’ ~~ - wt >. -_- e a as nl os
ont ttn dhe
actaatten
a seemmatneeartraith
2g ee7 IPSS mR Re Teo
eet)
a _ x Fi 4 4 J =
1 .
oe
aed Si ol hk dial
los
rere
= R = a Cc =
JOWLVI-S1A838- 8 SHLO-INV- TWAIN - MO 1VSIN IW
NN
eee
———= TRACI ORR nee eco a Tho ieee PM LT TL ARE OEM e PTR SS DP RTO N TTT PRE Peay WR S CoS NE ORE Wag itis is Le Tepe 1) Ce esa ; a “ine. ; ; : : Vs hana a bie aAe bags ie Pee Re Se biRy pute is iW . : | hen tae: } aa hae ya owt ee Ae Ga We binge ‘ yy } er 4 6,3 j ) . x y sl mye: ] : erat , iN ito he as . J 7 Lbs al Sy :* , : s 4 . , , be Ripe eat ; ‘ : 3 ¥ y
4 ha ii fh ah if
y ; ae ; eT ; » » a : a in ota t *2 L : Bias 4 oi 4 7 Ee ’ : 4 "9 7 Ve pyc woeieae he aR te! is Hil } AP Ey . : oe Lbs RUAN Od +) Piatt chi) Deva tias a md ao eye mh Na ~ ihe % & vhs bP Mt as Fl aig bet 4 F oh POR MLS hay PB Otee BASF O10) eae Mie aay nt By vt ’ i vs yes eae CD eR NOny: 9 Me RATASPUTES Abin UNA ob etd in Meret Ht ty) fy , ' : ‘ Lae Mi bor ay 4 ene ely : fay * i we ¢} A a 5 . ‘ , ; > r¥ , eee eae Te A a A “i | a Fair aT | TAT hae a tf , ; > h 0 5a Te ; fe 1 :
’ 1 “e 5 i ° 4 ‘ BES 3 PASM hogs it ore ied oy ss neat be ; 4 , ‘ i Pie) de , ; ; f, : 4 i" ry is . f 4 \ ; APL |
_ ANGLO-NORMAN |
PIDARIE
BY
=
PAUL STUDER, M. A., D. Lit.
Taylorian Professor of Romance Languages in the University’ of Oxford
AND | ie
Sometime Librarian of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford.
PARIS
LIBRAIRIE ANCIENNE EDOUARD CHAMPION
Librairie de la Société de l’Histoire de France et de la Soctété des Anciens Textes Francais
5, QUAI MALAQUAIS -
pee oe
"1924 ant.
wt Dk ig LF. A
ai By mi, +) pss ~~ ; } iB Rar uk $ a ait ett q ht vs 7 fi A
ee > . 3 . -— i : ‘ , a
. * -
ae a 7
- ;
be Vi)
Ps - *
as .
x J
: - » a
;
. ‘ o Tesh ‘
ANGLO-NORMAN LAPIDARIES
(271UOO Yoo &
‘en?
ANGLO-NORMAN LAPIDARTFES
BY
PAUL STUDER, M. A., D. Lit.
Taylorian Professor of Romance Languages in the University of Oxford
AND
JOAN EVANS, B. Litt.
Sometime Librarian of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford.
PARIS
LIBRAIRIE ANCIENNE EDOUARD CHAMPION EDOUARD CHAMPION
Librairie de la Société de Histoire de France et de la Société des Anciens Textes Francats
5, QUAI MALAQUAIS
1924
oe
vans
<
eer et em
ss a
MADE IN FRANCE
Pie ae
The editors destre to express their gratitude to the Trustees of the Gerrans Memorial Fund of the Uni- versity of Oxford, who have made it possible to publish this book by their grant of the first year’s income of the Fund for that purpose.
The editors also wish to thank the authorities of the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Bibliothéque Sainte-Geneviéve, the Biblio- théque de l’Arsenal, the Library of the Vatican, the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence, the Masters and Fel- lows of Pembroke, Jesus, and Gonville and Caius Colleges, Cambridge, for facilities to study and _ per- mission to publish manuscripts in their charge, and to thank the Marquis of Bath for placing one of the Lon- gleat MSS. at their disposal. They gratefully acknow- ledge the help given them on points of detail by Pro- fessors A. [Thomas and J. Vising, Dr. Charles Singer, Mr. G. McN. Rushforth, Dr. von Wartburg, Mr. E. G. R. Waters and Mr. C. T. Onions, and the constant encouragement they have received from Professor J. Wright.
ices Boos
LE:
III.
IV.
VL:
VII.
