Western Medieval Manuscripts : Compilation of moral guidance texts

Western Medieval Manuscripts

This manuscript is a thirteenth-century compilation of moral guidance texts, the principal ones being: the Verbum abbreviatum of Petrus Cantor (d. 1197), with which the manuscript begins and which occupies two thirds of the book as a whole (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(15);return false;'>1r-153r</a>); an abridged version of the apocalyptic world history, De initio et fine saeculi, which was purported to have been written by Methodius, bishop of Patara (d. 311) but was actually composed originally in Syriac in the second half of the 7th century (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(320);return false;'>153v-161r</a>); and, at the end of the manuscript, two texts of doubtful authorship but attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(355);return false;'>171r-218v</a>), plus various excerpts from his letters, sermons and other writings, accompanied by interpolations from other authors such as Anselm of Canterbury and Augustine.The author of the first text, Petrus Cantor, was a prominent theologian at the University of Paris during the second half of the 12th century; the epithet attached to his name, Cantor (meaning 'the Chanter') refers to his responsibilities for managing the choir and the conduct of liturgical servies, as the second highest-ranking member of the cathedral chapter at Notre-Dame. Petrus was the first to compose lectures on every book of the Bible, and his quaestiones were gathered and compiled into a Summa de sacramentis. He is also known to have preached widely, though few of his sermons now survive. It is perhaps as a consequence of this that he is credited with being the first master at the University of Paris to use sermon exempla in the formal setting of his lectures on the Bible: repurposing material more commonly used for preaching to the laity for teaching theology in an academic context.Such an approach, and its appeal to medieval readers and preachers, is illustrated by the Verbum abbreviatum, which went on to enjoy a wide circulation: close to a hundred copies are known to survive. Sometimes referred to as the Libellus de viciis et virtutibus ('The little book of vices and virtues'), Petrus's text relates instances of cautionary or edifying behaviour that are intended to provide a practical guide for the reader's own life. The Bible, in particular the historical books of the Old Testament, provides the source of many such exempla, but Petrus's text is remarkable for its heavy and extensive use of classical works: more than half of the chapters contain classical citations or allusions of some form. The Epistulae morales of Seneca were a prominent source, but also writings by Ovid, Horace, Juvenal, Lucan, Virgil and others. As such, the Verbum abbreviatum reflects broader intellectual trends that were current in later 12th-century Paris - to understand contemporary life through the prism of Christian ethics and consider practical matters in moral terms - developments in which Petrus Cantor played an instrumental role.A complementary source of Biblical exempla was provided by the De initio et fine saeculi of pseudo-Methodius. It was read in England principally as a source for the study of Old Testament history and was frequently cited (often at second-hand, via Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica) in such texts as the Chronica maiora of Matthew Paris, the Flores historiarum and in the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden. It was in the abridged version preserved here that English readers encountered pseudo-Methodius: all surviving copies but one that were made in England preserved this shortened text (see D'Evelyn (1918) and Twomey (2007)). It therefore chimes with Petrus Cantor's introduction to the Verbum abbreviatum, in which he explained the need to abbreviate the Scriptures in order (as Eva Matthews Sanford put it) 'to save the time and trouble of copying, reading, emending and even of carrying the ponderous tomes that contained the complete Bible and its glosses...'. Similar moral guidance is provided by the other thirteenth-century contents of the volume. The latter part of the manuscript comprises a cluster of texts that are assigned in the rubrics to Bernard of Clairvaux (see ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(355);return false;'>171r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(356);return false;'>171v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(416);return false;'> 201v</a>). In the case of the main text in this section, the Meditationes piissimae de cognitione humanae conditionis (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(356);return false;'> 171-201v</a>), this attribution is apocryphal; it is thought instead that the author was an anonymous Franciscan. The text emphasises inward reflection and prayer as the path to self-knowledge and thereby to God and, like the Verbum abbreviatum, it gained wide circulation in the medieval period. The preface that accompanies it in this manuscript was not part of this pseudonymous text, but rather derives from the Meditationes of Anselm of Canterbury.Similarly, after the conclusion of the Meditationes piissimae of pseudo-Bernard, there