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Kjær, Lars
2019.
The Medieval Gift and the Classical Tradition.
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A Thirteenth-Century Plautus Florilegium from Bury St. Edmunds Abbey
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
Extract
Nearly eighty years ago W. M. Lindsay began his valuable little Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation with the observation that ‘There is no Latin author the study of whose text has at once such interest and such value for students of textual emendation as Plautus. For the text of Plautus is on the one hand not nearly so certain as the text of Virgil …, nor on the other so hopelessly uncertain as the text of Propertius … It is still full of difficulties, in spite of the labours of a large number of scholars for a large number of years, though each month … sees a difficulty removed … We may hope to attain before long to a completely satisfactory text’. These were optimistic words, and Lindsay himself, in his subsequent editions, first of the Captivi and then of the complete plays, did much to advance Plautine textual studies along the hopeful lines he prophesied.
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References
1 Lindsay, W.M., An Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation (London, 1896), p.1.Google Scholar
2 Lindsay, W.M., The Captivi of Plautus (London, 1900)Google Scholar; id., Plauti, T.M.Comoediae (Oxford, 1904-1905)Google Scholar. Cf. also the important edition, with collations of all the useful MSS., by G. Goetz, G. Loewe and F. Schoell (Leipzig, 1871-1902), and Lindsay's study The Palatine Text of Plautus (Oxford, 1896)Google Scholar.
3 A good description of the families of Plautus MSS. is in Lindsay, , Captivi, pp. 1–12Google Scholar. For a recent assessment of the relative worth of the Palatine archetype and Ambrosian palimpsest see Brunhölzl, F., ‘Zu den sogenannten Codices Archetypi’, Eestsclirijt Bemhard Bischoff (Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 18–20Google Scholar.
4 The sigla of the Plautus MSS. mentioned in this article are as follows: A Milan, Bibl. Ambros. G 82 supr., c. 4th cent. P Lost archetype of the Palatine family. B Vat. Pal. hit. 1615, late 10th cent. D Vat. hit. 3870, 11th cent. E Milan, Bibl. Ambros. J 257 inf., late 12th cent. V Leyden, Univ. Libr., Voss. hit. 4". 30, e. 1 100. J London, British Museum, Roy. 15 C. xi, r. 1 100. O Vat. Ottob. Misc. hit. 687, late 1 1th cent., fragm.
5 Described in James, M.R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the MSS in the Library of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1907), i, pp. 263-6Google Scholar.
6 Discussed by Rouse, R.H., ‘The A Text of Seneca's Tragedies in the Thirteenth Century’, Revue d'Histoire des Textes, 1 (1971), 93–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 115-6.
7 Lindsay, , Captivi, pp. 2–3Google Scholar.
8 Mynors, R.A.B., ‘The Latin Classics known to Boston of Bury’, in Fritz Saxl: A Volume of Memorial Essays, ed. Gordon, D.J. (London, 1957), p. 201Google Scholar.
9 Ed. Mai, A., Classicorum Auctorum e Valicanis Codicibus Editorum Tomus VIII (Rome, 1836)Google Scholar; Manitius, M., Geschichte der lateinischen Lileratur des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Munich, 1911-1931), Vol. iii, pp. 187-9Google Scholar.
10 Lindsay, , Captivi, ‘Explanation of Symbols’, ante p. 1Google Scholar.
11 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Poittificum, ed. Hamilton, N. (Rolls Series, London, 1870), p. 22Google Scholar; Pseudol. 1. i. 23Google Scholar.
12 Printed in James, M.R., On the Abbey of St. Edmund at Bury, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Octavo Publ. 28 (1895), pp. 23–32Google Scholar.
13 Item ciii; James, p. 27.
14 On Kirkestede see Rouse, R.H., ‘Bostonus Buriensis and the Author of the Catalogus Scriptorum Ecclesiae’, Speculum 41 (1966), 471-99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The passage is printed in Mynors, op. cit., p. 201.