ANGLO-NORMAN LAPIDARIES
CONTENTS
ALE OL eo COMES chs car tiet Sea hclbe SOM be aE Se nee The First French Version : Introduction and Text..
The Anglo-Norman Verse Adaptation and Fragments of other Verse Translations of Marbode’s Poem: Introductiom andi lexto a. ce eee, ae
The Anglo-Norman Prose Lapidaries: The First Prose Lapidary : Introduction and Text. The Second Prose Lapidurye> fr... eee The. Lhird “Prose. bapidarvwc i. 12.0. Scene ee. Fragment of a Prose Lapidary....... he ee The Cambridge Version : Introduction and Text.... ThevAlphabetical Lapicainyes ss. = tyne ay ace ea he -Apocalyatic: Iapicenyc:p. = trss.4 cect iene eee
Lapidariés’ of: Eueraved: Gamsncuc acts began oe ee
Vil IX
IZ 13 19
INTRODUCTION
The strange or rare stone has the same interest for a primi- tive being as it has for a child, and consequently human curio- sity concerning the properties of the stones we still call precious was aroused long before the dawn of history. Oddly shaped pebbles, fossils and bones were worn as amulets in the Palaeo- lithic Age, and a very early document — a cuneiform inscrip- tion 1 — gives a list of stones facilitating conception and birth and inducing.love and hatred.
With written documents a stage is reached in the history of knowledge at which it is possible to explore the course of its continuous stream. By this time the mass of empirical inform- ation that formed the heritage of mankind had been system- atized : certain thinkers had arisen to become architects of the spirit, constructing an edifice of theory which was to bind together this information into a temple of knowledge.
The Babylonians, on the one hand, created an astrological cosmos, and the Greeks, on the other, a theory of the universe that rested ‘four square against the winds of destiny’ on the hypothesis of the four Principles. In both countries the system so created was a fresh and living force ; the Babylonians by their scientific examination of the-héeavens and the Greeks by their scientific examination of the earth and everything upon it added an enormous mass of knowledge to that they had inhe- rited, and themselves examined the whole afresh in the search after the principles that lay behind.
The Greeks early turned to explore the province of mimera- logy in the light of philosophic speculation and scientific exam- ination. The earliest surviving treatise on the subject is that attributed to Theophrastus, which probably dates from 315 B.C. This considers stones in the light of the Platonic theory of the
1. Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscriptions of Central Asia, II, no. 2, 10-15.
xX . INTRODUCTION
four elements, and attributes their generation to the action of heat and cold upon the watery and the earthy elements. They are further considered physically and dynamically, according to their nature and power. Theophrastus gives hardly any in- stances of magical properties ; the virtues he ascribes to stones are for the most part medicinal. The same view is expressed in the fifth book of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, which proceeds to a medicinal classification of gems according to the manner in which they are to be administered to the patient : the more friable are to be powdered and given in emulsions or potions, but the harder are to be worn as phylacteries. From such scientific lapidaries as these descended a mineralogical tradition that was to last for two thousand years and to extend from China? to Ireland. .
Rome inherited the theory of both Greece and Babylon: yet the conviction of order in the universe had passed from intuitive belief into tradition, and had lost some of its philo- sophic vitality in the transition. The list of sources drawn on by the elder Pliny for the mineralogical section of his Historia Naturalis includes the Greek authors Theophrastus, Sudines, Zenothemis, Nicander, Democritus of Abdera, Callistratus, Metrodorus of Scepsis and the author of the Orphic Lithica, as well as the Persian Sotacus (whom he describes as one of the most ancient writers on the subject), Zoroastres the Magian, Zachalias the Babylonian, Archelaus of Cappadocia, Jacchus, Bocchus, Juba II of Numidia and Aesurdbas of Carthage. His lapidary is frankly written at second-hand, and adds nothing to the theoretical side of mineralogy, but it is at the same time purely scientific in its point of view, and only quotes accounts of the magical virtues of gems in instance of the folly of magi- cians. |
Muchof the scientific mineralogy of the Middle Ages is derived from his treatise, for it formed the principal source drawn on by St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, in the compilation of the book. on precious stones he included in his Etymologiae*. This
1. For Greek influence traceable in Chinese lapidaries, see de Mély, Les Lapidaires Chinois. 2. Book XVI, 4.
%
INTRODUCTION XI
encyclopedia of the seventh century, written by a Christian Bishop for the edification of the Church, thus handed on the tradition of Theophrastus and Pliny, disintegrated from its theoretical systematization but otherwise little changed, to become a part of the intellectual heritage of the new nations of the Christian West.
