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Verbal Negative Contraction in Four Most

Complete Witnesses to the Old English Bede

Elena Afros

To cite this article: Elena Afros (2023) Verbal Negative Contraction in Four Most Complete
Witnesses to the Old English Bede, ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and
Reviews, 36:3, 311-318, DOI: 10.1080/0895769X.2021.2009331

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2021.2009331

Published online: 01 Dec 2021.

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ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES AND REVIEWS
2023, VOL. 36, NO. 3, 311–318
https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2021.2009331

Verbal Negative Contraction in Four Most Complete Witnesses to

the Old English Bede
Elena Afros

ABSTRACT
The witnesses to the Old English Bede (OEB) should theoretically provide an
excellent illustration of the generalization that while contracted negated
verbs predominate in Old English prose, uncontracted are not infrequent in
Anglian but almost exceptional in late West Saxon (Hogg and Fulk 2011;
Levin 1958). This rule predicts that the uncontracted forms would be pre­
valent in the earlier copies T and O that preserve more Anglian features and
rare in later and more thoroughly West-Saxonized B and Ca. However, this
expectation is not sustained. Whereas B exhibits the highest proportion of
the contracted forms among the OEB manuscripts, its rate of 41% is signifi­
cantly lower than 96% of the Old English Gospels and 99% of Ælfric’s material
(Levin 1958). To identify the factors apart from dialect that affect the dis­
tribution of the contracted and uncontracted forms in the OEB, the present
article analyzes all instances of the negated verbs beon/wesan ‘be’, habban
‘have’, willan ‘will’, and witan ‘know’ in four most complete manuscripts. It
demonstrates that negative contraction in the OEB is conditioned by mor­
phology, syntax, scribal stylistic preferences, genre, translation technique,
and possibly the growing impact of the West-Saxon and lingering prestige of
the Mercian tradition.

The witnesses to the Old English Bede should theoretically provide an excellent illustration of the
generalization that “in West Saxon [prose] the usage almost entirely favors [verbal negative] contrac­
tion, whereas in Anglian uncontracted forms are freely employed” (Levin 495).1 These findings predict
that the uncontracted forms would be prevalent in Oxford, Bodleian Library Tanner 10 (T; x1) and
Oxford, Corpus Christi College 279B (O; xiin), the earlier copies that preserve more Anglian features,
but “vanishingly rare” (Hogg and Fulk 6.128) in later and more thoroughly West-Saxonized witnesses
– Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41 (B; xi1) and Cambridge, University Library Kk.3.18 (Ca; xi2).2
However, this expectation is not sustained. Whereas B exhibits the highest proportion of the con­
tracted forms among the manuscripts of the Old English Bede, its rate of 41% does not even
approximate that of 96% in the eleventh-century manuscripts of the West Saxon Gospels and 99%
in Ælfric’s material reported by Levin. Ca’s lowest proportion of the contracted forms (27.5%) does not
align well with the trends cited by Levin and Hogg and Fulk either. Wallis (103) proposes that the
disparity between the Old English Bede and the rest of the Old English corpus arises because negative
contraction may not have been favored by all West-Saxon writers. The current study supports the view
that negative contraction reflects the individual scribal practices that differ in terms of conservatism
and innovation (Grant; Miller; Waite; Wallis). It also demonstrates that morphology, syntax, stylistic
preferences of the individual scribes, genre, translation technique, and possibly the growing impact of
the West-Saxon or lingering prestige of the Mercian tradition affect the choice of the form of the
negated verb.

CONTACT Elena Afros eafros@uwaterloo.ca

© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
312 E. AFROS

The contracted and uncontracted forms in the four most complete manuscripts of the
Old English Bede: an overview
Four verbs have contracted and uncontracted variants in the manuscripts of the Old English Bede:
beon/wesan ‘to be,’ habban ‘to have,’ willan ‘to wish, will,’ and witan ‘to know.’ Table 1 provides
statistics of the distribution of the contracted and uncontracted forms of these verbs in the four most
complete manuscripts. Since contraction does not take place when the verb is preceded by the adverb
no because it is more stressed than ne, three instances of no followed by the verb (no wolde [358.9] in
Ca and no witende [86.22] in O and Ca) are excluded (Hogg 466).

Table 1. Negative contraction in the Old English Bede (uncontracted: contracted).

