery at Aberdour and for the older monastery at Deer, said to have been given to Drostan by Columba, who received it from a land-holder called Bede. The following five entries record later grants of land to the monastery, and the sixth concerns the 'quenching' or extinguishing (by the landowner [sic, for “landholder”]) of dues on certain lands received by it. The final, Latin deed of David I bestows on the monks of Deer a general immunity from “all lay service and improper exaction”, the latter phrase perhaps explaining their main concern at this time’ (http://bookofdeer.co.uk). This Latin charter contains a list of Gaelic names. This volume includes a transcription, transliteration, and translation of the Gaelic notes. According to Professor Derick Thomson (1994, p. 60), ‘The notitiae provide valuable evidence as to the forms of Gaelic used at the time (the literary dialect, but influenced by the vernacular) and also evidence of place and personal names (Gaelic titles such as brithem and fer léginn and titles deriving from an area of Gaelic/-Pictish overlap, e.g. mormaer)’. As to the importance of the Gaelic notes, Jackson reminds us that ‘there are no other documents [are] extant in the Gaelic of Scotland for almost three hundred years after these in the Book of Deer were written’ (p. vii). |
| Contents | This volume opens with a table of Contents (p. v). In the Preface (pp. vii-xii), Jackson gives a brief introduction to the Book of Deer, and lists all previous publications that contained material relating to the Gaelic notes. He defends the production of this volume on the grounds that, although ‘the Gaelic notes have been edited, with or without facsimiles, translated, and discussed a number of times, … no completely satisfactory edition, or translation, exists as yet’ (p. vii). This is followed by a List of Abbreviations (pp. xiii-xv). The Introduction (pp. 1-16) outlines first what we know about the Monastery of Deer, before turning to ‘The Manuscript, and the Hands of the Gaelic Notes’. The latter section indicates which of the five hands wrote each of the notitiae. The Edition (pp. 17-36) contains four sections entitled ‘Diplomatic Texts’, ‘Textual Notes’, ‘Edited Texts’ and ‘Translation’. The first of these contains a transcription of the Gaelic text rendered in Roman script. It includes all the diacritics inserted by the scribes, with the exception of the accents. Here Jackson argues that whereas acute accents are used liberally in the text, over long vowels, short vowels, and consonants alike, their function was not to indicate vowel length, but ‘to indicate that the language is vernacular, not Latin – that is to say, they were used very much as we use italics’ (p. 17). On that basis he continues: ‘Since the position of the accents in Deer is wholly meaningless, I have followed the example of some editors in omitting them altogether’ (p. 18). Note that this interpretation has been questioned by subsequent scholarship: see especially Ó Maolalaigh (2008a and 2008b). A section entitled ‘Textual Notes’ (pp. 24-29) discusses issues raised by the MS text, and also contains a few references to how some terms have been handled by other editors. ‘Edited Texts’ (pp. 30-32) contains a lightly normalised version of the Gaelic text in which, for example, MS contractions are expanded and proper names capitalised. This section is concluded by the Translation (pp. 33-36). The remainder of the volume is concerned with commentary on the Gaelic Notes. ‘Notes on the Texts’ (pp. 37-84) is concerned with the interpretation of the text and explaining its subject matter. This is followed by ‘Historical Commentary’ (pp. 85-124), containing the following sections: ‘Purpose, Date and Genuineness of the Notes’, ‘Social Status in the Book of Deer’ (including discussion of the terms mormaer, toísech and clann) and ‘Land-holding and Land-Granting in the Book of Deer’ (covering agrarian and legal concepts and terminology). ‘Orthography and Language’ (pp. 125-52) contains the following sections: ‘The Spelling of the Scribes of Deer’ and ‘The Language of the Notes’. The spelling of the scribes is compared and contrasted with that of contemporary Middle Irish texts, with a focus on ‘how Deer differs from Irish’ rather than giving ‘a complete description of its spelling’ (p. 127). The following categories are selected for scrutiny: stressed vowels, unstressed vowels, diphthongs, epenthetic vowels and consonants. In this section the forms quoted are those of the diplomatic texts, except that contractions are expanded. In ‘The Language of the Notes’, by contrast, the forms quoted are those of the edited texts. This section examines the incidence and representation of the initial mutations (lenition, nasalisation, and ‘gemination’) and the grammar of nominal declension, personal pronouns, conjunctions and verb forms. It concludes with some notes on syntax. There are three indexes: ‘Glossarial Index’ (pp. 153-59), ‘Index of Personal and Family Names’ (pp. 160-62) and ‘Index of Place- and Regional-Names’ (pp. 163-64). |
| Sources | |