There is, however, another early source of mineralogical tradition that is remote in spirit from the rational enquiry of Greek science. Just as Greek and Oriental religions were taint- ed with eclecticism and spiritual death in the Hellenistic Age, so Greek and Oriental Science received in Alexandria the stamp of their degradation. Disjointed fragments of the astrological lore of Babylon and Egypt were combined with disjointed frag- ments of the scientific learning of Greece in treatises that were frankly magical. ‘This change of spirit can be very clearly seen in the Alexandrian lapidaries 1. They are not arranged accord- ing to any philosophical scheme of the elements of the Universe. Some derive their plan and much of their content from astro- logical sources. That ascribed to Socrates and Dionysius, for instance, includes a number of astrological and religious sigils to be engraved on certain specified stones in order to bring them into relation with the power of a planet or divinity. The lapi- dary, however, cannot claim to be purely astrological, since many of the diverse streams of Mediterranean religion that met and mingled at Alexandria have influenced its compilation.
Other Alexandrian lapidaries rest on a purely magical basis. The A yranides, for instance, are founded upon litteromancy, and include twenty-four chapters, each corresponding with a letter of the alphabet, and each containing descriptions of a herb, a bird, a stone and a fish, of which the names begin with that letter, to symbolize earth, air, fire and water.
A third class of Alexandrian lapidaries includes those which. are nearer in content to the medical lapidaries of Greece, but are yet magical rather than scientific in spirit. Such are the Lithica, probably the work of the Asiatic Greek author of the Argonau- tica, and the lapidary falsely ascribed to Hippocrates.
I. See de Mély, Lapidaires Grecs, vol. III, p. xlvii.
XH INTRODUCTION
A third example of this type, the lapidary of Damigeron, was destined to influence the mineralogical writings. of many centuries. Some fragments only of the original Greek text are preserved in the second book of the Medical Collections of Aetius!. The whole work, however, was translated into Latin 2, and in that form the greater part of it survives. The translation is preserved in two versions. One is represented by a single manu- script of the fourteenth century in the Bibliothéque Nationale ® which has been published by E. Abel *. The second exists in two manuscripts, one im the Bodleian ®, which appears to have been written in France, possibly at Tours, between 1100 and 120, and the other in the Bibliotheque Nationale ® written in the late twelfth century and formerly in the library of St. Augus- tine’s, Canterbury. These two versions differ in the order of their chapters, in the stones they include and in many small textual variations. The version given in the later manuscript — the only one known to Abel —- is textually corrupt, and includes an account of the influence of seven signs of the Zodiac upon stones that is omitted in the earlier manuscripts. In all three copies the text of Damigeron appears to be expanded in some passages by additions from Pliny.
It would be an uncertain and difficult task to attempt to reconstruct the text of Damigeron from these data. For the purpose of studying lapidaries of the early Middle Ages the important version is that given in Hatton 76 fols. 131-139 and B. N. nouv. acq. lat. 873, fols. 176-189, since this alone appears
q ee / 9 as to have influenced the mediaeval tradition 7. The version,
I. See Hermes, IX, 1875, pp. 471-91 ; de Mély, op. cit., I], p. xm.
2. Kose ascribes this translation to the first century A. D.and Beck to the fifth or sixth. The autobiography of Petrus Diaconus, who was born c. 1115, ascribes to him a translation of Evax into Latin from a Greek MS. at Constantinople. (/Jlcrilegium Casixrensein Bibliotheca Casi- mensis, t. V, pt. I, p. 52). Since Marbode died in 1ror he cannot have used this version.
3. MS. lat. 7418, fols. 116-123 v.
4. Orphet Lithica, accedit Damigeron de lapidibus, Berlin, 1881. See also Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, III, p. 324 et seqq.
5. Hatton 76 fols. 131-139. See Evans, Magical Jewels, p. 21, and Appendix A.
. 6, Nouv. acq. lat. 873, fols. 176-189. See P. Meyer, in Romania, XXXVIIT, 1909, p. 487, Evans, Joc. cit., and description under MS. G.
7. The Latin text was itself translated into Spanish. See B. J. Gallardo, Ensayo de una Biblioteca Espanola, Madrid, 1863, I, p. 891.
. S avie bP Mow Se ee!
INTRODUCTION XTIT
therefore, arrived at by collating the two texts 4, is for the sake
of convenience designated ‘Damigeron’ in the present work.
The determination of its sources is very difficult, for the majority of the Greek and Alexandrian lapidaries of the same type are lost, and the rest survive only in a fragmentary condi- tion. One of its sigils (that prescribed for a beryl) certainly comes from the Kyvanides ; the text itself mentions Sidosthenes as: an authority, as well as Damigeron himself.
