'Here, There and Everywhere': positioning the Karlsruhe Bede within the early medieval glossing tradition on Bede

The Karlsruhe Bede manuscript holds a significant place in the early medieval glossing tradition on Bede’s computistical works, particularly concerning Celtic vernacular glosses and their interactions with Latin glosses. This paper aims to position the manuscript within this tradition and to utilise a distant reading approach as its primary methodological framework. Such an approach enables the systematic analysis of a large body of text, facilitating the identification of broader patterns and trends within the glossing tradition.Since the late 19th century, the paratext of the Karlsruhe Bede, comprising over 250 Old Irish and many more Latin glosses, has been a central focus of research on the early medieval glossing tradition on Bede’s computistical œuvre, along with the glosses in Angers 477 and the Vienna Bede. Through the application of a distant reading approach, the paper reveals overarching patterns and connections within the glossing tradition, thereby shedding light on the broader context in which the Karlsruhe Bede manuscript is situated. This provides the opportunity to analyse its glosses alongside those of other related manuscripts. Ultimately, I seek to contribute to an enhanced understanding of the Karlsruhe Bede and its paratext, its relation to the broader glossing tradition on Bede, and its implications for the study of language contact and knowledge transfer evident in the glosses.