is a brief extract of the first four chapters from the Liber exhortationis of Patriarch Paulinus of Aquileia (c. 750-802). The Liber exhortationis drew heavily on the De admonitio ad filium spiritualem of pseudo-Basil, a guide perhaps written to advise monks about to enter religious orders. Urging its reader to develop virtues and eschew vice, it formed an obvious accompaniment to the Verbum abbreviatum. The closing part of the volume comprises a series of short extracts principally from the works of Bernard of Clairvaux and Augustine (plus others whose source has not presently been identified).Minor variations in the preparation of the page both within and between these thirteenth-century parts point to the manuscript having been copied in stages (further emendations and additions were made in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries - for further details of which, see below). The first three quires of the book (in its original form, but now Quires 3-5, ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(15);return false;'>1r-24v</a>) were ruled for 21 lines per page and pricking marks are visible along the edge of the fore-edge margin; those that followed (Quires 6-19, ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(63);return false;'>25r-166v</a>) were ruled for 23 lines per page, and no pricking marks are visible (suggesting that either pricking was not used, or that they were placed closer to the edge of the quires and therefore were trimmed away when the manuscript was bound). There is also a change in quire structure: from gatherings of eight leaves in the first group (Quires 3-5) to one gathering of twelve leaves (Quire 6) and thirteen gatherings of ten leaves in the second group (Quires 7-19). In turn, these contrast with the latter part of the manuscript (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(355);return false;'>171r-218v</a>), which is formed entirely of quires of eight leaves, ruled for 22 lines of text, with pricking marks along the edge of the fore-edge margin.The thematic and intellectual coherence of their contents, however, indicates that the production of these portions was closely contemporaneous and that they were intended to be bound together. That this occured at an early stage - probably from the outset and certainly prior to the fourteenth century - is confirmed by the remarkable survival of painted decoration along all three <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(454);return false;'>edges of the leaves</a>. While medieval bindings might be rare, decorated edges are rarer still, since a manuscript's leaves were often trimmed at the point of rebinding. MS Dd.15.15 preserves a notably ornate example along all three exposed edges, comprising circular or heart-shaped designs formed of interwoven vines and containing elaborate foliate decoration, executed primarily in red and blue ink. Another element of a medieval binding is also preserved: woven endbands at the top and bottom of the spine, and formed of three threads, two of which were dyed, one in red and one in blue.The manuscript went through a number of further changes during the course of its medieval existence, alterations that shed light on the likely function that the book fulfilled for its owners. The first of these occurred around the mid-fourteenth century and involved the erasure of a text previously written after the end of the De initio et fine saeculi and the insertion in its place of a copy of the Rule of St Augustine. One can still see traces of this under-text, most obviously where its replacement does not cover the whole line (as on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(338);return false;'>162v</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(340);return false;'>163v</a>) and in the margins where decorated initials had previously marked textual divisions (as on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(336);return false;'>161v</a> and <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(339);return false;'>163r</a>). There also appears to have been musical notation written on staves ruled in the fore-edge margin of f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(339);return false;'>163r</a>. (Multi-spectral imaging of these leaves might help to shed further light on the manuscript's history and use by revealing what this under-text was). Since there was not sufficient space in Quire 19 to accommodate the entirety of the Rule of St Augustine, leaves must have been inserted after this point, though apparently without the manuscript being rebound. This might explain the subsequent loss of these additional leaves. To rectify this deficiency, in the fifteenth century a later owner had a quire of four paper leaves added to the manuscript (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(347);return false;'>Quire 20</a>) and the remainder of the text copied therein. The painting of the edges of the manuscript must pre-date this intervention, since no pigment is to be found along the edges of these paper leaves. A further quire of four paper leaves (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(3);return false;'>Quire 1</a>) was also added to the front of the volume, and a table of contents for the Verbum abbreviatum copied onto it: the entries