No Western mineralogical lapidaries are known to have been written after the early seventh century, when Isidore of Seville compiled his Etymologtae, until Marbode, Bishop of Rennes between 1067 and rroz, wrote his Latin poem de lapidibus. This is preserved in a great number of manuscripts ; there are nearly forty in English public collections alone ?, and more than a hundred are known in continental hbraries *. It is, perhaps, the number of these manuscripts that has deterred Latin schol- ars from producing a critical edition of Marbode’s text. It has been published many times, but usually from the Rennes edition of 1524, Gorlaeus’ edition of 1695 and, at the most, two manu- scripts, not always of the best date 4. The order of the stones described varies little ; all the best manuscripts describe sixty, and have in addition a prologue, and an epilogue ‘de anulo et gemma’. The edition of Gorlaeus gives fifteen additional chap- ters ° (all based on the lapidary of Damigeron) on the authority
I. See Evans, op. cit. Appendix A. 2.-See.2bid., pp. 33-34. 3. See Pannier, Les lapidaives francais, p. 16, and Mann, in Romanische Forschungen, Il, 1886, p. 373. 4. The following are the important editions of Marbode’s work : I511. Vienna (Joan. Cuspinianus). 1524. Rennes (Jean Macé ; ed. Yves Mayeuc, Bishop of Rennes). 1531. Freiburg (P. Willig). Paris (Chr. Wechel). 1539. Cologne (Alard). 1553. Bale (H. Petri). 1695. Leyden, ed. A. Gorlaeus and J. Gronovius. . 1708. Paris, ed. A. Beaugendre. . 1799. Gottingen, ed. J. Beckmann. . 1854. Paris, ed. J. J. Bourassé (vol. 171 of Migne, Patrologia La- tina). This edition is reprinted in 10. 1873. Rennes, trans. S. Ropartz. 5. Reprinted in Migne, Pat. Lat., 171, col. 1688-90.
O om Dua WN
‘ ) :
i
« °
oe
7 SS a TET OS - : - _
PS 1 bea
er ee ae Oe
XIV INTRODUCTION
of a manuscript that cannot now be identified. Only one of these chapters is represented in any of the translations of Marbode + and even that version may with equal or greater probability be derived directly from Damigeron, so that there is little reason for believing these additional chapters to be authentic.
The sources of, Marbode’s work fall into two categories, those primarily scientific and those primarily magical. On the one hand he drew extensively both directly on Pliny and also on the version of his work given by Isidore, and on the other he derived his prologue and a great part of the magica] properties that he ascribes to the stones from Damigeron. It is evident that for some stones — onyx, jacinth and cornelian — he. used a lapidary ascribed to Aristotle, now lost, of which our know- ledge is derived from a Latin translation of an Arabic version, preserved in a fifteenth-century manuscript at Montpellier ?. He also used another source or sources, which we have been unable to identify, for the magical and medicinal virtues ascrib- ed to certain stones °.
Most of the editors of the poem have expressed surprise at its pagan character. It is true that neither the Bible nor the Fathers —- with the exception of Isidore — are ever quoted, and that there is nothing to indicate that the book was written by: a bishop of the Christian Church. An examination of those of its sources that survive shews that Marbode followed his authorities with meticulous care, and that he added nothing but verbal decoration to their content. The scholars of the ele- venth century felt too profound a respect for the incomprehen- sible learning of the ancients to venture to criticize their inform- ation or to revise their conclusions ; it is not until a hundred years later that the authors of the Swmnmae began to attempt to weld ancient learning into one homogeneous fabric with scholastic philosophy and the doctrines of the Church.
1, The Cambridge Version, LX, see p. 19.
2. See Zeitschrift fiir deutsches Alierthum, XVIII, 1875, p. 384 et seqq.
3. The source of the following is unknown : the virtues of agate, the use of jasper in childbirth and as an amulet against apparitions, the account of chalcedony, the virtues of the emerald against fever and epilepsy, the virtues of sard and topaz, the quotation of Zoroastres and Metrodorus on coral, the accounts of alabandica and cornelian, and the virtues of lyncurium and selenitis.
a tl
= —-*
INTRODUCTION XV
None the less a detailed examination shews that Marbode did |
exercise a certain freedom of selection over the material that lay to his hand : he might include without comment magical vir- tues which Pliny only quotes in derision, but in almost every one of the fairly numerous instances in which Damigeron ascribes to a stone the property of ensuring a favourable response by the gods to the prayers and sacrifices of its wearer, Marbode either omits the passage or renders it simply ‘facit gestantem Deo placentem’.