Verbs Stem T B O Ca
Beon/wesan Present 1: 23 2: 24 3: 22 3: 22
Preterite 35: 4 43: 13 37: 1 48: 0
Habban Present 1: 1 1: 1 1: 0 1: 0
Preterite 2: 4 2: 5 2: 5 2: 7
Willan Present 12: 1 9: 3 10: 1 9: 2
Preterite 23: 3 24: 10 21: 2 23: 3
Witan Present 5: 0 2: 1 4: 0 4: 0
Preterite 5: 0 4: 3 5: 2 5: 2
Total 84: 36 (30%) 87: 60 (41%) 83: 35 (29.6%) 95: 36 (27.5%)

The discrepancies between the number of tokens across the manuscripts arise due to the varying
lengths of the manuscripts, an addition of negation for negative concord (example [1a]), copying
errors (example [2a]), lexical substitutions (example [3c]), and distinct syntactic constructions (exam­
ple [4a]).3 Thus, the negated verb in (1a) distinguishes T from the rest of the manuscripts, in which
negation only extends to the correlative conjunction and the adverb.
(1a)Ond he þes biscop ricum monnum no for are ne for ege næfre forswigian nolde (T 162.12–13;
emphasis added)
(1b)7 he þes bysceop ricum mannum ne for are ne for ege næfre forswigian wolde· (O 28r;
emphasis added)
(1c)7 he ðæs bysceop ricum mannum ne for are ne for ege næfre swigian wolde (B 132; emphasis
added)
(1d)7 he ðes biscop ricum mannum no for are ne for ege næfre forswigian wolde· (Ca 30v; emphasis
added)
(1e)Numquam diuitibus honoris siue timoris gratia, siqua delinquissent, reticebat . . .
(Plummer 136)
‘And this bishop never would either out of respect or fear be silent before rich men’ (Miller: I.1, 163)
B adds the negative adverb ne in (2a) in error as it misconstrues the meaning of the clause. (2b)
shows that B’s mistake does not derive from the archetype.
(2a)ða he þa mid grimmum swinglum 7 tintregum gewæced ne wæs (B 34–35; emphasis added)4
(2b)Ða he ða mid grimmum swinglum 7 tintregum wæced wæs· (Ca 11r; Miller: I.1, 36.33–34;
emphasis added)
(2c)Qui cum tormentis afficeretur acerrimis . . . (Plummer 19)
‘And then the saint was afflicted with grievous scourging and tortures’ (Miller: I.1, 37)
In (3c), B replaces willan with the pre-modal verb þearf “need.” In 438.18, another negative
command expressed by willan in TOCa, B employs sceal “must.” B’s substitutions may be more
idiomatic as Mitchell (§917) states that the construction ne wille/nelle þu + infinitive is modeled after
Latin.
(3a)Ne welle þu ðe ondredan . . . (T Miller: I.2, 424.2; emphasis added)
(3b)ne wil\l/e þu þe ondrædan (O 147r; emphasis added)
 ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES AND REVIEWS 313

(3c)ne þearft ðu þe ondrædan (B 411; emphasis added)

(3d)ne wilt ðu þe ondrædan (Ca 88r; emphasis added)
(3e)‘Noli . . . timere . . .’ (Plummer 304)
‘Be not afraid’ (Miller: I.2, 425)
As mentioned above, negative commands with the verb willan are considered to be Latin calques.
Therefore, some scribes (e.g., T3 in [4a]) might prefer a more idiomatic synthetic imperative.
(4a)Aris min broðor 7 ne wep þu . . . (T 1891/1959–1898/1963: I.2, 372.16–17; emphasis added)
(4b)aris min broðor 7 ne wil\l/e þu wepan (O 125r; emphasis added)
(4c)aris min broðor 7 ne wille þu wepan (B 354; emphasis added)
(4d)aris min broðor· 7 ne wylle þu wepan· (Ca 78v; emphasis added)
(4e)‘Surge . . . frater mi, et noli plorare . . .’ (Plummer 275)
‘Arise, my brother, and weep not’ (Miller: I.2, 373)
It is also worth noting that T3’s choice in (4a) creates syntactic parallelism between two commands.