15 Ibid. Kirkestede's incipits and explicits are always the first word(s) of act I and the last word(s) of the play, except for the incipits of As. (first word of the Argument), Amph. and Aul. (first words of Argument II). The last word of Epid., ‘extollite’, proves, if there were any doubt, that Kirkestede's MS. was of the Palatine recension.
16 Ibid.
17 Térence, , Comédies, I, ed. Marouzeau, J. (Paris, 4th ed., 1967), pp. 68–95, esp. p. 80Google Scholar. Marouzeau, giving the order of the plays as found in the γ recension, wrongly transposes the positions of Ad. and Phorm. Twelfth-century English MSS. of Terence are Bodl. Auct. F. 2. 13 (γ recension, from St. Albans) and B.M. Roy. 15 A. xii (mixtus, from Dover priory). Kirkestede's incipits and explicits are the first word(s) of act 1 and the last word(s) of the play, except for the incipits of Hec. (prologue) and Ht. (periocha C. Sulpici Apollinaris), and the mysterious explicit ‘finito’ to Andr. I think that this may be a misreading for the regular ‘finit’.
18 Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS. 225, p. 3.
19 For an instance of his carelessness, see Thomson, R.M., ‘Liber Marii de Elementis; the Work of a hitherto unknown Salernitan Master?’, Viator 3 (1972), 181-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 A Catalogue of the Harleian MSS in the British Museum, 4 vols. (London, 1808-1812), Vol. i, pp. 502-6Google Scholar: Davis, G.R.C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), p. 14Google Scholar.
21 The main scribe copies the text of the Gesta Sacristarum, a short local chronicle, until not long before 1280, when another hand takes over; on f. 80v the original hand notes ‘mem. quod in crastino sancti Egidii anno Domini mcclxv fuerunt aueria nostra de Chepenhal capta per dominum Ricerium de Breuse …’
22 In my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Sydney, 1973, entitled ‘The Library and Archives of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey’Google Scholar. The argument is based on the fact that Harl. 1005 seems to be the prior's customary, and Russell was prior 1258-80, during which period it was certainly made.
23 This was the opinion of Warner, Sir G.F. and Gilson, J.P., Catalogue of Western MSS in the Old Royal and King's Collections, 4 vols. (London, 1921), Vol. ii, p. 168Google Scholar; it was rejected by Ker, N.R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (London, 2nd ed., 1964), p. 22Google Scholar. In a letter to me Mr. Ker expressed the view that this was a Llanthony book, perhaps the copy used by Osbern. But see the next note.
24 A check through the passages and readings from Osbern in the apparatus of the Goetz-Loewe-Schoell edition suggests that his exemplar was rather better than J, but that he adapted rather freely, as well as making nonsense of some passages. But some uncertainty must remain unless and until a new, more accurate edition of Osbern is made.
25 Lindsay, , Captivi, p. 6Google Scholar.
26 Cur. 373 debeo is adopted by Lindsay, 552 non eis by Goetz-Loewe-Schoell, Epid. 163 addeundum by both editions, Cas. 5 mantes by Goetz-Loewe-Schoell, Capt. 235 pessumi by both editions.
27 Plautus is listed in Ogilvy, J.D.A., Books known to the English, 597-1066 (Medieval Academy of America, rev. ed., 1967), p. 222Google Scholar, but the only MS. cited is J, from the early 12th cent.; cf. Bishop, T.A.M., English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), pp. xvii–xviiiGoogle Scholar.
28 Aul. 753; Capt. 690: Os. has quod for qui, and omits abit; Cur. 100-1: Os. has trochium for Ca crocum, and libellium for ptellium; 236-7: Os. has pulmo for pulmones and distrahitur for distrahuntur.