Further, we must remember in determining the character of his book that though the scholars of the eleventh century had inherited a considerable tradition of ancient science, such knowledge was not at that moment a living and growing force. Men were setting out on the search for philosophical truth, but they were overwhelmed by the mass of data they had inherited, and were as yet unable to seek for themselves after cause and effect by observation and experiment. The true severance be- tween magic and science can only be made when magic becomes wilfully irrational, and the eleventh century was an Age of Faith and not of reason in the whole sphere of exact knowledge. Marbode was a scholar and a divine, but not a philosopher, and to expect him to draw distinctions between the physical and the magical properties of the stones described by Pliny and Dami- geron is to ignore the limitations of his age.
His contemporaries and successors, at all events, felt no scruples as to the orthodoxy cof his work. It was translated not only into French, but also into Provencal t, Italian ?, Irish 3, Danish *, Hebrew ® and Spanish ®. It was naturally in French-
I. See Jahrbuch fir rom. Literatur, series I, 1V, 1862, p. 78.
2. See Bandini, Cat. Ms. Cod. Bibl. Med. Laur., V, col. 283 ; Compagni, L’Intelligenza, in Ozanam, Documents inédits pour servir a Vhistoire de l’Itahe ; Propugnatore, new series, III, 1890, p. 188 ; Zambrini, Opere Volgari a stampa dei seco XIII e XIV, pp. 630, 895 and fort.
3. See MS. London, Brit. Mus., Arundel 333, fol. 124b.
4. See Henrik Harpestraeng, Gamle Danske Urtebgger, Stenbéger og Kg gebdger, Copenhagen, ed. Kristensen, 1909-1921, pp. 215-240. The text has some additions and modifications from Damigeron and Arnoldus Saxo.
5. See Berne MS. 200 ; Steinschneider, ‘Lapidarien ’ in Semitic Studies in memory of the Rev. A. Kohut, p. 69; and Leyden MS., The Book of Riches, trans. Jacob ben Reuben; Steinschneider, History of Jewish Literature, pp. 201 and 369.
6. B. M. MS. Add. 21245, fol. 85, fifteenth century.
XVI INTRODUCTION
speaking countries that the work of the French Bishop of Rennes had the most marked success. No less than six Old French verse translations made directly from his text are known : that called the First French Version +, the Cambridge Version ?, the ‘Lapidaire de Modeéne ®’, the ‘Lapidaire de Berne *’, and fragments of two Anglo-Norman verse trans- lations ®. In addition there are at least five prose versions (preserved in twelve manuscripts) ®° and one verse adapta- tion ? of the First French Version in existence, and-very few mediaeval lapidaries will be found free from the direct or indirect influence of his work.
Marbode’s poem, however, was not the only source of quasi- scientific lapidaries in the vernacular. The authorities used in its compilation were common property in the early Middle Ages, and at least one treatise of this date — the Alphabetical Lapi-
‘dary § — is based on Damigeron and Isidore and an unknown
source quite independently of Marbode’s work. There seems good reason for attributing this treatise to Philippe de Thaon : in it he, like Marbode, handed on the scientific and magical tra- ditions of pagan antiquity. But for some centuries before his day the Church had been concerned with the interpretation of the precious stones of Aaron’s breast-plate and of the Apocalypse and had superimposed on their original Jewish symbolism a structure of purely Christian allegory. The first indications of the tendency are to be found in Augustine, but the subject is only fully developed in the later commentaries of Bede, Amatus of Monte Cassino, Hildebert, Hrabanus Maurus, Walafrid Strabo, and Richard and Hugh of St. Victor. AJl these lapidaries are
. MSS. ABCD of this book : see p. I, and p. 19.
. MS..O ; seep. 7,-and p. 154.
. See Pannier, Les Lapidaires francais, p. 81, and, Zeitschrift fir vom. Philologie, XXXII, 1908, p. 686.
A. See Pannier, op. cit., p. 108, and Zeztschr. f. vom. Phil., XXXVII, 1913; P- 95- |
5. MS. EF, Il and III, seep. 4, and p. 80.
6. Three of these are Anglo-Norman (10 MSS.) (see p. 94) ; the other two continental : MS. Paris, Bibl. Nat. fr. 24229 (Pannier, op. cit., p. 25) and MS: Berne 113 (Pannier, op. cit., p. 78).