The instances on which the manuscripts agree

There is an almost universal agreement on contraction in the present stem of the verb beon/wesan. All
manuscripts write ne eart in 402.27. The uncontracted ne is occurs only twice in O and Ca (74.23 and
78.33); in one of these instances (78.33), T and B display a contracted form, but in 74.23 B agrees with
O and Ca against T. The distribution of ne eart and nis in the Old English Bede is consonant with the
rest of the Old English corpus. The DOEC shows that ne eart and nis/nys are much more frequent than
their counterparts neart and ne is/ne ys. In the preterite, all manuscripts favor the uncontracted
variant, but, as Table 1 shows, Ca is the only one to use it exclusively. In the rest of the Old English
corpus, according to the DOEC, the contracted preterite is five times more frequent than uncontracted.
The agreement on contraction of habban used only as a lexical verb is 100% in the instances present
in all four manuscripts. T, O, and Ca (B omits this part of the sentence) also agree on the uncontracted
ne hæfdon in the interrogative sentence in the independent clause in 196.18. Of the two instances
preserved only in B and Ca (8.4 and 28.19) the two manuscripts concur on the contracted næfdon in
the chapter-headings list (8.4).5 In Book I (28.19), B displays an uncontracted variant (ne hæfdon) in
the dependent clause where Ca has a contracted one (næfdon). In the passage omitted from O and Ca
(Book II, chapters 5–7), T and B exhibit nabbað (112.18) in the dependent clause. In the passage
omitted from T and B (Book III, Latin chapter 17), O and Ca display næfde (206.8) in the independent
clause. The former lacuna is probably due to a defect in the ancestor of O and Ca (Rowley 34); the
latter is considered to derive from the archetype. It is generally believed that “one of Bede’s disclaimers
about Bishop Aidan’s Easter practices” was eliminated in the archetype but restored in the ancestor of
O and Ca by a different translator (Rowley 91).
The manuscripts are less unanimous on the contraction of the verb willan. They agree only in 20 of
the 29 instances (69%) in which all manuscripts contain a negated willan; all of them uncontracted
occurring both in dependent and independent clauses.6 Interestingly, only the uncontracted variant
occurs in negative commands. The preponderance of the uncontracted variant in the Old English Bede
distinguishes it from the rest of the Old English corpus, in which the uncontracted forms constitute
less than 7%.7
All four manuscripts also agree only on the uncontracted forms of witan: of the eight instances in
which all manuscripts have a negated witan six have an uncontracted variant in all manuscripts (75%
agreement). The two contracted variants in O and Ca (nyste 206.3 and 206.21) are found in the passage
omitted from T and B. Wallis (103) observes that most contracted forms in O and Ca in Book III occur
in the alternative translation (chapters 16–20).8
314 E. AFROS

