04 April 2018
Reynard the Fox and other curiosities
We sincerely hope that spring has sprung, and to mark that occasion we have recently uploaded a number of manuscripts to the British Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. Among them are translations of Boccaccio, a glorious missal and a collection of crusader's maps ...
Le Roman de Renart
If you need some light relief, who better to provide it than one of literature’s most endearing and enduring tricksters, Reynard the Fox? This 14th-century copy in French contains fourteen of the Renart or Reynard tales, in which the wily fox outwits his fellow creatures and humans; this vast collection of allegorical works circulated in medieval Europe, satirising courtly literature, the powerful and the Church.
In one of the tales, Reynard tries to fool Tibert the cat, but of course he comes off second best.
Renard and Tibert the cat, seated with the moon above, from Le Roman de Renart: France or England, 14th century, Add MS 15229, f. 53r
In another tale, Reynard is stuck at the bottom of a well. He fools Isengrin (or Ysengrim), the greedy, dull-witted wolf, into lowering himself in the other bucket so that he will rise. Isengrin is often depicted as a cleric to make fun of the religious orders.
Reynard in a bucket being lowered into a well by a cleric in a white robe: Add MS 15229, f. 42r
The Missal of Augier de Cogeux
The Missal of Augier de Cogeux is a glorious missal from Grasse in Provence, whose pages contain an array of illuminated initials and borders, among them angels playing a variety of musical instruments, prophets, monks, lions, dogs and rabbits, and a menagerie of weird and wonderful creatures.
A historiated initial 'V'(ultum) at the beginning of an introit from Psalm 44, of a tonsured cleric in a black robe holding a crozier; a lion-rabbit hybrid creature in the upper margin and zoomorphic initials with hybrid creatures including one with a spotted body and two human heads and a lion-like creature wearing a mitre: France, S. (Provence, between Toulouse and Narbonne), 4th quarter of the 13th century or 1st quarter of the 14th century, Add MS 17006, f. 197v
This Missal, or book of liturgical texts for celebrating the Mass throughout the year, was made at the end of the 13th century for a chapel constructed in the abbot’s palace of the abbey of Sainte Marie de Lagrasse in Provence. It is sprinkled with the coats of arms of Augier of Cogeux, the abbot at this time.
Opening page of the Breviary, with the Offices for the first Sunday in Advent, with a historiated initial 'A'(d) of the two elders lifting a child representing 'anima' (the soul) to God above an altar, and a full border including a knight on horesback holding a shield and standard depicting the Virgin and Child (right). Angels with musical instruments: a trumpet, organ, lute, bagpipes and tabor, psaltery and rebec (below) and hunting scenes with animals, including a lion holding a shield with the arms of Augier de Cogeux, partially cropped (above): Add MS 17006, f. 8r
A Book of Hours from Paris
The cold weather in March may have been hard to endure, but there is always somebody who is worse off. A Book of Hours from Paris depicts some poor folks in Hell who are having a really bad time, but even for them there is a golden and floral lining. If they can only escape into the border, there is a beautiful meadow with an abundance of colourful birds, butterflies and flowers, though a few devils are lurking in the upper margins to catch unsuspecting souls who climb too high.
Miniature on two levels, of souls being brought in carts, pursued and thrown into holes in the earth by devils; below, in Hell they are subjected to various tortures, from a Book of Hours: France, Central (Paris), between 1406 and 1407, Add MS 29433, f. 89r
If the worst comes to the worst, one can always go fishing (in an orange hat, if necessary!). Here comes the Sun at last.
A calendar page for February with a miniature of a man in a hat fishing with a pole: Add MS 29433, f. 2r
The butterflies in this border are exquisite, and making a garland is fun, but the question is whose neck to put it on?
George and the Dragon: Add MS 29433, f. 207r
So, summer is on its way and it will soon be strawberry season! The borders of this manuscript are filled with more delights – flowers of every colour, fruits and birds, although it must be said that not everyone pictured is having much fun.
Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Deeds of Noble Men and Women
The latest upload also includes images of a copy of a French translation of Boccaccio’s The Deeds of Noble Men and Women. In the early 15th century, the original Latin work by Boccaccio was translated into French by the humanist scholar, Laurent de Premierfait, as Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes. It takes numerous examples from the lives of famous people throughout Biblical, classical and medieval history, describing their misfortunes with an ostensibly moral aim, but with a certain amount of undisguised relish and sanctimoniousness.
A framed miniature preceding Book 5 showing Boccaccio standing with a group of figures, pointing to a man in a barrel outside, two swans in a pool (lower right) and, in the background, a naked man is tied to a stake, having his eyes put out, from Des cas de nobles hommes et femmes, Add MS 11696, f. 136v
Les Trois Pelerinages (The Three Pilgrimages)
As Chaucer famously wrote, spring is a good time for going on a pilgrimage, and if you need to rest on the way, what better place than a garden with umbrella-shaped trees, as long as the birds don’t keep you awake. We have just uploaded images of a manuscript of Guillaume de Deguileville’s allegorical journey, containing over 140 images to illustrate the text. This work spawned a wide tradition of Christian allegorical literature and was extremely popular in the 14th century.
The pilgrim asleep in a garden with apple trees and birds; beside him is an old man, in Deguileville’s Les Trois Pelerinages France, c. 1400: Add MS 38120, f. 199r
The Book of Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross, with maps and portolan charts by Pietro Vesconte
This treatise was written by the Venetian, Marino Sanudo, for Pope John XXII, to promote a crusade to the Levant in 1321. The manuscript has images of the journey and the deeds of the crusaders in the lower margins. The text is accompanied by a set of maps consisting of a ‘mappa mundi’ or world map drawn in the style of a sea chart, five portolan sea charts of the coasts of Europe and North Africa, and a map of the Holy Land.
Knights on horseback jousting (f. 149v) and knights on foot fighting with lances and crossbows in a rocky landscape (f. 150r) and a historiated initial of a figure in a white headdress addressing robed figures seated on the ground, in the Liber secretorum fidelium cruces: Italy, N. (Venice); c. 1331 (after 1327), Add MS 27376, ff. 149v–150r
A portolan chart of the northern Red Sea (above) and the eastern Mediterranean (below), showing, Arabia, the coasts of Egypt and Syria, with Cyprus, the Nile (lower right), and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (upper left): Add MS 27376, ff. 182v–183r
Here is a list of other manuscripts that have now been added to the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts:
Add MS 10015: La Disme de Penitanche and Gossuin de Metz, L’image du monde
Add MS 10341: Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion
Add MS 22660: Acts of investiture of the territories of Orciano and Torre
Add MS 18144: A 13th-century Psalter from Saxony or Thuringia
Add MS 19416: A Book of Hours of the Use of Thérouanne ('Hours of Charles Le Clerc')
Add MS 34890: The Grimbald Gospels. The whole manuscript can also be viewed on our Digitised Manuscripts site.
Chantry Westwell
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02 April 2018
A calendar page for April 2018
It's April, which means it's time to party. At least, in a calendar page for this month, made about 1,000 years ago, a party is in progress: men are drinking and chatting, seated on an ornate couch.
Detail of feasting, from a calendar page for April: Cotton MS Julius A VI, f. 4v
The artists of the two surviving, illustrated calendars from early 11th-century England both depicted scenes of feasting on the calendar page for April. They may have chosen to depict feasting in April because Easter often falls in that month. Indeed, in Old English, April was called Eáster-mónaþ (Easter month). Easter was a major holiday in early medieval western Europe, on a par with Christmas. Surviving sources mention it was also an occasion for political gatherings and grand ceremonies such as coronations and important royal meetings, where law codes were issued and other announcements made. For example, the prologue of the first law-code of King Edmund (reigned 939–946) states that Edmund called a meeting of a great number of nobles and churchmen in London, ‘during holy Easter-tide’ (‘halgan easterlicon tid’: Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 87v).
