230 8 5MB
English Pages 252 [256] Year 2020
Daniel Williman, Karen Corsano The World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis
Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture XXVIII Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture LXXIV
Daniel Williman, Karen Corsano
The World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis A Manuscript’s Journey from Saint-Denis to St. Pancras
ISBN 978-1-5015-1871-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-1001-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-1005-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020943186 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com
Preface This is a book about a codex. The codex, written in the fourteenth century, contains the text of the World Chronicle written by Guillaume de Nangis, monk of Saint Denis-en-France, and it is now kept in the British Library’s Royal collection with the shelf mark 13 E IV. We are writing its history not because it is unique (there are 21 other manuscript copies) but because detailed evidence links it to important events in history and famous actors who owned it and used it for their own purposes. Our original discovery connecting its French origin to its English fate came from a long-term research project to establish the provenances of existing manuscripts. That project revealed, in this particular instance, such a wealth of interesting and specific detail in and around the life of this manuscript codex that we have written its biography. At the desk of the Manuscripts Reading Room of the British Library, St. Pancras site, on the morning of 22 March 2005, the authors took delivery of a large fourteenth-century manuscript, the Latin Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, monk of Saint-Denis. The codex is Royal MS 13 E IV, and it bears the exlibris and autograph of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk (d. 1554). That morning we found the proof that the book had been in the library of the bibliophile Jean duc de Berry (d. 1416). Before the era of the rich international collectors in the nineteenth century, and apart from the capture of the Louvre Library by the duke of Bedford in 1424, it was not common for any manuscript codex (as opposed to a text) to travel from France to England, and so it was a curiosity worth investigating that this particular book had been in the hands of a French royal duke and then, after a century and a half, of an English one. Our discovery came about because of a match between an old French record and a modern British one. The inventory of Berry’s books at Mehun in 1415 noted au commencement du second fueillet dudit livre a escript: tis et vocatum; and the 1920 catalogue of the Royal collection by Warner and Gilson gives “2o folio -tis et vocatum.” We had built a dual database by which such secundo-folio notes could be sorted alphabetically side by side, and so these two records, of a pre-modern inventory and of an existing manuscript, clearly pointed to each other (chapter 4 explains this obscure data-type). When we compared the complete fifteenth-century record with the actual codex, that morning in 2005, we were certain that the British Library possessed Jean de Berry’s book. British experts had no idea of the manuscript’s provenance before Norfolk, and French scholars knew of its existence in the early fifteenth century, but considered it a lost treasure. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-202
VI
Preface
Research on the French side of the problem revealed complexities: the abbey of Saint-Denis was involved, as well as the emperor-elect Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Parlement de Paris, and the Royal Council. On the English side, the published researches of James Carley had definitely identified the hand of Henry VIII in the margins of the codex, and he had found the book itself in the records of Henry’s royal library. From there to the St. Pancras site of the British Library in 1998, each step of the Chronicle’s travel could be traced by published inventories. But between Sigismund’s visit to Paris in 1416 and King Henry’s Westminster library in 1542, we had to investigate, surmise, and finally, with an accumulation of documentary and circumstantial evidence, illuminate the full life story of this curiously well-traveled book. And so we did: chapters 5–10 tell the life and times of the manuscript, the notable persons who held it by turns, why each possessor took it up, how each one used it, and how and why each one passed it on to other ownership. The story of a single manuscript copy of a work, even a copy as interesting as this one, of such an important chronicle, would be incomplete, even incomprehensible, without an account of the text it contains, and so we have provided in the first chapter an account of the author and of the historical enterprise of his monastery, the royal abbey of Saint-Denis-en-France. The written sources that Guillaume de Nangis compiled, selectively and intelligently, are more exhaustively named here than they have been in the past. Guillaume’s own account of the events of the generation or so preceding his own death in 1300 was historical research in a modern sense, and it invited continuation and inspired a cultural legacy. This chronicle was modeled on the Books of Kings in the Bible. It might well be called a King’s Mirror of History, a story of the deeds of sovereigns as those seemed relevant from a Capetian point of view. Created for a limited elite readership, it was published in two limited editions of manuscript copies. The book is a big one (the Royal copy weighs twenty pounds) and we would not expect many copies to have been made. In fact only 22 exist, scattered from London to Vienna. We examined every copy at first hand. In chapter 2 we give an inventory of them all, following the philological trail blazed by Léopold Delisle and adding ten copies that he never saw. By comparing their common traits and peculiar variants we discovered the family tree, the stemma codicum that is the skeleton of the text’s tradition. The stories of the most notable possessors of these copies are briefly sketched in chapter 3 to give an idea of how our book’s cousin manuscripts fared, and to illuminate the circles in which Guillaume’s text was of interest. This brings us to British Library Royal MS 13 E IV, and we give it a complete catalogue-style description in chapter 4, followed by a narrative account of why
Preface
VII
and how the codex was created, with a summary of all the notations that were added to the text at Saint-Denis and by successive possessors. These archeological data are laid down in chapter 5, beginning the “biography” of the codex in the remaining chapters, where our program is to describe its creation and then to explain how and why each successive owner acquired it, how it participated in the social and political life of its time, actively and passively, and why and how each possessor handed it on to the next. In this study, the text of the Latin World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis (in any version, manuscript copy or printed edition) is called “the Chronicle” or “the World Chronicle” or “the Universal Chronicle,” and the manuscript copy in London, British Library (BL) Royal MS 13 E IV and its readings in particular will be “MS Royal” or “the Royal manuscript.” Many able and generous scholars have helped in our research and in improving the eventual text: Elizabeth A. R. Brown, with her insights into the chronicles of France; James Carley, master of the libraries and of the handwriting of King Henry VIII; Justin Clegg and Joanna Fronska, who smoothed our way in the Manuscripts Reading Room of the British Library; David Head, who shared his intimate knowledge of the duke of Norfolk; Howard Kaminsky, best of guides to Simon de Cramaud and his political world; Donald Logan, with his discoverer’s insights into the Henrician Canons; Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, who opened the doors of old Saint-Denis and who transcribed for us a large missing tract of Guillaume de Nangis; Jaylyn Olivo, a searching and sympathetic reader; Richard Sharpe, who read chapters for us and who then caught the fugitive Thomas Gascoigne at work at Windsor Castle; Maria Alessandra Bilotta, Patricia Stirnemann, Richard Rouse, and François Avril, with their insiders’ wisdom about Paris illumination; James Willoughby, editor and detective of the library of the Chapel of St. George, Windsor; Mary-Jo Arn, the best friend now living of Charles d’Orléans and a careful and accurate reader of this work in progress; Pierre Jugie and Yann Potin, generous and attentive hosts in the Archives nationales, Paris. The digital copies of essential illustrations were provided, promptly and without charge either for scanning or for license to publish, by Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Bibliothèque municipale, Dijon; and Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, Torino.
Contents Preface
V
List of illustrations
XIII
Part I: The Text of the World Chronicle and its Dissemination Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis 3 Historiography at Saint-Denis and Guillaume de Nangis 3 The Latin Chronicle from Creation to AD 1300 9 Compilation and Authorship 11 Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies Census of Manuscripts of the Latin World Chronicle 19 The Stemma Codicum 21 Continuations of the Chronicle beyond 1300 21 Manuscripts of the First Edition 28 Manuscripts of the Second Edition 32 Printed Editions 43
15
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors 45 Louis duc de Bourbon; Philippe de Vitry; Paul Petau; Queen Christina of Sweden: Reginensis lat. 544 46 Jeanne de Bourgogne, Jean de Vignay, St. Nicaise de Reims, Petiblet, Duchesne, Rousselet, Colbert; Bibliothèque royale: BnF MS fr. 5703 48 Dukes of Burgundy: Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique MSS 14855–14858 49 Jean le Bon; Jeanne de Montbaston, illuminatrix; Emperor Charles IV; the Chigi Family of Siena and Rome: Vatican Library, Chigi G VIII 233 50 Lattanzio Tolomei: Vat. lat. 4598 54 Charles duc d’Orléans: BnF MS lat. 1780 55
X
Contents
Counts of Savoy, Hautecombe Abbey, Cîteaux: Torino, BNU MS K.II.11 and Dijon BM 570 + 571 56 Robert the Wise, king of Naples; Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary; Conversini: Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale VI A.45 58 Philippe de Lautier, général des monnaies; Claude Fauchet, président de la Cour des Monnaies; Pierre Séguier, chancelier de France; SaintGermain-des-Prés: BnF MS lat. 11729 and BnF MSS lat. 13703 + 13704 59 Collège de Navarre; Colbert: BnF MS lat. 4919 61 Domenico Siler, Tailor; Professor Valerio Palermo: MS Verona 61 Chapter 4 British Library Royal Manuscript 13 E IV 63 A Catalogue Description of the Royal Manuscript Probatoria: Discovery of Provenance by Fingerprint
63 65
Part II: The French and English Lives of the Royal Manuscript Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis 71 Making Peace with Philip the Fair 71 The Saint-Denis Studio and the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii Guillaume Lescot Writes the Royal Manuscript 76 Marks from Saint-Denis in the Royal Manuscript 80
73
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416 83 Simon de Cramaud and Subtraction of Obedience; the Royal Council in 1406 83 The Head of St. Denis: The Royal Manuscript before the Parlement de Paris, 1410 91 Jean de Berry Borrows the Royal Manuscript from Saint-Denis, 1415 97 Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans 105 Sigismund’s Crowns and Ambitions 105 Sigismund and the Council of Constance 107
XI
Contents
Richard Beauchamp, England, and St. George 108 Sigismund’s Itinerary: Perpignan - Narbonne - Avignon - Lyon Arbresle - Chambéry - Paris 112 Sigismund in Paris: Council, Peace, Prisoners, and Marriage Alliance with England 114 Banquet of the Ladies; Sigismund in Parlement and the University 115 Visit to Saint-Denis; Sigismund Departs from Calais for England 121 Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor 123 Henry V and Sigismund in England 123 Sigismund, Knight Companion of the Garter 123 His Gifts: The Heart of St. George, Helm and Sword, and the Royal Manuscript 127 Sigismund’s Alliance and Departure 129 The Royal Manuscript in the Chapel of St. George 130 A Reader at Windsor: Thomas Gascoigne, 1444 132 Chapter 9 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk 137 Knight Companion of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Sovereign, 1525 137 Norfolk Receives the Royal Manuscript of the Chronicle 138 Annotations for and by the Duke of Norfolk 139 The Duke of Norfolk’s Gift of Story to King Henry VIII 141 Ebbs and Flows: Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk 143 Epilogue: Thomas Howard in the Tower, Reading and Using Story Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII 147 Busy Years for Books at Court, 1530–1532 147 The Royal Manuscript Set Forth for King Henry, 1532–1533 151 The Chronicle Provides Support for Royal Policy 153 The Chronicle in the New Library, Westminster; Page Markers for the King 156 Marginal Comments by Henry VIII 159 Henry VIII and Boniface VIII: Codifiers of Canon Law 162 The Chronicle in the Upper Library, Westminster 164
144
XII
Contents
Chapter 11 In the British Royal Library 167 Epilogue: The Curious Incident of Delisle in the British Museum
170
Appendices A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
177
B Arguments in the Rouleau de Saint-Denis, based on the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, submitted to the Parlement de Paris, 1410 189 C Historical references by Guillaume Fillastre
191
D Privy Purse Warrants for the Books of Henry VIII E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV Plates
213
Bibliography Index
231
219
193 195
List of illustrations Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13 Figure 14 Figure 15 Figure 16 Figure 17 Plate 1 Plate 2 Plate 3 Plate 4 Plate 5 Plate 6
A seventeenth-century plan of Saint-Denis 13 Léopold Delisle, Archiviste Paléographe, ca. 1873 17 The Stemma Codicum: manuscripts of the Chronicle 22 BAV Reg. lat. 544, 308r, the exemplar of the first edition 29 Detail, BnF MS fr. 5703, 109rb. The running headline mistakenly copied into the text 30 Schema of additions in MS A for AD 33. 34 MS Torino, BN Universitaria K.II.11, 155v, detail: catchword 38 MS Dijon 571, 120v: catchword 39 BnF MS lat. 13836, 135v: colophon 75 On MS Royal, 46r: luctu or lucta? 78 Scenes from the Beauchamp Pageant, BL Cotton Julius E.iv.6, 155v 111 The parade saddle that emperor-elect Sigismund gave to Henry V 127 MS Royal, flyleaf verso showing the erased dei gratia 142 MS Royal, 291v, marked up with # sign, vertical bracket line, and Henry VIII’s own nota bene 151 MS Royal: the bookmark for AD 1195, tipped in at 399r 157 MS Royal, 444r, detail. Henry VIII’s comment on Boniface VIII’s code of canon law 162 Léopold Delisle, Administrateur Général, about 1900 170 MS Chigi, 1r, detail. The initial illuminated by Jeanne de Montbaston 213 MS Royal, 1r, the decorated first page 214 MS Royal, 1r: detail of the author picture by visible light 215 MS Royal, 1r detail: the underdrawing of the author picture by infrared light. 216 BnF MS fr. 2090, 4v detail: Yves de Saint-Denis, author of the Vie de saint Denis 217 BnF MS fr. 2090, 12v: detail depicting Eusebius writing 218
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-204
Part I: The Text of the World Chronicle and its Dissemination
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis Historiography at Saint-Denis and Guillaume de Nangis Beginning early in the seventh century, the Merovingian kings gave singular attention and favor to the shrine and cult of St. Denis.1 Clothar II in a charter of 625 referred to the saint as “our particular patron.” Dagobert I (629–39) chartered an annual fair at Saint-Denis on 9 October, and he chose to be buried in the saint’s shrine. His son Clovis II gave a monastic rule to the brothers who served the saint’s cult in the “basilica” there, and his queen Balthilde, in the name of their son Clothar III, granted the abbey a charter of immunity which was thereafter frequently renewed. Abbot Fulrad (749–784) was among the Frankish notables who visited Pope Zachary to ask his assent to the proposition that the mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Short, who actually functioned as king, should also have the title; and it was at the abbey of Saint-Denis that Pepin was anointed king by Pope Stephen III in 754, beginning the Carolingian succession. Pepin founded a larger basilica and was buried in it; Charlemagne finished it for its consecration in 775. And so the patronage of the abbey of Saint-Denis by the kings of France and the patronage that the kings claimed from the saint himself was a selfnourishing circle of grace and prestige already two centuries old when the monks made their first venture into historical writing with the legend of their own patron, St. Dionysius. This legend founded itself on two written authorities. The late-sixth-century Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, citing the passio of St. Saturninus from fifth-century Toulouse, stated that in the consulship of Decius and Gratus (AD 250) seven missionary bishops were sent to Gaul: Catianus to Tours, Trophimus to Arles, Paulus to Narbonne, Saturninus to Toulouse, Dionysius to Paris, Stremonius to Auvergne, Martialis to Limoges; and he added simply that “Blessed Dionysius, after suffering many torments for the
1 The early stages of the alliance of kings and the abbey were described by Gabrielle Spiegel, The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis, 14–23. Renee Lynn Goethe, King Dagobert, the Saint, and Royal Salvation, tracks the entire tradition behind Guillaume’s World Chronicle, arguing that later enhanced versions of Dagobert’s history were created by the monks to press the claim of Saint-Denis as the royal mausoleum by right. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-001
4
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis
name of Christ, ended this present life by the sword.”2 From some time in the eighth century the abbey of Saint-Denis had an anonymous lectionary version of their patron’s story, libellus antiquissimus Passionis eiusdem, based on local tradition and Gregory of Tours, although this mentions only two of the other missionary bishops (Saturninus and Paulus) and gives Dionysius two martyr companions, the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius, and tells that an unnamed noble lady buried the three bodies at the sixth milestone from the city.3 Hilduin was abbot of Saint-Denis from 815 to his death in 840, with a lapse about 830 caused by his brief participation in a rebellion against his patron, King Louis I, called the Pious. Educated in the school of Alcuin and eager to regain the favor of Louis, he undertook to write a new Passio S. Dionysii; and knowing something of the Neoplatonist books Mystical Theology, Divine Names, and Celestial Hierarchy, whose author went by the name Dionysius Areopagita, Hilduin was fascinated by the coincidence of the antique name Dionysius in the sixth-century Greek philosopher, the first-century Athenian who was converted by the preaching of St. Paul (Acts 17:34), and the third-century missionary martyr bishop of Paris, whose tomb was the spiritual treasure of the abbey. Oblivious of the awkward chronology, Hilduin conflated the three lives and elaborated his Passio accordingly. Hilduin’s Passio glorifies his abbey’s patron saint, the missionary bishop of Paris, with an apostolic connection, a mystical oeuvre, and a miraculous legend to be read on the annual feast day
2 Historia Francorum 1:30: Huius [Decii] tempore septem viri episcopi ordenati ad praedicandum in Galliis missi sunt, sicut historia passiones sancti martyres Saturnini denarrat. Ait enim: Sub Decio et Grato consolibus, sicut fideli recordationem retenitur, primum ac summum Tholosana civitas sanctum Saturninum habere coeperat sacerdotem. Hic ergo missi sunt: Turonicis Catianus episcopus, Arelatensibus Trophimus episcopus, Narbonae Paulos episcopus, Tolosae Saturninus episcopus, Parisiacis Dionisius episcopus, Arvernis Stremonius episcopus, Lemovicinis Martialis est distinatus episcopus. De his vero beatus Dionisius Parisiorum episcopus, diversis pro Christi nomine adfectus poenis, praesentem vitam gladio inminente finivit. We are grateful to our copy-editor, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, for this comment: “A second edition of the Historiarum libri decem, which the world calls Historia Francorum, prepared by Krusch, revised by Wilhelm Levison and after him Walther Holtzmann, appeared in the same place and with the same publisher in 1951, repr. 1993. However, the quotation in extenso here remains the same, barbarisms and all, it being Krusch’s policy always to prefer the wrong spelling to the right as being authentically Merovingian.” 3 See the introduction to this ancient passio in Michael Lapidge, Hilduin of Saint-Denis, 611–37; edition and facing translation, 638–59.
Historiography at Saint-Denis and Guillaume de Nangis
5
of 9 October. It is to Hilduin’s Passio that we owe some striking details, that the martyrdom took place on, and gave its name to, Montmartre, and that the saint carried his severed head in his hands to the place of his permanent tomb. Hilduin propagated stories of miracles in which the saint figured as protector of the French crown, and Hilduin’s pupil Hincmar, later archbishop of Reims, wrote the life of King Dagobert I (d. 639) replete with miracles performed by the saint as rewards for the pious munificence of the king. That was the beginning of the abbey’s devotion to its own history, linked for mutual benefit to the royal history of France.4 Most of the kings from Hugh Capet (d. 996) onward were buried in the church of Saint-Denis. The crown jewels were kept there. A king newly crowned at Reims would begin his ceremonial entry to Paris by invoking the protection of St. Denis at his tomb in his own church. Kings and their families were welcome guests and generous patrons of the abbey, and the abbots and some monks were among the familiars and counselors of kings. The church was grandly rebuilt under Abbot Suger (1122–51) in the Gothic style that was then quite novel.5 From the time of Louis VI the royal battle standard, the Oriflamme, was kept there. This was the standard of the prévôté du Vexin, a fief of Saint-Denis within the royal domain, and by taking it up against an invasion by the emperor Henry V in 1124, Louis VI was declaring himself the vassal and standard bearer of the saint.6 In 1328 French knights won the battle of Cassel under a fresh Oriflamme, witness the abbey’s expense account, Pro auriflamba domini regis nova facta pro exercitu Flandrense, XVIII lib. XIII s. II d.7 The same Abbot Suger, who had known Louis VI (1108–37) from his boyhood in school at Saint-Denis, wrote the king’s Life, continuing the service of the monks in chronicling the royal history of France.8 Odo of Deuil, abbot from 1151 to 1162 and chaplain to Louis VII (1137–1180), wrote an account of his
4 Passio S. Dionysii, edition and facing translation in Lapidge, 194–447. 5 Erwin Panofsky in Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis explained the light-filled design of the abbey church as an architectural application of the mystical theology of light in Pseudo-Dionysius; Jason R. Crow found Suger’s inspiration rather in the stones of the basilica: “The Crafted Bodies of Suger: Reconsidering the Matter of Saint-Denis,” in Architecture and the Body, Science and Culture, ed. Kim Susan Sexton (London: Routledge, 2018): 45–66. 6 Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church, 232–33; Lindy Grant, Abbot Suger of St-Denis, 111–13. 7 Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, “L’atelier historique de Saint-Denis,” in La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis en France, 351. 8 Suger, La Geste de Louis VI, et autres œuvres, ed. Michel Bur; English translation by Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead: Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat; Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition, 44–52.
6
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis
deeds in the Second Crusade.9 The tradition was carried on by the monk Rigord (fl. 1190) and his continuator Guillaume le Breton for King Philip II Augustus (1180–1223).10 In 1233 a fresh, amplified Vita et actus beati Dyonisii was written in the abbey for internal use; this was then incorporated in a compendium of table readings through the year that was compiled in 1254.11 Louis IX (1226–70) had the tombs of the French kings and queens rearranged in the nave of the abbey church of Saint-Denis, under the direction of Matthieu de Vendôme (abbot 1258–1286) in dynastic series, Carolingians to the south, Capetians to the north, suggesting a continuous royal story. According to Bernard Guenée, it was at the direction of Abbot Matthieu that one of the monks of Saint-Denis, whom we know simply as Primat, began composing, late in the 1260s, the royal history of France from the origins to 1274, in French and with a “Dionysian” view, in which “clergy and nobility worked together for the grandeur of the kingdom and the glory of God.”12 Primat’s French chronicle of the French kings provided the initial text of the Grandes Chroniques de France. And so there was already an historical studio of Saint-Denis, and it was beginning to specialize in French royal history, written in French, when Primat’s younger contemporary Guillaume de Nangis brought to completion his own project of universal history, in Latin, under Matthieu’s successor Renaud de Giffart (abbot 1286–1304).13 From the continuity of historical studies at Saint-Denis through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries we infer the existence of an historical studio there, in two senses of the word, both a space for study and writing and a continuous group of writers: l’atelier historique.14 In his own time, Guillaume de Nangis was the leader of that group and manager of that space. We know him through the expense records of the abbey in the last fifteen years of his life, from 1285 to 1300. He was custos cartarum or archivist of the monastery then, at a handsome
9 Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition, 53–55. 10 Rigord, Gesta Philippi Augusti, ed. and trans. Elisabeth Charpentier et al.; Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition, 56–63. 11 The Vita et actus (BnF lat. 2447) was edited with an extensive introduction by Charles Liebman, Etude sur la vie en prose de Saint Denis. 12 Bernard Guenée, Comment on écrit l’histoire au XIIIe siècle: Primat et le Roman des roys, 13–30. The copy of the Roman des Roys dedicated to Philip III is Paris, Bibliothèque SteGeneviève 782: Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition, 89–92. 13 Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Burying and Unburying the Kings of France,” 241–66. Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography includes the Latin work of Guillaume de Nangis but her focus is on the Grandes Chroniques de France and other vernacular works. 14 Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, “L’atelier historique de Saint-Denis” in Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 47–51 and Documents, 336–51.
Historiography at Saint-Denis and Guillaume de Nangis
7
annual stipend that rose from two to five livres, supplemented with stipends for large tasks of copying both documents and books, for instance, 10 livres and 70 sous extra pro scriptura et memorialibus in 1289, when the assembly of the Latin World Chronicle was beginning.15 It was under his direction in those years that the abbey’s treasure of documented privileges was put in order and copied into a cartulary, and that the abbey’s books were arranged in two libraries (See Figure 1) with their distinctive class-marks and ex-libris: Iste liber est beati Dyonisii for the larger conventual library above the chapel of St. Clement in the perimeter of the cloister, and Iste liber est ecclesie beati Dyonisii for the liturgical books and others needed in the basilica itself.16 We can be sure that Guillaume’s compilation and writing of history had begun some time earlier, because his production in those last years was a mature flood of finished work.17 His Vita Ludovici IX regis Francie was compiled from earlier biographies, but he composed his Gesta Philippi III from primary sources.18 Those biographies were completed after the death of Philip III (1285) but before the canonization of Louis IX (1297) who is not called saint in either one. Sustained passages from both Lives were transferred to the Grandes Chroniques de France. The royal necropolis, rationalized for Louis IX, suggested and required a guidebook, a genealogical chronicle of all the reigns, emphasizing their wars and victories, which would be suitable for reading by guides when royal and noble guests visited the church. Around 1290 Guillaume de Nangis provided this public history, his Latin Chronica regum Francorum beginning with the legend of Priam of Troy, on pages bordered by a genealogical tree in imitation of Rigord. The expense entry “for illuminating the chronicles of the lord abbot, 40 sous; for
15 Guyotjeannin, “La Science des archives à Saint-Denis,” 339–53, especially 340, 352. The reckoning of Parisian money, like other silver moneys, was basically a count of deniers or silver pennies, 12 to the sou and 240 to the livre or pound. 16 Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 78. 17 The best account to date of Guillaume de Nangis and his historical work is by Mireille Chazan: L’Empire et l’histoire universelle de Sigebert de Gembloux à Jean de Saint-Victor (XIIeXIVe siècle) (1999). Her work, developed over decades of sensitive reading of the original sources, printed and manuscript, gives as much clear-eyed attention to Guillaume de Nangis as to her primary and central subject, Sigebert. Our treatment depends on her Part II, chapter II, 4. a) “La chronique de Guillaume de Nangis: le royaume de France au centre de l’histoire universelle,” 379–87. See also Spiegel, Chronicle Tradition, 98–108. 18 Both Lives were published by Pierre Pithou (1596), by François Duchesne (1649) and, with their early fourteenth-century French translations on facing pages, by P. C. F. Daunou in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840): 310–539. Guillaume’s treatment of these warrior kings followed the example of Abbot Suger’s Gesta Ludovici VI: Julian Führer, “Französisches Königreich und französisches Königtum,” 199–218.
8
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis
binding them and others, 22 sous” probably refers to Guillaume’s Chronica regum Francorum.19 To create a text more useful to noble visitors, and to relieve the guiding monk of the task of translating extempore, Guillaume wrote his own French translation, called Chronique abrégée. The expense account for 1292–93 shows “70 sous for abbreviating and illuminating chronicles” and “7 sous 9 deniers for parchments bought for the said chronicles.”20 The historical studio of Saint-Denis continued that French text to 1303.21 Michel Pintoin, un religieux de Saint-Denis, would carry on the abbey’s tradition of memorializing contemporary kings in Latin with his Chronica Karoli Sexti,22 but the Latin World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis marks the highwater mark of prestige for Latin books and universal histories in the French royal families. When it was completed and disseminated, the fashion in luxurious books had already shifted: it was French history, particularly royal history, that the patrons of Saint-Denis wanted, and they wanted it in French. Mahaut, comtesse d’Artois, commissioned an expensive Grandes Chroniques de France in 1305 from the Paris libraire Thomas de Maubeuge; in 1318 the same libraire produced the Grandes Chroniques extended through the reign of Philip V, under the patronage of that king’s uncle Charles de Valois; and the manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France [BnF] MS fr. 10132) was extended with a French translation of a Latin continuation, to 1329, of the Chronicle of
19 Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 344; a copy of an early and imperfect draft is Vatican Library, Reginensis lat. 574, samples of which were published by Delisle in Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 37 (1876): 311–13. A Saint-Denis original, complete with its genealogical tree, addressed to Philip IV and probably to be dated 1286, is BnF lat. 6184, 1r–15v: Henri Moranvillé, “Le texte latin de la Chronique abrégée de Guillaume de Nangis,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 51 (1890): 652–59. See also Anne-Marie Lamarrigue, “La rédaction d’un catalogue des rois de France: Guillaume de Nangis et Bernard Gui” in SaintDenis et la royauté, 481–92. 20 Pro cronicis abbreviandis et illuminandis LXX s.; pro pergameno empto pro dictis cronicis VII s. IX d.: Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 342. 21 The Chronica regum and its French version, Chronique abrégée, are accounted for by Isabelle Guyot-Bachy, “Chronique abrégée des rois de France de Guillaume de Nangis,” 39–46; The Chronique abrégée was edited in part by Daunou in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840) 647–53. There are several French versions, continuated and amplified by other writers, known by the title Chronique amplifiée. See also Gillette Labory, “Une généalogie des rois de France,” in Saint-Denis et la royauté, 521–36. 22 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys contenant le règne de Charles VI de 1380 à 1422, edited and translated by M. L. Bellaguet (1842), new edition with introduction by Bernard Guenée (6 vols. in 3, Paris, 1994). Michel Pintoin (ca. 1349–1421), as official historian of the royal court, was an eyewitness of many of the events he relates, and invaluable for our understanding of the period from the viewpoint of Saint-Denis.
The Latin Chronicle from Creation to AD 1300
9
Guillaume de Nangis.23 A true inheritor of the Saint-Denis historical tradition is the even more accessible Chronique universelle with its focus on the French royal family, composed in French and written on long scrolls illustrated by a genealogical tree, under the patronage of Marie de Berry, duchess consort of Bourbon (d. 1434).24
The Latin Chronicle from Creation to AD 1300 Guillaume’s Latin World Chronicle, a fresh look at the history of the world from its creation, stands as his mature masterpiece in the compilation of authoritative sources and original historical authorship, all in a plain and pleasant Latin. The Prologue begins by explaining the purposes of his Chronicle.25 The deeds of the ages are infinite, and there have been a great many chronicles. These cannot be owned or read by everyone, and so I have judged it useful to select a few of those countless deeds and to compress them into one compendium designed for the pleasure and profit of readers. Jerome, that outstanding doctor of the church, who knew practically everything that had been written, declared that Paralipomenon [i.e., 1 and 2 Chronicles] was such a book, and so great a book, that anyone who claimed knowledge of the divine scriptures without it was fooling himself. Then he added the reason for his assertion: Paralipomenon touches on histories, omitted in the other books, by the understanding of which countless questions of the Gospel are resolved.26 And so, anyone who claims to possess an expertise in the divine page, even with the help of a prudent judgement, is justly said to be making a fool of himself if the histories remain unknown to him. A certain moralist27 says, “The life of another is a teacher to us,” and whoever does not know what is past stumbles like a blind man into the events of the future.
Knowledge of histories or chronicles, wrote Guillaume, provides us the ability to establish or to nullify claims of prescriptive right, and to strengthen or weaken privileges. And, after grace and the law of God, nothing instructs the living more correctly and powerfully than a knowledge of the deeds of the deceased.
23 Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:178–80. 24 That vernacular Chronique was published in all its complexity by Lisa Fagin Davis, La Chronique Anonyme Universelle: Reading and Writing History in Fifteenth-Century France. 25 BL Royal MS 13 E IV, 1rv (Plate 2); the original Latin is in Appendix A. 26 Guillaume means that a simple narrative makes plain what is otherwise complex and obscure in the workings of Providence, and so this Chronicle will imitate the Books of Chronicles 1 and 2. 27 Disticha Catonis, 3:13: Multorum disce exemplis, quae facta sequaris, / Quae fugias; vita est nobis aliena magistra. “Learn from the examples of many which deeds you should imitate and which avoid, for the life of another is a teacher to us.”
10
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis
Here is described how the world has ebbed and flowed, either flourishing in prosperity or brought low by troubles; how times changed and dynasties shifted, and how the glory of kingdoms fell to nothingness, and how after the coming of Christ Christianity grew, impiety crumbled, and piety triumphed. It is obvious how, from a consideration of such events, a contempt for the present world arises, and a respect for the one to come. For as Bede says, we are paying a useful attention to the scriptures when we find in them not only the virtues and rewards of the just, but also the faults and punishments of the wicked, as encouragements to our own good behavior.
In this first part of his Prologue, Guillaume gives a traditional medieval apologia for history, answering in advance the objections that may be brought against him: that his work is useless because all these stories have been written already, and that he is proud and rash in attempting to add his book alongside the supersufficient Bible. Guillaume responds that we naturally learn by stories, and we understand divine revelation by means of the narratives that tie the scripture together. Then he turns to other and later histories for a different but traditional and perennially valid praise of history: that we learn to live rightly by hearing and reading the stories, from all times and places, of good and bad deeds and their good and bad consequences. He gives a perfunctory nod to another defense of history-writing, one that might be expected of a monk, but seems less congenial to this one: that by knowing history we develop an ascetic contemptus mundi, a disdain for our life on this earth and an anticipation and preparation for the heavenly afterlife. Guillaume gives yet another reason for writing history, a reason that was implicit in chronicles written in monasteries and constantly on his own mind as custos cartarum. A typical monastery’s annals would always include a careful note at the year when the house acquired a piece of real property, or a privilege such as exemption from taxation, or some spiritual or temporal lordship. Forty years later, whether or not they could still show a deed of gift or a royal charter, and whether or not their community still included any member who had witnessed the gift and could testify to it, the monks could use their chronicle or book of annals to defend their “prescription” of such a farm, bridge-toll, mill, or parish. The written record substantiates legal claims to property, including the ownership of privileges and authority, when those are just and true, and the record will help demolish such claims when they are false. So far, the purposes of history. The Prologue then explains the content, structure, and sources of the Chronicle. Therefore, following the pattern set by Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, and Sigebert the monk of Gembloux, mixing in some words of other doctors and historians, I have carried the text of my narration from the beginning of the world to my own time. Eusebius,
Compilation and Authorship
11
beginning with the birth of Abraham,28 summarized the series of kingdoms and of kings down to the twentieth year of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great [AD 329]. Jerome translated the work of Eusebius from Greek to Latin, inserting some items, then continued it to the death of the emperor Valens [AD 381]. From that point on Sigebert, informed by much attentive reading, continued the text in his careful organization, down to the year of our Lord one thousand, one hundred and twelve. I, brother Guillaume, monk of Saint-Denis-en-France, have composed the rest. Here are some facts recorded by others, but not arranged in the same way, and some other things I have added from my own time. I pray that no one, reading this, will charge me with presumption for having undertaken such a great work, or find fault with it, without first looking to see where the facts come from and how they have been explained. Then the reader will be able to understand that they were not made up out of my own foolishness, but honestly drawn from the works of others.
Compilation and Authorship In the Prologue to his World Chronicle, Guillaume de Nangis candidly declared that his major sources were Eusebius of Caesaria, Jerome, and Sigebert of Gembloux. His editors have taken the implication that there is nothing to be gained by editing (or even reading) the first four-fifths of Guillaume’s work, his account of the 5,173 years from Creation to AD 1112, because there is nothing there but Eusebius, Jerome, and Sigebert. This is a mistake. Guillaume depended for his parallel time-lines, the matrix of his Chronicle, largely on the Canones of Eusebius of Caesarea (the second part of his Chronicon) as translated by Jerome, from the birth of Abraham to AD 325, then on the Historia ecclesiastica of Jerome (largely based on that of Eusebius)29 down to AD 380, and then on the Chronographia of Sigebert of Gembloux (d. 1112). Like Vincent of Beauvais before him, Guillaume considered himself not an Auctor but an Actor, that is, maker, compiler, editor;30 and his Prologue echoes Vincent’s Apologia Actoris: “This is not simply my work, but rather the work of those from whose words I almost entirely wove it. For I added little, almost nothing of my own. The authority is theirs, only the order is our own.”31 Vincent’s ordering had
28 Anno ab initio mundi (commonly abbreviated AM) 2049. 29 The citations of Historia ecclesiastica can be confusing because Jerome’s name was also Eusebius: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus. 30 BnF lat. 4917, 1r. An annotator of this manuscript added actor next to Guillaume’s name. 31 Speculum maius, Apologia actoris c. iii: Hoc ipsum opus utique meum simpliciter non sit, sed illorum potius ex quorum dictis fere totum illud contextui. Nam ex meo pauca vel quasi nulla addidi. Ipsorum igitur est auctoritate, nostrum autem sola partium ordinatione. A. J. Minnis, “Late Medieval Discussions of ‘Compilatio’,” especially 387–91.
12
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis
been topical as well as chronological. He aimed to be encyclopedic, including and citing as many authorities as he could find and straying far from chronology to discourse on moral topics. Guillaume’s order was as strictly chronological as possible, and he aimed for a smooth narrative with few citations and little moral comment. He made himself the author, in our modern sense of the word, by his selection of noteworthy deeds out of his mass of material, his judicious trimming of the ancient accounts, his restraints and emphases, his own pleasant and fluent Latin expression, and, it must be admitted, his slips of detail and historical blunders. Furthermore, he used and often cited a large array of sources beyond Eusebius, Jerome, and Sigebert. For the first four biblical millennia he relied, as he led us to expect, on Paralipomenon and other historical books of the Bible as transmitted in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, and he also used the Historia scholastica of Petrus Comestor and the Antiquitates judaicae of Flavius Josephus. He added items of pagan history from the Historia Daretis Frigii, the Gesta Romanorum, Livy’s Ab Urbe condita, the Epitome of Livy by Florus, the Epitome by Marcus Junianus Justinus of the Historiae Philippicae of Pompeius Trogus, the Consolatio philosophiae of Boethius, the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius Maximus, and the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius. In his account of the Christian Era, Guillaume supplemented Sigebert from the Historia Langobardorum of Paulus Diaconus, the Consolatio philosophiae of Boethius, Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae. The text from AD 1113 onward tells the history of the world as viewed from the royal court of Paris and the royal abbey of Saint-Denis-en-France, using the work of Suger and Rigord of Saint-Denis, Vincent of Beauvais, Robert of Auxerre, and other chronicles, along the parallel time-lines of popes and emperors provided by Martinus Oppaviensis (Martin von Troppau or Martin of Poland). Vincent of Beauvais, a Dominican friar favored by Louis IX in the generation before Guillaume de Nangis, had assembled in his Speculum historiale a rich supply of texts with their citations, a finding aid for further material. Guillaume revealed his dependence on Vincent, not by citing him, but by rehearsing nearly verbatim some texts from the Speculum, and by following Vincent’s citations back to his sources for more material. For example, the Chronicle’s chapters for AM 3708 to AM 3720 relate a history of Alexander the Great that ultimately derived from Leo of Naples but that Guillaume clearly found in the Speculum, including as it does Vincent’s introductory remarks and his interpolations from other sources. The narrative begins with the miraculous and salacious story of Alexander’s conception, either by the trickery of the deposed Egyptian Pharaoh and magus Nectanebo, or by the intervention of the pagan gods. Guillaume also followed a
Compilation and Authorship
Figure 1: A seventeenth-century plan of Saint-Denis. The conventual library, home of the monks’ historical studio, was probably above the chapel of St. Clement in the old dormitory (D) or above the new dormitory (E). The libri Ecclesie were perhaps kept in the guest house wing (G). Source: Michel Germain, Le monasticon gallicanum (1882) plate 66 (detail).
13
14
Chapter 1 The Latin World Chronicle (1300) of Guillaume de Nangis
citation by Vincent back to Justinus’s Epitome, and lifted there the story of the Gordian Knot, which Vincent had passed over. Another example: interpolated to AD 810 is the story of Charlemagne’s Spanish invasions and the story of Roland, almost half of the text devoted to the year-by-year relation of Charlemagne’s reign from 769 to 810. Vincent of Beauvais had taken this story directly from PseudoTurpin; Guillaume abbreviated it. It was Eusebius who first alerted Guillaume to Flavius Josephus; Comestor and Vincent provided some texts, chiefly from the Antiquitates Judaicae, for Guillaume and his studio to blend, rephrase, and abridge. In the last stage of the creation of the Chronicle, possibly after the death of Guillaume, the studio found a direct witness, a manuscript of the Antiquitates, and drew from it the long additions at AD 33. One of those additions, not to be found in Eusebius, Comestor, or Vincent, tells the real reason why Herod imprisoned and beheaded John the Baptist: his followers would be inclined to rebellion.32 Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda pursued the medieval records of the libraries at Saint-Denis and found manuscripts of historical interest, still kept in various libraries, that may well have been used in the compilation of the Chronicle: Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica; Livy, Ab Urbe condita, Decades I and III; Suger, Vita Ludovici VI Grossi Regis; Justinus, Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi; and Pseudo-Turpin, Chronicon sive Historia Caroli Magni et Rotholandi: Gesta quae Carolus Magnus gessit in Hispania.33 If this Chronicle should ever receive a full edition, critical and fully annotated, the work will entail the identification of all the sources of the text and the medieval compilations that transmitted them to Guillaume de Nangis. Our purpose is different: to place the Chronicle culturally by following all its known copies.
32 The Latin texts are in Appendix A. 33 Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 235–70, in her numbered list of authors and works included in manuscripts with an attested provenance at Saint-Denis: Eusebius 202, Livy 515, Suger 500 and 502, Justinus 341, Pseudo-Turpin 269. A close examination of the Pseudo-Turpin manuscript, Vatican Library, Reg. lat. 550, known to have been at Saint-Denis in the thirteenth century, would settle the question whether Guillaume was working from Vincent in this case, or directly from Pseudo-Turpin.
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies Medieval texts are “living texts,” and the role of the philologist is to coax them into telling us their stories . . . . Changes are thus not mere corruptions—instead they yield distinct sources to be read and examined. Such work expands the role of the editor to that of an interpreter, whose edition shares contemporary scholarly preoccupations, a far cry from the image of the editor as a drudge deciphering scripts and creating stemmata.1
In this chapter we will take on the genial drudgery of establishing the affiliations of all the known manuscripts of the Latin World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, in order to create the stemma codicum. A critical editor of Guillaume’s text will no doubt discover nuances to enhance our basic picture, but we are sure that it is quite sound. In the next chapter we will record some of the stories that those manuscripts have told us about the social life of the text over the succeeding centuries. The standard English handbook of the old philology taught that “unless the manuscript tradition depends on a single witness, it is necessary (1) to establish the relationships of the surviving manuscripts to each other.” That first task, “recension in the sense of genealogical analyis . . . recensio ope codicum” is the only part of the philological enterprise that we are taking up, since we are not editing the World Chronicle.2 For the purposes of this book, we have used only a few of the old-fashioned tools of textual criticism. We are assured that the New Philology “is a desire to return to the medieval origins of philology, to its roots in a manuscript culture,”3 and it is our aim to study the manuscripts of the Chronicle as witnesses to the milieux for which they were created and in which they lived; and that study begins by establishing the affiliations of all the manuscripts, summarized in a stemma codicum.4 A manuscript is 1 Carmela Vircillo Franklin, “Reading the Popes: The Liber pontificalis and Its Editors,” Speculum 92 (2017): 607. 2 L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, fourth edition (2013) 208–9; for the quotation, Richard Tarrant, Texts, Editors, and Readers, 50. 3 Stephen G. Nichols, “Philology in a Manuscript Culture,” Speculum 65 (1990): 1, in his introduction to a number of the journal devoted to The New Philology. See also Jonas Carlquist, “Philology as Explanation for Historical Contexts,” in Philology Matters! Essays on the Art of Reading Slowly, ed. Harry Lönnroth, 75–96; his examples, pp. 82–96, are all East Norse manuscripts, but the lessons apply perfectly to Latin ones. 4 Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, 211–12 for a brief account of this genealogical metaphor applied to philology. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-002
16
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
shown to be copied from an earlier manuscript and to later manuscripts by a critical examination of what Scaliger in the sixteenth century considered corruptions of an archetype, and whether we condemn such changes as errors or simply note them as variants, they serve the old purpose of establishing affiliations among manuscript copies by being shared or singular. They are heritable mutations, and like DNA they tell the parentage and the progeny of each individual. Twenty-two manuscript copies of the Chronicle have been recognized. The foundation of our study of those manuscripts has been the comprehensive “Mémoire” of Léopold Delisle (1873).5 Delisle’s study of the Chronicle manuscripts must have been among the most satisfying research projects of his long career (See Figure 2). In that “Mémoire” he described the nine manuscripts of the Chronicle that were kept in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, traced their affiliations, and assigned them the sigla A through I, and he later added two in the Vatican Library.6 This was a master class in applied philology, and the solid basis of our stemma codicum. In that paper Delisle clearly distinguished the two editions of the work, although BnF MS fr. 5703 was the only example he then had of the first edition; and he identified BnF MS lat. 4918 as the parent manuscript of the whole second edition. Guillaume de Nangis worked on the grand enterprise of the Chronicle with a group of historical collaborators already active at Saint-Denis, where Primat’s Roman des Roys had been produced. As custos cartarum Guillaume set the libraries and archives of the abbey in order, and he was probably the manager who provided a suitable and stable workshop or studio for himself and his collaborators, possibly the camera antiquorum, for which 20 sous were paid, plus 8 sous to a master carpenter for a new door and writing bench in 1284 and 1285, and where some “lost chronicles were rewritten” in 1287.7 We imagine that studio or atelier not as an old-fashioned monastic scriptorium but as a composition workshop with large tables, good daylight, and a practical research library close by: the conventual library of the abbey, housed “above the chapel of St. 5 Delisle, “Mémoire sur les ouvrages de Guillaume de Nangis,” Mémoires de l’Institut national de France 27,2 (1873): 296–341. From 1849, when he graduated as archiviste paléographe of the Ecole des Chartes, until his retirement in 1905, Léopold Delisle worked among the leaders of the Bibliothèque nationale, becoming director of its Department of Manuscripts and a prodigious source of published catalogues and studies. He has a dominant role in several of the chapters that follow. 6 “Notice sur vingt manuscrits du Vatican,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 37 (1876) 471–527. 7 Pro camera antiquorum & pro uno hostio novo, scanno in camera scriptorum & pro cronicis amisis rescribendis, XIII s.: Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis, 337–38.
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
17
Figure 2: Léopold Delisle, Archiviste Paléographe, ca. 1873. Source: en.wikipedia.org.
Clement in the cloister.”8 While the many sources were being discovered and chosen, noted and excerpted, rewritten to conform in style, and placed chronologically, the whole work had to be kept in an unbound file. This was possibly a literal filum or thread, a cord on which the segments, whether whole pamphlets or single copy sheets, could be hung in their chronological order, ready to accommodate any number of interleavings and revisions.9 The many faults in the first edition of the Chronicle were due in part to the difficulty of reading those much-marked preparatory sheets. Guillaume de Nangis himself established the working method of the studio for the Chronicle, and he was its leading author until late in the 1290s. Then he
8 Michel Germain, Le Monasticon gallicanum, plate 66 shows the abbey in the seventeenth century. The bibliotheca conventus was likely above the dormitorium vetus (D) along the eastern side of the cloister, or possibly above the dormitorium novum (E) branching eastward from that. 9 The papal Chancery at Avignon used such a filum to hang papal letters by the cords of their bullae while waiting for the beneficiaries to pay the regular charges and collect them.
18
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
began to pass the work over to other hands: when Louis IX was canonized in 1297, no one added sanctus to the king’s titles in the earlier entries.10 We are told in four manuscripts of the work that Guillaume had put his own last touches to the text in 1300, the year that he died, but his studio colleagues carried on with their work. Abbot Matthieu de Vendôme (1258–86) had inspired Guillaume’s historical labor by arranging the royal tombs in dynastic sequences in the abbey church. Abbot Reynaud de Giffart (1286–1304 new style) had encouraged and funded Guillaume’s historical studio. It was on the vigil of St. Gregory’s Day 1304 that Abbot Reynaud died,11 and it fell to his successor Gilles de Pontoise (1304–1326) to bring the work of Guillaume de Nangis posthumously to a first edition. It was Abbot Gilles who ordered the vast chronological file that had been assembled in the Saint-Denis studio to be copied there, by a professional Paris book scribe, into MS Reginensis. In the few years between that finished exemplar of the first edition and the composition of a definitive second edition, the writers of the historical studio at Saint-Denis continued working to augment, refine, and polish the text. Instead of marking up MS Reginensis with a thorough textual revision, the studio carried on the correction, addition and enhancement of the unbound file. Some wording was changed, some parts were thoroughly revised and, especially in the later years, substantial passages were incorporated from fresh sources, for example Primat on the life of St. Louis and the story of the shepherds’ crusade of AD 1251.12 The ur-manuscript of the second edition, BnF MS lat. 4918, Delisle’s MS A, was then copied in the Saint-Denis studio from the updated notes. As the pages of MS A were written, they were sewn up in quires but kept separate as peciae for convenient copying. The old unbound file, now supplanted, was put away out of use, and MS A became the exemplar of the entire second edition. The studio continued to polish the text of MS A stylistically, while marking it with corrections and with additions, some of these quite substantial, for example the long passages from Flavius Josephus on the events of AD 33. We have no copy of pristine MS A, that is, no copy that was made before any corrections or additions were made to MS A. But manuscripts were copied from it at four distinct stages of its mark-up, as Delisle was able to demonstrate. We call those stages A1 A2 A3 A4.
10 Sanctus was added to those passages in the other manuscripts, and this was the hint that led Delisle to posit and then prove two editions. 11 11 March, 1303 by the Paschal dating of Paris, by which 1304 would begin on Easter, 29 March. Gallia Christiana 7:391–98 for the abbots of Saint-Denis. 12 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 327–39.
Census of Manuscripts of the Latin World Chronicle
19
Census of Manuscripts of the Latin World Chronicle Four copies of the first edition are known, seventeen of the second, and there is one manuscript that carries only the continuations. Delisle assigned the sigla A through I to the nine manuscripts of the second edition in the Bibliothèque nationale. We represent all the other manuscripts by the names of the cities or the collections where the manuscripts are preserved today.13 The four manuscripts of the first edition: Reginensis: Vatican Library, Reginensis lat. 544, early fourteenth century, 371 fols. parchment, 33×23 cm; Creation to AD 1303.14 BnF MS fr. 5703, in two columns, fourteenth century, 177 fols. parchment, 21×15 cm. Two distinct elements: (1) headless and tailless 1ra–104vb a French version of some chronicle material from Eusebius AD 212–318 (1ra– 5ra); Jerome AD 319–80 (5ra–8ra); and Sigebert AD 381–1078 (8ra–104vb). (2) 109ra–176vb (+ 178r on paper), Latin Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, AD 1113–1303. Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (KBR), MSS 14855–14858, fourteenth century, 436 fols. parchment, 26×19 cm, headless, missing the first quire; Creation to AD 1303. Chigi: Vatican Library, Chisiani lat. G VIII 233, mid-fourteenth century, 368 fols. parchment, 34×24.5 cm; Creation to AD 1303. The nine manuscripts of the second edition kept in Paris, with Delisle’s sigla: A: BnF MS lat. 4918, early fourteenth century, 398 fols. parchment, 31×22 cm; Creation to AD 1297, but tailless. B: BnF MS lat. 1780, early fifteenth century, 259 fols. parchment, 29×21 cm. Five discrete elements: (1) 1r–48v Chrysostom on Matthew; (2) 49r–141v World Chronicle from Creation to AD 171, suspended tailless; (3) 142r–199v Innocent III on the Penitential Psalms; (4) 211r–213v De articulis fidei, incomplete; (5) 215r–221v exposition of Ave Maria and Pater Noster; (6) 222r–259 Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium. C: BnF MS lat. 17554, fifteenth century, 275 fols., paper, 30×22 cm; Creation to AD 781 (a lost second volume ran at least to AD 1308).
13 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 322 mentioned MSS Dijon, Lyon, London, Torino, Verona, and Wien of the second edition; and also MSS Reginensis and Bruxelles of the first edition, none of which he had seen in 1873; in 1876 he added Vat. lat. 4598. We add MS Chigi, and we have clarified the relation of the two Dijon manuscripts. 14 Léopold Delisle, “Notice sur vingt manuscrits du Vatican, XII,” 505–10.
20
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
D: BnF MS lat. 4919, fourteenth century, 227 fols. parchment, 36×27 cm.; Creation to AD 1300. E: BnF MS lat. 11729, fourteenth century, 330 fols. paper, 39×29 cm; Creation to AD 1302 + 1301 to 1368. F: BnF MS lat. 13703 + 13704, early seventeenth century, paper, 24×16 cm; Creation to AD 810 + AD 810 to 1302 + 1301 to 1368. G: BnF MS lat. 4920, fifteenth century, 413 fols. parchment, 35×25 cm; Creation to AD 1300. H: BnF MS lat. 14358, fifteenth century, 321 fols. paper and parchment, 39×29 cm; Creation to AD 1300. I: BnF MS lat. 4917, fifteenth century, 238 fols. parchment, 38×28 cm; Creation to AD 1300. Eight other manuscripts are of the second edition: Dijon, BM 570, mid-late fourteenth century, 330 fols. parchment, 37×27 cm; Creation to AD 1302, 1301 to 1368. Dijon, BM 571, late fourteenth century, 143 fols. paper, 28.5×20 cm; AD 1301 to 1368: a transfer manuscript of the continuations. Royal: London, BL Royal MS 13 E IV, early fourteenth century, 445 fols. parchment, cut to 41×28 cm; Creation to AD 1300. Lyon, BU 227 + 228, fifteenth century, 295 and 273 fols. paper, 27×20 cm; Creation to AD 592 + 593 to 1302, 1301–1368. Napoli, BN MS VII.A.45, 3/4 of fourteenth century, 143 fols. parchment, 41×30 cm; Creation to AD 1308. Torino, BN Universitaria MS K.II.11 (Pasini lat. 106 + 107), mid-late fourteenth century, 160 + 166 fols. parchment, 33×23.5 cm; Creation to AD 575 + 575 to 1302, 1301 to 1368. Vat. lat. 4598, fourteenth century, 204 fols. parchment, 34×25 cm; Creation to AD 1307. Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare MS CCVII (catalogue 203), fourteenth century, 387 fols. parchment, 30×21 cm; Creation to AD 1300 + 1301–1302 added in another hand. Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek cod. 376, fifteenth century, before 1477, 294 fols. parchment, 33×27 cm; Creation to AD 1300. The evidence led Delisle to posit three missing manuscripts which we designate α, ε, γ; and we recognize the need for two more, β, δ.
Continuations of the Chronicle beyond 1300
21
Here we should correct eight spurious identifications of manuscripts of this work: Bern, Burgerbibliothek 70 contains selections extracted from the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis for use in the Grandes Chroniques de France: see Léopold Delisle, “Documents parisiens de la Bibliothèque de Berne,” 247–49. Paris, BnF MSS lat. 4920A and 4991 are copies of a different Latin world chronicle, incorrectly attributed to Guillaume de Nangis on the basis of similar or identical incipits and the fact that the material before AD 1112 bears the name of Sigebert de Gembloux as compiler. Paris, BnF MS lat. 10298: this number now belongs to a seventeenth-century Dictionnaire latin-français, but it was the Bibliothèque royale number for the MS which is now BnF MS fr. 5703. Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine MSS 2016 and 2017 are parchment codices containing extracts from the Latin Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis expanded in the historical studio of Saint-Denis with material from other histories, notably that of Michel Pintoin, le religieux de Saint-Denis. MS 2016 runs from Charlemagne to 1066, and MS 2017 from 1057 to 1270: Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 50 and n. 162. Auguste Molinier considered MS 2016 to be fifteenth century and MS 2017, fourteenth century: Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Mazarine 2:325–26. Tours, BM 506–7 in Potthast, Wegweiser 1 (1896) is an erroneous reference to our MS Torino, giving the numbers assigned by Giuseppe Pasini (1749). Vat. lat. 2042 is a copy of the Chronicon of Martinus Oppaviensis.
The Stemma Codicum The stemma codicum (Figure 3) is based on the studies of Léopold Delisle, who established the relations of the Paris and Vatican manuscripts that he knew; his findings are shown in red. Our own examination of all the known manuscripts enabled us to place the rest, in blue. The points at which the different Continuations entered the manuscript tradition are in green. The descriptions of manuscripts and editions in the last three sections of this chapter give the points of critical evidence for all the affiliations that are shown in the stemma.
Continuations of the Chronicle beyond 1300 MS Reginensis and its three copies, the first edition of the Chronicle, all continue through 1301 and 1302 and include one paragraph for 1303. The Saint-Denis studio had carried on its work even after the leadership of Guillaume de Nangis lapsed. Although MS A is tailless, stopping in mid-sentence in the account of year 1297, we suppose that it also had that short “first continuation” into 1303. This continuation was printed in Hercule Géraud’s edition, based on MS BnF fr. 5703.
Figure 3: The Stemma Codicum: manuscripts of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis. Created by the authors.
22 Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
Continuations of the Chronicle beyond 1300
23
Early in the process of completing the text of MS A, a copy ε was made from A1 which became the exemplar of MS B, a manuscript which was never finished: it ends abruptly in AD 171. Somewhat later A2 was copied into α, from which MSS C, Napoli, and Vat. lat. 4598 descended. That α family included a “continuatio minor” to 1308 in MSS C and Napoli, and to 1307 in MS Vat. lat. 4598.15 For 1301, 1302, and the beginning of 1303 the “minor” is substantially the “first continuation” with some corrections and transpositions, a few sentences reporting new material, rhetorical flourishes, and revised wording. The rest of the “continuatio minor,” with a full account of 1303 and continuing into 1308, is found only in the α family. When Delisle examined MS Vat. lat. 4598 in 1876 he commented that “the continuation should be examined in detail; it seems to me that it differs noticeably from the published texts.”16 In 1896 Delisle studied the excerpts of Guillaume de Nangis found in Bern, Burgerbibliothek 70 and copied out the year 1303 and five short paragraphs from the years 1305–8. Since no one had taken up the task of transcribing the “continuatio minor,” he was unaware that these excerpts came from the α family. Lucia Gualdo Rosa studied MS Napoli for its connections with the Parrasio collection, and in discussing the continuation she commented:17 At this point, we should perhaps have taken up Delisle’s suggestion and published the continuatio minor, at least from 1303 on, basing our reading principally on the text of Napoli alone; but the undertaking seemed to us too time-consuming.
She did, however, include a transcription of 1307 and 1308 in an appendix. The Torino family (MSS Torino, Dijon, Lyon, E, and F) report almost the last state of MS A’s text, A3. These manuscripts contain the “first continuation” for the years 1301 and 1302 with only negligible changes. Then all the Torino manuscripts, and only those, add a final set of texts from 1301 (again) to 1368, which we will call “Compendiose” after the opening of its introductory paragraph. This set of texts was included in all the printed editions of Guillaume’s Chronicle, since they were based on MSS E and F, members of the Torino family. It is clear that after the death of the leading author and editor, Guillaume de Nangis, differences of practice emerged among his successors in style, scope,
15 The name continuatio minor was suggested by Lucia Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone.” 16 Léopold Delisle, “Notice sur vingt manuscrits du Vatican, XIII,” 510–11: La continuation devra être examinée en detail, car il m’a semblé qu’elle diffère assez notablement des textes publiées. 17 Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone,” 256: A questo punto, avremmo forse dovuto raccogliere il suggerimento de Delisle, e pubblicare la continuatio minor, almeno a partire dal 1303, fondandoci per la maggior parte del testo sul solo codice N(apoli). Ma l’impresa ci è apparsa troppo impegnativa.
24
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
and material. But within a couple of decades of Guillaume’s death, his prestige as author of the World Chronicle was being reasserted and the continuations after 1300 were reconsidered. Six manuscripts end at 1300 without continuation: MSS Royal, D, G, H, I, and Wien. And four (MSS Royal, D, Verona and I) include a notice at the end of the year 1300 that Huc usque frater Guillelmus de Nangiaco cronicam suam studio diligenti produxit and MS I adds emphatically et non ultra. It is also clear that the monk who began the “Compendiose” continuations was interested in carrying forward Guillaume’s legacy with a worthy, elegant, appropriate text, better than what he found in the “continuatio minor.” It seems that this colleague of Guillaume’s had become a leader of the monks dedicated to carrying on the Latin work of the master, while others in the studio were were engaged instead on the more modern and popular French-language Chroniques de France, focused on the adventures of French royalty. But it was not until much later, probably soon after 1368, that the compilation of historical material that we call “Compendiose,” covering the years from 1301 to 1368, was finally added, all together, to the much older, original parent manuscript of the Torino family. We know by internal evidence that the “Compendiose” texts were written by at least three different authors over those years. The first author tells us something about himself in an introduction to his work. He was a monk in the historical studio of Saint-Denis, and he begins his text at 1301 with a promise to continue in detail the method of Guillaume de Nangis:18 Wishing to carry on further, succinctly enough (so far as it has been granted and permitted me from above) the series of historical accounts, so useful for many purposes, composed with diligent study and in an elegant style by the venerable brother Guillaume de Nangis, fellow monk of our monastery, up to this point, the year of Our Lord thirteen hundred, inclusively, I myself have also taken care to add, in notes and headings, the names of kingdoms and the years of Christ in their course just as that same brother did in his work, without changing the arrangement.
In the account of the year 1317 we are aware that a new continuator has taken up the task, because he notes that his predecessors (plural) had not written
18 Géraud ed. 327: Compendiose satis ad multa perutilem chronographie seriem, a venerabili fratre coenobii nostri commonacho Guillermo de Nangiaco ab initio mundi usque huc, hoc est usque ad annum Domini millesimum trecentesimum inclusive, studio diligenti styloque eleganti digestam, ulterius, quantum ex alto mihi concessum fuerit aut permissum, protrahere cupiens, regnorum subscriptionem et annorum Christi decursum, prout in opere suo idem intitulaverat frater, et ego ipse ordine non mutato annotare et intitulare curavi. The running heads of kingdoms and the notes of kings and dates are clearly shown in figure 10.
Continuations of the Chronicle beyond 1300
25
about the emperor Louis of Bavaria in the years around 1314.19 Géraud judged on stylistic grounds that this continuator carried the work through 1340. His attitude is less judicious and his scope narrower: he does not aim for universality. All the years from 1301 to 1340, however, are clearly the work of monks at SaintDenis who aim to copy the format and methods of Guillaume. A final section of text with a short introduction covers the history of France from 1340 to 1368. The author revealed that he was a friar, probably Carmelite, and that he came from the small town of Venette (Oise). The work has been attributed to the Carmelite Jean de Venette, prior of the Paris convent and Carmelite provincial of France from 1342 to 1369, also author of a poem, L’Histoire des Trois Maries, though that supposition has been disputed on stylistic grounds. In any case our friar from Venette was certainly in Paris for most of the period and an eyewitness of some of the facts that he relates. He may well have been aware of the earlier continuations to Guillaume’s Chronicle (the fact that he begins with 1340 hints that he was) but he made no attempt to imitate their style or method, and it is most likely that as he wrote he had no inkling that his work would come to be accepted as the completion of the “Compendiose” written at Saint-Denis. Aside from the Torino family, one copy of Jean de Venette’s brief chronicle survives: BL Arundel 28. The French translator Colette Beaune agrees with the earlier English translator Joan Birdsall that the Arundel manuscript was commissioned by Jeanne d’Evreux, the widow of King Charles IV of France, a patron of the Carmelites and a known book collector, and it was at her death in 1371 that Arundel 28 was left unfinished, without its decorated initial capitals. It left France as plunder of war about 1435, and it received some notes relating to the Wars of the Roses in England well before 1470.20 Jeanne d’Evreux had been prominent in the royal circles for whom the Chronicle was produced, and she was buried at Saint-Denis. She, or another patron similarly placed, directed the scribes to add Jean de Venette to the continuation “Compendiose”; but an editor reworked the text of Arundel 28 to soften some of the judgements and standardize some of the language before doing so.21 To summarize the occurrence of the different continuations: The “first continuation” 1301–1303 appears in some form in each manuscript of the first edition and in all the second-edition manuscripts derived from A2 and A3. Only the three
19 Géraud ed., xvi: illi qui antea scripserunt a decimo quarto anno et circiter, de Bavaro, nihil scripserunt. 20 Beaune, 44: Ce manuscrit aurait quitté la France vers 1435 dans les baggages de Bedford ou du duc de Gloucester. Il se trouvait en Angleterre bien avant 1470, comme le prouvent des ajouts à la fin, relatifs à la guerre des Deux-Roses. 21 Beaune, 46.
26
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
extant manuscripts of the α family have the “continuatio minor” for 1301–8. Only the six manuscripts of the Torino family (derived from A3) have the continuation “Compendiose” for 1301–1340, capped in each case with the chronicle of Jean de Venette for 1340–1368. The seven extant manuscripts derived from A4 were copied with no continuation at all beyond 1300, but the years 1301 and 1302 as in the “continuatio minor” were later added to MS Verona. Differences among the texts for those years which are treated in all the continuations, “first,” “minor,” and “Compendiose,” give us some idea of how the SaintDenis studio worked in developing the text of the entire World Chronicle after Guillaume’s death. Comparing the continuations in the years where they overlap, we can say that the “first continuation” is the most straightforward of the three, while the continuating author of “minor” in the α family supplies many interesting details, not necessarily based on evidence, and the “Compendiose” authors tend to gloss over unpleasantness. The most interesting incident covered by all three versions is the 1301 affair of the bishop of Pamiers, the papal nuncio whose arrest prompted Pope Boniface VIII’s letters asserting papal authority over all matters spiritual and temporal in France. King Philippe le Bel convoked an assembly of nobles, churchmen, and magistrates (regarded as the first meeting of the Estates General) and issued an edict forbidding the export of gold, silver and merchandise from France to Italy. The story is given in some detail in the “first continuation,” even quoting the text of the king’s speech against papal pretensions to the assembly. The same story is found in “minor,” with some differences of wording and some deletions. Most notably, the 70 words of the king’s speech are replaced by a brief summary sentence, and the Saint-Denis editor could not resist a reflection on the king’s imperturbability in the face of the affronts to his authority. In “Compendiose” the entire story is reduced to a brief account, about one-fifth the length of that in the “first continuation,” only telling the arrest and release of the bishop of Pamiers and the final edict, with no mention of Italy, the consultative assembly, or the pope. The narration of this incident shows how the viewpoint of the monkhistorians at Saint-Denis shifted with time: “first” and “minor” were written and published when the strife between Philip and Boniface was still fresh and when Boniface could be called heretical by those authors, but the cautious “Compendiose” author was reflecting on that event some years later, after the papacy had come under French influence and relations had been patched up. The old problems could and, he obviously felt, should be glossed over or left unmentioned. To compare the Latin of the continuating authors, here are all three versions of a brief paragraph about the pious Marguerite of Burgundy (d. 1308), widow of the brother of Louis IX, Charles I of Anjou, king of Sicily (d. 1285),
Continuations of the Chronicle beyond 1300
27
expanded in the second and third versions to match her with Blanche (d. 1323) the daughter of Louis IX and widow of Fernando infante of Castile (d. 1275). The “first continuation”22 begins the year 1302 with a brief sentence about the widowed Queen Marguerite of Sicily’s pious work in her hospital for the poor.23 Apud Thonodorum in Burgundia, Margareta regina Sicilie Primi Karoli regis Sicilie uxor secunda sanctitate claret, Deo et pauperibus devote serviens in hospitali pauperum a se ibi constructo.
The treatment of the same subject at the head of 130224 in the chatty “minor” version begins by mentioning Blanche, and then enlarges the sentence about Queen Marguerite with some pious details about doing without servants. Clarebant in Francia sancte illustres vidue Blancha sancti regis Francie Ludovici filia in sancta conversatione Deo vacans et Margareta regina Sicilie primi Karoli regis Sicilie uxor secunda apud Thonodorum in Burgundia in hospitali pauperum a se constructo pauperibus pro Christo serviens humiliter et devote, non servis non ancillis utens ad hec officia peragenda, sed per semetipsam hoc agens suis manibus infirmis ministrabat cuncta faciens que servis et ministris mos est solempniter operari.