The instances on which the manuscripts disagree

The forms of beon/wesan on which the manuscripts disagree are ne is/ne ys, næs, nære, and næron/
næran/neron.9 The uncontracted ne is/ne ys is found only in Libellus Responsionum, a collection of
Gregory’s responses to Augustine’s questions.
(5a)Forhwon ne sceal þæt geeacnade wiif fulwad beon, mid þy nis beforan Godes ælmihtiges eagum
ænig synn wæstmbeorendes lichoman? (T Miller: I.1, 74.23–25; emphasis added)
(5b)Forhwon ne sceal þæt geeacnode wif gefullad beon mid þy ne is beforan ælmihtiges godes
eagum ænig syn wæstberendes lichaman· (O 65v; emphasis added)
(5c)Forhwan ne sceal þæt geeacnode wif fulwod beon mid þy ne ys beforan godes ælmihties eagum
ænig synn wæstmberendes lichaman (B 209; emphasis added)
(5d)Forhwon ne sceal þæt geeacnode wif gefullad beon mid ðy ne is beforan ælmihtiges godes
eagum ænig syn wæstmberendes lichoman· (Ca 50r; emphasis added)
‘Why should not a woman that is pregnant be baptized, seeing that there is no sin in fecundity of the
body before the eyes of God Almighty?’ (Miller: I.1, 75)
(6a)Gif þonne for micelre arwyrðnesse hwylc mon ne geþyrstgað onfon, se is to herienne; ac gif he
onfehð, nis he to demenne. (T Miller: I.1, 78.32–34; emphasis added)
(6b)gif þonne fore micelre arwyrðnesse hwylc mon ne gedrystigað onfon se is to herigenne. ac gif he
onfehð ne is he to demanne. (O 67v; emphasis added)
(6c)gyf þonne for micelre· arweorðnesse hwylc man gedyrstgað onfoon se is to herigenne· Ac gif he
onfehþ nis he to demenne (B 213; emphasis added)
(6d)gif þonne for mycelre arwurðnysse hwylc mon ne gedyrstigað· onfon se is to heriganne. Ac gif
he onfehð ne is he to demanne· (Ca 51r; emphasis added)
‘Now if anyone out of great veneration does not venture to receive, he is to be praised; but if he
receive, he is not to be judged.’ (Miller: I.1, 79)
Molyneaux and Rowley argue that the changes to the content and rhetoric of the only papal letter
included in the Old English version of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica have a didactic purpose. Rowley
(125) points out that the inclusion of the key passages in Latin “mark[s] the text clearly as a [close]
translation” (emphasis in the original), which allows “to reiterate the authority and content of each
passage, and to model translation.” As mentioned above, in the rest of the Old English corpus ne is/ne
ys is infrequent: it is used in declarative sentences primarily in the glosses to the psalters, Durham
Ritual, and the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels and in interrogative in the Boethius, Pastoral Care,
and several Ælfric’s homilies.10 Like Libellus Responsionum, these texts served as an instructional tool
(both linguistic and ecclesiastical) for clergy and laity, which indicates that the choice of ne is in O and
Ca is determined by genre. B2’s decision to preserve the uncontracted form in the interrogative
sentence in 74.23 but use a contracted variant in 78.33 is congruent with the West Saxon translation
tradition. T1’s choice of the contracted form in both syntactic contexts might reflect the desire for
more idiomatic Old English.
In the preterite, T1’s contracted næs (96.34, 104.32) and nære (70.23, 120.14), which only partially
overlap with B (104.32 and 120.14), are likewise motivated stylistically rather than syntactically. The
contracted variants have the same syntactic functions (a perfect auxiliary in 96.34; a passive auxiliary
in 104.32; and a copula in a predicative construction in 70.23 and 120.14) as their uncontracted
counterparts both in T and the rest of the manuscripts (e.g., a perfect auxiliary ne wære in 398.12 in
TBOCa; a passive auxiliary ne wæs in 234.8 in TBOCa; and a copula in a predicative construction ne
wæs in 130.18 in TBOCa).
The contracted forms in B corresponding with the uncontracted ones in the rest of the manuscripts
are not conditioned by the syntactic function either. In addition to 104.32 and 120.14, on which it
agrees with T, B exhibits nære functioning as a copula in a predicative construction (28.11; Ca ne
wære), a copula in the existential construction (294.31; TOCa ne wære), and a passive auxiliary (40.14
and 44.25; Ca ne wære) as well as næs functioning as a copula in the predicative construction (138.2–3;
TOCa ne wæs) and a perfect auxiliary (446.3; OCa ne wæs). In all but one case (284.21), where B differs
 ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES AND REVIEWS 315