Closer examination of the image reveals a number of intriguing details, from spears and shields to a variety of drinking vessels. The left-most figure (see a detail below) pours liquid from a jug into a drinking horn. Archaeological examples of early medieval drinking horns have been found throughout northern Europe and beyond. In the centre, two men are holding drinking vessels with stems.
Detail of a jug and drinking horn: Cotton MS Julius A VI, f. 4v
The image may also hint at some types of objects which do not survive in the archaeological record. The seated figures are perched on cushions. Likewise, elaborate couches with sculptures of animals, if they were made of wood, would not have survived. However, it can not be proved if this scene, and the one in a related calendar, were imitating the way parties and furniture were depicted in classical art, or if these scenes were intended to represent contemporary furnishings.
Detail of a calendar page for April: Cotton MS Tiberius V B/1, f. 4v
Calendar page for April: Cotton MS Julius A VI, f. 4v
In addition to the illustration of the ‘labour’ of the month, the calendar page for April has the information and decoration found on other pages in this calendar. The zodiac symbol — Aries — appears in a roundel at the top. Information about the date, astronomical cycles and days of the week are highlighted in rows of red, green, blue and gold.
There is something slightly different about this page. Unlike the pages for February and March, only one feast is marked out with a gold cross in the margin of the page for April, at the very end of the month. The day marked out is 30 April, which, according to this calendar, was ‘the first day [Noah’s] Ark was carried out of the waves onto solid [ground]’ (‘Pridie transfertur arca densissima abundis’). The lack of gold crosses earlier in the month might have something to do with the association of April and Easter, since Holy Week and Easter took precedence over other feasts. They could not be marked in this reusable calendar because their dates changed. However, the latest date Easter can fall is 25 April, so the feast of Noah’s Ark could safely be celebrated on 30 April.
Detail of a depiction of Noah's Ark, made around the same time as the calendar: from the Old English Hexateuch, Southern England, 11th century: Cotton MS Claudius B IV, f. 15v
For more on this calendar (and details about when you will be able to see it in person), please click here. For previous years’ calendar pages, and for explanations of medieval calendars, please click here.
Alison Hudson
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29 March 2018
Bathtime for monks
It’s almost Easter. Have you had your bath yet? If you were a reformed monk or nun and lived in England over 1,000 years ago, this was a pressing question. Everyone in their communities was supposed to wash before the elaborate church services and celebrations for Easter. Instructions for these baths were preserved in the Regularis Concordia (Unified Rule), a political manifesto and supplement to the Rule of St Benedict, probably written by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester(d. 984).
Christ washing his disciples’ feet on Maundy Thursday, from a Psalter made in 11th-century England: Cotton MS Tiberius C VI, f. 11v
According to the Regularis Concordia, on the Saturday after Good Friday, ‘if they can, the helpers [ministri] or boys [pueri] shall shave and bathe themselves.’ If there wasn’t enough time for all the monks to wash on Saturday, some could bathe after Vespers on Good Friday.
Instructions for monks bathing and shaving before Easter, from the Regularis Concordia, made in Southern England (Canterbury?), mid-11th century: Cotton MS Tiberius A III, f. 20r
Washing was also a part of ceremonies before Easter. According to the Gospels, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet the night before he was killed. Monks re-enacted this on Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday), when the monks were supposed to wash the feet and hands of poor people from the community and to offer them food and money. This ceremony was known as the Mandatum, after one of the Biblical passages quoted in music for the ceremony: 'A new commandment (mandatum novum) I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you' (John 13:34). 'Mandatum' is the root of 'Maundy', which is why the Thursday before Easter is still known as ‘Maundy Thursday’ in Britain.
Detail of a monk washing three poor men’s feet while a crowned figure distributes alms, from the Harley Psalter, England (Canterbury), 11th century: Harley MS 603, f. 66v
Abbots also washed the monks' feet ahead of Easter. The Regularis Concordia stipulated that after Vespers on Maundy Thursday, ‘the brothers shall then have their meal … but they must carefully wash their feet first … [T]he abbot shall wash the feet of all [the monks] in his own basin, drying and kissing them …’ The monks then washed their hands. And, of course, Easter celebrations were also a time associated with the symbolic washing of baptism.