29 Extracts from Aul. are included in the twelfth-century Florilegium Gallicum (ed. Gagner, A., in Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskapssocietaten i Lund, 18 [1936], p. 212)Google Scholar and associated MSS. (Rouse, ‘The A Text of Seneca's Tragedies’, op. cit. [n. 6 above], pp. 107 and n. 3, 108); a lost MS. containing the text of the same play was at Padua in the twelfth century (Sanford, E.M., ‘Classical Authors in the Libri Manuales’, TAPA 55 [1924], 227Google Scholar no. 257). The other contents of this MS. show no connection with Flor. Gall.; it looks as though Aul. was circulating separately by this time. Since Gagner's edition is not accessible to me I am unable to comment on the textual affinities of the Aul. extracts in Flor. Gall. They ought to be examined.
30 Manitius, op. cit., p. 189. Mostly from Isidore, Macrobius and Priscian.
31 See Thomson, R.M., The Library of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Speculum 47 (1972), 632-3, 639, 641, 645CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
32 For instance, Glauche, G., ‘Einige Bemerkungen zum Florileg von Heiligenkreuz’, Festschrift Bernhard Bischoff, pp. 295–306Google Scholar.
33 Lindsay, , Introduction, p.24Google Scholar.
34 Briefly described by James, M.R., Two Ancient English Scholars (Glasgow, 1931), pp. 18-9, 26-9Google Scholar. An example of William's command of his texts, as shown in the Polyhistor, is the following note, which follows a series of extracts from Pliny, Nat. Hist.: ‘De Plinio plura sed multa sunt et inania: plurima etiam ipse Plinius a Valerio, Valerius pene omnia que dixit sumpsit a Tullio; hie tamen non incommode posita puto, ut scias quid quisque mutuatus est ex altero’ (Cambridge, St. John's College MS. 97, f. 111v).
35 Newton, F.L., ‘Tibullus in two Grammatical Florilegia of the Middle Ages’, TAPA 93 (1962), 253-86Google Scholar.
36 In the following examples I use the translations of P. Nixon in the Loeb edition of Plautus (London, 1916-38), except for some changes made by myself, when I felt that the compiler would have read the extract differently out of context.
37 Nothdurft, K.D., Studien zum Einfluss Senecas auf die Philosophic und Theologie des zwölften Jahrhunderts (Leiden-Köln, 1963)Google Scholar; Reynolds, L.D., The Medieval Tradition of Seneca's Letters (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar; von Moos, P., Hildebert von Lavardin (Stuttgart, 1965), pp. 103-18Google Scholar.
38 Thomson, ‘The Librar’, p. 640; idem, ‘Two Twelfth-Century Poems on the Regnum-Sacerdotium Problem in England’, Revue Benedictine 83 (1973)Google Scholar.
39 Von Moos, op. cit., pp. 95-103.
40 Peultier, P., Concordantiarum Universae Scripturae Sacrae Thesaurus (Paris, rev. ed., 1939)Google Scholar, records 171 instances of the use of ‘salus’, nearly always in the sense of salvation, against only 6 of ‘salvatio’.
41 James, , Two Ancient English Scholars, pp. 26-7Google Scholar.
42 A passage from the Satire is in William's, Gesta Pontificum, ed. cit., p. 24Google Scholar, and one from the ‘Declamations’ (by which he means the Suasoriae of the elder Seneca) in his Gesta Regum, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls Series, London, 2 vols., 1887-9), Vol. i, 59.
43 Ed. Faral, E., Les Arts Poétiques du XIIe et XIIIe Siecle (Paris, 1924), p. 201Google Scholar; I cite from the translation by Nims, M., Poetria Nova of Geoffrey of Vinsauf (Toronto, 1967), p. 20Google Scholar.
44 For the titles of rhetorical figures 1 use the Colores Rhetorici of Arbusow, L., rev. ed. by H. Peter (Göttingen, 1963)Google Scholar.
45 Glauche, op. cit., pp. 298-304.
46 Newton, op. cit.
47 Cf. the prologue, translated in James, , Two Ancient English Scholars, pp. 26-7Google Scholar. Its main purpose is to supply historical and biographical information about ancient rulers and authors.
48 See above, p. 41.
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