from the rest of the manuscripts either because it adds negation to create negative concord (nis in
348.3; næs in 336.16 and 342.14; nære in 288.19; næron in 290.3; ne wæs in 284.21) or paraphrases a
clause or a phrase (nis in 200.23; nære in 142.9–10; næran in 172.14), it employs a contracted variant.
These forms occur in the stints of both scribes and do not bear any signs of correction, which implies
that at least some of these forms may have been already present in an anterior copy.
In contrast, the form neron found only in O in 258.18 (74v; TBCa ne wæron) is doubtlessly the O
scribe’s innovation: the scribe initially wrote <Neron> but then <wæ> was inserted interlinearly and a
comma was added below the line to correct <Neron> to <Ne \wæ/ron> probably to match the
exemplar; subsequently, the insertion and the comma were erased restoring neron. This preterit
contracted form, the only one in O, functions as a copula in the existential construction. Although
this instance supports Blockley’s claim that wesan is subject to contraction in the existential construc­
tion, the rest of the preterit forms in the existential construction are uncontracted in O. In addition, all
manuscripts use an uncontracted form in the existential clause, which cannot be analyzed as “having
an element that is unexpressed or understood” (Blockley 476), ne wæs ða ylding “there was no delay”
recurring throughout the text (TOBCa 60.30, 178.26, 376.31, 400.20 and BCa 52.14). C, which
restructures this clause into a predicative construction in 376.31, employs næs: Næs þa lang þætte
(Miller: II.2, 460), which contradicts Blockley’s (443) statement that “the clauses with uncontracted
negation have the copula rather than existential wesan.”
The verb willan is used in declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences. In negative com­
mands, it is never contracted. In interrogative sentences, it is uncontracted in all manuscripts in 354.28
(ne woldes(t)) and contracted in the Preface transmitted only by B and Ca (nelle in B and nolde in Ca in
2.11). Both instances serve as counterexamples to Blockley’s generalizations that willan is contracted
“when its complement is . . . a transitive infinitive with its objects expressed” (Blockley 436; the
structure in 354.28) and “the uncontracted form . . . is the only acceptable form in clauses having an
element that is unexpressed yet understood” (Blockley 476; the structure in 2.11). An alternative
explanation draws on the history of transmission of the Old English Bede. The Preface is believed to be
the work of the translator different from the one responsible for the main text (Waite). Therefore, the
deviation from the practice of using the uncontracted variant in interrogative sentences upheld
elsewhere by B, O, and Ca may be attributed to a distinct translation technique. In declarative
sentences, both contracted and uncontracted variants are found in the present and preterit stems in
all manuscripts.
As noted above, the manuscripts often disagree on the contraction of willan. Some divergences are
caused by the lacuna and alternative translation in O and Ca. Thus, T and B exhibit three uncontracted
forms in the passage missing in O and Ca (112.16–17, 112.23, and 116.11). In the passage rendered
differently in TB and OCa, an uncontracted form in TB corresponds with the contracted in OCa
(208.21) and a negated uncontracted form in TB corresponds with the non-negated in OCa (208.27).
One instance (438.11) may stem from the anterior copies of TB and OCa. However, the majority of the
disagreements may be accounted for by the practices of the individual scribes. For example, only T1
(60.7) and T4 (438.8) use contracted variants where the rest of the manuscripts have uncontracted
variants. In addition, in 162.13, where only T negates the verb to create negative concord, T1 writes
nolde.11 T5, on the other hand, chooses the uncontracted form that enhances the rhyme with
alliteration: swa he welle swa he ne wille (T Miller: I.2, 412.1–2) vs. wille he nelle he (B 398)/swa he
wille swa he nelle (O 142r; Ca 85v).12 Hemming, the scribe of Ca, deviates from O once (278.18) using a
contracted nyle where O has ne wile.13
B diverges from the rest of the manuscripts 13 times, eight of which (46,11, 120.18, 234.25, 286.15,
326.15, 328.20, 402.7, 472.20) are the instances in which the verb is negated only in B to create negative
concord. In all cases but one (120.18), B uses a contracted variant. In four instances (36.13, 46.13,
48.21, 328.26), B employs a contracted form where other witnesses have an uncontracted one. In the
paraphrase which includes the verb willan only in B, B uses an uncontracted ne wolde (102.6). These 13
tokens of negated willan occur in the stints of both scribes, but B1 contributes both contracted and
uncontracted forms whereas B2 writes only the contracted ones.
316 E. AFROS

The role of the individual scribes and their exemplars is especially obvious in the transmission of
the negated verb witan. Since T displays only uncontracted forms and O and Ca exhibit the contracted
nyste (206.3 and 206.21) only in the passage omitted from T and B produced most likely by a different
translator, it may be hypothesized that the archetype contained only the unconracted variant. While
the uncontracted finite forms did not cause any difficulty to the eleventh-century copyists, the present
participle (recorded in the DOEC only in Bede) proved to be a challenge. There are three tokens of the
negated present participle in Bede: two are in Libellus Responsionum (86.10 and 86.22) and one in Book
IV (270.35); all of them render the present participle of nescio ‘not to know.’ T1 reproduces two
uncontracted forms (86.10 and 270.35) correctly but omits the negative adverb in 86.22. B2, in whose
stint all three instances occur, uses a contracted neotende in 86.10 (B 220) and an exceptionally rare
unwitende in 270.35 (B 245) but in 86.22 (B 221) writes ne wende (wendan “to turn”).14 The former two
modifications correctly convey the meaning, but the latter does not. O and Ca display uncontracted ne
witende in 86.10 (<ne> is inserted interlinearly in O; O 70v, Ca 52v) and no witende in 86.22 (O 71r, Ca
52v), but in 270.35 O (80v) writes wedende and Ca (57v) wedendū (wedan “to be mad or furious; rage;
rave”). The two instances in Libellus Responsionum correctly translate the Latin, but the one in Book
IV does not. An error in T is probably due to eyeskip, but the nonsensical substitutions introduced
independently (or possibly copied from their respective exemplars) in B and OCa imply the unfami­
liarity with the form and inability or unwillingness to consult Bede’s Latin.
B is the only manuscript to employ the contracted forms of witan in the text shared by all four
witnesses. Apart from neotende (86.10), it exhibits nyste in 138.7 (B 112) and nyst in 428.32 (B 418)
where the rest of the manuscripts have ne wiste and ne wat respectively. In 348.7 (B 326), it uses a
negated nyston to create negative concord (TOCa wiston/wistan). Of the four contracted tokens three
are in B2’s stint. Whereas the contracted witan satisfies Blockley’s (436) constraint that the comple­
ment clause should not be anticipated by the demonstrative þæt, it cannot account for the uncon­
tracted forms in the rest of the manuscripts. Since none of the complement clauses of witan is
anticipated by þæt in the Old English Bede, this constraint cannot be tested in this text.