Instructions for the Mandatum on Maundy Thursday, from the Regularis Concordia: Cotton MS Tiberius A III, f. 17v
This is not to suggest that monks and nuns did not bathe at other times of year. The manuscript that contains the Regularis Concordia also includes a guide to monastic sign language with many signs related to bathing. Among these are the signs for nail-knife, comb and washing one’s head. Bathing was presumably a regular occurrence, since so many specific signs were developed for it.
'When you want soap, rub your hands together': a curator demonstrates a possible interpretation of the sign for soap from the Monasteriales Indicia
Bathing was also a topic discussed in monks' school texts, as part of a dialogue that was designed to help young monks learn Latin, known as the Colloquy of Ælfric Bata. In this text, the teacher upbraids the boys for not having washed and for being unshaven, while the boys complain there is no one to help them bathe and they don't have soap, shears and razors. The teacher then calls for a washer immediately to arrange baths for the whole monastery. This dialogue also suggests that Saturday is a good day for baths. Incidentally, Ælfric Bata may have used the manuscript that is now Cotton MS Tiberius A III: his name is inscribed on one of the pages.
The Regularis Concordia is preserved in two surviving manuscripts, now contained between Cotton MS Tiberius A III and Cotton MS Faustina B III. It is not clear that all its stipulations were always followed, even by the most fervent of Bishop Æthelwold’s students. Nevertheless, some of its details — such as the instructions for bathing before Easter — are striking. Even 1,000 years ago, it was important to look your best for a holiday.
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27 March 2018
If you’ve got it, flaw-nt it
Nobody’s perfect, not even manuscripts. Since parchment is made from animal skins, the pages often have holes of varying sizes. Some of these may have been caused by an insect bite that expanded when the skin was stretched during parchment production. Other holes may have been created during other stages in the parchment-making process itself. Medieval scribes still often used this ‘flawed’ parchment. Sheets of parchment were time-consuming and expensive to produce, so some scribes embraced the flaws they found, with creative results.
Detail of a decorated flaw from the Tollemache Orosius, England (Winchester?), late 9th or early 10th century: Add MS 47967, f. 62v
The creativity of the late 9th- or early 10th-century scribe of the Tollemache Orosius (Add MS 47967) came to the fore whenever they came across a hole in the parchment. In one instance the flaw was turned into a creature, perhaps a badger, a sheep or a mole.
Verses about zodiac signs, where the ‘o’ in ‘capricornus’ is created by a flaw in the parchment, from a calendar, England, 1st half of the 11th century: Cotton MS Julius A VI, f. 3r
Detail of Aquarius drawn around a hole in parchment, from the other side of the page in the mid-11th century calendar, England (Canterbury?): Cotton MS Julius A VI, f. 3v
The 11th-century scribe and artist of the 'Julius Work Calendar' demonstrated not one but two solutions to dealing with a flaw in parchment. On one side of a page, the scribe used a round hole as a substitute for the ‘o’ in capricOrnus. On the other side, the scribe or artist used the same hole to represent the negative space under Aquarius’s arm as he pours a jug of water. Unfortunately, we cannot fully appreciate the artist’s and scribe’s ingenuity today, since this page was warped by the Cotton Fire. This means the proportions of the image and letters have shrunk, and the second ‘c’ in capricornus is barely visible.
Detail of a page from the Echternach Gospels, early 8th century: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat 9389, f. 17r
Sometimes, scribes got so caught up in creatively decorating holes they forgot about the text they were supposed to be writing. Jo Story of the University of Leicester has pointed out that the scribe of the Echternach Gospels was so distracted by making the hole in the parchment into a bird that they missed out a whole clause! They had to go back and add it in the margin between the columns.