7. MSS. EF, see p..4, and p. 70. 8. MSS. LMN, see p. 6, and p. 200.
N He
QW
08 eaeees 5 mya Loree
etl * im “
INTRODUCTION XVII
concerned only with Christian symbolism, but a fusion between this type and the mineralogical lapidary was effected as early as the twelfth century. This complex type, describing alike the symbolism and the medicinal and magical virtuesof the Biblic- al stones, supplanted the earlier theological interpretation in the mediaeval vernacular versions. It seems possible, indeed, that a very early example of this type, that with much probability can be ascribed to Philippe de Thaon *, may be a compilation made directly into the vernacular from separate Latin sources representing the two types, and not the translation of a single Latin text. A later version of the hybrid type is represented by one of the sources of the Second Anglo-Norman prose lapidary (completed from, a prose version of Marbode), and of the Lafi- daire Chrétien in verse published by Pannier ?.
Yet a third kind of lapidary was current in the early Middle Ages besides treatises of the mineralogical and symbolic types : the lapidary of engraved stones. The astrological lore of Alexan- dria had been reflected in lapidaries that sought by means of planetary and stellar sigils to establish or to strengthen a rela- tion between the wearer and the celestial powers. Alexandrian astrology, like Alexandrian science, passed with the decline of Hellenism into the keeping of the Arabs, but since it was less directly comprehensible and in some respects less congenial to the Latin genius it was slower in its progress through the West- ern lands. The belief in the virtue of engraved gems, ridiculed by Pliny, is found neither in Carolingian France nor in Anglo- Saxon England. Its first Western manifestations appear in the middle of the twelfth century, and are therefore independent of the Marbodean tradition. The earliest references are little more than an echo of Damigeron, and are indirectly derived from the Kyranides *. A second type, however, soon appears, in the form of a Latin list of planetary and stellar sigils, sometimes to be engraved on any stone and sometimes on a particular gem, in order that the wearer may profit by their specific and mani- fold virtues. The type of this lapidary never becomes completely
I. MSS. MN ; see p. 6, and p. 260. Zea pyCh yup. 250. 3. See Evans, op. cit., p. 96.
XVIII INTRODUCTION
fixed : its many versions offer different permutations of a certain limited stock of these sigils, which in the later Middle Ages was increased by the addition of a few sigils of a less definitely astro- logical kind. The treatises are sometimes anonymous, and some- times attributed to an author with an Eastern name — such as Thetel or Cethel and its variants!, Chael, Ragael, Hermes and Salomon — and serve as appendices to lapidaries of the minera- logical type in the works of men of learning such as Arnoldus Saxo, Albertus Magnus and Vincent de Beauvais.
It is extremely difficult to determine their source. They offer certain analogies, though not many, with the far more complex lists of sigils given in the Alfonsine Lapidaries 2, but shew no trace of any direct derivation from them or from their sources. Only afew of the sigils they enumerate can credibly be connected with common glyptic types of classical antiquity. They shew traces of Greek and Egyptian influence in the stellar divinities they describe, and may possibly look back to some Alexandrian tradition received through an Arabic intermediary. The reason why they sometimes give directions for the engraving of the sigil, and sometimes specify that the engraved gem is to be found and not made, is one of the smallest of the problems which they offer for solution. The manuscripts which represent them in their Latin form are numerous *, and though they were less often translated than the mineralogical lapidaries, two thirteenth- century Anglo-Norman versions have been preserved ?.
Thus all three types of mediaeval lapidary — the mineralo- gical, the symbolic and the astrological — are represented in Anglo-Norman versions. Nowhere, indeed, did the lore of jewels enjoy greater popularity than in Anglo-Norman England. Thirteen different lapidaries, complete or fragmentary, have come down to us. Of them three at least go back to the first half
of the twelfth century and take rank among the oldest examples
of French prose and verse. The existence of this abundant material has long been recognized ; several manuscripts have been carefully described and a few have been published. Excel-
Steinschneider sees in these names a corruption of ‘ Besaleel’. See Evans, op. cit., chapter III.
See zbid., chapter v.
Four MSS. P. O, R, and CC, see p. 7, and 277.
hh © NHN
<>, a
!
ee Aes
INTRODUCTION XIX
lent pioneer work has been done by Leopold Pannier and Paul Meyer ; the latter in particular has contributed valuable stu- dies of which we have fully availed ourselves. He had intend- ed, it would seem, to deal with the problem as a whole, but failing health prevented him from carrying out his project. We have ventured to take up the torch that fell from his hands, and trust that his shade will approve our action.