The first “Compendiose”25 author moved this paragraph to the head of the year 1301, in order to begin his new continuation with a particularly edifying story. He keeps Blanche matched with Marguerite, and this time the place is named where Blanche maintained her sancta conversatio: the Clarician convent in the Faubourg St-Marcel founded by her mother the widow of Louis IX; but he then omits the details of Marguerite’s piety. Tunc temporis clarebant in Francia illustres et honeste vidue Blancha videlicet sancti quondam regis Francie Ludovici filia, in sancta conversatione apud Sanctum Marcellum prope Parisius Deo vacans, et Margareta Sicile regina primi Karoli regis Sicile uxor secunda, apud Thornodorum Burgundie in hospitali pauperum ab ea instructo, pia devotione pauperibus obsequia servitutis et humilitatis impendens.
For a taste of how the continuations diverged more radically after 1302, we may compare the moral fable on the death of Edward I of England in the “minor” and the serious attempt at an account of his succession in “Compendiose.” Both place the event in 1306, but the king died on 7 July 1307 (still 35 Edward I).
22 23 24 25
MS Reginensis 368v (Géraud ed. 316). Notre-Dame des Fontenilles, on Marguerite’s estate of Tonerre, Burgundy. MS Vat. lat. 4598, 199v. Géraud ed., 328.
28
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
In “minor,”26 Edward king of England dies. Over-tired by age and the labors of war and his years, he was not able to ride, but was carried on a litter, and when he was passing through some town there was a crowd of men and women saying, “The king is dead! He is dead! He will make war no more, but by God’s gift there will be peace in our land!” Hearing this, the king ordered a horse to be saddled for him, and himself to be put up with the help of his own people, that he might show himself alive to the people who thought him dead. And on account of this labor, as it is said, he incurred the illness by which also he died. He died in the aforesaid year on 7 July, and his first-born son Edward succeded him in his realm.
In “Compendiose,”27 Edward king of England, advanced in age, a prince equally astute and prudent, and also fortunate in war, died in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, and there succeeded him in his realm of England and his lordship of Ireland Edward his son by the countess of Ponthieu [Eleanor of Castile]. By his widowed wife Margaret, sister of the king of France, he left three other sons, of whom the first-born, Thomas by name, held the county of Cornwall.28
Manuscripts of the First Edition Delisle’s point of departure was his distinction of two editions of the Chronicle by the fact that the first edition did not call Louis IX sanctus Ludovicus, and therefore must have been substantially assembled before the king’s canonization in 1297. The only copy of the first edition which Delisle knew in 1873 was
26 MS Vat. lat. 4598, 204r: Eduardus Rex Anglie moritur qui nimia pressus etate, bellorum et annorum laboribus fatigatus non potera [better: poterat] equitare. Sed in lectica ferebatur, et cum per quamdam villam transiret factus est concursus virorum ac mulierum dicentium ‘mortuus est Rex, mortuus est. Iam amplius non debellabit. Sed dante Deo pax erit in terra nostra.’ Quod audiens, Rex iussit sibi continuo equum sterni et se desuper suorum adiutorio poni, ut se vivum populis ostendere [better: ostenderet] quem mortuum extimabant. Qui propter huiusmodi laborem ut dicitur infirmitatem incurit, qua et mortuus est. Obiit autem anno predicto nonis Julii, cui successit in regnis Eduardus filius eius primogenitus. 27 Géraud ed., 358: Eduardus Anglie rex etate provectus, astutus pariter et cautus princeps, necnon in preliis fortunatus, anno tricesimo quinto regni sui decessit; cui successit in regno Anglie et dominio Hibernie Eduardus ejus filius ex comitissa Pontivi. Siquidem de Margareta uxore sua superstite, regis Francie sorore, tres alios reliquerat filios, quorum primogenitus, Thomas nomine, Cornubie tenuit comitatum. 28 “Compendiose” was reporting early and prematurely: Thomas of Brotherton was designated for the earldom of Cornwall, but that went to the king’s favorite Piers Gaveston. Thomas was made earl of Norfolk, but only in 1316.
Manuscripts of the First Edition
29
MS BnF fr. 5703, where the Latin Chronicle text runs from 1113 to 1303. Delisle summarized the differences between the two editions based on their texts for those two centuries. He noted that the first edition was close to Guillaume’s earlier work Gesta Ludovici IX while the second edition is much reworked, showing the influence of the Chroniques de Primat and independently using some of the sources that Primat used. Delisle lamented that Géraud’s 1843 publication of the Chronicle used manuscripts from both editions. “It is impossible,” he noted dryly, “to blend in the same text the two editions of the Chronicle without introducing much confusion.”29 Furthermore, he found that MS BnF fr. 5703 was extremely faulty. “For example, on the first page, in the paragraph relating to the year 1114, not a long paragraph, I have picked out some ten gross blunders.”30 The most outrageous of those mistakes, and the one most useful to Delisle in his investigations, was a consequence of the fact that MS BnF fr. 5703 was written in two columns, not a single column headed by the names of kingdoms and kings. Delisle had seen a notice of an undated Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis in the Vatican Library, MS Reginensis latin 544. And so, three years after the publication of his “Mémoire,” while he was researching French manuscripts of historical interest which had migrated at various times to the Vatican Library, he did not fail to call for MS Reginensis.
Figure 4: BAV Reg. lat. 544, 308r, the exemplar of the first edition, showing the correct format of the running headline of kingdoms above the text block. By permission of the Vatican Library.
It was immediately plain to Delisle that this was an early fourteenth-century manuscript. Then he was struck by the resemblance of its clear book-hand to the script of MS A in Paris. The similarity, Delisle wrote, “piqued my curiosity, and soon enough I realized that what I was looking at was the first edition of that 29 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 339: Il est impossible de fondre dans un même texte les deux éditions de la Chronique, sans y introduire beaucoup de confusion. 30 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 299: Ainsi, dès la première page, dans le paragraphe relatif à l’année 1114, qui n’est pas long, j’ai relevé une dizaine de grosses bévues.
30
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
Figure 5: Detail, BnF MS fr. 5703, 109rb. The running headline of Reg. lat. 544, 308r was thoughtlessly copied as if part of the text. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
Chronicle, the edition which I previously knew only from an incomplete copy, MS BnF fr. 5703, 109r–75r.”31 What a pure pleasure it must have been for Delisle to turn to the entry for AD 1114 on fol. 307v and see the page that the scribe of MS BnF fr. 5703, “unintelligent or confused,” had been bent over when he began his task of copying the Chronicle from the point where the material of Sigebert de Gembloux ended (Compare Figures 4 and 5). After he had copied the words that came at the end of MS Reginensis 307v, he drove stolidly on, copying the headings of Reginensis 308r directly into the narrative text of MS BnF fr. 5703, 109ra: Cenobium in monte Tabor situm funditus evertunt monachos. Romanorum. Constantinopol. Francorum. Jerosolimorum. Anglorum. Henricus V. Ludovicus Grossus. Balduinus II. Henricus. interficiunt et omnia sibi diripiunt. Now Delisle was able to define the text of the first edition of the Chronicle with precision, using the exemplar Reginensis. This manuscript has an abundance of fourteenth-century marginal notes ordering a copyist here scribe and there transi, indicating where to begin and where to end an excerpt. We should note, as Delisle did not, that the scribe of MS BnF fr. 5703, whom he had maligned for his grosses bévues, was almost always copying MS Reginensis accurately.32 In only one of Delisle’s instances was the scribe
31 “Notice sur vingt manuscrits du Vatican, XII,” 505. 32 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 299. For example, MS BnF fr. 5703 copies MS Reginensis Apud Ravennam extra Palmam against the correct reading: Apud Ravennam et Parmam –omnia sibi diripiunt against: omnia ibi diripiunt –mercatores against: mercatorem –decertant against: decertante
Manuscripts of the First Edition
31
of MS BnF fr. 5703 truly at fault, misinterpreting what he saw on the page of MS Reginensis in front of him, and reading mille quincentis as mille qui utentis. In Reginensis 307v the word mille ends a line. Reginensis had spaced the word quincentis rather casually, and MS BnF fr. 5703 109r has a nonsensical phrase, qui utentis. There are two other copies of the first edition of the Chronicle that Delisle never saw, but the authors know his methods and will apply them to MSS Bruxelles and Chigi. The three catalogue items Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, mss. 14855–14857 have been reunited in a single handsome quarto volume, written in one column. The headline of kingdoms’ names is only found on the verso pages, and this copy does not include the inter-paragraph regnal year numbers. It is now missing its first quire. MS Bruxelles includes all the traits that Delisle identified in the first edition, and the mistakes that he found in MS Reginensis for AD 1114. On folio 1r the scribe of MS Bruxelles copied exactly, in red, a series of marginalia from MS Reginensis, 3v and 4r: origo ydolatrie / Ambitio Nini et victorie / inventio artis magice / libido Semiramis et crudelitas While these are banal topical indices, they do not replicate words from the text, and so they must have been copied from the margin of MS Reginensis by the rubricator of MS Bruxelles. So MS Bruxelles was copied directly from MS Reginensis. During his visit to the Vatican Library in 1876 Delisle did not see the beautiful first-edition copy of the Chronicle, MS Chigi, because the Chigi family library only came to the Vatican when it was given to Pope Pius XI in 1923.33 MS Chigi is copied so exactly, quire by quire, from MS Reginensis that they report the same catchword at the end of each of the first five quires. And yet none of those quires in MS Chigi ends with blank space; the scribe managed to fill each quire with the same quantity of text as its exemplar. He did it by employing a slightly smaller letter size than that of MS Reginensis, on pages of similar size. To avoid having the text of a quire end short of the bottom of the page, the Chigi scribe carefully enlarged the space between paragraphs so that this is a beautiful, uncrowded book, easy to read. In MS Reginensis, at the end of the AD 1186 paragraph discussing the work of Joachim di Fiore, marginal notes, not in the hand of the scribe, are pointed
–In quo Carnatiotensis episcopus qui durum libium illum compilavit against: Ivo Carnotensis episcopus qui librum illum compilavit 33 See Plate 1 for a detail of its illuminated initial.
32
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
into the text by a signe de renvoi. MS Reginensis originally read Id vero in libello eius precendentis notabile et suspectum habetur quod mundi diffinit terminum infra duas generationes que iuxta ipsum annos faciunt sexaginta arbitratur implendum. First the words pro qualibet generatione were inserted between the lines after the word ipsius. A signe de renvoi above and between the words duas generationes inserts: alia littera habet tres et tunc satis et de prope concordat cum scriptura de fine mundi edita a magistro Hernaudo provinciali approbata ut dicitur a Bonifacio papa. MS Chigi copies those additions seamlessly into the text. MS BnF fr. 5703 did pick up the addition pro qualibet generatione, but ignored the longer marginal note. It is quite possible that MS BnF fr. 5703 was copied before, and MS Chigi after, that note was added to MS Reginensis. The alert scribe of MS Chigi was the only one of the copyists of the first edition who recognized the simple grammatical error in one of the “gross blunders” that Delisle pointed out in MS BnF fr. 5703 at AD 1114: MS Chigi emends the ungrammatical rege viriliter concertant to the ablative absolute rege viriliter concertante. MS Chigi does not have the marginal indices that Bruxelles copied, so it is clear that MS Bruxelles did not copy MS Chigi. And MS Chigi could not have copied MS Bruxelles, because MS Bruxelles lacks the inter-paragraph regnal years. So we see that each of the other three manuscripts of the first edition of the Chronicle was copied directly from MS Reginensis.
Manuscripts of the Second Edition Among the nine manuscripts of the second edition which he found in the Bibliothèque nationale, Delisle recognized BnF MS lat. 4918 as the exemplar of the entire edition, and he designated it MS A. Delisle proved that A belonged to Saint-Denis in the fourteenth century.34 Like a registered exemplar from which copies of a standard university text would be made by the professional librarii of the town, MS A was kept at Saint-Denis for the convenience of the copying scribes. Even as the process of revising the text of MS A continued, the manuscript was kept in peciae, that is, each of its quires was sewn up and marked with a catchword, but they were not bound together. This made it easier to copy, even by two or more scribes at one time, and MS A was copied at least six times.
34 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 302: A passage on 288v names one Rotholandus . . . et hic, opinantur nonnulli, comes Wastinensis fuit, et dedit Beato Dyonsio Belnam in Wastineto [Beaune-laRolande en Gâtinais] and a marginal note in a fourteenth-century hand reads De Rotholaundo qui dedit nobis Belnam. The word nobis must have been written by a monk of Saint-Denis.
Manuscripts of the Second Edition
33
Delisle identified the manuscripts of the second edition in the Bibliothèque nationale with the letters A through I, and we retain those sigla. He later added MS Vat. lat. 4598 to the census of second-edition manuscripts. The exemplar MS A did not keep its pristine state for long; none of the copies made from it are without MS A’s various mark-ups. Delisle tabulated a score of marginal notes, interlinear additions, interpolations, erasures, cross-outs and tip-ins that were made in MS A by members of the historical studio of Saint-Denis. As those changes were made over time to MS A, copies were taken from it which incorporate the earliest changes, later changes, and the final state of MS A: stages A1 to A4. MS B is unfinished, ending at AD 171, but it was made in the fifteenth century from a lost intermediary ε that was itself copied at the earliest stage of the revisions, A1, in the early fourteenth century, and ε stopped abruptly where A1 ended a pecia and the scribe of ε had no more material. MS C, another fifteenth-century copy, now ends in the year 781 because at some time the original MS C was divided into two volumes, and the second has been lost. The revisions found in MS B, and also some later ones, are present in MS C, and so MS C attests the existence of another lost fourteenth-century intermediary α which was copied from A2. We know that the lost second volume of MS C continued at least to AD 1308, since there is a note in the first volume making reference to a detail of that year. Delisle placed the other six Paris MSS D; E and F; G, H, and I) into the final second-edition stage A4, complete with all the mark-ups to MS A. (But we will show that MSS E and F, with the rest of the Torino group, were derived earlier, from A3.) He then divided these six manuscripts into three families according to the ways they handled two long additions to MS A at AD 33 (fols. 164v and 165r). These texts (See Figure 6) were added to A3, a stage after ε and α had been copied from MS A, and so they do not appear in MSS B and C. The first section of the original MS A text for AD 33 on 164v tells of the death of Christ and the immediate effects of darkness, earthquake and the rending of the veil of the temple. To simplify, we will call that original text number one. The second section of original text on the same page recounts the events through the Ascension and Pentecost, including a long account of the associated material found in Josephus: text number two. A member of the SaintDenis studio later wrote in the lower margin of folio 164v a long note, about 300 words, concerning the universality of the darkness and the earthquake of Good Friday: text three. The length of that note caused its last line, 26 words, to be squeezed in on the bottom edge of the page; it is therefore hard to read; we will call that last line text four. Another annotator then added a signe de renvoi before text four and added an answering signe on 165r, the facing page, in the lower margin just below the text block; there text four is reiterated, written more clearly and slightly reworded for clarity: text five. Another long note
Figure 6: Successive copyists at Saint-Denis treated the marginal additions at AD 33 in quite different ways, permitting Léopold Delisle to arrange the manuscripts in families. Schema created by the authors.
34 Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
Manuscripts of the Second Edition
35
of about 120 words is found below that, continuing the Josephus matter in the text with what he had further to say about John the Baptist: text six. An X at the end of text two matches the X at the beginning of this text six. Delisle judged, and we agree, that the intention of the Saint-Denis annotators to MS A was that the passage should be understood and copied in the order of texts one, three, five, two, six, skipping four. But no surviving manuscript does precisely that, and the scribes’ different solutions of the puzzle provide the perfect means for establishing the relationships among the copies. Delisle showed that the fourteenth-century MS D is certainly a direct copy of MS A, since MS D explicitly notes the final words of the sixth quire of the manuscript that it is copying, and those are the exact final words of the sixth quire or pecia of MS A. At AD 33, MS D copied text one, then three, skipped both four and five, copied two, and finished with six. The late fourteenth-century MS E (or a missing parent of E) came closer to Delisle’s understanding of the correct sense of the additions: the scribe copied one, three, four, ignored five, then copied two and six. The seventeenth-century MS F reported the same sequence, and Delisle deduced that F was copied from E, even reproducing many of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century marginal notes in MS E. Thus MS F has no independent editorial value. Finally, Delisle found that MSS G, H, and I all shared a third, less successful, solution: these manuscripts from the fifteenth century all copy one, three, five, then six, then two, leaving the passage on John the Baptist unattributed or misattributed. So it is clear that these three manuscripts share a single ancestor γ copied directly from MS A. Delisle notes one reworked section of A4 that tells how in AD 810 Charlemagne gave all France as a predium or pledge to the church of SaintDenis. The original text is crossed out in A4 and replaced by a more effusive version in the lower margin. That is the version found in MS D and MSS G, H, and I, but the earlier, untouched, version is found in MSS E-F.35 We conclude that MSS E and F were derived from A3, a stage of the markup after that of MSS B and C and earlier than A4, the final version that is reproduced in MSS D, G, H, and I. To summarize: these were the distinct stages of development of the text of the Chronicle: the first edition; then MS A of the second edition, then several phases of amendments to MS A, as marked by the successive copies derived from it: MS B; and then C; then E-F; then D; and finally the trio G, H, and I.
35 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 313–14.
36
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
During his 1876 visit to the Vatican Library Delisle found and described MS Vat. lat. 4598 of the second edition. This fourteenth-century manuscript, he reckoned, was written either in the south of France or in Italy, and he found that it exhibited the same partial set of additions and changes to MS A as did MS C. And this manuscript includes entries for years through 1307, as had the full text of MS C. Delisle noted as well that the continuation beyond 1300 seemed substantially different from the continuation found in MSS E and F. We assume that MS Vat. lat. 4598 descends, like MS C, from the lost α. That it was not copied by a Parisian scribe, as were the other manuscripts which Delisle examined, suggests that another intermediate manuscript β was copied from α and then left Paris to be copied itself, either in the south of France or in Italy, in the fourteenth century, while α remained in Paris, where MS C was copied from it in the fifteenth century. Had Delisle seen London, BL MS Royal 13 E IV, he would have known immediately that its stately gothic book hand came from the first half of the fourteenth century (not the fifteenth, where Casley’s catalogue placed it). When we check the critical passages at AD 33 in A4, we see that MS Royal’s solution was the same as MS E’s: one, three, four, two, six. It is clear, however, that MS Royal is neither the ancestor nor the descendant of MS E because MS Royal does include the final version of the AD 810 amplification that is missing in MSS E-F. MS Royal is a faithful, direct copy of the final state, A4, unrelated to all the other surviving copies. On the other hand, the manuscripts which survive in Torino, Dijon, and Lyon share E-F’s sequence at AD 33 and lack the Saint-Denis amplification at AD 810. In addition, only the Torino family includes the “Compendiose” continuation, the years 1301 to 1340 composed by at least three writers at SaintDenis, and the years 1340 to 1368 are the separate creation of the Carmelite Jean de Venette; and each of these manuscripts has the two different versions of the years 1301, 1302, and 1340. Another sign that these five manuscripts all derive from the same stage lies in the curious set of marginalia that they took from A3. There the marginal note Actor is found, among other notes that refer to the sources of the text (for example Comestor and Eusebius) and that continue only through AM 3308 on fol. 94r. Actor clearly means the maker of the Chronicle, Guillaume de Nangis.36 Now, the marginal note actor occurs in A3 at 14 passages, most of which refer to pre-Christian British history. The manuscripts of the Torino family copy the marginal word actor
36 In the Prologue, at the phrase ego frater Guillelmus Sancti Dyonisii in Francia, Manuscript I explains in the margin: Nomen actoris.
Manuscripts of the Second Edition
37
from the first nine of those instances but not from the last five. The chosen nine have nothing in common that they do not share with the neglected five, another evidence that the Torino family descended from a single copy of A3.37 This is how they are related: MS Torino (Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria K.II.11) is a stately fourteenth-century book which was divided at AD 575 into two volumes for easier handling. The original volume was produced in two stages, the first stage running to AD 1302 and the second stage added late in the fourteenth century, with the continuations of the Chronicle to AD 1368 as in MSS E-F. In 1904 a fire destroyed much of the Torino library. Each of the two Chronicle volumes was declared danneggiatissimo: they are water-shrunk and wrinkled and their outer folios are badly scorched.38 But thanks to prompt and sensible conservation they can still be read. MS Dijon 570 is likewise a splendid manuscript, this one in the clean, spare style of Cîteaux. It too was copied in two stages. The first stage, in a two-line gothic bookhand, contains the text of the Chronicle through 1302, copied early
37 The 14 passages with the note actor in A3: 40v Madam rege Britannie mortuo successit Malignus filius eius. 42v Et creditur hoc fuisse lignum crucis dominice 43r Malignus rex Britannie a Membrino fratre suo occiditur et ei successit 43v Membrinus rex Britannie qui fratrem suum Malignum regem interfecerat cum regnasset annis septem iudicio dei quoniam sodomita erat a lupis deserpitur. Cui successit Ebracius filius eius qui Eboracensem urbem fecit. Et de vinginti uxoribus vinginti filios et tringinta filias procreavit. Et optimus fuit. 44r Et Ebracio rege Britannie mortuo successit ei Brutus filius eius cognominatus Viride Scutum. 44v Brutus rex Britannie moritur cui successit Leilus filius eius. 45r Leilio rege Britannie mortuo, Ruhudibras filius eius regnat qui fundavit Guncetriam, Cautuariam et Cestrebiere ubi aquila loquebatur 45v Ruhudibras rege Britannie mortuo successit ei Bladuc filius eius qui per nigromantiam balnea fecit. 48v Bladuc rex Britannie aptatis sibi pennis cum volare voluisset volando cecidit et mortuus est, post quem regnavit Leyr filius eius. 49r Ligurgus qui Lacedemoniis iura composuit insignis habetur . . . 49r Leyr rex Britannie a duabus filiabus suis regno suo eiectus; a tertia filia uxore Agampi cuiusdam regis qui in Francie partibus regnabat in regno restituitur. 50v Leyr rege Britannie mortuo Cordeilla filia eius successit quam Margam et Cunedargius nepotes eius occiderunt et regnum inter se diviserunt. 52r Cunedagius rex Britannie occiso Margano fratre suo solus regnavit in Britannia. 52v . . . Pueri vero cum adolevissent collecta pastorum et latronum manu interfecto apud Albam Amulio avum Numitorem in regnum restituerunt. 38 Carlo Cipolla et al., “Inventario dei Codici superstiti,” 479.
38
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
in the fourteenth century. The second stage, from the end of the fourteenth century, is by a different, though stylistically similar, four-line gothic bookhand and has the continuations from 1301 to 1368. The continuations in MS Torino and MS Dijon 570 are clearly related. Another manuscript, MS Dijon 571, contains only the continuations 1301–68, and was written on paper in four parts by neat cursive gothic hands. Those four paper quires were copied from the continuations in MS Torino, which had been divided into four pieces or peciae for quicker production (Compare Figures 7 and 8). Each quire of MS Dijon 571 ends in mid-page with a catchword. The catchword nobilis (MS Dijon 571 120v) is picked out with an s-shaped squiggle above, below, and to each side: exactly the end-of-quire catchword, surrounded by the same squiggles, as in MS Torino, 155v. And so the continuations in MS Dijon 570, 235r–303v are copies of the continuations in MS Torino by means of the transfer copy MS Dijon 571. MS Torino has several marginal indices to Cistercian interests which were amplified within the text of the copy made for Cîteaux: MS Dijon 570. At AD 1138 (MS Torino, 70v), where Count Thibault of Champagne is mentioned, we find the marginal note Hic Theobaldus inter alias causas cum Adela matre sua fundavit abbatiam Pruliacii Cisterciensis ordine Senonensis diocesis. The annotator knew, however, that Preuilly was founded in AD 1118, and at that date, in the margin of 68r, is noted Cistercium fund . . . . The copyist of MS Dijon 570 was enabled to insert seamlessly into the text for AD 1118, Hoc tempore fundata est abbatia Pruliaci a Theobaldo, comite Campanie, et Adela, matre sua, filia Guillermi Nothi, que nupsit Stephano, comiti Carnotensi.
Figure 7: MS Torino, 155v, detail. The last page of one pecia of the “Compendiose” continuation. At the bottom right-hand corner of the folio we see the catchword nobilis, surrounded by tildeshaped squiggles. Image and publication rights courtesy of BN Universitaria, Torino.
Manuscripts of the Second Edition
39
Figure 8: MS Dijon 571, 120v. The scribe, copying a pecia from MS Torino into this transfer manuscript, finished halfway down the page. He reflexively copied the word nobilis into the text, but correctly repeated it as the catchword at the lower right hand corner of the page, where he also copied Torino’s squiggles. Image and publication rights courtesy of Bibliothèque municipale, Dijon.
Lyon, Bibliothèque Universitaire 227–228, is a fifteenth-century paper copy of the Chronicle written in a cursive gothic bookhand, divided like MS Torino into two volumes for ease of use, in the case of MS Lyon at the year 592. The continuations are an integral part of the volume as originally produced. MS Lyon replicates the idiosyncrasies found together in MSS Torino, Dijon, E and F. MS Lyon copied a set of marginal notes directly from MS Torino.39
39 Copied directly: (AD 1303) MS Torino, 109r De appelatione ad concilium generale per regem a papa; MS Lyon 171v De appelatione ad concilium generale per regem Francie a papa (AD 1347) MS Torino 144v Nota de obsidione et raptione per anglicos Calesii; MS Lyon 237r Nota de obsidione et raptione Calesii per anglicos (AD 1348) MS Torino, 145v Nota de dentibus; MS Lyon 239r Nota de dentibus (AD 1348) MS Torino, 146r Nota de Sancto Yvone; MS Lyon 239r Nota de Sancto Yvone
40
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
MS E was copied directly or indirectly from the complete MS Torino in the fifteenth century. It exhibits the badges of the Torino family: the same arrangement of the additions at AD 33; the same makeup with the same continuations. The transfer manuscript MS Dijon 571 did not copy from MS Torino, 141v the last short paragraph of the second anonymous continuator, and so MS Dijon 570 also lacks it: Hoc anno rex Scotie David cum uxore sua regis Anglie sorore qui diu timore regis Anglie ob regem Francie exulaverant et in castro Gallardi morati fuerant, ad regem proprium sunt reversi. MSS E and Lyon do include this paragraph, confirming that they descended from MS Torino but not by way of MS Dijon 571. Delisle recognized that three fifteenth-century Paris manuscripts G, H, and I constituted a family in which the Chronicle text ends with 1300. We add a fourth close relative, Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 376. These four manuscripts vary unanimously from MS A, and so we suppose an intermediate lost γ as their common parent. Those four manuscripts treat the marginal additions at AD 33 in the same way; of all Chronicle manuscripts only these include the rewritten text five. It is possible, therefore, that text five was added to MS A, 164r, just below the text block and above text six, only after the exemplars of all the other families had been copied. MS Wien shares with MSS G, H, and I several faulty readings that were picked out by Delisle.40 In all the manuscripts of the Chronicle, the legend of Alexander the Great is singled out for special treatment: how the Pharaoh Nectanebo (or Jupiter in the form of Nectanebo) sired Alexander by tricking Olympias. The story gets its own mise en page with paragraph titles and capital letters larger than ordinary. We note that MS I gives a large initial capital to each of the four chapters of this section, while MSS G, H, and Wien do so only for the first and last, marking the other two only with elaborate paragraph marks. And within the γ family, MS I is peculiar in other ways. It is written in a carefully formed gothic bookhand, and the anno mundi and anno domini dates are placed between light red lines in the outer margins, like those of MS Royal, only more delicate. It seems that the scribe of MS I consulted another source than MS A for a few of his readings. For example, MS I alone of the γ group, and alone of the manuscripts of the second edition, includes a sentence from the first edition at the year 1159, Imperator siquidem Romanus cum suis episcopis Octaviano, qui a sibi faventibus papa Victor acclamatus est, cessit. MS A omits all these words while MS I includes them all, except the name Victor.41
40 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 315. 41 Géraud ed., 56 n. 4.
Manuscripts of the Second Edition
41
Another peculiarity of MS I occurs at AD 618: fas est progenitam fratrem te habere coniugem. The word fratrem is abbreviated frē in MS A. MS I 287r clearly reads fratrem, while G 265v, H 208r, and Wien 196r clearly read the emended fratris. MSS G, H, and Wien (but not I) share a unique and peculiar method of forming numerals. While the gothic hands of those three manuscripts are quite different, they all use highly stylized and identically formed arabic numerals at the beginning of the text and only begin with some roman numerals at AM 2058; arabic and roman numerals in the anno mundi dates and the regnal year numbers continue to be interspersed until about AM 2698, where roman numerals finally take over for good. The source of the family traits of MSS G, H, I, and Wien, is the lost γ descended from MS A. The differences between MSS G, H, Wien on one side and I on the other require us to posit another lost manuscript δ, the parent of the triplets, while MS I, copying γ, may also have had direct access to MS A and to a first-edition manuscript. MS Verona Biblioteca Capitolare CCVII, another manuscript which Delisle knew to exist but did not see, was written in several different fourteenthcentury notarial hands with virtually no color, decoration, or filigree. MS Verona is a copy of MS D, implementing the same solution of the complicated mark-up of AD 33 as does MS D. In AD 33, MS A abbreviated tempora as tpra; MS D read tyra, and MS Verona faithfully copied that. It also copied the colophon from MS D, Huc usque frater Guillelmus de Nangiaco cronicam suam studio diligenti produxit. The Chronicle text in MS Verona ends on fol. 381v with that colophon. A blank folio 381bis is followed in a different hand by the 1301–2 “first continuation” of the Chronicle as found in the “continuatio minor.” This section leaves a large space at the top of the page for an impressive capital letter, indicating that it had been originally prepared for inclusion in a more elegant manuscript. The creator or early owner of MS Verona, while aware that the work of Guillaume de Nangis ceased at the year 1300, was still interested in the continuations produced by Guillaume’s followers. Finally MS Napoli: this codex shares the readings by which Delisle originally identified MS C as a witness to an early stage of MS A’s revisions, and which he then found replicated in MS Vat. lat. 4598. Like MS C and MS Vat. lat. 4598, MS Napoli does not head its paragraphs with the row of regnal years. All three copy the mutations of the missing manuscript α. MS Napoli was not copied from MS Vat. lat. 4598, because the first quire of MS Napoli was copied in a French hand from a peciated original, and ends about half-way down 8v within the year AM 2558 at the words iussit multo ieiunio, which do not end a quire in
42
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
MS Vat. lat. 4598. Likewise, the copyist of MS Napoli came to the end of another pecia of his exemplar in AD 139 with the words reliquit Pius papa clementiam dictus halfway down 63v. The phrase is found in MS Vat. lat. 4598 on folio 86r, mid-page and mid-quire, another confirmation that MS Napoli was not copied from MS Vat. lat. 4598. MS Napoli carries its text into the year 1308 with a short paragraph, but seemingly not as far as MS C did originally.42 MS Vat. lat. 4598 ends after only the first paragraph of the year 1307. It could be that the scribe or patron was uninterested in including the following matter for 1307: the unsavory events connected with the suppression of the Templars. In contrast to all the other families of the Chronicle, which do not have titles at all or that simply state, frequently in a later hand, something like Cronica per Guillemum de Nangiaco fratrem de Sancto Dionisio in Francia, these three manuscripts have peculiar expressions for their titles. MS C took as its title, from its exemplar α, a short misunderstanding of some words from the Prologue of the Chronicle: Liber hystoriarum sive cronicarum quem Ieronimus dicit paralympomenon (A Book of Histories or Chronicles which Jerome names Paralipomenon). MS Vat. lat. 4598 and MS Napoli have different versions of the title which they found in their exemplar β. The pretentious β title included a citation of Gratian’s Decretum where Eusebius is mentioned, a definition of Chronica from the Catholicon of Giovanni Balbi of Genova, and a recherché use of the deponent verb vescor. Here are the two copyists’ attempts to reproduce that title, without emendation. MS Vat. lat. 4598 1r successfully read the Decretum citation, and then the reference to the Catholicon, a much-copied encyclopedic dictionary: Cronica. Eusebii. Ieronimi. et aliorum sanctorum patrum. et probatur xv. di. c. Sancta Romana ecclesia.43 in multis .V. et dicuntur cronica cronicans secundum katholicon temporum series vel ordo vel ubi descripta tempora continentur vel facta temporum diversorum et corripitur vi.44
42 Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone,” 257. 43 The reference is to Decretum Gratiani book 1, dist. 15, c. 3. 23 (Friedberg 1:38): Item chronicon Eusebii Cesariensis, atque eiusdem historiae ecclesiasticae libros, quamuis in primo narrationis suae libro tepuerit, et postea in laudibus atque excusatione Origenis scismatici unum conscripserit librum: propter rerum tamen notitiam singularem, que ad instructionem pertinent, usquequaque non dicimus renuendos. 44 Catholicon (Mainz, 1460, columns unnumbered): Cronica: cronon grece latine dicitur tempus. Unde cronicus eadem cum temporalis, terrenus; et hec cronica, -orum idest tempora vel temporum series vel ordo, vel ubi descripta tempora continentur vel facta diversorum temporum.
Printed Editions
43
MS Napoli 1r was baffled by both citations, but managed to read what MS Vat. lat. 4598 could not, verbis and the odd phrase corripitur vescentius, “it is abridged rather enjoyably”: Chronica Eusebii, Ieronimi et aliorum sanctorum patrum plurium. Hoc est et sancte Romane ecclesie in multis verbis et dicuntur cronice cronicarum secundum cathalogum temporum serie ordine vel ubi descripta tempora continent vel facta operationum diversorum et corripitur vescentius.
It is impossible that MS Vat. lat. 4598 copied its confused title from that found in MS Napoli or vice-versa. Each was copied from the lost exemplar β. The copyist of MS Napoli was better read in Latin literature, but not as familiar with the resources of legal scholarship as was the copyist of MS Vat. lat. 4598. β migrated to Southern France or Italy in the early part of the fourteenth century leaving α (the French copy of A2) still in Paris to be copied in the fifteenth century by MS C. Lucia Gualdo Rosa showed45 that MS Napoli had a connection with a copy of the Chronicle owned by Robert the Wise of Naples (died 1343), whose library was taken as plunder by Louis the Great, king of Hungary, in 1350. But Gualdo Rosa’s investigation of MS Napoli’s date with Albinia de la Mare and others seems to prove that MS Napoli must be dated to the third quarter of the fourteenth century and could not itself have been in the library of Robert the Wise.46 We assume that both MS Napoli and MS Vat. lat. 4598 were copied from King Robert’s copy of the Chronicle, and that this may well have been the lost β.
Printed Editions In the prologue to the Chronicle, Guillaume de Nangis declared that the work is based on that of Eusebius to AD 325, then on Jerome to 380, then on Sigebert de Gembloux to 1113. There have been three printed editions of the Chronicle, all of which omit the pre-1113 material on the mistaken inference that it was merely copied from those few well-known originals.
45 Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone,” 247–74. 46 Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone,” 261 n. 31. Gualdo Rosa also took up Delisle’s call for an edition of the hitherto unpublished years of the continuation of the Chronicle and published a transcription of the years 1307 and 1308 from MS Vat. lat. 4598 and MS Napoli: “Un prezioso testimone,” 268–70.
44
Chapter 2 Applied Philology and the Descent of 22 Manuscript Copies
The first printed edition, by Luc d’Achery,47 re-edited by de la Barre,48 reproduced the second manuscript edition from the fourteenth-century MS E and its seventeenth-century copy MS F. Daunou and Naudet49 used MS E, plus the superior MS I and the ur-MS A. The Torino family of manuscripts was the basis of the printed editions until Hercule Géraud recognized the substantial textual differences in MS BnF fr. 5703. Géraud decided to base his text on that first-edition manuscript, with variants and notes from the second edition of the Chronicle that he found in the earlier printed editions and in two MSS, D and G (BnF MSS lat. 4919 and 4920). The edition by Géraud (1843, reprint 1965) is the most readily available, but it is confused by Géraud’s failure to distinguish the first and the second editions
47 Spicilegium, vol. 11 (1672). 48 Vol. 3 (1723, reprint 1968). 49 Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840) 725–63 [for AD 1113–1225] and 543–82 [for AD 1226–1300].
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors In a remarkable memoir,1 Léopold Delisle recalled that his courses in the Ecole des Chartes helped develop in me the taste of a true bibliophile: I became more and more eager to know by whom and for whom manuscripts had been made, what countries they were from and when they had been copied, revised, or completed, what artists had decorated them, into whose hands they had passed, from what dangers they had escaped, what scholars had read them, by what adventures different bits of some manuscripts had been dispersed, often to locations far distant from one another, what alterations they had undergone, what bad treatment they had been subjected to by forgers, sometimes to give them a completely imaginary value, sometimes to cover up a theft.
We share Delisle’s wish to know what we can discover about the fates of the manuscripts of the Universal Latin Chronicle, for whom they were created, who acquired them, why and how, and how they came to the public collections that now hold them. In Part II we will follow the amazing life story of the Royal manuscript and its noble sequence of possessors. In the accounts which follow here, we deal more briefly with a dozen of the others, and these provide an interesting composite picture of the circles in which this text was welcome. We often have clues to the provenance of a manuscript that are less compelling than a court of law would demand for a chain of possession, but we have limited our surmises to the probable. This World Chronicle was intended, designed, compiled, and composed to be a “King’s Mirror of History.” Guillaume de Nangis, as archivist of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, where the bodies of the kings and queens of France were buried and the archives of the French crown were kept, created the text for the glory of the Capetian dynasty and for the instruction of the royal family. Nobly finished copies of the Chronicle in its first edition were commissioned especially 1 In his preface to Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, p. xviii: De telles instructions contribuèrent à développer en moi le goût du vrai bibliophile: je devins ainsi de plus en plus avide de savoir par qui et pour quoi les manuscrits avaient été faits, de quels pays ils étaient originaires, à quelles époques ils avaient été copiés, revisés ou complétés, quels artistes les avaient decorés, entre quelles mains ils avaient passé, à quels dangers ils avaient échappé, quels savants en avaient fait usage, par suite de quelles aventures les différents morceaux de certains manuscrits se trouvent dispersés dans des contrées souvent très éloignées les unes des autres, quelles altérations ils ont soubies, quels mauvais traitements leur ont fait subir des faussaires, tantôt pour leur attribuer une valeur tout à fait imaginaire, tantôt pour dissimuler des larcins. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-003
46
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
by and for French royalty. When those codices and their copies traveled outside that royal circle, and when changing times shifted the French lay readers’ interest away from Latin histories, the dissemination of the text stopped. Each complete copy weighs at least twenty pounds, which would simply be appropriate gravitas in the case of a Bible, a text always and everywhere valued; but only a serious interest in the ancient stories and the modern pedigrees told by this Chronicle would make it a desirable possession, and then only to readers of Latin. All 22 surviving copies are in public collections today, where they are carted to readers only rarely, and only over short distances.
Louis duc de Bourbon; Philippe de Vitry; Paul Petau; Queen Christina of Sweden: Reginensis lat. 544 The simple, polished first codex of the first edition, MS Reginensis, complete from the Creation to 1303, was probably the first codex of the Chronicle, and it may well be the copy noted in the Saint-Denis expenses for that year: Pro tabulis cronicarum scribendis et illuminandis IIII lib.2 MS Reginensis was probably sent to a Paris stationer to serve as exemplar for further copies.3 A poet and composer of genius, Philippe de Vitry, bishop of Meaux and friend of Petrarch (d. 1361), annotated the codex extensively, and the music historian Andrew Wathey has studied those notes and drawn reliable conclusions and reasonable surmises from them in a remarkably short article.4 Louis duc de Bourbon (1279–1342) was the grandson of Louis IX, a natural recipient of the Chronicle. Philippe de Vitry came into possession of the manuscript in his capacity as secretary to Louis de Bourbon, his legal representative in the royal court and at Avignon, and executor of his testament: the notes are full of proBourbon references. But Philippe continued in possession of the MS after the duke’s death: his notes continue at least as late as 1347. The notes are elegantly expressed and assured, sometimes commenting on the Chronicle text, for example “You are mistaken, because Eusebius places this at the twelfth year of the
2 Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 348. 3 Léopold Delisle, “Notice sur vingt manuscrits du Vatican, XII,” 505–10. Delisle’s argument is illustrated by figures 4 and 5. André Wilmart, Codices reginenses latini in 2 vols., ends with Reg. lat. 500, and so no entry for 544. 4 Wathey, “Philippe de Vitry’s Books,” 145–48.
BAV Reginensis lat. 544
47
reign of Ptolemy.” and “Here this chronicler omitted to mention a most notable strategem of King Edward of England, typical of his character.”5 The manuscript may well have been in Philippe de Vitry’s possession when he died in Paris in January 1362 (1361 by the Easter reckoning of Paris). The next possessor was Raoul de Bonneville OP, master of theology of Paris, papal chaplain to Clement VII of Avignon 1378–1386, then bishop of Vaison-laRomaine, 1386–1406, who left it to an institution which protected its possession with an ineffective anathema that is now nearly effaced.6 It may possibly have passed to Fleury (S. Benoît-sur-Loire), an abbey closely linked to Saint-Denis. Both monasteries were sacked by Huguenots, Fleury in 1562 and Saint-Denis in 1567. Most of the manuscripts of Fleury which now survive were salvaged by the bailiff of the abbey, Pierre Daniel of Orléans (d. 1604), who also bought some manuscripts from monks of Saint-Denis.7 Most of Pierre Daniel’s books were purchased by the magistrate and bibliophile Paul Petau (d. 1614) and passed to his son Alexandre Petau (d. 1672), who sold almost 1500 manuscripts, including this Chronicle, at the advice of the famous Dutch bibliophile Isaac Vossius, to the agents of Queen Christina of Sweden (d. 1689).8 When Christina died in 1689 her books went to Pope Alexander VIII; they are now the Reginenses in the Vatican Library, and the Chronicle is Reg. lat. 544.
5 Note to Reg. lat. 544, 88r: Erras, quia Eusebius ponit hoc super anno XII regni Ptolomei. 370v (AD 1302): Iste cronicista omisit hic inscribere Edoardi regis Anglorum, juxta morem suum, nobilisimum strategema. 6 By ultraviolet light, Wathey reads the washed inscription on Reg. lat. 544, 371v: Iste liber cronicorum sancti diony[sii . . . per?] Radulphum Episcopum Vasionen. [. . .] dedit [ . . . an] athema. 7 For the dispersal of the books of Saint-Denis, see Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 125–43. 8 André Wilmart, Codices reginenses latini 1:viii: At praestantissimum lucrum fuit [to the library of Queen Christina], cum an. 1650 (ad Sextilem mensem) Petaviana bibliotheca [of Petau father and son] arbitrio Isaac Vossii Parisiis empta est. Nam Paulus Petavius, Aurelianensis (1568–1614), deinde regius consiliarius, iam vergente sec. XVI innumera spolia Gallicanarum ecclesiarum ac coenobiorum magno quaestu collegit; quibus Alexander filius, pariter regius consiliarius (1628–1672) nova subsidia semper adiunxit, ita ut elenchus qui simul cum libris ipsis Vossio commissus fuit plus quam mille octingentas inscriptiones distingueret.
48
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
Jeanne de Bourgogne, Jean de Vignay, St. Nicaise de Reims, Petiblet, Duchesne, Rousselet, Colbert; Bibliothèque royale: BnF MS fr. 5703 The first part of this codex makes it unique among the copies of the Chronicle: before 1113, we find a Middle French text that is not based on the Latin World Chronicle compiled by Guillaume de Nangis and his collaborators, but on chronicle passages selected from Eusebius, Jerome, and Sigebert. So the patron who ordered this copy had a serious interest in history and wanted a version of the chronicles that would be congenial to a Francophone lay reader. We confidently identify this patron as Jeanne de Bourgogne, called the Lame (la Boiteuse; queen 1328–49). The second element in this volume is the first edition of Guillaume’s Latin Chronicle from 1113 to 1302, copied directly from MS Reginensis by a scribe who, misunderstanding at first the names of kingdoms in the headline, incorporated them into the text.9 The first page has a definite ex-libris note: Iste liber est venerabilis cenobii Sancti Nicasii remensis, ordinis Sancti Benedicti. Now, the accounts of the fourteenth-century abbots of St. Nicaise in Gallia Christiana give only one hint of royal favor: “Although the abbot had enough to carry forward the building of the church [of St. Nicaise], nevertheless he received certain estates in 1343, when Queen Jeanne handed over her right of substitution.”10 Jeanne de Bourgogne was the wife of Philip VI, the first king (1328–50) of the Valois line. She was a true consort, acting as his regent when he was on campaign. A scholar and bibliophile, she sponsored many French translations, including several by Jean de Vignay, of important Latin works, for example, the Miroir historial of Vincent de Beauvais (ca. 1333) and the Jeu d’échecs moralisés by Jacobus de Cessolis.11 The hand of the French part of MS BnF fr. 5703, 1r–103v resembles that of the professional Paris scribe who executed two translations by Jean de Vignay: Merveilles de la terre doutremer in BL MS Royal 19
9 This was the copyist’s blunder by which Delisle proved (“Mémoire,” 297–99) that MS Reginensis was incontestably the exemplar of BnF fr. 5703. See figures 4 and 5. 10 Gallia Christiana 9:216: Quamvis fabricam ecclesiae [S. Nicasii] promovere satageret, nihilominus praedia quaedam comparavit an. 1343, Johanna regina jus caduci remittente. The reference is to Philippe le Coque de Reims, abbot of St. Nicaise. Jus caduci was the regalian right whereby goods which could not lawfully be inherited or devised by testament escheated to the royal treasury. The queen regent had relinquished her right to take some such bequest. 11 “Of Jean de Vignay’s eleven known translations, at least seven were dedicated either to Philip VI or to his queen Jeanne de Bourgogne.”: Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:244; Jean de Vignay’s Le Miroir historial was published in 2017 by Mattia Cavagna.
Bibliothèque royale de Belgique MSS 14855–14858
49
D I and the Miroir historial of Vincent of Beauvais in BnF MS Nouv. acq. fr. 15942. The Latin part of BnF MS fr. 5703 is in another but similar hand. Unlike all the other copies of the Chronicle, both the Latin and the French parts are in two columns, which may simply have been the habit of the workshop that produced both. The French part has lost its first quire, and nothing remains of its end (AD 1078–1113) but enough of a paragraph on 108ra to prove, by showing a French version of Sigebert’s last words, that the translation was completed. St. Nicaise de Reims lost its independent status in 1531. Held in commendam by the archbishop of Reims, it no longer had an abbot, and its treasures, including its library, were sold off. There are indications in the manuscript of owners Jean and Robert Petiblet, a name associated with Reims in the seventeenth century, and by Pierre Rousselet, book scribe and illuminator from Liège, active in Paris about 1677–1736.12 But before Rousselet owned it, André Duchesne (d. 1640), possibly to enhance its value for sale, supplied the text of the lost last folio of MS BnF fr. 5703 by copying it on a paper fol. 178, to which he subscribed his own name. By a happy chance, the exemplar of that paper copy had been the exemplar of the missing folio: MS Reginensis, owned at the time by Alexandre Petau. The bibliophile finance minister of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83), through whom so many of the books from the papal library of Avignon came to France, acquired this one after Rousselet. The Colbertine collection was sold to the Bibliothèque royale in 1732; this manuscript, Colbert’s 4561, was included in the sale under the number 10298.
Dukes of Burgundy: Bruxelles, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique MSS 14855–14858 King Jean II, called le Bon (d. 1364), valued books highly. He commissioned at least two deluxe copies of the Chronicle in its first edition, but we do not have evidence that his four sons, also bibliophiles, knew the Chronicle. There is no sign of the book in the inventories of the great Louvre Library founded in 1368 by the eldest son, Charles V (d.1380).13 MS Royal, which was for a time in the possession of the third son, Jean duc de Berry, properly belonged to Saint-Denis. The
12 The website Gallica provides this information to accompany the black-and-white scan of the manuscript: Anciens possesseurs de ce manuscrit: « Iste liber est venerabilis cenobii Sancti Nicasii remensis, ordinis Sancti Benedicti » (fol. 108 v°), — « Jean Petiblet » (fol. 7 v°, 105, 106, etc.), — « Piere Rousselet » (fol. 47 et 71 v°), — « Robert Petiblet » (fol. 13 v°). 13 The composite edition of the different inventories is by Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, vol. 2.
50
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
books of their youngest brother Philippe II duc de Bourgogne are well known and much studied, and the Chronicle is not mentioned among them.14 The late fourteenth-century copy MS Bruxelles probably came from the ducal family collection that was the foundation of the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, but unfortunately it now lacks its binding and its first quire, where the arms of Burgundy would have been displayed. Duke Jean sans Peur (d. 1419), kept books in his various palaces in Burgundy, in Flanders, and in the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. Jean was not noted as a reader, but under his own son, Philip III the Good (d. 1467), the ducal libraries flourished and grew. Philip inherited the duchy of Brabant in 1430, including the city of Bruxelles, and by the time the male Burgundian line ended and Mary of Burgundy married the Habsburg emperor Maximilian in 1477, some 300 volumes from the ducal collections, including the Chronicle, were housed in the palace of Bruxelles; and there, in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, we find it today.
Jean le Bon; Jeanne de Montbaston, illuminatrix; Emperor Charles IV; the Chigi Family of Siena and Rome: Vatican Library, Chigi G VIII 233 Another first-edition manuscript of the Chronicle, MS Chigi, was illuminated with an initial for presentation to an emperor. This copy stayed for a time in Siena, then in Rome, and finally came to the Vatican Library with the Chigi family library in 1923. We can link those ascertainable facts into a probable sequence. MS Chigi was decorated for an emperor. The initial of the Prologue on the first folio is a twelve-line C illuminated with the picture of a seated figure with the imperial regalia, the crown, orb, and scepter, receiving the Chronicle codex from the author. But which emperor? The picture seems too early for Wenceslaus and Sigismund. The art historian and codicologist François Avril settled that question for us by recognizing the artist as Jeanne de Montbaston: the emperor was Charles IV (See Plate 1).15
14 Patrick M. de Winter, La bibliothèque de Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne (1364–1404). 15 François Avril, e-mail of 2 January 2013: What an interesting problem! The historiated initial of BAV Chigi G VIII 233 is clearly (for me) a work by the Parisian illuminatrix Jeanne de Montbaston, wife and later widow of the bookseller and manuscript producer Richard de Montbaston, whose career and works have been thoroughly explored by Richard and Mary Rouse in their momentous Manuscripts and their Makers. . . . In the lengthy list of works that they compiled, your manuscript is lacking. If
BAV Chigi G VIII 233
51
We reckon that MS Chigi was provided with that illumination some time after February 1354, when Charles of Luxembourg, already elected as king of the Romans, announced that he would travel to Rome for the imperial coronation; MS Chigi was to be a regal gift for that occasion. The patron of the artwork was the king of France, Jean II le Bon (1319–64), who had grown into adolescence with the future emperor in the French royal court. Each had been married to a sister of the other: in 1323 Charles had married Blanche of Valois, who died in 1348; in 1332 Jean had married Bonne of Bohemia, who died in 1349. Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston were both libraires, sworn under bond to the University of Paris, and as illuminators in their house on the rue neuve Notre-Dame they “served the late Capetians and early Valois throughout the first half of the fourteenth century.”16 Between them they illuminated more than fifty manuscript books, almost all in French, frequently the Roman de la Rose. A few Latin books came to them, and Jeanne painted an opening miniature for a Postillae on the Sunday Gospels destined for Cîteaux, and opening initials for the glossed Extravagantes of John XXII, a Summa de casibus, and the Chigi manuscript of the Chronicle. The Chigi capital shows Jeanne’s characteristic habits of portraying persons: faces in three-quarter profile, mouths formed by a line over a shorter line, hands stretched out straight, fingers together, noses either straight or convex. Her compositions are pleasing and her colors fine and clear. Into the small frame of the twelve-line initial blue C with its violet borders she has clearly set an amazing number of telling details. On a gold-leaf ground, Charles IV is shown on the day of his coming coronation. He wears a red robe and sits, left leg across right knee, on a coronation faldstool finished with dogs’ heads, wearing the hooped imperial crown of gold (painted yellow). His attendant extends his left hand to take the Iron Crown of Lombardy which the emperor has now put behind him. Jeanne was mistaking this as a right hand when she came to paint that crown in yellow, and she placed the crown behind the hand, ungraspable. The same attendant holds the mace-type scepter so that the emperor, the orb in his right hand, may take the Chronicle with his left hand from the monk, tonsured, in a black robe over a
my identification is correct, this means that the Chigi manuscript has been executed in Paris during the years 1340–1355, Jeanne being associated with her husband since at least 1338 and having taken over the workshop of her defunct husband after 1353, when she swore an oath as libraire of the University of Paris. The reference is to Rouse and Rouse, especially 1:235–61 and 2:202–6, where there are many illustrations. 16 Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:261.
52
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
white tunic: Guillaume de Nangis. Two other witnesses bracket the scene, gesturing inconclusively. The imperial coronation was approved for Rome at Easter, 5 April 1355, by Pope Innocent VI; his deputy for the ceremony was to be Pierre Bertrand de Colombiers, cardinal bishop of Ostia and Velletri, a friend of both the French and Bohemian royal courts. Charles was crowned king of the Romans with the Iron Crown at Milan on Epiphany, 6 January, and he welcomed the cardinal at Pisa on 12 March. No doubt MS Chigi, a French royal coronation gift, arrived on the same ship. The king then went to Siena for a first coronation feast and an eventful week, witnessing a popular revolution and presiding as lord of the city over a new constitution. He finally entered Rome, dressed as a pilgrim, on Good Friday, 3 April. The coronation took place in St. Peter’s on Easter Day as planned, and two days later the emperor was on the road to Siena again for another coronation festival.17 Two years later he granted the University of Siena its first full charter as a studium generale, and on one of those occasions he gave the Chronicle codex to the cathedral library, annexed to the University.18 Two paper folios glued to the parchment flyleaf contain notes by the Chigi librarian Vincenzo Guerrini da Foligno (d. 1781).19 In addition to a perceptive critique of the Chronicle as history, Guerrini noted the shelfmarks that had been assigned to the volume before he rearranged the library and gave the books new class-marks. Then he accounted for the author:20 That Guillelmus, monk of Saint-Denis-en-France, at the year 1114, calls himself Guillelmus de Nangis (see fol. 206), about whom we find in the Apparatus sacer21 “Guillelmus Nannius,
17 Emil Werunsky, Der erste Römerzug Kaiser Karl IV. (1354–1355), 102–88 is a richly detailed account. 18 It could be that the illuminated initial became distasteful to the emperor when Petrarch scolded him for hastily leaving Italy without saving her. You were offered lordship of the world, wrote Petrarch, and you fled with two tawdry crowns, one iron and one gilded, and you remain merely king of Bohemia: Lettere all’imperatore, ed. Ugo Dotti, 74–76 after Familiares 19.12. 19 Guerrini’s autograph notes for a catalogue of the library are in Chigi MS S V 18. 20 Guilielmus ille S Dionysii Gallici Monachus ad annum Christi 1114 se nominat Guilielmum de Nangis \vide f. 206/ de quo possedimus in Apparatu sacro: Guilielmus Nannius, inquit, Monachus Ord. D. Benedicti ad D. Dionysii, Chronica scripsit a Mundo creato usque ad Domini annum 1301. Quae quidem scitissimis caracteribus scripta extabant in Eduardi VI Angliae Regis Bibliotheca. Quin et idem Nannius Chronica Regum Galliae latine conscripsit. 21 Antonio Possevino, Apparatus Sacer ad scriptores veteris et novi testamenti, 1:709, but he used the spelling Gulielmus. Possevino’s source was John Bale’s Summarium (Ipswich or Wesel, 1548) or his Catalogus (Basel, 1557) and so he was referring to the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle. The surname Nannius seems to be Possevino’s error.
BAV Chigi G VIII 233
53
Bendictine monk of Saint-Denis, wrote Chronicles from the creation of the world to 1301 AD.” Indeed, they are found, written in very fine letters, in the library of the English king Edward VI. The same Nannius wrote Latin Chronicles of the kings of France.
The Chronicle manuscript had been in the library of the church of Siena: Fuit Bybliothece maiori eccl[esi]e Senarum, quam in margine citatam leges pag. 231 et 342,22 sicuti librum Beltrani de Mignanelli,23 pag. 131 et 321 et Annales ser Barthelmi Cerchi. Guerrini’s next note indicates a private owner in Siena, Pietro Turamini, who had possibly received the volume as a forfeited pawn, and who then lent it to the bishop. Codex hic quem a Petro Turamino mutuo accepisse fatetur Ant [onius] episcopus campanus in epig[ramma] ante operis initium.24 That was Bishop Antonio Casini, a native of Siena. His epigram, written on a parchment leaflet, was sewn into the codex ahead of the text, addressed Turamine . . . Petre and signed campanus tuus, “your countryman.” It is the book’s witty excuse for not returning sooner: it can’t move quickly because it carries the whole world on its shoulders.25Casini was away from Siena on political business during much of his
22 In the margin of MS Chigi, 231r: ecclesie senensis, which indicates the same library. 23 Angelo Michele Piemontese, “La Lingua araba comparata del Beltrano Mignanelli (Siena 1443)”; and Nelly Mahmoud Helmy, Tra Siena, l’Oriente e la Curia: Beltramo di Leonardo Mignanelli e le sue opere. 24 We find a lawsuit of 1435 involving one Leonardo di Pietro Turamini: Studi Senesi 5 (1888) 168. The Turamini were so notable and ancient a Sienese family that their palazzo in via Montanini is still known by their name, and Scipione Bargagli’s dialect reader Il Turamino: ovvero, Del parlare e dello scriver sanese (Siena, 1602) is cast as a dialogue of Verginio Turamini and two vernacular friends. 25 The text of the epigram: Si cito non rediit magnum Turomine volumen Da veniam gravis est sarcina qua premitur Cum ferat hoc humeris totum sudantibus orbem Non potuit celeri sic properare gradu. Que levis est facili volat atque per equora vento Pressa ratis multo pondere lenta natat Vt solet acer equus vigili cursurus olympo Vix puero tantum lora tenente premi. An mihi cum reges urbes gentesque referret Exigua potuit dicere cuncta mora? Tum quoque longa via est metaque incepit ab alta Et fessus media sepe quievit humo Cepit ab initio mundi. Crementaque rerum Ordine queque mihi sunt dicta fuere suo. Oppida quis posuit quantum regnavit in illis
54
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
bishopric (1409–27): he was an energetic supporter of the popes of the Pisan obedience as papal treasurer and governor of Bologna and the Romagna. After the Schism, Pope Martin V recognized his merits and made him cardinal in 1426; he died in Florence in 1439.26 Guerrini then identified the annotator as the Roman theologian Pietro Bosca: Auctor notarum marginalium vivebat ann. 1477 et 1481 ut pag 304 et 291 et pag 211. Suscribit se P. B. hoc est Petrus Bosca.27 The Chigi family, already rich bankers of Siena in the year of Charles IV’s coronation, were ennobled in 1377. Mariano Chigi (1439–1504) was ambassador of Siena to Popes Alexander VI and Julius II, and in 1487 he brought his bank and his son Agostino to Rome. They flourished as lenders to the popes, and Julius II della Rovere permitted Agostino to share his family name and his shield of arms. The Chigi codex of the Chronicle has a red leather cover stamped with those arms, six mounts and star in gold on red (Chigi) quartered with the oak tree in gold on blue (Della Rovere) and the title GUILIELMI S. DIONISII CRONICA. The family lived nobly, in the Villa Farnesina built for Agostino Chigi and, after 1659, in the Palazzo Chigi on the Corso, where the family library had a magnificent hall. In 1916 the palazzo, the library included, was purchased by the Italian State, and in 1923 the Mussolini government gave the books to the Vatican Library.
Lattanzio Tolomei: Vat. lat. 4598 MS Vat. lat. 4598 is the only copy of the Chronicle other than MS Napoli that was written in an Italian hand. Those two second-edition manuscripts both descended from α through β, and neither was copied from the other. Lucia
Temporibus suis qui nituere viri Bella etiam regum fundataque templa recensens Ad nostri ferme temporis acta venit Quedam dicta semel quedam repetenda fuerunt. Copia cum varium me ambiguumque facit Tanta igitur series paucis expressa diebus Non ne annos poterat continuasse duos? Nunc Petre magna tibi sit gratia gratia libro Cognitus est vestra iam mihi mundus ope. Campanus Tuus 26 Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 21:351–52. 27 Bosca’s Oratio de victoria Malachitana [of Málaga], 22. Octobris 1487 was published in Rome that year by Eucharius Silber.
BnF MS lat. 1780
55
Gualdo Rosa has carefully compared them point by point.28 There is a patron’s or author’s picture on 1r: a bearded man wearing a red hat that resembles a cardinal’s and a mauve cloak over a blue garment, holding a book in his left hand (the other hand is not visible, but there is no hint of writing) within a red C within a gold square. This could be the chronicler Jerome, or a fourteenthcentury patron. On 204r at the end of the text, we find an ex-libris: Lattanzio Tolomei (d. 1543). The Tolomei were among the powerful banking families of Siena as early as the thirteenth century. Lattanzio was a scholar and collector of Greek books, ambassador of Siena to the Vatican, and in 1539 a witness in favor of Pope Leo III’s approval of the Jesuits.29 In the last canto of Orlando furioso (1532) Ariosto mentions the most notable intellects of his age, con lor, Lattanzio e Claudio Tolomei.
Charles duc d’Orléans: BnF MS lat. 1780 The Paris manuscript which Delisle labeled B, a portion of the Chronicle, was given to Charles d’Orléans, probably after he returned from his captivity in England in 1440.30 It was written about 1400, but ε, the direct source of the Chronicle text in MS B, was most of a century older: it incorporated only the earliest markups of MS A. It seems that the scribe of MS B, a Paris professional, had a commission for the Chronicle and asked for an exemplar from SaintDenis. The abbey still had the tailless ε, which had been copied directly from MS A early in the fourteenth century. The text of MS B stops in AD 171 on folio 138r in mid-page and mid-sentence with ab eodem apostolo Paulo, the last words of the 23rd quire of MS A. The nine-line square that the scribe of MS B had left vacant to receive the initial C picture remains blank. And so this was the poor portion that an Augustinian friar, master Robert de la Porte, brought to Charles d’Orléans: (138r) Hunc librum dedit mag[ister] Robertus de Porta, ord[inis] fratrum S. Augustini, mihi duci Aurelianensi, etc. Karolus. This early part of the Chronicle had no obvious relevance to the contemporary French state, the Latin Chronicle itself had become obsolete as royal history, overshadowed by the vernacular Chroniques de France, and in the last 25 years of his life, retired in Blois and writing poetry, the same judgements are true of Charles himself. 28 Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone,” 256. Note that MS Chigi, which was in Siena at the same time, is unrelated, being of the first edition of the Chronicle. 29 Joseph F. Conwell, Impelling Spirit, 195–96. 30 Gilbert Ouy, La librairie des frères captifs, no. 85 refers to this fragment.
56
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
Some religious house later bound up the Chronicle fragment between the Homilies on Matthew of Chrysostom and the Elucidarium of Honorius, with other moral and pious works. The composite volume was in the treasure of the duchy after the death of Charles in 1465: (259r) De camera computorum Blesis, and it went eventually to the Bibliothèque royale.
Counts of Savoy, Hautecombe Abbey, Cîteaux: Torino, BNU MS K.II.11 and Dijon BM 570 + 571 The six surviving manuscripts of the Torino family were all in public library collections by the end of the eighteenth century, but we have found no owners’ names or other clues to the dates and other circumstances of their creation. In this section, however, we present some likely possibilities. Almost all the manuscript books which belonged to the counts (and after 1416 the dukes) of Savoy came to Torino when the ducal capital of Savoy was transferred there from Chambéry. MS Torino went to the Biblioteca Reale Universitaria in 1840 together with more than 4500 manuscripts from the ducal library. The collection was badly damaged by a fire in 1904. The inventory of survivors, directed by Carlo Cipolla, declared each of the manuscripts K IV 2 and 3 danneggiatissimo,31 but we have seen worse. The Chronicle from Creation to 1302 was written into MS Torino in Paris beginning soon after 1300. Before the quires of MS Torino were bound together and covered, MS Dijon 570 was copied from it. MS Torino has many marginal notes and alerts of Cistercian interest which were picked up and used in MS Dijon 570. That coincidence leads us to surmise that the patron who commissioned both MS Torino and MS Dijon 570 was Aymon (1329–1343) cadet of Savoy, an unordained canon of Lyon until his elder brother Edouard died in 1329. The Etats de Savoie named Aymon to succeed as count, and Aymon resigned his canonry. Like several of his predecessors and their countesses and children, Edouard was buried 25 km north of their capital of Chambéry, in the cloister of the family’s favored Cistercian abbey, Hautecombe, a daughter house of Cîteaux and founded by St. Bernard himself. It is likely that there was a monk of Hautecombe with Aymon in Paris, perhaps acting as his chaplain, when MS Torino was copied and MS Dijon 570 was copied from it. The latter manuscript was intended for Hautecombe and soon went there. Within two years of his succession as
31 Carlo Cipolla et al., “Inventario dei Codici superstiti,” 479.
Torino, BNU MS K.II.11 and Dijon, BM 570 + 571
57
count, Aymon was constructing his Chapelle des Princes in the abbey church, a necropolis crypt in imitation of Saint-Denis, where he transferred the remains of Edouard and predecessors, and where later he was entombed himself and later joined by Amadeus VI, the Green Count of Savoy, with history to hand, so to speak: MS Dijon of the Chronicle. MS Torino remained in Paris, in whatever house the counts of Savoy used as their residence, possibly the Hôtel de Savoie on the two sides of rue du Chaume, now rue des Archives.32 Aimon’s successor Amadeus VI is more known for his military exploits than for intellectual interests, but his wife Bonne de Bourbon was the sister of the French Queen Jeanne de Bourbon, wife of the bibliophile king Charles V. The sisters’ grandfather, Louis de Bourbon, owned MS Reginensis, the original exemplar of the first edition, and both sisters had been brought up in that circle of cultivated royal women, including the former queens Jeanne la Boiteuse and Jeanne d’Evreux, who prized works of history. Perhaps we may attribute to Bonne de Bourbon the idea of augmenting the Torino copy of the Chronicle with an up-to-date appendix: the “Compendiose” continuation (1301 to 1340) from Saint-Denis, together with the annals (1340–1368) of Jean de Venette, which had been commissioned by Jeanne d’Evreux. Before those new quires were bound into MS Torino, the text of each quire was rapidly copied into a pecia to create a transfer book for the benefit of Hautecombe: MS Dijon 571.33 This was carried to Hautecombe, where a copy was carefully made in the Cistercian manner to complete MS Dijon 570. MSS Dijon 570 and 571 passed from Hautecombe to the mother house of Cîteaux some time in the next century, probably after 1482, because the Chronicle does not appear in the catalogue of the great library that Abbot Jean de Cirey finished that year. In 1791 the new French Republic sold the monastery but not its library collection. As patrimony of the Nation, this was entrusted to the municipal library of Dijon, where we find the Chronicle and its transfer supplement, numbered 570 and 571 repectively.34 Another direct copy of the Chronicle from MS Torino, MS Lyon BU 227 + 228, has records of two fifteenth-century owners, Jehan Chalmerax, licentiate of
32 The grande and petite Savoie belonged to the last count, Amadeus VII and his wife Bonne de Berry: Henri Sauval, Histoire et recherches des antiquités de la ville de Paris (1724), 237. 33 We note that the catchword nobilis of the penultimate quire of MS Torino also ends the penultimate quire of MS Dijon 571, prominently, in mid-page; and the last quire of MS Dijon 571 is by a new hand. 34 Gustav Friedrich Haenel and Louis de Mas Latrie, Dictionnaire des manuscrits, cols. 363–70, numbers 330, 331: Guglielmi de Nangis chronicon; saec. XIV membr. in-fol. et saec. XV, chart. infol. [Note:] perpauci tantum abbatiae S. Mariae Clarevallensis [better: Cisterciensis].