refer to the capitular rubrics in the text, with references given by folio numbers, which were also inserted into that part of the volume at this stage. The paper used for both is drawn from the same stock, however slight differences in preparation suggest that these two interventions were made separately from one another: Quire 1 is smaller in size, was pricked with the point of a flat blade in both the gutter and fore-edge margins, and its lines ruled in hardpoint; Quire 20 was pricked with the point of a rounded implement in the fore-edge margin only, and the lines ruled in plummet (most visible on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(352);return false;'>169v</a>). It cannot be established conclusively that these additions were copied by the same hand: there are some similarities between the two, though that responsible for the table of contents is somewhat neater and more controlled.Although there is no evidence for the manuscript's medieval provenance until the fifteenth century (and probably the latter half at that), inferences might be drawn about its ownership and use from the combination of texts that it contains and from its material characteristics. This is a small, highly portable volume, measuring merely 120 x 85mm, and must therefore have been intended for personal, perhaps private use. This chimes with the instructional nature of much of its contents: texts which furnished the reader with models from the Bible, literature or history, from which moral lessons might be drawn for his own life. There is evidence, furthermore, to suggest that the volume was originally made for and used by a member of the religious orders. Besides the inclusion of excerpts from the Liber exhortationis, the extracts from the letters and sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux found at the end of the volume all concern aspects of monastic life and discipline. The same set of excerpts, in the same order and organised under the same rubrics, is found in <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://searcharchives.bl.uk/IAMS_VU2:LSCOP_BL:IAMS040-002106352'>London, British Library, Royal MS 8 D iii</a> (ff. 175v-176v), which formerly belonged to the Benedictine abbey at Ramsey, and in which both the Meditationes of pseudo-Bernard and the prologue from the Meditationes of Anselm are also found.The later addition of the Rule of St Augustine points more explicitly to readership within the context of a religious order - though not necessarily that of the Augustinian canons: the Rule was also used also as a guide by members of the mendicant orders, by the Dominican and Austin friars, as well as the Premonstratensian canons. Nevertheless, it raises the possibility - which later additions to the manuscript appear to confirm - that this volume fulfilled a practical as well as a personal purpose. Members of these orders played a role in the provision of pastoral care in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England, in particular by preaching to the laity. The texts in this volume would have furnished such a reader with a conveniently arranged stock of exempla drawn from a variety of sources, which could then be extracted and deployed in public sermons. The insertion of a table of contents and folio numbers in the fifteenth century further facilitated the reference use of this manuscript. That care was taken to repair the deficient text of the Rule of St Augustine points to this being continued to be of relevance to the book's readers and is thus suggestive of its possession and use in the context of a secular or mendicant order into the fifteenth century.The only evidence for the manuscript's medieval provenance is found on the front pastedown, where a fifteenth-century ownership inscription names a 'magistro...Ricardo Wallour...presbitero'. This may be the same Richard Wallour/Waller recorded as chaplain in the chantry of Robert Thorpe of Ashwellthorpe and whose will, dated 1506, is preserved at Norfolk Record Office (NCC will register Ryze 305), though this cannot presently be confirmed. Wallour's description of himself as 'presbitero', however, not only raises the interesting possibility of this manuscript's ownership passing from a member of a religious order to a secular priest, but would also appear to exclude him from consideration as the person responsible for the restoration of the text of the Rule of St Augustine in the manuscript.Dr James Freeman Medieval Manuscripts Specialist Cambridge University LibraryBibliography of works not cited below:<ul><li>Charlotte D'Evelyn, 'The Middle English metrical version of the Revelations of Methodius...', PMLA (1918), 135-203 [https://doi.org/10.2307/457111]</li><li>Eva Matthews Sanford, 'The Verbum abbreviatum of Petrus Cantor', Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 74 (1943), 33-48 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/283587]</li><li>Michael W. Twomey, 'The Revelationes of Pseudo-Methodius and scriptural study in the eleventh century', in Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in honour of Thomas D. Hill, ed. by Charles D. Wright, Frederick Biggs and Thomas N. Hall (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 370-386 [https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442684812]</li></ul>