In order to establish satisfactory texts, we have not only collated all available manuscripts, but have endeavoured also to discover the Latin sources (in some cases still unpublished) utilized by the various writers, and to elucidate the inter- dependence of the extant versions. This has enabled us to throw light upon an obscure corner of Anglo-Norman literature and to introduce some order into a field which seemed hopelessly confused. Incidentally we have discovered fresh proof of the painstaking diligerice of Philippe de Thaon, the oldest Anglo- Norman author whose name has been preserved to us. It must, however, be admitted that the two lapidaries which can be ascribed to him add to the volume of his work, but scarcely enhance his reputation as a poet. Another result of interest even to the general reader has been the discovery of strong evid- ence that the version called by Pannier Le Premier lapidatre francais, to which we refer as The First French Version of Mar- bode’s Lapidary, was written before 1150. Our investigation, if it achieves nothing else, will at all events have ended a con- troversy which has for nearly half a century exercised the wits of Romance philologists.
The new evidence not only serves to fix the date of the First French Version, but also greatly increases the probability of its Anglo-Norman origin. Indeed, as far as mediaeval French is concerned it would seem that this kind of literature was confined almost exclusively to Anglo-Norman. Perhaps on the continent the subject aroused less interest or was studied more exclusi- vely in Latin, or possibly the Church exercised a stricter cen- sorship. The fact remains that of the earlier period there sur- vive scarcely any genuine continental lapidaries in the vernacular except the two translations of Marbode known as the Lapidaire de Modéne and the Lapidaire de Berne, neither of which appears
ee i? ¢ : A - ‘
a ee wee ? e ® ™
XX INTRODUCTION
to have been widely read, as each has been preserved in only a single manuscript. The active production of such literature in England is therefore all the more remarkable. Its compositions soon spread beyond the island. Besides the First French Version no less than three Anglo-Norman lapidaries penetrated into France (the Second and Third Prose Lapidaries and the Second, Lapidary of Engraved Gems) and one of them (the second Prose Lapidary) had an extraordinary vogue. Not only was it freely transcribed (transcriptions in four continental dialects have come down to us) but it became the source and starting point of the only continental French lapidary which achieved a measure of popularity, the Lapidaive Chrétien (pre- served in seven MSS). The field we have surveyed is therefore not as narrow as might at first sight appear, for, with the exclu- sion of the three texts mentioned above (all of which have been adequately edited by Pannier) it includes practically the whole output of French Japidaries during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
They are for the most part purely derivative, and it is pro- bable that even those passages of which the source is now un- known have no just claim to originality. They were written without the stimulus of novelty at a time when verse and prose in the vernacular rarely achieved real distinction of style. None the less they represent both the literary language and the scien- tific tradition of our ancestors some seven centuries ago, and filial and historical piety should forbid us to permit them to fall into oblivion.
. . —
.
THE MANUSCRIPTS
A. MS. Paris, Bibl. Nat., lat. 14470 (formerly 310 Satnt-Vic- tor). ——- This is the oldest MS. containing the First French Ver- sion of Marbode’s poem and has been fully described by Pannier (op. cit., pp. 18, 23). The Lapidary begins on fol. 4v. and gives the text in Latin and in French, the translation being added to each chapter of the original. The age and provenance of the MS. have been the subject of much controversy. The writing belongs to the latter half of the twelfth century or to the begin- ning of the thirteenth, but it possesses certain graphic peculiar- ities apparently not found in French MSS. of that period. G. Paris assigned to it an Anglo-Norman origin : ‘‘Le manuscrit du Lapidaire lui-méme est anglo-normand, comme le montrent outre l’aspect de l’écriture, les formes graphiques ”’; but he never attempted seriously to defend his point of view, and in fact finally abandoned it altogether at the instance of Paul Meyer. The latter subjected the MS. to a close scrutiny and reproduced two pages in fascimile*, pointing out, among other things, that the fly-leaf was covered with recipes in a Sicilian dialect in a late thirteenth-century hand. Of course the MS. might have been written in France and afterwards carried to Italy, or the fly-leaf might have been bound up with the rest of the volume at a later period, but it is more probable that the MS. itself was copied in the South of Italy. This would account for the peculiarity of the writing. Decoration of the initials with yellow paint (such as appears in this MS.) is often found in Italian MSS., but is hardly ever to be seen in those of English origin. As rulers of the kingdom of Sicily the Normans were likely enough to carry into their new dominion a book which they prized so highly, and to employ local talent for its duplica- tion. The scribe of MS. A, whoever he may have been, performed