58
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
laws and castellan of l’Orme near Chalon-sur-Saône; and Symon de la Saulnay, priest; and also, with the date 1603, Petrus Chaudotius. None of these owners seems to have been renowned. In 1698 Claude-François Menestrier SJ gave the book (included in a collection large enough to justify the printing of the donation labels) to the Collège de la Trinité, later one of the constituent libraries of the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Part-Dieu.
Robert the Wise, king of Naples; Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary; Conversini: Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale VI A.45 The provenance of this manuscript was established by Lucia Gualdo Rosa. The Napoli codex has a clear note that it was sold by the son of Giovanni Conversini of Ravenna (1343–1408), whose library has been the subject of much study. Gualdo Rosa is one of its best students, and she argues that MS Napoli was a fruit of the library of King Robert of Naples (1309–1343). Robert was called “the Wise,” praised by Petrarch and Boccaccio for his learning, and his library is supposed to have been singularly rich, but only scraps and hints of it survive today. Here is a paraphrase of Gualdo Rosa’s key paragraph:35 Giovanni Conversini’s father, Conversino da Frignano, MD of Bologna, professor of medicine in the University of Siena, in 1342 was appointed court physician in Buda by Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary (d. 1382). In 1348, when Giovanni Conversini was scarcely five years old, King Louis marched into Italy to avenge the death of his brother Andrew (the murdered husband of Queen Joanna, Robert’s grand-daughter). Louis held the kingdom of Naples only a year, but he did keep the precious library of King Robert. That treasure must have seemed more burdensome than precious to Louis, because on the road back to Hungary he gave it to his court physician, and Conversino divided it into three parts. One part he brought with him to Hungary. Another part he sent off by sea, and this was lost in a shipwreck. The third part he left at Ravenna in the care of his brother Tommaso, in trust for his son Giovanni Conversini, and in 1375 Tommaso gave the remaining three chests of books to Giovanni, who was able to appreciate his heritage: already a university lecturer in classical Latin literature at Bologna and Florence, he knew Valerius Maximus, Vergil’s Georgica, and the fount of medieval Latin rhetoric, the pseudo-Ciceronian Ad Herennium.36
35 Gualdo Rosa, “Un prezioso testimone,” 247–74. 36 Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 28:574–78; Conversini’s autobiography, Rationarium vitae, was edited with introduction and notes by Vittore Nason (Firenze 1986).
BnF MS lat. 11729 and BnF MSS lat. 13703 + 13704
59
Gualdo Rosa was certain that MS Napoli was written in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, which would be between the death of Robert the Wise in 1343 and the day that Giovanni Conversini received those three chests of books in 1375. We are certain that MS Napoli is the descendant of the two lost manuscripts α and β. The first quire of MS Napoli is written in a French hand, the others by an Italian scribe. Giovanni Conversini may have created MS Napoli in his uncle Tommaso’s study; or Tommaso may have ordered MS Napoli to be copied from β. Mysteries remain, but we are sure that β belonged to Robert the Wise. One way or the other, Giovanni Conversini owned MS Napoli, and Giovanni’s son sold it to Gasparino Barzizza (1360–1431), humanist teacher and grammarian. Later it belonged to the scholar Giovan Paolo Parisio (1470–1522) before returning to its roots in Naples.
Philippe de Lautier, général des monnaies; Claude Fauchet, président de la Cour des Monnaies; Pierre Séguier, chancelier de France; Saint-Germain-des-Prés: BnF MS lat. 11729 and BnF MSS lat. 13703 + 13704 The abbey library of Saint-Germain-des-Prés enjoyed its greatest development under Abbot Guillaume Briçonnet (1507–1534) and the talented librarian and historian Jacques Dubreuil (d. 1614). It gained fame and attracted antiquarians and bibliophiles as further manuscript treasures were donated to it. Both manuscripts E and F of the Chronicle have ex-libris from Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with the names of their donors. MS E, BnF lat. 11729, was copied on paper in a careful, italicizing book hand late in the fourteenth century, directly from MS Torino, including “Compendiose” and the short chronicle of Jean de Venette to 1368. MS E bears the sixteenth-century ex-libris of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and a note that the donor was Philippe de Lautier, master general of the royal mint. Lautier received that post from François I in 1546 and was confirmed in it by Henri II, who furthermore admitted him as counselor in the Chambre des monnaies. Lautier wrote a historical study of the coinage under Philip IV.37 By 1553 he was a fugitive from justice, charged with crimes in office including counterfeiting the coinage. He was hanged the next year—but in effigy, in his absence—and he managed later to be pardoned and to return to the fiscal service. He signed
37 Léon Louis Borrelli de Serres, Les variations monétaires sous Philippe le Bel, 266–27 and 270–86.
60
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
himself in 1587 naguères conseiller du roy et général de ses monnoyes.38 Lautier was widely traveled and well placed in a circle of royal civil servants with widely ranging historical and bibliographic interests. His copy of the Chronicle came to Saint-Germain after his death, some time after 1587.39 There is an intriguing hint that in the second half of the sixteenth century MS E was read by the omnivorous and erudite historian Claude Fauchet (1530–1603), royal counselor and president of the Cour des monnaies. Fauchet noted that among the sources he had used in writing his Antiquitez was Nangis moine de S. Denis . . . ab initio mundi jusqua lan 1300, poursuivi jusqua lan 1368, par aultres moines, loriginal est a monsieur Guelin conseiller.40 The ending date 1368 indicates a manuscript of the Torino family, and none is more likely than MS E, which is titled on its first page, without the forename Guillelmi: Nangii chronica in bibliotheca monasterii S. Germani. And in his writings Fauchet always refers to Guillaume de Nangis simply as Nangis. For Fauchet, at the dawn of modern French historiography, the name he found on his title page was his guide as he skipped the full name of the author in the prologue, flipping to the middle of the book for what he could find about the early history of the Gauls and Franks. For example, we find a reference at the beginning of his book 2, chapter V, comme dit Gregoire de Tours, apres Sulpice Alexandre, et Nangis adioute l’an trois cens quatre vingts six.41 Following that slender thread, we may suppose that Lautier had obtained MS E from a fellow counselor, the unidentified Guelin, some time after their colleague in the royal service, their fellow bibliophile and antiquary, Fauchet, had taken notes from it for his research. MS F is an early seventeenth-century copy on paper of MS E, with many of the marginal comments of E incorporated into the text. MS F came to SaintGermain from the library of Pierre Séguier (1588–1672) chancellor of France, faithful servant of Richelieu and Mazarin, and a true antiquarian collector. We suppose that Séguier discovered Lautier’s copy MS E at Saint-Germain and borrowed it in order to have a copy made for himself, but then kept both copies until his death in 1672, as the catalogue of his own famous library shows.42 While the main body of Séguier’s collection then passed to his heirs, the two copies of the Chronicle went to the abbey. Luc d’Achery, Benedictine of St. Maur,
38 Borrelli de Serres, 271–73. 39 Alfred Franklin, Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris 1:109. 40 Janet Girvan Espiner-Scott, Claude Fauchet, fig. 14 facing p. 280. 41 Claude Fauchet, Recueil des Antiquitez (1579), Book 2, Chapter V, fol. 34r. 42 Catalogue des manuscrits de la bibliothèque de defunt monsigneur le Chancelier Séguier (Paris, 1686), section Histoires, p. 67: Histoire de Guillaume de Nangis. fol. veau marbré 1 vol. and p. 69: Histoire de Guillaume de Nangis. fol. bois 1 vol.
Verona, Biblioteca capitolare MS CCVII
61
was librarian of Saint-Germain. He put the books in order and catalogued them, and in his Spicilegium he edited many manuscripts, including E and F from Saint-Germain.43 The library building near the abbey church, opened in 1655, burned in 1794 with a great loss of books, but some 10,000 volumes, including E and F, were saved and transferred eventually to the Bibliothèque nationale.
Collège de Navarre; Colbert: BnF MS lat. 4919 Delisle’s MS D, copied directly from A4, has two notes of provenance written into it: Collège de Navarre and Colbert no. 1041. However it came to the Collège, it probably went on the Paris market after the Collège was pillaged by Burgundian soldiers in the civil wars during the reign of Charles VI.44 Jean-Baptiste Colbert used his many opportunities as secretary of state to Louis XIV to expand his library. That famous collection was sold by his grandson to the Bibliothèque royale in 1732, including the Chronicle, Colbert no. 1041.
Domenico Siler, Tailor; Professor Valerio Palermo: MS Verona Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare MS CCVII, a fourteenth-century Parisian book, is clearly copied from MS D, but it includes, in a different hand and from another source, a copy of the “continuatio minor” for the years AD 1301–1302. We have no indication of any owner from the early fourteenth century, when this copy was made in Paris, until 1579, when it was sold to Valerio Palermo, professore delle umane lettere dell’Accademia Filarmonica di Verona.45 The price was one zecchino, and the seller named himself Domenico Siler Sarto of S. Cecilia.46 The cecchino was a ducat, 3.5 gm of fine gold, struck after 1543 and named after
43 Franklin, Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris, 1:111–23; Louis Ellies Dupin, Bibliothèque des auteurs ecclésiastiques du dix-septième siècle, part 3, Des auteurs qui ont fleuri depuis 1650 jusqu’à 1675, 434: Il eut la direction de la Bibliothèque de l’Abbaïe de saint Germain, il en rangea les livres, en fit le catalogue & l’augmenta de plusieurs livres nouveaux qu’il eut le soin de ramasser.; Luc d’Achery, Spicilegium, vol. 11 (1672). 44 Franklin, Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris, 1:393–404. 45 Valerio Palermo is noted, with this title, for his public orations in 1559 and 1565: Giuseppe Biadego in Atti della Reale Accademia delle scienze di Torino 40 (1904–5): 89; and Pier Zagata, Cronica della città di Verona 2 (Verona, 1747): 215. 46 Questo libro si e do mi Dominicho Siler Sarto Do santa Cecilia. Questo libro si e di Valerio Palermo comprato dal Sarto per un cecchino 1579.
62
Chapter 3 Stories of Some Possessors
the Venetian Zecca or mint. Sarto probably meant Domenico’s profession, a tailor, because it is followed by the parish where he did business, Santa Cecilia. In the (lost) church of that parish on 29 April 1566 the painter Paolo Caliari, called Veronese, married Elena, the daughter of his late master Antonio Badile.47 It is left to the reader to imagine: who was the dandy who owed so much for his new suits that he had to settle his tailor’s bill with the Chronicle; and whose heir was he, and with what ancestral connection to French royalty?
47 Pietro Caliari, Paolo Veronese, 70 and n. 1.
Chapter 4 British Library Royal Manuscript 13 E IV Our account of the dissemination of the World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis comes to a focus and a climax with the copy that belongs to the British Library. The first section of this chapter is the description of that codex in the form of a catalogue article, amplified by a number of discoveries. The other section explains how the authors came to discover that this early fourteenthcentury creation of the monks of the royal abbey Saint-Denis-en-France came to the library of the English king.
A Catalogue Description of the Royal Manuscript The World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, monk of the abbey of SaintDenis, from the Creation to AD 1300, in Latin.1 Vellum; folios ii + 445. Pages after cutting, 16 x 11 in. or 41 x 28 cm. 35 lines per page. The volume is covered in brown leather over pasteboards. Weight in its present binding, 9015.3 grams or 19.875 pounds. Circa 1320, copied in the abbey of Saint-Denis-en-France by Guillaume Lescot.2 The heading (1r): Incipit prologus cronicarum fratris Guillermi de Nangis monachi sancti Dyonysii in Francia. The Prologue begins Cum infinita sint temporum gesta, with a four-line capital C illustration, the author seated at his writing desk.3 The text begins (1v) In primordio temporis ante omnem diem and ends (445v) terram suo dominio subiugauit and the Colophon, Hucusque frater Guillermus de Nangiaco cronicam suam studio diligenti perduxit. This text, the second edition of the Chronicle, was copied from an original exemplar into which corrections and additions had been written at Saint-Denis: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS latin 4918. Forty gatherings, of 12 folia (but: 124, 1510, 3310, 3410) with catchwords (often cut off). The folios were numbered (recto upper right corner) with arabic
1 George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections. 2:112, with revisions. 2 Confirmed by François Avril in e-mails of 5 January 2013 and 28 January 2019; and see chapter 5. 3 See Plates 2, 3, and 4. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-004
64
Chapter 4 British Library Royal Manuscript 13 E IV
numerals.4 From 1 to 360 (about AD 1016) the numerals were written in fourteenth-century forms with a broad pen and dark ink, but from there to the end the numerals were written with a lighter pen and ink in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Gathering 12 is missing its inner four bifolia, the eight folia 135–142. When the volume was rebound, ca. 1900, the folia were renumbered in pencil, beginning on folio 143 with pencil number 135.5 There are twelve narrow parchment strips now tipped in horizontally at the pages to which they refer; one end of each of these is darkened with dirt, indicating that they were once used as vertical place markers.6 The first marker, before 14r, has no folio number of its own because the ink folio-numbering left no numbers unused, but beginning with the eight-folio lacuna, after fol. 134, the markers were numbered in pencil, in sequence with the folios 226, 227, 238, 270, 274, 313, 329, 351, 357, 398, 401. Each marker has a brief account of an important passage, written in a light, separated italic hand, the work of a secretary of Henry VIII. There is also the torn-off dirty fragment of a thirteenth marker, found loose between 353v and 354r, which reads tores a (followed by a capital consonant); and facing 362v, the authors found a fourteenth marker, loose and unnumbered. After flyleaf ii there is tipped in a small parchment label that was once attached to the front cover of the former binding with six tacks, written in the same light, separated italic hand as the page markers: Cronica fratris Guilielmi / de Nangis Monachi san/cti Dionysii in Francia. Secundo folio begins: tis et vocatum. Initial C with a conventional picture of the author writing on 1r; large initial I and partial border on 1v; other initials in red and blue, with filigree ornament. Names of kingdoms and dates in red, blue, and green enclosed in lines of the same colors and in one case (13r) of yellow. On 213r and 215r colored dragons fill out the lines ending the accounts for AD 265 and 285, respectively. On the parchment fol. i verso, Liber illustrissimi principis Thome / [dei gratia] ducis Norfolcie7 i.e., Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk 1524–1554, whose autograph signature T. Norfolk is on 445v. If there are earlier ex-libris notes or press
4 See figure 10 for an example. 5 In this study we refer only to the earlier foliation in ink. 6 See figure 15. 7 The erased words dei gratia are visible by ultraviolet or infrared light: see figure 13. The original first parchment flyleaf is pasted down to the endpaper so that only the verso can be read, with this ex-libris. The recto side of the flyleaf may have an earlier ex-libris which, even if erased, could be read under UV light.
Probatoria: Discovery of Provenance by Fingerprint
65
marks on fol. i recto, they are not to be seen because the leaf was pasted to the marbled end-paper in the course of rebinding the manuscript about 1900.
Probatoria: Discovery of Provenance by Fingerprint This section will explain a data-type that may seem strange at first glance, but that has proven itself useful in tracing the provenance of single manuscripts and of whole library collections from the ages before print: the dictio probatoria or secundo folio.8 Librarians ancient, medieval, and modern have been plagued by book thieves. One especially pernicious example of that class has been the clever and wellplaced thief who has free entry to a collection, and who can pocket there a unique and precious volume and leave in its place a cheap copy of the same title.9 As early as 1275 the successive librarians of the Sorbonne, who were responsible for the greatest theological research library in Europe, were using a clever method to stop such larceny by the college’s fellows. A statute of 1320 prescribes it explicitly: It is not enough to write, “X has the book Y, worth £ 6 or whatever,” without also writing in the register, “it begins on the second folio thus and so,” lest fraud occur in exchanging a book of greater price for a book of the same kind but lesser price or, if one should be lost, a worse one be returned.10
When we think about the circumstances of book-publication in manuscript, we see the reason why this password system worked. Scribes wrote in large or small letters, on pages octavo or quarto, using many or few abbreviations; and there were other metric variables too. It was extremely unlikely that the same scrap of the text would come at the beginning of the second folio (i.e. page 3) in any two manuscript copies of the same work.
8 The typology and the history of its development are fully treated in Daniel Williman and Karen Corsano, “Tracing Provenances by dictio probatoria,” Scriptorium 53 (1999) 124–45. The potential usefulness of the probatoria for distinguishing early editions of the same printed text is pointed out in James Willoughby, “The Secundo Folio and its Uses, Medieval and Modern,” The Library 12 (2011); 237–58. 9 Such as Guglielmo Libri in the departmental libraries of France: more about him in the Epilogue, chapter 11. 10 Richard Rouse, “The Early Library of the Sorbonne,” Scriptorium 21 (1967); 42–71 and 227–51, at 229: Non sufficit scribere: talis habet talem librum VI librarum vel huiusmodi, nisi scribatur etiam sic in registro: incipit secundo folio sic vel sic, ne fiat fraus in commutando librum maioris precii in librum eiusdem speciei, minoris tamen precii, vel, si perderetur unus, restitueretur peior.
66
Chapter 4 British Library Royal Manuscript 13 E IV
The practice of recording such passwords for individual manuscripts was taken up by papal agents as early as 1311, to secure the library of Pope Boniface VIII in its refuge at Perugia. From those two influential centers, the Sorbonne and the Curia at Avignon, the custom spread. All through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and all over Romance Europe and Great Britain, a library keeper or court clerk who was responsible for the integrity of a collection of valuable manuscript books would prevent fraudulent substitutions by precisely that method: he would end each item by noting the bit of text that began the second folio of the book in hand. To be doubly sure, he might also note the words at the end of the penultimate folio. It was John Whytefield, in his 1389 Matricula of books belonging to Dover Priory, who gave this data type the perfect name: dictio probatoria, “proving phrase.” If a manuscript book survives today that was itemized in such a premodern inventory of books, that little earmark still serves to identify the codex recorded as the same codex surviving, against all other copies of the same text and indeed against all other manuscript books. Furthermore, as the authors wrote in 1999, it can help “trace a provenance however distant, unlikely, and unsuspected, and it can do so even when in an old inventory the book’s title was erroneous, ambiguous, or missing.” Alerted to the probatoria by the research for his Bibliothèques ecclésiastiques au temps de la papauté d’Avignon (1980), and encouraged by the successes of such pioneer library sleuths as Franz Ehrle and M. R. James, author Williman had begun collecting such pre-modern archival records and a parallel file from the modern library catalogues that noted the secundo folio of each item. The files began with hand-written index slips, sorted alphabetically by the probatoriae, but by 1978 those files were so large, and computer facilities had become so accessible, that a conversion was indicated to 80-column IBM sheets, to punched cards, then to magnetic tape, and finally to a database program resident on a personal computer. Today the pre-modern probatoriae are more than 39,000 items, and the parallel records from existing codices are more than 36,000. In those databases, the probatoriae have all been homogenized in format and orthography to prevent merely accidental dissimilarities: spaces between words are eliminated; all letters are in capital forms; i, j, and y all appear as I; u, v, and w all appear as V; ti before a vowel is always changed to CI, regardless of normal spelling and regardless of word division. For the same reason, arbitrary standard spellings are entered for some frequently varied patterns: ABOMIN-, APVD-, CAPVT, -CVMQVE, DAMN-, IERONIM-, IERVSALEM, IESV-, IOANN-, LITERA-, MATHE-, MIHI, NIHIL, NVMQVAM, OPORT-, QVAMQVAM, QVATTVOR, QVEMQVAM, TAMQVAM.
Probatoria: Discovery of Provenance by Fingerprint
67
For example, here is a line of data from the library left by Benedict XIII at Peñiscola: 606 423.PB 418 ORIGINALIA BERNARDI 2FPT BITRIIQVEMHABENT > * 209 12.1 663 which matched the record of the existing book, as we saw it among the Vaticani latini: 209 12.1 663 BERNARDI ORIGINALIA 2FPT BITRIIQVAMHABENT11 The Peñíscola recorder saw something like bit’i qm hnt (he could glance at the end of folio 1v to see the first two letters of arbitrii). He slightly mistook the probatoria, but not so badly that the two records do not clearly match when the databases are run side-by-side. We have devoted most of fifty years of part-time research to our probatoria project, collecting records and publishing the most notable provenances of surviving books that we have discovered.12 Our biography of the Royal manuscript emerged from an extreme case in point. An inventory of the duc de Berry’s treasure in about 1415 listed Un autre livre des Croniques de France, en latin de lettre de forme, qui se commence au second feuillet: Tis et vocatum est nomen ejus Adam.13 We duly registered the item in our private database of old inventories: 660 413.BER 1249 CHRONICA FRANCIAE 2F TISETVOCATVMESTNOMEN > * 142 13.E 4 That line of data matched a line in the other database, of existing Latin manuscript books, a line provided by the Warner and Gilson catalogue of the Royal manuscripts in the British Library, “CHRONICLE of Guillaume de Nangis, monk of the Abbey of St. Denis, from the Creation to A.D. 1300, in Latin . . . Sec. fol. ‘-tis et uocatum’ ”: 142 13.E 4 CHRON.G.DE NANGIS 2F TISETVOCATVM An uncertain indication, because the titles did not match, but an intriguing possibility, because Jean de Berry was a notable bibliophile, and because there have been few examples of books that traveled in those days from France to 11 2FPT = secundo folio post tabulam: after the table of contents. 12 Daniel Williman, “A Liber Sextus from the Bonifacian Library: Vatican Borghese 7,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 7 (1977): 103–108; “Some Additional Provenances of Cambridge Latin Manuscripts,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 11 (1999): 427–48; “Medieval Latin Manuscripts in Scotland: Some Provenances,” Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society 6,5 (2002): 178–90; Williman and Corsano, Early Provenances of Latin Manuscripts of the Vatican Library: Vaticani Latini and Borghesiani, Studi e testi 405 (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2002). 13 Archives nationales de France KK 258, 216v, ed. Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, vol. 2.
68
Chapter 4 British Library Royal Manuscript 13 E IV
England. There the matter remained, an open question until the complete old record could be compared with the British Library’s volume in the flesh (parchment in this case). That confrontation happened on 22 March 2005, and the result was definite and affirmative: the old French record was a description of the codex which is now in London. We undertook to explain that unlikely fact by writing the biography of that book, the life and times of British Library, Royal manuscript 13 E IV.14
14 “Biography” in the limited metaphorical sense, that the codex, like a human subject and object, actively influenced its several readers, and passively received their opinions. We do not carry the conceit as far as Simone Beta’s clever and entertaining “autobiography,” Io, un manoscritto: L’antologia palatina si racconta (2017).
Part II: The French and English Lives of the Royal Manuscript
Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis Royal manuscript 13 E IV was created at Saint-Denis soon after 1320, and it was involved in French royal politics from its very birth. Guillaume de Nangis had brought the abbey’s historical studio to a peak of achievement before he died in 1300, and Abbot Gilles de Pontoise assigned grand new projects to that studio. Guillaume’s World Chronicle, long in gestation, finally came into the world in MS Reginensis, and then in a second edition led by MS A. A major literary and artistic effort that began in 1304 eventually produced twin masterpieces, both written by the Parisian master scribe Guillaume Lescot: the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii to seal a peace with King Philip the Fair and, for the abbey’s own use, the Royal manuscript of the Latin World Chronicle.
Making Peace with Philip the Fair The wealth of the French churches and higher clergy had been taxed for royal revenue, but Boniface VIII prohibited that practice by Clericis laicos early in 1296. Philip IV retaliated by prohibiting transfers of wealth or food to the papal states. By his letter Ineffabilis amor late in 1296, Boniface began an armistice, and then he made another peace gesture to Philip (meanwhile holding up his grandfather as an example of a righteous and pious king) by canonizing Louis IX in 1297. At the time of his canonization the bones of King Louis already lay in a casket under the floor of the royal necropolis of Saint-Denis. For the SainteChapelle in the Louvre (built by Louis IX explicitly as a treasury of relics) Philip wanted an important relic of St. Louis himself, and Abbot Renaud Giffart conceded the skull. Boniface blessed the arrangement early in his Holy Year of 1300 by two letters of 5 February granting fresh indulgences to the abbey church and to the palace chapel.1 Before the translation could be accomplished, however, the peace broke down over the intractible claims that were memorialized by Boniface in his letters Ausculta fili and Unam Sanctam. In March and June 1303 Philip convoked assemblies of churchmen and nobles to charge
1 Bernard Barbiche, Les Actes pontificaux originaux des Archives nationales de Paris II: 1261–1304, 444, numbers 2125 and 2126. The premise of the latter is specific: Cum Philippus rex Francorum venerabile caput beati Ludovici confessoris de monasterio S. Dyonisii, Parisiensis diocesis, intendat in proximo facere transferri Parisius in capella sua honorifice conservandum. This letter was apparently not registered in the papal Chancery. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-005
72
Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis
Boniface with heresy and vice. The assembly in the Louvre on 13 and 14 June included 5 archbishops, 23 bishops, and 10 abbots, among them Renaud Giffart. Almost unanimously, the prelates agreed to summon the pope to judgement by an ecumenical council.2 Guillaume de Nogaret served the summons on Boniface at Anagni, so brutally that on 11 October the pope died. So did Abbot Renaud, early in 1304. King Philip sponsored his loyal client Gilles de Pontoise for the abbacy. As abbot, however, Gilles acquired a higher loyalty, and the king overreached, declaring his intention to choose several churches for his own divided burial, and by trying again to transfer most of the bones of Louis IX to the SainteChapelle, thereby breaking the royal succession in the Saint-Denis necropolis.3 Abbot Gilles repelled his demand. The quarrel was pacified, perhaps by the intervention of the queen consort Jeanne I de Navarre, with a compromise. Clement V, shortly after his consecration at Lyon, granted Philip the skull of St. Louis and a single rib to be solemnly translated to the Sainte-Chapelle,4 and on 17 May 1306 the king at last received those relics at Saint-Denis and brought the rib to Notre-Dame and the skull (less the lower jaw) to the Sainte-Chapelle.5 An illumination of the mid-1340s in the Hours of Jeanne II de Navarre shows the relic there, in a skull reliquary decorated with gold crown and halo.6 Alert to the opportunity for good historical propaganda, Abbot Gilles ordered the production and splendid illumination of the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii. Philip the Fair paid to launch the project, because he recognized the value of the sacred union of Saint-Denis (both the abbey and its patron saint) with the kings of France; but the abbey had to pick up the high cost (£112) of the deluxe production in 1322.7
2 William J. Courtenay, “Between Pope and King:The Parisian Letters of Adhesion of 1303,” Speculum 71 (1996): 577–78 and n. 5. 3 Brown, “Burying and Unburying the Kings of France,” 242–47. 4 The indulgences for the Sainte-Chapelle were promised again by a letter of 4 January 1306 (which, like that of 1300, was not registered), and enacted 6 November, after the translation: Actes pontificaux 3, 9 and 24, no. 2246 and 2286. 5 Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, Continuatio minor, ed. Géraud, 350–54. Abbot Gilles de Pontoise had commissioned a jeweled reliquary for the king’s jaw to be kept at Saint-Denis in 1304: Charlotte Lacaze, 61 n. 11. 6 BnF n. a. lat. 3145, 150r, as shown and dated in Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), 412. We have seen no explanation of the fact that, in that illumination, the reliquary head alone has been erased, possibly with a wet finger tip. 7 Pro cronicis factis pro rege et domino Karolo, CXII lib.: Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, p. 349. The bibliography on the Vita et Miracula is extensive and discursive. The manuscripts were
The Saint-Denis Studio and the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii
73
The Saint-Denis Studio and the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii Gilles de Pontoise (1304–26) was the abbot of Saint-Denis who spurred the World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis into its first edition, and then its second. The ur-manuscripts of both editions (MS Reginensis and MS A) were copied at the beginning of his abbacy from the massive file of notes that Guillaume and his historical confreres had compiled, in the studio that Guillaume had provided, and Paris scribes and color painters were brought in to give the books a professional polish. Abbot Gilles gave that studio a fresh assignment, to create in a beautifully illustrated book a truly monumental history of St. Denis and his miraculous care for his abbey church and the kings of France over the centuries: the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii.8 The Vita et Miracula project began with a new Latin text, composed by the monk Yves de Saint-Denis at the order of Abbot Gilles. Yves was surely a member of the historical studio, familiar with the abundant materials at hand; he referred to himself (as had Guillaume de Nangis) as actor. Yves followed the pattern of the 1233 Vita et Actus, and he used the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis too, but he was not limited to those resources, or to their language.9 introduced by Léopold Delisle, “Notice sur un recueil historique présenté à Philippe le Long par Gilles de Pontoise, Abbé de Saint-Denis,” 249–65; for the sources and genesis of the text, see Liebman, Etude sur la vie en prose de Saint Denis. 8 The PhD thesis of the late art historian Charlotte Lacaze, The “Vie de St. Denis” Manuscript (BnF MS fr. 2090–2092) provides detailed codicology and distinguishes five artists of BnF fr. 2090–2092; Renee Lynn Goethe’s PhD thesis, King Dagobert, the Saint, and Royal Salvation: The Shrine of Saint-Denis and Propaganda Production (850–1319 C.E.) places this Vita in the long tradition of royal propaganda at Saint-Denis. Rich art-historical themes have been explored by Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Paris and Paradise: The View from Saint-Denis,” The Four Modes of Seeing, 419–61; Virginia Wylie Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediaeval Paris: A Record of Early Fourteenth-Century Life; Cornelia Logemann, Heilige Ordnungen: Die Bild-Räume der Vie de Saint Denis (1317) und die französische Buchmalerei des 14. Jahrhunderts. 9 Elizabeth A. R. Brown and Marigold Anne Norbye, “Yves of St. Denis,” Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. The dedicatory letter of Abbot Gilles in BnF lat. 5286, flyleaf verso: Ut ergo maiestatis regie piis votis iustisque et devotis desideriis qua possum sollicitudine efficaciter acquiescam, libellum presentem de huius antiqui precellentissimique patris macharii Ariopagite Dyonisii ortu et decursu, libris, documentis, predicationibus et doctrinis de eiusque singulari in Galiis apostolatu, martyrio et agone signis et miraculis, sed et de regum Francorum gestis aliquibus ex antiquorum autentiquorumque curis scriptorumque dictis brevi quodam compendio per dilectum fratrem ac venerabilem commonachum nostrum Yvonem, cui et hoc ipsum commisimus, tanquam per humilem et devotum obedientie filium, studiose ac veraciter elaboratum tam beatissimi patris et patroni nostri intuitu et honore quam etiam regie dominationis consideratione pariter et amore vestre regie maiestati humiliter offerre decrevi.
74
Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis
Abbot Gilles conceived the deluxe Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii in three parts: the life and writings of the Areopagite before his mission to France; then his activity as apostle-bishop of Paris, his passion and death; and then the miraculous course of his care for the kings of France as their heavenly patron. Once he had compiled his text, Yves plotted the layout of the Vita et Miracula, page by page and quire by quire, in close collaboration—likely sitting at the same table—with a professional draughtsman in grisaille and a skillful Paris book scribe. Full-page illustrations were to be frequent, placed almost invariably on the recto pages, and the Latin prose history had to be allowed the right quantity of blank space, so that a passage of history would be adjacent to its picture or diagram. The elegant draft book that the collaborators produced in 1317 (now BnF MS lat. 5286) is related to the luxuriously illuminated final product as the full dress rehearsal of an opera is related to its command performance before royalty. The draft was completed with prologues and tables of contents, rubrics and other colored features, a finished codex in itself, suitable for the abbey to keep and treasure, as the abbey did. Then came the command performance, which we find today in BnF MS fr. 2090–2092 (Parts 1 and 2) and the mutilated BnF MS lat. 13836 (Part 3). On quires of finely prepared parchment, the book-scribe wrote out all of Yves’s Latin text, and in the colophon (Figure 9) he declared that the book was written “by the little pen of Guillaume Lescot,” and he dated it 1317.10
The frontispiece, BnF lat. 5286, 1r (repeated in color in BnF fr. 2090, 1v) shows the monk Yves kneeling behind Abbot Gilles as he presents the book to the king. 10 BnF lat. 13836, fol. 135v: O genus insigne, rex qui preclara benigne regna, Philippe, regis Francorum tramite legis, regalis voti, Guillermi pennula Scoti: librum scripsit ita de patroni tibi vita et regum gestis, quibus est hystoria testis, et de regali successu. Nobile quali regnat honore Dei nunc usque genus Clodovei et Karoli magni. Vestigia penitus agni in te preclare sequitur, rex percipe gnare hanc per scripturam cui debes tradere curam. Per C ter, D bis, X, septem tempus habebis. Laudis divine cantetur gloria fine. Ut regi detur pax, unusquisque precetur. O Philip, you who as king kindly rule the kingdoms of the Franks, that outstanding people, by means of the law of your royal will, the little pen of Guillaume Lescot thus wrote a book concerning the life of your Patron, and the deeds of kings to which history is the the witness, and concerning the royal succession. By such an honor of God the noble stock of
The Saint-Denis Studio and the Vita et Miracula Sancti Dyonisii
75
Figure 9: The colophon of BnF MS lat. 13836, 135v. The scribe, Guillaume Lescot, recommending La Vie de saint Denis, the work of his “little pen,” to King Philip V. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
Then five illuminators painted, on the designated pages, their own fullcolor versions of the BnF MS lat. 5286 grisailles.11 Thanks to Charlotte Lacaze’s painstaking collation of the manuscript and her distinction of the illumination styles (with her labels for the anonymous artists) we see that four of the five had each been given as his task a stack of assembled quires in which Yves’s Latin text had already been written.12
Clovis and of Charlemagne reigns even now. Inwardly, the king in you brilliantly follows the footsteps of the Lamb. Perceive with understanding, through this writing, to whom you ought to give care. By thrice a hundred and twice five hundred, ten, and seven you will have the date. May a Gloria of divine praise be sung at the end. Let everyone pray that peace be given to the king. 11 See Plates 5 and 6; Lacaze attributes Plate 5 to artist A and Plate 6 to artist B. 12 The foliation of the original volumes, before the addition of new folia to accommodate a French translation, is in Lacaze, 50–55; the. painters’ styles are described and their pictures accredited to them by Lacaze, 214–43: B, the “author-page master,” was assigned signatures II through XVII; C, the “crowd painter,” executed only quires XVIII and XIX; D, the “Sisinnius master,” quires XX–XXII; and E, the “large-figure master,” ended the work of Part 2 by
76
Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis
It seems anachronistic (as several true connoisseurs of medieval illumination have warned us) to posit a Benedictine abbey producing fine books in the fourteenth century, long past the days of the monastic scriptorium. “The hands of most of the five artists who illuminated the Vie de St. Denis can be seen in other manuscripts produced in Paris . . . and it is plausible that Guillaume Lescot was in fact a Parisian scribe.”13 He was not a monk of Saint-Denis, or his colophon would have said so. But there was nothing to prevent a lay scribe, five lay illuminators, and a few lay flourishers and rubricators (provided that they were men) from coming to the abbey and even residing there while they did their work. The Saint-Denis historical studio was an apt place for several illuminators to work, and their tasks were so partitioned that any number of them could paint simultaneously, following the grisaille drawings of BnF MS lat. 5286, which was kept at Saint-Denis. It seems inconceivable that each illuminator would have carried the written quires to his own workroom and back “through the streets in the dark and rain.”14
Guillaume Lescot Writes the Royal Manuscript A parallel effort in the historical studio of Saint-Denis under Abbot Gilles de Pontoise produced the best example of the second edition of the Latin Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis. The Royal codex of the Chronicle was written in the same upright formal gothic bookhand as the Vita, with the same repertory of basic abbreviations. The comparison side by side of the lettering, character by character and abbreviation by abbreviation, shows that Guillaume Lescot wrote both codices and, we may assume, wrote them both in the studio at Saint-Denis.15 Soon after the Vita et Miracula was finished in 1317, we surmise, Guillaume Lescot sat down in the studio room of the conventual library of Saint-Denis to write the 445 folios of BL Royal 13 E IV. His materials were probably made painting quires XXIII through XXXI. A, the “dedication-page master,” created the frontispieces of Parts 1 and 2, a single page (now 34r) in Part 2, and three of the four surviving pictures in Part 3 (BnF 13836): this artist may have been able to choose his own subjects. 13 Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 2:42. 14 Ibid., 1:217 and 1:276–77. 15 François Avril answered our diffident enquiry by e-mail on 28 January 2019: Looking carefully over the two samples of British Library Royal 13 E IV and BnF lat. 13836 that you sent me, I think you are absolutely right in connecting the script of these two manuscripts and I am ready to follow you in recognising the scribe of the Royal manuscript as the Guillelmus Scotus of Latin 13836. Congratulations for this important and convincing observation.
Guillaume Lescot Writes the Royal Manuscript
77
ready for him by an apprentice: the parchment sheets gathered, folded, pricked and lined and sewn into sexternions, the ink mixed, and the pens cut. The 35 text lines of the Royal manuscript are spaced wider than those of the Vita et Miracula by a ratio of 3:2, and the pen was proportionately broader than the pennula of BnF MS lat. 13836. On his copy-stand Lescot placed the first pecia of the Chronicle exemplar MS A (now BnF lat. 4918) which had been meticulously prepared and then kept in the same room, with its quires sewn but not bound together. It was meant to be copied, and it had already been copied at least three times, meanwhile being marked up with erasures, deletions and corrections. Many additions, from short phrases to full paragraphs, had been written into the margins with signes de renvoi to indicate where they should be placed in the copy. Lescot realized that he would have to be careful to make each of his pages conform to the requirements of a peculiar format without losing any detail of the original in its latest revised state: this copy was destined for service in the abbey church itself. He began by leaving a space four lines deep (about an inch and a half square) for an illuminated capital C to begin the Prologue, and his first two pen strokes traced u, the second letter of the opening word Cum. In the same careful script, in smaller letters and in red, he wrote the headline of the first page: Incipit prologus cronicarum fratris Guillelmi de Nangis monachi Sti Dyonisii in Francia. There was no other indication of a title. Lescot worked so attentively that we find almost no expunctions or rewritings. Once only, in his fourth signature (fol. 46r) he paused after the sentence Deinde Brutus, responso a Dyana recepto, cum suis in Angliam transivit, et inde regem gigantium fugavit, quem postea Corintus in luctu interfecit. There he hesitated: luctu or lucta? Brutus was more likely to have killed the giant “in a wrestling match” than “in tears”; but the last letter had an ambiguous shape, and so he added in the margin vel lucta, proving himself a literate Latin editor (See Figure 10). For the rest of what finally amounted to 445 folios in 40 quires, he kept his text confined neatly within the lined text block. The Royal manuscript is a splendid example of the book-scribe’s craft. At the end of each signature he wrote the next word of the text on the first line of the next blank quire and also in the lower right corner of the last folio verso of the finished signature: the catchword that would link the signatures in the correct order for binding into a codex. All the best copies of the Chronicle, including the Royal manuscript, provide a system for the parallel tracking of the historically significant realms. Each page is headed by a line where the kingdoms are named which coexisted in those days, even if the page happens not to mention any of them. In the Royal
78
Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis
Figure 10: On MS Royal, 46r, Guillaume Lescot hesitated over the correct reading, luctu or lucta. He wrote luctu, which seemed visually closer to his original, but then put the better reading lucta into the margin. The parallel lines added later in the margin had to detour around the correction. Courtesy of the British Library.
Guillaume Lescot Writes the Royal Manuscript
79
manuscript the kingdoms’ names are alternately in red and blue. Above each paragraph that recounts the events of one year there is a line of minuscule roman numerals, the regnal years of the rulers in each of the kingdoms named in the running headline, each number in the same color as the kingdom’s name and directly below it. A regnal year number j is followed by the new ruler’s name.16 Because accuracy was essential, Lescot did this repetitive work himself. Similarly, in the outer margins, in blue roman numerals, Lescot wrote the numbers of the years by era: first the anni ab initio, based on a reckoning that Creation Year I was 4062 years before the beginning of the Common Era with the birth of Jesus.17 Every four years, following the example and the counting of Eusebius, Lescot noted ol. in the inner margin with the roman numeral of the Olympiad, beginning AM 3289 and ending with ol. cxciiij in AD 1.18 The Chronicle makes no note of years AUC (ab Urbe condita), of Indictions, or of the Spanish or the Muslim era. As Lescot finished his signatures, they were passed on to a colleague who worked in red and blue: alternating small red and blue capitals to begin sections, larger ones to begin paragraphs for years. In the first few pages some green and yellow touches appear. A pen-flourisher then got busy, flourishing the red letters with blue and blue ones with red. A junior artist drew the fine red parallel lines in the outer margins, after the year numbers had been written there: in many places the red lines had to detour around the numbers. He made a little doric capital topped by a cross around the words that titled the date column, earlier Anni ab initio and later Anni Domini, and finished the column with another little cross at the bottom. The flourisher may also be responsible for two colored dragons, drawn in delicate lines, that appear in the nineteenth signature, on fols. 213r and 215r and only there, apropos of nothing in the text. Those may be samples of the artist’s work to invite a further commission. A few larger capital letters were added, following the exemplar. On 1v the ten-line I has a tail flourish that trails another 22 lines down the margin to the bottom of the page, the initial of In primordio that begins the text proper, a graphic echo 16 The system of parallel regnal time-lines appeared in the Chronicon of Eusebius, in the continuation by Jerome, and in Sigebert de Gembloux. The Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis followed their example and copied their numbers. 17 Eusebius had begun his Chronicon with another era, that of the Old Covenant, numbering 1 the year of Abraham’s birth, but in Guillaume’s Chronicle, that is merely annus ab initio mundi 2049 (about 2015 BCE); the Chronicle ignores that Abrahamic era and continues the count of anni mundi to 4062, which is annus Domini 1 for Guillaume. This chronology agrees exactly neither with Eusebius and Jerome nor with Bede. See Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle 1: 463. 18 The chronology of Eusebius gives the victors of the stadion in Olympiads as far as AD 217; the games were abolished by an edict of Theodosius in AD 393.
80
Chapter 5 Creation of the Royal Manuscript at Saint-Denis
of In principio that begins the Vulgate Bible. At AD 1 there is a large capital P to begin the new era: Postquam beatus Johannes Baptista. An illuminator supplied the modest ornamentation on the first page: the square author portrait enclosed in the capital C and the marginal boundary decoration beginning on the upper left below the author portrait with a fabulous beast but then descending the left margin in a sparsely foliated, highly stylised column which then stretched across the lower margin and up the right-hand side of the page, finally branching into two leafy twigs. The author portrait was done on a silver-leaf ground which oxidized and then converted to an undefined blot of black silver sulfide.19 It was only when Eugenio Falcioni of the British Library’s Imaging Department provided an enlarged infrared version of the initial C that we were able to see the full underdrawing beneath that silver sulfide blot. We can now confidently attribute that illumination to an artist of the same atelier that worked on the Vie de saint Denis. The bifolia were assembled into quires and carefully bound so that the volume could be easily opened flat for reading at a desk or lectern.
Marks from Saint-Denis in the Royal Manuscript The finished codex was put to work in the abbey of Saint-Denis. In the church where the royalty of France since Dagobert I had been buried, it served as a solemn, copious, objective monument, instructing the monks and their pious and curious visitors about the lives and battles, virtues and failings of those kings and queens, and as an endless source of stories, from Genesis to 1300, to be read to the monks. The folios of the Royal manuscript were numbered, each in its recto upper right corner, with arabic numerals. As far as 360 the numerals were written in bold fourteenth-century forms with a broad relief pen and dark black ink, like the roman year-numbers on the same pages. The numbers 361 to 363 seem to be in an imitation of the earlier hand, but done with a finer relief pen. From that point to the end, the pen line is light and unrelieved, and the numeral forms are eighteenth- or nineteenth-century. The content of fol. 360v is the text for AD 1015–17, text which does not account for the lapse of the original numbering effort.
19 The degradation of silver leaf to Ag2O then amorphous Ag2S was established by Rita Araújo et al., “Silver Paints in Medieval Manuscripts: A First Molecular Survey into Their Degradation,” Heritage Science 6, no. 8 (2018).
Marks from Saint-Denis in the Royal Manuscript
81
In keeping with the probative purpose of the Chronicle, the text block itself was always kept clear of notes, erasures, and corrections, like a notarial instrument that a judge would not accept in evidence if it showed signs of meddling. But the Royal manuscript was intended to serve as a herald of St. Denis and his abbey and the royalty buried in his church, and also for reading to the monks at dinner and other times of silence, as prescribed by the Rule of St. Benedict, chapters 38 and 42.20 Early in its lifetime, the margins of MS Royal were helpfully marked up to help the readers find interesting materials. Between the vertical red lines in the outer margin of each opening, and often crossing them, a Saint-Denis reader wrote some 270 index phrases, pointing out, for example, the story of St. Martin and his cloak on 223r (AD 314) and Charlemagne’s dedication of the crown of France at Saint-Denis on 328r (AD 810). Those topical indices were erased in the sixteenth century, in a process that is described in chapter 10, but it is easy to spot them where the erasure made gaps in the red vertical lines, and their content can be read by ultraviolet light or inferred from the passages which they marked; and in many cases, there are traces of letters visible by natural light.21 Roman pontificates are not included in the parallel regnal dating system, but the papal succession is recounted in the text of the Chronicle, and in the Royal manuscript a Saint-Denis scribe added the popes’ names, in the outer margins beyond the vertical anno Domini red lines. These too were erased in the sixteenth century.
20 Regula OSB, ch. 42: Omni tempore silentium debent studere monachi, maxime tamen nocturnis horis. Et ideo omni tempore, sive ieiunii sive prandii: si tempus fuerit prandii, mox surrexerint a cena, sedeant omnes in unum, et legat unus Collationes vel Vitas Patrum aut certe aliud quod ædificet audientes. 21 For example in figure 15.
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416 Guillaume de Nangis intended his Chronicle to be a settler of disputes about property and authority. This function of a chronicle as a memorial of property was significant in the life of British Library Royal manuscript 13 E IV: during its active life, that codex would give its testimony to the authenticity of certain relics of the saints; to the absolute sovereignty, free of papal authority, of the king of France; to the power of the Holy Roman Emperor to settle conflicts in the Roman Church; and, eventually, to a claim of those same powers by the king of England in his own imperial realm. Early in the fifteenth century the Royal manuscript emerged from its native cloister and proved its value in a series of such battles, fought under royal auspices, in Paris.
Simon de Cramaud and Subtraction of Obedience; the Royal Council in 1406 While the Royal manuscript, freshly copied at Saint-Denis, remained there safe and at peace, instructing the monks as they dined on the history of the whole world and the life and miracles of their patron saint, and telling the noble visitors to the church about the lives and deeds of the royalty buried there, the kings of France were enjoying a sort of historical anomaly: the Papacy of Avignon.1 The popes began their steady residence at Avignon, across the Rhône from French Aquitaine, in 1316 with John XXII, who modernized the administration of the papal state and began to tap the rich resources of the French Church by inventive programs of taxation. The French kings were agreeable, so long as they shared equally in some of those programs: otherwise they were forbidden to tax the clergy. This collusion was an example of sinful simony to many critics then and since, but it served the principals well until the death of Gregory XI in 1378. He died in Rome, and a Roman mob threatened to slaughter the cardinals if they elected a pope who would take the papacy back to Avignon. The Conclave elected a Neapolitan as Urban VI, and when Urban proved unfriendly to them and insane besides, they elected again, a francophone Savoyard, Clement VII, who took the machinery of
1 A more than complete background for the following paragraph is provided by Jean Favier, Les papes d’Avignon; id. Les finances pontificales à l’époque du Grand Schisme d’Occident (1378–1409); and Noël Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme d’Occident. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-006
84
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
papal government back to Avignon with him, leaving Urban VI in Rome. The Great Western Schism was on, a cause of many evils for the Church and for France. Clement VII and his successor at Avignon, Benedict XIII, had a much smaller area to tax, and neither the king of France nor the popes were willing to share the reduced revenues of the Church in France. Obedience to the pope at Avignon had become a painful burden for France, both clerical and lay. The World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis came to play a decisive role in France’s “subtraction of obedience” from Pope Benedict XIII. This was the political masterpiece of Simon de Cramaud, a client of the duc de Berry and a familiar of his household, his chancellor from 1385 to 1391.2 Titular patriarch of Alexandria and member of the French royal council, doctor of both laws (Orléans, 1375), and regent master of canon law in the University of Paris, he was the intellectual leader and political champion of the via cessionis to end the Great Western Schism. This was the proposal that Benedict XIII of Avignon (elected 1394) and Boniface IX of Rome (1389–1404) should both resign, under compulsion by the secular monarchs if necessary (the via facti), and a single pope should be elected for a united church. We know that Cramaud was in attendance at Saint-Denis in 1392 when the bones of St. Louis were transferred there.3 He knew something of the historical industry that was so important a part of the abbey’s service to the crown. If there was ever a book perfectly matched to a controversial moment, the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis and the Great Western Schism seem to be such a pair. Did Simon de Cramaud make the match? It seems not. In his political works he seldom mentioned historical texts, and never the Chronicle. He was a doctor of laws, and he preferred historical facts as distilled in the chapters of canon and civil law, where a professional lawyer could interpret and apply them to a controversial purpose. Negative propositions are notoriously hard to prove, but some inductive demonstration of this one may be of interest. In his crucial treatise De Substraccione Obediencie (1397) Cramaud wrote, “We would never attend [a Council] at the will of the emperor—or rather the king of the Romans [Wenceslas, supporter of Boniface IX]—for he has made himself a party to the dispute; history shows that, when emperors convoked councils to settle schisms, they had not taken sides for one party so officially as now.”4 But
2 For his life and times, see Howard Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud and the Great Schism. 3 Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud, 106. 4 Translation by Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud, 194, from his own edition, De substraccione obediencie, 143: Item ad nutum imperatoris, vel pocius regis Romanorum, nos nunquam iremus, quia iam se fecit partem . . . . Et si videantur bene historie quando imperatores congregaverunt concilia
Simon de Cramaud and Subtraction of Obedience; the Royal Council in 1406
85
really, history, the Chronicle for example, more often shows emperors as parties to schisms, supporting their own papal candidates against those favored by the Roman Church. Arguing in 1402 against the University of Toulouse, Cramaud declared that the authority to summon the French clergy to councils had always been exercised by the orthodox French kings: “About Clovis we read that at his command a council of the prelates of this kingdom was brought together, in which Melanus bishop of Rennes, at his instruction, presided; and they established canons which bind the universal church and which have been copied in the corpus of canons.”5 The Chronicle mentions the council, but Cramaud had found his sources within the Corpus iuris canonici, in the Decretum of Gratian.6 In 1414 Cramaud, by then a cardinal, wrote a commentary on one of the tracts in favor of the Roman pope Gregory XII, addressing the work to the emperor-designate Sigismund in view of the coming Council of Constance.7 His arguments were almost all legal, but on the question of whether a heretic pope should be deposed he added history: “Ottaviano and Guido, who competed for the papacy with Alexander [III], were condemned in the [Third] Lateran Council [1179], not merely as heretics but as heresiarchs, that is, highest heretics. And those two, Ottaviano and Guido, were not charged with any error in faith other than trying to hold the papacy in a damnable way.” Those schismatic antipopes are not mentioned in the Chronicle; Cramaud’s source was the Decretales.8 Two further warning examples did come from history, again not from our Chronicle
super sedacione scismatum, non invenitur quod et ita formaliter partes se reddidissent pro uno sicut nunc. 5 AnF, J 518, 508v, as in Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud, 119 n. 29: De Clodoveo legimus, quod iussu eius consilium prelatorum huius regni fuit congregatum, in quo Melanus episcopus Redonensis, eius precepto, presidebat; et statuerunt canones qui universam ecclesiam astringunt, et in corpore canonum sunt redacti. 6 Distinction 16, chapter 11, a list of orthodox councils after Nicaea: 17. Octavadecima item Aurelianensis, in qua patres XXXI statuerunt canones, quorum auctor maxime Melanius Rodonensis episcopus extitit (Friedberg 1:48). That French Council did indeed make law for the universal church: one of its statutes is Decretum, distinction 81, chapter 14, that clerics found guilty of capital crimes should be deprived of their church offices. 7 Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud, 301; the abridged text is in Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:289. 8 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:282: Nam Octavianus et Guido, qui contenderunt de papatu cum Alexandro indampnati in Concilio Lateranensi condempnati fuerunt, non simpliciter velud heretici; sed tamquam heresiarche id est summi hereticorum . . . . Et illi duo Octavianus et Guido . . . non fuerunt reprehensi de alio errore in fide, nisi papatum tenere dampnabiliter conabantur. And Decretales 5.8.1 (Friedberg 2:790):
86
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
but from the Chronicon of Martinus Oppaviensis. Gregory himself, Cramaud argued, would do better to submit to the general council, “because one of these days he may suffer what we read happened to Burdinus [i.e. the antipope Gregory VIII] in the time of Pope Calixtus [II: 1119–1124], or worse.”9 Then Cramaud reminded Sigismund that God watched over the papacy, mentioning the story of Gregory VI (1044–46) recounted by “all the historians who have written about the supreme pontiffs.” Gregory’s cardinals accused him on his deathbed of murder, and determined that he would not have a blessed burial in his church. They were proven wrong when a divine wind blew down the locked and barred church doors to admit his body.10 Late in 1406 Simon de Cramaud attended the last of four Paris Councils as an orator for the University’s cause, the subtraction of obedience from Pope Benedict XIII of Avignon. Like its three predecessors, this was simultaneously a Council of the Church of France, to which all the major prelates and important clergy of the kingdom had been summoned, and a meeting of the royal council. Charles VI himself, fitfully sane, sometimes presided; for the other sessions, one of the royal princes who happened to be in Paris occupied the throne. Acting as clerk of the Council, the chancellor Arnaud de Corbie allotted their times to the speakers.11 The Chronicle made an appearance in this Council, introduced not by Cramaud but by Jean de Berry. The archbishops, bishops, abbots, and chief masters of the University were summoned to the royal palace for All Saints Day, 1 November 1406. The Council began eighteen days later with a Mass celebrated by the archbishop of Rouen in
Ex concilio Lateranensi . . . . ordinationes ab Octaviano et Guidone haeresiarchis . . . factas, et ab ordinatis ab eis, irritas esse censemus, adiicientes etiam, ut qui dignitates ecclesiasticas seu beneficia per dictos schismaticos acceperunt, careant impetratis. 9 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:285: quia forsan una dierum poterit sibi contingere, sicud tempore Calixti pape legitur de Burdino accidisse, vel peius. And Martinus Oppaviensis, Chronicon, Pontifices for AD 1120 (MGH SS 22, 435): Burdinus vero, qui per Henricum [V] imperatorem in papam fuerat factus, audito adventu pape, in Sutrio se recepit. Quem obsessum papa cum Romanis eum habuisset positum in camelo, versa facie ad tergum, habens caudam cameli pro freno papam [Calixtum II] ad Urbem precedebat et post in arche Fumonis est retrusus. 10 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:286; Martinus Oppaviensis, Chronicon (MGH SS 22), Pontifices, 433 for AD 1048: “Cum mortuus fuero, corpus meum ante fores ecclesie sistite, ianuas quoque ecclesie seris et vectibus obfirmate. Si voluntate divina porte aperte fuerint, corpus inferte, alioquin de ipso facite, quod vultis.” Cumque, mortuo eo, sic factum esset, turbo divinitus veniens portas ecclesie firmatas non solum apperuit, sed etiam cum magno fragore usque ad parietem deportavit. 11 Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud, 260–69.
Simon de Cramaud and Subtraction of Obedience; the Royal Council in 1406
87
the Sainte-Chapelle. Sessions were held in a small audience hall overlooking the Seine. Sitting at the council table for the first session, in the absence of the king, were the royal dukes of Guyenne, Berry, and Anjou. Pierre aux Bœufs OFM, doctor of theology, introduced the University’s petition that France should take away its obedience from Pope Benedict XIII. The next day master Jean Petit spoke for the University.12 These nurslings of the University made long arguments in favor of the subtraction of obedience. This petition was one that any simple peasant could easily have been granted. They urged especially the premise that Lord Benedict was stubborn. But, persuaded by the chancellor of France, they agreed that the bishop of Cambrai Pierre d’Ailly and the dean of Reims [Guillaume Fillastre], with a certain number of abbots and masters, should represent the pope; as for the University, they should choose whom they wished to support the other side, along with the patriarch of Alexandria [Simon de Cramaud].
The notables who had been named to speak for Benedict XIII perceived the University’s animus against him, and they timidly refrained from definite defenses until the king ordered them in writing to declare their thoughts candidly. The chancellor scheduled the two parties to speak by turns. Then they proceeded freely to settle the question before those dukes and others of royal blood, and they appointed the dean of Reims, a man both learned and experienced in civil and canon law, to state the pope’s position. Most eloquent of the eloquent, he exalted the pope with many praises, and showed in many ways what eagerness Benedict had always had for unity. In his long speech he urged and logically proved that the Council should not withdraw from obedience to Benedict. Indeed, that speech would have made the dean agreeable to the presiding lords, if he had not on one point offended their ears. For when he was trying to prove by old histories and the laws that a pope was not to be deposed by the authority of kings, but on the contrary kings were set up and set aside by the authority of the supreme pontiff, he mentioned Pepin king of France as an example. The presiding lords, knowing that Pepin’s elevation had proceeded from the Council [of the realm] and not from the pope’s command, indignantly produced as witness the Chronicle of the church of Saint-Denis.13 Consequently, to pacify them, the dean later retracted his words with a more modest interpretation.
The speeches of this Council of Paris, as recorded in shorthand and transcribed by the reporter, were printed early in the eighteenth century. The edition must be read with care. The original recorder could not keep up with the speakers,
12 Our summary account is translated and paraphrased from Chronique du religieux de SaintDenis, book 27, chapter 37 (3:464–73). 13 For example, MS Royal, 310v (AD 750).
88
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
his notes were later assembled out of chronological order, and he doctored the speeches to maintain political seemliness.14 Dean Fillastre made two speeches in which he stretched historical examples to show the king of France subject to the authority of the pope. On Friday 3 December, before the king and the dukes of Berry and Bourbon, he gave a story of Charlemagne, hastily lifted from the Chronicle and twisted ex parte, with the crucial bits left in ringing Latin.15 When the king of Lombardy occupied the land of the Church, Pope Adrian commanded Charlemagne, the king of France who then reigned, and he took the road to Rome, to Adrian, and then went to the city of Pavia where that king was, and beseiged the city, and, leaving the army there, went to Rome to Pope Adrian, who received him honorably; and after that he went back to Pavia and had victory, and then went back again to Rome, and then Pope Adrian, seeing that he had taken and subjugated his adversary King Desideratus, who had so usurped the land of the Church, he received Charlemagne and called together a Synod, at which there were a hundred fifty-three bishops and abbots, and at that Council a hearing was opened to elect Charlemagne, and to put the Apostolic See in order, and there also the Patriciate was granted to him by Adrian, and this was about the year 754, by which it is clear enough that he was not yet emperor of Rome, as he was later.
It appears that a copy of the Chronicle (most likely MS Royal) lay on the Council table, and on Monday 6 December16 Jean de Berry rose to use it in an indignant defense of his infirm nephew’s royal lineage and title against a clumsy and offensive historical fraud.17 The dean’s story was rife with mistakes for the duke to correct. The king of the Lombards was named Desiderius, not Desideratus. Instead of finding the king shut up in Pavia, Charlemagne chased him into refuge there. These were events of 773, not of 754. It seems that Fillastre had mixed his hasty jottings about Charlemagne with his rapid scribbles about Pepin. But his most serious mistake of all was this: far from making Charlemagne king (which he already was), the pope and the Roman Synod granted Charlemagne the authority to choose the pope and to reform the Apostolic See, with the power of a veto over prelatial appointments.18
14 Edited among the Preuves by Louis Bourgeois du Chastenet, Nouvelle histoire du Concile de Constance, 95–234. See Johannes Haller’s account of the historians’ struggle with this priceless but badly scrambled source in Papsttum und Kirchenreform, 279 n. 2. An added caution: from 217 to 234 the numeration is of folios, not pages. 15 Bourgeois du Chastenet, 127; for the text, see Appendix C. 16 Bourgeois du Chastenet, 164; for the text, see Appendix C. 17 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis, 3:468: . . . ipsi presidentes . . . inde indignati cronica ecclesie beati Dyonisii in testimonium produxerunt. 18 Chronicle 315v (AD 773) in Appendix A.
Simon de Cramaud and Subtraction of Obedience; the Royal Council in 1406
89
Blandly undeterred by Berry’s angry demolition on Monday of his Friday’s history lecture, Dean Fillastre did even worse on Tuesday, when the king again presided.19 It is clearly apparent that the pope has power over the temporal, and not vice versa. (I cite the commentary of Pope Innocent on Licet ex suscepto in the Decretals, title De foro competenti [X.2.2.10]). The pope has at one time placed a king [Pepin] in France; so says the chapter Zacharia.20 I should add that some say that this was done by the Council of the Princes of France; others say that it was by the assent of the one who was then king of France [Childeric III] . . . . The power that princes have over the Church is the power to guard, protect and defend her against invaders, not to trample her and tread her liberties underfoot.
Michel Pintoin’s account, quoted above, tells something that is obscured in the shorthand report: it was this mention of Pepin that prompted the lords presiding (and surely the duc de Berry) to protest and to refute Fillastre by means of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis. There we find that the French nobility sent prelates to ask Pope Zacharias his opinion as to whether the title of king should belong to the one who exercised the royal authority, and the pope answered that it should. Then the Franks made Pepin king and pushed Childeric into a monastery, and the pope ordered the anointing of Pepin by the archbishop of Mainz at Soissons. Finally, the Chronicle points out that the Merovingian heritage carried on through Pepin and his Carolingian successors.21 Fillastre finally realized the enormity of his errors: that in the presence of a critic who could roundly correct him he had made a hasty use of material outside the field of his professional competence, which was foolish; that he had thereby affronted the real judges of his cause, which was bad advocacy; and that to the king’s face he had denied the basis of the king’s authority, which was lèse-majesté. He prepared a short apology to undo the damage, and he delivered it at the earliest moment the chancellor could give him, following an oration by Pierre d’Ailly on Saturday 11 December.22 The first half of Fillastre’s apology was a plea for mercy that was weighted like Portia’s with an elogium of
19 Bourgeois du Chastenet, 202; for Berry’s indignant reaction, see Appendix C. 20 There is no chapter in the Corpus juris canonici that begins Zacharia. Fillastre was using his habitual form of legal citation but referring to Martinus Oppaviensis, Chronicon (MGH SS 22) Pontifices for AD 741, 425–26: Zacharias natione Grecus . . . sedit annis 10 . . . Hic Karolomannum, Francorum regem, fratrem Pipini fecit fieri clericum et misit eum in Cassinense monasterium, ut monachus fieret. But we note that neither Carloman nor Pepin was king of France at that time, as the Chronicle makes clear. 21 See the Latin text of the Chronicle, 310v (AD 750 = 9 Childeric III) in Appendix A. 22 Bourgeois du Chastenet, 163–64; for the text, see Appendix C.
90
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
that virtue, so precious in a powerful king or emperor. Then the dean of Reims, doctor of both laws, excused himself as a poor peasant and unused to the language of the court. With a flattering but inconclusive cadenza on the theme, “You are one of the anointed kings,” he put Charles in the company of Saul and Jesus Christ, the king of all kings, and made his confession of faith in the king’s sovereignty. As everyone present knew, the anointing with holy oil was part of the coronation of a king of France—in Fillastre’s own cathedral of Reims. But even here he stumbled historically when he mentioned the legend of Clovis’s anointing by St. Remy: that happened not at the crowning of Clovis but at his baptism, in his fifteenth year as king. And it was not an angel that brought the oil, but a dove.23 If I have spoken naively, I am very sorry. History says the thing much more plainly than I did. Some doctors say that Pepin became king by the consent of the king, some say by the Council, at the request of the barons and lords of France. Sire, I know well that your lordship is not like other kings’. The emperor holds his imperial power from the pope, but your kingship is by heritage. I know well that you occupy your place not only by the will of man. You are a person midway between the spiritual and the temporal . . . . The third [anointed] king whom I find, Sire, is your predecessor Clovis, who was baptized by my lord Saint Remy, who was the son of a sterile mother, and an angel from heaven carried the oil to him, and so your kingship is not like others. It is hereditary and you hold it of no one. You are emperor in your kingdom; on earth you recognize no superior in temporal matters. And therefore, Sire, I beg of your mercy, etc., and I shall be better advised in time to come. I will do as Saint Peter did, who after he had failed, etc. Also, if it please God, I will be more faithful to your royal majesty, if it will please you to have mercy on me.
The ecclesiastics of the Council, directed by Simon de Cramaud, finally voted for a partial subtraction of obedience, and a large delegation, also under Cramaud’s direction, was dispatched to get the resignation promised by Gregory XII, the new pope of the Roman obedience, and the resignation conditionally offered by Benedict XIII of Avignon. But the two popes could not bring themselves to yield the papal power, either singly or in unison, even after they had been deposed by a Council of their combined cardinals at Pisa (5 June 1409). And so, when the Council of Pisa went into conclave and elected Alexander V, the Schism continued, with three popes.
23 The story appears in the Chronicle, AD 499. In the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours (2:31), there is no shortage of oil, and so neither dove nor angel.
The Head of St. Denis: The Royal Manuscript before the Parlement de Paris, 1410
91
The Head of St. Denis: The Royal Manuscript before the Parlement de Paris, 1410 Jean duc de Berry, son of Jean le Bon and brother of Charles le Sage, was well known even in his own day as an avid yet judicious collector of books and patron of book artists. In the tradition of the royal house of France, he also sought the bones of saints and other sacred relics, and he was willing to squander money on rich reliquaries to house and display his best acquisitions.24 In this other pursuit, however, he was less a connoisseur than a credulous enthusiast, as his treasure inventories reveal.25 He had relics of St. Alexis, Alexander, Andrew, Anthony, Bartholomew, Benedict, Bernard, Blaise, Boniface, Christopher, Claude, Cosmas and Damian, Cyprian, Stephen, Eustace, and Francis; of St. George the sword and pennant, plus fragments of the skull and an arm; of James the Greater and the Less, of John the Baptist and the Evangelist, and of Julian, to go no further down the alphabet except to note the beard of St. Peter. Of Our Lady he possessed the wedding ring, girdle, mature teeth and baby teeth, the tears and the milk. Of Our Lord, the swaddling clothes, relics of the True Cross and pillar, a nail, the crown of thorns, sponge, chains, funeral diadem, robe, sheet and shroud, tombstone, and blood. Berry’s naive lipsanophilia brought him again into contact with the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, this time most certainly with the manuscript that is now BL Royal 13 E IV.26 As a prince regent of France, Jean de Berry was a familiar friend and patron of the royal abbey of Saint-Denis, necropolis of kings and treasury of the bones of saints. He was also, as count of Poitou, patron of the cathedral church of S. Hilaire, the missionary bishop of Poitiers. In 1394, as Michel Pintoin later recorded, he asked Saint-Denis to provide a gift to Saint-Hilaire.27 Among all the churches under his protection, he had adopted that of St. Hilaire, bishop of Poitiers, for particular devotion and honor. It was his loving wish that the church should be singled out with some part of the body of that glorious confessor, and he had obtained from the venerable community of the church of Saint-Denis the chin of the glorious saint
24 For full background, Edina Bozóky, La politique des reliques de Constantin à Saint Louis. 25 Jules Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry, the index in vol. 2. 26 For the complete story of the quarrel, with documents, see Henri-François Delaborde, “Le procès du chef de Saint Denis en 1410,” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France 11 (1884): 297–409; also Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry. 27 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis, book 14, chapter 16 (2:116–19). For Pintoin’s use of royal chancery documents, see Hélène Millet, “Michel Pintoin, chroniqueur du Grand Schisme d’Occident,” in Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, and Jean-Marie Moeglin, eds. Saint-Denis et la royauté: études offertes à Bernard Guenée (Paris: 1999) 213–35.
