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Western Medieval Manuscripts : Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae; Geoffrey Chaucer, Boece

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>By around 1424, seventy-four books were recorded as belonging to the University Library. Of these, four are known to survive. The manuscript shown here is one of them - and it has been part of the collection ever since that time. The list of books in which it can be identified is preserved in the Cambridge University Archives as <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-UA-COLLECT-ADMIN-00004/47'>UA, Collect. Admin. 4</a> (the list is on ff. 19r-37r). The manuscript is the first of two copies of Boethius's <i>De consolatione philosophiae</i> recorded as being in the Library, and it is noted as containing the text in Latin and in English, with a commentary by Guillelmus de Aragonia and an index ('in latino et Anglico cum exposicione Willelmi medici et cum tabula'). Definitive proof of the match is provided by the <i>dicta probatoria</i>: that is, the words that the register noted as being at the beginning of the second leaf of the text ('querimoniam') and at the beginning of the penultimate leaf of text ('modis omnibus'), both of which correspond to what is found in this manuscript. The list of books was entitled 'A register of books brought to the common library of the University of Cambridge by various benefactors': pains were therefore taken by its compilers to record the identity of these donors, presumably in order that their good works could be commemorated in future and emulated by others. Thanks to this, we know that this manuscript was given to the Library by John Croucher/Crowcher (d. 1453), fellow of Gonville Hall, and later dean of Chichester Cathedral 1426-47. Space was left in the register to accommodate the addition of further entries, with 39 more books being noted by six continuators over the following sixteen or so years. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>At its core, the manuscript contains a copy of <i>De consolatione philosophiae</i>, which was written between 523 and 526 by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (d. 526). At that time, Boethius was imprisoned awaiting trial and ultimately execution for treason, following a spectacular fall from the professional prominence and aristocratic privilege that he had enjoyed under the patronage of the Ostrogothic king, Theodoric the Great. It takes the form of a dialogue between Boethius and Lady Philosophy, the chapters switching between 'prosa'/prose and 'metrica'/verse, as its author confronts his change in fortune, debates the relative merits of poetry and philosophy in reconciling oneself to an unjust world, and questions the source of true happiness. The Latin text is accompanied by a Middle English translation, which was composed by Geoffrey Chaucer at an unknown date, but perhaps during the 1370s or early 1380s. This copy of the translation is one of nine surviving manuscripts (plus one fragment), and it is unique in presenting the translation in parallel with the original. Chaucer's authorship is not explicitly acknowledged in this manuscript, though it is elsewhere, and there is little doubt that the attribution is genuine. His translation was based on a 'vulgate' version of Boethius's text - a textual tradition that emerged in the later middle ages and which was separate to the original version - but was mediated through Jean de Meun's French translation, and drew on a wider scholarly tradition, in particular a commentary by Nicholas Trevet and glosses associated with Remigius of Auxerre.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>In this manuscript, the text of <i>De consolatione philosophiae</i> alternates with its translation, and the two are further distinguished by the mise-en-page: the Latin is written in a large textura script on alternate lines that allowed for interlinear glosses, while the Middle English is written in a semi-formal cursive script, Anglicana formata, and single spaced; the beginning of a new chapter or its translation are signalled by a decorative initial, and running headers in the upper margin provide the number of the book and chapter found on that opening. The text and translation are preceded by an alphabetical subject index, and followed by a detailed Latin commentary by Guillelmus of Aragonia, in which different scripts were used (albeit with less consistency) in order to distinguish between quotations from Boethius and Guillelmus's explanations. The manuscript is thus set up purposely for study, providing numerous different entry points for its readers, the means for ready-reference and selective reading, as well as support in understanding the meaning of Boethius's text - and, as such, was an eminently suitable donation to the Library.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Besides shedding light on the manuscript's provenance, the 'registrum librorum' is also helpful for our understanding of the form in which the manuscript arrived at the Library. Evidently, it contained not only the core text and translation of Boethius, but also the alphabetical index and the commentary of Guillelmus de Aragonia: so, these were not later additions, and must have been made at some point before the register was compiled around 1424. Although the production of each of these appears to have taken place around the same time during the early 15th century, and although the contents have a clear intellectual coherence, the codicological evidence points to them each having been made separately from one another. The parchment used for the index is dark and somewhat coarser than what follows. The area covered by writing differs across the manuscript (even allowing for the different number of columns in each Part). The scribal hand found in the index is different to those in the Parts containing Boethius's text or Guillelmus's commentary; furthermore, this latter part was copied by at least two scribes, with marked variations in script choice and execution between ff. 3:2r and 3:90v, as well as an obvious change at that juncture. Leaf signatures in the quires for Boethius's text are not visible and may have been trimmed away, but it is notable that there are some in the quires for Guillelmus's commentary and that they begin afresh there. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Manuscripts are dynamic objects, subject to additions, losses or other changes during the course of their lives, and it may not be possible in this instance (as in many others) to determine the precise order or intention behind their production. It may be that these three Parts were made separately and only brought together later; that one was made and then others commissioned with the wish that they be bound with the first; or that all three were made in order to go together, but simply by different craftsmen and to slightly different designs. Unfortunately, this sense of fluidity or contingency is muddled by decisions made regarding foliation practices at Cambridge University Library. Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886), University Librarian 1867-86, was a pioneering scholar of medieval manuscripts and was instrumental in developing a means of expressing the structure of a manuscript's leaves in an alphanumerical form, known nowadays as the 'collation formula' (see Collation, below). Bradshaw went further with the University Library's own manuscripts, however, basing his numbering of their leaves - their foliation - on his interpretation of their collation: he assigned numbers to leaves that he judged to be missing (here, the first leaf of Part 3), and also restarted numbering sequences where he judged that a part of manuscript had been produced separately. In this manuscript, however, he used one sequence of numbers for both the index and the text/translation, despite them being of different production, and restarted the numbering at the beginning of the commentary. In order to balance the need to preserve the existing foliation with the need to differentiate two identical sequences in a digital environment, and in order to differentiate between sections apparently produced discretely from one another, the description provided here separates the index, the text and the commentary into three Parts, retains Bradshaw's foliation throughout, but adds a prefatory number to indicate which Part a particular folio is in: so, 1:1r is the first leaf of the index; 2:9r is the first leaf of the text; and 3:2r is the first leaf of the commentary.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr James Freeman<br /> Medieval Manuscripts Specialist<br /> Cambridge University Library</p>


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