Vine-workers of the Lord: a Reading of the Runic Sequence and Imagery of the Tollemache Orosius Flyleaf

Abstract

The flyleaf to the Tollemache Orosius (London, British Library, Add. MS 47967, 1r) which includes a vine-scroll panel, symbols of the four evangelists, and several smaller notes and sketches, constitutes one of the most extensive sequences of manuscript marginalia to survive from Early Medieval England. Its iconographical complexity is compounded by the inclusion of a sequence of sixteen runes that has long puzzled runologists. This article offers a contextual interpretation of the Tollemache Orosius runic sequence informed by the wider corpus of English runica manuscripta and the particular iconographical, literary and manuscript context in which the runic note appears. Elucidating the link between the runes and the surrounding imagery helps to unravel the iconographical scheme of the flyleaf, centred on the Vineyard of the Lord. It also provides an insight into the reception of the Old English Orosius in late-tenth-century Winchester and the importance of the layered meaning of the vinea domini motif for both monastic communities and the secular church.