Not all flaws were decorated although depending on how you hold the page, they can provide sneak peeks of other decoration; detail of a flaw in a 12th-century copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Brittaniae: Add MS 15732, f. 26v (photo credit Jessica Pollard)
Not all holes in manuscripts were decorated. Nevertheless, it is tempting to wish that sometimes there were more flaws in the parchment, just to see what kind of creative solutions the scribes would have come up with.
Have a look through the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts website and let us know if you have any other favourite examples of scribes or artists who made a virtue out of imperfection.
Alison Hudson
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23 March 2018
Cracking a medieval code
Cryptography is not something we normally associate with medieval manuscripts. But some medieval scribes understood the basics of code-making: constructing text using a cypher to be decoded and understood only by authorized parties. Anglo-Saxon scribes were masters at this, without the ‘espionage’ and political edge that cryptography would later acquire in the early modern period. The interest in code may be related to the popularity of riddles for which Anglo-Saxon England is famous. In some instances, codes were placed at the end of a manuscript as a way to record information relating to how a manuscript was produced and the people who were involved in its production. A colophon, as this information is called, was the preferred place for encrypted information in the Middle Ages.
For instance, as we wrote in a previous blogpost, a scribe called Ælfsige left his name in code, as well as that of the book's owner, in the colophon of Cotton MS Titus D XXVII:
The encrypted colophon: Cotton MS Titus D XXVII, f. 13v
The cypher consists of replacing vowels with the neighbouring consonants in the alphabet. The word Aelsinus (Latin for Ælfsige), the scribe’s name, was here encoded as ‘Flsknxs’ (in medieval manuscripts, the letter ‘s’ resembled the letter ‘f’).
The book belonged to a fellow monk called Ælfwine (Ælfwinus in Latin), whose name was encrypted as ‘Flfƿknp’. This time, the cypher is slightly different. ‘P’ here replaces ‘us’. The first letter that looks like 'p' in this inscription is the runic letter 'wynn', which early English writers sometimes used to represent the 'w' sound.
The encrypted text is much longer and explains that Ælfsige, ‘the most humble brother and monk’, wrote the book and that ‘Ælfwinus, monk and deacon’, owned it.
This cryptic art continued in the late Middle Ages. In a manuscript produced in France in the second half of the 12th century, containing medical works (Egerton MS 2900), the scribe used the same kind of cypher to mark the end of his copying effort, and not without effect.
The colophon follows the inscription ‘Explicit liber’ (The book ends [here]): Egerton MS 2900, f. 102v
The last line, crossed through in red ink (a form of medieval highlighting), reads: ‘'Dkgnxs fst ppfrbrkxs mfrcfdf sxb’. The scribe also marked off the sentence from the rest of the text with red-and-blue line fillers, as shown in the image below.
The encrypted text is highlighted: Egerton MS 2900, f. 102v
This encrypted message can be decoded using the same consonant-for-vowel technique, which yields the following text: ‘Dignus est operarius mercede sua’. The Latin comes from the Gospel of Luke (chapter 10, verse 7) and states that ‘the worker is worthy of his reward’.
In a late 11th- or early 12th-century French manuscript (Royal MS 13 A XI), the scribe included Bede's explanation about how numbers can be substituted for letters based on their order in the alphabet. They can then be communicated via a system of finger-reckoning. Bede explained that, ‘if you wish to warn a friend who is among traitors to act cautiously, show with your fingers [the signs for] 3, 1, 20, 19, 5 and 1, 7, 5; in this order, the letters signify ‘act cautiously’ (caute age in Latin) (Royal MS 13 A XI, f. 33v). The finger signs from 1 to 9000 are presented in a reference table.
The sign-language of finger-reckoning: Royal MS 13 A XI, f. 33v
Bede also assured his readers that, if ‘greater secrecy is demanded,’ the Greek alphabet can help with a stronger level of encryption. The number values for Greek letters could be correlated with the Latin alphabet; any Latin word could thus be written in Greek code, based on their order in the alphabet and the number value of the relevant Greek letter.