92
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
[Hilaire]. Not content with such a small relic, he begged again and again over three years to be given some little portion of the head itself. Even though his request displeased all the religious [of Saint-Denis] at length they complied with his importunate pleading and . . . granted a triangular piece of the saint’s head from behind the right ear, about three fingers wide and long. He received this with expressions of thanks and great joy, and soon afterward he placed it in a golden head, set with precious gems, and gave this to the church of St. Hilaire, calling for a solemn procession to receive the jewel . . . . To compensate our monastery fairly, the duc de Berry placed in a gold vessel decorated with gems a similar portion of the head of St. Benedict and a part of his arm, which he had obtained with great difficulty from the Benedictine religious of St-Benoît-sur-Loire, and he granted these to the monastery in the year of our Lord 1400.
The duke made a solemn occasion of his gift on the feast of St. Benedict, 21 March. The relics were placed in a silver figure of the saint, mitred and carrying an arm in his hand, weighing 250 marks. The king and princes were invited to join the procession as the abbot and monks, all in silk copes, escorted the relics from the hospital chapel to the abbey church. Two of the brothers carried the ponderous reliquary on their shoulders and placed it between two of the altars of the church to be seen by all the visitors. After Mass and dinner, the duke called the monks into the chapter house and recounted to them, step by laborious step, how he had persuaded the abbot of St-Benoît-sur-Loire to part with those priceless relics. As he said farewell the abbot of Saint-Denis promised the duke prayers and masses in thanks, and assured him that the annual feast of St. Benedict would be celebrated more solemnly and more richly than ever.28 Of all the relics treasured by the monks of Saint-Denis, naturally the most important was the complete skeleton of their patron saint, including the complete skull. The first chapter of this study tells how the legend of St. Denis developed as a bond between the abbey and the French monarchy. In his Chronique Michel Pintoin relates how the friendly relations between Jean de Berry and the abbey, so recently solidified by the bones of St. Hilary and Benedict, were shaken when the duke’s mania for relics focused on the skull of St. Denis.29 For some time past the king’s uncle Jean de Berry had begged us to give him the tiniest portion of the most holy relics of St. Denis, in vain. But the canons of Paris, at the suggestion and request of certain courtiers in his service, granted him a bit from the crown of some saint, whom they did not blush to name Dionysius himself, the Areopagite and apostle of France! The annals of history, approved for reading by the Church and read everywhere in France, show this to be a frivolous and reprehensible boast.
28 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis, book 21, chapter 10 (2:780–83). 29 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis, book 27, chapter 13 (3:436–49).
The Head of St. Denis: The Royal Manuscript before the Parlement de Paris, 1410
93
Pintoin fills in the contemporary background of the sad and scandalous episode from the monastery’s viewpoint. Beginning about 1190, in the reign of Philip Augustus, the canons of Notre-Dame, the cathedral church of Paris, had claimed to possess the cranium of St. Denis, the crown of the skull. On the feast day of the saint in the fifth year of his reign (9 October 1368) Charles V called the senior members of the cathedral chapter, including the dean and the chancellor, to a procession of the relics at Saint-Denis and a showing of the integral skull. He ordered the canons in future not to claim that they owned the saint’s cranium, and decreed that the procession of the relics should be conducted annually at Saint-Denis, whenever the king was present on the feast day. On 17 September 1406 Louis duc d’Orléans, about to ride on his last campaign in Gascony, visited the abbey church to do reverence to the patron saint of France. The golden reliquary was opened so that he could kiss the skull, and it was found practically complete, missing only the chin and a particle from the right jaw, but the fontanel seemed darkened “by the breath of those who had kissed it”: a fresh proof of the monks’ position in their old quarrel with the canons of Notre-Dame.30 The solemn feast-day procession, with the whole skull displayed, was duly performed for Charles VI on 9 October 1406, three weeks after the visit of Louis d’Orléans, and this event ignited the old quarrel. The attending canons of Notre-Dame, “ill edified and very ill pleased,” objected that the skull of St. Denis could not be still whole, since they had its detached cranium in their sacristy. If the monks had the skull of a St. Dionysius, they said, it must be of Dionysius of Corinth, a mere confessor, not the Aereopagite and martyr of Paris. Or possibly of St. Eugenius or another of the many saints whose bodies Saint-Denis possessed. Or maybe the monks had dug it up in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents?31 Some monks immediately carried the battle of words into the cathedral, where they went so far as to utter the word idolatria. The canons voted in their chapter on 18 October to have those men arrested if they entered Notre-Dame ever again. The bishop of Paris, Pierre d’Orgemont, took the ceremonial offensive against the abbey with a procession and a showing of the cranium on Sunday 7 November, ostensibly to beg the patron saint of France for his aid in the military campaigns of Louis d’Orléans and Jean sans Peur of Burgundy. In the sermon for the day the chancellor of the diocese, Jean Gerson himself, affirmed the authenticity of Notre-Dame’s relic, and by a sentence of
30 The anterior fontanel is the large suture where the four cranial bones of the skull have grown together, replacing the membranous “soft spot” of the infant skull. 31 Delaborde, “Le procès du chef,” 304, with the text of AnF LL 1326, 1, 34r.
94
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
20 November the bishop forbade all further discussion of the matter. The monks, secure in their immunity from the bishop’s jurisdiction, disregarded the order, and on 1 December the bishop issued a solemn mandate to all under his authority not to allow the monks to preach in their churches.32 The canons sent a delegation to Jean de Berry, including the archdeacon and the duke’s own physician, hoping to secure for their side his high authority as a prince royal, uncle of the king, a patron and familiar of Saint-Denis, and a connoisseur of relics. He gave a deposition which unfortunately has not survived, but which seems to have told how, in 1398, he had examined the reliquary head of St. Denis and passed a wisp of straw or a feather through the osculatory opening of the reliquary and through the skull itself (which rested on red sendal), indicating that some of the skull was missing. Therefore the skull that had been shown at the last festal procession (whole, and pillowed on white) could not be that of St. Denis. For their part, the monks stated their case by letter to the duc d’Orléans. The canons sent envoys to the duke of Burgundy, hoping to pit two dukes against one, and the king’s handlers, considering that his family needed no fresh causes of quarrel, under date of 6 December 1406 imposed a general silence and evoked the question to the Royal Council. This was the state of the case when Berry decided to back his testimony in the most impressive way possible: he made an extravagant offer for a fragment of the Notre-Dame relic. Purchase was impossible because buying the sacred for money would be simony; but one relic could be traded for another. Berry displayed his confidence in the authenticity of the cranium at Notre-Dame, and his estimate of its worth, by offering the entire skull of St. Philip the Apostle in a reliquary bust of gold set with precious stones. The holy bargain was struck the same day as the offer, 8 January 1407 (old style 1406).33 Until his minute relic could be given worthy housing, the duke placed it, together with a tooth of Charlemagne, in a salt-cellar of crystal mounted in silver.34 There the quarrel briefly rested, with the contestants in their separate churches stubbornly but privately maintaining their mutually exclusive relics and opinions. The murder of Louis d’Orléans by order of Jean de Bourgogne (23 November 1407)
32 AnF L 465 is a cartulary of the bishop’s officialis; no. 6 is the letter of sentence, seal missing; and no. 8 is the warning, including a transcription of the first letter, edited by Delaborde, “Le procès du chef,” 306–9, from another source. 33 The Gallican year began on Easter Day, which in 1407 fell on 27 March. Delaborde, “Le procès du chef,” 299 n. 3; and 300 for a full description from the treasury of Notre-Dame of the luxurious reliquary of St. Philip’s head. 34 Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry, 2:30: 160. Item une salière de cristal, garnie d’argent, en laquelle a une des dens de saint Challemaigne, et une pièce du chep saint Denis.
The Head of St. Denis: The Royal Manuscript before the Parlement de Paris, 1410
95
put Jean de Berry securely into the Armagnac party bent on revenge, and the monks should have considered that obeying the royal order of silence would be their most prudent course, at least until they could win back the favor of their most powerful earthly patron. But within a few years a group of canons of NotreDame on a visit to Saint-Denis found a placard posted under glass on the pillar nearest the monument of the companion martyrs, with copies elsewhere in the church, on which were written passages from the Chronicle to prove the authenticity of the relic preserved there and “to remove the old and the new error of the canons of Paris.” Chancellor Gerson exchanged moderate letters with Abbot Philippe de Villette agreeing to disagree, but the majority of the canons were ready to litigate the defamatory words, and their cause was sent to the Parlement de Paris. There were disorderly scenes in the abbey church as officers of the court seized copies of the offending placard. Finally on 3 April 1410 the canons opened their somewhat incoherent plea before the Parlement. Its chief evidence was in written records, especially chronicles, and these were weak supports: they could not prove more than two centuries of possession of their relic, or its provenance. The canons mentioned a passage in the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis about Clovis II, son of Dagobert, as proving that the head was not preserved with the rest of the bones of St. Denis, but they did not produce the text verbatim. We find it at AD 660 (297r), and it does not aid the cause of NotreDame:35 Clovis king of the Franks, uncovering the body of Saint Denis of Paris less reverently than he ought, broke a bone of his arm and took it away, but he was immediately stunned and fell into a permanent madness. And such a terror and dread and darkness filled the place that all who were near, smitten with the greatest fear, sought refuge in flight. Afterward the holy bone was returned, clothed and adorned in gold and gems, and so the king somewhat recovered his senses, but not completely.
The Parlement, partial to Notre-Dame, considered that the monks of SaintDenis had unjustly slandered the canons, but the judges ordered both sides to submit their positions in writing, together with the documents to which they had vaguely referred in their first appearances. The canons laid before the court the 53-folio libellus that is now Paris, Archives nationales de France (AnF) LL 1326, no. 1, and the monks brought in the hefty Rouleau de Saint-Denys (today unstitched and edge-bound as LL 1326, nos. 2–3). The books and documents cited in the arguments were also handed over to the court to prove the accuracy of the quoted passages.
35 MS Royal, 297r; see the Latin text in Appendix A.
96
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
If the relic treasured by Saint-Denis was the whole skull of the martyr, Notre-Dame could clearly not possess his cranium, and so the canons’ proctors took aim at the Saint-Denis proofs, especially passages in the World Chronicle. Guillaume de Nangis himself, they argued, was a monk of Saint-Denis and therefore a prejudiced witness, who furthermore wrote in the time of Philip V (1317–22), long after the events he related.36 They must have seen a copy of the Chronicle with a continuation beyond 1300, the year of Guillaume’s death and the end of the original Chronicle. The monks replied with a vigorous defense of chronicles as evidence, and they produced an elegant copy, the Royal manuscript itself, of the non-continuated World Chronicle, which stops at 1300.37 The monks produced another book of Guillaume de Nangis which begins on the second folio tis et vocatum est and on the last folio begins francie terra.38 In this book there are three passages: first, the martyrdom of Saint Denis and his companions [AD 98 on 198v]; second, their exhumation by Dagobert [AD 632 on 291rv]; third, the uncovering of the head [AD 1191 on 397r] which Rigord mentions, and consistent with Rigord’s chronicle.
The Rouleau goes on: the monks then repelled the objection that Guillaume had been a monk of Saint-Denis. He was a person of importance, the appointed chronicler of France: an impartial professional historian, as we might say. If his membership in the community of Saint-Denis caused him to write fables about it, the same would be true of the apostles who bore witness to Christ, and of Livy and Pompeius Trogus in their Roman chronicles, and of Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities. Of course he wrote about what happened long before his
36 AnF LL 1326, no. 1, 25v: Ce que il dit a la compillacion de son livre lequel il a fait composer puis le debat amenteu. il le dit “ex affectione nimia” pour essaucier les religieux de son abbaye, et de priver celles des autres eglises ou il y’a du chief ou des reliques du corps saint de monsieur saint denis, comme il peut assez apparoir par la teneur desdites clauses que en ont fait extraire lesdiz religieux . . . . 26r: Item or comment il dire que ledit Guillaume de Nangis parle en son dit livre de chose de quoy il ne savoit riens car il parle du temps de la passion dudit monsieur saint denis qui fut anno de passione domini LXo et depuis de linvencion faict par le roy dagobert qui fut v c xxx ans apres ou environ et apres parle de la detection qui fut faict de la chasse ou il estoit lan mil c . iiij xx .et xi et lui eust estre imposible den parler ne de riens en savoir car il escript jusques au temps du roy Phillippe le long [1317–1322] lequel fut couronne lan mil iij.c et xvj se non par la recitation dautres livres que il ne nomme mie. Par quoy achose quil en ait dite au escripte en son livre on ne doit adiouester aucune foy ne avoir aucun regart par ce que dit est dessus pour empugner et contradire les extrais du premier livre. 37 AnF LL 1326 no. 2, 62–63. Select passages from the Rouleau are transcribed in Appendix B. The crucial secundo-folio was signaled by Henri-François Delaborde, “La vraie Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 51 (1890): 93–110 at 98 n. 3. 38 In fact, francie circa.
Jean de Berry Borrows the Royal Manuscript from Saint-Denis, 1415
97
time. Published historians had always built on records and chronicles written before they were born. The abbey’s case rested on its own historical record, clear and unambiguous, authoritative and impartial. After the parties’ positions and books were submitted to the Parlement late in April 1410, we have no record of any action there regarding the head of St. Denis. Amid the Burgundian occupation of Paris and the war within the royal family from late 1409 until 1413, Parlement never issued a final sentence.39 But Jean de Berry, influenced by the arguments and evidence on the side of the monks of Saint-Denis, had lost his enthusiasm for the fragment that he had got at such great cost from Notre-Dame. He had used the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis in 1406 to rebut Guillaume Fillastre before the royal Council, and now the Chronicle text, in the Royal manuscript itself, had provided a convincing rebuttal of Notre-Dame’s claim to own the cranium of the saint. The crystal salt-cellar, in which he had kept that doubtful relic together with a tooth of Charlemagne, appears empty in an inventory of 1416. The fragment of cranium went, after the duke’s death, into the miscellany of relics in his SainteChapelle at Bourges. And the tooth of Charlemagne? The duke gave that to his contemporary King Charles, possibly in 1413, when he was begging pardon for his own perceived treasons.40
Jean de Berry Borrows the Royal Manuscript from Saint-Denis, 1415 In the course of these debates Jean duc de Berry became well acquainted with the Chronicle, in fact with MS Royal itself, and this was in his library, on loan from the church of Saint-Denis, in the last years of his life. A twenty-first century reader, seeing the name Jean duc de Berry,41 spontaneously thinks of books: those fine Books of Hours, the Belles heures, Grandes heures, Très belles heures, and Très riches heures that bear his name, illustrated 39 Jacques Doublet’s Histoire de l’Abbaye de S. Denys en France (1625) declared, citing Jean de Luc’s Parlement reports (1553), that on 14 April 1410 Parlement decreed that the Abbey had the head of Dionysius of Athens and the Cathedral had a piece of the head of Dionysius of Corinth; but that Solomonic sentence was a pure fiction: Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “Jacques Doublet, Jean de Luc, and the Head of Saint Denis,” 711–19. 40 Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry, 1:55, no. 132; Delaborde, “Le procés du chef,” 298–99 and n. 1. 41 Françoise Lehoux, Jean de France, duc de Berri: sa vie, son action politique (1340–1416) (4 vols. Paris, 1966–8), especially vol. 3: De l’‘avènement’ de Jean sans Peur [1404] à la mort du duc de Berri [15 June 1416].
98
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
for the duke by the Limbourg brothers and Jacquemart de Hesdin. When we picture to ourselves the early fifteenth century in France, the scenes in our imagination are likely to include the brightly and delicately idealized peasants and châteaux and aristocrats riding out or dining that we have seen painted on Jean de Berry’s calendar pages. His bibliophily, like that of his brothers Charles le Sage, king of France, and Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne, went beyond those showy luxuries. There were more than 150 choice books in his library at Mehun-sur-Yèvre. In his reading Berry favored moral and natural philosophy and history, in Latin and in French, and like those other sons of Jean le Bon he was a patron of French translation. A version of the nine books of anecdotes of Valerius Maximus, undertaken by Simon de Hesdin for Charles V but interrupted during the translation of book 7 by the death of the royal patron (1380), was taken up in 1400 by Nicolas de Gonesse, under Berry’s patronage and at the request of his treasurer Jacquemin Courau, and finished in September 1401.42 Nicolas de Gonesse augmented his translation with some “memorable deeds and sayings” from other sources, and he gave at least three early indications that the World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis was known in Berry’s household.43 The last paragraph of addicions du translateur to book 9 chapter 1 (on Lust) gives the story of King Childeric, the father of Clovis, “according to what the Chronicles of France tell,” to be exact, the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, AD 461 and 469.44 Nicolas cited the book as Croniques de France because he was using a copy labeled with that inaccurate title, probably MS Royal. The Chronicle tells how Childeric was exiled for a time by the French because of his lusts, and Nicolas de Gonesse specified those: “Because he ravished maidens and married women against the wishes of their fathers and their husbands, a thing which the French cannot endure.”45 Then Nicolas added an example of a woman ruined by her lust, Romilda, who betrayed her city because she loved an invading king of the Huns. “So I have found the
42 Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri IX; Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse, translators, Valere le grant. (Paris: Antoine Vérard, ca. 1500). A new edition by the Ecole des Chartes is in preparation. In her article “Qui a écrit Le Livre des fais du bon messire Jehan Le Maingre dit Bouciquaut?” in Pratiques de la culture écrite au XVe siècle (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1995), 135–49 Hélène Millet argues persuasively that it was Nicolas de Gonesse. And see Anne Dubois, Valère Maxime en français à la fin du Moyen Age: Images et tradition (Turnhout, 2016). 43 Pointed out by Elizabeth Féghali in the online magazine Citadelle 11 (October 2003). 44 Valere le Grant (Paris: Antoine Vérard, ca. 1500) unpaginated: selon ce que recitent les cronicques de france. 45 Car il rauissoit les pucelles et les femmes mariees contre la voulente de leurs peres et de leurs maris, laquelle chose les francoys ne peuvent souffrir.
Jean de Berry Borrows the Royal Manuscript from Saint-Denis, 1415
99
story in a Chronicle which brother Guillaume, monk of Saint-Denis-en-France compiled,” wrote Nicolas, “and Boccaccio agrees in De Casibus virorum illustrium, book 9, chapter 3.” We find the story in the Chronicle at AD 616.46 Nicolas ended his cautionary tale with the disgraced Romilda bound to a pole, en la haultesse de ce pal la fist lier, not impaled on it as in the Chronicle and its source, Paul the Deacon.47 In book 9 chapter 2, regarding the war of Gaius Marius against the Cimbri, Nicolas added a note comparing the Chronicle at AM 3966 to the Epitome of Florus:48 According to what Florus says, sixty thousand of the Timbrians fell there. But I have found in another chronicle, compiled by Master Guillaume de Mangis [sic], monk of Saint-Denis-en-France, that two hundred thousand of the Timbrians were slain in battle, and eighty taken prisoner with their duke named Autemodus.49 But I don’t know where he got that, because on two points he seems to disagree with Florus, first on the number of slain, because Florus writes only sixty thousand and he writes two hundred thousand; also Florus makes no mention at all of the eighty thousand taken prisoner that he gives. Also the chronicler says that their duke named Autemodus was taken in battle, and Florus says that their king, Voleus, defending himself bravely, was killed in the battle. Boccaccio follows the opinion of Florus in his Downfall of Noble Men, book 6, and I agree, because Florus is a greater authority than anyone else.
Nicolas de Gonesse may have worked in the library established by Charles V in the Louvre, where Simon de Hesdin had begun the translation of Valerius Maximus, and where both translators had ready access to authors that they did
46 Ainsi ay ie trouue ceste histoire en unes croniques que compilla frere guillaume moyne de saint denis en france, a laquelle saccorde bocace au .ix. livre de sa ruyne des nobles hommes au tiers chapitre. The Latin text is in Appendix A. Laurent de Premierfait, secretary to the duc de Berry, at his command translated De casibus virorum illustrium of Boccaccio in two editions, 1400 and 1409: Dubois, Valère Maxime en français. 47 Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum IV:37, who considered Huns to be another name for Avars. Cf. Valère le Grand, book 9 chapter 1. 48 Valerius Maximus, Valere le grant 9,2, Translateur, Ouidius tamen crudelitas: Et selon ce que dit Florus la cheurent des timbriens lx mille, mais jay trouve en une autre cronique que compila maistre guillaume de Mangis moyne de Saint denys en france que deux cens mille des timbriens furent occiz en bataille, et iiii.xx. prins auec leur duc nomme autemodus, mais ie ne scay ou il print ce cy, car en deux pointz il semble estre discordant a florus premierement au nombre des occis, car florus nen met que lx mille, et cestuy cy en met deux cens mille. Item florus ne met mencion quelconque des iiii.xx. mille prins en bataille. Et florus dit que leur roy voleus en soy deffendant tres courageusement fut occiz en la bataille. Et ceste opinion de florus ensuyuit bocace au vi. livre de sa ruyne des nobles hommes, avec laquelle ie me determine pour ce que florus est de plus grant auctorite que nestoit lautre. 49 In the Chronicle, 158v (AM 3966): the Latin text is in Appendix A.
100
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
not find in the library of Jean de Berry, for example Pomponius Mela and Orosius; but no copy of Guillaume’s Chronicle appears in the Louvre inventories.50 Nicolas may have read the text at Saint-Denis, or possibly in Jean de Berry’s house, either the Hôtel de Nesle in Paris or at Mehun-sur-Yèvre. In any case, it seems that the duke was aware of this important historical resource as early as 1400. The Royal manuscript of the Chronicle returned to Saint-Denis after its appearance in Parlement in 1410, and there it remained, imperiled but undamaged, through the civil war that followed. Succession to the infirm Charles VI was the real prize at issue in that quarrel, but the cause that inflamed it was the revenge of Charles, duc d’Orléans, for the murder of his father Louis by Jean sans Peur, duc de Bourgogne, in 1407. The first and senior ally of Orléans was Bernard, count of Armagnac, and so their partisans are usually called the Armagnacs. As the strife began, Burgundy held the capital and the king’s confidence, while the Armagnac forces dominated the countryside around Paris including Saint-Denis. Michel Pintoin, appalled but thoughtful and well informed, kept the record of his abbey’s perils and losses.51 In September 1410 the Burgundian government, wishing to defend SaintDenis town and the road to Paris that passes through it against a possible Armagnac assault, sent in the duc de Brabant (younger brother of Jean sans Peur) with six thousand of his nationals, “reckoned of all the foreigners the most useless soldiers and the cruelest predators.” As expected, for six weeks the Brabanters looted the town and menaced the church and abbey, which had to be guarded by troops of the king against those troops of the king’s counselor. A year later, when war had formally begun with the exchange of defiances by the dukes of Orléans and Burgundy, Robert de Châtillon brought in a garrison of Parisian volunteer militia, experienced drinkers and dicers, Pintoin wrote, but innocent of warfare and unready to defend even a strong fortress. These made sure of their pay in the usual way, by robbing the townspeople. They walled up the abbey’s country gate, ostensibly to prevent the monks from communicating with the Armagnacs, but really to ensure that all provisions would come through the town under their control; and when they did hold the gates shut against a force of four hundred lances, it was the corps of Jean de Chalon, prince of Orange, come to reinforce the Burgundian defense. The provost of Paris had to conduct Jean de Chalon back personally and hand him the keys of
50 A composite edition of eight inventories of the Louvre library was published by Léopold Delisle in Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale 3:114–70. 51 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, from book 31, chapter 21 to book 32, chapter 33 (4: 366–565).
Jean de Berry Borrows the Royal Manuscript from Saint-Denis, 1415
101
Saint-Denis in a public ceremony before his troops could take over the defense from the goodfellows of Paris. That was on 3 October 1411. By courage and military skill Jean de Chalon kept the town for a week against fiercely pressed attacks by the Breton mercenaries of Charles d’Orléans, until the failure of supplies from Paris forced the Burgundians to surrender on good terms and march out in arms on 11 October. Although the duc de Berry was not present at these battles, his name was added to the surrender treaty as an approver on the side of Orléans. The feast of St. Denis on 9 October that year, as Pintoin wept to recall, was kept behind locked doors and without bells, but the allied dukes of Orléans and Bourbon paraded their piety and their loyalty to the crown on the octave day, 17 October, by a humble and quiet pilgrimage to the royal funerary church. After hearing an unsung Mass and kissing the relics, they departed, taking not so much as a dinner for themselves. Another morning, however, after Mass, the dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and the counts of Armagnac and Alençon called the monks into the refectory, where Armagnac announced that in their need for finance they were going to take the treasure of Queen Isabeau, which the monks had in their safekeeping. They did so, and turned the queen from a fickle ally into a lethal enemy of the Armagnac party. In mid-November, the Armagnac princes imposed an impossibly high tribute on the town and threatened to make good any deficit out of the church’s own treasures. Invoking a bull of Urban V against the Free Companies in Provence in 1364, the king ordered the archbishop of Sens to execute the sentence of excommunication which the rebel dukes and counts had incurred ipso facto.52 Then the fortune of war turned. The Burgundian forces, with English help, retook the bridge of Saint-Cloud, lifting the siege of Paris and opening the country west of the Seine to large-scale military operations. Fearing encirclement, the Orléanist soldiers fled from Saint-Denis. The Parisian militia, believing or pretending to believe that the inhabitants of Saint-Denis, lay and religious, had opened their gates to the king’s enemies, began the sack of town and abbey, with the help of experienced English and Picard pillagers. Through all these hazards and disasters, MS Royal remained safe in sanctuary among the royal tombs in the abbey church of Saint-Denis.53
52 Urban V had declared those troops of brigands hostes Christi et fidei, ymo et totius generis humani, the same as pirates: Étienne Baluze and Guillaume Mollat, Vitae paparum avinionensium 1:354. 53 The whole Saint-Denis book treasure remained undispersed until it was pillaged by the Huguenots in 1567: Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis, 126. By that time, the Royal codex had long been in England, and Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk, whose ex-libris it displays, had been dead thirteen years.
102
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
The fortunes of Jean de Berry had begun their final spiral downward. The king deprived him of the lieutenancy of Languedoc and then accompanied the duke of Burgundy in an invasion of Berry’s lands. From late October 1411 until the next August, Berry was a refugee in Bourges, desperately courting an English alliance. The duke of Clarence landed in Normandy, and Berry and Burgundy had to bury their civil war in a hurry and persuade the English army to pass through to Bordeaux without plundering. The king and the two enemy dukes returned for the winter to Paris and an empty treasury. Paris was stolidly unwilling to give a subsidy, at least without constitutional and commercial reform, and so the king bypassed Paris and summoned the Estates General. Whether or not Berry could have steered the debates to a peaceful end, he was too sick to attend them. The resulting popular violence in Paris quickly polarized into Armagnac and Burgundian parties, and Armagnac troops marched on Paris. Late in July 1413 a peace was patched up at Pontoise, but Jean sans Peur had good reason to fear assassination by the allies of Charles d’Orléans. He fled the capital on 23 August, leaving Jean de Berry with the rags of his old authority, in charge of a foundering state. Back in Paris and in the king’s Council, Berry was on the alert for opportunities to influence royal policy, and in view of his great losses of wealth, power, and health, he reached out for any possible occasion and instrument. In March 1414 he received a letter from his cousin Sigismund of Luxembourg, king of Hungary and emperor-designate, earnestly hoping for a meeting at Avignon or somewhere nearby.54 In preparation for the meeting, the duke studied the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, which he had on loan from the church of Saint-Denis.55 He may have recognized the codex and remembered its powers of historical persuasion when he visited the abbey church on 31 July 1413, and perhaps that was when he borrowed it.56 It may have been in his bedchamber or private cabinet for most of two years before it came to be registered among his possessions. At the end of January 1413 Robinet d’Estampes, keeper of the duke’s jewels, completed and put his seal on 54 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:365. 55 The fact that Berry had some Chronicle from Saint-Denis was signaled by Hiver de Beauvoir in La librairie de Jean duc de Berry; by Delaborde, “La vraie Chronique”; and by Guiffrey in Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry. That the book in view was the Universal Chronicle in Latin, and not the Grandes chroniques de France, was established by Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, vol. 2, and confirmed by Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda dalla Guarda, “Des rois et des moines: Livres et lecteurs à l’abbaye de Saint-Denis (XIIIe-XVe siècles),” 359. Delisle’s Recherches, 2:*261, provided the clearest account of the two inventory entries which follow here, but he printed only a brief abstract of their combined content. 56 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys, book 34, chapter 29 in (5:120).
Jean de Berry Borrows the Royal Manuscript from Saint-Denis, 1415
103
an inventory of gems, reliquaries, worked gold and silver, sculpted stone, and books. Thereafter he added supplementary notes as precious objects came into the duke’s possession. Following an item dated March 1415 we find our Royal manuscript, no. 1249:57 Item, another book, written in Latin, in a large formal bookhand, of Groniques de France, covered in red leather, closed with four brass clasps; and at the beginning of the second folio of the said book is written -tis et vocatum, which book my lord has had from the Abbey of Saint-Denis.
Berry’s executors added post-mortem Redditi fuerunt ut supra, “These were restored, as above.” Early in 1416 the duke supervised the making of a new inventory of his library collection, and in this we find a fresh description of the Royal manuscript, not a mere copy of the 1415 additional item. In 1416, the expected visit of Sigismund provided a justification for Berry’s keeping the abbey’s property so long. After the duke’s death the executors of his testament cross-checked the two inventory documents and noted the disposition of the various items. [No. 143] Another book of the Croniques de France, in Latin in a formal bookhand, which begins on the second folio Tis et vocatum est nomen ejus Adam; covered in embossed red leather, with four copper clasps on green cloth; which book my said lord of Berry caused to be borrowed from the church of Saint-Denis to show to the Emperor and also to have it copied.
The executors noted post-mortem, “And in his last days he wished, as is related by Robinet and also by the confessor of the said lord, who says that my lord told him that it was restored to the said church.”58
57 AnF KK 258, 216v, in the inventory printed by Guiffrey with the siglum A, but Delisle’s B: Item, ung autre livre, escript en latin, de grosse lettre de fourme, des Groniques de France; couvert de cuir rouge, fermant à quatre fermouers de latton; et au commencement du second fueillet dudit livre a escript: tis et vocatum; lequel livre Monseigneur a eu de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis. 58 Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève MS 841, the inventory cited as SG by Guiffrey, but as C by Delisle; this transcription, with modern spelling of the French, by Hiver de Beauvoir, La Librairie de Jean duc de Berry, 69. [no. 143] Un autre livre des Croniques de France, en latin de lettre de forme, qui se commence au second feuillet: Tis et vocatum est nomen ejus Adam; couvert de cuir rouge empraint, à quatre fermoers de cuivre sur tixus vers; lequel livre mondit seigneur de Berry fit prendre en l’église Saint-Denis pour montrer à l’empereur et aussi pour le faire copier. [the executors’ post-mortem note:] Et voult à ses derreniers jours, comme il est relaté par Robinet, et aussi par le confesseur dudit seigneur, qui dit que Monseigneur lui dit qu’il fut restitué à ladite église.
104
Chapter 6 The Royal Manuscript in Paris, 1400–1416
Brief as they are, the two descriptions, written less than a year apart, give abundant information about the codex on its departure from Saint-Denis. Its second-folio “fingerprint” proves that it is MS Royal. The duke caused the codex to be taken from the church of Saint-Denis, not from the library, archives, treasury, chapter house, or refectory of the monastery. It must have borne on an external label the inexact title Croniques de France, indicating the purpose for which it was kept in the church: to tell the histories of the kings and saints of France whose remains rested there. It was sturdily covered in stamped red leather. The two inventories differ as to the metal of the clasps, brass or copper, but they agree that there were four, and the second inventory specifies that these were attached by green cloth straps. There are a few different ways to imagine these closures. We can suppose two straps, each one attached to the binding board by two clasps, one fixed and the other detachable, or that the cloth straps belted the volume and were closed by two linking pairs of clasps, or that there were four straps, each with its metal clasp hooking to a bar on the front board.59 When Sigismund rode from Paris to Saint-Denis on his way to England on 8 April 1416, Jean de Berry had little more than two months to live.60 At seventy-five, worn out with war and disappointments, he dictated his testament on 25 May. A codicil added the next day gave his books and jewels to his SainteChapelle in Bourges, where he had chosen to be buried. There were further bequests by codicil in the three weeks that remained to him to arrange his affairs. With the assistance of his executors, including his confessor Jean Raphenel and the punctilious Robinet d’Estampes, he cleared his conscience of debts and his house of borrowed goods. The conspicuous red-covered folio volume of the Chronicle was known to be on loan from Saint-Denis, and it was not to be found in the Hôtel de Nesle. When the post-mortem survey was recorded, both Raphenel and Robinet were able to testify that the duke had told them that the book had been restored to the abbey. Jean de Berry surely believed his own dying declaration to be true, probably because he had entrusted the codex to the visiting emperor-designate, expecting him to carry it back to its rightful place among the royal tombs in the church of Saint-Denis. Sigismund of Luxembourg, however, “made more promises than he kept.”
59 J. A. Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding (1999), epecially “Fastenings,” 251–62. 60 Lehoux, Jean de France, duc de Berri, 3:404–6.
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans We do not know precisely what passages of the Chronicle Jean de Berry wished to show to Sigismund of Luxembourg, or why. It is certain, however, that the codex passed from the duke to the emperor designate. The political interests that they shared, as well as the critical circumstances of their meeting, make it possible to surmise what historical information they may have sought from the book, and some singular marks in the margins point to places which Sigismund may have found particularly encouraging or useful. As he journeyed from country to country Sigismund put himself in the way of receiving opulent gifts such as jewels and saints’ relics encased in gold, and at later stages of his grand imperial progress he would bestow those gifts where they would do him the most good in honor and credit. That practice of his explains how this French book, MS Royal, came to England.
Sigismund’s Crowns and Ambitions Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368–1437) and Jean de Berry were first cousins. Their common stock, Count John of Luxembourg (later called the Blind), acquired the crown of Bohemia by marriage in 1310, and passed it to his son, Charles IV (emperor 1355–1378). Charles’s sons, first Wenceslas and then Sigismund, succeeded him as kings of Bohemia and as emperors. John the Blind’s daughter, Bonne of Luxembourg, married Jean II le Bon of France; their sons were Charles V (d. 1380) and the dukes Louis of Anjou (d. 1384), Jean de Berry (d. 1416), and Philippe of Burgundy (d. 1404), all first cousins to Sigismund, and Berry the last surviving. In 1374, at the age of six, Sigismund was betrothed to Mary, the three-yearold daughter of Louis the Great, king of Hungary and Poland. He was brought up as a true Hungarian in the royal court, on the understanding that he would eventually rule as Mary’s consort. With her father’s death in 1382 she inherited the crown as Mária király, “King Mary.” Sigismund was then only fourteen and the marriage was not urgent for him. But when, in June 1385, Mary was claimed for a marriage by proxy to Count Louis of Valois, arranged by the latter’s uncle Jean de Berry, “Sigismund of Luxembourg, refusing to accept the loss of the Hungarian kingdom that his family had long earmarked for him, appeared in Buda at the end of September, with an army [from Brandenburg], to claim Marie’s hand; this turned out to be a real marriage, consummated forthwith. It https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-007
106
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
was one of the decisive events of European politics.”1 Sigismund got support enough from the Hungarian magnates to be crowned king of Hungary in 1387, but this was only the beginning of a decade of struggle for control of the kingdom. King Mary died in 1395, leaving Sigismund the sole sovereign of Hungary. When in 1396 Boniface IX of Rome proclaimed a crusade against the Turks, Sigismund took command of the crusaders, mostly French, and led them to a disastrous defeat at Nicopolis on the Danube. His losses in money and military prestige provided an excuse for the Hungarian aristocracy to withdraw their support, and with the Hungarian royal title ineffective, he turned his attention toward German and imperial power. Enormous obstacles stood between Sigismund and the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. It is true that he was the son of the emperor Charles IV, but a second son, and by a fourth wife. The first son, Wenceslas, had already been crowned king of the Romans, emperor designate, before Charles died in 1378. Sigismund loyally helped his half-brother to the imperial coronation by the Roman pope Urban VI, and he played no part in the Electors’ campaign against Wenceslas that ended in his deposition in 1400. Rupert of Bavaria succeeded Wenceslas and achieved his own coronation as king of the Romans and of Germany, but he failed to get the imperial crown at Rome. When Rupert died in 1410, Sigismund received the votes of only two of the seven imperial electors.2 The majority were for Sigismund’s first cousin Jošt, margrave of Brandenburg and Moravia, but then Jošt died and Sigismund carried unanimously a second election as king of the Romans (despite the fact that Wenceslas had retained that title) and of Germany, emperor designate.3 The last obstacle between Sigismund and the imperial coronation was the Great Western Schism: there were three contestant popes, Gregory XII of Rome, John XXIII of Pisa, and Benedict XIII of Avignon (residing in Peñíscola). Sigismund had to rely on a General Council of the Church to produce a single, incontestable pope who could crown him as uncontested emperor, but given the weak and distracted condition of the Church in schism, he would have to convoke that Council himself.
1 Kaminsky, Simon de Cramaud, 81–82. 2 By the Golden Bull of Charles IV (1356) the electors were the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier, the king of Bohemia, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, and the count palatine of the Rhine. 3 Ivan Hlaváček, “The Luxemburgs and Rupert of the Palatinate, 1347–1410,” The New Cambridge Medieval History, 6:551–62; and see the genealogical tables 2 and (slightly flawed) 5.
Sigismund and the Council of Constance
107
Sigismund and the Council of Constance Sigismund’s first efforts toward a Council took the form of correspondence with the warring western kingdoms; in 1412 there seemed no way to end the Schism without the support of both France and England. He wrote to Henry IV of England, hoping that an alliance between the eastern churches and a unified Latin Church would permit the crusade desired by John XXIII of Pisa. He continued his efforts with Henry V (1413–1422) and with the French court, arguing that a Council would be the perfect forum for a treaty to end the Hundred Years’ War. An exchange of letters with Charles VI of France showed Sigismund that the French king adhered strongly to John XXIII of Pisa and did not want the subject of his legitimacy raised. At first Sigismund did not raise it. Instead he coerced Pope John to convoke the Council, setting the day as All Saints (1 November) 1414 at Constance. Early in 1414 Sigismund began seeking a face-to-face conference with the French princes in Provence or at Asti, on the subjects of unity, the Council, and reform. King Charles did not expect to be there himself, but he wished to send his cousin, Duke Louis II of Anjou (count of Provence and titular king of Naples, d. 1417), his son the Dauphin Charles, his nephew Charles duc d’Orléans, and his uncle Jean duc de Berry, together with some theologians of the Sorbonne. In a separate letter to Berry, Sigismund recalled the duke’s blood link to the house of Luxembourg and expressed hope that he would have the pleasure of seeing his cousin, at Avignon or near there, before he died, priusquam tributum resolutionis humane exsolvamus, as his Latin secretary expressed it. In May, Sigismund deferred the summit meeting on account of the war between the French royal house and the duke of Burgundy.4 During the summer the place designated for the meeting changed to Verdun, but the project was still under discussion toward the end of 1414 when the Council was about to open and Sigismund knew he would not be able to get away from Constance for months. He asked the king and princes to send their ambassadors to the opening of the Council on 1 November.5 In late summer 1414 Sigismund wrote a candid letter to Henry V of England, revealing his negotiations with the French royal house and declaring that his motive was honest: the unity, order, and peace of the Church. He hoped to end the Hundred Years War by a royal marriage between France and England, and he
4 Walter Brandmüller, Das Konzil von Konstanz 1:118–21. The letters are found in Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:359–65. 5 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:367–68, piece 100; and 1:380–81, piece 105.
108
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
promised that, in his forthcoming meeting with the French princes, he would argue Henry’s interest in a marriage with Catherine, Charles VI’s daughter.6 But that union was impossible while the kingdoms were at war; it had to wait until 1420. Sigismund’s letters diplomatically walked the line between the French and English war claims, calling Charles rex Francorum and Henry rex Francie, a distinction without a difference.
Richard Beauchamp, England, and St. George Although he had pushed the Council into being and would manage it to end the schism as quickly as possible, Sigismund allowed the ecclesiastical authorities to gather in his absence and ostensibly free of secular coercion. He did not attend the Council’s assembly or its opening sessions. He received his coronation as king of Germany and of the Romans at Aachen on 4 November 1414, and arrived in Constance on Christmas Eve. Even before his formal coronations with the iron crown of Lombardy and the imperial diadem, the title of emperor was casually used for him and he did not demur; when John XXIII fled from Constance in May, Sigismund presided over the Council with all the imperial insignia: dalmatic and silk cope, diadem, scepter, and orb.7 Sigismund’s much younger contemporary Aeneas Silvius remembered him as constantly flaunting his supremacy over all law and custom:8
6 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:374–79, pieces 103 and 104: de parentela inter vos et filiam eiusdem regis Francorum, dummodo voluntas vestra ad hoc nobis aperta affuerit, quam utique pro honorificentia domus vestre et statu felicitatis antique fraterno amplecti consilio persuademus, optaremus diligenter operari. 7 Chronicle of Cerretanus for 2 May and of Fillastre for 4 July 1415 in Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 2:240 and 2:45; illustrations are found in Alexandra Sinclair, The Beauchamp Pageant, but there Sigismund was pictured, by an artist of a later generation, beardless. 8 Pius II, pope, Enee Silvii Piccolomini, postea Pii PP. II, De Europa, ed. Adrianus van Heck, 31, this text from De viris illustribus was inserted by the editor: Fuit autem Sigismundus egregie stature, illustribus oculis, fronte spaciosa, genis ad gratiam rubescentibus, barba prolixa et copiosa, uasto animo, multiuolus, inconstans tamen, sermone facetus, uini cupidus, in Venerem ardens, mille adulteriis criminosus, pronus ad iram, facilis ad ueniam, nullius thesauri custos, prodigus dispensator, plura promisit quam seruauit, finxit multa. Erat Sigismundus, licet grandeuus, in libidinem pronus, matronarum alloquiis admodum oblectabatur et femineis blandimentis gaudebat nec suauius illi quicquam fuit illustrium aspectu mulierum.
Richard Beauchamp, England, and St. George
109
He was unusually tall, with shining eyes, broad forehead, cheeks pleasantly red, his beard both long and full. He was great-hearted and ambitious but unstable, witty in his speech, sexually ardent and guilty of a thousand adulteries, prone to anger but ready to forgive, not a saver but a prodigal spender of treasure. He made more promises than he kept and told many lies. Even in his old age he was prone to lust. He took an extreme pleasure in the conversation of married ladies. He rejoiced to be flattered by women, and nothing was sweeter to him than the sight of remarkable beauties.
In his bitter Latin Pamphlet (1417) Jean de Montreuil also pictured Sigismund as a perjurer, liar, libertine, and threadbare spendthrift.9 Another secular member of the Council who arrived aristocratically late was the ambassador of Henry V of England, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (1382–1439). On 20 October 1414 Warwick received his diplomatic credentials and a personal letter in which Henry set forth to Sigismund the arguments in favor of his claim to the crown of France. Then ambassador Warwick dallied in Calais, where he was the king’s captain, for some four weeks of fashionable, allegorical knight-errantry, jousting and song, before making his entry to Constance on 21 January 1415.10 In February the Council began deliberating and voting by nations. This was in imitation of the University of Paris, where the English scholars were members of the German Nation. With Sigismund’s nod, however, the English delegation began to act at Constance as a Nation distinct from but consistently allied with the German Nation, doubling its vote and completely altering the balance of the Council. Thereafter, the more numerous Italian Nation, including all the cardinals of the Roman and Pisan sects, was constantly outvoted. Realizing that his papacy was doomed, John XXIII empowered Sigismund to act for him in negotiations with Pedro de Luna, alias Benedict XIII, the pope of the Avignonese sect, and with the king of Aragon, where Benedict had taken refuge. On 20 March, as the Council moved toward his criminal trial and deposition, John XXIII fled from 9 Pamphlet contre Sigismond, in Opera, 2, 333–46. During Sigismund’s visit to Paris, Montreuil wrote to him an obsequious letter of genealogical information against the claims of Henry V (Opera 3, 41–44). But in September 1417, disgusted by Sigismund’s betrayal in England of he French trust, he published this Pamphlet, anonymously. 10 Warwick’s chivalric life was recorded posthumously in a series of fine and informative drawings by John Rous (BL Cotton Julius E.iv.6) published most recently by Sinclair, The Beauchamp Pageant. The introductory biography, 31–33, covers the years 1414–16, when the earl was a member of Henry V’s delegation to the Council of Constance. Pageant drawing XXXII (pp. 114–15) shows him receiving his letters of credence. XXXIII (pp. 116–17, mutilated by an anti-papal scribbler) shows him handing his letters to Pope John XXIII in the company of Emperor Sigismund and others. His jousting exploits at Guines are pictured on plates XXVI–XXXI (pp. 102–13). See also Christine Carpenter, “Beauchamp, Richard, 13th earl of Warwick (1382–1439),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 4:592–95.
110
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
Constance. He then wrote to the French royal house (including Jean de Berry) and other sympathetic princes, warning them of Sigismund’s tyrannical tendencies and his inclination toward the English interest in the Hundred Years’ War. The charge of partiality was true enough. When Warwick took his leave of the Council in May, he carried a letter in which Sigismund signaled his sympathetic understanding of Henry V’s claim to the French crown as laid out in the letter that Warwick had carried to Constance.11 But Sigismund urged that, since the war had been and would continue to be generally destructive, Henry and Charles should fix a day for peace talks, and that he himself should act as intermediary. Warwick, then 33 years old and already the absolute English knight (of both the Bath and the Garter), met his match for public gallantry in the emperor’s second wife, Barbara of Celje. Aeneas Silvius later mounted her portrait beside her husband’s:12 This Barbara was a physically extraordinary woman, tall and beautiful, though her face was somewhat marked with spots. She cultivated her beauty with great zeal, and so this was a marriage of two very handsome spouses. But when Sigismund ardently pursued many women, she also began to love other men, for an unfaithful husband makes a faithless wife.
Here too, Jean de Montreuil’s observations agree:13 No mortal was ever a more complaisant husband. He not only permits but even encourages his wife to go through with everything she wants to do. So it is said that she frequents the people’s dances, and talks with every man, and touches them with her hand, so kindly that anyone who didn’t know would take her not for a queen but for a woman of a certain more humble profession.
11 Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 1:388–91, piece 110: Vos iure hereditario ad vos ab antiquo pertinentibus instare et adversarium vestrum Francie monitionibus et exhortationibus caritativis pro restitutione iurium huiusmodi plerumque prevenisse, ut litterarum ipsarum series . . . clare et limpide patefecit. 12 De Europa, p. 32, the text was inserted here by the editor from De viris illustribus: Hec autem Barbara egregii mulier corporis fuit, procera, candida, sed maculis quibusdam faciem fuit lesa, multum ei studium fuit querendi decoris; itaque duo pulcherrimi coniuges inuicem conuenerunt, sed cum Sigismundus in plures mulieres arderet, ipsa quoque amare cepit alios, infidus namque maritus infidam facit uxorem. 13 Pamphlet contre Sigismond, in Opera, 2:343, lines 272–84. At ne nichil in commendationem talis principis dixero, nullus mortalium eo indulgentior est maritus, qui sue sinit muliere peragere, non modo que vult omnia, sed hortatur ita ut coreas publicas sequatur alloquaturque omnem hominem, et manu tangat tanta humanitate predicatur, ut non regina, sed humilis professionis femina a non noscente putaretur.
Richard Beauchamp, England, and St. George
111
At a joust in which Warwick is said to have killed a German duke, Barbara picked the Beauchamp household badge, a rampant bear, off the coat of one of the earl’s pages and pinned it to her own gown. Warwick later gave her a keepsake replica of it in pearls and gems.14 Despite—or because of—their public flirtation, Sigismund made Warwick his ceremonial sword-bearer and offered him a more sacred honor, the heart of St. George.15
Figure 11: Scenes from the Beauchamp Pageant, BL Cotton Julius E.iv.6, 155v: Warwick carries Emperor Sigismund’s ceremonial sword in procession at the Council of Constance, while in a porch above Sigismund offers Warwick a reliquary monstrance with the heart of Saint George. Source: Dillon and Hope, Pageant of the Birth, Life, and Death of Richard Beauchamp (London, 1914).
14 Sinclair, The Beauchamp Pageant, XXIV, pp. 118–19. The tournament probably took place about May Day, when Ludwig duke of Bavaria brought Frederick duke of Austria to make peace with the emperor: Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 2:34. 15 Harold Viscount Dillon and W. H. St. John Hope, eds., Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp (London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1914) shows Warwick in one scene carrying the emperor’s ceremonial sword in procession, and in another receiving the reliquary monstrance from him. It seems that Warwick was one of the three sword-bearers mentioned in the chronicle of Cerretanus: Acta Concilii Constanciensis, 2:240.
112
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
How and where Sigismund acquired this unique relic is unknown. The tomb of St. George was and is venerated at Lydda in Syria (now Lod in Israel), and Sigismund’s Crusade had gone no farther east than the Danube.16 Sigismund’s own cult of St. George went back at least to 1408, when he founded the chivalric Order of the Dragon as defenders of himself and his new consort, Barbara of Celje.17 St. George was the patron of the kingdom of England and of the royal Order of the Garter. Warwick, who had earned his own Garter in the battle of Shrewsbury, knew the value of Sigismund’s offer (See Figure 11). According to the Pageant, “Erle Richard, heryng the Emperor sey, that he in his owne persone wolde comm into Englond, he by endenture restored hit [the relic] to hym ageyn, saiying the delyveryng of hit by his owne persone sholde be more acceptable, and norisshyng of more love.” As Warwick’s family remembered it, this was clever diplomacy as well as a courtly gesture. By that endenture, a formal act drawn by a notary and bearing his own seal, Sigismund found himself committed in writing to a visit which he had possibly fancied but not publicly announced, and destined to a knightly brotherhood with Henry V, regardless of his earlier approaches to Charles VI and his avowed wish to be an impartial arbiter between the two.
Sigismund’s Itinerary: Perpignan - Narbonne - Avignon - Lyon Arbresle - Chambéry - Paris With Sigismund’s firm hand guiding it through the spring of 1415, the Council quickly debated and established its own constitution, purposes, and rules of order. It sentenced and deposed John XXIII of Pisa, received the resignation of the Roman pope Gregory XII, and condemned Jan Hus. Sigismund’s letter of safeconduct under which Hus came to Constance was another broken promise: Hus was burned on 6 July. On the 19th, leaving the General Deputies of the Nations to debate theology and canon law,18 the emperor set off with two great purposes, to end the stubborn Avignonese papacy of Benedict XIII and to sedate the newly 16 Bibliotheca sanctorum, 6:517–22 indicates no likely provenance. Even the best-documented relic of St. George remains dubious: Kenneth M. Setton, “St. George’s Head,” Speculum 48 (1973): 1–12. But BL Royal 13 E IV, 373v, AD 1100, copying Sigebert: Robertus comes Flandrensium a Ierosolimis repatrians, detulit secum brachium sancti Georgii martiris: quod ecclesie Aquiscincti transmisit. 17 The badge of the Order was a winged dragon whose tail cinches its neck, its back branded with a cross of St. George. Note also an auroch’s horn with a gilt-silver figure of St. George slaying such a dragon, dated 1408; both objects are illustrated in Prague, the Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, 304–5, with comment by Ernő Marosi, “Sigismund, the Last Luxembourg,” 121–30. 18 Phillip H. Stump, The Reforms of the Council of Constance (1414–1418) (Leiden, 1994), 28.
Sigismund’s Itinerary: Perpignan to Paris
113
revived war between England and France, the nations whose cooperation he had considered indispensable for a successful Council. His cavalry escort was one thousand strong, and he kept emptying his chest to pay their stipends, but this was better than leaving them at home and at mischief in Hungary. Sigismund wrestled in high diplomacy with the last schismatic pope at Perpignan from 19 September to 2 November. His patient labor failed to budge Benedict at Perpignan, but it bore abundant fruit elsewhere: the Iberian kings, terminally disgusted with their pope’s intransigence and eager to be reunited with Europe, joined Sigismund in the Treaty of Narbonne (12 December) pledging to support the Council of Constance in deposing Benedict XIII. Meanwhile, Sigismund’s other problem violently simplified itself. On 25 October 1415, the feast of SS. Crispin and Crispinian, the army of Henry V triumphed over his adversary of France at Agincourt. Sigismund’s ambassadors had been at Winchester for the declaration of war on 6 July, and as the fortunes of the campaign inclined toward England, so did the imperial policy.19 When the news of Agincourt reached him, Sigismund was in Avignon, securing that city and its papal fortress and bureaucracy (most recently of the Pisan obedience) for the Council, and for his own purse a refreshment of 3000 florins. Proceeding up the Rhône, possibly aiming to return to Constance, he paused at Lyon, where he intended to raise Count Amadeus VIII of Savoy to the rank of an imperial duke (as twenty years earlier his half-brother Wenceslas had made Giangaleazzo Visconti duke of Milan for a tribute of 100,000 florins). A first installment of Savoy’s tribute was on its way from Geneva when ambassadors arrived from the French king, asking Sigismund to arbitrate peace with England and offering him 300 francs per diem during his time in France.20 He promptly took up the offer and dispatched four knights to make all ready for his residence in Paris. But the government of Lyon remembered what Sigismund had forgotten or ignored, that it was a French city, and it would not provide the stage for the imperial promotion of Savoy. Sigismund noted his displeasure at finding himself unwelcome by leaving the city on 16 February and quartering his mounted troops
19 Lehoux, Jean de France, 3:389. 20 Eberhard Windeck, Leben König Sigmunds, 44–45. Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys 5: 742–44 relates that King Charles and Jean de Berry, cordialiter gavisi, et sibi suisque illustribus congratulari cupientes, statuerunt ut, quamdiu in Francia remanerent, sumptibus regiis dapsiliter alerentur, et in urbibus famosis, per quas transituri essent, reciperentur honeste. Perhaps the royal hosts were ready to pay the bills for Sigismund and a few illustri, but not for his thousand-man mounted escort.
114
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
at L’Arbresle.21 Then he hurried to Chambéry with Amadeus, made him an imperial duke there on 19 February, and collected the balance of the 12,000 crowns of tribute. Then on to Paris. The emperor and his escort, probably a light detachment from his thousand-man cavalcade, rode from L’Arbresle by way of Nevers and Melun on the road that is today national route 7, then veered west in order to stay clear of the soldiers of Jean sans Peur of Burgundy lingering in the neighborhood of Lagny-sur-Marne after the withdrawal of the duke himself to Flanders. Sigismund arrived in Etampes on the evening of 29 February after a forced march from Chambéry, 525 kilometers in seven days, on average 75 kilometers or 47 miles per day.
Sigismund in Paris: Council, Peace, Prisoners, and Marriage Alliance with England The next day, Sunday 1 March, a delegation of the government arrived at Etampes to escort Sigismund into Paris; another welcoming party joined the procession at Longjumeau. At the windmill near Bourg-la-Reine the duc de Berry himself was waiting to clasp his cousin’s hands, and they embraced with tears on both sides. Accompanied by the count of Armagnac and Cardinal Louis, duc de Bar,22 they rode through Porte St-Jacques, along rue St-Jacques through the Latin Quarter to the Île de la Cité, across to the right bank, and west to the square donjon of the Louvre, where Sigismund’s harbinger knights were already in formal possession.23 Paris was not at her best for Sigismund’s visit that bitter end of the winter of Agincourt.24 The recurrent madness of Charles VI was upon him, seven of his noble relatives had been killed in the battle, and the dukes of Bourbon and
21 A village surrounding an eleventh-century castle, 25 km. northwest of Lyon. Jörg Konrad Hoensch, Itinerar König und Kaiser Sigismunds von Luxemburg, 96, and its major source, Johann Friedrich Böhmer and Wilhelm Altmann, Urkunden Kaiser Sigmunds, 1:129, give Labrella but do not recognize it as L’Arbresle. 22 Created cardinal by Benedict XIII of Avignon, promoted cardinal bishop of Porto by John XXIII of Pisa, his future ecclesiastical hopes depended on the Council; but on the secular side, the title duke of Bar had reverted to Louis when his father and two brothers fell on the field of Agincourt. 23 The famous Louvre Library of Charles V was housed in the north-west Tour de la Fauconnerie until 1429, when John duke of Bedford, regent of France for Henry VI, transferred it to the castle of Rouen: Yann Potin, “Des inventaires pour catalogues?,” 124–29. 24 A congenial witness is the Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis, book 36, chapter 39 (5: 742–49). The Chronique de Jean Le Fèvre, seigneur de Saint-Remy, ed. François Morand (2 vols.;
Banquet of the Ladies; Sigismund in Parlement and the University
115
Orléans were prisoners in England. Count Bernard d’Armagnac, although known to be an excommunicate, had been made constable of France. Strange soldiers were quartered on the citizens. Under Armagnac captains these mercenaries guarded the walls, and the streets too, because Burgundian sentiment was known to be strong in the city. Armed men astray from the forces of Jean sans Peur roamed the Ile-de-France, and the bad weather worked with the phantom blockade to cause scarcities of bread and wine, eggs, cheese, and other country provisions. The arrival of Sigismund and his array evoked the Parisians’ curiosity rather than their awe. He was punctiliously heralded as king of the Romans, because he had not yet received his imperial coronation. We get a picture of the entry to Paris from the poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, who accompanied Sigismund as his bard and jester. Riding into Paris in the carnival costume of a “viscount of Turkey,” the bard found himself as exotic a figure as his master: At Paris many thousands of people were standing in the house doors, streets and byways, a dense throng a good two miles long of children, women and men. They all admired King Sigismund, “the Roman man,” and they called me in my jester’s costume “the silly fop.”25
King Charles was in the grip of his recurrent insanity for most of Sigismund’s visit, but he used a later occasion, when Sigismund had been visiting SaintDenis, to greet him formally outside the Porte St-Ouen and invite him to dinner.26
Banquet of the Ladies; Sigismund in Parlement and the University Sigismund made a large, and largely negative, impression on Paris during the five weeks of his visit. On 8 March, one week after his entry, he attended the solemn high mass prepared by the city for his reception at Notre-Dame. The great bells Marie and Jacqueline rang and the children’s choir sang the mass of the first Sunday in Lent. Sigismund gave nothing at the offertory, and again nothing Paris, 1876–1881) accounts for the acts of Sigismund in France and England in 1416 in chapters 78–81 (1:277–90). And see Lehoux, Jean de France, 3:392–97. 25 But a good judge of distance: the procession’s route within the city walls was at least three kilometers or 1.86 miles long. Lied 19, “Es ist ain altgesprochner rat,” stanza 22, in Die Lieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein, 60; New High German translation by Wernfried Hofmeister, Oswald von Wolkenstein, sämtliche Lieder und Gedichte, 68. The carnival costume of a captive “Turkish” or “Moorish” noble was given in Perpignan by the king of Aragon to Sigismund, who passed it on to Oswald: James Ogier, “Oswald von Wolkenstein: Clowning Around in Perpignan,” 173–80. 26 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys 5, 744–47.
116
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
when he was shown the cathedral’s treasure of relics at his own request, but a single gold écu to the children’s choir.27 The next Sunday he made memorable his visit to Sainte-Chapelle and its relics by offering a half-franc. On 10 March (Tuesday of the second week of Lent), tastelessly enacting his well-known love for pretty faces, Sigismund gave a banquet with orchestra and chorus in the palace of the duc de Bourbon (then a prisoner in England) for the ladies of the court (some of them surely widows and orphans of Agincourt) and the wives and daughters of the richer bourgeois, giving a precious jewel “sweetly, to almost every one” of the 120 guests as they departed.28 Eighteen months later Jean de Montreuil described the scene.29 Giving a banquet in Paris (at the expense of the duc de Berry) for many ladies, when he was stuffed and already drunk, he pranced before the tables in the style of a comic actor, mumbling a song as if he did not know it well. He even did some dancing leaps to divert the ladies at their dinner, but instead he made them look away for sheer embarrassment.
He sought an invitation to hear the pleadings of the Parlement de Paris, concealing his wish to intervene in the cause of his friend Guillaume Saignet against Gui Pestel, a rival claimant of the office of seneschal of Beaucaire. Pestel had been appointed seneschal by Jean de Berry, and he needed the stipend of the office to help pay his ransom after Agincourt.30 On 16 March Sigismund made his entrance to that court with a suite of attendants, one of whom carried his sword, as if this were an imperial court of law, and he took the royal throne, behind and above the judges. According to Jean de Montreuil,
27 Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, 1405–1449, chapters 137–38, p. 69, amplified by n. 2 of the editor, Alexandre Tuetey, who quotes the story of Sigismund’s parsimony from Archives Nationales LL 215, fols. 93–94. The écu was possibly a tip, to persuade the choristers to perform at the “banquet of the ladies” two days later, and for their extra trouble in rehearsing two masses: if Sigismund had not spent the week of 16–22 February on his side-trip to Chambéry, he would have been in Paris as expected, before Friday 28 February, and he would have heard them sing the feast day mass (with a Gloria) of Pope St. Hilary, a great patron of the church in France and of church unity. 28 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys 5, 746–47: Quibus et fere singulis in recessu vale dicens rubinos, saphiros, smaragdinos et dyamantes dulciter condonavit. 29 Pamphlet contre Sigismond, in Opera, 2, 341, lines 198–203. Opere precium est his addere istius hominis levitatem qui, cum Parisius epulum dominabus multis daret, ad expensas quidem domini Biturie, ipse, satur et iam potus, ante mensas incedebat histrionis more, et ut parum sciebat cantum insusurrans, nonnumquam tripudiando saltabat ut convivias remoraretur ab esu, immo divertere oculos cogebat pre pudore. 30 Hélène Millet and Nicole Pons, “De Pise à Constance: Le rôle de Guillaume Saignet, juge de Nîmes puis sénéchal de Beaucaire, dans la résolution du Schisme,” Cahiers de Fanjeaux 39 (2004): 470–74.
Banquet of the Ladies; Sigismund in Parlement and the University
117
Sigismund then indulged in a long-winded scolding of the royal procurator.31 The greffier of the court tells us that when it was argued that Pestel was a knight, as Saignet was not,32 My lord Sigismund called Saignet, said that he surely was able to make knights, and took his sword from one of his people. As Saignet knelt near the recorder, the king struck his back three great blows; then he had one of his gilt spurs unstrapped by one of his people and put it on Saignet, then belted him with a belt from which hung a long knife for a sword.
It was the work of one busy morning for Sigismund to usurp the throne of France figuratively and literally, to abuse the hospitality of the supreme court of France, and to throw the legal process into confusion by acting as judge and espousing one party. For all that effort, the Armagnac Saignet was seneschal for only two years before being ejected. Jean de Berry had borrowed the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle, he declared, for the purpose of showing it to the emperor. He carried out that purpose, probably while they waited more than two weeks for King Charles to be sufficiently compos mentis to attend the Council. In several passages the Chronicle shows emperors of the past taking the reins of the Church when necessary, to restore her unity and order.33 Berry could direct Sigismund to several Christian emperors at Constantinople: Maximus II, condemning the heretical sect of Bishop Priscillian (AD 386 on 234r); Theodosius II summoning the Council of Ephesus to condemn the Nestorian heresy (AD 433 on 243v); Valentinian III convoking a
31 Pamphlet contre Sigismond, in Opera, 2, 333–46, at 341, lines 194–97. Ceterum quam aniliter adversus procuratorem regis Francie in curia publice verbis et contentionibus certavit diutius nemo te scit melius, circa id singulariter attendente ac mirante de sua stulticia tanquam si cornua nascerentur. 32 Journal de Nicolas de Baye, greffier du Parlement de Paris, 1400–1417, 2:243–45: Monseigneur Sigismond . . . a . . . appellé ledit Seignet, en disant que à lui apartenoit bien de faire chevaliers. Et print d’un de ses gens son espée, et ledit Seignet miz à genoulx près du graphier, frapa iij grans couz ledit Roy sur le doz dudit Seignet; puiz fit deschaucer l’un de ses esperons dorez et ly fit chaucer par l’un de ses gens, et ly ceindre une ceincture où estoit pendu un cousteau long pour espée. See also Journal d’un bourgeois, 69 and n. 2; and Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys 5: 744–45. 33 Chris Jones, Eclipse of Empire? Perceptions of the Western Empire and Its Rulers in LateMedieval France (Turnhout, 2007) is a deep and perceptive study of French, including “Dionysian,” historiography of the kings and emperors, setting Louis IX and Frederick II as contrasting cases in point. Jones found much material in the Universal Chronicle, which he read in the edition of Géraud.
118
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
synod of fifty-six bishops to judge and acquit Sixtus III, who had been charged with adultery (AD 435 on 244r); Maurice, ordering the enthronement of Gregory the Great (AD 591 on 281v); Phocas, who permitted Boniface III to call the Roman Church (instead of that of Constantinople) the head of all churches (AD 607 on 284v); Constantine IV summoning a council at Constantinople to end the Monothelite heresy (AD 681 on 299v). Then there was Charlemagne, whose authority, even before he was crowned emperor, to choose the pope, to set the Apostolic See in order, and to approve and invest bishops was sanctioned by Pope Adrian I and the Roman Synod (AD 773 on 315v). There was even a mirror of Sigismund’s own dilemma and its solution: Henry III, who deposed three competing popes by means of a Church Council, brought a new pope to consecration, and then received his own imperial coronation from his protégé.34 Also, two slanted lines in the margin of 217v point out a historical curiosity that would be of interest to both Berry and Sigismund. In the chapter for AD 308 they could read that Constance, granddaughter of the emperor Constantius I and niece of Constantine I, married one Florus, son of the king of Hungary, and that their son was St. Martin of Tours, an apostle of France and patron of the Frankish empire. Berry was bound to show his collection of holy relics to his fellow lipsanophile Sigismund, who promptly augmented it.35 Item, a golden reliquary in the form of a tower which the king of the Romans gave to my lord, in which were several relics wrapped in fine red silk inside a crystal; on this reliquary are two balas rubies, two sapphires and eight pearls, and on top a button formed of one balas ruby and eight pearls; total weight 1 mark, 7 1/4 écus. [note of disposition:] The relics in this reliquary were placed in another, a crystal vase, which had contained a piece of one of the ribs of St. Catherine. The relic of St. Catherine was placed in this reliquary and sent with it as a gift to the queen of Spain [named Catherine, daughter of the duke of Lancaster and widow of Henry III of Castille].
34 BL Royal 13 E IV, 364v (AD 1046), copying Sigebert; the Latin original is in Appendix A. 35 Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry, 1:19–20: 17. Item, un reliquière d’or en façon d’une tour, que le Roy des Romains donna à Monseigneur, ouquel a plusiers reliques envelopées en cendal vermeil contenues dedens un cristal; ouquel reliquière a deux balaiz, deux saphirs et VIII perles; pesant I marc VII est. obole . . . . [note of disposition:] . . . reliquie que erant in presenti reliquiari fuerunt ab eodem amote et posite in alio reliquiari, sive vase cristalli, argento munito, in quo erat pecia unius de costis sancte Katherine. Que quidem pecia etiam fuit a dicto vase cristalli amota et postmodum in presenti reliquiari posita et cum dicto presenti reliquiari missa et data Regine Yspanie.
