Leaf from a large Carolingian Homiliary, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France, second half of the ninth century]

This leaf presents a number of questions. There are clear links between the text here and that edited by Migne for Haimo of Auxerre (cf. the text on the recto here, "Bonum quippe sine malo esse potest, malum vero sine bono esse non potest; quia privatio boni ..." with the identical text in Migne, Pat. Lat.118, p.328c, Haimo's homily on the Passion of Christ; where Migne rests only on the printed edition of Johannes Prael, Cologne, 1536). However, there are numerous differences between the texts, and we may have here a fragment of the same text as in Yale, Beinecke, MS 484.12, two leaves of c.1100, which contain homilies which are very close but not exactly the same as those recorded by Migne for Haimo on John 2.1-11 and Matt. 8.1.

Haimo of Auxerre (fl.840-50, d. perhaps as late as 875) was a giant of the Carolingian Renaissance, who has been all but lost to us. He was a fellow student of Hrabanus Maurus (d.856), and studied under the Irish grammarian and court-scholar Murethach (fl. c.840). He taught at the celebrated school of St-Germain at Auxerre, producing a number of illustrious students and numerous writings. These apparent variants on his homilies perhaps date to his lifetime or the decades following, and may represent another recension missed by Migne, or the work of one of his students.