Coding basics, with Greek letters being assigned a number value: Royal MS 13 A XI, f. 34r
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20 March 2018
Call the medieval midwife
Tucked away in a 14th-century encyclopaedia and bestiary is an oath written alongside a black cross. The person who made it had borrowed the book, and identified themselves as ‘abestetrix', echoing the Latin ‘obstetrix’, meaning ‘midwife’. (Another hand has glossed this as 'heifmoeder’.) Midwifery was as vital in the medieval world as it is today. Medieval manuscripts can provide a variety of evidence for the hardships, mysteries and triumphs of this historic profession.
Detail of an oath written by a midwife: Add MS 11390, f. 94v
Accounts of famous births from history are often accompanied by illustrations of the birthing chamber, depicting midwives and their female companions. This image accompanies the account of the birth of St Edmund in John Lydgate's Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund. The new mother lies in bed, tended by her companions, while the baby is warmed before the fire.
Miniature of the birth of St Edmund, from Lydgate's Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund, England, 1434–1439: Harley MS 2278, f. 13v
The caesarean birth of Julius Caesar is frequently illustrated in medieval accounts of his life. Many of these illustrations depict men performing the caesarean, most likely because of the more surgical nature of the procedure. However, it may not have been uncommon for midwives to perform a caesarean themselves. These two illustrations of Caesar's birth depicts a midwife pulling the baby from the mother, accompanied by a female attendant, and the same birth, with a man playing the midwife's role.
Miniature of the birth of Julius Caesar, showing a female midwife: Royal MS 16 G VII, f. 219r
Miniature of the birth of Julius Caesar, showing a man performing the caesarean: Royal MS 16 G VIII, f. 32r
Information on pregnancy and childbirth was also included in medical treatises. Copied into one 15th-century manuscript is a gynaecological text taken from Gilbertus Anglicus’ Compendium of Medicine. The text is accompanied by illustrations of foetuses in the womb, depicted in a variety of unusual positions. It is difficult to determine whether this work would ever have been consulted by a woman. The manuscript's first known owner was Richard Ferris, sergeant surgeon to Elizabeth I, the queen who famously never married or had children.
Roundels showing various foetal presentations: Sloane MS 2463, f. 218v
Books may not have been an unusual sight in the birthing chamber, as women were known to have had texts read aloud to them while they were in labour. The Passio of St Margaret was a popular choice. St Margaret is thought to have emerged from a dragon's womb ‘unharmed and without any pain’, and came to be widely regarded as the patron saint of women in childbirth. Many manuscripts of the Passio of St Margaret are accompanied by instructions to bless the expectant mother with a copy of the Passio to secure the safe delivery of her child.
Miniature of a woman lying in a bed screened by a curtain, with a swaddled infant held by a midwife (the miniature has been smudged by kissing): Egerton MS 877, f. 12r
In the 14th century, relics of St Margaret’s girdle were often used as birthing aids. One 15th-century amulet roll (Harley Ch 43 A 14), which is thought to have been used as a birth girdle, contains a text in Middle English invoking the protection of the Cross, specifically referencing childbirth. This invocation was likely read aloud, perhaps by the midwife, as the girdle was worn by the expectant mother. Invocations to aid pregnancy and childbirth were also used in the Anglo-Saxon period. The Old English Lacnunga contains a charm to be used by women who struggled to carry a child to term. The text includes a set of prose introductions and a series of short poems intended to be recited aloud in a ritual process:
Se wífman, se hire cild áfédan ne mæg, gange tó gewitenes mannes birgenne and stæppe þonne þríwa ofer þá byrgenne and cweþe þonne þríwa þás word:
þis mé tó bóte þǽre láþan lætbyrde,
þis mé tó bóte þǽre swǽran swǽrbyrde,
þis mé tó bóte þǽre láðan lambyrde.
'Let that woman who cannot nourish her child walk to the grave of a departed person and then step three times over the burial, and then say these words three times:
this as my remedy for the hateful late birth, this as my remedy for the oppressive heavy birth, this as my remedy for the hateful lame birth.'