Banquet of the Ladies; Sigismund in Parlement and the University
119
Possibly at the meeting in which Sigismund gave the golden tower reliquary to Berry, the duke handed over to the emperor the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle. Berry was confident that the book would be returned to its proper home in the abbey of Saint-Denis. But whatever Sigismund considered the transaction to be—a loan for a few days or until he could have a copy written, a gift in exchange for the reliquary, or a trust for Saint-Denis—he kept the manuscript. Sigismund asked and naturally obtained an invitation to visit the University and to lecture there, and his bard Wolkenstein proudly recorded the scene:36 The Nations of all the Faculties with their golden staffs honored him on his cathedra, higher than an angel. All the Faculties, a great number of students and teachers in a huge hall, praised him as an assured master.
The emperor was known in his own time as a literate and learned layman. In addition to his nearly-native Hungarian, according to Jakob Wimfeling (1450–1528), Sigismund could converse in Latin, German, Bohemian, Croatian, Italian and French, and he “blushed for the ignorance of the elector princes, who were able neither to read nor to understand Latin letters.” He was literate enough himself to brush off a Greek error of his own with a Latin pun, as Johannes Cuspinian (1473–1529) relates:37 It is often written about him that when, in the Council of Constance, by a chance slip of the tongue—though otherwise he was clever and eloquent and skilled in many languages—he strayed from the rules of grammar and declined scisma as masculine gender (not neuter, as the grammarians teach); he was corrected by the cardinal of Piacenza [Placentinus]. Quickly he replied extempore, “Placentine, Placentine, even if you pleased [placeres] everyone, you don’t please us, when you weigh our authority less than that of Priscian the grammarian, whom you say I have offended.” The Kaiser’s recovery from the mistake he had committed was received with the great laughter of all present.
It was natural for such a visiting dignitary to be received by the University, and appropriate for such a Latin scholar to take the cathedra. Then it would be necessary for him to lecture, that is, to read a worthy text. But Sigismund had no university degree in any of the recognized faculties, and he would not want to embarrass himself by reading theology badly. The Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis would have provided him a number of suitable passages, and none more pleasing or amusing to the University than the fabulous account of her
36 Lied 19, “Es ist ain altgesprochner rat,” stanza 23. Also Chronique du religieux de SaintDenys 5, 744–45: Quod diu ardenter affectaverat, Universitatem Parisiensem venerabilem videre voluit et in actibus scolasticis interesse; nam sacris litteris et latino ydiomate erat sufficienter eruditus. 37 Wagner, “Princeps literatus aut illiteratus?,” 168–69.
120
Chapter 7 Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans
own origin, taken from Notker Balbulus (AD 790) in which Sigismund’s predecessor Charlemagne figures imperially. There is a large Nota sign in the margin of 318v which could have marked his place to begin: When, in the time of Charlemagne, the study of letters was everywhere forgotten, and consequently even divine worship went cold, it happened that two Scots monks from Ireland arrived on the shore of Gaul with English merchants. They were men learned beyond compare in both secular and sacred books. Day after day, although they showed nothing for sale, they kept crying to the crowds that came to buy, “If anyone is eager for wisdom, let him come to us and get it! Wisdom for sale here!” Those cries went on so long that finally the news was brought by some, who either were amazed or thought the men crazy, to the ears of King Charles, ever a lover of wisdom. He speedily called them into his presence and asked them if they indeed had wisdom, as he had heard. “We both have wisdom,” they said, “and are ready to give it in the Lord’s name to those who worthily seek it.” And when he asked them what they demanded in exchange, they answered, “a suitable place and ready minds, and the things without which this pilgrimage can not be made: food and something to cover ourselves with.” Hearing this, full of great joy, Charlemagne at first kept them both by him, then, when appropriate dwellings had been built for them in Paris, he permitted them to teach there.38
If Sigismund so wished, he could convey by the accents of his reading the risqué double meaning of the story: two Irish procurers hawking the charms of a famous harlot, Sapienza.39 Sigismund was received by the royal Council, which sat on 19 March, in the absence of the indisposed king, in Jean de Berry’s palace, the Hôtel de Nesle. Louis II, duc d’Anjou (1383–1417) and king of Naples, and Cardinal Louis, duc de Bar, shared the council table, and there was a large attendance by the French hierarchy and the University of Paris because at the head of the meeting’s agenda was the reunification of the church. Ambassadors of Aragon participated, seconding Sigismund in his campaign to end the pretension of Pedro de Luna as Pope Benedict XIII, but they opposed his and Berry’s plan to unite the crowns of France and England by a marriage between Catherine of France and Henry V: the duke of Gerona, the future Alfonso V, wanted his own
38 Guillaume de Nangis copied the story from Speculum historiale book 23, chapter 173; but according to Vincent and his source, Notker Balbulus, only one of the monks, Clemens, was sent to Paris, the other to Italy. 39 Emily C. Francomano, Wisdom and Her Lovers, 140–2: Wisdom and the myriad feminine embodiments made in her image are also, at least metaphorically, “common women.” King Solomon urges all young men to follow his example by embracing Wisdom . . . . The feminine personification of Wisdom is a commonplace so ubiquitous that it tends to be overlooked, . . . a trope ripe for parodying and subverting.
Visit to Saint-Denis; Sigismund Departs from Calais for England
121
daughter to be queen of England instead. Berry declared that this would never happen.40 In this and other meetings of the Council Sigismund reiterated his wish to end the discord between the kings of France and England, and in particular to secure the release of the captive princes.41
Visit to Saint-Denis; Sigismund Departs from Calais for England Sigismund was a guest at Saint-Denis for five days including Palm Sunday. He had a chance, therefore, to restore the Royal manuscript to its rightful place, and Jean de Berry certainly assumed that he would do so: in his deathbed declarations of conscience the duke asserted that the precious loan had been restored to Saint-Denis. But that hefty volume was still in the imperial baggage on 13 April, when Sigismund and his knights took the road toward England. The first two nights he stayed at Beaumont-sur-Oise, a town belonging to the duc d’Orléans. For six days including Easter (19 April) he was the guest of the bishop of Beauvais. His harbingers sent to Abbeville on the Somme were rudely repulsed there, apparently because English members of his escort were sporting the English badge, the red cross of St. George, and so he crossed upstream at Pont-Saint-Remy and stayed at the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Riquier. We have no notice of where he celebrated the feast of St. George on 23 April, but he passed through Montreuil and Etaples and came to Boulogne the next day. The town refused to admit more than two hundred horsemen, and so the cavalcade picnicked in the port and moved on to a magnificent welcome in English territory, managed by the governor of Calais: none other than Sigismund’s sword-bearer of two years earlier, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick.42 King Henry sent over three hundred cogs and smaller craft, and on May Day the emperor crossed to Dover with his horses, his men, his ceremonial sword, the heart of St. George, and at least one book, MS Royal of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis.
40 Lehoux, Jean de France, 3:400–1. 41 Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys 5:746–47; Journal d’un bourgeois, 69. 42 James Hamilton Wylie and William Templeton Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth, 3:1–8 is a well organized account of Sigismund’s travels from Narbonne to Calais.
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor Henry V and Sigismund in England Emperor Sigismund spent almost four months, May to August 1416, as the king’s guest in England.1 His purposes there were well known on both sides of the Channel. He wished to make peace between Henry V and Charles VI and to recover the liberty of the noble French prisoners. Then, with the cooperation of both kings, he would drive the Council of Constance to finish its work, ending the Schism and electing one undisputed pope. Sigismund publicly fostered a mutual loving esteem with the English king as a means to these goals and as a desirable condition in itself. King Henry, for his part, was less interested in a unified church, and he wanted no peace with France unless its terms gave him the crown of France. The captive French princes could hope for their freedom if they cooperated in peace talks to that end. Henry hoped to turn Sigismund’s admiration for English chivalry and English piety into an alliance against his cousin Charles. In bargaining with Sigismund, the victor of Agincourt had crucial advantages of wealth and political prudence. Once in England with his heavy entourage, living at Henry’s great expense, Sigismund was effectively his host’s hostage. He could not return to the Continent until it pleased Henry to pay the freight.
Sigismund, Knight Companion of the Garter The king of the Romans and his host were most single-mindedly fraternal in their patronage of chivalry under the heavenly protection of St. George, patron of both the Hungarian Order of the Dragon and the English Order of the Garter. Even before leaving Constance Sigismund had staked a major bargaining token, that precious relic the heart of St. George, by promising it to the king of England, and Richard Beauchamp had secured the promise in writing and under seal. King Henry planned to receive the relic at Windsor on the feast day of St. George (23 April 1416) in the course of the annual Garter celebration where Sigismund would be elected, inscribed, invested, and installed as a knight companion of the Order.
1 The best summary account of the visit is in Wylie and Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth, 3:9–17. See also Albrecht Classen, “Emperor Sigismund’s Visit to England in 1416,” 276–90. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-008
124
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor
On 3 November 1415 the Garter knight-elect William, baron Zouche of Harringworth had died, leaving the necessary stall vacant at Windsor. The imperial guest, touched by the religious and chivalric solemnities, his precious gift overwhelmingly answered by a lavish yet tasteful outlay in robes and dinners, could be expected to feel a sense of obligation toward his royal host. Henry was gleeful. “We are happy and content beyond measure that the most serene and excellent prince the king of the Romans, our most dear brother, proposes and intends personally to visit us and our kingdom of England, as speedily as he conveniently can do it.”2 But there was the catch. The great day at Windsor had to be fully attended and flawlessly managed, but Sigismund was notoriously careless about such matters as promises and dates. As sovereign of the Order, Henry could not be seen as bending its rules and customs, catering to the vagaries of a foreigner. Disasters loomed. What if the Garter were known to be offered and Sigismund did not hasten to receive it? What if Sigismund arrived without the heart of St. George, had bartered it away for some honor or advantage in Aragon, in Avignon, or in Paris? Such worst cases had to be prevented: Windsor had to be fully prepared for King Sigismund without publicly mentioning him. The Chamber and Wardrobe staffs, probably guided by Garter king of arms William Bruges, performed the necessary legerdemain.3 Shortly after 21 March 1416 a warrant went to the Great Wardrobe to prepare the robes and garter emblems for the existing knights, four knights-elect, other dignitaries, and ladies.4 And robes for Sigismund? The late Baron Zouche was still on the list, and because he had died he would not require his robes, but those belonged to him by his election, and they would remain with the College of St. George,5 and anyway they were less sumptuous than a king should be vested with. By a clever dodge disguised as a clerical error, the warrant assigned no
2 Thomas Rymer, Foedera, new ed. by Adam Clarke et al., 4 part 2: 157: Serenissimus et excellentissimus princeps rex Romanorum, frater noster carissimus, nos et regnum nostrum Angliae, cum celeritate qua commode potest, personaliter visitare proponit et intendit. 3 At his house in Kentish Town William Bruges briefed Sigismund on the protocol, and then attended his installation at Windsor: Aldrich et al., Register, 1:322 and 340–41; Hugh Stanford London and Antony Richard Wagner, The Life of William Bruges, 15 show that Bruges was appointed to the post in July 1415. 4 Rymer, Foedera, 4 part 2: 155, where the document is dated 1416, 4 Henry V; the regnal year began 21 March. It is worth noting that a new organ was undertaken for the chapel of St. George in April, “in anticipation of the Emperor’s installation the following month”: Diana Dunn, “Margaret of Anjou, Chivalry and Garter,” 184. 5 A. K. B. Roberts, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1348–1416, 83.
Sigismund, Knight Companion of the Garter
125
robes Regi Romanorum; but both Duci Holandiae and Duci Baverriae were allotted material of the same noble amplitude as Regibus Portugaliae & Daciae (Denmark): eight ells (ten yards) of blue broadcloth and half an ell of scarlet, six hundred pure white ermine bellies, and a hundred and twenty figures of the garter with its motto Hony soit qui male y pense embroidered in gold on tartarin (fine silk). Now, William VI, count of Holland, knight companion of the Garter, being the same man as William II, duke of Bavaria, had shoulders for only one of those mantles. The other could be held ready, in silence, for Sigismund.6 Word reached the court that Sigismund was leaving Paris by 7 April, and letters of that date instructed the sheriffs of the kingdom to summon all knights to London by the 16th to greet him, while the constable of Dover and the warden of the Cinque Ports were to commandeer all the available ships and boats to carry him and his armored company over the Channel.7 Henry warranted the sheriff of Kent to assume in his name all the costs of provisioning Sigismund and all his men and their horses.8 When it became known that Sigismund’s departure from Paris had brought him only as far as Saint-Denis, and there was no chance that he would be in England by 23 April, William Bruges discovered that it was the custom of the Order that, if St. George’s Day fell within fourteen days of Easter, the Garter festivities would be postponed until later in the summer.9 The emperor lingered from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday (20 April) at Beauvais and arrived in Boulogne on the 24th. Word of his approach to Calais reached London on the 26th and prompted some necessary safe-conducts.10 Sigismund landed at Dover on 1 May, went to Canterbury the next day, then progressed to London for a reception on 7 May much like that in Paris two months earlier. King Henry handed over the palace of Westminster to his guest for most of May and June,
6 As it happened, the count of Holland was delayed by bad weather and only arrived after the Garter feast. 7 Rymer, Foedera, 4 part 2:157. 8 Rymer, Foedera, 4 part 2:157: 8 April 1416. 9 Aldrich et al., Register, 1:29. The rule appears first in the Statutes of the Order that were approved in the Chapter of this year, 1416. It makes no sense liturgically, and a glance at the Easter tables shows that it would apply in fully half of all years. 10 Rymer, Foedera, 158. There are two Privy Council minutes, undated but from about 26 April 1416, which give directions for Sigismund’s reception at Calais, Dover, Dartford, Blackheath, and Southwark. One is concerned with practical logistics and refers to the visitor casually as l’Emperour; the other is more careful about heraldic protocol for the tresexcellent et trespuissant Prince le Roy des Romains et d’Ungarie: Nicholas Harry Nicolas, Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, 2:193–95.
126
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor
lodging himself at Lambeth, the London palace of the archbishop of Canterbury. According to Walsingham,11 Because a parliament was being held in London at this time, the emperor solemnly entered and gave a long oration, lavish in praises of the king and of his brothers and of the nobles of the kingdom and of the whole realm. He produced an image of St. George wrought of yellow metal, whose “workmanship surpassed its material” and which he wished to be dedicated at Windsor, where St. George is especially served by royal clerics.
It seems that Sigismund had also brought a personal gift for King Henry, his brother knight of St. George: one of the parade saddles of figured bone on a frame of beechwood that Sigismund customarily bestowed in the ceremony of initiation to the Order of the Dragon (Figure 12). Twenty-two such saddles are known to survive; Henry’s was kept in the Tower of London and is now VI.95 in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds.12 Henry’s answering gift was a rich golden collar of SS, the Lancaster livery insignia. Some dickering over protocol was needed between the emperor’s companion Hartung von Klux and Garter king of arms William Bruges to reduce the size of the noble guard that would accompany Sigismund at Windsor. The dean and chapter had several poor knights’ lodgings vacant, but not scores of them. On 18 May King Henry sent a squire usher of his Chamber to Windsor to prepare housing in the town for the multitude of strangers.13 The ceremonies of the annual Chapter of the Order of the Garter were finally held at Windsor on 24 May.14
11 Thomas Walsingham, The St. Albans Chronicle 1406–1420, ed. Galbraith, 100, our translation. 12 Mária Verő, “Bemerkungen zu den Beinsätteln aus der Sigmundzeit,” 270–78 and Katalog nos. 4.65–64.72, 356–69; the Leeds saddle is Katalog no. 4.69, p. 361. The sides of the swell and horn are inscribed with conventional good wishes: on the right panel ich hofe des pesten / dir geling, “I hope the best things will be yours,” on the left hilf got / wol auf sand iorgen nam, “Receive God’s help surely from Saint George”; but the legend on the seat is a playful soldiers’ obscenity: im ars / in vinster, “In the ass, in the dark.” 13 English translation of the king’s letter in Robert Richard Tighe and James Edward Davis, Annals of Windsor, 1:80, from Bodleian, Ashmole MS 1125, 101v, cited by Hugh E. L. Collins, The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461, 203; for Klux see 58–60. 14 Robert Aldrich et al. (who had no Garter records of the event) got every important detail wrong. Register, 1:64–5: Invictissimi Regis Henrici Quinti Anno quarto [1416], circiter septimum mensis Mai, Solennitas Divi Georgii celebrata est Wyndesori, quo prenobilis Sigismondus Imperator Alemanicus, qui jam nunc venerat in Angliam, maximi dissidii inter duas gentes sedandi causa (quod aiebant) accessit, quoniam et ejus ipsius gratia eo dilata fuit. [He and the dukes of Holland and Bric] ibidem creati sunt Equites illustrissimi illius Ordinis Divo Georgio nuncupati . . . in festiva mensa, quae sequebatur (tantae majestatis benignitas ea fuit) Augusto primas obtulit, ubi considentium Ornatus, servientium Ordines, missuum varietates, ferculorum inventa, cum caeteris aspectu, gustatuque delectabilibus, si quis explicare studuerit, haud plene queat.
His Gifts: The Heart of St. George, Helm and Sword, and the Royal Manuscript
127
Figure 12: The parade saddle that the emperor-elect Sigismund gave to Henry V, now in the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. Source: Ffoulkes, Inventory and Survey of the Armouries of the Tower of London (1916) p. 208, no. 95.
Elected by the sovereign to the place of William, baron Zouche, Sigismund was enrolled 127th in the succession of knights, vested with the mantle and badges of the Order, and conducted to the second stall on the north side of the chapel.15
His Gifts: The Heart of St. George, Helm and Sword, and the Royal Manuscript Four gifts to the chapel by Sigismund on this solemn occasion are on record. He gave the heart of St. George in a crystal monstrance, and a fragment of the saint’s skull in a silver gilt head reliquary mounted on two white enamel lions:
15 George Frederick Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter, lvi–lviii; Fellowes, The Knights of the Garter, 1348–1939, 58. Sigismund never returned; his absences from Chapters were noted as excused, and after his death his stall long remained vacant: Aldrich et al., Register, 1:81 and later entries. But the habits were granted to him annually, and “the Chancellor of England inflicted a punishment upon those of the College of Windsor who sold his Mantle during his life.” Aldrich et al., Register, 2:16–17 and 28; Roberts, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1348–1416, 83, with citation of sources.
128
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor
the “image of St. George” that he had shown in Parliament.16 He also followed the custom of leaving a helm and a ceremonial sword to decorate his stall. The helm seems to be lost, but the dean of the chapel gave the sword to the City of York in 1439, after Sigismund’s death, and it remains in the Mansion House there. It is a handsome, oversize two-handed longsword of blued steel chased with copper alloy, housed in a wood scabbard covered with velvet decorated with six silver badges of the Order of the Dragon, neatly diminishing in size toward the point of the scabbard.17 This was the appropriate moment for Sigismund to give the ponderous Chronicle volume to the College of St. George, and we assume that he did so, simultaneously paying a compliment to the canons’ Latin learning and parading his own. We search in vain the record of Sigismund’s visit to England for any indication that he ever opened the book there. It is true that the archbishop of Canterbury Henry Chichele, when he commanded his suffragan bishops to perform processions and litanies for the good state and prosperity of the king of the Romans, argued the efficacy of such practices with biblical and historical examples, possibly because he knew Sigismund as a reader of history, or at least as the owner of a chronicle.18 But this Chronicle was of no use for Sigismund’s purposes in England. Ending as it does in 1300, it casts neither light nor shadow on
16 Maurice F. Bond, The Inventories of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1384–1667, 166, in the Inventory of 1534: 4. Item Seynt Georges scoll sett in golde stonding apon white lyons inamelyd garnysshed with perll and riche stone . . . [167] 6. Item a monstrans of sylver gylt and seynt George is heart stonding in golde closyd in byrall . . . [178] 145. Item a hed of sylver of Seynt George that was for Seynt Georges scull when it was fyrst brougt hether. Until the reign of Henry VIII the heart was treasured by the Order; on St. George’s Day “after the censing of the subdeacon, the deacon reverently showed the Heart of Saint George to be kissed by the Sovereign and the Knights Companions according to rank.” Aldrich et al., Register, 1:40 and 155. 17 On loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for the 2003–2004 exhibition Gothic Art for England, 1400–1547, and pictured in its online catalogue. The dragon badges are modern reproductions. See also Imre Takács, Sigismundus rex et imperator: Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1387–1437, 341, Katalog no. 4.41. 18 Rymer, Foedera, 169: Cujus efficaciam . . . et in Theodosio Imperatore contra Eugenium et Arbogasten Tripertita Historia manifestat. Orante namque Theodosio, Altissimo miraculose operante, adversariorum exercitus jacula vehementissimus ventus in ipsos jacientes retorquebat, & jacula partis Theodosii cum maiori fortitudine, ultra mensuram ictus humani, in eosdem pariter impingebat. The miracle story does appear in chapter 45 of the Historia tripartita, and it is also told at AD 397 in MS Royal, 236v; but there the wording is quite different.
Sigismund’s Alliance and Departure
129
Henry V’s claim to the French crown, which hinged on the succession to Charles IV (who died in 1328) either by Philip VI of Valois or by Edward III Plantagenet.
Sigismund’s Alliance and Departure On 28 May, Ascension Thursday, William, duke of Bavaria and count of Holland, Hainault, and Zeeland, finally arrived in London to join the peace discussions.19 On Whitsunday, 7 June, Henry gave a sumptuous banquet, complete with sixteen minstrels in livery, at Westminster, carrying on the noble charade that this was Sigismund’s palace. The emperor was seated at the center of the table, and on his right the duke [Charles] of Orléans, and below him the duke [Jean I] of Bourbon, the count [Charles d’Artois] of Eu, and the lords [Jean] of Estouteville and [Raoul de] Gaucourt, all prisoners of the king of England, and on his other side was seated Duke William, count of Hainault, Holland, and Zeeland . . . . The king of England, who knew worldly honors as well as any prince of his time, twice went before the table of the emperor to drink his health and bid him good cheer, dressed in a noble robe of cloth of gold, and around his neck a rich collar with precious stones.
In addition to charming Sigismund, Henry was showing the French prisoners how generously he treated his friends. Pierre Champion has described the event from the viewpoint of Charles d’Orléans.20 King Henry would only be satisfied with a peace that put all the advantages on his side. He constantly maintained his demand for the total fulfillment of the treaty of Brétigny and his own right to the crown of France. If Charles d’Orléans had placed his hopes in Sigismund, he was soon to discover that he had much deceived himself. These negotiations, instead of bringing peace, began a cruel alteration in the situation of the duc d’Orléans. Henry V had resolved to make use of the influence of the captive princes, and he let them clearly understand that they would find their liberty only by supporting in France his stubborn claim to the crown.
Henry tested the French dukes’ intentions by demanding that they agree to place the disputed town of Harfleur in the safekeeping of the emperor and the count of Holland pending its disposition by a treaty of peace. “They altogether refuse,” Henry wrote, “thereby working to the limit of their powers to deceive and secretly to defraud those princes, the king of the Romans and the duke of
19 Wylie and Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth, 14–15; Rymer, Foedera, 156; Morand, Chronique de Jean Le Fèvre, 1:279–80. 20 Vie de Charles d’Orléans (1394–1465), 164–65.
130
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor
Holland, and ourselves.” The uncooperative prisoners provided Henry an excuse for his next expedition to France.21 Sigismund, marginalized, all his bargaining counters spent, under increasing obligations as the king’s favored guest, saw his plans for peace and for his cousins’ liberty vanish back into thin air. While Henry reviewed the muster of his invasion force at Southampton, Sigismund was relegated for a month to Leeds Castle in Kent and for two weeks to Eltham Palace near Greenwich. On 15 August the two kings exchanged letters of alliance against Charles VI, and Sigismund took the road to Dover. As he rode, his servants scattered largesse in forma pauperis: little scrolls bearing this pious doggerel:22 Vale et gaude, glorioso cum triumpho, O tu felix Anglia, et benedicta, Quia, quasi angelica natura, gloriosa laude Jesum adorans, es jure dicta. Hanc tibi do laudem quam recto jure mereris.
A week later Sigismund was back in Calais, decorated with a garter and a collar of Lancaster SS,23 poorer in honor and freedom to maneuver, and no longer in possession of his relics of St. George, his processional helm and dragon-decked sword, or the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle.24
The Royal Manuscript in the Chapel of St. George The religious liturgy at Windsor Castle, distinct from the military and chivalric ceremony, was the responsibility of a secular college of canons, the Chapel of St. George. The Chronicle manuscript was Sigismund’s gift to the Chapel, in imitation of a grand donation of books by King Henry on the same occasion. Henry gave eleven books recovered from the heirs of the Garter knight Henry le Scrope of Masham (beheaded for treason at Southampton in August 1415). The fact that those were all liturgical books indicates that they were probably a legacy from the baron’s uncle Richard le Scrope, archbishop of York (and beheaded for
21 Rymer, Foedera, 165: Henry’s letter to the sheriffs of England, 13 June 1416, summoning the army to Southampton before the end of June. 22 Quoted from the chronicle of Thomas of Elmham and from the St. Albans Chronicle by Classen, “Emperor Sigismund’s Visit to England in 1416,” 288. 23 Walsingham, ed. Galbraith, 100; trans. Preest, The Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham, 1376–1422, 415. 24 Rymer, Foedera, 171–72; and see The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377–1421, ed. and trans. C. Given-Wilson (Oxford, 1997) 262. A clear view of Henry V’s political victory over Sigismund is in Collins, The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461, 168–70.
The Royal Manuscript in the Chapel of St. George
131
treason there in 1405). The canons kept the service books in the vestry between the thirteenth-century chapel and the fourteenth-century knights’ chapter house, but the other books were in a reading library near the canons’ chapter house, probably above the aerary or treasury, until 1483 when a new library was built over the west walk of the cloister.25 There is no inventory of the reading library of St. George’s Chapel after 1410. What we know of its contents, and what we can surmise about its arrangement in its new home after 1483, we owe to M. R. James. He tabulated and described seventy-one manuscripts that were given by the College to Sir Thomas Bodley in 1612 and are found today in the Bodleian Library. The [1483] library was probably fitted with desks projecting from one or both side walls, with books lying on the top, and standing in shelves below, all chained. The bindings had two holes for chain clamps at the foot of the book, and there are usually some dirtied pages, as if they had been left lying open.26
In the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle, between the red lines flanking the text, there are at least thirty-seven alerts pointing to matter of Britain and England, and many, although carefully washed, can still be read, for instance nota Blagabert rex Britannie on 155v and Cassibellanus rex Anglie Ebor. sepultus on 171v. It is possible that some of these were written at Windsor, among the earlier index notes written at Saint-Denis. The excellent condition of BL Royal 13 E IV today is largely due to a century of scrupulous care by the successive precentors of the Chapel, beginning in 1416 with John Eston.27 The Saint-Denis red leather cover and four clasps that Robinet d’Estampes had noted in the library of Jean de Berry made an aristocratic show perfectly suited to the chapel library of St. George, Windsor. There the codex was probably stored flat and firmly clasped shut to prevent buckling of the leaves and strain on the binding cords and to exclude oxidizing air,
25 Tim Tatton-Brown, “Chapel and College Buildings,” 30, and plan, 4–5. 26 “The Manuscripts of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor,” The Library, 4th ser. 13 (1932) 56. James described the characteristic press mark of St. George’s Chapel: “a couple of letters of the alphabet for each volume . . . running AA, AB, etc., BA, BB, &c. They are written in the books in curious straggling Gothic capitals, usually followed by an odd little ‘squiggle’.” No mark of either kind is visible on BL Royal 13 E IV, but we speculate that one might be found by separating the first parchment flyleaf from the endpaper to which it was pasted in the course of rebinding the manuscript about 1900. Such an autopsy might also reveal a Saint-Denis ex-libris which is otherwise not to be found. See also James Willoughby, “The Provision of Books in the English Secular College,” The Late Medieval English College and Its Context (Woodbridge, UK: 2008): 154–79. 27 Roberts, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1348–1416, 241.
132
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor
moulding moisture, and ravenous Bostrichidae worms. Eston had only to pay for the staple, chain, and ring to secure the Chronicle to its desk like the other books. If that precaution had been omitted, who can guess what castle, noble but dank, illiterate, and forgetful, might have been its ruin?
A Reader at Windsor: Thomas Gascoigne, 1444 Why do we suppose that the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle spent the century after 1416 in the library of the Chapel of St. George at Windsor? From the date of the inventory of Jean de Berry’s jewels to the numbered list of Henry VIII’s books in 1542 we have no positive written notice of our codex. But the circumstances are strongly suggestive: the manuscript was written in France and is now in England; Berry intended to show the manuscript to Sigismund, who traveled from France directly to England; Sigismund gave generously to the Chapel of St. George when he became a knight companion of the Garter; the manuscript bears the signature and ex-libris of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk and knight companion of the Garter; and it must have been kept in a well-maintained institutional library to remain so clean, uninfected, undamaged, free of illiterate scribbles, and annotated with alerts of English interest. Our plausible guess is that that institutional library was in the Chapel of St. George, and that guess is strengthened to a reasonable inference by a whiff of contemporary evidence from Thomas Gascoigne.28 Thomas Gascoigne (1403–1458) matriculated at Oxford about 1416, became doctor of divinity in 1434 and chancellor of the University in 1444. He was a generous donor of books to the college libraries of Oxford, an avid visitor of libraries everywhere he traveled, and an assiduous note-taker in moral theology and historical curiosities.29 He harvested his notes and added his own observations and pious ejaculations in his Liber de Veritatibus, docketed under loosely applicable topics that run alphabetically from Absolutio to Virginitas. Gascoigne’s own rough
28 Richard Sharpe alerted us to this crucial clue to the presence of the Chronicle at Windsor in R. M. Ball, Thomas Gascoigne, Libraries and Scholarship. 29 Ball, 4–5. One surviving notebook is Bodleian MS Latin theology e. 33. The first half contains notes made at Syon, the Oxford Greyfriars, and perhaps elsewhere, some in 1444, faircopied by Gascoigne and an amanuensis. The second half contains notes from 1456 in Gascoigne’s characteristic scrawl, many, perhaps all, made at the Oxford Greyfriars. James Willoughby kindly read through this pious jungle to find that it has no notes from Windsor and no mention of the Chronicle.
A Reader at Windsor: Thomas Gascoigne, 1444
133
drafts of this compilation were fair-copied by a relay of scribes into the single extant manuscript, Lincoln College, MSS lat. 117 and 118, folio volumes of 680 and 692 pages in double columns on vellum.30 Gascoigne traveled to Windsor, probably in 1444, his first year as chancellor of Oxford, to ask King Henry VI to confirm the rule that the chancellor should always be ex officio a justice of the peace. The moment was memorialized by an anecdote in the Liber de Veritatibus under the heading Peccatum.31 I have seen writing in the hand of my lord of Lincoln [Robert Grosseteste], who was poor in his origin, but on account of his holy life and his great knowledge he was made, at the instance of the king of England, bishop of Lincoln. But those days are done, because it is not now as it was then. When Henry VI was speaking to me and questioning me at his castle of Windsor, he said, “But you, Doctor Gascoigne, why are you not a bishop?” I replied, “My lord, I tell you, if I wished to be the faithful gatherer of much money, I had rather be a good cobbler than the most learned doctor in England, things standing as they do in England in these modern times.” For God is my witness that I would rather see good and many preachers of the word of God in the English nation than have all the temporal riches that the richest man in England has. Thanks ever to God, amen, and may every spirit ever praise God. Amen.
Reading and gathering snippets of wisdom was Gascoigne’s habit everywhere he went, and the Chapel Library was surely on Gascoigne’s agenda at Windsor. To open the doors he may have brought a gift or two, such as the composite volume
30 Loci e Libro Veritatum: passages selected from Gascoigne’s Theological Dictionary illustrating the condition of Church and State, 1403–1458, ed. Thorold Rogers, with a valuable Introduction, v–xc. 31 Gascoigne, Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. Thorold Rogers, 176–77, from Lincoln College MS lat. 118, p. 306a: Ego vidi scriptum manu sua propria ipsius domini Lincolniensis, qui fuit pauper origine seu ex nativitate sua, sed pro sancta vita eius, et magna eius scientia, fuit factus, instantia regis Anglie, episcopus Lincolnie, sed completi sunt dies, scilicet illi, quia non est nunc sicut tunc fuit; nam Henrico vi.to dicente et querente a me apud Castrum suum Wyndsore: “Quare,’ inquit rex, ‘non estis vos, doctor Gascoyne, episcopus?” et ego respondi sibi, ‘Domine, dico vobis, si cuperem esse pecuniarum multarum fidelem adquisitorem, mallem esse bonus sutor quam scientissimus doctor in Anglia, existente statu in Anglia ut est modernis temporibus’; testis enim est michi Deus, quod mallem bonos et plures predicatores verbi Dei in populo Anglie multiplicari quam omnes divitias temporales que sunt cum ditissimo homine Anglie. Deo semper gratias, amen, et omnis spiritus laudet Deum semper. Amen. He ends with a free echo of the very last verse of the Psalms, 150:6, not as sung in a monastic choir, but as a lecturer in theology would read it. Thorold Rogers adds, p. xlv, “That the bishop-maker of England should ask Gascoigne why he was not a bishop, shows a simplicity which is hardly conceivable.”
134
Chapter 8 To the Chapel of St. George, Windsor
of Augustine, Gregory’s Cura pastoralis and the Compendium theologicae veritatis which is now Bodley MS 785, and which may previously have been a pawn forfeited to the Oxford University chest.32 With the help of his amanuensis, Gascoigne went gleaning citations in the Windsor Chapel Library, and one of those eventually found a place in the Liber de Veritatibus under the heading Reges.33 Doctor Hugh of Vienne, who was among the first of the cardinals who wore the red hat at Rome, for which note William of Vanais, monk of Saint-Denis, in his Cronica.
Beyond a doubt, Gascoigne had looked into the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle. The title he gives is a misspelled feminine, as on fol. 1r; and Vanais comes from a hasty glance at a hasty copy of Nangis, which is itself the French variant given in the title and in the text at AD 1113 (and not the more usual Latin Nangiaco that we see in the colophon on 445v). A brief account of the red hat occurs at AD 1252:34 Pope Innocent decreed that all the cardinals of the Roman Church should wear on their heads a red hat when riding, so that they might be recognized and distinguished from the others riding with them. By this he hinted that in the persecution of faith and justice, the Roman Church, which is the head of all the others, ought before the rest to hold her head erect, to be bloodied if necessary.
There at the lower right edge of 424r, alongside this passage, a vertical line has been dry-scored, so strongly that the groove can be seen on 425r and 426r. It is as if some important visiting don had drawn his right thumbnail down the page to show his amanuensis where to take a citation. For almost a century after Thomas Gascoigne took his hasty glance at the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle, as the Hundred Years War was lost and the Wars of the Roses ran their chaotic course and the Tudor succession promised stability and peace, the book remained in the Windsor Chapel Library, properly sheltered and gently used. Edward IV began the present Perpendicular Gothic Chapel
32 James, “Manuscripts,” 60. 33 Gascoigne, Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. Thorold Rogers, 212 from Lincoln College MS lat. 118, p. 596a: Doctor Hugo de Vienna, qui fuit de primis qui utebantur de cardinalibus Rome rubeo capello; pro qua materia, nota Willelmum de Vanais, monachum Sancti Dionysii, in sua Cronica. Cardinal Hugo de Vienne, alias Hugo de S. Caro OP, M.Theol. was created cardinal by Innocent IV in 1244. He assisted at the Council of Lyon (1245) where the idea of the red hat for cardinals originated. Richard Sharpe, on examining the Gascoigne manuscript, reported “Vanais is clear.” 34 424r in the Royal manuscript; the Latin text is in Appendix A.
A Reader at Windsor: Thomas Gascoigne, 1444
135
in 1475, and by 1483 the new construction had pushed the library out of the aerary into a finished upper story over the west walk of the square cloister.35 In 1528 a new group of companion knights, who had paid to finish the chapel, saw their arms painted in its fan vaulting around those of their sovereign, King Henry VIII, and about that date the Royal manuscript came back into political life.
35 Tatton-Brown, “Chapel and College Buildings,” plan, 4–5.
Chapter 9 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk Knight Companion of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Sovereign, 1525 On St. George’s Day, 23 April 1525, King Henry VIII, as sovereign of the Order of the Garter, summoned its members to the annual Chapter at Greenwich. Thomas Howard was present for his first Chapter meeting as duke of Norfolk.1 The Chapter dispatched its usual business: the knights nominated several men for election and the king chose two of them.2 The annual feast at Windsor, when the new knights were to be installed, was set for 25 June. The old custom was that when the sovereign presided at the feast he paid for it, but Henry always stayed away, leaving the expenses to the newly installed knights and appointing a knight of high rank to attend as his lieutenant. Thomas Howard, fifty-two years old in 1525, third duke of Norfolk, lord treasurer and lord admiral, was the natural choice. A knight since 1498, of the Garter since 1510, Thomas had sailed with his brother Edward and killed the Scottish privateer Andrew Barton and seized his ships in 1511. Nominally under his father’s command at Flodden Field in 1513, he forced the battle by a premature charge with the English vanguard, then closed it by capturing the Scottish artillery. Created earl of Surrey when his father became duke of Norfolk in 1514, he waged punitive war in Ireland, France, and Scotland, and at the end of 1523 he gained fame for chasing the duke of Albany off from his siege of Wark Castle. Almost as long as he lived, King Henry would value Thomas Howard as a loyal and ruthless soldier and a noble companion for hunting and feasting. The ambitious courtier Howard knew failure again and again, as his military prowess was stymied by poor supply, as his diplomatic efforts failed for his own want of sophistication and prudence, and as low-born statesmen, first Cardinal Wolsey and then Thomas Cromwell, barred him from the leadership of the king’s council that he considered his noble birthright.3
1 According to Aldrich et al., Register, 1:367–68 and 371. Sir Thomas Howard had been elected knight companion at the Chapter of 23 April 1510: Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter, clxxi. 2 William Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, and Thomas Manners, earl of Rutland. Two remaining vacancies were filled on 7 June when the king elected his six-year-old bastard Henry Fitzroy and Ralph Neville, earl of Westmoreland: Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter, clxxii–clxxiii. 3 For his life and times, see David M. Head, The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk (1995); also Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 28:423–29. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-009
138
Chapter 9 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
As lieutenant of the sovereign, Norfolk would perform a visitation of the Chapel of St. George while he was lodged in Windsor Castle. He would view the Perpendicular Gothic chapel that was all but finished, thanks to the heavy contributions of a few knights, himself included. He would visit the chapter house and the aerary or treasury and the lodgings prepared for the knights who would attend the feast. Conducted by the dean and precentor, he would look into the library in its own long room over the west walk of the cloister, where the codex of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis lay that is now BL Royal MS 13 E IV.
Norfolk Receives the Royal Manuscript of the Chronicle The duke had possibly seen the manuscript, and even read in it, more than once in his fifteen years of Garter feasts. He was literate in English, French, and Latin, and when he had leisure, voluntary or forced, he loved to read.4 There were small marginal notes to passages in the Chronicle that told the fabulous history of Britain and the history of England and the English (as viewed from the Ile-deFrance), the campaigns of the Crusades, and anecdotes about horses and prodigies and the ancient Romans. The dean and chapter, wishing to show gratitude for the past and future favor of their patron the king and of his lieutenant, offered Norfolk the manuscript as a gift, a souvenir of his ceremonial visit. To tell the truth, the clerks of the chapel probably wanted this book’s room more than its wisdom. The Chronicle included memorials of the rich endowment of a religious house that was not the College of St. George. The copious royal history that it contained was French, not English, royal history, and a history that stopped in 1300, before there was a claim by an English king to the French crown. The volume occupied space that could be used for four to six normal, printed quartos, and it entirely ignored St. George. None of those detriments mattered to the duke of Norfolk. He was delighted to have such a treasure, a practically endless stream of “story” in a beautifully bound, cleanly kept folio on parchment, and such a scientific historical machine with its synchronized series of kings (including the English ones) and popes, written with so few abbreviations—the bane of the lay reader—and in a solid formal gothic bookhand, not the prissy italic vehicle in which “all this new learning came up.”5 We can
4 At about this time Norfolk was employing the book-hunting antiquarian John Leland as tutor to his son Thomas: Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, 19 and 263–64. 5 Letters and Papers, 16:101, quoted by Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, 263.
Annotations for and by the Duke of Norfolk
139
imagine his hearty words of thanks, possibly with a Latin seasoning, and his gesture to a servant to pick up the hefty gift, assuming, as we may, that it had been unshackled for the occasion. Thomas Howard’s first year as duke culminated with this moment in the summer sun of royal preferment in 1525. Next came two years of discontented winter under the hateful shadow of Wolsey, who took away the lieutenancy of Scotland and the office of admiral and reduced Howard’s appearances in the Council to mere dutiful routine. The duke spent most of this time at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk while he was having a modern manor house built on the plan of his initial H, thirty miles away at Kenninghall in Norfolk. He had plenty of time for reading, and in the Chronicle plenty to read. On the last parchment page he signed his name just as he had been signing his letters for a year, T. Norffolk, underlined with a row of loyal, royal SSSS. A political secretary who shared his reading of the Chronicle wrote a prouder ex-libris on the first parchment flyleaf:6 Liber illustrissimi principis Thome / dei gratia ducis Norfoltie
Annotations for and by the Duke of Norfolk In his involuntary leisure, browsing in the Chronicle, Howard discovered in “story” certain resources, illuminating incidents and authoritative texts, which could help him prove himself a loyal and learned champion of the king’s interests. The duke added marks of his own in the margins, beyond the red borders where the religious of Saint-Denis and the canons of St. George had written their short topical indices. Here and there a Nota was put in for him by the same secretary who wrote the ex-libris: his flamboyant N is unmistakable. He found noteworthy the example of Boethius, banished from a royal court because he stood for the old nobility.7 When Boethius, supported by the patrician Symmachus, strove to protect the authority of the Roman Senate against Theodoric, king of Italy, he was exiled by the king, and there he composed his book The Consolation of Philosophy.
6 David Head has suggested to us that this secretary may have been the eldest son and namesake of Sir Roger Townshend M.P. (1440–1493), who had been king’s sergeant, justice of the Common Pleas, and a pioneer law reporter. The younger Sir Roger (1472–1551), a protégé of Thomas Howard, sat in the duke’s interest as one of the knights of the shire of Norfolk in the Reformation Parliament of 1529–34; see Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, 265–67. 7 262v (AD 517); the Latin text is in Appendix A.
140
Chapter 9 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
Norfolk was fascinated by the legend of King Arthur and the knights of his Round Table, and the same secretary sought out their story in the Chronicle. Guillaume de Nangis had figured Arthur for a contemporary of Clovis, and on 252rv (AD 466), where we find Arthur’s story, abridged from Geoffrey of Monmouth, there is a slight marginal dash, that might be Norfolk’s. On folio 252v, at AD 467, the fourth column of regnal numbers is dedicated to kings of the Britons, and the year is 1 Arturus. A marginal three dots in pyramid mark the spot, as if in hopes of more Arthur, but there is no mention of Britain, the Round Table, or King Arthur until his 28th year, AD 494, on folio 258r. There the secretary wrote, so close to the right edge of the page that a binder has bobbed both lines: N[ota] / De fine Ar[turi]. The passage is particularly interesting as a source of Norfolk’s views equating Britain with England and English kings with emperors.8 Lucius Iber . . . came into Gaul and sent twelve senators to demand tribute from Arthur king of Britain. Hearing this, Arthur was filled with wrath. He mustered his host, boarded ships, and landed near Mont St-Michel . . . . Then, when the army had assembled, marching into Gaul, he came to Langres, where he defeated and killed the emperor Lucius in battle, and sent his head to the Romans as the tribute of Britain . . . . But as Arthur was making ready to push on to Italy, wishing to subject the Romans to himself, he heard that his nephew Mordred had usurped his kingdom . . . . But in the battle, which was on Salisbury Plain, all the knights of the Round Table and all on both sides fell slain. Arthur himself alone, though mortally wounded, escaped. He climbed a mountain not far from the battlefield, near the sea, and there his sister Morgan the enchantress met him and had him carried to the Isle of Avalon, where he lives yet, as his people the Britons say, and they expect him to come back with a great solemnity . . . . But after these events, the Britons, as a conquered people, unable to resist any longer the force of the English Saxons, yielded to their law and their name.
On 285r (AD 609) a marginal Nota de Sanctis Omnibus tells how the celebration of that feast began with the rededication of the Pantheon, a temple devoted to the worship of “demons not gods.” On 323r (AD 810) Nota de ydolum [cut off: cultu?] and the passage tells of a statue of Muhammad that left his faithful unharmed, but killed Christians and perching birds. A few other notes might be attributed to the Norfolk secretary.
8 The Latin texts are in Appendix A. The ambassador Eustace Chapuys reported to the emperor (13 January 1531) that Norfolk had shown him a copy of the inscription on Arthur’s tomb or seal (he was unsure which) calling him emperor: Letters and Papers, 5:19–21.
The Duke of Norfolk’s Gift of Story to King Henry VIII
141
The Duke of Norfolk’s Gift of Story to King Henry VIII Cardinal Wolsey’s domination of the government began to slip in the spring of 1527 when King Henry became infatuated with Anne Boleyn. Henry began to court Lady Anne in part by favoring her relatives, particularly her father Thomas Boleyn and her uncle the duke of Norfolk, Wolsey’s vindictive enemy. The king had charged Wolsey with his “great matter,” the papal annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and Wolsey bore the blame for the failure of that impossible task. Norfolk and his noble ally in the Council, the duke of Suffolk, fostered Wolsey’s efforts for a French alliance, urging the cardinal forward into that trap as well.9 The cardinal took care to keep his nemesis the duke busy in Norfolk and away from the king for more than a year, until late in 1528, but by then Wolsey was on the defensive, laboring under the suspicion that, in order to prevent Henry from marrying Anne, he was doing nothing to achieve the annulment. Norfolk lost no time in using his own intimacy with the king to turn the tables on Wolsey, removing him from the Council, persuading Henry to deprive him of the chancellorship, taking away the Great Seal with his own hands, exiling the cardinal to his titular but neglected see of York, and working up the prosecution for treason that Wolsey was coming to London to answer when he died, naked to his enemies indeed, and none of them more jubilant than Norfolk. The duke even aspired to step into Wolsey’s role of sophisticated and learned policy advisor, a “senior research assistant.”10 Probably at a New Year’s Day giftgiving, and likely in 1530, Norfolk marked his return to Court and to Henry’s boon-companionship by giving him MS Royal, a treasury of stories that would
9 The Spanish ambassador Iñigo de Mendoza reported to the emperor, 18 May 1527, “These pretended friends of the Legate [Wolsey] are urging him on as much as they can, for they would not be satisfied with turning him out of office, but seek his entire ruin; and so, though unwillingly, they conceal their hatred of him, and favor his politics.” Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 3 part 2:192, no. 69. Mendoza marked the stages of Norfolk’s ascent in dispatches of 2 December 1528 (pp. 860–63) and 16 January 1529 (pp. 877–9). 10 James P. Carley, The Books of King Henry VIII and his Wives, 100. The imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys began his dispatch of 4 September 1529, As I informed Your Imperial Majesty in my dispatch of the 1st inst., the dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, and Milord Rochefort, the father of the Lady Anne Boleyn, are the King’s most favourite courtiers, and the nearest to his person. Now that the Cardinal is absent from Court it is they who transact all state business. Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 4 part 1:195; also 292–306 (27 October).
142
Chapter 9 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
interest a king with a marriage problem.11 The duke’s autograph signature remained on the last page and his ex-libris on the flyleaf, to remind the king of his loyal, learned, and generous servant, but the words dei gratia have been erased (See Figure 13). This was most likely Howard’s doing: Henry, by the grace of God king of England and of France, might overlook, as a mere formal commonplace, the duke of Norfolk’s claim to have the same divine favor; but then again, he might not.
Figure 13: MS Royal, flyleaf verso, detail showing the erased dei gratia. Infrared photo by Eugenio Falcioni. By permission of the British Library.
It is quite possible, of course, that the erasure was due to Thomas Cromwell’s enmity, and happened later, but Cromwell would probably have ordered the rest of the ex-libris and the autograph to be erased as well. A few days after that New Year’s, when Eustace Chapuys cited the opinions of the European universities against the annulment, Henry replied “that there were in his kingdom plenty of honest men, whose persuasions and writings, besides what he himself, who is well acquainted with such matters, had read in books, had had the effect of quieting his conscience.”12
11 On 12 January 1530 Eustace Chapuys reported what “the duke of Norfolk, nowadays the most powerful man in England,” had said to him: The king is so much bent upon it [marriage to Anne Boleyn] that I do not think anyone but God could turn him aside, for he believes it to be imperative for the welfare and tranquility of this kingdom that he should marry again for the sake of having male succession; besides which, from the books he has read on the subject, and the discussions he has instituted throughout his kingdom, he feels quite convinced that his union with the Queen [Catherine of Aragon] was from the beginning illegitimate. Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 4 part 1:416–17. 12 Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 4 part 1:415 (12 January 1530).
Ebbs and Flows: Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk
143
Ebbs and Flows: Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk For five years Thomas Howard flourished in the sunlight of royal favor. The Venetian ambassador Lodovico Falier, in his first dispatch to his Senate on 10 November 1531, wrote this assessment:13 His Excellency the Duke of Norfolk is of very noble English descent. His Majesty makes use of him in all negotiations more than any other person. Since the death of Cardinal Wolsey, his authority and supremacy have increased, and every employment devolves to him. He is prudent, liberal, affable, and astute; associates with everybody, has great experience in political government (è pratichissimo dell’ amministrazioni regali), discusses the affairs of the world admirably, aspires to greater elevation, and bears ill-will to foreigners, especially to our Venetian nation. He is 58 years old; small and spare in person, and his hair black. He has two sons.
Norfolk did his best to take up and perform what had been Cardinal Wolsey’s service to Henry by overseeing the collection of legal opinions from the English and European universities on the annulment.14 Early in January 1531 Norfolk warned the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys that trouble would follow if a papal citation were served on Henry or published in England. The duke argued from his recollections of the Chronicle that an English king had the immunities of an emperor. We note that Norfolk was taking “Britain” as synonymous with “England.”15 The duke went on to say that the popes in old times had in vain attempted to usurp in England certain authority and prerogatives; the king’s predecessors on the throne had never consented to it, and it was not to be expected that king Henry should suffer it at the present moment. He further went on to say that kings were before popes; the king was absolute master in his own kingdom, and acknowledged no superior. That an Englishman, that is Brennus, had once reduced Rome under his obedience.16 That Constantius had reigned in England, and that Helen, the mother of Constantine, was English by birth,17 and several other things as little pertinent.
13 Calendar of State Papers . . . Venice, 4:294–95, no. 694. The Holbein portrait of eight years later is a fair illustration of Falier’s verbal portrait; it shows Norfolk in the collar of the Garter with pendant St. George, carrying the treasurer’s staff and the earl marshal’s baton. 14 Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, 99 and n. 110. 15 Letter of Chapuys to Charles V, 13 Jan. 1531 as translated from the French in Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 4 part 2:22–28, no. 598 from Vienna, Staatsarchiv, Rep. P. Fasc. C.227, no. 5; there is a variant translation in Letters and Papers, 5:19–21, no. 45. 16 The Royal MS, 98v (ca. AM 3674) tells how Brennus, brother of Belinus the king of Britain, besieged the Capitol and only withdrew when the starving Romans paid him a thousand pounds of gold. The Latin text is in Appendix A. 17 The Royal MS, 209v (AD 308) tells that Constantius died at York and was succeeded by his son Constantine, whose mother Helen was daughter of King Cole of Britain.
144
Chapter 9 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard was earnestly trying out for the role of sage chief counselor vacated by Cardinal Wolsey, but Thomas Cromwell easily won the part and, like Wolsey, he protected his own position by shoving Norfolk to the wings. Through the last thirteen years of Henry’s life the duke’s fortunes continued to ebb and flow. He subdued the Pilgrimage of Grace and then took bloody revenge for it. Eventually he engineered the prosecution, attainder, and death of Thomas Cromwell. The duke’s niece Catherine Howard followed his other niece Anne Boleyn to the king’s bed and to death on Tower Hill. Norfolk’s son Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, “had inherited all his father’s pride and ambition, but none of his prudence.”18 Following some real military successes in France, Surrey began to show signs that his ambition was for the crown, and his fate was sealed. On 12 December 1546 both he and his father went to the Tower, and Surrey was beheaded on 19 January 1547. Norfolk would have suffered likewise on 28 January if the king had not died the night before. As it was, he lived to regain his lands and titles under Queen Mary, and he died at age 81, in his bed.
Epilogue: Thomas Howard in the Tower, Reading and Using Story Thomas Howard had raised the Chronicle from hibernation at Windsor to share in his own days of royal favor. During his forty days of deadly jeopardy in the Tower of London, he soldiered on, arguing his case as a staunchly loyal, historically informed servant of the king, a champion against papal encroachments ancient and modern on the royal prerogatives old and new. Following an interrogation by the Council, he wrote his further recollections and defenses:19 the effect of another question they asked me was aswel as I can call to my remembrance whether any man had talked wt me that and ther was A gode pease made betwene the kynges maieste themperer and the French kyng the bisshop of rome wold brek the same agayne by his dispensasion and whether I enclyned that wayse or not to that purpose as god help me now at my most need I can not call to my remembrance that ever I herd any man lyvyng speke like words and as for myn Inclynacion that the bisshop of rome shuld ever have auctorite to do such thyng if I had xx lyves I wold rather have spent them all against hym then ever he shuld have any power In this realme for no man knowth better then I by redyng of storys how hys usurped power hath increased fro tyme to tyme nor such . . . [a line made illegible by acid mending tape] . . . no lyvyng man hath both in
18 Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, 221. 19 BL MS Cotton Titus B. i., 99v, kindly transcribed by David Head; there is a paraphrase in Letters and Papers, 21 part 2:282–83, citing this and BL Burnet vi, 274.
Epilogue: Thomas Howard in the Tower, Reading and Using Story
145
his hert and wt his tong In this realm In ffrance and also to many [–sko] skotteshe Jauntelmen spoken mor fore against his seid usurped power then I have done as I can prove by gode witness.
Among the discomforts in Beauchamp Tower, he complained of his sunless chamber and his lack of books, since for many years he had needed to read in the evening before he could sleep. At my first coming I had a chamber without, a-days, I would gladly have license to send to London, to buy one book of St. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei; and one of Josephus De Antiquitatibus; and another of Sabellicus, who doth declare most of any book I have read, how the Bishop of Rome from time to time hath usurped his power against all princes, by their unwise sufferance.20
Thomas Howard knew those works of Josephus and Augustine as sources of the Chronicle, and his request for them could raise no eyebrows in the Council. The third author represented Howard’s antipapist good faith: Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus (d. 1506), whose history, the Enneades, had been printed in two parts at Venice in 1498 and 1504. It was in the palace of Newhall, which the king bought from Thomas Boleyn in 1516, and Howard may well have read it there.21 Such a request was a compliment to the king’s intellectual breadth and a subtle claim of loyalty and affinity, experimenting with the Franklin Effect avant la lettre.22
20 Head, Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, 263 and n. 69; Ethel M. Richardson, The Lion and the Rose, 87, without citation of the original. 21 James P. Carley, The Libraries of King Henry VIII, 290–94. 22 In his Autobiography Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) told how he made a man who disliked him into lifelong friend by asking him to lend “a certain very scarce and curious book.”
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII Busy Years for Books at Court, 1530–1532 The World Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, designed by its author as a treasury of moral precedents and evidences of right, came into the hands of Henry VIII at his moment of need. The king and the friends of his courtship of Anne Boleyn had found themselves dangerously deficient in written authorities and evidence to support any justification of his marriage to her. At the beginning of 1529, focusing their attack on the validity of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, a marriage for which the king had requested and received a papal dispensation, they discovered that the king had mislaid his brief of the dispensation. The imperial ambassador Iñigo de Mendoza must have smiled as he reported in cipher that the king and Council had been compelled to seek a copy from Catherine, and then from her uncle and ally the emperor.1 The dearth of persuasive written authority was acutely felt when the Reformation Parliament opened in November. On the last day of December Mendoza’s successor Eustace Chapuys gave an early warning of the king’s radical intentions.2 The king has distinctly told the Queen [Catherine] and others that in this affair, should the Pope send a refusal [of the annulment], he should not heed it; it was enough for him to obtain within his own kingdom such an opinion as might set his conscience at rest; and he prized and valued the church of Canterbury in England as much as the people across the sea did the Roman.
At Greenwich the next day (as we surmise), New Year’s Day 1530,3 Henry obtained a whole folio volume that promised to offer him, if not legal and theological opinions, historical examples in plenty: the duke of Norfolk gave him the Chronicle manuscript. A courtier described the ceremony of New Year’s giftgiving as it was enacted some years later.4
1 Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 3 part 2:877–79, no. 614 (16 January 1529). 2 Calendar of Letters, etc. between England and Spain, 4 part 1:386. 3 New Style, that is. In Old Style England, the year number would not change to 1530 until 25 March, but 1 January was kept as an ancient New Years Day within the festive Twelve Days of Christmas, and it was the customary gift-giving day in Henry’s court. 4 The foundation of this treatment is Carley, The Books of Henry VIII and His Wives; for this quotation, p. 53. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-010
148
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
The King stood leaning against the cupboard, receiving all things; and Mr. [Sir Brian] Tuke [treasurer of the King’s Chamber] at the end of the same cupboard, penning all things that were presented; . . . and beside his Grace stood the Earl of Hertford and my Lord Privy Seal [Thomas Cromwell].
The king had already sent his agents William Benet and Edward Carne to scour the Vatican Library for evidences, specifying four questions: What documents were there to prove the imperial authority of Henry himself within his own realm? Was the pope superior to the king of England in matters other than heresy? In marital matters, was the pope’s authority ancient? And how had the popes treated emperors in matrimonial cases?5 As 1530 went on, Henry spoke more and more candidly and urgently against the limitations on his marital and political plans, but he temporized with the pope and the emperor. His biographer asks,6 Why did he want to gain time? Not because he had no solution to his problem, but more probably because he did not yet dare to implement it. Where did Henry acquire all that talk about the customs and privilege of England? Whence his claims to imperial status? Who told him about Innocent III, Nicea, Cyprian and Bernard? Who suggested the search in the papal registers? Who was feeding him with these ideas? Who was behind him at that critical time in the summer of 1530 when so much seems first to have taken root? We cannot know.
We can, however, make some suggestions. Wolsey was out of the picture in 1530. The duke of Norfolk dominated the government, and he was full of prerogative ideas, some of them derived from the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis. Although the Chronicle was rife with historical support for a monarch “emperor in his own realm” and for an autonomous national church, it was a French monarch, not an English one, and the Gallican, not the Anglican church. We search the Chronicle in vain for anything pertinent about Innocent III, Councils of Nicea, or Bernard of Clairvaux, or anything at all about Cyprian of Carthage. For those ecclesiastical and canonical subjects, Archbishop Warham and Bishop Tunstall are more likely sources. Norfolk had no professional knowledge within which to frame his historical notions and by which to back them and array them in arguments that would persuade theologians or doctors of laws, domestic or foreign. The king needed other chronicle and archival evidence, and other counselors to argue them. Thomas Cromwell would soon satisfy those needs. Continuing his effort to become a major intellectual resource for the king, Thomas Howard spent the summer of 1530 soliciting, cajoling and coercing
5 J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 266–70. 6 Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 291–92.
Busy Years for Books at Court, 1530–1532
149
opinions in favor of the king’s annulment from universities at home and abroad. But at the end of 1530, when Cardinal Wolsey died, his secretary Thomas Cromwell came into to the Council as a clerk and began to take charge of the rationale of royal policy. Already in June, through the agency of Stephen Vaughan, Cromwell had secured a composite world chronicle to rival Norfolk’s New Year’s gift: the Chronica Chronicarum of John of Worcester (d. 1140).7 Although Norfolk continued to propagate the king’s imperial claims, he lost the leadership of the campaign to back those claims with written evidence. Two letters of September 1533, copied into Norfolk’s letterbook, show Cromwell standing between the duke and the king, as Wolsey had done before him.8 To [Thomas Cranmer] my Lorde of Centerbury [sic] his grace. My Lorde, in my right hartie maner I commend me unto you, signifying unto the same that the kyngs pleasure is that ye do send unto me with all spede and celeritie all such Books and writyngs as ye have in your custody sealed or subscribed with thand of lerned men for the iustifying of his highness great cause. And that with the said bookes and writynge ye do send also all such maner processe in forme authentique as hath bene made by you touchyng his graces said cause. Ffrome Gren. the Vth day of September. Yours T. Norffolk
To which the archbishop coolly replied, To my Lorde of Norfolk his grace. My Lorde in my right hartie maner I commend me unto your good lordeship, certifying the same that thys present Sonday I have [–delyvred] caused to be delyvred unto master Cromewell all such books and writyngs as have come to my hands concernyng the kyngs graces greate cause according to the said mr. Cromewells request made unto me therin in his said graces behalf. And as for all maner processe hadd and made in the said matter they be remaynyng in thand of my Chancellor to be reduced in attentique forme accordyng to the ordre of the same for furthe & processe, and for this entent I have sentt one of my servetores to bryng them unto you with all celerite he may.
The Privy Purse warrants reveal an extraordinary level of activity and expense for the king’s books in 1531 and 1532.9 Scribes, printers, and binders were set to work. Freight was paid for books sent from the abbeys of Reading, Gloucester, Evesham, and St. Augustine of Canterbury, and from Spalding Priory. Books
7 Vaughan wrote Cromwell from Bruges, “I desired my brother, William Johanson, to inform you that I could not find in all Antwerp more than two Cronica Cronicarum cum figuris, and those very dear.” Nevertheless, he was sending a copy. Letters and Papers, 4 part 3:288 (3 June 1530). 8 BL Harley 6148, 30v/32v; there is an abstract in Letters and Papers, 6:456. 9 The items, excerpted from Letters and Papers 5 and 6, are in Appendix D. The battle of books over the royal marriage dilemma is narrated in Carley, Books of Henry VIII and his Wives, 89–93.
150
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
were shipped from Greenwich, and from Wolsey’s former palace of York Place, to his other former palace of Hampton Court, and from there in turn to York Place (soon to be renamed Whitehall, part of the Palace of Westminster), where Cromwell was gathering the king’s political reference library. So many books, so little time. King Henry needed expert readers to prepare such books as the Chronicle for his own perusal by finding and tagging the controversial ammunition that they were supposed to contain. We surmise that the king’s uniquely trusted political agent Thomas Cromwell, clerk of the Hanaper, directed that effort, and that Cromwell’s man Stephen Vaughan took a hand in it. Vaughan was a courtier eager, and in many ways able, to make himself useful. He was a writer of the king’s books (successor of Thomas Hall in that title), and a designer of the king’s jewelry.10 He was politically alert and able to read Latin currently and accurately, although, when serving as a secret intelligence agent in Germany, he found his Latin rhetoric too weak to provide him credible cover as a diplomat.11 Our Royal manuscript was first prepared for the royal eye by a thorough job of erasure. The work required a servant’s scrupulous search page by page and a light and patient hand, not Latin literacy. It was likely done with a pumice stone milled to the shape of a tailor’s chalk and dipped in water or white wine. The serial numbers of more than 180 popes in the succession to St. Peter, from Telesphorus to Boniface VIII, disappeared from the outer margins: they had been demoted to bishops of Rome.12 Every index note that the monks of SaintDenis and the canons of Windsor and Thomas Howard and his secretary had written, between the marginal date lines and beyond them to the edge of the page, at least 270 of these, were delicately removed with minimal abrasion of the parchment. Most of those erasures would be hard to spot were it not for the breaks where the red vertical lines have been erased as well.13
10 Letters and Papers, 5:550 and 564–65, nos. 1298–99 (early September 1532). 11 Letters and Papers, 6:396, Chapuys to Charles V, 30 July 1533: “Two days ago the king, hearing that affairs in Germany were a little troubled, sent two of Cromwell’s men, able gallants, one an Englishman and a Lutheran [Stephen Vaughan], the other a German [Christopher Mont] with eight horses.” And p. 442, Stephen Vaughan in Germany to Cromwell: “You know I am not so good a Latin man to declare the king’s mind in Latin where the princes understand none other tongue.” 12 King Edward VI, twelve years old in 1549, wrote, with the assistance of his tutor the duke of Somerset, an indignant treatise A l’encontre de la Primauté du Pape, where he charged, Du temps du feu roy mon pere, quand son nom fut effacé de livres, il estoppa les bouches des Chrestiens avec ses six articles, comme avec six points. John Gough Nichols, ed. Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, 196. 13 See figures 10 and 15.
The Royal Manuscript Set Forth for King Henry, 1532–1533
151
The Royal Manuscript Set Forth for King Henry, 1532–1533 Stephen Vaughan was eager to be at work in direct service to the king and under the king’s eye. Early in August 1532 he spoke with Henry and urged forward the project of marking up books for the king’s perusal. He wrote Cromwell to this effect: “Yesterday I wrote you a letter stating that the king looked for you after you could be sufficiently informed of the matters he recommended you to know or do. This morning he desired me to make inquiry for the books in the keeping of Mr. Hall [Vaughan’s predecessor as writer of the king’s books] touching the king’s business, and that you should bring them. If you were come, the king would put me to some occupation.” Three weeks later he asked again for some of the king’s books, promising to “set them forth as well as he is able.”14 Much as Henry had relied on Chancellor Wolsey to do the heavy reading of his official correspondence and to prepare gists for him,15 now he had Master Cromwell work through the text of the Chronicle, placing a small # (a mark derived from a double-barred N for Nota) in the margin against 113 passages which he considered useful to the king’s Great Matter (See Figure 14). Toward the end of the book it seems that he was working hastily: the # on 400r is offset on the facing page. Cromwell trusted Vaughan to complete the markup by drawing a curvy vertical bracket line from the first to the last line of each passage that might be usefully read by the king or quoted on the king’s behalf or copied out into a digest. Vaughan drew sixty-five lines to bracket those passages precisely.
Figure 14: MS Royal, 291v, detail. Note the marginal marks calling the king’s attention to this passage: the # sign and the vertical bracketing line. Henry’s own nota bene shows that he was interested to find that the Prophet Muhammad appointed the “Caliph” meaning “Pope.” By permission of the British Library.
14 Letters and Papers, 5:534 of 9 August 1532; and 548 of 29 August 1532. 15 Carley, Books of Henry VIII and His Wives, 100; Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 44.
