Aelfwine

Aelfwine or Aelfvine. Calligrapher.. Saec. XI.

Abbot of New Minster, 1035-1057 (not as Nagler says, of Hyde, for the monks of New Minster did not remove to Hyde until 1110 in the time of Abbot Galfridas or Geoffry). In the "Registrum Cartarum Abbatiæ de Hida," Harl. MS. No. 1761, f. 16, he is called "Alfwinus."

On one of the miniatures of the Paraphrase of Cædmon in the Bodley Library at Oxford is a medallion containing a portrait inscribed "Aelfwine"; but whether it be intended for the abbot, or the scribe, or the owner of the MS., is quite uncertain.--Dr. F. W. Unger in Nagler. The same may be said of a similar inscription on a miniature in Cotton MSS., Titus D. 27, which also has the name Aelfwinum inscribed upon it. But the latter miniature seems to be somewhat later--certainly superior in drawing to the "Cædmon"--and contemporary with the Benedictional of Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, if not actually by the same artist. Sir H. Ellis ("Archæologia," XXIV. 329), it is true, thinks that the "Cædmon" was written "about or soon after 1000." If so, the artist or calligrapher was a very inferior workman to the artist of Titus D. 27 and of the Benedictional. But possibly the truth is that the "Cædmon" is somewhat earlier, as it is considerably inferior. (See Aelsin and Godemann.)


A Dictionary of Miniaturists, Illuminators, Calligraphers, and Copyists with references to their works, and notices of their patrons.
From the Establishment of Christianity to the Eighteenth Century
Compiled from various sources many hitherto inedited by John W. Bradley
1887-1889

Rutgers University Libraries
ND2890.B83 v. 1

Omnipædia Polyglotta
Francisco López Rodríguez
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