Conclusion
The present study shows that negative contraction is not a unified syntactic phenomenon.15 Whereas it
is almost unexceptional in Ælfric’s material, it is infrequent in the witnesses to the Old English Bede,
especially O and Ca. Variation between the contracted and uncontracted forms in the same syntactic
environments and counterexamples to the constraints proposed by Blockley, and trends identified by
Jack demonstrate that the choice of the form is not dependent on the syntactic criteria developed for
verse by Blockley and Jack.16 This does not, however, mean that syntactic factors are irrelevant. For
example, all manuscripts agree on an uncontracted form in negative commands, and there is an almost
uniform agreement on an uncontracted form in interrogative sentences.
The pronounced differences between the present and preterit stems as well as the second and third
person singular of the present stem of the verb beon/wesan not only in the Old English Bede but also
the entire Old English corpus indicate that morphology likewise plays an important role. The use of
the uncontracted ne is in Libellus Responsionum in O and Ca highlights the influence of genre
conventions. That the conventions may be interpreted differently may be seen in the prevalence of
the contracted variants in the alternative translation in O and Ca. Many of T’s and B’s choices raise
possibility that stylistic preferences of the scribes also affect negative contraction. Nowhere is it more
apparent than in the forms introduced independently of the rest of the witnesses to create negative
concord. Since these instances include both contracted and uncontracted forms, it may be suggested
that the tenth- and eleventh-century scribes considered negative contraction variation acceptable in a
translated historical narrative and didactic genre.
 ANQ: A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SHORT ARTICLES, NOTES AND REVIEWS 317

Hogg (466) states that a significantly high proportion of uncontracted forms in some late West
Saxon texts implies that “there were competing varieties even in the areas generally regarded under the
single rubric of West Saxon.” He links the spread of contraction with the strengthening of the West
Saxon literary tradition and waning of the Mercian (Hogg 478). Hogg asserts that:

originally contraction was variably implemented throughout the country, but . . ., as Levin shows, it became
canonical in parts of Wessex. Then it spread along the Thames Valley to the east and also along the Severn Valley
to the north-west. Its spread along the Thames Valley to London was relatively unhindered, but along the Severn
there were alternative writing centers, which only slowly, if at all, came under West Saxon influence and were
certainly not under such influence at the time of the Vespasian Psalter. The eventual spread of contraction to the
West Midlands is only confirmed in the early Middle English period. (411)

This scenario adds another factor that might have contributed to the higher proportion of the
uncontracted forms in Ca produced at Worcester. However, the uncertainty about the origin of T, O,
and B does not allow to test Hogg theory against these manuscripts. Two other witnesses, the origin of
which is generally agreed upon, are fragmentary. Although contractions are frequent in what is left of
C, which was probably copied at Winchester in mid-tenth century (of the eight preterits of beon/wesan
four are contracted; of the two instances of habban one is contracted; and of the five instances of willan
three are contracted), not enough of the manuscript survived to compare it with T, O, B, and Ca.17
London, British Library, Cotton Domitian A.ix, 11r (Z) dated to the last quarter of the ninth - first
quarter of the tenth century and possibly written in London (Rowley 16) does not contain any verbal
negative contractions. Therefore, based on the available evidence, it may be concluded that negative
contraction in the Old English Bede is conditioned by morphology, syntax, stylistic preferences of the
individual scribes, genre, translation technique, and possibly the growing impact of the West Saxon or
lingering prestige of the Mercian tradition.