152
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
And what did these praelectores find noteworthy? It is clear that they were looking for good answers to the same questions that Benet and Carne had pursued in the Vatican library. Fully half the passages marked # recount the contests of emperors with popes, usually to the advantage of the emperors, or occasions when emperors or kings of France provided for the security or order of the Roman Church, many times by summoning church councils. Ten passages of British or English history—none mentioning King Arthur—were picked out. Fourteen references to France, particularly to her territorial extent or her royal succession (which Henry VIII claimed) were flagged. Some thirteen other picked passages concerned royal marriage: divorces for cause, marriages found incestuous or invalid by reason of a sacramental affinity, the divine punishment of a union for mere lust. At the time when his divorce from Catherine seemed impossible and bigamy his only way to get a male heir, Henry had played with the idea that the privilege of polygamy enjoyed by the biblical patriarchs Abraham and Jacob might be his as well. The markup advised otherwise. To the story of Jacob’s wives Guillaume de Nangis had added, “Note that according to Augustine, before the Law it was no sin to live with many wives for the sake of offspring; but to do this for the sake of lust has always been a mortal sin, because the natural law does not permit the pleasure of the flesh to be released except for the propagation or the preservation of the human race.” Accompanied by the sign # and a bracket line, the text continues, “But some say that, whether for the sake of offspring or for the sake of pleasure, it has never been permitted to a man to divide his flesh, and they excuse Abraham and Jacob by saying that they did those things by a divine dispensation.” A stern marginal hand then points to the conclusion: “And the privileges of a few, as Jerome says, do not make a common law.”16 On 426r note was taken of the squabbling Franciscans, Dominicans, and other religious in Paris in 1256; and on 380v of the Carthusians, subject to the epidemic of avarice, “which we see has infected many who wear the religious habit.” Cromwell was planning a radical cure. A different scholar-annotator, thinking of the new translations of the Bible which the New Learning, particularly in Hebrew, had made possible, wrote a different style of bracket line on 90r for Ezra, editor of the Old Testament; and on 236r (AD 395), where Jerome’s hebraica veritas is the subject, drew a different form of #.
16 Royal MS 13 E IV, 14r (anno ab initio 2288): the Latin text is in Appendix A. But the king inclined to the contrary opinion: Edward Miller, That Noble Cabinet (1974) 57 notes “Henry VIII’s copy of the Summa de potestate ecclesiastica, in which, againt the passage that polygamy was not contrary to nature among the Patriarchs, he had written: ‘ergo nec in nobis’ (therefore not in our case either).”
The Chronicle Provides Support for Royal Policy
153
Henry’s literary scout marked # on folio 424r (AD 1252) where red hats hinted at bloody heads among the cardinals of the Roman church. On 388r (AD 1163) a # was placed against a praise of the archbishop of Canterbury, but no bracket followed it: the praise came from Pope Alexander III for Thomas Becket’s resistance to the demands of Henry II, and the praise was paired with a condemnation and barbed with an anathema.17 Saint Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, an exile from England, took refuge in France. He went to Pope Alexander at Sens and showed him the customs of the king of England on account of which he was in exile.18 When he had rationally explained these to the pope and cardinals, the pope marveled at his knowledge and received him with honor, giving thanks to him for undertaking to defend the church of God against the attacks of tyrants in times of such great danger. Then the pope condemned those customs in perpetuity, and subjected those who observed them and those who enforced them to eternal damnation.
The usual hand wrote the # sign on 409r (AD 1213), but shakily, as if trembling at the meaning of the text: England and Ireland as fiefs of the papacy, owing an annual tribute.19 King John of England, realizing that he was hated by many and perceiving that his very kingship was in danger, feared with a great fear. Wishing to appease several men whom he had injured, he first placated the pope with gifts, his subjects with gentle treatment, the prelates and Archbishop Stephen of Canterbury (whom he had exiled) with permission to return. He received absolution from the pope and handed over the kingdom in fee, promising to pay in recognition a thousand marks each year, seven hundred from England and three hundred from Ireland.
The Chronicle Provides Support for Royal Policy Such was the ideological industry that occupied Cromwell and his staff during the autumn of 1532 and the following winter. Lady Anne conceived the king’s child early in December, as the Court came to know in January when Henry secretly married her. If the child was to be born Henry’s legitimate successor, he urgently required the legal cancellation of Catherine as queen consort. The king decided finally to give up his Roman hopes and to make an Anglican solution of his problem. To prove that the king of England was, and the pope was not, head of the Christian Church in England was much to ask of a medieval Chronicle
17 The Latin texts are in Appendix A. 18 Those customs were the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164). 19 The Latin text is in Appendix A.
154
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
from France, but Henry’s supporters at Greenwich had searched diligently and had served him passages of the Chronicle that fed his sense of offended justice and his indignation against the pope. Eustace Chapuys wrote to the emperor on 15 March 1533:20 I was with him two hours this morning, walking and talking in his garden . . . . He said that your long stay with the Pope, and the great humility you had shown to him, had much irritated Germany . . . . He began to say a thousand things of the Pope, among others, of the vanity of letting his feet be kissed,21 and of his great ambition, and the authority he assumed over the Empire and the other realms of Christendom, creating or deposing emperors and kings at his pleasure; and that he had lately got hold of a book, which he thought had been stolen (robé) in the Pope’s library, in which the pope claimed all the kings of Christendom as their feudatories, even the king of France, and moreover the dukes of Bavaria; and for his part he meant to remedy it, and repair the error of kings Henry II and John, who by deceit, being in difficulties, had made this realm and Ireland tributary, and that he was determined also to reunite to the Crown the goods which churchmen held of it, which his predecessors could not alienate to his prejudice, and that he was bound to do this by the oath he had taken at his coronation. Yesterday and today it was proposed in Parliament to make a statute declaring the Pope had no authority in this kingdom; which many people have found very strange. Nevertheless, every one thinks it will go further; for the King is entirely set upon it, and has arranged all his policy to this end.
Henry had come to his garden stroll with Chapuys fresh from a session with the Chronicle in Cromwell’s workshop, as his references to Henry II and John make clear. His secretarial staff had no reason to show him Thomas Howard’s exlibris and autograph, and the king, supposing that one of his agents had lifted the Chronicle from the Vatican library, remained oblivious of the duke’s contribution to his Great Cause. Henry VIII was as good as his angry word; he kept his promise to avenge the wrongs done to Henry II by Thomas Becket and Alexander III. He reversed what he understood as concessions offered to the popes by those kings; and he seized back from the religious orders in England the many royal grants they had received, and more. The dissolution of the monasteries, under the enthusiastic direction of Thomas Cromwell, included the destruction of the tomb-shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in 1538, a deliberately shocking example. The tomb was stripped of its jeweled gold and silver offerings and razed to the church pavement, and the bones of the former saint were burned and the ashes (as one later
20 Letters and Papers, 6:107–10, no. 235; Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 309 at n. 3. 21 Emperors had used more upright and dignified reverences to popes in the past, but John Hacket, English ambassador to the Low Countries, had reported to Norfolk letters from Bologna telling that in December 1532, “the Emperor with great humility kissed the pope’s foot, ‘happy hit was not in no nother place’.” Letters and Papers, 6:12.
The Chronicle Provides Support for Royal Policy
155
witness heard) were shot from a cannon over Canterbury at Cromwell’s orders. That was in September. In the king’s proclamation of 16 November we hear the words of the Chronicle echoing off the granite cliff of the Anglican secession: It appeareth now clearly, that Thomas Becket, sometime archbishop of Canterburie, stubbornly to withstand the wholesome laws established against the enormities of the clergy, by the king’s highness’ most noble progenitor, King Henry the Second, for the common wealth, rest, and tranquility of this realm; of his froward mind, fled the realm into Fraunce, and to the bishop of Rome, maintainer of these enormities, to procure the abrogation of the said laws, whereby arose much trouble in the said realm, . . . and further, that his canonization was made only by the bishop of Rome, because he had been a champion to maintain his usurped authority, and a bearer of the iniquity of the clergy.22
He went on to cancel Becket’s canonization and abolish his saint’s cult, erasing his name from the liturgical books. The “tribute” conceded by King John to Innocent III was simply Peter’s Pence regularized in a large round annual sum. When the Reformation Parliament in 1534 passed an Act reserving dispensations to national authorities, two words were slipped into the Act to abolish Peter’s Pence.23 That where your subjects of this your realm, and of other countries and dominions being under your obeisance, by many years past have been and yet be greatly decayed and impoverished by such intolerable exactions of great sums of money as have been claimed and taken and yet continually be claimed and taken out of this your realm, and other your said countries and dominions, by the bishop of Rome called the pope, and the see of Rome, as well in pensions, censes, Peter pence, procurations, fruits, . . . in great derogation of your imperial crown and authority royal, contrary to right and conscience; for where this your Grace’s realm, recognizing no superior under God but only your Grace, hath been and is free from subjection to any man’s laws . . . . May it therefore please your most noble majesty . . . to ordain and enact, by the assent of your lords spiritual and temporal and the commons in this your present parliament assembled, and by authority of the same, that no person or persons of this your realm or of any other your dominions shall from henceforth pay any pensions, censes, portions, Peter pence, or any other impositions to the use of the said bishop or of the see of Rome.
Cromwell shared, or at least he echoed, the king’s reliance on written history as proof that his was an imperial authority, with no superior on earth. That assertion headed the preamble to the Act in Restraint of Appeals, passed by Parliament
22 Transcribed in BL, Cotton Titus B 1. See Arthur James Mason, What Became of the Bones of St. Thomas?, 140–52; and William Urry and Peter A. Rowe, Thomas Becket: His Last Days, 176–80. 23 J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents, 32–34.
156
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
in April 1533. No history was named in particular, and no particular passages were quoted.24 Where by dyvers sundrie olde autentike histories and Chronicles it is manifestlie declared and expressed that this realme of Englonde is an Impier and so hathe been accepted in the worlde governed by one supreme hed and king havyng the dignite and royall estate of the imperiall crowne of the same . . .
The Chronicle in the New Library, Westminster; Page Markers for the King Between 1530 and 1533 Wolsey’s York Place was rebuilt, renamed Whitehall, and incorporated into the grand royal palace complex of Westminster.25 Two rooms in Westminster Palace were designated as libraries. First came “the litle Study called the newe Librarye,” fifty yards along the king’s privy gallery that ran west from the royal apartments.26 Henry gathered books there to serve his current need for ideological ammunition. Among the Privy Purse expenses for books in 1531–1532 we find £45.15.7 paid to the armorer Erasmus to “garnish” perhaps 112 books with bosses, clasps, and corner guards, at about 8 s. 7 d. each.27 This was the moment when the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle was finally “set forth” for the king’s use. After flyleaf ii there is tipped in a small parchment label that reads Cronica fratris Guilielmi / de Nangis Monachi san/cti Dionysii in Francia and has six tack-holes; this had been fastened on the former front cover under a transparent flake of horn, like the labels of other Westminster books. This label was written in the same light, well separated, italic hand as the parchment page markers, and the page markers were made for Henry’s attention before the king wrote his own notes in the margins (See Figure 15). We are clear that the Chronicle manuscript came to Westminster after March 1533, when the king exclaimed about it to Chapuys at Greenwich, but long before the king died in 1547. 24 According to Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 273, “it was clearly referring to Geoffrey of Monmouth and the rest of them. True enough, the allusion is cryptic. It had to be, if the statute were to remain respectable. But there is no doubt about the allusion.” Transcribed here is the working draft of the Act from BL, Cotton Cleopatra E.VI, fols. 179–202, at 180r. The draft was written with each line followed by three blank lines to permit additions and corrections, and the corrections included Henry VIII’s, but the printed prologue is identical to the draft except for spelling. See G. R. Elton, “The Evolution of a Reformation Statute,” English Historical Review 64 (1949) 174–97. 25 Simon Thurley, Whitehall Palace, 25–39. 26 Maria Hayward, The 1542 Inventory of Whitehall, 1:47, and the reconstructed 1547 plan in Figure 1 following p. 122. 27 Sarah Treverbian Prideaux, An Historical Sketch of Bookbinding, 186.
The Chronicle in the New Library, Westminster; Page Markers for the King
157
Figure 15: BL Royal 13 E IV, 399r and the bookmark at AD 1195, where it was bound into the codex. The note, “Divorce between Philip and Isemburga, consanguinity having been proven between this wife and the one he had previously,” alerted Henry VIII to a possible precedent for his desired divorce from Catherine of Aragon, who had been betrothed to his brother Arthur. By permission of the British Library.
The tenor of the page markers, and then of Henry’s subsequent marginal comments, suggests a date early within that frame. The topics of concern had not changed since early 1533: incest as an impediment to valid marriage; emperors and popes; and (according to our guess) Pope Alexander III condemning English customs at the instance of Thomas Becket. The page markers were tipped in horizontal when the book was rebound about 1900, each one close to the passage to which it refers, but they are smudged at one end where they had protruded from the pages when, originally, they were vertical bookmarks. They were intended as indices to guide the king’s reading. They were written in a light italic hand by a humanist scholar who knew where to restore the Latin diphthong ae and where not, but who hesitated to use it in heresis, a word borrowed from Greek.28 The scribe had prepared his
28 The scribe was likely Pieter Meghan, writer of the king’s books from 1530 to 1540; or possibly Nicholas Bristow, clerk to Anthony Denny, keeper of the Palace of Westminster, but Bristow first appears in the expense records in 1539.
158
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
sentences under the guidance of one of Henry’s counselors, and he copied them on whole sheets of clean parchment, then sliced them apart and slipped them into their places. Thirteen markers and one fragment remain, perhaps most of those that were written. They are all transcribed below, including one that we have recreated from nearly nothing. Most of the page markers refer to passages of the text that had already been flagged for attention. Here # indicates a passage flagged # by the Greenwich annotators; and / indicates a passage that they bracketed. An H means that Henry VIII later added his own marginal note. *** 14r (AM 2288) # / [caught in the gutter: privilegia] patriarcharum non faciunt legem. 233v (AD 386) Universalis synodus iubente Theodosio, annuente papa. 233v (AD 386) # / [Priscillian]us in causa heresis Imperatorem appellat, auditur et iudicatur. 243v (AD 433) # / Imperator congregat synodum in qua se papa purgat. 275r (AD 571) # / [Divortio] uxoris et mariti quod illa propriae filiae sit facta commater. 277r (AD 580) # Notatur hic divinae legi iniuriam inferre qui duxit uxorem patris. 315r (AD 773) # / H Papa cum universa synodo Karolo potestatem eligendi pontificem, ordinandi sedem apostolicam, [e]piscopos per singulas provincias investiendi. [This marker is very dirty at its left end: Papa and ep.os per are nearly illegible.] 330v (AD 823) # / [Excusavit se] papa coram populo et legatis Imperatorum. 351v (AD 963) # / H Evocatus ad respondendum causis quibus infamabatur dum cunctatur, electione om/nium et consensu Imperatoris alter [papa] loco eius substituitur. 356v (AD 992) # / [Imperator] constituit papam Romanum. 361v (AD 1023) # / H Imperator et Rex francorum conveniunt tractaturi de statu ecclesiae et Imperii. [This marker was found loose, not tipped in, facing 362v.] 388r (AD 1163) # / Consuetudinum regis Angliae observatores a Papa Alexandro condempnati sunt. [This is merely a guess about the reading of a torn-off dirty inner fragment of a marker, found loose between 353v and 354r, which reads tores a followed by a capital consonant.] 399r (AD 1195) # / Divortium inter Philippum et Isemburgem, probata consanguinitate inter hanc uxorem et eam quam prius habuit. 400r AD 1197) # Convocatur concilium in quo tractatur de matrimonio Isemburgae vel confirmando vel separando.
Marginal Comments by Henry VIII
159
This last marker has scraps of the writing of another at its bottom, showing that the markers were written out on whole sheets, then cut apart for insertion at their proper places. But no marker survives which correspondingly has the tops of some of its letters cut off.
Marginal Comments by Henry VIII When Henry himself turned to the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle, he read it with the guidance of the the marginal # and wavy bracket lines and the parchment page markers placed there to aid him. He added fourteen marginal notes of his own, and these provide intriguing glimpses of his own views of his problems and projects. He remarked on only one passage before the Christian era, on the British king Belinus, whom the Chronicle had made a contemporary of Ezra. The text of 90v tells how the king of Denmark stole a Norwegian princess at sea from Briennus the warring brother of Belinus, but then was driven by a storm onto the shore of Britain.29 “And so, taken captive by King Belinus, he became his man, received Denmark back from him on condition of tribute, and went home in peace with his new bride.” Henry made the most of the passage: nota tributum a Danis regi Belino datum, “note the tribute given to King Belinus by the Danes,” that is to say, to a British emperor by a subject kingdom. Henry found an early example of an English (well, a Kentish) king as head of the Church (or at least as a planter and champion of Christianity) on 293v (AD 640): “When Ealdbald king of the Kentish English died, his son Cantombert reigned after him twenty-five years. He was the first in England to destroy their idols, and he spread the faith of Christ and commanded by law that the Lenten fast should be observed in England,” and the king wrote prima destructio ydolum in Anglia, “the first destruction of idols in England.” Short notes to two passages about invalid marriages show Henry still concerned about the validity of his excuses for ending his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. On 275r (AD 571) he found the story of a marriage ended by a sacramental complication and added his bene nota: When King Chilperic was on campaign with his brother, Queen Audovera . . . bore him a daughter. By the deceitful advice of her handmaid Fredegund (with whom the king was wont to lie) Audovera herself took up the infant from the sacred font. Fredegund met the
29 Taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, 35–38. This and other Latin passages from the Chronicle will be found in Appendix A.
160
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
king on his return and accosted him, saying, “How glorious King Chilperic will seem today, as he comes back a victor, his enemies vanquished, and a most beautiful daughter, Childesinta, born to him! But tonight, for sorrow, a sin will be committed by you!” The king asked what sin that was, and once he realized that the queen, by taking up the baby from the font, had become godmother with him, she answered, “If Audovera has cheated you of her embraces, I will take you as my bedfellow.” The queen met him as he was hurrying to his hall, carrying in her arms the baby that she had borne twice, so to speak. The king said to her “O queen, you have perpetrated something unspeakable, and out of keeping with the royal majesty. I will not be able to have you as wife, since you have taken on the name of godmother with me.” Afterward he drove into exile the bishop who had baptized the child and shut the queen away in a monastery with her daughter, granting them, however, ample wealth and resources.
King Henry may have seen here a distant mirror of his own dealing with Wolsey, the Dowager Catherine, and Princess Mary. On 396r (AD 1189) he marked notabile to a politically motivated annulment: After the death of Sibyl, Guy [of Lusignan] lost his right to the kingdom of Jerusalem, which fell to a sister of the queen named Isabella, wife of Humphrey of Toron. She was separated from Humphrey, on the ground that he had married her underage and unwilling, and she was given as wife to marquis Conrad [of Montferrat], who in this way gained control of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
Henry expressed his contempt for Flemings by writing nota pro Gallis, “this for the Gauls” on 335v (AD 856) to the text “The land of Flanders did not use to be so great in repute or wealth as it appears in modern times. It was ruled by some soldiers who were called the foresters of the king of France.” The other nine of Henry’s fourteen marginal remarks had to do with the pope. On 291v (AD 632) he added a wry nota bene to a sentence packed full of misinformation: This Mohamed, to whom the pagans still offer divine worship, set over all the emirs a certain “caliph,” which in their language means “pope.” He set up his throne in the city of Baghdad and decreed that he should be seen only twice a month.
Seven of Henry’s notes, half the total, call attention to examples of secular monarchs imposing order on popes. On 299v (AD 680) he wrote nota bene to this: Pope Agatho tells us that, in answer to his petition, he received an imperial order lightening the amount paid by custom to permit the ordination of a pontiff, provided that, when an election is held after his death, the chosen one should not be ordained unless a formal notice is first brought to the royal city [Constantinople], according to the ancient custom, so that the ordination would proceed with the knowledge and permission [of the imperial court].
On the same page Henry echoed de Constantinopoli concilio iussu imperatoris congregato to the essential point of the text:
Marginal Comments by Henry VIII
161
The sixth universal synod gathered at Constantinople. John, deacon of the Roman church, and John, bishop of Porto, legates of Pope Agatho, were there with two hundred eighty-nine bishops, assembled there at the order of Emperor Constantine to destroy the Monothelite heresy. The presidents of this Council were the bishops George of Constantinople and Macharius of Antioch, together with those legates of the Roman church. Bishop George was corrected and cured of the Monothelite heresy with which he had been infected.
At 311r we read that Pope Stephen II visited Paris in 752 and, “when they were sitting together in the oratory [of Saint-Denis], the pope tearfully begged the king to take charge of the cause of Saint Peter and the common weal of the Roman people.” Henry wrote nota bene to this instance of lay governance over the Roman church. Pope Adrian I in the Roman synod of 773, we are told on 315v, gave to him [Charles, king of the Franks] the right to choose the pontiff and to regulate the Apostolic See, and also gave him the title of Patrician. Furthermore, he decreed that the archbishops and the bishops in their several provinces should take investiture from the king, and that if a bishop was not approved and invested by the king, he should be consecrated by no one. And the pope anathematized all who would rebel against this decree, and ordered their goods to be confiscated if they did not change their opinion.
Dean Fillastre had made hash of this passage in 1406, but Henry gave it his nota bene. In 963 Pope John XII ignored three calls to appear before an Italian church council and answer unspeakable criminal charges. Henry read on 351v, “Leo [VIII], as yet a layman, was put into his place by the election of all and the consent of the emperor,” and he remarked Notabile hoc quidem: “This is notable indeed.” Similarly, on 364r, he read that the simoniac Benedict IX and the unpopular Sylvester III were replaced while still alive by Gregory VI in 1045, and he wrote nota ac bene nota. The passage on 361v recounting an event of 1023 impressed him even more on a second reading: Henry [II] emperor of the Romans and Robert [II] king of the French met on the river Chiers at Carignan to treat of the status of the church, the kingdom, and the empire, and it was agreed that, to confirm their agreements, they would together meet the pope at Pavia at an opportune time.
Henry wrote nota to that, and later, in a lighter ink, added bene and above that a cross decorated with four dots on its arms. Henry was ready in the summer of 1533 to appeal his case to a general council of the church, and this passage of the Chronicle may have suggested that he and other secular sovereigns might call such a council and have it decide much wider questions.
162
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
Henry VIII and Boniface VIII: Codifiers of Canon Law As he paged to the end of the Chronicle, on the penultimate folio the king’s eye fell on a passage that called for his careful reading (See Figure 16). Shortly before his own death, Guillaume de Nangis had written his account of the year 1297. Henry read on 444r of the Royal manuscript:30
Figure 16: MS Royal 13 E IV, 444r, detail. King Henry VIII made a telling comment on Pope Boniface VIII’s code of canon law: “Note the authority of the Sixth Book of Decretals.” By permission of the British Library. Pope Boniface [VIII], in his diligent spirit and his earnest care for the stability and advantage of the universal church, had caused certain new constitutions to be compiled and arranged by men skilled in law, both canon and civil. On the third day of May he handed those constitutions over to be read in the full Consistory before all who were present. They were read through several times with great care, and then approved by the cardinals, and so the pontiff decreed that they should be added to the fifth book of the Decretals and become a Sixth Book.
There is no information in that paragraph of the Chronicle beyond what was contained in the prefatory letter to the Liber Sextus.31 King Henry, who had initiated the compilation of his own new code of English Canon Law in 1532, recognized the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII as an exercise of princely prerogative, like the code he intended to issue, carried out with the help of professional legal scholars, like those he intended to use. He wrote his own # Nota, and later auctoritatem Sexti Libri Decretalium, “Note the authority of the Sixth Book of Decretals.” Prerogative and academic authority, he meant, not apostolic or divine.32
30 The Latin text is in Appendix A. 31 Friedberg 2:933–36. 32 Donald Logan rediscovered the manuscript of Henry VIII’s code of canon law within one of the Yelverton MSS: “The Henrician Canons,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 47 (1974) 99–103. It is now BL Additional 48040, 14r–103r. The manuscript was edited with an English translation by Gerald Bray, Tudor Church Reform. The 1535 canons are carried on pp. 1–143, introduced pp. xv–xli.
Henry VIII and Boniface VIII: Codifiers of Canon Law
163
On 10 May 1532, the Convocation of Canterbury received three articles from the king, drafted by Thomas Cromwell; these were adopted after five days’ heated debate. The articles were promises by Convocation not to assemble or legislate without royal permission, and to submit all their previous enactments to the review of a board consisting of sixteen members of Parliament and sixteen clergy. That panel would decide which canons were to be abrogated as contrary to divine law and royal prerogative, and which ones were to stand henceforth by royal authority. The legislation to create the board of review went through Parliament in March 1534, but in July a five-man commission was at work trying to draft a code which would include the valid canon law of the realm and consign to oblivion whatever it left out. The members were Thomas Thirlby, the king’s chaplain, and four members of Doctors’ Commons: John Oliver, Edward Carne (lately the king’s legal researcher in the Vatican library), William Bretten, and John Hewys. On 25 July, as they confessed to the king, “we have met sundry times at the Blackfriars, London, to debate such matters as you proposed to us but cannot set them forth without the help of men learned in the laws of God and of the realm.” In 1535 William Bretten was out, and the group was headed by Dr. Richard Gwent instead of Thirlby. Their work that summer did produce a result, “an updating of the existing law carried out from within a deeply conservative guild of lawyers.”33 The resulting Henrician Code comprises 360 canons, mostly derived from the Corpus juris canonici and civilis and from Lyndwood’s Provinciale and its basic authority, the Legatine Constitutions of Cardinals Otto (1237) and Ottobuono (1268); some Statutes of the Realm were also included. In imitation of the Liber Sextus, the canons were distributed among thirty-six topical titles. Although the Henrician canons are generally no more than a statement of what the law was (or was thought to be) at the time they were compiled, there are instances where real changes were introduced. Even if many of them were thought of as corrections or clarifications of the existing law, and not as innovations, innovations are what they actually were. Whether they would have survived the sort of scrutiny which would have been required if they were ever to be enacted into law is uncertain, but their appearance in this compilation is a reminder to us of how difficult it is for anyone to undertake a comprehensive codification of the law without changing it in the process.34
The same could be said, almost verbatim, about the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII (1298). Since the promulgation of the Five Books of Decretals by Gregory IX in 1234 there had been a mass of papal letters and conciliar constitutions, a body of
33 This historical background from Bray, xv–xxix. 34 Bray, xxxviii.
164
Chapter 10 In the Library of Henry VIII
law too complex for any but the legal scholars to handle. Boniface wished to reclaim control of Canon Law from the professors of the major schools, and also to introduce new laws without the bothersome exercise of issuing letters, or the adjudication of select disputes, or debate by the cardinals in Consistory. To select and arrange his definitive code, Boniface appointed two leading canonists, the bishop of Béziers and the archbishop of Embrun, and his own vice-chancellor, Ricardo Petronio. Petronio had a triple function: to provide from the Chancery’s registers the authentic texts of the papal letters that were now to be universal law; to draft the new decrees of Boniface VIII that would appear for the first time in the new compilation; and to deploy the scribal manpower to write the official exemplars of the new code for transmission to the major schools of law: Bologna, Padua, Toulouse, the Roman Curia itself, Paris, and Oxford. Boniface and his commission consciously restructured canon law, but they gave their code the look of stable custom by arranging the laws under the topical titles that were well known from the Decretals, and in the same order.35 Similarly, Henry’s intention, as implemented by his commission of four, was to replace the substantive ecclesiastical law of England with a relatively short and simple code in which there were no limitations on his royal prerogative. The final draft of Henry’s Code was provided with a resounding royal letter of promulgation like the letter of Boniface VIII for the Liber Sextus, but Henry’s code never was promulgated and perhaps never even seen by the king. It is a feeble piece of legal writing, clumsily worded, repetitive, and incoherently organized. It was supplanted in the time of Edward VI by the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum.
The Chronicle in the Upper Library, Westminster The king read the Chronicle, a full magazine of useful historical ammunition, in the New Library of his private study, but he also had in mind a permanent state library of books, prepared to last in use for decades. The King’s Gate, much later called Holbein Gatehouse, was built early in the 1530s to join the privy gallery to the “park and sporting complex to the west” across King Street.36 Above the gate was another secret study for the king, and above that, in a room with the best light and the least damp, about 14 by 32 feet plus semicircular corner
35 Author Williman identified the ur-manuscript in “A Liber Sextus from the Bonifacian Library: Vatican Borghese 7,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law n. s. 7 (1977): 103–108. 36 Thurley, Whitehall Palace, 25 and 32–33 (color reconstruction) and Figures 18 (plan), 28 (seventeenth century engraving), and 30 (1724 engraving).
The Chronicle in the Upper Library, Westminster
165
enlargements, was the Upper Library, the original bookstack of the Old Royal Library and the nucleus of the British Library. James Carley has provided the fullest possible inventory and description of the Upper Library at Westminster.37 As listed in Anthony Denny’s inventory of 27 May 1542, there were two ranges of books on opposite sides of the gatehouse upper room, 573 books, mostly printed, and 335 old ones, mostly manuscript.38 Each of those two series was arranged alphabetically. At a later time all those volumes were dovetailed into a single alphabetical series, and each one was then marked in the upper right corner of an early folio with its serial number, No. 3 to No. 910. It is important to note that the 1542 inventory did not count the books in the New Library of the king’s privy lodging, where we presume the Chronicle still remained at that date. Only later, and probably after the death of Henry VIII in January 1547, the Royal manuscript of the Chronicle came into the Upper Library system.39 In addition to the surviving volumes that match actual entries in the inventory, almost three hundred books have been discovered with numbers between 917 and 1450 in the characteristic format. Most are found in the modern British Library, to which the Henrician collections ultimately descended . . . . Although no inventory now exists for these books, labels, titles, incipits, and other indications make quite clear that No. 911 to No. 1356 [446 items] were organized alphabetically from A to V. No. 1357 begins a new [third] series which seems to have carried up to No. 1448 . . . . Presumably the first group must have been assembled and put into alphabetical order before a new group was begun.
Our Royal manuscript bears No. 1000, and so it was in the second group of 446 books which were gathered into the Upper Library and alphabetized some time after the 1542 inventory.
37 The Libraries of King Henry VIII, especially 30–34. 38 Hayward assigned these books numbers 2398 to 3305 in The 1542 Inventory of Whitehall, volume 2. 39 Carley, Libraries of King Henry VIII, 171–72.
Chapter 11 In the British Royal Library For the last four centuries and a half, our Chronicle codex has been part of the English royal and national library, sharing the vicissitudes of Henry VIII’s libraries.1 When Henry died in 1547, the books that he had accumulated were in the New Library and the Upper Library of Westminster Palace, under the care of William Tyldesley. The Chronicle codex was in the Upper Library of Westminster Palace after 1542, witness its serial mark “No. 1000.”2 It is fourteenth in the select list of works noted by John Bale (ca. 1548): Chronica Guilhelmi de Nangis, liber i.3 Edward VI succeeded his father, under the guidance of a Council of Regency, at age 9. Educated by Cranmer as a strong Protestant, in 1551 he purged his father’s book collection of “works of superstition” such as missals and lectionaries. Most of Henry’s library remained at Westminster, but before King Edward died in 1553 he gathered a library of his own in a single small room of St. James’s Palace in Pall Mall.4 There is an intriguing hint that in pursuit of his own anti-papal studies, he had the Chronicle volume brought over to St. James’s from the Upper Library of Westminster: Quaequidem [Chronica] scitissimis caracteribus scripta extabant in Eduardi VI Angliae Regis Bibliotheca.5 In a letter to Matthew Parker of 30 July 1560, John Bale mentioned this Chronica Guilhelmi de Nangis monachi Dionysiani,6 and his Index tells more:7 Guilhelmus de Nangis, monachus S. Dionysij in Francia, scripsit, Chronicon, li. i. ‘Cum infinita sint temporum gesta, gestorumque digestores quamplurimi,’ etc. A creatione mundi usque ad A. D. 1301. Liber vero incipit ‘In primordio temporis ante omnem diem’ etc. Ex bibliotheca domini regis. Otherwise, the royal Westminster collection seems to have remained in place for half a century, through the reign of Mary Tudor and that of Elizabeth I, who died in 1603. James I granted St. James’s Palace as residence to his eldest son Henry Frederick, and in 1610 that short-lived prince of Wales ordered the building of a
1 Warner and Gilson, xiv–xxxii; Carley, Libraries of King Henry VIII, xlvi–lxxxiii. 2 Carley, Libraries of King Henry VIII, 180. 3 Carley, Libraries of King Henry VIII, 250–51, 254. 4 The palace had been built for Henry VIII on the site of the former leper hospital of St. James. For its library rooms see Edgar Sheppard, Memorials of St. James’s Palace, 2:373–85. 5 In the Chigi manuscript of the Chronicle, q.v. in chapter 3. 6 Timothy Graham and Andrew G. Watson, The Recovery of the Past in Early Elizabethan England: Documents by John Bale and John Joscelyn from the Circle of Matthew Parker, 30. 7 John Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, 139. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-011
168
Chapter 11 In the British Royal Library
new Library Gallery in St. James’s to house the collection of some 320 manuscript and 2400 printed books that the king had acquired from John, late Lord Lumley. King James also began the shift of the Westminster books to St. James’s, a process that Charles I largely completed before he was beheaded in 1649. The Commonwealth government was divided on the question whether to sell or to preserve the formerly royal libraries, but Protector Cromwell decided that “the publicke library of St. James” was a property of the nation, and so the restoration of Charles II in 1660 found it still there, neglected, disordered, and dirty, but unpillaged: the shelf-list of 1666, fol. 8, shows the Chronicle still in place at St. James’s. The short reign of William and Mary brought in the great philologist Richard Bentley as keeper of the Royal Library at St. James’s, although Bentley considered the Library gallery “not fit to be seen.” While Bentley labored to get the books into more suitable housing, in 1697 Edward Barnard’s Catalogi Manuscriptorum Angliae was published, including a thorough if faulty inventory of the manuscripts in Aedibus Jacobeis.8 That year the books which had remained behind at Westminster were lost when the palace burned. Early in the eighteenth century began the close association of the royal manuscripts with those of the antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton. In Cotton House, near the Houses of Parliament, each bookcase was decorated with the bust of a Roman emperor (or a lady, Cleopatra or Faustina) whose name is still the first element of a Cottonian shelf-mark. The manuscripts, together with the capacious but dilapidated Cotton House, were left to the nation by the founder’s grandson when he died in 1702. Sir Christopher Wren surveyed the library rooms of both St. James’s Palace and Cotton House in 1703, with a view to creating for both libraries a new hall connected to the Parliament House. The books of St. James’s were moved into Cotton House, but the new construction was never funded, and in 1722 both collections were moved again, into Essex House in the Strand. At the end of the seven-year lease the landlord claimed compensation for damage, and also raised the rent, and so the books moved yet again, to Little Dean’s Yard, Westminster, into the house of the first Earl of Ashburnham, which was considered (despite that ominous name) safer from fire than any of the old royal palace buildings. There the Royal manuscripts were arranged in bookcases and given the shelf-marks which they still bear, in the pattern that still marks the Royal collection. Ours, for example, was in bookcase 13, shelf E, place IV. At two o’clock
8 Edward Bernard and Humphrey Wanley, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti, vol. 2, part 1: Publicae quam privatae Angliae bibliothecae (Oxford, 1697), in the inventory Librorum manuscriptorum in Aedibus Jacobaeis catalogus, Libri Historici . . . 8322 [the Bernard serial number]. 600 [St. James serial number]. Guillelmi de Nangis Chronicon, à condito mundo usque ad an. 1300.
Chapter 11 In the British Royal Library
169
in the morning of 23 October 1731 a fire broke out in the chimney of a stove in the room below the library, and although nearly all the Royal manuscripts remained unburned, a quarter of the Cotton collection were either destroyed or seriously damaged. Books were saved by being thrown out of the windows and taken in at the dormitories of Westminster School nearby. There they were catalogued in 1734 by their keeper David Casley, who gave 13 E IV a fifteenth-century date.9 The Royal manuscripts remained in Westminster School, increasingly dusty and out of order; eventually they were being shown to the curious by the wife of the aged and infirm David Casley. Then the British Museum Act of 1753 promised them a home in Montagu House, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury.10 There the Chronicle codex arrived in 1757 like an alien refugee, stripped of its proud Parisian velvet cover and clasps, its cover boards broken, and its hempen binding threads decaying. The codex went eventually (about 1900, according to the Museum’s own note) to the British Museum’s binder, and emerged with a new leather cover on cardboards, lacking the history of Scipio Africanus, and bearing an irrational new arabic foliation in pencil.11 The catalogue of Warner and Gilson, published in 1921, was much more thorough and scientific than its predecessors, and it provided for 13 E IV the secundo-folio reading –tis et vocatum which indicated to us a link to the duc de Berry. From August 1939 to May 1946, the Royal manuscripts took refuge from the Luftwaffe under the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.12 Royal manuscript 13 E IV lay, rebound and accessible, in the manuscript deposit of the British Museum when the authors visited the Students’ Room for Manuscripts on 3 June 1997,13 pursuing other questions; but the transfer of the
9 Casley, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the King’s Library (London, 1734). Following the author’s preface, “Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae,” p. 227: 13 E. IV. Gulielmi de Nangis Chronica ab Adam ad A.D. 1300. XV [century]. Liber aliquando Thomae Ducis Norfolciae, qui vixit sub H[enrico] 8. Is propria manu nomen scripsit ad finem Codicis. The number of Casley’s page on which this notice occurs, “p. 227,” was written in the upper right corner of the first folio of the Royal manuscript itself. 10 The rooms where the Old Royal collection was stored and the manuscripts studied can be traced in P. R. Harris, A History of the British Museum Library (London: Briish Library, 1998), 6, 7, 53. 11 The pencil numeration seems to have begun as a mere translation of roman numerals to arabic; but the bookmarks were to be numbered in pencil as well, and these had not previously been counted in the Roman numeration. When the renumbering came to the lacuna of 12 folia, the difference between the numerations became even greater. We recommend that the pencil numbers be ignored. 12 Harris, History of the British Museum Library, 552–64. 13 And Enoch Soames was bitterly disappointed in the round Reading Room, if Max Beerbohm is to be believed: Seven Men (1919).
170
Chapter 11 In the British Royal Library
whole library, print and manuscript, to its new home beside St. Pancras Station was already fated and scheduled. That shift took place in 1998.
Epilogue: The Curious Incident of Delisle in the British Museum We return to Léopold Delisle (1826–1910), the Norman codicological master who appeared in chapter 2 with his genealogy of the Paris manuscripts of the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, and then in chapter 5 as editor of the library records of the duc de Berry, including the borrowed copy of Guillaume’s Chronicle which we have proven to be the Royal manuscript.
Figure 17: Léopold Delisle, Administrateur général de la Bibliothèque nationale, about 1900. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
Epilogue: The Curious Incident of Delisle in the British Museum
171
Léopold Delisle was a scholar and publicist of manuscript books and a public librarian on the heroic scale. Certified as archiviste paléographe of the Ecole des Chartes in 1849, he entered the Bibliothèque nationale in 1852 and ascended in 1872, by his diligent study and excellent management of the collections, to be its administrator general. Already his deep knowledge of the department of manuscripts and its losses by theft had put him on the trail of two notable villains, Joseph Barrois and then Guglielmo Libri.14 Joseph Barrois (1785–1855) was member of the Chamber of Deputies for Lille, his birthplace, and a fervent bibliophile, editor of medieval library inventories, beginning with the French royal and Burgundian ducal libraries in his Bibliothèque protypographique (1830). He became an energetic collector, then a successful dealer in manuscripts. Delisle reported:15 In a few years, Barrois came to be the owner of more than 700 manuscripts . . . . Unfortunately, a tenth of that collection came from an unclean source: one of his purveyors made him receiver of more than sixty manuscripts recently stolen from the Bibliothèque royale, some of them especially chosen to suit the well-known tastes of the rich amateur: the thief had been perceptive enough to take several volumes from the famous Louvre Library of Charles V. Barrois had given an inventory of that library first place in his Bibliothèque protypographique, and he rebound those precious relics in covers with the arms of Charles V in mosaic.
There were rumors early in the 1840s that another learned bibliophile and dealer, Guglielmo Libri (1802–1869), had been offering for sale certain precious manuscripts whose possession he was unable convincingly to explain. In April 1847 Libri shipped sixteen large cases of manuscripts to a buyer in England, the fourth earl of
14 The account in this chapter follows that of Delisle in the preface to his Catalogue des manuscrits des fonds Libri et Barrois (Paris, 1888) v–xcvii; and the fine full study by P. Alessandra Maccioni Ruju and Marco Mostert, The Life and Times of Guglielmo Libri (1802–1869) (Hilversum, 1995) 320–24. See also Harris, History of the British Museum Library, 337–39. 15 Delisle, Catalogue des manuscrits des fonds Libri et Barrois, xl: En peu d’années, Barrois parvint à réunir chez lui un peu plus de sept cents manuscrits. . . . Malheureusement, le dixième au moins de cette collection provenait d’une source impure. L’un des pourvoyeurs de Barrois lui fit accepter plus de soixante manuscrits récemment volés à la Bibliothèque royale et dont quelques-uns avaient été spécialement choisis d’après les goûts bien connus du riche amateur; le voleur avait poussé le discernement jusqu’à prendre plusieurs volumes de la fameuse librairie que le roi Charles V avait installée dans une des tours du Louvre, et dont l’inventaire occupe la première place dans la Bibliothèque protypographique. Barrois ne manqua pas d’en reconnaître la glorieuse origine: il enchâssa ces précieuses reliques dans des relieures où les armes de Charles V sont figurées en mosaïque.
172
Chapter 11 In the British Royal Library
Ashburnham. Barrois did the same early in 1849. At first the earl kept foreigners out of his library, but in 1866 he admitted archiviste paléographe Paul Meyer, who sent a copy of the earl’s new catalogue to Delisle, who published an article noting 64 items that had been marked missing in an 1848 inventory of the Bibliothèque royale. The game was afoot in England, and early in the ‘80s Delisle was on the track. Guglielmo Libri had been professor of Mathematical Physics at Pisa and was highly respected as a scientific researcher when he came to the south of France in 1831 and began his quest in old libraries for materials in the history of science. Beginning the next year in Paris he climbed quickly to the apex of scholarly prestige, a professorship of the Sorbonne and membership of the Académie française. His historical work brought him a large collection of books, including medieval manuscripts, and by 1835 he was deeply involved in the Paris book auctions. In 1839 he applied for a position in the manuscript department of the Bibliothèque royale, but failing there, he found a place on a commission that had the task of cataloguing the manuscripts of all the departmental libraries of France. In 1841 he began inspecting those collections and stealing from them: Dijon, Lyon, Grenoble, Carpentras, Montpellier, Poitiers, Tours, Orléans.16 He mutilated his captives, forged Italian origins for many French manuscripts, divided and rebound books; but in spite of his precautions his reputation as a book thief endured and grew. Finally in 1850 he was found guilty of theft from public collections and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. When his appeal failed he fled to England, later to Tuscany, and he died at Fiesole in 1869. Delisle determined to recover for France the treasures that Libri and Barrois had sold to the fourth earl of Ashburnham. The fifth earl, a stubborn and greedy materialist, consigned the Libri and Barrois manuscripts for sale to the British Museum with an unreasonably high reserve price, and Delisle went there in 1883, with Paul Meyer and Julien Havet, to negotiate. He struggled doggedly on, against the intransigence of the heir, the stolid incredulity of the keepers in the British Museum, and the parsimony of the British and French treasuries, until eventually he got the necessary leverage from the German imperial and the Italian republican governments, and in 1888 he succeeded in recovering for the Bibliothèque nationale 99 Libri and 66 Barrois items, while the remainder became the Fondo Ashburnham-Libri in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence.17
16 Delisle, Catalogue des manuscrits des fonds Libri et Barrois, xii–xiv. 17 Delisle and Meyer later perused that fondo of the Laurenziana and published friendly notes identifying 30 manuscripts which were really of French, not Italian, provenance. And, knowing that Libri had “visited” Troyes (receiver of the library of the abbey of Clairvaux) in 1841, André Vernet, in La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Clairvaux du XIIe au XVIIIe siècle, found four more stolen Clairvaux manuscripts in the same fondo. We add another. The 1472 Clairvaux catalogue
Epilogue: The Curious Incident of Delisle in the British Museum
173
This brings us to the curious incident of Léopold Delisle in the British Museum. After all his days and weeks in London, he never wrote any observations on the World Chronicle codex, BL Royal MS 13 E IV. His deep study of the manuscripts of Guillaume de Nangis, which helped us so much in chapter 2, had been published in 1873, when Delisle was becoming obsessed with his pursuit of Libri. In that long article Delisle made a note of Royal MS 13 E IV that was based on David Casley’s 1734 description and gave the manuscript Casley’s mistaken date.18 In 1877 he published his “Notes sur quelques manuscrits du Musée Britannique,” not aware that he was missing anything important.19 During my recent visit to London, the inexhaustible willingness to please of the keepers of the British Museum permitted me to examine a certain number of volumes there which it is interesting to compare with some of our manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale.
Delisle’s “Notes” included an extended one on La Vie de saint Louis by Guillaume de Nangis in the same Royal collection, 13 B III. But of manuscript 13 E IV in that collection, not a word. Delisle never saw that. If he had, he would have recognized it as French and dated it accurately, and in his 1907 volume he would have identified it as an item once in the possession of the duc de Berry.20 Did Delisle not write out a request slip for Royal 13 E IV? It is morally certain that he did so, but the volume was not available. Was it at the bindery, perhaps at the behest of the keeper, Maunde Thompson? At one point, exasperated by Delisle’s persistence in pursuit of Libri’s plunder, Thompson had written to the fifth earl of Ashburnham, “These Frenchmen are too absurd. They are always screaming.” (See Figure 17) But about Royal MS 13 E IV? Not even a murmured “Eureka!”
reads: (1756.) Item ung autre petit texte d’Ethiques, commençant ou second feullet demonstrare et ex hiis, et finissant ou penultime unoquoque propter ainsi signé V 10. In the Laurenziana, the Ashburnham-Libri catalogue repeats the notice originally written by Libri: (No. 1557.) Ethica Aristotelis. Vél. 4to. Manuscrit sur vélin, in-4to, du XIII. siècle. Ce manuscrit, qui est enrichi d’un commentaire marginal, est en quelques parties palimpseste. When we opened no. 1557 we found its Clairvaux provenance proven beyond doubt. The folio that stands 6th, but is numbered 2 in red ink, begins demonstrare et ex hiis; folio 152v ends unoquoque propter; and the last page, 153v, has the Clairvaux shelfmark V.10. either faded or incompletely erased. 18 Delisle, “Mémoire,” 322 n. 4. 19 Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France 4 (1877): 183: “Dans un récent voyage à Londres, l’inépuisable complaisance des conservateurs du Musée britannique m’a permis d’examiner un certain nombre de volumes qu’il y avait intérêt à comparer avec quelques-uns de nos manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale.” 20 Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, vol. 2.
APPENDICES
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV 1v–2r (Prologue) Cum infinita sunt temporum gesta, gestorumque digestores quamplurimi, nec possunt ab omnibus vel haberi vel legi, non inutiliter duxi ex infinitis pauca colligere et in unum coartare compendium que legentium oblectamentum pariant et profectum. Jeronimus doctor ecclesie insignis, et fere omnium conscius scripturarum, talem dicit et tantum librum Paralipomenon, ut asserat illum se ipsum irridere qui sine eo divinarum scientiam sibi vendicat scripturarum. Rationemque assertionis sue subiungit quod in aliis libris pretermissas tangit hystorias, ex quorum intelligentia solvuntur innumerabiles Euvangelii questiones. Ergo hystoriis incognitis merito seipsum dicitur irridere; quisquis divine pagine vel prudentie iuvamine sibi peritiam vendicat obtinere. Nam, ut ait quidam ethnicus, vita aliena nobis magistra est; et qui ignotus est preteritorum, quasi cecus in futurorum prorumpit eventus. Valet enim notitia hystoriarum sive cronicarum ad statuendas vel evacuandas prescriptiones et privilegia roboranda vel infirmanda; nichilque post gratiam et legem Dei viventes rectius et validius instruit quam si gesta cognoverint decessorum. Nampe [sic] discribitur hic qualiter mundus fluxerit vel florens provectibus vel pressuris fuerit attritus, qualiter sunt res mutate, translata regna, regnorumque gloria ad nichilum devoluta, quomodo denique post adventum Christi Christianitas creverit, corruerit impietas, pietas triumphaverit. Liquet sane quia ex talibus taliumque conspectu, et despectus presentium et respectus oritur futurorum. Tunc enim, ut ait Beda, scripturis utiliter animum intendimus cum non solum in eis virtutes ac premia iustorum, verum etiam vitia vindictamque reproborum ad incitamenta nobis bene agendi proponimus. Seriem igitur ordinationis ab Eusebio Cesariensi, Jeronimo, et Sigiberto Gemblensi monacho factam ego secutus, nonnulla aliorum doctorum et hystoriographorum dicta intermiscens, ab initio mundi usque ad tempus meum textum narrationis mee perduxi. Eusebius quidem a nativitate Abrahe incipiens, usque ad [AD 329] vincennalia Constantini magni imperatoris Romani regnorum seriem regumque digessit. Cuius opusculum Jeronimus de Greco in Latinum transferens, et nonnulla intermiscens usque ad [AD 381] mortem Valentis imperatoris continuando protraxit. Abhinc [AD 381] Sygibertus studio multe lectionis edoctus, usque ad annum Domini milesimum centesimum duodecimum cautissima ordinatione contexuit. Cetera autem ego frater Guillelmus Sancti Dyonisii in Francia monachus subiungens (que ab aliis quidem digesta erant, sed non eodem modo ordinata) composui et alia mei temporis compilavi. Preterea rogo ne quis hec legens arguat [2r] https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-012
178
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
me de presumptione quod tantum opus incepi, vel improbet ista, donec prius inspexerit diligenter unde sint et quomodo dirivata. Sic enim perpendere poterit quod non mea indiscretione sunt acta, sed de alienis opusculis sincere transfusa. 14r (AM 2288) Nota quod secundum Augustinum ante legem non erat peccatum habitare cum pluribus uxoribus causa prolis, sed hoc facere causa libidinis semper fuit peccatum mortale, quia lex naturalis non permittit voluptatem carnis relaxari nisi ad propagationem vel conservationem humani generis. Quidam tamen dicunt quod sive causa prolis sive causa voluptatis nunquam licuit homini dividere carnem suam, et excusant Abraham et Jacob divina dicentes hec eos fecisse dispensatione. Et privilegia paucorum non faciunt, ut ait Jeronimus, legem communem. 90v (AM 3608) Dummallo rege Britannie mortuo, Belinus et Briennus filii eius pro regno compreliati sunt. Sed victus Briennus iunior filius Norvagiam petiit, ubi ducens filiam regis Norvagie exercitum Norvagensium in Britanniam adduxit. Rex autem Dacorum cum eandem puellam ducere preparasset, videns se frustratum est obviatus Brienno in mari. Et dum confligeret cum eo maxime intendens navi in qua puella residebat, illico puellam extraxit, et abrapta preda navi velocissime fugiens in fuga victor extitit. Sed mirabili tempestate orta in mari, rex Dacorum appulsus est in Britanniam cum preda sua dilectissima. Captus igitur a rege Belino, homo eius effectus est et tributarie Daciam recipiens ab eo cum coniuge sua nova in pace reversus est. 98v (ca. AM 3674) Trecenta milia Senonensium Gallorum duce Brenno, fratre regis Britannie Belini, qui apud ipsos confugerat, ad novas sedes querendas Ytaliam profecti Romam invaserunt, et pluribus Romanorum interfectis, arcem Capitolii obsidione cinxerunt. Ibique diu morati cum Romam fame artarentur, ab ipsis mille libras auri primum discessionis suscipientes, diversis agminibus alii Greciam, alii Macedoniam, alii Traciam petierunt, et sua prole velut quodam examine totam Asiam repleverunt. 158v (AM 3966) Ducenta milia Cymbrorum qui in Ytaliam transierunt per Marium et Catullum consules Romanos cesa sunt, et octoginta milia capta fuerunt cum duce eorum Eutomodo. 186v (AD 33) [following a citation of Josephus in Antiquitatibus] Ibidem etiam sic loquitur de beato Johanne Baptista: “Quibusdam autem” inquit “Judeorum videbatur ideo perisse Herodis exercitum quod in eo satis juste ultio divina commota sit pro vindicta Johannis qui vocabatur Baptista quem punivit Herodes, virum valde bonum qui precipiebat Judeis virtuti operam dare, iustitiam inter se invicem custodire, et in Deo servare pietatem, per baptismum in unumque coire.” Et post pauca sequitur ibidem quod “quia videbat Herodes quod Johannis preceptis ac monitis obedire in omnibus, plebs esset parata melius credidit priusquam aliquid novi fieret vel forte doctrine eius persuasione populi a suo
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
179
regno disciscerent anticipare huiusmodi hominem nece quam postmodum turbatis rebus seram penitudinem gerere. Hac igitur sola suspicione Herodes vinctus in castellum Macheruncham abducitur ibique obtruncatur.” For comparison: Antiquitates Bk. 18, ch. 14 in BnF MS lat. 5045, 75rb Quibusdam autem Judeorum videbatur ideo perisse Herodis exercitum quod in eum satis iuste indignatio divina commota sit pro vindicta Johannis qui vocabatur Baptista. Hunc enim Herodes occidit, virum valde bonum qui precipiebat Judeis virtuti operam dare, iustitiam colere, in Deum servare pietatem, et per baptismum in unum coire. Tum demum enim baptismum acceptabile fore si non solum ad abluenda peccata sumatur, verum etiam ad castimoniam corporis atque ad animae iustitiam purificationemque servetur. Omniumque pariter virtutum velut signaculum et custodia quaedam fidelis habeatur. Quecum ab ipso precepta huiusmodi docerentur, audiendum eum per plurima multitudo concurreret. Veritus Herodes ne forte doctrine eius persuasione populi a suo regno discederent, videbat enim quod preceptis eius ac monitis preparata esset plebs in omnibus obaedire, melius credidit priusquam novi aliquid fieret prevenire hominem nece quam postmodum turbatis rebus seram paenitudinem gerere. Ex sola itaque suspicione Herodis vinctus in castellum Macheruntam abducitur Johannis ibique obtruncatur.
198v (AD 98) Fescenninus Sisimus urbis Rome prefectus Galliarum furibus peragratis, invenit sanctum senem Dyonisium Ariopagitam Parisius predicantem. Quem prius diversis tormentis laceratum, eum ad culturam deorum suorum inclinare non posset, una cum Rustico et Eleutherio eiusdem sociis extra urbem in loco sive in monte qui Mons Martyrum dicitur securibus ebetatis decollari fecit. Quibus decollatis, mox cadaver sanctissimi Dyonisii se erexit, et in manibus propriis caput a corpore truncatum angelico ductu gressum regente, ab eo loco ubi decollatus fuerat per duo fere miliaria usque ad locum qui Vicus Catulliacus dicebatur, deportavit. Cuius corpus quedam materfamilias Catulla nomine a qua vicum denominari dicebant, honorifice prout potuit clam iuxta domum suam sepelivit, et ibidem postea corpora sociorum Rustici et Eleutherii furtim sublata tradidit sepulture. [In the manuscript at Quibus decollatis there is a single line of comment in the margin, washed out but legible by ultraviolet light, in a gothic hand associated with Saint-Denis: martyrium sti dionisii. In the left margin there is a stroke with a dot in front of it.] 217v (AD 308) Constantius augustus apud Eboracum in Britannia defunctus est, cui successit Constantinus filius eius ex Helena filia Cole regis Britannie, que Constantii concubina fuisse dicitur ab aliquibus. Habebat tamen Constantius de alia uxore duos filios, Constantium et Dalmatium; qui Constantius secundus genuit Julianum et Gallum ac filiam nomine Constantiam, que data fuit uxor Floro filio regis Ungarie, patri scilicet beati Martini Turonensis ex qua postea ipse beatus Martinus natus fuit.
180
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
251r (AD 461) Childericum regem Francorum insolenter et luxuriose se agentem, Franci de regno eiciunt et Egidium quendam ducem Romanum qui Suessionis commorans exercitui preerat Romanorum, regem preficiunt sibi. Childericus autem de regno eiectus ad Bassinum regem Thoringorum fugiit, et honorifice susceptus esst ab eo. 252r (AD 466) Cum Uter Pandragon rex Britanie diuturna infirmitate gravaretur, principes Saxonum Osta et Cosa congregato exercitu Britanniam vastare ceperunt. Cumque rex adversus eos milites suos misisset et parum proficerent, audiens hostes propter suam absentiam audaciores fieri, iussit se ad prelium in vehiculo deferri. Qui in prelium delatus in vehiculo suos quidem animavit ad prelium, sed hostium risum fecit, quod semimortuus ad prelium venisset. Congressuque in presentia regis inito, Britones victoriam optinuerunt, et Saxonum duces Ostam et Cosan interfecerunt. Tunc rex hylaris effectus tanquam sanitatem recepisset erexit se et ait, “Deridebant me Ambrones isti, sed malo semimortuus eos superare quam incolumis superari. Prestantius enim est cum honore mori, quam cum pudore vivere.” Mortuo postmodum Uterpendragon rege, Arturus filius eius sublimatus est in regno. Cuius mirabiles actus etiam lingue personant populorum, licet plura esse fabulosa videantur. Sed quomodo rex factus sit cum regis filius nesciretur, ita evenisse aliqui dicunt. Cum, rege Uterpendragon mortuo episcopi et barones ad eligendum sibi regem apud Glocestriam convenissent et super hoc ad Dominum preces in ecclesia effudissent, petronus marmoreus ante fores ecclesie divinitus apparuit, sed ut opinor potius Mellini incantationibus, in quo spata defixa erat, et in spata littere auree que dicebant, “Rex erit qui me traxerit.” Quo viso omnes de ecclesia exeunt gratias Domino referentes, et episcoporum consilio comites et barones, necnon et milites secundum ordinem dignitatis, spatam a petrono extrahere temptaverunt, sed nichil facere potuerunt. Quibus attonitis et reversis, Arturus, qui in domo patris Quex senescalli nutritus fuerat, et patrem Quex patrem suum esse credebat, et cum illo patre suo in villam ierat illuc advenit, et sine dilatione aliqua spatam traxit, et iterum in petrono eam fixit. Quo facto, clamor in celum attolitur, accurrerunt episcopi et barones, accurrit et populus veritate comperta. Comites et barones indignanter eo quod Arturus natus de infimis gentibus credebatur, et ab episcopis et populo trium dierum inducias postularunt. Die tertio veniunt, et sicut prius spatam extrahere non potuerunt. Quo viso, Arturo ab omnibus acclamatur ut spatam extrahat. Tunc Arturus accedens spatam extraxit, et sic per miraculum regnum Britannie optinuit. Tunc etiam per matrem Quex senescalli Arturo et omni populo enarratur quomodo fi[252v]lius Uterpendragon fuit, et quomodo mittendus sibi a Mellino traditus fuerat. Et hec omnia esse vera sicut facta fuerant a Mellino qui tunc vivebat postea agnoverunt. Hic igitur Arturus regnum adeptus Saxones qui Britanniam vastaverant vicit et fugavit, ac multos manu cecidit. Noricum quoque et Daciam, Hyberniam et ceteras maritimas
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
181
insulas acquisivit. Insuper Flandriam, Boloniam, Normanniam, Turoniam, Andegaviam, Pictaviam, Averniam, Gasconiam, Galie fines, Hoel comite Minoris Britannie sibi Adiuvante subiugavit. Et ita predecessoribus suis longe fuit insignior, honore, fama, potentia, largitate. Cui tantum gratiam innata bonitas prestiterat, ut a cunctis populis amaretur. Erat enim venustus et robustus corpore, forma decorus, armis strenuus, fortis, audax, largissimus, et omnibus bonis moribus adornatus. Qui in tantum militiam augmentavit ut omnium nationum milites in arma se sibi dederent, inaudita pericula patientes, tam pro honore militie acquirendo, quam pro amore regis habendo, et pro Galvani nepotis eiusdem Arturi militia florentes cognoscendo. Ipse Arturus ita gloriosus erat quod in omnibus magnis sollempnitatibus anni curiam suam tenebat, ubi reges ei subiecti, episcopi, comites, et barones ac milites undique confluebant, et regis muneribus ditabantur. Tunc in die festi omnibus in palatio suo assistentibus eum duo archiepiscopi coronabant, et post eum ad ecclesiam deducebant quatuor regibus tenentibus ante eum quatuor spatas in manibus evaginatas, et ante reginam similiter coronatam quatuor regine quatuor coronas albas tenebant, et similiter revertebantur ab ecclesia usque ad palatium divino officio celebrato. Rex autem parato convivio, electos milites solummodo ad rotundam mensam sedere faciebat, ne aliquis eorum socio suo esse superior vel inferior videretur. Et ita summis sollempnitatibus cum exultatione et gaudio celebratis, remuneratos singulos remittebat. Quamvis tamen de eo multa dicantur, maiora sunt tamen de eo in gestis regum Britannie denotata. 253v (AD 469) Egitque [Indutiomarus] ut eiecto Egidio Hidericus restitueretur in regno. Ad quem Bassina, uxor Bassini regis Thoringorum, apud quem ipse Hildericus latuerat, relicto viro suo venit, quam ille utpote Sarracenus, immemor beneficiorum Bassini regis, in uxorem duxit, et ex ea Clodoveum, primum postea regem Francorum Christianum genuit. 258r (AD 494) Lucius Yber, qui cum Anastasio imperatore ad imperandum electus fuerat, in Gallias veniens, per duodecim senatores ab Arturo rege Britannie tributum requirit. Audiens hec, Arturus ira repletus hostem commovit, naves intrat, et iuxta montem sancti Michaelis applicat, ubi in bello gigantem occidit, qui Helenam neptem Hoel comitis Minoris Britannie luxuriando occiderat in monte iuxta montem sancti Michaelis. Deinde exercitu adunato Gallias ingrediens, Lingonas venit, ubi Lucium imperatorem in bello victum interfecit, et Romanis caput eius pro tributo Britannie destinavit. Ipse autem Arturus Quex senescallum suum qui in bello vulneratus graviter fuerat apud Caynonum in Turonia quod Quex edificaverat remisit; qui de dictis plagis non multo post mortuus est et iuxta Caynonum in quadam sancti Pauli ecclesia sepultus. Dum vero Arturus ulterius apud Italiam progredi pararet se
182
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
cupiens Romanos subiugare, audivit quod Mordretus nepos suus regnum suum rapuerat, et Genevram uxorem suam incarceraverat. Hac de causa iratus rediit; sed Mordretus ad portum veniens viriliter ei restitit. In illo bello infra naves Galvanus nepos Arturi sagitta percussus interiit, anno vite quadragesimo secundo; flos militie, clipeus oppressorum, cuius laus et honor permanet in secula seculorum. Quo ita occiso Arturus et omnes alii quasi amentes pre tristitia facti, versus Corineam Mordretum insequuntur, ubi in bello eum Arturus occidit. Tamen in [258v] in illo bello quod fuit in planis de Saleberia omnes milites Rotonde Mense et universi ex utraque parte mortui ceciderunt. Ipse autem Arturus letaliter vulneratus evasit solus; qui cum quendam montem non longe a loco belli, mari proximum ascendisset ei occurrens soror sua Morga incantatrix, fecit eum in insula Davalum deportari, ubi adhuc vivit sicut Britones parentes sui dicunt, et eum venturum cum magna sollempnitate expectant. Uxor autem eius Genevra facta est post hec sanctimonialis apud Carlium; et Constantinus filius Cador regis Corinee cognatus Arturi regnum Britannie optinuit, et post eum quamplures. Qui post hec non valentes ferre amplius virtutem Anglorum Saxonum, ut victi consessere in ius et nomen eorum. Et primus de gente Anglorum Elli, secundus Celin alter alteri mortuo succendendo regnaverunt apud eos per annos sexaginta septem. 259v (AD 499) Cum autem rex baptizaretur, et ille qui crisma deferebat interclusus a populo deesset, rex nudatus in fonte erubescens noluit baptismum prolongari, sed mox divinitus columba ampullam cum crismate rostro detulit, de quo beatus pontifex Remigius regem in baptismo linivit. 261v (AD 512) Prima synodus a Francis iussu Clodovei regis Aurelianis habita est, in qua multa decernuntur ecclesie utilia. Hanc synodum triginta duorum episcoporum congregavit sanctus Melanius Rodonensis qui regi Clodoveo familiaris erat. 262v (AD 517) Boecius annuente sibi Symacho patricio cum auctoritatem Romani Senatus contra Theodericum regem Ytalie tueri nititur, ab ipso exiliatur, ibique librum De Consolatione Philosophie edidit. 275r (AD 571) Cum igitur Chilpericus rex in illa expeditione esset cum fratre suo, Audovera regina, prima eius uxor de qua tres filios habebat, Theodebertum, Merovicum et Clodoveum, peperit ei filiam, quam per dolum et consilium Fredegundis ancille sue, cum qua rex misceri solebat, de sacro fonte levavit. Regredienti postmodum regi it obviam Fredegundis, cumque his interpellat verbis, “Quam gloriosus,” ait “hodie apparebit rex Chilpericus rediens victor triumphatis hostibus, cui nata filia Childesinta forma corporis egregia, sed pro dolor scelus hac nocte a te patrabitur.” Quod cum rex inquireret quid hoc esset, comperto quod eius commater foret regina ex prole suscepta, Fredegundi in hec verba respondit, “Si Audovere nunc fraudorum amplexibus te sociam
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
183
aciscam strati mei.” Et properanti ad aulam occurrit regina ferens in ulnis parvulam, quam bis ut ita dicam generaverat filiam. Ad quam rex “Nefandam” inquit “rem o regina perpetrasti, et regie inconvenientem maiestati. Nec potero te habere coniugem, cum commatricis adepta sis nomen.” Postea episcopo qui eam baptizaverat in exilium acto, reginam cum filia sacro opertas vel anime monasterio retrusit, predia et facultates ingentes eis tribuens. Et sic Fredegundis ex infima familia de villa sancti Vedasti Atrabatensis que vocatur Babrancourt, sicut dicit Gregorius Turonensis, ad matrimonii sedem convolavit. 285r (AD 609) Bonifacius quartus Romane Ecclesie sexagesimus quintus presidet. Hic templum Rome quod Pentheon dicebatur antiquitus, eo quod ibi quondam omnium non deorum, sed potius demonum cultus agebatur, a Nerra imperatore sibi dari impetravit. Quo impetrato exclusa inde diversa symulacrorum multitudine Dei omnipotentis et sancte virginis Marie, omniumque martyrum Christi construxit altare, ut sicut ibi quondam omnium deorum cultus habebatur, ita deinceps ibidem omnium martyrum Dei memoria in kalendis Novembris celebraretur. Que sollempnitas postea crescente religione Christiana, decreta est fieri in honore omnium sanctorum, ut quicquid humana fragilitas per ignorantiam seu negligentiam, vel occupationem rei secularis in sollempnitatibus sanctorum minus plene peregisset, in hac sancta observatione solveret. Quatinus eorum patrociniis protecti, ad superna polorum gaudia pervenire valeamus. 286rv (AD 616) Rex Hunorum quem lingua sua Cacanum appellant cum foro Juliani Longobardis confligens, ducem ipsorum nomine Gifilsum cum pluri[286v] mis suorum interfecit. Cuius ducis uxor vocabulo Romilda obsidentis se in memorata urbe Cacani regis pulcritudinem admirata, ei civitatem tradidit, stupri mercede sibi pollicita. Quam idem rex capta urbe populoque eius captivato, una propter iusiurandum quod dederat nocte ac si in matrimonium accepit. Post hec duodecim Hunis eam tradidit, qui vicissim sibi succedentes ea ut vili scorto abusi sunt. Ad postremum palum in medio campi figi precipiens, eam in acumine eius inseri mandavit cum huiusmodi exprobrationis verbo, “Talem,” inquit, “merita es virum habere.” 291r (AD 632) Dagobertus rex Francorum regno paterno potitus, inter alia que laudabiliter gessit memor sanctorum martyrum Dyonisii Rustici et Eleutherii qui eum de furore patris sui eripuerant, accessit ad locum ubi iacebant corpora eorum. Et constructa mirandi operis basilica in alio eiusdem vici loco, extracta de sarcofagis cum summa veneratione decimo kalendas Maias transtulit, eorumque capsas auro puro et purissimis gemmis exornavit. Et quamvis ecclesiam quam ipse a fundamentis construxerat, intrinsecus miro decore fabricaverat, foris quoque desuper absidam illam infra quam veneranda martyrum corpora tumulaverat, ut plenius devoti animi expleret desiderium ex argento purissimo mirifice cooperuit. Sed et per totam illam ecclesiam auro texta pallia margaritarum varietatibus multipliciter
184
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
exornata in parietibus et columpnis atque arcubus suspendi devotissime fecit, quatinus aliarum ecclesiarum ornamentis precellere videretur, et omnimodis incomparabili nitore vernans, omni terrena pulcritudine compta, atque inestimabili decore rera[291v]diata splendesceret. Utque divina laus perpetuo a Dei cultoribus monachis quos ibidem posuit ageretur, plurima et ingentia predia contulit. In illo enim tempore cum beatus Eligius in regno Francie summus aurifaber haberetur, plura que ad ornatum ipsius basilice pertinebant rege impensas prebente preparavit. Requievit autem beatus Dyonisius Ariopagita primus Parisiensis episcopus cum sociis suis Rustico et Eleutherio apud stratam ville Sancti Dyonisii que tunc vicus Catullianus dicebatur, a tempore Domitiani sub quo passi sunt martyrium, usque huc per spatium quingentorum triginta sex annorum. 291v (AD 632) Hic Mahumet cui adhuc gentiles cultum deitatis exibent, statuit super omnes ammireos quendam Caliphum quod in lingua sua pappam sonat, eiusque sedem apud Baudas urbem instituit, et quod bis in mense tantummodo videretur. 293v (AD 640) Ealdbaldo Cantuariorum Anglorum rege mortuo, Catombertus filius eius post eum regnavit annis viginti quinque. Hic in Anglia primus ydola eorum destruxit et fidem Christi dilatavit et ieiunium quadragesime in Anglia legaliter observari edixit. 297r (AD 660) Clodoveus rex Francorum corpus sancti Dyonisii Parisiensis discooperiens minus religiose quem [better: quam] debuit, os brachii eius fregit et rapuit, sed mox stupefactus in amentiam perpetuam decidit. Tantusque terror et metus ac tenebre locum ipsum repleverunt, ut omnes qui aderant, timore maximo consternati, fuge presidium peterent. Postquam sanctum os auro et gemmis vestitum et adornatum redditur, sicque rex aliquantulum recuperat sensum, sed non integre. 299v (AD 680) Agatho papa suscepit divalem iussionem secundum suam postulationem ut suggessit, per quam revelata est quantitas que solita erat dari pro ordinatione pontificis facienda, sic tamen ut si contigerit post eius transitum electionem fieri, non debeat ordinari qui electus fuerit nisi prius decretum generale introducatur in regiam urbem, secundum antiquam consuetudinem, ut cum eorum scientia et missione debeat ordinatio provenire. 299v (AD 681) Sexta synodus universalis Constantinopoli congregatur, ubi affuerunt Agathonis pape legati Johannes dyaconus Romane Ecclesie, et alter Johannes Portuensis episcopus, cum ducentis octoginta novem episcopis qui ibidem iussu imperatoris Constantini ad destruendam Monothelitarum heresim convenerant. Prefuit etiam huic concilio una cum prefatis Ecclesie Romane legatis Georgius Constantinopolitanus episcopus, et Macharius Antiochenus. Quorum Georgius ab errore Monothelitarum qua languebat correptus et emendatus est.
