Codex Vindobonensis 751

The section containing the Boniface correspondence dates from the ninth century, and was most likely copied in Mainz—Boniface had been appointed archbishop of Mainz in 745, and the copyist used originals of the letters available there.

[2] The modern history of the codex begins in 1554 when Kaspar von Niedbruck [Wikidata], who had entered the service of Maximilian II in that year, found the manuscript in Cologne and brought it to Vienna.

Von Niedbruck collected materials to aid with the composition of the Magdeburg Centuries (a comprehensive church history first published in 1559), and gathered many manuscripts for the Imperial Library, which he allowed Matthias Flacius and his collaborators to copy.

Corrections and notes in the hands of Tengnagel and Blotius prove that they had already worked on copying and editing the correspondence before the codex was sent to Prague.

It was used also by Philipp Jaffé (who published an edition of the correspondence in 1866), and, according to the visitors log in Vienna, between 27 October and 20 November 1882 it was studied almost daily by Wilhelm Diekamp.

It is made of cardboard covered with white parchment and stamped *17*G*L*B*V*S*B*55*, that is, Gerardus Liber Baro Van Swieten Bibliothecarius, 1755.

An additional coded element is employed on 39v, where the adapted alphabet reads "FUFBNNB", where the vowel ("A") is replaced by the following consonant ("B"), rendering "FUFANNA", the name of an abbess.

[16] Folio 34r contains a line in Old English: "Memento saxonicum uerbum: oft daedlata dome foreldit sigi sitha gahuem suuyltit thiana.