Notes
1. In verse, Fulk (140) concludes, chronology is more relevant than dialect.
2. For various aspects of West Saxonization in the four most complete manuscripts of the Old English Bede, see
Grant; Miller; Waite; Wallis. See also Rowley (162), who claims that “the alterations [in O] do not demonstrate a
systematic scribal agenda of dialectal consistency or modernization.”
3. For the most recent description of the state of the manuscripts, their date and origin, see Rowley; Waite. All
manuscripts except for C (London, British Library, Cotton MS Otho B. xi + Otho B. x, fols. 33, 38, 62 +Add.
34,652, fol. 2) and T are quoted from the digital images available at: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/
6c79a7b4-a7f7-4988-a41d-dbfba14ec6cb/ (O); https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/qd527zm3425 (B); and
https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-KK-00003-00018/1 (Ca). The accents are not reproduced; abbreviations are
expanded; word division follows Miller (1890/1959–1898/1963). T is quoted from Miller (1890/1959–1898/1963);
editorial capitalization and punctuation are retained. All references to the edited text are to Miller (1890/1959–
1898/1963).
4. Two omissions in B (the negated habban in 196.18 and willan in 222.22) may be also explained by a copying error
(probably due to eyeskip).
5. For the convergences and divergences between B and Ca in the chapter-headings list, see Whitelock.
6. Jack states that in verse habban and willan tend to be contracted in the dependent clause and uncontracted in the
independent clause. This observation does not hold for the Old English Bede.
7. The DOEC records ca. 146 uncontracted and ca. 2,006 contracted tokens of the negated willan. 27% of the
uncontracted forms are in Bede; 25% of the contracted are in Ælfric’s works.
8. For a recent discussion of Book III, chapters 14–18 corresponding to the Latin 16–20, see; Rowley.
9. Some differences in the negated beon/wesan are caused by the copying error (is in B vs. the correct nis in TOCa in
198.10; ne wæs in B vs. the correct wæs in Ca [see (2a–c) above]) and paraphrase (ne tweoð in B vs. nis tweo in
TOCa in 64.10; nis in B in 200.24).
10. Interestingly, the Vespasian Psalter strongly favors nis and employs ne is only four times. The Junius Psalter,
which derives its glosses from the Vespasian Psalter, writes ne is 13 times. The glosses to the Vitellius and Arundel
Psalters employ only the uncontracted ne is.
11. ne woldest in 164.6 is copied in error by T1. The uncontracted form is probably due to the presence of the correct
ne sealdest (found in B, O, and Ca where it is slightly misspelled) in the exemplar.
318 E. AFROS

12. The DOEC records only the non-alliterating option in the rest of the Old English corpus (e.g. ÆCH II, 28,
Pastoral Care, and the gloss to the Liber scintillarum).
13. T and B also have an uncontracted ne wille in 278.18.
14. The DOEC lists only five tokens of unwitend: three in Orosius, one in the Eadwine Psalter, and one in the glosses
to the headings to readings in Mark in the Lindisfarne Gospels. B alters also the negated present participle
coordinated with unwitende to ungemynde in 270.35/B 245 (T ne weotendum oððo ne gemændum).
15. Although negative contraction is phonologically regular, no explanation has yet been offered for the inapplic­
ability of contraction to the verb weorþan “to become” (Hogg 459; Levin).
16. For critique of the rules developed by Blockley, see Fulk (136–140) and Jack. Mitchell (§1131) concurs with Levin
(PhD thesis) that contraction in poetry may be governed by the prosodic principles as well. For the role of meter,
see Fulk; Jack. Interestingly, Jack finds that in unstressed positions uncontracted forms are preferred when they
open a sentence that stands in a sharp contrast with the previous discourse or marks a new topic, two textual
functions fulfilled by the verb-initial clauses in prose (see, for example, Mitchell: §3933; Ohkado).
17. For legible readings, see Miller, Part II. For Nowell’s transcript and Smith’s collations of C completed before the
1731 fire at Ashburnham House, see Waite (2014, 2015, 2021).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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