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
185
310v (AD 750) Buchardus Musiburgensis episcopus et Fulradus abbas Sancti Dyonisii in Francia a proceribus Francorum missi sunt Romam ad Zachariam papam ut consulerent eum de causa regum qui, diu regnantes in Francia solo regis nomine contenti, nullam habebant regiam potestatem. Per quos predictus papa mandavit melius esse illum vocari regem qui bene rem publicam gubernabat, et sue utilitati proprie publicam anteferebat. Quo audito Franci Pipinum regem statuerunt et Hildericum qui tunc regnabat factum monachum in monasterio detruserunt. Qui Pipinus iussu et auctoritate Zacharie pape Suessionis civitate a Bonifatio Maguntie archiepiscopo in regem Francorum inungitur, post annos circiter octoginta octo, postquam maiores domus ceperunt principari super reges Francorum. Regnavit autem octodecim annis. In hoc Pipino rege non defecit regalis progenies Francorum, cum ipse descendisset sicut supra ostensum est de progenie Blitildis filie primi Clotarii regis Francorum. 311r (AD 752) Cumque Pipinus rex Stephanum papam venientem audisset, contra eum cum uxore et filiis perrexit; et cum ingenti reverentia et honore suscipiens Parisius usque ad palatium suum deduxit. Ibique intus oratorium pariter considentes, lacrimabiliter idem papa regem deprecatus est, ut causam beati Petri et rei publice Romanorum disponeret. Quo audito, rex precibus eius se omnimodis obedire promisit. Cumque papa apud regem moraretur in ecclesia sancti Dyonisii in Francia graviter egrotavit; sed ab apostolis Petro et Paulo atque sancto Dyonisio visitatus, iussu ipsorum apostolorum per beatum Dyonisium sanitati est restitutus. 315v (AD 773) Adrianus papa cum oppressionem Desiderii regis Longobardorum amplius ferre non posset, misit legatum ad Karolum regem Francorum ut tuendas Romane Ecclesie et rei publice res veniret in Ytaliam . . . . Qui [Desiderius] Francorum impetum sustinere non valens, Papiam se recepit. Sed Karolus eundem persequens Papiam obsedit, et tunc ibidem, dimisso exercito, a papa invitatus Romam venit, ubi sanctam Resurrectionem celebravit. Et eodem tempore ibidem synodum cum Adriano papa aliisque centum quinquaginta tribus religiosis episcopis et abbatibus constituit, in qua ipse papa Adrianus cum universa synodo dedit ei ius eligendi pontificem, et ordinandi Apostolicam Sedem et dignitatem patriciatus. Insuper archiepiscopos et episcopos per singulas provincias ab eo investituram accipere definivit, et ut nisi a rege laudetur et investiatur episcopus, a nemine consecretur. Omnesque huic decreto rebelles anathematizavit et nisi resipiscerent, bona eorum publicari precepit. 318v (AD 790) Cum enim tempore Karoli studia litterarum ubique esset in oblivione, et ideo vere deitatis cultura teperet, contigit duos Scotos monachos de Hybernia cum mercatoribus Anglis ad littus Gallie devenire, viros et in secularibus et in sacra scriptura incomparabiliter eruditos. Qui cotidie cum nichil ostenderent venale, ad convenientes emendi gratia turbas clamare solebant, “Si quis sapientie cupidus est, veniat ad nos et accipiat eam, nam venalis est apud nos.” Tam diu
186
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
conclamata sunt ista, donec ab admirantibus vel insanos illos putantibus ad aures regis Karoli, semper sapientie amatoris, sunt perlata. Qui celeriter illos ad presentiam suam evocatos interrogavit si vere sapientiam haberent, ut ipse audierat. “Sapientiam,” inquiunt, “et habemus et in nomine Domini digne eam querentibus dare parati sumus.” Qui, cum quesisset ab illis quid pro ipsa peterent, responderunt, “Loca oportuna et animas ingeniosas, et sine quibus ista peregrinatio transiri non potest: alimenta, et quibus tegamur.” Quo illo percepto, ingenti gaudio repletus, primum quidem apud se utrumque retinuit, et post constructis Parisius habitaculis oportunis, ibidem eos docere permisit. 323r (AD 810) Ydola vero et simulacra que invenit Karolus in Hyspaniam destruxit, preter ydolum quod erat in terra Landalus, quod dicitur Salanicadis. Nam dicunt Sarraceni quod Machometus ydolum illud suo nomine fabricavit, et arte magica quandam legionem demonum in ea sigillavit. Que tanta fortitudine ydolum optinet, quod frangi nequit. Cum enim aliquis Christianus ad illud propinquat, statim periclitatur, sed cum Sarracenus causa adorandi vel deprecandi Mahumet accedit, ille incolumis recedit. Si forte super illud avis qualibet se apposuerit, ilico moritur. Est autem illud ydolum super altissimum lapidem in littore maris auri calca ad similitudinem hominis facta, et super pedes suos facie erecta versus meridiem tenet clavem magnam in manu dextera, que debet cadere ut aiunt Sarraceni quando in novissimis temporibus rex in Gallia natus fuerit qui totam Hyspaniam Christianis legibus subiugabit. 335v (AD 856) Adelwufo rege Anglorum mortuo, Adelbaldus filius in regnum succedens quinque annis regnavit. Hic Adelwufus rex Anglie defunctus primum fuerat episcopus apud Wincestre, sed Ebricto patre suo defuncto, necessitate cogente factus est rex, et uxore ducta quatuor filios habuit, qui omnes post eum reges fuerunt. Secunda autem uxor eius Judith filia Karoli Calvi regis Francorum sine liberis existens, dum post viri necem rediret ad patrem, a comite Flandriarum Balduyno Ferreo capta desponsatur. De qua genuit Balduynum Calvum, qui postea Comes Inclitus est appellatus. Terra enim Flandrie non solebat esse tanti nominis nec opulentie sicuti moderno tempore apparet, sed per milites quosdam qui regis Francie forestarii dicebantur, regebatur. 351v (AD 963) Otho imperator Ytalia pervagata et tyrannis Italie maiestate nominis sui ita exterritis ut in locis natura munitis laterent, aut Sarracenorum patrocinia quererent, Rome a Johanne papa in imperatorem benedicitur et tyranni a Johanne papa et a Romanis abiurantur. Collecto a tota Ytalia concilio quorum Johannes papa de nefariis causis infamatur, qui tertio evocatus dum se excusatum venire cunctatur, loco eius Leo adhuc laicus electione omnium et consensu imperatoris papa substituitur. Qui Leo ita apostolice sedi presidens fecit ordinationes et ea que erant apostolica.
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
187
361v (AD 1023) Henricus imperator Romanorum et Robertus rex Francorum super Carum fluvium apud Evosium conveniunt de statu ecclesie regni et imperii tractaturi, et condicto ut super his confirmandis etiam papam Romanum simul ambo Papie oportune convenirent. In Pascha eclypsis solis facta est. 364rv (AD 1045) Henry VIII’s nota ac bene nota, marginal cross and bracket to the text: Benedictus qui symoniace papatum Romanum invaserat, cum esset rudis litterarum, alterum ad vices ecclesiastici officii exequendas secum papam Sil[364v]vestrum centesimum quinquagesimum primum consecrari fecit. Quod cum multis non placeret, tertius superducitur Gregorius centesimus quinquagesimus secundus, qui solus vices duorum impleret. 364v (AD 1046) Rome uno contra duos et duobus contra unum de papatu altercantibus, Henricus imperator contra eos Romam vadit et, eis canonica et imperiali censura depositis, Suidigerus Babenbergensis episcopus (qui et Clemens secundus) Romane ecclesie centesimus quinquagesimus tertius presidet, et ab eo Henricus imperator in imperatorem benedicitur, iurantibus sibi Romanis se sine eius consensu numquam papam electuros. 388r (AD 1163) Sanctus Thomas Cantuariensis archiepiscopus exul ab Anglia aufugit in Franciam. Qui veniens Senonis ad papam Alexandrum, ostendit ei consuetudines regis Anglie propter quas exulabat. Quas cum pape et cardinalibus rationabiliter exposuisset, ammiratus papa eius sapientiam eum honorabiliter suscepit, gratias ei agens quod ecclesiam Dei tam periculosis temporibus contra tyrannorum insultus defendere suscepisset. Tunc papa consuetudines illas perpetuo condampnavit, et observatores atque exactores earum eterno anthemate subdidit. 396r (AD 1189) Post cuius [Sibille] obitum Guido rex [Jerusalem] ius regni perdidit, et ad sororem regine nomine Ysabellem uxorem Enfridi de Turone obvenit. Sed ab Enfrido separata, quia eam ante nubiles annos et contra voluntatem suam duxerat, marchioni Conrado uxor tribuitur, qui hoc modo regni Jerusalem optinuit principatum. 397r (AD 1191) In cenobio Sancti Dyonisii in Francia extractum est caput preciosi Dyonisii Ariopagite martiris de capsa ubi cum corpore quiescebat, ad removendum errorem canonicorum Parisiensium qui dicebant caput predicti martiris se habere, positumque fuit caput sanctissimum in vase decenti argenteo, ut palam deinceps ad osculandum gentibus monstraretur. Quod postmodum venerabilis Matheus abbas illius monasterii in alio vase aureo preciosis lapidibus et mirabili opere decorato a se constructo transferre fecit, per manus reverendi in Christo patris domini Symonis Sancte Cecilie tunc presbiteri cardinalis qui postea papa Martinus quartus appellatus est, presente rege Francie Philippo filio regis sanctissimi Francie Ludovici, sicut ad dictum cenobium accedentes vident moderno tempore universi.
188
A Latin Excerpts from BL Royal 13 E IV
409r (AD 1213) Johannes rex Anglie se cognoscens multis exosum, vidensque quod esset in periculum honor suus timuit timore magno et volens placare plures quos leserat primo placavit papam muneribus, subiectos suos mansuetudine, prelatos et archiepiscopum Stephanum Cantuariensem quem exulaverat indulgentia revertendi. Absolutionem vero a papa obtinens tradidit eidem regnum suum in feodum mille marchas in recognitione singulis annis soluturus, septingentas ex Anglia et trecentas ex Hybernia. 424r (AD 1252) Innocentius papa constituit ut omnes cardinales Romane Ecclesie portent in capite capellum rubeum dum equitant ut discernantur et cognoscantur ab aliis secum equitantibus; per hoc innuens quod in persecutione fidei et iustitie Romana Ecclesia que caput est omnium aliarum pre ceteris caput debet apponere si [424v] necesse fuerit cruentandum. 444r (AD 1297) Bonifatius papa constitutiones quasdam novas quas animo diligenti et cura sollicita pro statu et commodo universalis ecclesie compilari et ordinari fecerat a peritis in iure canonico et civili tertia die Maii in pleno consistorio coram omnibus qui presentes erant tradidit ad legendum, et perlecte sepius cum magna diligentia, atque a cardinalibus approbate decrevit ipse pontifex ut, libro quinto Decretalium adiuncte, faceret Sextum Librum.
B Arguments in the Rouleau de Saint-Denis, based on the Chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, submitted to the Parlement de Paris, 1410 The Rouleau de Saint-Denis has been unstitched and edge-bound into a single register volume, AnF LL 1326, nos. 2 and 3, of 139 paper leaves, written one side, with the former roll’s suture holes in the lower edge of each leaf. The leaves have a modern arabic numeration in red ink on the upper right corner, and the old roman numeration in black ink on the upper left corner. Leaves 1–69 were formerly AnF L 862 no. 2; leaves 70–139 were formerly L 862 no. 3. This volume is a transcript of arguments presented orally (note the frequent etc.) by the advocate of the monks of Saint-Denis-en France, in answer to the objections of the canons of Notre-Dame de Paris which are now contained in AnF LL 1326 no. 1. [lxiij = 62] Item tiercement lesdiz religieux ont produit ung autre livre de Guillaume de Nangis qui se commence ou second feuillet: tis et vocatum est, et au derrain feuillet se commence: Francie t’ra [i.e. BL Royal 13 E IV]; ou quel livre sont troiz clauses: la premiere du martire dudit monseigneur saint Denis et de ses compaignons [198v: AD 98]; la seconde de la elevation d’iceulx faicte par Dagobert [291rv: AD 632]; et la tierce de ladicte detection [397r: AD 1191] dont parle ledit Rigordus et en conformant sa cronique, etc. Et ne vault ce que dient lesdiz de chappitre que ledit de Nangis estoit religieux de Saint-Denis, etc., car il estoit notable homme ordonne croniqueur de France et si se conforme son dit aux autres croniques. [lxiiij = 63] Item et si ne vault largument desdiz de chappitre, car par pareil argument on peuvent arguer les appostres en ce qui tenoit Dieu leur maistre, et aussi les croniques des Romains faictes par Titulivius, Trogues, et Pompeius, qui furent Romains, et aussy, de Josephus qui fu Juif, qui fist lystoire que lez appelle de antiquitate [-iudraica] \iudica/, pourquoy etc. Item et pareillement ne vault ce quilz dient que ledit de Nangis escript ce quil ne vit oncques etc. car il ne sensuyvroit pas pour ce que on ny deust adiouster foy maxime si non appareat de contrario, car il nest pas doubter, que les ystoriens publiques peuent escripre en leur livres les ystoires du temps passe, et y doit lez adiouster foy non obstant que ilz ne nomment pas ceulz qui premierement ont escript les dites ystoires et tel est le stille, de tous croniqueurs et ystoriens, comme vous pourrez veoir et est apresumer, attendu leur estat et vaillance qui lont ainsi trouve par croniques, ystoires et livres anciens.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-013
190
B Arguments in the Rouleau de Saint-Denis
Item en verite cest argument desdiz de chappitre fait contre eulx, car ilz ne produisent que memoriaux faiz de nouvel, et depuis ce debat, et si ne nomment point qui les a faiz, et si parlent du temps de Julius Cesar, pourquoy apparet que ilz parlent bien de laventure, ce que ne font mie lesdiz Religieux car ilz ont les sainctes escriptures, croniques et livres approuvez, et si ont evidence de fait, possession et favorable matiere.
C Historical References by Guillaume Fillastre Selections from the orations of Guillaume Fillastre, dean of Reims, in the Fourth Council of the Gallican Church (1406), edited among his Preuves by Bourgeois du Chastenet, Nouvelle histoire du Concile de Constance (Paris, 1718). For the context, see Chapter 6. [p. 125: Friday 3 December 1406]: Ensuite la proposition faitte par Maistre Guillaume Fillastre Deen de Reims, pour la partie du Pape, impugnative de la Requeste de l’Université de Paris, praesente Rege, & praesentibus Ducibus Biturie, Borboniae, Domino Petro Navarrae, &c. [p. 127]: Je dis que comme le Roy de Lombardie occupast la terre de l’Eglise, le Pape Adrien manda le Roy de France Charlesmaine, qui lors regnoit, et print le chemin à Rome à Adrien, et s’en alla par la cité de Papie, où estoit celuy Roy, et [128] la assiega, et exercitu ibi dimisso, s’en alla à Rome au Pape Adrien, lequel moult honorablement le receupt: et apres ce s’en retourna arriere à Papie, et eut victoire, et puis retourna arriere à Rome, et lors le Pape Adrien veant qu’il avoit pris et subjugué desideratum Regem son adversaire, qui ainsy usurpoit la terre de l’eglise, prist Charlesmaine, Synodum convocavit, auquel furent 153 Evesques, que Abbés, auquel Conseil fut baillé audience pour elire Charlesmaine, et de ordonner Apostolicam sedem, et ibi etiam fuit per Adrianum Patriciatus concessus, et fut environ l’an 754 ans, par quoy assés appert qu’il n’estoit pas encore Empereur de Rome, comme il fut apres. [p. 164: Saturday 4 December 1406]: Le Chancelier de France, Monsieur le Deen, le Roy a oy ce que vous aviés dit l’autre jour, quand vous parlastes, Monseigneur de Berry fut present, qui en fut tres-mal comptent. Il n’est pas cy present, lundy [6 December] l’on en ordonnera. [p. 202: Tuesday 7 December 1406]: Et ainsi appert clerement que le Pape a puissance sur la temporelle, et non e contra. Et de hoc, per Innoc. Cap. Licet suscepto, de foro compet. Le Pape a autrefois mis Roy en France, comme dit le chap. Zacharia, jaçoit que aucuns dient, que ce fut par le conseil des Princes de France: aucuns dient que ce fut par l’assentement du Roy, qui lors estoit. Le Pape déposa Frideric l’Empereur, cap. Ad Apostolicam, de re judic. in VI aussi pouvent-il de Prince à Portugal. Cap. Grandi, de postulatione Praelatorum . . . . La puissance que ont les Princes sur l’Eglise, c’est à la munir, proteger, et deffendre des invaseurs: ce n’est mie a conculquer, et fouler ses libertés. [pp. 163–4: Saturday 11 December 1406, the pièce tabled as La révocation du Doyen de Reims dessus nommé, qui avoit dit aucunes choses en sa premiere Proposition, touchant le Roy et sa Couronne.]: Or se lieve le Deen de Reims, & commence ainsi: Loquutus sum in linguâ meâ: notum fac mihi Domine finem https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-014
192
C Historical References by Guillaume Fillastre
meum. Sire, j’ay parlé de ma langue seulement: puisqu’il vous desplaist, faites de moy ce qu’il vous plest. J’ay parlé d’aucunes coses de pourveuement. Je ne le dy mie pour moy excuser, mais je le dy pour impetrer vostre Clemence. Selon Seneque, quand un homme, ou un Prince a puissance de punir, & la clemence de luy la restraint, c’est une temperence virtueuse. Cette clemence est tant approuvée, que les Imperateurs se sont faits appeller Pios. Combien que aucuns ont voulu dire que ce nom fut pris & appliqué en l’Imperance, pour un Impereur qui avoit nom Pius. Sire, je viens à vostre clemence; je suy un povre homme, qui ay esté nourri ez champs: je suy rude de ma nature, je n’ay pas demeuré aveuques les Rois, ne aveuques les Seigneurs, par quoy je sache la maniere ne le stile de parler en leur presence. Se j’ay parlé simplement, je en suy moult desplaisant; l’histoire mettoit encore plus plenement que je ne le dis. Ces Docteurs veulent dire que ce fut du consentement du Roy: aucuns que ce fut du Conseil, & à la Requeste des Barons, & Seigneurs de France. Sire, je sai bien que vostre Seignourie, n’est mie comme aux autres. L’Impereur tient son Imperance du Pape, mais vostre Royaume est par heritage. Je sai bien que vous n’occupés pas tant seulement le lieu de par homme, mais estes une personne moyenne entre spirituelle et temporelle. Vous estes l’un de Regibus unctis; de quibus Regibus unctis, j’en trouve trois qui ont esté annunchiés par hommes nasquis ex mulieribus sterilibus. Premierement, l’en treuve que le Roy Saul fut oint, unctus par Samuël, lequel Samuël fut annunchié à sa mere que l’en disoit sterile, & dit le Texte que ils n’estoient que eux deux, Saul, & Samuël. Quand Saul fut unctus, & que Samuël en avoit envoié son varlet, & lors print modicum olei, &c & dit l’en que l’Ange celle huile administra. Le Roy de tous les Rois Jesus-Christ fuit unctus par S. Jean Baptiste, qui, &c. & ibi vox priùs audita est, his est filius meus dilectus, &c. Le tiers Roy que trouve, Sire, c’est Clovis vostre predecesseur qui fut baptise par Monseigneur S. Remy, qui estoit fils de matre sterili, & ly apporta la onction l’Ange du ciel, & ensi vostre Royaume n’est pas comme les autres. Il est hereditaire, ne le tenés d’aucun. Vous estes [164] Impereur en vostre Royaume, en terre vous ne connustes nul Souverain in temporalibus. Et pour ce, Sire, je supplie à vostre clemence, &c. & je seray au temps à venir plus avisé. Je feroi comme fit S. Pierre, qui aprés qu’il eust failly, &c. Aussi s’il plest Dieu, ego [better: ero] magis fidelis Majestati Regia, s’il vous plest avoir mercy de moy.
D Privy Purse Warrants for the Books of Henry VIII 1. Letters and Papers V (1530–1532) p. 748: 12 February 1530, to Peter, the scrivan, upon Dr. Stubbes’ report, £14 9s. 4d. 17 February, to Westby, clerk of the closet, for 6 mass books and velvet to cover them, £3 11s. p. 750: 21 May to Walter Walshe, to pay the tailor and skinner for stuff for Lady Anne, to a printer for books for the king, £59 18s. 21 June, to Master Walshe, for bringing books from Greenwich to Hampton Court, 6s. 4d. p. 752: 31 Oct, To a scrivener in London, 9 cr. = 42s.; to Mr. Russell, for bringing books, 20s. 26 Nov, to Joly Jak, for bringing the king’s books from York Place to Hampton Court, 5s. 27 Nov, to a servant of the abbot of Reading, for bringing an inventory of books to Hampton Court, 5s. 29 Nov, to a waterman, for bringing books from York Place to Hampton Court, 5s. 25 Dec, to the king’s printer, for printed books delivered at York Place and Hampton Court, £8 11s. 8d. p. 753: 27 Jan 1531, to a servant of the abbot of Ramsay, for bringing books, 20s. 27 February, to the abbot of Gloucester’s servant, for bringing books to the king, 10s. 17 March, to the servant of the abbot of Evesham, for bringing books to the king, 40s. 7 Apr 1531, to Erasmus, one of the armourers, for garnishing books, £11 5s. 7d. 4 June, to Peter Scrivener, for vellum and other stuff [p. 755] for the king’s books, £4. To the prior of Spalding’s servant, for bringing books, 40s. p. 550: Grants in August 1532. 6 August 1532 to Sir Brian Tuke, treasurer of the Chamber, warrant for the annual payment of £20 To Stephen Vaughan as his fee for the office of writing of the king’s books, lately held by Thomas Hall, deceased. Grafton, 24 Henry VIII. p. 564f.: nos. 1298–9, early Sep 1532, Stephen Vaughan preparing draft designs for the king’s jewelry. p. 672: 5 Dec 1532, Vaughan meeting Mr. Cranmer in France.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-015
194
D Privy Purse Warrants for the Books of Henry VIII
p. 720: n.d. 1532: Pardon for Cysle, widow of Thomas Hall, late clerk of the Hanaper, for £150 which he received before his death 8 July 23 Henry VIII [1531] and which she is unable to repay. Cromwell now clerk of the Hanaper. p. 757: 18 Jan 1532, to the bookbinder, for bringing books from Hampton Court to York Place, 4s. 8d. 26 Jan, to a servant of the abbot of Ramsay’s, for bringing books, 40s. 7 Apr 1531, to Erasmus, one of the armourers, for garnishing books, £11 5s. 7d. 14 May 1532, to Erasmus, the armourer, for garnishing 86 books, £34 10s. p. 760: 24 Sep, sending books to the king’s bookbinder, 2s. p. 761: 18 Nov, to the abbot of St. Austeyn’s servant, for bringing the king’s book at Canterbury, 4s. 8d. 2. Letters and Papers VI (1533) pp. 52–53: no. 120, a draft of the Act in Restraint of Appeals p. 102: no. 228, payments by Cromwell to Stephen Vaughan £46 13s. 4d. between 22 Nov 1532 and the following 11 March p. 131–140: no. 299, a catalogue of documents in Cromwell’s custody, “brought since All Hallows Tide” 24 Henry VIII (1 Nov 1532) i . . . a book reciting the power of the pope, made and noted with figures and hands iii . . . a book concerning the pope’s power iv . . . a book written De Potestate Ecclesiastica vii . . . an argument between Raphael the Archangel and a certain gentleman of England xi . . . a book of the sayings of prophets to kings . . . p. 197: 3 May 1533 Stephen Vaughan as a detective pursuing suspects p. 386: no. 894, Stephen Vaughan’s £20 annuity secured by Cromwell
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV The Missing Leaflets Described The authors would like to find the sixteen pages that are missing from BL Royal 13 E IV. Signature or gathering xii originally had 12 leaves, but today it lacks its inner four leaflets or bifolia, the eight sequential folia or leaves that were numbered in a fourteenth-century hand with the arabic numerals 135 to 142. The loss may have been incidental to a rebinding of the codex, or it may have happened when the binding thread of that signature decayed or was cut by a thief. This may have occurred at any time in the six centuries before the codex was rebound in the British Museum about 1900. The missing text begins anno ab initio mundi 3845, i.e. 2 Ptolomeus Philopator in Alexandria, about 221 BCE; and ends in anno ab initio mundi 3894, i.e. 10 Ptolomeus Philometor in Alexandria, about 171 BCE. The remaining folio 134v ends de exercitu Hanibalis, duo milia solummodo ceciderunt; and the remaining folio 143r begins cum autem eum in Egypto invenisset, osculumque. The missing histories included accounts of the Second Punic War from Hannibal’s victory of Cannae (216 BCE) through the career of Scipio Africanus to his death in exile (183 BCE). A reader interested in Scipio may have cut the binding thread, or picked up the four bifolia which dropped out when the thread broke or when the volume was being rebound.
The Missing Text Supplied Here is the text that is lacking, restored from BnF MS lat. 4917, 75v–79v by Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, revised by Daniel Williman and Karen Corsano with reference to Vat. lat. 4598, Vat. Chigi G.VIII.233, and Vat. Reg. lat. 544. Alexandria Macedonia Antiochia II [Ptolomeus Philopator] XV [Antigonus III] V [Antiochus III] [anno mundi 3846] Mortuo Antigono rege Macedonum tutore qui Lacedemonem cepit, Philippus Demetrii regis filius annorum quatuordecim regnum Macedonie suscepit et regnavit annis quadraginta. Emilius Paulus et Publius Terentius Varro consules
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-016
196
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
Romanorum contra Hannibalem missi inpatientia Varronis qui prepropere monuit pugnare apud Cannas Appulie vicum infelicissime pugnantes. Omnes pene Romane spei vires perdiderunt. Nam in ea pugna quadraginta quatuor milia Romanorum interfecta sunt. Periit in eo bello consul Emilius Paulus consulares pretoriique viri viginti senatores vel capti vel occisi triginta, nobiles viri trecenti pedestres milites quadraginta milia, equites tria milia quingenti. Varro consul cum quinquaginta equitibus fugiit. Nec dubium est illum diem ultimum Romani status futurum fuisse si Hannibal mox post victoriam ad urbem pervadendam contendisset. In omnibus hiis tamen malis nemo Romanorum pacis mentionem habere dignatus est. Servi quoque quod numquam ante factum est manumissi sunt et milites facti, multeque post hanc pugnam Ytalie civitates que Romanis paruerant se ad Hannibalem transtulerunt. Hannibal vero Romanis optulit ut captivos redimerent, responsumque est a Senatu eos cives non necessarios qui cum armati essent capi potuissent. Ille hoc audito omnes variis suppliciis interfecit et tres modios anulorum aureorum in testimonium predicte pugne quos ex manibus equitum Romanorum detraxerat Carthaginem misit. anno mundi IIImVIIIc XLVIII III I Philippus VI IV II VII Eodem tempore Philippum regem Macedonie Dardani ceterique omnes finitum populi quibus velut odium cum Macedonum regibus erat, contemptu etatis sue assidue lacessebant. Contra ille summotis hostibus non contentus sua defendisse ultro Etholis bellum inferre gestabat. Que agitentem illum Demetrius rex Illiriorum nuper a Paulo Romanorum victus supplicibus precibus aggreditur iniuriam autem Romanorum querens qui non contenti Ytalie terminis imperii spe improba totius orbis amplexi bellum cum omnibus regibus gerant. Sic illos Sicilie sic Sardinie Hispanieque, sic denique totius Affrice imperium affectantes bellum cum Penis et Hannibale suscepisse. Sibi quoque non aliam ob causam quam quod Ytalie finitimus videatur bellum illatum, quasi nefas esset aliquem regem iuxta terminos imperii eorum esse. Cuius quanto promptius nobiliusque sit regnum, tanto sit Romanos acriores hostes habiturus super hec cedere illi regno quod Romani occupaverunt profitetur, gratias habiturus si in possessionem imperii sui socium potius quam hostes videret. Huiuscemodi oratione impulit Philippum ut obmissis Etholis bellum Romanis inferret, minus negocii existimantem quod iam victos eos ab Hannibale apud Trasimenum lacum audierat. Itaque ne eodem tempore multis bellis detineretur pacem cum Etholis facit, non quasi bellum alio translaturus sed ut Grecie quieti consulturus, quam
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
197
numquam in maiori periculo fuisse affirmabat. Hoc pretexto finito cum Etholis bello nichil aliud quam Penorum Romanorumque bella respiciens singulorum vires perpendebat. V III VIII Eodem tempore Claudius Marcellus consul Romanus magna parte Sicilie capta quam tenere Affri ceperant. Syracusas opulentissimam illius insule urbem secunda oppugnatione vix cepit, quam cum iam pridem obsedisset, Archimedis Syracusani civis amirabili ingenio predicti machinis repulsus expugnare non potuit. De hoc Archimede qui librum de quadratura circuli fecit sic refert Valerius Marcellus captis Syracusanis machinationibus Archimedis philosophi diu inhibitam victoriam suam senserat delectatus autem ex summa illius prudentia ut capti eius parceretur precepit. [76r] Ac is dum animo et oculis in terra defixis formas describit militi qui predandi gratia domum eius irruperat strictoque super caput eius gladio quis nam esset interroganti propter nimiam cupiditatem investigandi, quod requirebat nomen suum dicere non potuit. Sed protracto manibus pulvere, Noli, inquit, obsecro istum disturbare circulum. Cui mox quasi negligens imperii victoris obtruncatus sanguine suo lineamenta confudit. VI IV IX Romani Capuam et Siciliam subigunt. Philippus rex Macedonum cum iterato victores Penos apud Cannas Apulie vicum didicisset aperte hostem se Romanis professus; naves quibus in Ytaliam exercitum traiceret fabricare cepit, legatum deinde ad Hannibalem iungente societatis gratia cum epistulis mittit. Qui comprehensus a Romanis et ad Senatum perductus incolumis dimissus est; non in honorem regis sed ne dubius adhuc indubitatus hostis redderetur. Postea vero cum nuntiatum esset in Ytaliam Philippum copias traiecturum Levinum pretorem cum instructis navibus ad prohibendum sibi transitum Romani mittunt. Qui cum in Greciam traiecisset multis promissis impellit Etholos bellum adversus Philippum suscipere. Philippus quoque Artheos in Romanorum bella sollicitat. Interea et Dardani Macedonie fines vastare ceperunt, adductisque viginti milibus captivorum Philippum a Romano bello adtuendum regnum revocaverunt. Eodem tempore per Romanos in quatuor locis pugnabatur, in Ytalia contra Hannibalem, in Hyspania contra eius fratrem Hasdrubalem, in Macedonia contra Philippum, in Sardinia contra Sardos et alterum ducem Hasdrubalem Cartaginensem.
198
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
VII V X Philippo rege Macedonum in Macedonia magnis rebus intento in Egypto Phtolomei Philopatoris diversi mores erant. Quippe regno parricidio parto et ad necem utriusque parentis cede etiam patris adstructa propter quod Philopator cognominabatur, velut rebus feliciter gestis luxurie se tradiderat regisque mores omnes secuta regia erat. Itaque non amici tantum prefectique, verum etiam omnis exercitus eius depositis militie studiis ac desideria corrupti marcebant. Quibus rebus cognitis Antiochus magnus rex Sirie vetere inter se regnorum odio stimulante repentino bello multas eius urbes oppressit Judeamque sibi sociat et Egiptum aggreditur. Quo intellectu, Phtolomeus Philopator rex Egipti et conducto in Grecia exercitu secundum prelium cum eo facit, spoliassetque regno Antiochum virtute si voluisset, sed contentus recuperatione urbium quas amiserat facta pace avide materiam quietis arripuit, revolutusque in luxuriam occisa Erudice uxore eaque sorore sua Agathoclie meretricis illecebris capitur, atque ita magnitudine nominis ac maiestatis oblitus noctes in stupris, dies in conviviis consumit. VIII VI XI Judeorum pontifex maximus Onias filius Symonis insignis habetur. Ad eum Arius rex Lacedemoniorum legatos misit pro reparando federe quod legerat fuisse inter Abraham et maiores suos qui dicebant se esse de genere Abrahe. Marcellus consul Romanus cum Hannibale apud Nolam triduum continuum dimicavit. Primo die pari pugna decessum est. Sequenti victus consul, tertio victor octo milia hostium interfecit et ipsum Hannibalem ad castra fugere compulit. Hannibal tamen postea multas civitates Romanorum per Appuliam et Calabriam Bruciosque occupavit. Titus Mallius proconsul Romanus qui ad Sardiniam missus fuerat pugnans cum Hasdrubale Carthaginensium duce duodecim milia hostium interfecit; milleque quingenti capti fuere. Et ita Sardinia a Romanis subacta, Malius victor captivos et Hasdrubalem Romam adduxit. IX VII XII Hannibal dux Carthaginensis decimo anno postquam in Ytaliam venerat de Campania movens exercitum et cum ingenti clade omnium via Latina profectus ad Anienem fluvium tribus milaribus ab urbe Roma consedit. Incredibili totius civitatis metu cum senatu populoque trepido matronis per propugnacula currentibus primusque pro muris pugnare gestientibus Hannibal cum expeditis equitibus usque ad portam urbis processit. At ubi utrumque acies exposite in conspectu
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
199
Rome constituerunt premium future victorie expectantes, tantus se subito ymber grandine insertus effudit, ut turbata agmina vix armis retentis in sua se castra colligerent, deinde cum serenitate reddita in campum iterum processissent rursus violentior fusa tempestas maiore metum mortalium audaciam cohercuit. Et sic Hannibal tempus tunc sibi potiunde Rome non videns in Campaniam se recepit. Eodem tempore duo Scipiones consules Romani in Hyspania a fratre Hannibalis Hasdrubale victi interfecti sunt. Exercitus tamen Romanorum integer remansit. Dum hec aguntur Levinus pretor Romanus contra Philippum regem Macedonum missus iuncta cum Athalo rege Asie filio Eumenis [76v] filius Rigis societate Greciam depopulavit. Quod audiens Philippus rex qui cum Dardanis bellum habebat qui in eius absentia Macedoniam occupaverat, cum eo pacem fecit. Levinus autem inde ad Siciliam profectus apud Agrigentum Annonem Affrorum ducem bello vicit et ipsum cum civitate cepit. Et ita omnis Sicilia a Romanis recepta est. X VIII XIII Interfectis duobus Scipionibus consulibus Romanis in Hyspania, Scipio qui postea Affricanus dictus est viginti quattuor annos habens pro consulare missus fuit in Hyspaniam. Iste Scipio dum senatores Romani ob metum Hannibalis Ytaliam relinquere deliberarent cum tribunus militum esset destricto gladio id fieri metuit, primusque iurans ut patrie defensor existeret, universos similiter iurare coegit. Is mox Pyreneos montes transgressus in ultionem patris et patrui toto animo intendens. Primo impetu Carthaginem novam cepit. In qua omne aurum argentum et belli apparatum Affri habebant. Nobilissimos quoque obsides quos ab Hyspanis acceperant et Magonem fratrem Hannibalis ibidem capiens cum aliis Romam misit. Rome ingens letitia post hunc triumphum et nuntium fuit. Hic Scipio Hispanorum obsides parentibus reddidit. Deinde dum quedam virgo pulcherrima ab eo comprehensa fuisset eam paterna pietate servavit, concedens parentibus suis ut eam redimerent. Ad se etiam sponsum nobilissimi generis virum venire persuadens ei ipsam quasi pius genitor in matrimonium tradidit dotisque nomine puelle precium quod a parentibus acceperat condonavit, pro quibus factis maxime ad intente puelle sponso eiusque parentibus omnes fere Hyspani ad eum transierunt. XI IX XIV Scipio consul Romanus nondum adhuc factus in Hyspania res egregias facit per se et fratrem suum Lucium Scipionem; nam Hasdrubalem fratrem Hannibalis vincunt et fugant septuagintaque civitates in deditionem accipiunt. In Ytalia consul Romanus Publius Favius Maximus Tarentum recepit, in qua erant ingentes
200
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
copie Hannibalis. Ibi etiam ducem Hannibalis Cartalonem occidens viginti quinque milia hominum accepit et vendidit. Tunc multe civitates Romanorumque ad Hannibalem transierant rursus se Favio Maximo dederunt. Eodem tempore Marcellus cum Hannibale pugnam in Ytaliam occissus est et exercitus eius amissus. Post hec Hannibal desperans Hyspanias contra Scipionem diutius posse teneri fratrem suum Hasdrubalem cum omnibus copiis ab Hyspania evocavit. Is veniens a consulibus Appio Claudio et Marco Livio apud Metaurum fluvium in insidias compositas incidit. Strenue tamen pugnans occisus est et quinquaginta octo milia de exercitu eius perierunt et quinque milia capti sunt. Magnum pondus auri et argenti Rome relatum est et Hannibali capud fratris sui Hasdrubalis ante castra proiectum. Quo viso et simul clade Penorum cognita in Briciam se retraxit. XII X XV Romani de eventu bellorum suorum spem maiorem concipientes Scypionem ex Hyspania evocaverunt. Is tota Hyspania subiugata Romam cum ingenti gloria venit et consul factus est. XIII XI XVI Anno quartodecimo postquam Hannibal in Ytalia venerat, Scipio qui multa bene in Hyspania egerat in Affricam missus Hannonem ducem Affrorum vicit et exercitum eius interfecit. Secundo prelio castra Cartaginensium cepit cum quatuor milibus et quingentis equitibus undecim milibus hominum occisis. Sifacem quoque regem Numidie qui se Affris coniunxerat capiens et castra eius invadens Romam cum infinitis spoliis misit. Qua re audita omnis fere Ytalia Hannibalem deseruit. Ipse autem in Affricam redire iussus propter Scipionem qui patriam vastabat, flens reliquit Ytaliam. Interim legati Carthaginensium pacem a Scipione petentes ab eo ad senatum Romam missi sunt et quadraginta quinque dierum inducie date quousque ire Romam et regredi possent. Senatus ex arbitrio Scipionis pacem iussit cum Carthaginensibus fieri. Scipio hiis conditionibus dedit, ut ne amplius quam triginta naves haberent quinquagintaque milia pondo argenti darent et captivos ac profugas redderent. anno mundi IIIm VIIIc LVIII XIV XII XVII Hannibal cum pervenisset ad Affricam pacem Carthaginensium cum Romanis factam turbavit et pugnans cum Scipione sepe victus fuit.
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
201
XV XIII XVIII XVI XIV XIX XVII XV XX Dum rex Egypti Ptolomeus Philopator Agathoclie meretricis illecebris teneretur, atque magnitudinis, nominis ac maiestatis sue oblitus noctes in [77r] stupris, dies in conviviis longo tempore consumpsisset, relicto ex Euridice sorore et quinquenni filio moritur, sed mors eius dum pecuniam regiam mulieres rapiunt et imperium inita cum perditissimis societate occupare conantur diu occultata fuit. Re cognita tandem concursu multitudinis et Agathocles frater Agathoclie meretricis qui civitatem Alexandrie regebat occiditur et mulieres cum quibus rex vitam sordidam duxerat in ultionem Euridices patibulis suffiguntur. Et sic in Egyptum post mortem Alexandri Magni quintus regnavit Phtolomeus Epiphanes puer quinquennis, annis viginti quatuor. Miserunt tamen Alexandrini legatos ad Romanos orantes ut tutelam pupilli sui susciperent, tuerenturque regnum Egipti quod iam Philippum regem Macedonum et Antiochum regem Syrie facta pactione inter se divisisse dicebant. Quibus grate susceptis apud Romam, Romani legatos Philippo et Antiocho denunciantes ut in regno Egipti abstineant miserunt atque Marchum Lepidum in Egiptum qui tutoris nomine regnum pupilli administraret. I Ptolomeus Epiphanes XVI XXI Hannibal multis et variis preliis a Scipione Romano consule attritus cum tandem pervenisset Carthaginem petere pacem a Romanis Carthaginensibus persuasit. Que cum data esset hisdem conditionibus quibus prius additis quingentis milibus ponderibus argenti centumque milibus librarum propter novam perfidiam Carthaginensibus displicuit miseruntque Hannibalem pugnare. Infertur tunc a Scipione et Manussa rege Numidarum qui amiciciam cum Scipione fecerat Carthagini bellum ante quod Hannibal tres exploratores ad castra Scipionis misit. Quos captos Scipio circumduci per castra iussit ostenditque exercitum totum. Mox etiam prandium dari dimittitque ut renuntiaret Hannibali quod apud Romanos vidissent. Postea vero prelium commissum est ab utroque exercitu, quale vix ulla memoria narrat. In eo Romani victores fuerunt Hannibale pene interfecto qui primum cum multis equitibus demum cum viginti postremo cum quatuor evasit. Octingenta ibi elephanti capti vel occisi sunt et Carthaginensium viginti milia quingenti interfecti. Post illud certamen pax cum Carthaginensibus facta est. Naves tamen plus quam quingente in altum producte in conspectu civitatis incense sunt. Scipio iam tunc triumpho potito cum ingenti gloria Romam rediit et ex eo tempore Affricanus cognominatus est. Et ita finem accepit secundum
202
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
Punicum bellum post annum decimum novum quo ceperat. Dum hec aguntur interim legationes Attali regis Asie et Rodiorum iniurias Philippi regis Macedonum querentes Romam venerunt, que res omnem cunctationem Macedonici belli senatui exemit statim quoque titulo ferendi sociis auxilii bellum adversus Philippum decernitur legionesque et Flaminius consul cum conditione pacis in Macedoniam mittuntur. II XVII XXII Antiochus magnus Syrie rex cum Fenicem ceterasque Syrie quidem sed iuris Egypti civitates occupasset pugnantibusque contra eum ducibus regis Egypti Phtolomei Epyphanes Iudea in medio posita in contraria studia scindebatur, aliis Ptholomeo aliis Antiocho faventibus propter quod Onias pontifex Iudeorum assumptis secum quamplurimis Iudeis fugiit in Egyptum et a Phtolomeo honorifice susceptus regionem Eliopoleos accepit. Ipse vero Onias concedente sibi rege templum construxit in Egypto simile templo Iudeorum quod permansit usque ad imperium Vespasiani annis ducentis quinquaginta. Eo tempore Cyrene multitudine Iudeorum repleta est. III XVIII XXIII Ptolomeus Epyphanes rex Egypti Scopa principe militie sue destinato contra Antiochum magnum regem Syrie Iudeam capit et plurimas Syrie civitates. Antiochus vero postea Scopa superato Syrie urbes recepit et Iudee voluntati coniungitur. Qui Iudeorum erga se cognita voluntate magnis eos muneribus donat et per epistolas crebris laudibus prosequitur. Eodem tempore tota Grecia fiducia Romanorum adversus Philippum regem Macedonum spe pristine libertatis erecta bellum ei intulit, atque ita cum undique rex Philippus urgeretur pacem cum Romanis petere compellitur. Sed Romanis pacem repudiantibus, Philippus in societatem belli Nabym tyrannum qui multas Grecie civitates occupaverat sollicitat et accepit. Inito itaque prelio Macedonas Flaminius consul Romanorum vicit. Et sic fractus Philippus pace a Flaminio petita nomen quidem regium retinuit sed omnibus Tracie urbibus veluti regni membris extra terminos antique possessionis amissis solam Macedoniam retinuit et cum tributo annuo obsidem filium suum Demetrium Romanis dedit. Dolentesque Etholi quia non arbitrio [77v] eorum Macedonia sibi adempta et in premium belli eis data fuisset legatos ad Antiochum regem Syrie mittunt, qui eum adulatione magnitudinis in Romana bella spe societatis universe impellerent. Eodem tempore inter insulas Theramenem et Therasiam in medio utriusque rippe et maris spatio terremotus
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
203
fuit, in quo cum admiratione navigantium repente ex profundo cum calidis aquis insula que vocatur Hyera emersit. In Asia quoque eadem die idem terremotus Rhodum multasque alias civitates gravi ruina labe concussit, quasdam solidas absorbuit. Quo prodigio territis omnibus vates cecinere Oriens Romanorum imperium mansurum vetus autem Grecorum ac Macedonum vacaturum. IV XIX XXIV V XX XXV Hiis diebus cum Romani bellum cum Antiocho rege Syrie gererent, multum Hannibalem ducem Carthaginis metuebant. Nam emuli eius occultis mandatis eum cum Antiocho emisse societatem apud Romanos criminabantur, negantes eum equo animo sub legibus vivere adsuetum imperium et immoderata licentia militari semperque tedio quietis urbane novas belli causas circumspicere. Que etsi falsa nuntiata fuissent apud timentes tamen pro veris habebantur, propter quod senatus metu percussus ad speculandos actus Hannibalis legatum in Affricam Gneium Servilium mittit eique tacitis mandatis precepit ut si posset eum per emulos eius interficeret metuque invisi nominis tandem populum liberaret. Sed res Hannibalem diu non latuit virum ad prospicienda cavendaque pericula paratum nec minus in secundis adversa quam in adversis secunda cogitantem denique cum tota die in oculis principum legatique Romani in foro Carthaginensium obversatus in supremum fuisset, adpropinquante vespere equum conscendit et rus urbanum quod propter litus maris habebat ignaris servis iussisque ad portam devertentem operiri contendit. Habebat ibi naves cum remigibus occulto sinu litoris absconditas. Erat et grandis in eo agro pecunia preparata ut cum res exegisset, nec facultas fugam nec inopia moraretur. Lecta igitur servorum iuventute navem conscendit cursumque ad Antiochum regem Syrie dirigit. Postea autem die civitas principem suum actum temporis consulem in foro expectabat. Quem ut profectum nuntiatum est non aliter quam si urbs capta esset, omnes trepidavere eiciosamque sibi fugam eius ominati sunt. Legatus vero Romanus quasi iam bellum illatum Ytalie ab Hannibale esset, tacitus Romam regreditur trepidumque nuntium refert. Eodem tempore senatus Romanus scripsit Flaminio consuli ut sicut Macedoniam a Philippo, ita et Greciam a Nabide tyranno liberaret. VI XXI XXVI anno mundi IIIm VIIIc LXVIII VII XXII XXVII
204
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
Nevius comicus Utice moritur pulsus Roma factione nobilium et maxime Metelli. Plautus ex Umbria Arpinas Rome moritur qui propter annone difficultatem ad molas mannarias pistorem se locaverat. Ibi quotiens ab opere cessasset vel vacasset scribere fabulas solitus erat ac vendere. Eodem tempore in Grecia Flaminius consul Romanus iuncta cum quibusdam civitatibus societate Nabidem tyrannum Lacedemoniorum regem duobus continuis preliis et gravibus fractum subegit et filium eius obsidem cum filio Philippi regis Macedonum Demetrio Romam adduxit, Grecie libertate prius restituta. Eodem etiam tempore insubres Boii a quibus Ticinum civitas condita est, Cremonem et Placentiam vastantes difficillimo bello a Lucio Fulvio pretore superati sunt. Consul deinde Marcellus in Etruria ab eisdem Boiis oppressus magnam partem exercitus perdidit. Cui postea Furius alter consul auxilio veniens universam Boiorum gentem igne ferroque vastantes prope modum usque ad nichilum redigerunt. VIII XXIII XXVIII Antiochus rex Syrie in amicitiam Ptholomei Epiphanes regis Egypti regressus, pacem cum eo facit et Cleopatra filia sua uxore ei data dotis nomine Phenicem, Samariam, Iudeamque concedit. Deductis ab urbibus Grecie presidiis cum Romanus exercitus in Ytaliam redisset. Nabim Lacedemoniorum tyrannus velut vacua rursus possessione sollicitatus multas civitates Grecie repentino bello invasit. Quibus exterriti Achei ne vicinum malum ad se serperet bellum adversus Nabidem decernunt ducemque pretorem Philopemenem insignis industrie virum constituunt cuius in eo bello tanta virtus enituit ut opinione omnium Flaminio Romanorum consuli qui Greciam subiugaverat compararetur. [78r] IX XXIV XXIX Hannibal princeps quondam Cartaginis cum ad Antiochum regem Syrie pervenisset velut deorum munus excipitur tantusque eius adventu ardor animis regis Antiochi accessit ut non tam de bello quod inferre Romanis parabat quam de premiis victorie cogitaret. Set Hannibal cui nota Romana virtus erat negabat opprimi Romanos nisi in Ytalia posse. Ad hoc sibi centum naves et decem milia peditum milleque equites poscebat promittens hac manu non minus bellum quam gesserit Ytalie restauraturum et in Asia regi sedenti aut victoriam de Romanis aut equas pacis conditiones relaturum. Quippe et Hyspanis bello flagrantibus ducem tamen deesse et Ytaliam nociorem sibi nunc quam pridem fuisse. Cum huic igitur sententie Hannibalis non crederetur interim Atilius consul Romanus veniens in Greciam cum exercitu magno et conciliatis sibi civitatibus
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
205
sociis bellum contra Antiochum paravit. Cui occurrens in Achaia Antiochus prima belli congressione concedentes suos rex cerneret non laborantibus auxilium tulit sed fugientibus se ducem prebens castra sua ditissima victoribus Romanis reliquit deinde cum in Asiam preda Romanis occupatis fugiendo pervenisset penitere neglecti consilii cepit, revocatoque Hannibale omnia ex sententia eius se promittit agere, Philippo igitur regi Macedonum quia in illo prelio contra Antiochum Romanis auxilium tulisset redditus est filius eius Demetrius qui erat Rome obses. X XXV XXX Apud Mediolanum decem milia Gallorum a Romanis cesa sunt. Iterum sequenti prelio undecim milia Gallorum quinque milia Romanorum occisa sunt. Marcus Fulvius pretor Romanus Calabrios cum proximis gentibus vicit et regem eorum cepit. XI XXVI XXXI XII XXVII XXXII Lucius Scipio frater Scipionis Affricani missus a Romanis in Asiam contra Antiochum regem Syrie cum iuxta Magnesiam Asie civitatem terrestri prelio vicit et frater eius Scipio Affricanus legatus ad fratrem missus et obvius Hannibali in mari factus cum navali prelio aggrediens devictum fugere compulit. Et sic Antiochus virtute fractus pacem a Romanis quesivit. Huiusmodi pacis conditiones legatis eius dicuntur scilicet ut Asia Romanis cederet contentus Antiochus regno Syrie esset, naves universas, captivos et transfugas traderet sumptumque belli Romanis restitueret. Que cum nuntiata Antiocho essent, nondum ita victum se esse respondit ut spoliari regno se pateretur bellique ea irritamenta non pacis blandimenta esse. Igitur cum ab utrisque bellum pararetur Romani Asiam ingressi, Ylium petentes magna gratulatione ab Yliensibus sunt suscepti. Tantaque letitia omnium fuit quanta esse post longum tempus inter parentes et liberos solet. Siquidem Ilienses Eneam ceterosque duces cum eo a se profectos Romani se ab his procreatos referebant profectis denique ab Ylio Romanis Eumenes rex qui Eumenem civitatem in Frigia condidit. Frater Attali regis cum auxiliis eis occurrit nec multo post prelium cum Antiocho commissum est. Cumque in dexteriore cornu legio Romana maiore dedecore quam periculo ad castra fugeret Marchus Emilius tribunus militum ad tutelam castrorum relictus, armare se milites suos et extra vallum progredi iubet strictisque gladiis fugientibus in mari morituros dicens ni in prelium revertantur infestioraque sua quam hostium castra inventuros.
206
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
Adtonita tam ambiguo periculo legio comitantibus commilitonibus qui eos fugere prohibuerant in prelium revertuntur, magnaque cede edita Romani victoriam optinuerunt. Cesa sunt hostium quinquaginta milia, undecim milia capta. Antiocho tunc pacem petenti hiis conditionibus quibus prius data est additio quod decem milia talentorum pro tributo et viginti obsides preberet redderetque Hannibalem concitatorem belli. Eumeni regi date sunt urbes que Antiochus perdiderat et Rhodiis qui auxilium Romanis tulerant. Scipio post hec Romam rediit et sicut frater eius propter Affricam devictam Affricanus dictus est, ita ipse Asianus cognominatus fuit. XIII XXVIII XXXIII Cum Romani ab Antiocho rege Syrie inter ceteras conditiones pacis deditionem Hannibalis poscerent, ammonitus a rege in fugam versus Cretam defertur. Ibi cum diu quietam vitam egisset invidiosumque se propter nimias opes videret, amphoras plumbo repletas in templo Diane quasi fortune sue presidia deponat atque ideo nichil de illo sollicita civitate, quam velut pignus opes eius tenebat ad Prusiam regem Bithinie contendit, auro suo statuis quas secum portabat infuso ne conspecte opes vite nocerent. Etholi qui Antiochum regem Syrie in Romana bella impulerant, victo eodem soli adversus Romanos et viribus impares et omni auxilio destituti remanserunt. Nec multo post victi libertatem quam illibatam adversus dominationem Atheniensium et Spartanorum inter tot Grecie civitates soli retinuerant amiserunt. [78v] XIV XXIX XXXIV Lucius Bebius consul Romanus in Hyspaniam contra Ligures missus ab ipsis Liguribus circumventus cum universo exercitu suo occisus fuit adeo ut nec nuntium quidem superfuisse constet. Massilienses tamen Rome internictionem nuntiare curarunt. Post hec Martius consul adversus eos missus superatus est et quatuor milia militum amisit. XV XXX XXXV Fulvius consul Romanus de Grecia in Gallogreciam que nunc est Gallacia transvectus ad Olimpum montem pervenit ad quem universi Gallogreci cum coniungibus et liberis confugerant. Ibique cum eis bellum gerens quadraginta milia Gallogrecorum interfecit.
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
207
XVI XXXI XXXVI Antiochus magnus rex Syrie a Romanis victus cum gravi tributo pacis cum eis facte oneratus esset, seu inopia pecunie compulsus seu avaritia sollicitatus qui sperabat se sub specie tributarie necessitatis excusatum sacrilegia commissurum adhibito exercitu nocte templum Didimei Iovis adgreditur; qua re prodita concursu insularum cum omni militia interficitur. Cui successit in regno Seleuchus filius eius iners et pessimus qui cognominatus est Philopator et regnavit annis duodecim. Pontifex tunc Iudeorum erat Onias, non ille Onias qui fugerat in Egyptum sed Onias filius Symonis filii eius. Nam Onia transeunte in Egypto filius eius Symon sedit pro eo, cui successit filius eius Onias. anno mundi IIIcVIIIcLXXVIII XVII XXXII I Seleuchus XVIII XXXIII II Titus Livius tragediarum scriptor clarus habetur qui ob ingeniis meritum a Livio Salinatore cuius liberos erudiebat libertate donatus est. Offenso Onia pontifice Iudeorum contra Simeonem templi Ierosolimorum prepositum Symon ad Pollonium Phenicis ducem confugit et multis ei muneribus repromissis sacerdotium sibi vendicare cepit. Quo Seleuchus Philopator rex Syrie audito misit Helyodorum militem suum in Ierusalem ad spoliandum omne erarium templi, non vasa sed donaria in usus templi. Quo ingresso in templum surrexerunt duo iuvenes de latibulis et occiderunt eum. Videtur tamen Iosephus velle angelos fuisse in similitudinem hominum. In libro Machabeorum legitur quia apparuit terribilis sessor equi et conculcabat eum et fractus est et commonitus, sed non mortuus. Timensque Onias indignationem Seleuci, oravit ad Dominum pro defuncto et surrexit. Qui rediens ad regem ait si habuerunt dominus meus aliquos quorum sitiat sanguinem mittat eos in Ierusalem ut spolient templum. XIX XXXIV III Inter Messenios et Acheos bellum ortum est. In eo prelio nobilis Acheorum dux Philipomenes capitur non quia pugnando vite pepercerit sed dum suos in prelium revocat in transitu fosse equo precipitatus a multitudine hostium oppressus est. Quem Messenii iacentem seu metu virtutis seu verecundia dignitatis interficere ausi non fuerunt. Verumtamen in carcere posito venenum postea bibere dederunt. Quod ille letus ac si vicisset accepit quesito prius an Lygorias prefectus Acheorum
208
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
quem secundum a se esse scientia militari sciebat incolumis effugisset. Quem ut accepit evasisse non in totum dicens male consultum Acheis suspiravit. Nec multo post reparato bello Mesenii vincuntur penasque interfecti Philopomenis pependerunt. Inter Prusiam regem Bithinie ad quem Hannibal dux Carthaginis post pacem Antiocho regi Syrie a Romanis datam profugerat, et Eumenem regem Asye bellum ortum est, quod Prusiam Hannibalis fiducia rupto federe prior intulit; deinde cum Prusias terrestri bello ab Eumene victus esset et prelium in mare transtulisset, Hannibal novo commento auctor victorie fuit, quippe omne serpentium genus in fictiles lagenas cohici iussit medioque prelio in naves hostium mittit. Id primum pontificis ridiculum visum fictilibus dimicare qui ferro nequeant. Sed ubi serpentibus naves cepere repleri ancipiti periculo circumventi hosti victoriam cesserunt. Que ubi Romam nuntiata sunt, missi a Senatu legati fuere, qui utrumque regem in pacem cogerent Hannibalemque deposcerent. Sed Hannibal re cognita sumpto veneno legationem morte prevenit. Eodem anno Scipio Affricanus ab ingrata sibi urbe Roma diu exiliatus apud Amiternum morbo periit. In Sicilia tunc Vulcani insula que ante non fuerat repente mari edita cum miraculo omnium, usque ad nunc manet. XX XXXV IV XXI XXXVI V XXII XXXVII VI Rome cum multe Grecie civitates questum de iniuriis Philippi regis Macedonum venissent et disceptatio in Senatu inter Demetrium Philippi filium quem pater ad satisfaciendum Senatui miserat et legatus civitatum esset turba querelarum confusus adolescens [79r] repente obticuit. Tunc Senatus verecundia eius motus que probata etiam antea cum obses Rome esset omnibus fuerat causam illi donavit atque ita modestia sua Demetrius veniam patri non iure defensionis sed patrocinio pudoris obtinuit, quod ipsum decreto Senatus significatum est ut appareret non tam absolutum regem quam donatum filio patrem, que res Demetrio non gratiam legationis sed odium obtrectationis et causa offense fuit indignante Philippo plus momenti apud Senatum personam filii quam auctoritatem patris ac dignitatem regie maiestatis habuisse. XXIII XXXVIII VII XXIV XXXIX VIII Phtolomeus Epiphanes rex Egypti cum multas divitias immoderate congregaret timentes duces eius ne ipsorum substantias auferret maleficiis artibus eum
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
209
occiderent. Post quem regnavit filius eius Phtolomeus Philometor ex Cleopatra filia Antiochi magni regis Syrie. Gorbomano rege Britannie mortuo successit ei Accaillo et huic Elidurus Pius de cuius pietate fama innotuit. Cum enim Peridurus frater eius primogenitus absens esset sceptra coactus suscepit Elidurus. Post annum vero cum frater eius egenus remearet cum lacrimis eum suscepit et se sponte regno deponens sceptro et dyademate fratrem insignivit. Peridurus autem natura crudelis adeo vexavit proceres quod eo abiecto Elidurum Pium resumpserunt. Elidurus vero regnum malens fratri quam sibi, se ab eo capi et in carcerem poni permisit. Peridurus regnans vindictam crudeliter in proceres qui eum abiecerant crudeliter exercuit, donec eum mors communis assumpsit. Tunc vero Elidurus Pius tertio feliciter omnium communi gaudio usque ad finem vite gloriosus effloruit. Successit ei regni filius Gorbomani. I Phtolomeus Philometor XL IX Hyrcanus Iosephi Iudee ducis filius veniens ad Phtolomeum Philometorem regem Egypti honorifice susceptus est ab eo. Verum fratres eius seditione contra eum mota magnarum calamitatum Iudee genti causa extiterunt. Statius Cecilius comediarum scriptor clarus habetur, natione insuper Gallus et Ennii primum contubernalis qui ad Mediolanense forum mortuus est, anno post mortem Ennii et iuxta Ianiculum sepultus. Audiens Antiochus Epyphanes qui erat Rome obses pro Antiocho magno patre suo rege Syrie patrem mortuum et fratris sui Seleuci Philopatoris qui regnabat in Syria in Herciam spem presumens de regno Syrie habendo clam Romam egressus est licet quidam tradebant eum sub conniventia senatorum rediisse. Reversusque in Syriam benignum se omnibus et munificum exposuit. Qui quia strenuus erat in agendis et acer in hostes a populo cognominatus est Epyphanes quod sonat illustris. anno mundi IIImVIIIcLXXXVIII II XLI X III XLII XI Eodem tempore cum Philippus rex Macedonum infirmaretur Perseus filius eius iunior perspecta patris egritudine cotidie absentem Demetrium fratrem suum primogenitum apud patrem criminari et primo invisum, post etiam suspectum satagebat reddere nunc amicitiam Romanorum nunc proditionem patris obiectare ad postremum insidias sibi ab eo paratas confingit. Ad cuius rei probationem immittit iudices testes subornat et facinus quod obicit admittit. Quibus rebus compulso ad
210
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
parricidium patre funestam omnem regiam facit. Occiso sic Demetrio sublatoque emulo non negligentior tantum Perseus in patrem verum etiam contumacior erat. Nec se heredem regni sed regem gerebat. Hys rebus offensus Philippus impatientius in dies mortem Demetrii dolebat, et ita morbi egritudine aggravatus in brevi post decessit relicto magno belli apparatu adversus Romanos, quo Perseus postea usus est. Et sic regnavit post eum Perseus anni undecim. IV I Perseus XII Mortuo Seleucho Philopatore rege Syrie Antiochus Epyphanes frater eius qui fuerat Rome obses eidem in regno successit et regnavit annis undecim. Hic regno suscepto iniquitatem sibi insitam quam pro regno optinendo palliaverat aperuit. V II I Antiochus Epiphanes Aristobolus natione Iudeus perypateticus phylosophus agnoscitur qui ad Philometorem Phtolomeum regem Egypti explanationem in Moysem commentarios scripsit. Erant tunc in Ierusalem filii Belial introducentes ritus gentium. Qui venientes ad Antiochum Epyphanem regem Syrie apud Antiochiam petierunt ab eo ut faceret in Ierusalem ephebiam, idest lupanar epheborum et quod in Ieroso[79v]limite scriberentur Antiocheni et gignasia in quibus dogmatizabant de ritu gentilitatis constituerent. Feceruntque sibi preputia, idest non circumcidebant parvulos suos vel ritu prepuciorum vivebant. Quidam tamen volunt quod quedam velamina fecerunt circumcisioni sue ne denudatione Grecis apparerent dissimiles. Causa vero huius flagitii hec erat. Onias pontifex Ierosolimorum sine liberis existens duos habebat fratres, Jesum qui cognominabatur Iason et Iohannem qui dictus est Menelaus. Qui duo contendentes de pontificatu ut placerent Antiocho ad ritus gentium declinaverunt. Iason vero veniens ad Antiochum in Antiochiam que tunc erat capud regni Syrie promissis ei argenti talentis quingentis nonaginta suscepit sacerdotium ab eo. Qui Iason constituit in Ierusalem gignasium sub arce et ephebiam in quo posuit optimos quousque epheborum et Ierosolimitas Antiochenos scripsit. Et audierunt eum viri pessimi, culpabiles in cibo et violatione sabbati et huiusmodi. Onias autem pontifex cum vidisset facinus fratrum ivit ad Antiochum regem in Antiochiam temptare cupiens si posset regis animum immutare. Qui cum nequiret sedebat apud Antiochiam in assylo, Augustinus dicit quod ignis sacrificii qui per septuaginta annos Babilonice captivitatis sub aquis vixerat extinctus
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
211
est, Antiocho rege Iasoni vendente sacerdotium. Et nota quod in secundo libro Machabeorum Iason solus fuisse frater Onie pontificis dicitur et Menelaus frater cuiusdam Symonis qui invidens Onie persuaserat Seleucho regi Syrie defuncto de communi erario spoliando sicut super dictum est. VI III II Cum quinquennalis agon apud Tyrum celebraretur et rex Syrie Antiochus presens ibi esset, misit Iason qui pontificatum in Ierusalem ab eo emerat trecentas didragmas in sacrificiis Herculis que date sunt in fabrica navium trecentum. Post hec veniens Antiochus in Ierusalem cum susceptus esset a Iasone honorifice tamen fecit Menelaus quem fratrem Iasonis et Onie sacerdotis supra diximus quod Menelaus sacerdotium a rege haberet et Iason in exilium mitteretur. Non multo post eodem Menelao amoto substitutus est pro eo Lisimacus frater eius. Post hec Menelaus faciens convocari Oniam de asilo in quo erat apud Antiochiam per Andronicum cui Antiochus Iudeam commiserat regendam, dans eidem Andronico inter cetera aurea quedam vasa templi que furatus fuerat fecit per eundem Andronicum Oniam occidi. Cuius cedis eum querela data esset ad Antiochum regem ipse miseratione commotus flevit Oniam et Andronicum purpura exutum et per totam civitatem circumductum in eodem loco in quo Oniam occiderat occidi iussit. Deinde interfectus est Lisimachus iuxta erarium. Post hec veniens Antiochus in Ierusalem, expoliavit templum et posuit in arce presidium Macedonum. Et quia cives erant divisi, quidam adherentes sibi, quidam regi Egypti, multos in civitate percussit et sic rediit Antiochiam. Interfecta sunt in triduo fere octuaginta milia et quindecim milia vincta lugebatque omnis Iudea. VII IV III VIII V IV Antiochus Epyphanes rex Syrie misit in Ierusalem viros qui tributa exigerent a Iudeis et auferrent cultum Dei in temploque ponerent Iovis Olimpii simulacrum et Antiochi statuas. Sub isto Antiocho ea que narrantur de Apollonio Tyro dicuntur esse gesta. IX VI V X VII VI [anno mundi 3896]
212
E Wanted: The Leaves Missing from BL Royal 13 E IV
Antiochus Epyphanes rex Syrie Phtolomeo Philometori regi Egypti sororis sue filio bellum infert. Qui fugiens ante Antiochum usque ad Alexandriam ad fratrem suum Phtolomeum minorem participatoque cum eo regno legatos Romam miserunt petentes auxilium et fidem societatis implorantes. Mittitur itaque legatus Pompilius ad Antiochum qui abstinere illum Egypto Asya excedere iuberet.