1. Romania, XXXVIII, pp. 48, 51.
Anglo-Norman Lapidaries. I
er geet a
a
2 THE MANUSCRIPTS
his task with praiseworthy care ; he endeavoured faith- fully to follow the original, though he occasionally blundered through ignorance. As Pannier pointed out, he failed to under- stand the meaning of the accents which in the original were doubtless used with more system than would appear from the copy. Theconfusion of genders and cases which so frequently occurs in this MS. also shows that the writer was not very familiar with the language 1. Blunders of this kind are, however, very common in works written in England, and the faulty verses of seven, nine or ten syllables, instead of eight, are charac- teristic of an Anglo-Norman rather than an Italian scribe. Moreover, the list of Biblical stones, which in this Ms. follows after the First French Version, is unmistakably of Anglo-Norman origin (see note to v. 938). This M5. has been published several times, in 1708 by Beaugendre ?, in 1799 by Beckmann *, and in 1854 by Bourassé *, but in all these publi- cations the text of the French translation is hopelessly corrupt. It was transcribed with reasonable accuracy for the first time in Pannier’s Les Lapidatres francais. His text has been collated with the MS. for this edition and a fewslips have been corrected. B. MS. Paris, Bibl. Nat., fr. 24870 (formerly Sorbonne 1682). — The MS., which has been described by Pannier (of. cit., p. 23), belongs to the end of the thirteenth century and contains various French works of ecclesiastical origin. The Lafidary begins on page 102 and gives substantially the same text as MS, A, but the Latin original has been omitted and the stones are described in a different order. The MS. is incomplete and breaks off in the middle of the description of Medus. The scribe, who appar- ently belonged to Champagne or Brie, has taken considerable liberty with his model. He has striven to remove obscurities, has modernized the language and has omitted certain items alto-
et in tn i AE SE A tT IL LS ER I Ae - . : : ‘2 3 - i « ;
— =
| LS .
1. The masculine is used instead of the feminine in : un 1sle 69, 292, 325 ; un eue 90; un altre (referring to acate) 115, 117 ; cest (sardoine). 273 ; bon (piere) 340; mals umurs 419 ; ars (gemme) 441 ; and vice versa, the fem1- nine instead of the masculine in icele ewage 355. On the oth:r hand the accusative is freely used for the nominative.
2. Hildeberti et Marbodi opera... edita ab Anton. Beaugendre, Paris, 1708, pp. 1635-1090. :
3. Marbodi liber lapidum seu de gemmis, Gottingae, 1799.
4. Migne, Patrol. lat., t. 171, col. 1757.
ete a ee lee = 7 ‘ :
— “*
iv
tae 6 eer ot A a IE CI OG ny a EI EI EPP Sore er Se") pn Te ~ es A MB AE ty 4) Ue oe ees ’ wr , ’ * : aoe a x . 7 " PAom <4 ws ’ = a) ai . : 7 a _ * * = 4 + e
—
THE MANUSCRIPTS 3
gether. Pannier has collated this MS. with A, and printed the variants. 7
C. MS. Vatican Misc. 145, Arm. XV. — This MS. has been described by de Manteyer ?. The fly-leaf bears the note : Basilica Sancti Vincentit Laudunensis, Marbode de virtutibus lapidum. The Lapidary occupies fols. 44-54. Like the version of MS. A, to which it is closely related, it gives for each item the Latin text followed immediately by the French translation. The order of the stones, and indeed of the very lines, is exactly the same in both MSS., but the writing belongs to the middle or even to the latter half of the thirteenth century, and the spelling has been somewhat modernized by the scribe, who apparently came from the region of Champagne. Dialectal peculiarities are not very marked: We find, however, biaulé (A belté) 237, but usually bealté ; vealt (A volt) 146, but more often velt ; vermotl (A ver- metl) 123 rhyming with solezl ; trove en (A trovent) 131 ; anemis (A inimts) 126, 142; buen (A bon) 124, but usually bon ; fot (A pot = poet) 234, 248; telz, elz (A otlz) 199, 201 ; voter (A veer) 234, 240; grandor 133, color 134, valor 185, poor 186. mireor 243, jor 244, but chaleur 195, doleur 196 (in A these words usually end in -wv). This version has never been published, but P Meyer has printed the first twenty-two lines in a note to his edition of MS. G (Romania, XXXVIII, p. 285).
D. MS. Paris, Bibl. Sainte-Geneviéve 2200. — The MS. has been described by Kohler in his Catalogue des manuscrits de la bibl. Sainte-Geneviéeve (II, pp. 283-85), and again by P. Meyer in Romania, XXXVIII, p. 254. The Lapidary, which occupies fols 120v.-130, was written during the years 1276-77 somewhere in the N. E. of France. A few traits (e. g. an occasional infinitive in -eiv, instead of -ev, and a few past participles in -ez, instead of -é) point to Lorraine as the home of the scribe *.