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Manuscript evidence for knowledge of the poems of Venantius Fortunatus in late Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

R. W. Hunt
R. W. Hunt
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Oxford, England
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Extract

It has been recognized that in late Anglo-Saxon England one writer, Wulfstan the Cantor, knew the poems of Venantius Fortunatus well, but hitherto no manuscript of Fortunatus's poetry of English origin or provenance in this period has been known. The discovery of a leaf of such a manuscript in a collection of fragments at Badminton set me enquiring. It has turned out that there is more manuscript evidence than I expected to find.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 8 , December 1979 , pp. 279 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 279 note 1 On the position in the earlier period, see the appendix by Michael Lapidge, below.

page 279 note 2 Venantii Fortunati Opera poetica, ed. Leo, F., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Antiq. 4.1 (Berlin, 1881)Google Scholar, xiv. Quotations are cited from Leo's edition by book, verse and line.

page 279 note 3 By mischance the press-mark was misprinted Add. 24693.

page 279 note 4 ‘Uber Handschriften der Gedichte Fortunats’, Göttinger Gelebrte Nachrichten (1908), pp. 82–114Google Scholar, repr. Meyer's, Gesammelte Abhandlungen Zur mittellateinischen Ryibmik (Göttingen, 1936) III, 42–97Google Scholar. The poem is now ptd Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, MGH rv.2, ed. Strecker, K. (Berlin, 1923), 654–5.Google Scholar

page 279 note 5 See below, p. 286. I am much indebted to Mr Bishop, who has generously given time to the examination of the English Caroline manuscripts mentioned in this paper and who has allowed me to quote his opinion of them.

page 280 note 1 Meyer, ‘Handschriften’, pp. 87–8.

page 280 note 2 The reading should be ‘expositionem’, but even with the help of the ultra-violet lamp I cannot see any part of it.

page 280 note 3 On the recto ‘Non dominus’ and ‘Est minimus psalmus, virtus non distulit almus’ and on the verso ‘Futurum est enim. dicit enim euuangelista’ (Matthew 11.13) and a minuscule alphabet, a—g. On 159r are ‘probatio penne’ (s. xiv) and two smudged pen trials, which I cannot read.

page 280 note 4 Another fragment from the same collection was published by Davis, Norman (‘Another Fragment of “Richard Coer de Lyon”’, N&Q n.s. 16 (1969), 447–52).Google Scholar

page 282 note 1 Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905), p. xlGoogle Scholar. The manuscripts are now deposited in the University Library, Cambridge.

page 282 note 2 E. A. Lowe, Codices Lafini Antiquioresv, no. 650. It is there said to be the continuation of Leningrad, Public Library, Lat. F. v. XIV. I. B. L. Ullman pointed out that this is wrong (Scriptorium 8 (1954), 56Google Scholar) and that the continuation of the Leningrad manuscript is Paris, BN lat. 7701. This correction was accepted by Lowe(CLA xi, 9; no. **570).

page 283 note 1 Bishop, T. A. M., ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts’, Trans. of the Cambridge Bibliographical Sac. 2 (1954–1958), 187–9Google Scholar. Attention was called to this manuscript by Ogilvy, J. D. A., Books Known to the English 597–1066 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 140Google Scholar. Of the two other manuscripts listed by Ogilvy the first, BL Add. 2419, is a misprint for Add. 24193 and the second is BL Harley 2736. This is the well-known manuscript of Cicero's Orator copied by Lupus of Ferrieres, to which was added in the eleventh century (106v and 108r) ‘Versus excerpti de libro Fortunati presbyteri’; see the facsimile ed. Beeson, C. H., Lupus of Ferrierès as Scribe and Text Critic (Cambridge, Mass., 1930Google Scholar). It was imported into England by the bookseller Nathaniel Noel and sold by him to Harley in 1720; see The Diary of Humphrey Wanley, 1715–26, ed. C. E., and Wright, Ruth C. (London, 1966), p. 195Google Scholar, n. 18.

page 283 note 2 I owe this identification to the excellent new repertory of Schaller, D. and Kongsen, E., Initia carminum Latinorum saeculo undecimo antiquiorum (Göttingen, 1977)Google Scholar, no. 13757.

page 283 note 3 James, M. R., Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), p. 367.Google Scholar

page 284 note 1 Ed. Campbell, A., Fritbegodi monachi Breviloquium vita Beati Wilfredi et Wulfstani Cantoris Narratio metrica de Sancto Stvitbuno, Thesaurus Mundi (Zürich, 1950), pp. 63–177Google Scholar. I have noticed a few borrowings which Escaped The notice of Campbell: 174=1.i.12,187–8 = III.Vii.45–6,189 and 191 cf. i.vi.13, 222 cf. III.vi.28, 248 cf. i.xi.12, 250 cf. I.ii.8, 266 = III.vi.28, 277 cf. Iv.v.18 (the same phrase inter apostilicos is used in Wulfstan's trope in Analecta bymnica 49, no. 209, line 3), 313 = v.iv.5 and 317–18 cf.v.iii.33–4.

page 284 note 2 After three paper flyleaves (fols. i-iii) there are five parchment leaves (fols. iv–viii). Fol. iv was once pasted to the cover and is blank, fol. v is blank except for Bodleian press-marks, fols. vi–vii form the bifolium in question here, viiir is blank and viiiv carried the list of contents written very stylishly by the scribe of the main text.

page 285 note 1 Dreves, G. M., Analecta bymnica 50 (Leipzig, 1907), 79.Google Scholar

page 285 note 2 He cannot have been drawing on the selection found in P and in Caius 144, because in those manuscripts II.iifollows II.iii.12, and II.iii.13–24 are omitted.

