l - Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces

Summary

AS OUTLINED in the Introduction, the corpus of Old English prose translations traditionally attributed to Alfred the Great has sometimes been characterised by a greater tolerance for worldly possessions than that found in the Latin source texts on which the translations are based. These additions and adaptations might imply a translator or group of translators writing not with the philosophical detachment of Boethius, or the logical abstraction of Augustine, but rather with some of the pragmatism of Gregory the Great, who reluctantly acknowledges the importance of carrying out one's mundane, worldly duties – much as he would rather spend his days in quiet, monastic contemplation. This balanced, even-handed approach to worldly resources can be found throughout the Alfredian corpus; nonetheless, at times we encounter a repudiation not just of material wealth but of all materiality which matches, or even surpasses, Boethius himself.

In Book I of De consolatione philosophiae, Lady Philosophy, or Philosophia, works to convince Boethius of the insignificance of the material world from which he has been banished, imprisoned as he is on the grounds of treason. She says to him that she seeks not a richly decorated library ornamented with ivory and glass but ‘tuae mentis sedem’ (1p5, line 23) (‘the storeroom of your mind’), in which she has laid up not books but what gives them value, the ‘sententias’ (1p5, line 25) (‘opinions’) set down in them. In the Old English translation, Wisdom tells Mod that he does not desire walls made out of glass, nor:

heahsetla mid golde and mid gimmum gerenedra, ne boca mid golde awritenra me swa swiðe ne lyst swa me lyst on þe rihtes willan. Ne sece ic no her þa bec ac þæt þæt ða bec forstent, þæt is þin gewit. (B5.29–32) (thrones adorned with gold and gems, nor do I desire books written with gold so much as I desire a right will in you. I do not seek books here but that which gives value to the books, that is your understanding.)

Although glass walls and golden thrones studded with gemstones are not common features of early medieval libraries, gold decoration would be familiar from high-status manuscripts such as bibles and gospel books.