Plates
Plate 1: MS Chigi, 1r, detail. The painter Jeanne de Montbaston imagined the presentation of the Chronicle to Charles IV at his imperial coronation by the author, Guillaume de Nangis. She filled the 6 cm square with symbols of the coming occasion, on a gold background. Courtesy of the Vatican Library.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-017
214
Plates
Plate 2: MS Royal, 1r. Only this opening page includes any decoration beyond filigreed capital letters. By permission of the British Library.
Plates
215
Plate 3: MS Royal, 1r detail by visible light. The author picture was drawn and painted upon a silver-leaf ground which has badly deteriorated. By permision of the British Library.
216
Plates
Plate 4: MS Royal, 1r detail, photographed in infrared light by Eugenio Falcioni, Imaging Department, The British Library, showing the underdrawing of the author picture. By permission of the British Library.
Plates
217
Plate 5: BnF MS fr. 2090, 4v detail. Yves de Saint-Denis, author of the Vie de saint Denis, is pictured in the presentation scene. Similarity of technique indicates that the illuminator also painted the author picture in BL Royal, 1r. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
218
Plates
Plate 6: BnF MS fr. 2090, 12v, detail. Eusebius, one of the pictures on a page of ancient authors. Compare the details with the illumination in MS Royal, 1r: the posture, hands, open book, pen, knife, and ink horn. Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.
Bibliography Achery, Luc d’, Etienne Baluze, Edmond Martène, and Louis François Joseph de la Barre. Spicilegium: sive, Collectio Veterum aliquot Scriptorum qui in Galliae bibliothecis delituerant . . . Nova Editio priori accuratior & infinitis propè Mendis ad fidem MSS. Codicum, quorum varias lectiones v. C. Stephanus Baluze ac R. P. D. Edmundus Martene collegerunt, expurgata per Ludovicum-Franciscum-Joseph de la Barre. Paris: Montalant, 1723; reprint 1968. Internet Archive. Acta Concilii Constanciensis. Edited by Heinrich Finke et al. 4 vols. Münster: Regensbergsche Buchhandlung, 1896–1923; reprint 1976–1982; Internet Archive. (1. Akten zur Vorgeschichte des Konstanzer Konzils (1410–1414); 2. Konzilstagebücher, Sermones, Reform- und Verfassungsakten. 3. Die drei Päpste und das Konzil. Schriften zur Papstwahl. 4. Aragon, Kastilien und das Konzil. Die Verhandlung über den Tyrannenmord auf dem Konzil. Reichssachen. Kleinere Aktengruppen. Reformtraktate. Nachträge zu Bd. 1–4. Register.) Aldrich, Robert, John Anstis, and Elias Ashmole. The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, from its cover in Black Velvet usually called the Black Book. 2 vols. London: Printed by J. Barber, 1724. Internet Archive. Araújo, Rita, et al., “Silver Paints in Medieval Manuscripts: A First Molecular Survey into Their Degradation,” Heritage Science 6, no. 8 (2018). Bale, John. Index Britanniae scriptorum: John Bale’s Index of British and Other Writers. Edited by Reginald Lane Poole and Mary Bateson (Oxford, 1902); reprint with an introduction by Caroline Brett and James P. Carley. Cambridge, England and Rochester, NY, USA: D.S. Brewer, 1990. Internet Archive. Ball, R. M. Thomas Gascoigne, Libraries and Scholarship. Cambridge Bibliographical Society Monograph no. 14. Cambridge: Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 2006. Baluze, Etienne, and Guillaume Mollat. Vitae Paparum Avenionensium; Hoc est Historia Pontificum Romanorum qui in Gallia sederunt ab Anno Christi MCCCV usque ad Annum MCCCXCIV. 4 vols.; Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1914–1927. Internet Archive. Barbiche, Bernard, ed. Les Actes pontificaux originaux des Archives Nationales de Paris (1261–1304). Index Actorum Romanorum Pontificum, 2. Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1978. Baye, Nicolas de, ed. Alexandre Tuetey. Journal de Nicolas de Baye, greffier du Parlement de Paris, 1400–1417. 2 vols. Société de l’Histoire de France. Publications, 222, 239. Paris: Librairie Renouard, V E. H. Laurens, Successeur, 1885. Internet Archive. Beaune, Colette, ed. and trans. Chronique dite de Jean de Venette. Paris: Librairie générale française, 2011. Beltz, George Frederick. Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, from its Foundation to the Present Time. Including the History of the Order, Biographical Notices of the Knights in the Reigns of Edward III and Richard II; the Chronological Succession of the Members, and Many Curious Particulars Relating to English and French History from Hitherto Unpublished Documents. London: W. Pickering, 1841; reprint New York: AMS Press,1973. Internet Archive. Bernard, Edward, and Humphrey Wanley. Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti. 2 vols.; Oxoniæ: E Theatro Sheldoniano, 1697. Internet Archive. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-018
220
Bibliography
Beta, Simone. Io, un manoscritto: L’antologia palatina si racconta. Roma: Carocci editore, 2017. Bibliotheca sanctorum. 13 vols. Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII nella Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1961. Böhmer, Johann Friedrich, and Wilhelm Altmann. Die Urkunden Kaiser Sigmunds, 1410–1437. Regesta Imperii; 11. Innsbruck: Wagner, 1896; repr. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1968. Internet Archive. Bond, Maurice F. The Inventories of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1384–1667. Historical Monographs Relating to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Windsor: Printed and Published for the Dean and Canons of St. George’s Chapel by Oxley, 1947. Borrelli de Serres, Léon Louis. Les Variations monétaires sous Philippe le Bel et les sources de leur histoire. Chalon-sur Saône: E. Bertrand, 1902. Bourgeois du Chastenet, Louis. Nouvelle histoire du Concile de Constance, ou l’on fait voir combien la France a contribué à l’extinction du Schisme. Avec plusieurs pieces qui n’ont point encore paru, tirées des manuscrits des meilleures bibliotheques. A Paris: Chez Le Mercier, Langlois, Josse, Emery, Quillau, Sevestre, Vincent, 1718. Bozóky, Edina. La politique des reliques de Constantin à Saint Louis: protection collective et légitimation du pouvoir. Paris: Beauchesne, 2007. Brandmüller, Walter. Das Konzil von Konstanz, 1414–1418. Konziliengeschichte. Reihe A, Darstellungen. 2 vols. Paderborn: F. Schöningh, 1991. Bray, Gerald. Tudor Church Reform: The Henrician Canons of 1535 and the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum. Church of England Record Society 8. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer: Boydell Press, 2000. Brown, Elizabeth A. R. “Burying and Unburying the Kings of France,” In Persons in Groups: Social Behavior as Identity Formation in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, edited by Richard C. Trexler. Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 36 (1985): 241–66. Brown, Elizabeth A. R. “Jacques Doublet, Jean de Luc, and the Head of Saint Denis.” In Auctoritas: Mélanges offerts à Olivier Guillot, edited by Giles Constable, Michel Rouche, and Olivier. Guillot, pp. 711–19. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2006. Brown, Elizabeth A. R. “Paris and Paradise: The View from Saint-Denis.” In The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, edited by Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Paslan, and Ellen M. Shortill, pp. 419–61. Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2009, Brown, Elizabeth A. R. and Marigold Anne Norbye. “Yves of St. Denis,” Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle. Brill Online Reference Works. Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain, Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere. Edited by G. A. Bergenroth. Vols. 2–8: Henry VIII, 1509–1525. London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1866; Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1969–1978. Internet Archive. Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy. Public Record Office; Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1970; Internet Archive. Caliari, Pietro. Paolo Veronese, sua vita e sue opere: Studi storico-estetici. Roma: Forzani E C., Tipografi del Senato, 1888. Carley, James P. The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives. London: British Library, 2004.
Bibliography
221
Carley, James P. The Libraries of King Henry VIII. Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7. London: British Library in Association with The British Academy, 2000. Carlquist, Jonas. “Philology as Explanation for Historical Contexts.” In Harry Lönnroth, ed., Philology Matters! Essays on the Art of Reading Slowly, pp. 75–96. Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts, 19. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017. Carpenter, Christine. “Beauchamp, Richard, 13th Earl of Warwick (1382–1439),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 4, 592–95. Casley, David. A Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the King’s Library: An Appendix to the Catalogue of the Cottonian library; Together with an account of books burnt or damaged by a late fire: One Hundred and Fifty specimens of the Manner of Writing in different Ages, from the Third to the Fifteenth Century, in Copper-Plates, and some observations upon Mss in a preface by David Casley, Deputy Librarian. London: printed for the author, and sold by him at the said libraries, now in the old dormitory of Westminster school; and also by Robert Gosling, at the Mitre and Crown in Fleet-Street; and John Brindley, at the King’s-Arms in New Bond-Street, M.DCC.XXXIV (1734); Internet Archive. Catalogue des manuscrits de la bibliothèque de défunt monseigneur le Chancelier Séguier. Paris: Chez Franc. le Cointe, ruë des Sept-Voyes, devant le College de Reims, 1686. Internet Archive. Catholicon: Giovanni Balbi di Genova, Catholicon. Mainz, 1460; reprint Westmead, England: Gregg International Publishers, 1971. Internet Archive. Champion, Pierre. Vie de Charles d’Orléans (1394–1465). Bibliothèque du XVe siècle, 13. Paris: H. Champion, 1911. Chazan, Mireille. L’Empire et l’histoire universelle de Sigebert de Gembloux à Jean de SaintVictor (XIIe-XIVe siècle). Etudes d’histoire médiévale 3. Paris, H. Champion, 1999. Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denys [Michel Pintoin] contenant le règne de Charles VI de 1380 à 1422. Latin ed. and French tr. by Jean Chartier, L. Bellaguet (1842), new ed. with intro. by Bernard Guenée. 6 vols. in 3. Format no. 13. Paris: Editions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 1994. Cipolla, Carlo, Gaetano De Sanctis, and Carlo Frati. “Inventario dei Codici superstiti greci e latini antichi della Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino.” Rivista di Filologia e d’Istruzione Classica, 32 (1904): 385–588. Classen, Albrecht. “Emperor Sigismund’s Visit to England in 1416: Its Observation and Reflection in Late Medieval Chronicles,” Archiv fúr das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 226 (1989): 276–90. Collins, Hugh E. L. The Order of the Garter, 1348–1461: Chivalry and Politics in Late Medieval England. Oxford Historical Monographs. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2000. Comestor, Petrus. Historia Scholastica in Migne, Patrologia Latina 198, cols. 1053–1722. Internet Archive. Conwell, Joseph F. Impelling Spirit: Revisiting a Founding Experience, 1539, Ignatius of Loyola and his Companions: An Exploration into the Spirit and Aims of the Society of Jesus as Revealed in the Founders’ Proposed Papal Letter Approving the Society. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997. Courtenay, William J. “Between Pope and King: The Parisian Letters of Adhesion of 1303,” Speculum 71 (1996): 577–605. Cramaud, Simon de, ed. Howard Kaminsky. De Substraccione Obediencie. Medieval Academy Books no. 92. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1984.
222
Bibliography
Crawford, J. M., K. Y. Lee, and A. R. Hanson. Key to Public Record Office Documents in Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII. List & Index Society v. 251, 252, 316, 325. Kew, Richmond, Surrey: List and Index Society, Public Record Office. Crow, Jason R. “The Crafted Bodies of Suger: Reconsidering the Matter of Saint-Denis.” In Kim Susan Sexton, ed., Architecture and the Body, Science and Culture (2018): 45–66. Davis, Lisa Fagin. La Chronique Anonyme Universelle: Reading and Writing History in FifteenthCentury France. London and Turnhout: Brill, 2014. Delaborde, Henri-François, “Le procès du chef de Saint Denis en 1410,” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France 11 (1884): 297–409. Delaborde, Henri-François. “La vraie Chronique du religieux de Saint-Denis,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 51 (1890): 93–110. Delisle, Léopold. Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale: étude sur la formation de ce dépôt comprenant les éléments d’une histoire de la calligraphie, de la miniature, de la reliure, et du commerce des livres à Paris avant l’invention de l’imprimerie. 3 vols. and atlas. Paris: Imprimerie nationale/impériale, 1868–81; Internet Archive. Delisle, Léopold. Catalogue des manuscrits des fonds Libri et Barrois. Paris: H. Champion, 1888; Internet Archive. Delisle, Léopold, “Documents parisiens de la Bibliothèque de Berne,” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France 23 (1896): 247–49. Delisle, Léopold. “Mémoire sur les ouvrages de Guillaume de Nangis,” Mémoires de l’Institut national de France 27,2 (1873): 287–372. Delisle, Léopold, “Notes sur quelques manuscrits du Musée Britannique,” Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France 4 (1878): 183–238. Delisle, Léopold, “Notice sur un recueil historique présenté à Philippe le Long par Gilles de Pontoise, Abbé de Saint-Denis,” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale et autres bibliothèques 21/2 (1865): 249–65. Internet Archive. Delisle, Léopold, “Notice sur vingt manuscrits du Vatican,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 37 (1876): 471–527. Delisle, Léopold. Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, roi de France, 1337–1380 1. Recherches sur la formation de la librairie et description des manuscrits, 2: Inventaire des livres ayant appartenu aux rois Charles V et Charles VI et à Jean, duc de Berry. Paris: H. Champion, 1907; reprint Amsterdam: van Heusden, 1967; Internet Archive. Dillon, Viscount (Harold Arthur Lee-Dillon), and W. H. St. John Hope, eds. Pageant of the Birth, and Death of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, K. G., 1389–1439. London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1914. Disticha Catonis. Edited by Marcus Boas and Hendrik Johan Botschuyver. Amsterdam: NorthHolland Publishing, 1952. Dubois, Anne. Valère Maxime en français à la fin du Moyen Age: Images et tradition. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016. Dunn, Diana. “Margaret of Anjou, Chivalry and Garter.” In St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, edited by Colin Richmond and Eileen Scarff, 184. Historical Monographs relating to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 17. Leeds: Maney, 2001. Dupin, Louis Ellies. Bibliothèque des auteurs ecclésiastiques du 17e siècle. Paris: A. Pralard, 1708). Egbert, Virginia Wylie. On the Bridges of Mediaeval Paris: A Record of Early Fourteenth-Century Life. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974.
Bibliography
223
Elton, G. R. “The Evolution of a Reformation Statute.” English Historical Review 64 (1949): 174–97. Espiner-Scott, Janet Girvan. Claude Fauchet, sa vie, son œuvre. Paris: Librairie E. Droz, 1938. Fauchet, Claude. Recueil des Antiquitez Gauloises et Françoises. Paris: Chez Iacques Du Puys, Libraire Iuré, à la Samaritaine, 1579. Favier, Jean. Les Finances pontificales à l’époque du Grand Schisme d’Occident, 1378–1409. Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 211. Paris: E. De Boccard, 1966. Favier, Jean. Les Papes d’Avignon. Paris: Fayard, 2006. Fellowes, Edmund H. The Knights of the Garter, 1348–1939. With a Complete List of the StallPlates in St. George’s Chapel. Historical Monographs Relating to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. London: Published for the Dean and Canons of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1939. Francomano, Emily C. Wisdom and Her Lovers in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literature. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Franklin, Alfred. Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris; Églises, monastères, colléges, séminaires, institutions, fondations, hôpitaux des origines au moyen âge jusque’au XIXe siècle. 3 vols. Paris: Imprimerie nationale/impériale, 1867–1873; repr. Amsterdam: van Heusden, 1968. Franklin, Carmela Vircillo, “Reading the Popes: The Liber pontificalis and Its Editors,” Speculum 92 (2017): 607–29. Friedberg, Emil. Corpus iuris canonici. 2 vols. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1955 Führer, Julian. “Französisches Königreich und französisches Königtum in der Wahrnehmung der zeitgenössischen Historiographie: Suger von Saint-Denis und Guillaume de Nangis.” In Macht und Spiegel der Macht: Herrschaft in Europa im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert vor dem Hintergrund der Chronistik, edited by Norbert Kersken and Grischa Vercamer, pp. 199–218. Quellen und Studien (Niemiecki Instytut Historyczny w Warszawie), 27. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013. Gallia Christiana in provincias ecclesiasticas distributa; qua Series & Historia Archiepiscoporum, Episcoporum & Abbatum Franciae Vicinarumque Ditionum ab origine ecclesiarum ad nostra tempora, deducitur et probatur ex authenticis instrumentis ad calcem appositis. opera et studio domni Dionysii Sammarthani. Ed. altera, labore et curis domni Pauli Piolin recensita et aucta. Ed. Paris: [vols. 1–13 in 2d ed., 1870–74; vols. 14–16 in 1st ed., 1856–65]. Paris: Apud V. Palmé, 1744. Internet Archive. Gascoigne, Thomas. Loci e Libro veritatum: Passages selected from Gascoigne’s Theological Dictionary Illustrating the Condition of Church and State, 1403–1458, edited by James E. Thorold Rogers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881. Internet Archive. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain: Edition and translation of De gestis Britonum (Historia regum Britanniae), edition by Michael D. Reeve, translation by Neil Wright. Arthurian Studies 69. Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2007. Géraud, Hercule. Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis de 1113 à 1300 avec les Continuations de cette Chronique de 1300 à 1368, nouvelle édition révue sur les manuscrits, annotée et publiée pour la Société de l’histoire de la France. 2 vols. Paris: Jules Rénouard et Cie, 1843. Germain, Michel, and M. Peigné-Delacourt, preface by Léopold Delisle. Le monasticon gallicanum: Collection de 168 planches de vues topographiques des monastères
224
Bibliography
bénédictins de la Congrégation de Saint-Maur avec deux cartes des établissements de l’Ordre de Saint-Benoît. Paris: Féchoz & Letouzey, 1882. Goethe, Renee Lynn. King Dagobert, the Saint, and Royal Salvation: The Shrine of Saint-Denis and Propaganda Production (850–1319 C.E.). PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2016. Graham, Timothy, and Andrew G. Watson. The Recovery of the Past in Early Elizabethan England: Documents by John Bale and John Joscelyn from the circle of Matthew Parker. Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Monograph no. 13. Cambridge: University Library, 1998. Grandes Chroniques de France. Edited by Jules Marie Édouard Viard. Paris: Société de l’histoire de France, 1920–. Internet Archive. Grant, Lindy. Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France. The Medieval World. New York: Longman, 1998. Gualdo Rosa, Lucia. “Un prezioso testimone della Grande Cronaca di Guillaume de Nangis nella collezione del Parrasio.” In Gasparino da Barzizza e la rinascita degli studi classici fra continuità e rinnovamento, Atti del Seminario di studi Napoli — Palazzo Sforza, 11 aprile 1997, pp. 247–74. Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1999. Guenée, Bernard. Comment on écrit l’histoire au XIIIe siècle: Primat et le Roman des roys. Ed. posthumously under the direction of Jean-Marie Moeglin. Paris: CNRS, 2016. Guiffrey, Jules. Inventaires de Jean, duc de Berry (1491–1416). 2 vols. Paris: E. Leroux, 1894–1896; Internet Archive. Guyot-Bachy, Isabelle, “La Chronique abrégée des rois de France de Guillaume de Nangis: trois étapes de l’histoire d’un texte” Religion et mentalités au Moyen Age: Mélanges en l’honneur d’Hervé Martin, 39–46. Edited by Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet et al. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2003. Guyotjeannin, Olivier, “La science des archives à Saint-Denis (fin du XIIIe-début du XVIe siècle)” 339–53. Saint-Denis et la royauté: Études offertes à Bernard Guenée, edited by Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, and Jean-Marie Moeglin. Histoire ancienne et médiévale, 19. Paris: Sorbonne, 1999. Haenel, Gustav Friedrich, and Louis de Mas Latrie. Dictionnaire des manuscrits, ou Recueil de catalogues de manuscrits existants dans les principales bibliothèques d’Europe, concernant plus particulièrement les matières ecclésiastiques et historiques. Repr. with introduction by Guglielmo Libri in Nouvelle encyclopédie théologique vols. 40–41. Paris: J. P. Migne, éditeur, 1853. Internet Archive. Haller, Johannes. Papsttum und Kirchenreform, 1: Vier Kapitel zur Geschichte des ausgehenden Mittelalters. Berlin: Wiedmann, 1903. Hamel, Christopher de. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts. London: Allen Lane, an Imprint of Penguin Books, 2016. Hardy, Thomas Duffus, ed. Syllabus (in English) of the Documents Relating to England and Other Kingdoms Contained in the Collection Known as “Rymer’s Foedera.” 3 vols. London: Longmans, Green, 1869–85; reprint New York, 1974. Internet Archive. Harris, P. R. A History of the British Museum Library 1753–1973. London: The British Library, 1998. Hayward, Maria. The 1542 Inventory of Whitehall: The Palace and Its Keeper. 2 vols. London: Illuminata Publishers for the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2004. Head, David M. The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1995.
Bibliography
225
Historia Francorum in Gregorii Turonensis Opera. Edited by Wilhelm Arndt, Bruno Krusch, and Max Bonnet. Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Hannover: Hahn, 1884. Hiver de Beauvoir, Alfred. La Librairie de Jean duc de Berry au Château de Mehun-sur-Yèvre (1416). Publiée en entier pour la première fois d’après les inventaires et avec des notes. Paris: Auguste Aubry, 1860. Internet Archive. Hlaváček, Ivan. “The Luxemburgs and Rupert of the Palatinate, 1347–1410,” The New Cambridge Medieval History 6: c.1300–c.1415 (2000), 551–62. Hoensch, Jörg Konrad. Itinerar König und Kaiser Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1368–1437. Studien zu den Luxemburgern und ihrer Zeit 6. Warendorf: Fahlbusch, 1995). James, Montague Rhodes. “The Manuscripts of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.” The Library, 4th ser. 13 (1932) = Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 2d ser. 13 (1932): 55–76. Jones, Chris. Eclipse of Empire? Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in LateMedieval France. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007. Kaminsky, Howard. Simon de Cramaud and the Great Schism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983. Labory, Gillette. “Une généalogie des rois de France se terminant à Henri VI, roi ‘de France’ et d’Angleterre.” In Saint-Denis et la royauté: Études offertes à Bernard Guenée, edited by Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, and Jean-Marie Moeglin, 521–36. Histoire ancienne et médiévale, 19. Paris: Sorbonne, 1999. Lacaze, Charlotte. The “Vie de St. Denis” Manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. fr. 2090–2092). Outstanding Dissertations in the Fine Arts. New York: Garland Pub., 1979. Lamarrigue, Anne-Marie. “La rédaction d’un catalogue des rois de France: Guillaume de Nangis et Bernard Gui.” In Saint-Denis et la royauté: Études offertes à Bernard Guenée, edited by Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, and Jean-Marie Moeglin, 481–92. Histoire ancienne et médiévale, 19. Paris: Sorbonne, 1999. Lapidge, Michael. Hilduin of Saint-Denis: The Passio S. Dionysii in Prose and Verse. Mittellateinische Studien und Texte, 51. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Lehoux, Françoise. Jean de France, duc de Berri, sa vie, son action politique (1340–1416). 4 vols. Paris, A. et J. Picard, 1966–1968. l. De la naissance de Jean de France à la mort de Charles V. 2. De l’avènement de Charles VI à la mort de Philippe de Bourgogne. 3. De l’“avènement” de Jean sans peur à la mort du Duc de Berri. 4. Index alphabétique général. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and Elsewhere. Edited by J. S. Brewer, R. H. Brodie, and James Gairdner. 2d ed., 21 vols. in 37; Addenda. 2 vols. Vaduz: Kraus Reprint, 1965. Liebman, Charles J. Etude sur la vie en prose de Saint Denis. Geneva, NY: W. F. Humphrey, 1942. Logemann, Cornelia. Heilige Ordnungen: Die Bild-Räume der Vie de Saint Denis (1317) und die französische Buchmalerei des 14. Jahrhunderts. Pictura et Poesis, 24. Köln: Böhlau, 2009. London, Hugh Stanford, and Anthony Richard Wagner. The Life of William Bruges, the First Garter King of Arms. Publications of the Harleian Society, 111–12. London, 1970. Maccioni Ruju, P. Alessandra, and Marco Mostert. The Life and Times of Guglielmo Libri (1802–1869): Scientist, Patriot, Scholar, Journalist and Thief: A Nineteenth-Century Story. Hilversum: Verloren, 1995. Marosi, Ernő. “Sigismund, the Last Luxemburg.” In Prague, the Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt, 121–30. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.
226
Bibliography
Mahmoud Helmy, Nelly. Tra Siena, l’Oriente e la Curia: Beltramo di Leonardo Mignanelli e le sue opere. Nuovi Studi Storici 91. Roma: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 2013. Martinus Oppaviensis. Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum. Monumenta Germaniae historica 22 (1872): 397–475. Die Chronik des Martin von Troppau. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2010. Mason, Arthur James. What Became of the Bones of St. Thomas? A Contribution to his Fifteenth Jubilee. Cambridge: University Press, 1920. Miller, Edward. That Noble Cabinet: A History of the British Museum. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1974. Millet, Hélène. “Michel Pintoin, chroniqueur du Grand Schisme d’Occident.” In Saint-Denis et la royauté: Études offertes à Bernard Guenée, edited by Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, and Jean-Marie Moeglin, 213–35. Histoire ancienne et médiévale, 19. Paris: Sorbonne, 1999; repr. in Hélène Millet, L’Eglise du Grand Schisme, 1378–1417 (Paris: Picard, 2009): 148–71. Millet, Hélène. “Qui a écrit Le Livre des Fais du bon messire Jehan le Maingre dit Bouciquaut?” In Pratiques de la culture écrite au XVe siècle, pp. 135–49. Turnhout: Brepols, 1995; repr. in Hélène Millet, L’Eglise du Grand Schisme, 1378–1417 (Paris: Picard, 2009): 136–47. Millet, Hélène, and Nicole Pons. “De Pise à Constance: Le rôle de Guillaume Saignet, juge de Nîmes, puis sénéchal de Beaucaire, dans la résolution du Schisme.” In Le Midi et le Grand Schisme d’Occident, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 39 (2004): 461–86. Minnis, A. J. “Late Medieval Discussions of ‘Compilatio’ and the Role of the ‘Compilator.’” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 101 (1979): 385–421. Molinier, Auguste, and Armand d’Artois. Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Mazarine. 2 vols. Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie, 1885–86. Internet Archive. Montreuil, Jean de. Opera. Edited by N. Grévy-Pons, Ezio Ornato, and Gilbert Ouy. 4 vols. Torino: G. Giappichelli, 1963; Paris: CEMI, 1981. Morand, François, ed. Chronique de Jean Le Fèvre, seigneur de Saint-Remy. 1: 1408–1420; Paris: Librairie Renouard, H. Loones, Successeur, 1876. Internet Archive. Moranvillé, Henri. “Le texte latin de la Chronique abrégée de Guillaume de Nangis.” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 51 (1890): 652–59. Nangis, Guillaume de. Chronica, ed. Luc d’Achery, Spicilegium, sive, Collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum qui in Galliae bibliothecis delituerant . . ., vol. 11 (1672); 2d ed. by Louis François Joseph de la Barre (vol. 3 Paris, 1723; repr. 1968). Nangis, Guillaume de. Chronica. Edited by P. C. F. Daunou in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840): 725–63 [Chronica for 1113–1225]; 543–82 [Chronica for 1226–1300]. Internet Archive. Nangis, Guillaume de. Chronique abrégée des rois de France. Edited by P. C. F. Daunou in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840): 647–53. Internet Archive. Nangis, Guillaume de. Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis de 1113 à 1300 avec les continuations de cette Chronique de 1300 à 1368. Edited by Hercule Géraud. 2 vols. Paris: Renouard, 1843; repr. 1965. Internet Archive. Nangis, Guillaume de. Gesta Philippi regis Francorum, filii sanctae memoriae regis Ludovici. Edited by P. C. F. Daunou in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840): 466–539. Internet Archive. Nangis, Guillaume de. Vita sancti Ludovici regis Franciae. Edited by P. C. F. Daunou in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840): 310–465. Internet Archive.
Bibliography
227
Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda, Donatella. La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis en France du IXe au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: CNRS, 1985. Nebbiai_Dalla Guarda, Donatella. “Des rois et des moines: Livres et lecteurs à l’abbaye de Saint-Denis (XIIIe-XVe siècles).” In Saint-Denis et la royauté: Études offertes à Bernard Guenée, edited by Françoise Autrand, Claude Gauvard, and Jean-Marie Moeglin, 355–74. Histoire ancienne et médiévale 19. Paris: Sorbonne, 1999. Nicolas, Nicholas Harris. Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England. 7 vols. London: Eyre and A. Spottiswoode, 1834–1837. Internet Archive. Nichols, John Gough, ed. Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, Edited from his Autograph Manuscripts, with Historical Notes, and a Biographical Memoir. 2 vols. London: J. B. Nichols and Sons, for the Roxburghe Club, 1857. Internet Archive. Nichols, Stephen G., “Philology in a Manuscript Culture,” Speculum 65 (1990): 1–10. Ogier, James, “Oswald von Wolkenstein: Clowning Around in Perpignan,” Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft 11 (1999): 173–80. Ouy, Gilbert. La librairie des frères captifs: Les manuscrits de Charles d’Orléans et Jean d’Angoulême. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008. Panofsky, Erwin. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis and Its Art Treasures. Princeton: University Press, 1946. Pasini, Giuseppe. Codices manuscripti bibliothecae regii Taurinensis Athenaei. 2 vols. Torino: Typographia Regia, 1749. Internet Archive. Petrarca, Francesco. Lettere all’Imperatore: Carteggio con la Corte di Praga: 1351–1364. Edited by Ugo Dotti. Al Buon Corsiero, 28. Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2008. Piemontese, Angelo Michele. “La Lingua Araba comparata del Beltrano Mignanelli (Siena 1443).” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 48 (1995): 155–79. Pius II, Pope. Enee Silvii Piccolomini, postea Pii PP. II, De Europa. Edited by Adrianus van Heck. Studi e testi, 398. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2001. Possevino, Antonio. Apparatus Sacer ad Scriptores Veteris & Novi Testamenti: eorum Interpretes, Synodos & Patres Latinos ac Græcos, horum Versiones, Theologos Scholasticos, Quiq; contra Hereticos Egerunt, Chronographos & Historiographos Ecclesiasticos, eos qui Casus Conscientiæ Explicarunt, alios qui Canonicum Jus sunt Interpretati, Poetas Sacros, Libros Pios, quocunq; Idiomate Conscriptos. 21 vols. Cologne: apud Ioannem Gymnicum, 1608. Potin, Yann, “Des inventaires pour catalogues? Les archives d’une bibliothèque médiévale: La librairie royale du Louvre (1368–1429).” In Bibliothek als Archiv, edited by Hans Erich Bödeker and Anne Saada, 119–39. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007. Prideaux, Sarah Treverbian. An Historical Sketch of Bookbinding. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1893; repr. New York: Garland, 1989. Reynolds, L. D., and N. G. Wilson. Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. Richardson, Ethel M. The Lion and the Rose: The Great Howard Story; Norfolk Line, 957–1646, Suffolk Line, 1603–1917. 2 vols. London: Hutchinson, 1922. Rigord, Gesta Philippi Augusti / Histoire de Philippe Auguste. Edited and translated by Elisabeth Charpentier, Georges Pon, and Yves Chauvin. Sources d’histoire médiévale, 33. Paris: CNRS, 2006. Roberts, A. K. B. St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 1348–1416; A Study in Early Collegiate Aadministration. With a foreword by G. M. Trevelyan. Historical monographs relating to
228
Bibliography
St. George’s chapel, Windsor Castle. Windsor: Printed and Published for the Dean and Canons of St. George’s Chapel by Oxley, 1948. Rouse, Richard H. and Mary A. Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200–1500. 2 vols. Turnhout: H. Miller, 2000. Rymer, Thomas. Foedera, conventiones, litterae, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, inter reges Angliae et alios quosvis imperatores, reges, pontifices, principes, vel communitates Ab Ingressu Gulielmi I. in Angliam, A. D. 1066, ad nostra usque tempora habita aut tractata, ex autographis infra secretiores archivorum regiorum thesaurarias asservatis; aliisque summæ vetustatis instrumentis, ad historiam anglicanam spectantibus, fideliter exscripta. Edited by Thomas Rymer and Robert Sanderson. New ed. by Adam Clarke, Frederick Holbrooke, and John Caley. 4 vols. in 7. London, 1816–1869. [This is the edition of the Foedera that is cited as H. in Hardy, Syllabus, q.v.] Sauval, Henri. Histoire et recherches des antiquités de la ville de Paris. 3 vols. Paris: C. Moette, 1724; Internet Archive. Scarisbrick, J. J. Henry VIII. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968. Setton, Kenneth M. “St. George’s Head,” Speculum 48 (1973): 1–12. Sheppard, Edgar. Memorials of St. James’s Palace. 2 vols. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1894. Internet Archive. Sinclair, Alexandra. The Beauchamp Pageant. Donington: Richard III and Yorkist History Trust, in Association with Paul Watkins, 2003. Spiegel, Gabrielle M., The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis: A Survey. Brookline MA: Classical Folia Editions, 1978. Spiegel, Gabrielle M. The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Stump, Phillip H. The Reforms of the Council of Constance (1414–1418). Studies in the History of Christian Thought, 53. Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1993. Suger de S. Denis. The Deeds of Louis the Fat, tr. Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead. Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 1992. Suger de S. Denis. La Geste de Louis VI, et autres œuvres, ed. Michel Bur. Acteurs de l’histoire. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1994. Szirmai, J. A. The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding. Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1999. Takács, Imre. Sigismundus Rex et Imperator: Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1387–1437. Ausstellungskatalog, Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, 18. März-18. Juni 2006, Luxemburg, Musée National d’histoire et d’art, 13. Juli-15. Oktober 2006. Tanner, J. R. Tudor Constitutional Documents, A. D. 1485–1603. 2d ed. Cambridge: University Press, 1930. Tarrant, Richard. Texts, Editors, and Readers: Method and Problems in Latin Textual Criticism. Cambridge: University Press, 2016. Tatton-Brown, Tim. “Chapel and College Buildings,” in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, edited by Colin Richmond and Eileen Scarff, 30–35. Historical Monographs Relating to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, 17. Windsor: Printed and Published for the Dean and Canons of St. George’s Chapel, 2001. Thomson, Rodney M. Books and Learning in Twelfth-Century England: The Ending of ‘Alter Orbis.’ The Lyell Lectures 2000–2001. Walkern, Herts, Red Gull Press, 2006. Thurley, Simon. Whitehall Palace: The Official Illustrated History. London: Merrell, 2008.
Bibliography
229
Tighe, Robert Richard, and James Edward Davis. Annals of Windsor, being a history of the castle and town; with some account of Eton and places adjacent. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1858. Tuetey, Alexandre, ed. Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris, 1405–1449. Publié d’après les manuscrits de Rome et de Paris. Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France, Documents, 7. Paris: H. Champion, 1881. Internet Archive. Turpini historia Karoli magni et Rotholandi. Edited by Ferdinand Castets. Publications Spéciales de la Société pour l’étude des langues romanes, 7. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1880. Internet Archive. Urry, William, and Peter A. Rowe. Thomas Becket: His Last Days. Stroud: Sutton, 1999. Usk, Adam. The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377–1421. Edited and translated by Chris GivenWilson. Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri IX Translated by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse, Valere le grant. Paris: Antoine Vérard, 1499. Valois, Noël. La France et le Grand Schisme d’Occident. Paris: A. Picard, 1896–1902; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1967. Vernet, André, Jean Paul Bouhot, and Jean François Genest. La bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Clairvaux du XIIe au XVIIIe siècle, 2 vols. Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes. Documents, études et répertoires. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 1979. Verő, Mária. “Bemerkungen zu den Beinsätteln aus der Sigmundzeit.” In Imre Takács, ed., Sigismundus rex et imperator: Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1387–1437, 270–78. Frankfurt: Philipp von Zabern, 2006. Vincentius Bellovacensis. Speculum historiale: part 4 of Speculum maius. Douai: Officina Typographica Baltazaris Belleri, 1624. Repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlaganstalt, 1965. Internet Archive. Wagner, Wolfgang Eric. “Princeps literatus aut illiteratus? Sprachfertigkeiten regierender Fürsten um 1400 zwischen realen Anforderungssituationen und pädigogischem Humanismus.” In Fritz Peter Knapp et al., Schriften im Umkreis mitteleuropäischer Universitäten um 1400: Lateinische und volkssprachige Texte aus Prag, Wien und Heidelberg: Unterschiede, Gemeinsamkeiten, Wechselbeziehungen, 141–77. Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 20, Leiden: Brill, 2004. Walsingham, Thomas. The Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham, 1376–1422. Translated by David Preest, with introduction and notes by James G. Clark. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2005. Internet Archive. Walsingham, Thomas. The St. Albans Chronicle 1406–1420, Edited from Bodley MS 462 by Vivian Hunter Galbraith. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937. Warner, George F., and Julius P. Gilson. Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections. 4 vols. London: British Museum, 1921. Internet Archive. Wathey, Andrew “Philippe de Vitry’s Books.” In Books and Collectors 1200–1700: Essays Presented to Andrew Watson, edited by James Carley, pp. 145–52. London: British Library, 1997. Werunsky, Emil. Der erste Römerzug Kaiser Karl IV (1354–1355). Innsbruck: Wagner’sche Univ.Buchhandlung, 1878; Internet Archive. Williman, Daniel. “Guillaume de Nangis.” The Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Graeme Dunphy, 1:743–4. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. Williman, Daniel. “A Liber Sextus from the Bonifacian Library: Vatican Borghese 7,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 7 (1977): 103–8.
230
Bibliography
Williman, Daniel. “Medieval Latin Manuscripts in Scotland: Some Provenances,” Transactions of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society 6,5 (2002): 178–90. Williman, Daniel. “Some Additional Provenances of Cambridge Latin Manuscripts,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 11 (1999): 427–48; Williman, Daniel, and Karen Corsano. Early Provenances of Latin Manuscripts of the Vatican Library: Vaticani Latini and Borghesiani. Studi e testi 405. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2002. Williman, Daniel, and Karen Corsano, “Tracing Provenances by dictio probatoria.” Scriptorium 53 (1999): 124–45. Willoughby, James, “The Provision of Books in the English Secular College.” In The Late Medieval English College and Its Context, edited by Clive Burgess and Martin Heale, pp. 154–79. Woodbridge, UK: York Medieval Press, 2008. Willoughby, James, “The Secundo Folio and Its Uses, Medieval and Modern,” The Library 12, no. 3 (2011) 237–58. Wilmart, André. Codices reginenses latini. 2 vols. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1937–1945. Windeck, Eberhard. Das Leben König Sigmunds. Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, 15. Jahrhundert 1. Leipzig: F. Duncker, 1886. Winter, Patrick M. de. La Bibliothèque de Philippe le Hardi, duc de Bourgogne (1364–1404): Étude sur les manuscrits à peintures d’une collection princière à l’époque du “style gothique international.” Documents, études et répertoires publiés par l’Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes. Paris: CNRS, 1985. Wolkenstein, Oswald von. Die Lieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein, ed. Walter Weiss et al., 3d ed. by Hans Moser, Norbert Richard Wolf, and Notburga Wolf. Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 55. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1987. Internet Archive. Wolkenstein, Oswald von. Sämtliche Lieder und Gedichte: New High German translation by Wernfried Hofmeister. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 511. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1989. Wylie, James Hamilton, and William Templeton Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth. 3 vols. Cambridge, University Press, 1914–29.
Index Achery, Luc d’, philologist and librarian (d. 1685) 44, 60, 61 Adrian I (pope 772–95) 118, 161 Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II 1458–64) 108, 110 Agatho (pope 678–81) 160, 161 Agincourt, battle of (1415) 13, 114, 116, 123 Alcuin of York (d. 804) 4 Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE) 12, 40 Alexander III (pope 1159–81) 153, 154, 157 Alexander V of Pisa (pope 1409–10) 90 Alexander VI (pope 1492–1503) 54 Alexander VIII (pope 1689–91) 47 Alfonso V (king of Aragon 1416–58) 120 Amadeus VI (Green Count of Savoy 1343–83) 57 Amadeus VIII (count, then duke of Savoy 1391–1440) 113 Anagni, Italy 72 Antoine duc de Brabant (d. 1415) 98 Ariosto, Ludovico, poet (d. 1533) 55 Arnaud de Corbie, chancellor of France (d.1414) 86 Ashburnham, Bertram, 4th earl (d. 1878) 171–172 Ashburnham, Bertram, 5th earl (d. 1913) 172, 173 Ashburnham, John, 1st earl (d. 1737) 168 Audovera, wife of Chilperic I (d. 580) 159–160, 182 Aulus Gellius, Latin author (d. after 180) 12 Avignon, France 17, 46, 47, 49, 66, 83, 84, 86, 90, 102, 106, 107, 112–114, 124 Avril, François 50, 63, 76 Aymon (count of Savoy 1329–43) 56, 57 Bale, John, bibliographer (d. 1563) 52, 167 Balthilde, queen consort of Clovis II (d. 680) 3 Barbara of Celje, wife of Sigismund (d. 1451) 110, 112 Barrois, Joseph, bibliophile and collector (d. 1855) 171, 172 Barton, Andrew, privateer (d. 1511) 137 https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501510014-019
Barzizza, Gasparino, humanist (d. 1431) 59 Beaucaire, France 116 Beauchamp, Richard, earl of Warwick (d. 1439) 108–112, 121, 123 Becket, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1170) 153–155, 157 Bede, Venerable (d. 735) 10, 12, 79 Benedict IX (pope and papal claimant 1032–48) 161 Benedict XIII of Avignon (pope 1394–1409) 84, 86, 87, 90, 106, 109, 112, 114, 120 Benet, William, English ambassador (d. 1533) 148, 152 Bentley, Richard, philologist (d. 1742) 168 Bernard comte d’Armagnac (d. 1418) 100, 115 Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) 148 Blanche de France, widow infanta of Castile (d. 1323) 27 Blanche de Valois, wife of Charles of Luxembourg (d. 1348) 51 Boccaccio, Giovanni (d. 1375) 58, 99 Bodley, Thomas, bibliophile (d. 1613) 131, 134 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus (d. 524) 12, 139 Boleyn, Anne, queen of England (d. 1536) 141, 142, 144, 147 Boleyn, Thomas, earl of Wiltshire (d. 1539) 141, 145 Bologna, Italy 54, 58, 154, 164 Boniface III (pope 607) 118 Boniface IX of Rome (pope 1389–1404) 84, 106 Boniface VIII (pope 1294–1303) 26, 66, 71, 150, 162–164 Bonne de Bourbon, wife of Amadeus VI of Savoy and later regent (d. 1391) 57 Bonne of Bohemia, wife of John II of France (d. 1349) 51 Bordeaux, France 102 Bosca, Pietro, Roman theologian (fl. 1481) 54 Bourges, France 97, 102, 104 Brandenburg, Germany 105, 106
232
Index
Bretten, William, canon of Westminster (d. 1552) 163 Briçonnet, Guillaume (abbot of S. Germaindes-Prés 1507–34) 59 Bruges, William, Garter king of arms (d. 1450) 124–126 Bruxelles, Belgium 19, 31, 32, 49, 50 Buda, Hungary 58, 105 Calais, France 109, 121, 125, 130 Calixtus II (pope 1119–24) 86 Canterbury, England 125, 126, 147, 149, 153–155, 163 Carne, Edward, English diplomat (d. 1561) 148, 152, 163 Casini, Antonio, bishop of Siena, cardinal (d. 1439) 53 Casley, David, keeper of the Royal and Cotton MSS (d. 1754) 169, 173 Cassel, battle of (1328) 5 Catherine of Aragon, queen of England (d. 1536) 141, 142, 147, 157, 159 Catherine of Lancaster, regent of John II of Castile (d. 1418) 118 Catherine of Valois, wife of Henry V of England (d. 1437) 120 Catianus, St., apostle of Tours (3rd c.) 3 Chambéry, France 56, 112–114, 116 Champion, Pierre, historian (d. 1942) 129 Chapuys, Eustace, imperial ambassador to England (d. 1556) 140–143, 147, 154 Charlemagne (king of France and emperor 768–814) 21, 35, 75, 81, 88, 94, 97, 118, 120 Charles d’Artois comte d’Eu (d. 1472) 129 Charles de Valois (d. 1325) 8 Charles duc d’Orléans (d. 1465) 55–56, 100, 107 Charles I (king of England 1625–49) 26, 168 Charles I d’Anjou (king of Sicily 1266–85) 26 Charles IV (king of France 1294–1328) 25 Charles IV of Luxembourg (emperor 1355–78) 51 Charles V (emperor 1519–58) 105 Charles V (king of France 1364–80) 143
Charles VI (king of France 1380–1422) 61, 86, 107, 123 Charles dauphin de France (later King Charles VII 1422–61) 107 Chichele, Henry, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1443) 128 Chigi, Agostino, banker (d. 1520) 54 Chigi, Mariano, banker (d. 1504) 54 Childeric III (king of the Franks 742–52) 89 Chilperic I (king of the Franks 539–84) 159–160 Christina, queen of Sweden (d. 1689) 46–47 Chrysostom, John, theologian (d. 407) 56 Cipolla, Carlo, paleographer (d. 1917) 37, 56 Cirey, Jean de, abbot of Cîteaux (d. 1503) 57 Cîteaux, abbey 56–58 Clement V (pope 1305–14) 72 Clement VII of Avignon (pope 1378–94) 47, 83, 84 Clothar II (king of the Franks 613–29) 3 Clothar III (king of the Franks 658–73) 3 Clovis II (king of the Franks 639–57) 3, 95 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, minister of finance to Louis XIV (d. 1683) 49, 61 Comestor, Petrus, historian (d. 1178) 12 Conrad of Montferrat (king of Jerusalem 1190–2) 160 Constance, Germany 109 Constantine (emperor 303–37) 11, 161 Constantine IV (emperor 668–85) 118 Conversini, Giovanni, humanist (d. 1408) 58–59 Conversino da Frignano MD (d. 1353) 58 Cotton, Robert, antiquary (d. 1631) 168 Courau, Jaquemin de, treasurer to Jean de Berry (fl. 1401) 98 Cramaud, Simon de, French royal councillor (d. 1423) 83–90, 106 Cranmer, Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1556) 149 Cromwell, Oliver (protector of Great Britain 1653–8) 168 Cromwell, Thomas, minister to King Henry VIII (d. 1540) 137, 142, 144, 148–150, 154, 163 Cuspinian, Johannes, humanist (d. 1529) 119
Index
Dagobert I (king of the Franks 629–34) 3, 5, 80 Daniel, Pierre, bailiff of Fleury (d. 1604) 47 Decius (Roman consul and emperor 248–51) 3 Delisle, Léopold, historian and paleographer (d. 1910) 16–21, 23, 28–36, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 48, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73, 100, 102, 103, 170–173 Denny, Anthony, clerk of the privy chamber (d. 1549) 157, 165 Dionysius Areopagita, Pseudo-, Neoplatonist writer (fl. 600) 5 Dionysius the Areopagite, Athenian convert of St. Paul (fl. 55) 4 Dionysius, St., or Denis, apostle of Paris (d. 251?) 3 Dover, England 125 Dubreuil, Jacques, historian (d. 1614) 59 Duchesne, André, historian (d. 1640) 49 Ealdbald (king of Kent 616–40) 159 Edouard (count of Savoy 1323–9) 56, 57 Edward I (king of England 1272–1307) 27 Edward II (king of England 1307–27) 28 Edward III Plantagenet (king of England 1327–77) 129 Edward IV (king of England 1361–70) 134 Edward VI (king of England 1547–53) 53, 150, 164, 167 Ehrle, Franz, prefect of the Vatican Library (d. 1934) 66 Eleanor of Castile, queen consort of England (d. 1290) 28 Eltham Palace, Royal Borough of Greenwich 130 Eston, John, precentor of Windsor (d. 1422?) 131–132 Estouteville, Jean de, Sieur de Vallemont (d. 1435) 129 Etampes, France 114 Eusebius of Caesarea, historian (d. 340) 10, 11 Falier, Lodovico, Venetian ambassador to England (fl. 1531) 143 Fauchet, Claude, historian (d. 1603) 59–61 Ferdinand I (king of Aragon 1412-6) 109, 115
233
Fillastre, Guillaume, dean of Reims (d. 1428) 87, 97, 191–192 Fleury, abbey. See Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire Florence, Italy 54, 58, 172 Florus, historian (d. 130?) 99 François I (king of France 1515–47) 59 Franklin, Benjamin (d. 1790) 145 Fredegund, queen consort of Chilperic I (d. 597) 159, 182 Frédol, Bérenger, bishop of Béziers, cardinal (d. 1323) 164 Fulrad (abbot of Saint-Denis 750–84) 3 Gascoigne, Thomas, chancellor of Oxford (d. 1458) 132–135 Gaucourt, Raoul VI de (d. 1462) 129 Geneva, Switzerland 113 George (patriarch of Constantinople 679–86) 161 Géraud, Hercule, historian (d. 1844) 21, 44 Giangaleazzo Visconti (duke of Milan 1395–1402) 113 Gilles de Pontoise (abbot of Saint-Denis 1304–26) 18, 71–73, 76 Gonesse, Nicolas de, French translator (d. after 1415) 98, 99 Gregory of Tours (d. 594) 3, 4 Gregory I, the Great (pope 590–604) 118 Gregory VI (pope 1045–6) 86, 161 Gregory VIII (antipope 1118–21) 86 Gregory XI (pope 1370–8) 83 Gregory XII of Rome (pope 1406–9) 85, 90, 106, 112 Gualdo Rosa, Lucia, historian 23, 42, 43, 55, 58, 59 Guerrini da Foligno, Vincenzo, librarian (d. 1781) 52 Guillaume de Nangis, monk of Saint-Denis (d. 1300) 3–14, 16, 45, 189–190 Guillaume le Breton, chronicler (d. 1225) 6 Guy of Lusignan (king of Jerusalem 1186–92; of Cyprus 1192–4) 160 Gwent, Richard, JUD (d. 1543) 163 Hall, Thomas, secretary of Henry VIII (fl. 1530) 150 Harfleur, France 129
234
Index
Hautecombe, abbey 56–58 Havet, Julien, historian (d. 1893) 172 Henri II (king of France 1547–59) 59 Henry II (emperor 1014–24) 153 Henry II (king of England 1154–89) 154 Henry III (emperor 1039–56) 118 Henry IV (king of England 1399–1413) 107 Henry V (emperor 1111–25) 5 Henry V (king of England 1413–22) 107, 109 Henry VI (king of England 1422–71) 133 Henry VIII (king of England 1509–47) 64, 128, 132, 135, 137, 141–143, 147–165, 167, 187, 193–194 Herod (king of Judea 6–29) 14 Hesdin. Jaquemart de, illuminator (d. 1414) 98 Hesdin, Simon de, French translator (d. 1383) 98, 99 Hewys, John, LLD (fl. 1535) 163 Hilduin (abbot of Saint-Denis 815–40) 4 Hincmar (archbishop of Reims 845–82) 5 Honorius Augustodunensis, theologian (d. 1154) 19 Hôtel de Nesle, Paris 100, 104, 120 Howard, Catherine, queen of England (d. 1542) 144 Howard, Edward, admiral (d. 1513) 137 Howard, Henry, earl of Surrey (d. 1547) 144 Howard, Thomas, duke of Norfolk (d. 1554) 64, 101, 132, 137–145, 148, 150, 154 Hugh Capet (king of France 987–96) 5 Humphrey of Toron, husband of Isabella of Jerusalem (d. 1198) 160 Hus, Jan (d. 1415) 112 Innocent III (pope 1198–1216) 19, 148, 155 Innocent VI (pope 1352–62) 52 Isabeau de Bavière, queen consort of France (d. 1435) 101 Isabella (queen of Jerusalem 1190–1205) 160 Jacobus de Cessolis, author (d. 1322) 48 James, Montague Rhodes, codicologist (d. 1936) 66, 131 Jean comte d’Alençon (d. 1415) 101
Jean de Chalon-Arlay, prince of Orange (d. 1418) 100–101 Jean de France, duc de Berry (d. 1416) 97, 104, 113, 115, 121 Jean de Venette, chronicler (d. 1368) 25, 26, 36, 57, 59 Jean de Vignay, translator (d. after 1340) 48–50 Jean duc de Bourbon (d. 1434) 101, 114, 116, 129 Jean Gerson, chancellor of the University of Paris (d. 1429) 93 Jean II le Bon (king of France 1350–64) 51, 105 Jean Petit, theologian (d. 1411) 87 Jean sans Peur, duc de Bourgogne (d. 1419) 50, 100 Jeanne d’Evreux queen consort of France (d. 1371) 25, 57 Jeanne de Bourbon, queen consort of France (d. 1378) 57 Jeanne de Montbaston, illuminator (d. after 1355) 50–54 Jeanne de Navarre, queen consort of France (d. 1305) 72 Jeanne la Boiteuse de Bourgogne, queen consort of France (d. 1349) 57 Jerome, St. (d. 420) 9–12, 19, 42, 43, 48, 55, 79, 152 Joanna I (queen of Naples 1343–82) 58 John the Baptist 14, 35, 91 John the Blind (king of Bohemia 1310–50) 105 John XII (pope 955–64) 161 John XXII (pope 1316–34) 51 John XXIII of Pisa (pope 1409-10) 106–109, 112, 114 Josephus, Flavius, historian (d. 100) 12, 14, 18 Jošt, margrave of Brandenburg and Moravia (d. 1411) 106 Julius II (pope 1503–13) 54 Justinus, Marcus Junianus, epitomist (2nd c.) 12, 14 Klux, Hartung von, diplomat (d. 1445) 126 Kyrkenar, Erasmus, armourer (d. 1567) 156, 193, 194
Index
L’Arbresle, France 114 Lacaze, Charlotte, codicologist 72, 73, 75 Lagny-sur-Marne, France 114 Langton, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1228) 153 Lautier, Philippe de, master of the French royal mint (d. after 1587) 59–61 Leeds Castle, Kent 130 Leo III (pope 795–816) 55 Leo of Naples, historian (10th c.) 12 Leo VIII (antipope 963–4) 161 Lescot, Guillaume, Paris scribe (fl. 1320) 63, 71, 74–80 Libri, Guglielmo, bibliographer and thief (d. 1869) 65, 171, 172 Limbourg brothers, page painters (fl. 1415) 98 Livy, Roman historian (d. 17) 12, 14, 96 Louis comte de Valois (d. 1406) 105 Louis duc d’Anjou, count of Provence, king of Naples (d. 1417) 120 Louis duc d’Orléans (d. 1407) 93 Louis duc de Bourbon (d. 1342) 46–47 Louis of Anjou (king of Hungary and Poland 1342–82) 58–59, 105 Louis of Bavaria (emperor 1328–47) 25 Louis the Pious (king of the Franks 813–40) 4 Louis I (duc d’Anjou 1360–84) 4 Louis VI (king of France 1108–37) 5 Louis VII (king of France 1137–80) 5 Louis IX, Saint (king of France 1226–70) 6, 7, 12, 18, 26–28, 46, 71, 72, 117 Louis XIV (king of France 1643–1715) 49, 61 Louis, Cardinal (duc de Bar 1415–30) 114, 120 Louvre palace, Paris 49, 71, 72, 99, 100, 114, 171 Lumley, John, book collector (d. 1609) 168 Lyon, France 113 Mahaut, countess of Artois (d. 1329) 8 Mandagout, Guillaume, archbishop of Embrun, cardinal (d. 1321) 164 Marguerite de Bourgogne, widow Charles I of Anjou, king of Sicily (d. 1308) 26–27 Marie de Berry, duchess consort of Bourbon (d. 1434) 9
235
Martial, St., apostle of Limoges (3rd c.) 3 Martin of Poland, chronicler (d. 1278) 12 Martin of Tours, St. (4th c.) 118 Martin V (pope 1417-31) 54 Mary (king of Hungary 1382–95) 105, 106 Mary II (co-regent of England 1689–94) 168 Mary Tudor (queen of England 1553–58) 167 Matthieu de Vendôme, abbot of Saint-Denis (1258–86) 6, 18 Maubeuge, Thomas de, bookseller and artist (fl. 1313-1339) 8 Maunde Thompson, Edward, librarian of the British Museum (d. 1929) 173 Maurice (emperor 590–602) 118 Maximilian I of Habsburg, emperor (d. 1519) 50 Maximus II (emperor 383–8) 117 Mazarin, Cardinal, minister of Louis XIV (d. 1661) 60 Meghan, Pieter, writer of the king’s books (fl. 1530) 157 Mehun-sur-Yèvre, château, France 98, 100 Mendoza y Zúñiga, Iñigo Lopez de, imperial ambassador to England (d. 1535) 141, 147 Menestrier, Claude-François SJ, bibliophile (fl. 1698) 58 Meyer, Paul, philologist (d. 1917) 172 Michel Pintoin, religieux de Saint-Denis, chronicler (d. 1421) 8, 21, 89, 91, 92, 100 Mignanelli, Beltrano di Leonardo, merchant and writer (d. 1455) 53 Milan, Italy 52, 113 Montmartre, Paris 5 Montreuil, Jean de, pamphleteer (d. 1418) 109, 110, 116, 121 Muhammad, prophet (d. 632) 140, 151 Naples, Italy 12, 43, 58–59, 120 Navarre, Collège, Paris 61 Nectanebo II, last native Egyptian pharoah (d. 342 BCE) 12, 40 Nicopolis, Greece 106 Notker Balbulus, author (d. 912) 120 Notre-Dame-de-Paris, cathedral church 51, 72, 93–97, 115, 189
236
Index
Odo of Deuil (abbot of Saint-Denis 1151–62) 5 Oliver, John, JUD (d. 1552) 163 Orosius, Paulus, theologian and historian (d. after 418) 100 Otto, cardinal legate to England (fl. 1237) 163 Ottobuono, cardinal legate to England (fl. 1268) 163 Palermo, Valerio, professor of letters, Verona (fl. 1565) 61–62 Parisio, Giovan Paolo, alias Aulo Giano Parrasio, humanist (d. 1522) 59 Parker, Matthew, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1575) 167 Parlement de Paris 91–97, 116, 117, 189–190 Paulus Diaconus, historian (d. 799) 12, 99 Paulus, St. apostle of Narbonne (3rd c.) 3 Pavia, Italy 88, 161 Pepin the Short (king of France 752–68) 3 Perpignan, Spain 112–115 Perugia, Italy 66 Pestel, Gui, appointed seneschal of Beaucaire (fl. 1416) 116–117 Petau, Alexandre, (d. 1672) 47, 49 Petau, Paul, bibliophile (d. 1614) 46–47 Petrarch, poet (d. 1374) 46, 52, 58 Petronio, Ricardo, vice-chancellor to Boniface VIII (d. 1314) 164 Philippe de Villette (abbot of Saint-Denis 1398–1418) 95 Philippe de Vitry, composer (d. 1361) 46–47 Philippe II Augustus (king of France 1180–1223) 6, 93 Philippe II le Hardi duc de Bourgogne (d. 1404) 49–50 Philippe III le Bon duc de Bourgogne (d. 1467) 50 Philippe III le Hardi (king of France 1270–85) 50, 98 Philippe IV le Bel (king of France 1285–1314) 26, 59 Philippe V le Long (king of France 1316–22) 73 Philippe VI of Valois (king of France 1328–50) 48, 129 Phocas (emperor 602–10) 118 Pierre aux Boeufs, theologian (d. 1425?) 87
Pierre Bertrand de Colombiers, cardinal (d. 1361) 52 Pierre d’Ailly, theologian (d. 1420) 87, 89 Pierre d’Orgement, bishop of Paris (d. 1389) 93 Pisa, Italy 52, 90, 106, 107, 112, 114, 172 Placentinus, Cardinalis (Branda de Castiglione) (d. 1443) 119 Pompeius Trogus, Roman historian (fl. 10) 12, 96, 189 Pomponius Mela, geographer (fl. 43) 100 Primat, monk of Saint-Denis, chronicler (fl. 1274) 6, 16, 18, 29 Priscillian, bishop of Avila (d. 385) 117 Raoul de Bonneville, bishop of Vaison-laRomaine (d. 1406) 47 Ravenna, Italy 58 Reims, France 5, 48–50, 87, 90, 191 Renaud Giffart (abbot of Saint-Denis 1286–1304) 71, 72 Richelieu, Cardinal, minister of Louis XIII (d. 1642) 60 Rigord, monk of Saint-Denis, chronicler (d. about 1209) 6, 12, 96 Robert, canon of Saint-Marien, Auxerre, chronicler (d. 1212) 12 Robert de Châtillon, commander of Parisian volunteer militia (fl. 1411) 100 Robert II (king of France 996–1031) 161 Robert the Wise (king of Naples 1309–43) 43, 58–59 Robinet d’Estampes, keeper of Jean de Berry’s jewels (fl. 1415) 102, 104, 112 Rome, Italy 50–54, 83, 84, 88, 106, 134, 144, 145, 150, 155, 179, 183, 186, 187, 191, 199, 200, 204, 205, 206, 208–210 Rousselet, Pierre, scribe and illuminator (fl. 1736) 48–50 Rupert of Bavaria (king of the Romans 1400–10) 106 Sabellicus, Marcus Antonius Coccius, historian (d. 1506) 145 Saignet, Guillaume, seneschal of Beaucaire (d. 1444) 116, 117 Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, abbey 47, 92
Index
Saint-Denis-en-France, abbey 11, 12, 52, 63, 99 Sainte-Chapelle, Paris 71, 72, 87, 97, 104, 116 Saint-Germain-des-Prés, abbey 59–61 Saint-Hilaire, cathedral church of Poitiers 91 Saint-Nicaise de Reims, abbey 48–50 Saturninus, St., apostle of Toulouse (3rd c.) 3, 4 Scipio Africanus (d. 183 BCE) 169, 195 Scrope, Henry, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham (d. 1415) 130 Scrope, Richard, archbishop of York (d. 1405) 130 Séguier, Pierre, chancellor of France (d. 1672) 59–61 Seymour, Edward, earl of Hertford (d. 1621) 148 Sibylla (queen of Jerusalem 1186–90) 160 Siena, Italy 50–55, 58 Sigebert of Gembloux, chronicler (d. 1112) 11 Sigismund of Luxembourg, emperor (d. 1437) 102, 104, 105–121 Siler, Domenico, tailor of Verona (fl. 1579) 61–62 Sixtus III (pope 432–40) 118 Sorbonne, Collège, Paris 65, 66, 107, 172 Stephen II (pope 752) 161 Stephen III (pope 752–7) 3 Stewart, John, duke of Albany (d. 1536) 137 Stremonius, St., apostle of Auvergne (3rd c.) 3 Suger (abbot of Saint-Denis 1122–51) 5, 7 Sylvester III (antipope 1045) 161 Theodosius II (emperor 414–50) 117 Thirlby, Thomas, legal scholar (d. 1570) 163 Thomas of Lancaster, duke of Clarence (d. 1421) 102 Tolomei, Lattanzio, Sienese diplomat (d. 1543) 54–55 Tommaso da Frignano, patriarch of Grado (d. 1381) 58–59 Torino, Italy 56 Trophimus, St., apostle of Arles (3rd c.) 3
237
Tuke, Brian, treasurer of the household to Henry VIII (d. 1545) 148 Tunstall, Cuthbert, bishop of Durham (d. 1559) 148 Turamini, Pietro, Sienese book owner (fl. 1420) 53 Turpin, Pseudo-, fabulist (12th c.) 14 Tyldesley, William, keeper of the king’s library (fl. 1547) 167 Urban V (pope 1362–70) 101 Urban VI of Rome (pope 1378–89) 83, 84, 106 Valens (Roman emperor 364–78) 11 Valentinian III (emperor 425–55) 117 Valerius Maximus, Roman historian (fl. 30) 12, 58, 98, 99 Vaughan. Stephen, secretary of Henry VIII (d. 1549) 149–151, 194 Vexin, county of north-western France 5 Vincent of Beauvais, encyclopedist (d. about 1264) 11, 12, 14, 49 Vossius, Isaac, bibliophile (d. 1689) 47 Walsingham, Thomas, chronicler (d. 1422) 126, 130 Warham, William, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1532) 148 Wathey, Andrew, historian 46, 47 Wenceslas of Luxemburg (emperor 1378–1400) 50, 84, 105, 106, 113 Westminster palace, London 156, 167 Whytefield, John, librarian of Dover Priory (fl. 1389) 66 William II, duke of Bavaria (d. 1417) 125 William III (co-regent of England 1689–1702) 168 Wimfeling, Jakob, humanist (d. 1528) 119 Winchester, England 113 Wolkenstein, Oswald von, diplomat and poet (d. 1445) 115 Wolsey, Thomas, cardinal archbishop of York (d. 1530) 137, 139, 141, 143–144, 148, 149, 150, 156, 160 Worcester, John of, chronicler (d. 1140) 149
238
Index
Wren, Christopher, architect (d. 1723) 168 Yves de Saint-Denis, monk (fl. 1320) 73, 217
Zachary (pope 741–52) 3 Zouche, William, 4th baron (d. 1415) 124, 127