(translated by Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition (New York, 1942))
A charm for ‘delayed birth’ in Lacnunga: Harley MS 585, f. 185r
It is difficult to prove that midwives were literate or regularly consulted texts in the medieval period. However, many medical manuscripts often included information regarding childbirth and the written word was certainly not out of place in the birthing chamber. The midwife who made the oath to return the book may not have been the only member of her profession to be borrowing books in the 14th century.
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17 March 2018
Medieval lucky charms
Today is St Patrick’s Day, and to celebrate all things Irish we are exploring medieval Irish charms in the British Library's collections. The use of protective charms in Ireland can be traced back to the early medieval period, and possibly to St Patrick’s own lifetime.
St Patrick asleep, with a figure holding a book, France, 2nd quarter of the 13th century: Royal MS 20 D VI, f. 213v
Text page of the lorica of St Patrick, 15th century: Egerton MS 93, f. 19r
A lorica is a medieval Christian charm or prayer that will grant Divine protection when invoked. In classical Latin, the word ‘lorica’ refers to a protective breastplate worn as armour by Roman soldiers. The lorica of St Patrick, or St Patrick’s Breastplate, was supposedly composed by the saint himself to celebrate the victory of the Irish Church over paganism. The British Library houses one of only three surviving medieval copies of this charm, in a 15th-century manuscript containing an account in Middle Irish of St Patrick’s life (now Egerton MS 93). The lorica is also composed in Middle Irish, and is formed of seven verses beginning Attoruig indiu nert triun togairm trinoite (‘I arise today through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity’). A preface accompanies the lorica in an 11th-century manuscript known as the Liber hymnorum (Trinity College Dublin MS 1441), which states that the prayer was written to safeguard St Patrick and his monks against deadly enemies and would protect anyone who read it from devils and sudden death.
Text page of the lorica of St Fursey: Add MS 30512, f. 35v
Another notable protective charm is attributed to St Fursey (d. c. 650), an Irish monk from modern day Co. Galway and the first recorded Irish missionary to Anglo-Saxon England in c. 630. The only known copy of St Fursey’s lorica survives in a Middle Irish collection of theological works composed in the 15th and 16th centuries, known as the Leabhar Uí Maolconaire (Add MS 30512). Like the lorica of St Patrick, St Fursey’s prayer invokes the power of the Holy Trinity to protect one against evil. The text begins Robé mainrechta Dé forsind [f]ormnassa (‘The arms of God be around my shoulders’).
Head, shoulders, knees and bones: the opening of the lorica of Laidcenn to protect the body, late 8th or early 9th century: Harley MS 2965, f. 38r
Protective Irish charms also survive in medieval English manuscripts, such the Book of Nunnaminster (Harley MS 2965), produced in Mercia in the late 8th or early 9th century. This manuscript contains the earliest known copy of the lorica of Laidcenn (d. c. 660), a monk and scholar at the monastery of Clonfert-Mulloe in modern day Co. Laois. The text was copied in Latin, and invokes the protection of individual limbs and body parts from demons, including the eyes:
Deliver all the limbs of me a mortal
with your protective shield guarding every member,
lest the foul demons hurl their shafts
into my sides, as is their wont.
Deliver my skull, head with hair and eyes.
mouth, tongue, teeth and nostrils,
neck, breast, side and limbs,
joints, fat and two hands.
In the same manuscript, Laidcenn’s lorica is accompanied by a prayer against poison. These many surviving protective charms give new meaning to the saying, ‘the luck of the Irish’!
A charm against poison: Harley MS 2965, f. 37r
Alison Ray
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Sources:
Edition and translation of the preface and lorica of St Patrick: Whitley Stokes & John Strachan (eds.), Thesaurus palaeohibernicus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), vol. 2, pp. 354–58.
Translation of the lorica of St Fursey: John Ó Ríordáin, The Music of What Happens (Dublin: The Columba Press, 1996) pp. 46–47.
Edition and translation of the lorica of Laidcenn: Michael W. Herren, The Hisperica famina (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1987), vol. 2, pp. 76–89.