| Language | The following examples, taken from Jackson’s ‘Edited Texts’, exemplify the language of the Gaelic Notes and convey the flavour of the present edition. Letters enclosed in square brackets have been added by the editor. (1) The description of the founding of the monastery of Deer in Text 1 begins as follows (p. 30): ‘Colum Cille 7 Drostán mac Cosgreg a dalta tángator a hÍ mar ro [f]alseg Dia doib gonic’ Abbordoboir, 7 Bede cruthnec robo mormær Buchan ar a ginn; 7 ess é ro thidnaig doib in gathraig-sain in saere gu bráith ó mormaer 7 ó thosec.’ (2) Text 5, recording a grant of land to the monastery, begins as follows (p. 32): ‘Donchad mac Mec-Bead mec Hidid do-rat Acchad Madchor do Críst acus do Drostán 7 do Choluim Cille in sore gu brád. Mal-[F]échí[n] 7 Comgell 7 Gille-Críst mac Finguni i nn-a [f]ienasi in testus, 7 Mal-Coluim mac Molíni.’ As regards the date of the language, Jackson suggests that the language used in the Gaelic notes was that of ‘the upper classes of northern Scotland of that period’, and maintains that this was ‘virtually indistinguishable from contemporary Irish’ (p. vii). He likewise regards the spelling of the Notes as being essentially that of late Middle Irish (or ‘Middle Common Gaelic’), which he locates in the period between the mid-tenth century and the late twelfth century, 'and … certainly neither earlier nor later' (p. 151). Bearing in mind the historical context suggested by the Notes, Jackson concludes that the linguistic evidence supports ‘the earlier part of the twelfth century’ as the most likely date for their composition (p. 152). In his discussion of the ways in which the Gaelic of the Book of Deer differs from that of late Middle Irish Jackson considers the possibility that this may indicate a Scottish Gaelic dimension. He is inclined to dismiss this, claiming that the differences are largely to be classed as ‘incorrect, and occasionally fantastic, spellings … due to the carelessness and ignorance of the scribes of this remote monastery, and not to a genuine linguistic differentiation’ between the Gaelic of Scotland and Ireland. He acknowledges that there are a few cases where phonetic and morphological developments peculiar to Scottish Gaelic have been mentioned in the Notes. But he regards these suggestions as ‘more or less highly improbable’, and concludes that ‘if any traces exist at all they are few and slight’ (pp. 149-150). Jackson’s conclusion that the Gaelic of the Book of Deer is ‘in all essentials ... identical with the Irish of Ireland of the first half and middle of the twelfth century’ was challenged by reviewers and has been undermined by more recent scholarship. On the one hand, his concept of an undifferentiated ‘Common Gaelic’ in the ‘Late Middle Irish’ period has been called into question by increased scholarly awareness of divergences between Scottish and Irish Gaelic which have their roots in the Middle or even the Old Gaelic period, and of sociolinguistic variation from the earliest times of which we have record. And on the other hand, the range, concentration and consistency of the ‘Scottish-looking’ features in the Gaelic of the Book of Deer has made scholars more open to the idea that these are more than the product of chance, ignorance and mistakes, and can count as the earliest literary evidence for Scottish Gaelic. See especially Ó Buachalla 2002 and Ó Maolalaigh 2008c. |
| Orthography | |
| Edition | First edition. A digitally printed re-issue in paperback was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008. Details of earlier editions, including facsimiles, are given by Jackson (pp. viii-xi). A collection of essays on most aspects of the Book of Deer is available in Forsyth 2008. It includes a revised diplomatic edition of the Gaelic text. A related study of the palaeography of the Book of Deer appeared separately in Dumville 2007. Images of the Book of Deer, which is designated MS I.i.6.32 in Cambridge University Library, may be viewed online at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk. Photographs of the pages containing the Gaelic Notes are printed in Forsyth 2008, between p. 238 and p. 239. Some folios have also been published on the website of the Book of Deer Project: see http://bookofdeer.co.uk/. |
| Other Sources | |
| Further Reading | Dumville, D. N., 2007. ‘The palaeography of “The Book of Deer”: the original manuscript and the liturgical addition’, in D. N. Dumville, Celtic Essays, 2001-2007 (Aberdeen, 2007: Centre for Celtic Studies), pp. 183-212. Forsyth, Katherine, ed., Studies on the Book of Deer (Dublin, c2008: Four Courts Press). Ó Buachalla, Breandán, ‘“Common Gaelic” revisited’, in C. Ó Baoill and N. McGuire (eds), Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 2000 (Aberdeen, 2002: An Clò Gàidhealach), pp. 1-12. Ó Maolalaigh, Roibeard, ‘The property records: diplomatic edition including accents’, in Studies on the Book of Deer, ed. by Katherine Forsyth (Dublin, c2008: Four Courts Press), 119-130. Ó Maolalaigh, Roibeard, ‘On the possible functions of the accents in the Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer’, in Studies on the Book of Deer, ed. by Katherine Forsyth (Dublin, c2008: Four Courts Press), 145-178. Ó Maolalaigh, Roibeard, ‘The Scotticisation of Gaelic: a reassessment of the language and orthography of the Gaelic notes in the Book of Deer’, in Studies on the Book of Deer, ed. by Katherine Forsyth (Dublin, c2008: Four Courts Press), 179-249. Thomson, Derick S., ed., The Companion to Gaelic Scotland (Glasgow, 1994: Gairm). |
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| NumWords | 1481 |
