Moore Bede

The Moore Bede (Cambridge, University Library, Kk. 5. 16) is an early manuscript of Bede's 8th-century Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). It was formerly owned by Bishop John Moore (1646–1714), whose collection of books and manuscripts was purchased by George I and donated to Cambridge University.

Physical description
The manuscript is written on parchment. It contains 128 folios. Pages average approximately 293 × 215 mm with a writing surface of 250 × 185 mm (1 column, 30–33 lines in the main text). The manuscript has been copied in a single hand and shows signs of haste.

Contents
The Moore Bede contains (with The Leningrad Bede) one of the two earliest representatives of the m-type text of the Latin Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.

The manuscript contains a copy of the Northumbrian aelda recension of Cædmon's Hymn on the last page of the manuscript, f. 128v. The poem is in the hand of a contemporary scribe, probably to be identified with that responsible for the so-called Memoranda on the same page (written in a larger script, but showing many similarities to the more cramped Cædmon’s Hymn and the main text of ff. 1r-128r).

Dating
The Moore Bede is traditionally dated to 734–737 on the basis of the so-called Moore Memoranda, a series of chronological notes preserved on f. 128v. Although the validity of these (and similar notes in The Leningrad Bede) as evidence for the manuscript’s date has been challenged vigorously, the manuscript can be dated securely to the 8th century on palaeographic and codicological grounds.

The manuscript is now thought "likely to be English in origin" (Ker 1990). Bischoff has shown that the manuscript was at the Palace School at Aachen around CE 800. Parkes suggests that it may have been sent to there from York at the request of Alcuin.