14 March 2018
Augustine’s De Trinitate in London and Paris
Two manuscripts of Augustine’s treatise on the Trinity, both dating between 1120 and 1150, have recently been digitised as part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project. One is from St Albans Abbey (now British Library Egerton MS 3721); the other, containing the full text of De Trinitate, was made at an unknown location in England (now Bibliothèque nationale de France ms latin 12204).
The opening page of Augustine's De Trinitate, England (St Albans), between 1119 and 1146: British Library Egerton MS 3721, f. 9r
The opening page of De Trinitate, England, 1120–1130: Bibliothèque nationale de France ms lat. 12204, f. 2r
One of the most influential theologians of the early Church, St Augustine (354–430) became bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria in 395. An extensive collection of his writings survive, in which he tackled the key theological questions of his time and interpreted them in a personal and practical way. His works were widely copied in medieval monastic scriptoria: after the Bible, they are the most common works listed in their library catalogues. For example, the library of Lorsch in Germany contained 98 volumes of Augustine out of a total of 590, and of 204 books in the inventory of Reading Abbey around 1192, 18 were the works of Augustine, more than double that of any other author.
Augustine enthroned, in a cutting from a Gradual or Antiphoner, Italy (?Cremona), 3rd quarter of the 15th century: British Library Additional MS 38897C
Augustine devoted nearly thirty years of his life to his 15-book treatise on the Trinity, in which he emphasised the resemblance between God and man and the ultimate role played by faith. In monastic communities such as Norwich and Fécamp in Normandy, there are records of it being read at mealtimes throughout the week following Trinity Sunday. At Reading, several copies were kept in the dormitory for use in the refectory, according to a late-14th-century list of books.
In Egerton 3721, the text of De Trinitate is incomplete, ending at book 15, chapter 8. It is preceded by a calendar and a short excerpt from Augustine’s De doctrina christiana.
A page from the calendar: Egerton MS 3721, f. 7v
This is a small work-a-day book, thicker but not much bigger than a smartphone, and written in Protogothic script. It is datable between 1119 and 1146, based on entries in the calendar. In the main text there is one rather smudged gold initial at the beginning (f. 9r) and a few decorated initials in red and green. Paragraph numbers and marginal notes have been added in some books, in others only the book and chapter numbers are supplied.
De Trinitate's book and chapter numbers: Egerton MS 3721, f. 72r
Halfway down the final page, De trinitate ends abruptly, and is followed by a short hymn, Cives celesti patriae, based on a meditation on the twelve stones that form the foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem. Each stone is assigned a different colour, to which a moral or physical meaning is attached. The final three verses are missing.
The end of De Trinitate and the opening lines of Cives celesti patriae: Egerton MS 3721, f. 86r
The copy of De Trinitate in BnF ms lat. 12204, also made in England, was recorded in the 15th century in the library of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, an important religious and cultural institution then located just outside Paris.
Initial ‘D’ with birds and a dragon-like creature at the beginning of St Augustine’s letter no 174 to Aureius: BnF lat. 12204, f. 1v
It is a larger manuscript than Egerton 3721, written in two columns and with more elaborate decoration. The book divisions are marked by ornate initials, some containing fantastic creatures.
A large initial with zoomorphic decoration at the beginning of book 5 of De Trinitate: BnF lat. 12204, f. 52v
Although the two manuscripts were made around the same time, the script in the Paris manuscript is more compact, as these images of the same passage from the first chapter show.
A comparison of the script of Egerton MS 3721, f. 10r, and BnF lat. 12204, f. 2v
The Paris volume is approximately three times larger than its counterpart, roughly the dimensions of an A4 page, and it shows marks of regular usage. There are notes, glosses and symbols throughout its margins, some in formal script in red or black, others mere jottings and aides-memoire.
A page from De Trinitate, showing marginal notes and symbols: BnF lat. 12204, f. 69v
The format and marginal notes provide keys to the way the two manuscripts may have been used at their respective institutions, both well-established and important abbeys close to the cities of London and Paris. The first was probably for personal study, whereas the second may have been read in the refectory.
Chantry Westwell
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