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An unreported early use of Bede's De natura rerum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
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Although there can be little doubt that Bede's works were widely known on the Continent by the end of the eighth century, the evidence supporting this assumption has been largely confined to the number of early manuscripts containing his works, together with requests for copies of his works contained in letters from continental scholars. The number of identified cases where his work is quoted before the beginning of the ninth century is very limited; and yet one clear case has been overlooked, as a result of a misattribution made more than one hundred years ago.
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References
1 The most comprehensive survey is Laistner, M. L. W. and King, H. H., A Hand-List of Beds Manuscripts (Ithaca, NY, 1943)Google Scholar, but the information has to be sought from the lists for the individual works, and some of the dates given for manuscripts have subsequently been questioned. A more reliable indication is provided by Lowe, E. A. in Codices Latini Antiquiores, 11 vols. and suppl. (Oxford, 1934–1972)Google Scholar, for which the index by R. A. B. Mynors in the Supplement refers to twenty-seven manuscripts or fragments containing works of Bede, of which eighteen are of certain or possible continental origin. Bernhard, Bischoff and Virginia, Brown, ‘Addenda to Codices Latini Antiquiores’, MS 47 (1985), 317–66Google Scholar, add a further four fragments, of which two are continental. Wesley Stevens has provided a list of the early manuscripts of the De temporum ratione in his 1985 Jarrow, lecture, Bede's Scientific Achievement, pp. 39–42.Google Scholar
2 The best summary of the evidence is given in Dorothy Whitelock's 1960 Jarrow, lecture, After Bede, esp. pp. 6–9.Google Scholar She cites Boniface and Lul, archbishop of Mainz, as well as references in the letters of Alcuin, who must have played a large part in the dissemination of Bede's work at the end of the eighth century.
3 Professor Whitelock (After Bede, p. 8Google Scholar) noted the use of Bede's works in a few continental works of the eighth century: Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum and Historia romana and the so-called Chronicon universale (both ptd MGH, SS XIII), written before 775. C. W. Jones, in his edition of Bede's scientific works (Opera Didascalica, 3 vols. CCSL 123 A-C (Turnhout, 1975–1980) I, 176 and II, 251Google Scholar), noted the occurrence of ch. 17 of the De natura rerum in a computistical manuscript of the second half of the eighth century from France (London, BL, Cotton Caligula A. xv) and of ch. 1 of the De temporum ratione in another manuscript of the same date from Monte Cassino (Paris, BN, lat. 7530). But as far as I am aware, no other borrowings have been identified in any work composed prior to the ninth century.
4 Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, ed. Maass, E. (Berlin, 1898), pp. 102–312.Google Scholar
5 L' Aratus latinus (Lille, 1985), esp. pp. 254–63.Google Scholar
6 The terminus ante quem is 805, the date of the earliest manuscript (Cologne, Dombibliothek 8311), but the errors in this manuscript demonstrate that it is not the archetype.
7 Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, ed. Maass, , pp. 102–297Google Scholar. Where the revised text, which Maass calls recensio interpolata, differs from the original, it is printed at the bottom of the page. Maass omits certain texts, although they seem to form an integral part of the collection; for these texts it is necessary to go back to the older edition of Alfred Breysig, Germanici Caesaris Aratea cum scholiis (Berlin, 1867), pp. 106–7 and 221–6Google Scholar. The sections of the texts in both versions and their arrangement in the editions are conveniently set out in tabular form by Le, Bourdellès, L' Aratus latinus, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar
8 Eratosthenis Catasterismorum Reliquiae (Berlin, 1878).Google Scholar
9 Ibid. pp. 201–4.
10 L' Aratus latinus, p. 73Google Scholar. In fact, the question of the sources used by the compiler of the revised Aratus latinus is much more complicated than previous authors have allowed. Consideration of this problem lies beyond the scope of the present article.
11 Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, ed. Maass, , p. 272, line 10 – p. 273, line 16.Google Scholar
12 Ibid. p. 286, line 13 – p. 287, line 3.
13 Ibid. p. 273, line 17 – p. 274, line 3.
14 The texts are taken from Maass's edition of the Aratus latinus in his Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, from Jones's edition of Bede, Opera Didascalica, CCSL 123A (Turnhout, 1975)Google Scholar and Mayhoff's, C. edition of Pliny, Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII, 6 vols. (Leipzig, 1892–1906).Google Scholar
15 Sol deinde is the reading adopted by Maass; but it is likely that the original reading in the text of the Aratus latinus was Sed inde; see further below.
16 It might also be argued that it is very unlikely that the compiler of the revised Aratus latinus, working independently, would have selected the same passages from Pliny as Bede. However, given that the excerpts bring together passages on the individual planets, this, taken by itself, is not an entirely convincing argument.
17 It is undoubtedly significant that although the text of Bede as printed above contains the additional word vero, this word is omitted in six of the ten manuscripts used by Jones for his edition. We may safely conclude that it was not present in the manuscript used for the Aratus latinus.
18 The apparent exception occurs in the last passage, where the word in, enclosed in square brackets in the text above, was added by Mayhoff, following an emendation suggested by Detlefsen and based on the text of Bede; this has not been accepted by later editors. If it is removed, the apparent agreement of the Aratus latinus with Pliny against Bede can be explained by the fact that four of the manuscripts used by Jones also omit the word; furthermore three of these four manuscripts are among those that omit vero (see previous note).
19 I have not considered the relationship between the passage in the Aratus latinus (ed. Maass, , p. 293, lines 7–11Google Scholar) criticising those who consider the bissextile increment to be only three hours, and the similar passage in Bede's De temporum ratione, ch. 39, noted by Le Bourdelles (L'Aratus latinus, pp. 73–4); as Le Bourdellès concedes, the words are different, although the ideas are the same. It is conceivable that the Aratus latinus at this point is derived from Bede's source.Google Scholar
20 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1449 (L), Vienna, Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek, lat. 387 and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 210 (for the readings of both manuscripts Jones uses S).
21 Jones records sed for sol in L and Sm (i.e. Munich, Clm. 210 only). However, the microfilm of Vienna 387 which I have examined shows that Vienna 387 originally had sed, which was subsequently altered to sol. I should like to express my thanks to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and the Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek for providing microfilm copies, and to Cambridge University Library for obtaining them for my use.
22 See, in particular, Bischoff, B., Lorsch im Spiegel seiner Handschriften (Munich, 1974), p. 45Google Scholar. Elizabeth, Alföldi-Rosenbaum, ‘The Finger Calculus in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages’, FS 5 (1971), 1–9, at 6Google Scholar, dates the manuscript to AD 813, without giving any explanation. I have not seen the manuscript and my comments are based on secondary sources.
23 See Bischoff, B., Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1960–1980) II, 34 and 96–7Google Scholar. Bischoff suggests that Munich Clm. 210 was not written in Salzburg but more likely in nearby Mondsee. The exact relationship between the two manuscripts has not finally been resolved, although the judgements of Bischoff (ibid. p. 34) and Jones (in his edition of Bede's De natura rerum (CCSL 123A), 178) that Munich Clm. 210 was copied from Vienna 387 are probably correct.
24 The connection with Saint-Amand has been observed in the martyrology and in the style of the astronomical illustrations; see Monumenta Palaographica: Denkmäler der Schreibkunst des Mittelalters, ed. Chroust, A., Section I, ser. I, 1 (Munich, 1902)Google Scholar; Goldschmidt, A., Die deutsche Buchmalerei, 2 vols. (Florence and Munich, 1928) I, 34Google Scholar; Unterkircher, F., European Illuminated Manuscripts in the Austrian National Library (London, 1967), p. 52Google Scholar; Wissenschaft im Mittelalter (Vienna, 1975), pp. 210–11Google Scholar. On the relationship between Saint-Amand and Salzburg in general, see Lowe's, E. A. introduction to Codices Latini Antiquiores X (1963), viii–xviii.Google Scholar
25 See Jones, C. W., ‘An Early Medieval Licensing Examination’, Hist. of Education Quarterly 3 (1963), 19–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schröer, N., Die Annales S. Amandi und ihre Verwandten(Göppingen, 1975), pp. 20–1Google Scholar; Le Bourdelles, , L' Aratus Latinus, pp. 103–4.Google Scholar
26 Ibid. pp. 104–7 and 252–4.