page 285 note 3 Stegmüller, F., Repertorium biblicum (Madrid, 1954)Google Scholar, nos. 6124–7. This commentary, which is found in several English manuscripts and in one Norman one, appears not to have been investigated.

page 285 note 4 According to Pächt, O. and Alexander, J. J. G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library III (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar, no. 370 and pl. XXXII, it is of the second quarter of the thirteenth century, but I think it is rather earlier.

page 285 note 5 See Manitius, M., Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Munich, 1911–1931) 111, 190.Google Scholar

page 285 note 6 The presence of a manuscript at Malmesbury at the Dissolution (see below, p. 286) leads one to wonder whether the poems were known to William of Malmesbury, but so far the only indication of his knowledge of Venantius Fortunatus is confined to the Vita S. Paterni (see Thomson, R. M., ‘The Reading of William of Malmesbury. Addenda and Corrigenda’, RB 86 (1976), 333Google Scholar), and the manuscript tradition of the prose saints’ lives is different from that of the poems.

page 285 note 7 Manitius, , Geschichte III, 1061Google Scholar, where Pitra, , Spicilegium Solesmense II. 231Google Scholar is a mistake for III.23. ‘Fortunatus episcopus’ (11.354) from Pange lingua 22; ‘doctor sanctus’ (in.156) from Vexilla regis 17–18.

page 285 note 8 Greek Grammar, ed. Nolan, E. (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 43–6.Google Scholar

page 286 note 1 Cambridge, University Library, Add. 3470, p. 65.

page 286 note 2 Johannis Glastoniensis Chronica, ed. Hearne, T. (Oxford, 1726)Google Scholar n, 442. The same form of description is found in a list of St Vincent, Metz, c. 1064 (Manitius, , Handschriften antiker Autoren in mittelalterlichen Bibliothekskatalogen, Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, Beiheft 67 (1935), 330.Google Scholar

page 286 note 3 Joannis Lelandi Antiquarii de Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. Hearne, T. (Oxford, 1715) 111, 157.Google Scholar

page 286 note 4 Ker, R., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd ed. (London, 1964), p. xvi.Google Scholar

page 287 note 1 See the appendix by Michael Lapidge, below.

page 287 note 2 Leo's edition (see above, p. 279, n. 2) is justly celebrated (cf. the appreciative remarks by Fraenkel, E., Ausgewählte kleine Schriften, 2 vols. in 1 (Rome, 1960), pp. xxii–xxiv)Google Scholar, but, in view of our increased knowledge of the manuscript tradition, a new edition is a serious desideratum; see the remarks by Meyer and Koebner in the articles cited below, p. 288, n. I, and my own comments, below, p. 295, n. 4, as well as Blomgren, S., ‘In Venantii Fortunati carmina adnotationes novae’, Eranos 71 (1973), 104–50.Google Scholar

page 287 note 3 The Fortleben of Venantius is studied by means of the lists of borrowings ptd ‘Addenda’, Poelae Latini Aevi Carolini, MGH II, ed. Dümmler, E. (Berlin, 1884), 687–701Google Scholar, as well as the somewhat more extensive list by Manitius, M., ‘Poetarum posteriorum loci expressi ad Fortunatum’, Fortunati Opera Pedestria, ed. Krusch, B., MGH, Auct. Antiq. 4.2 (Berlin, 1885), 137–44Google Scholar. Manitius also devoted three monumental articles to the study of the reception of Christian-Latin poets in the Middle Ages, and these deal at length with Venantius: ‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’, Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien 112 (1886), 535Google Scholar Geschichte frühchristlicher Dichter im Mittelalter II’, ibid. 121.7 (1890), 2–5. There are also some concise remarks, Manitius, , Geschichte 1, 178–9.Google Scholar

page 287 note 4 There is a classic study of Venantius's occasional poetry by Meyer, Wilhelm, ‘Der Gelegenheitsdichter Venantius Fortunatus’, Abbandlungen der kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, pbilol.-bist.Klasse 4.5 (Berlin, 1901).Google Scholar

page 287 note 5 CL.A v, no. 650. Some of the poems in this anthology appear to have been contained in a lost manuscript from Trier which was used by Christoph Brower in his 1603 edition of Venantius; see Leo's remarks on p. xiv of his edition.

page 288 note 1 See the discussion by Meyer cited above, p. 287, n. 4, as well as his monograph ‘Ữber Handschriften der Gedichte Fortunats’, Nachrichten von der kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philol.-hist. Kl. 1908, 82–114. There is a detailed critique of Meyer's view by Koebner, R., Venantius Fortunatus, Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittclalters und der Renaissance 22 (Leipzig, 1915), 125–43.Google Scholar

page 288 note 2 There are some cursory remarks by Glauche, G.(Schullektüre im Mittelalter, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 5 (Munich, 1970), 5–6Google Scholar) and Langosch, K.(Geschichte der Textüberlieferung, ed. Hunger, H. and Stegmuller, O., 2 vols. (Zürich, 1964) II, 40Google Scholar and n. 89).

page 288 note 3 One manuscript of Venantius, Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 845 (Mainz, s. ix1, is partly written in Anglo-Saxon minuscule according to B. Bischoff (Glauche, , Schullektüre im Mittelalter, p. 6Google Scholar, n. 3), but this was almost certainly written on the continent, not in England. The notice by Ogiivy, (Books Known to the English, p. 140Google Scholar) is incomplete and highly misleading.

page 288 note 4 I have added them at the invitation of Professor Clemoes and Dr Hunt merely to provide a background to Dr Hunt's account of new manuscript evidence for the later period, above. I am very grateful to Peter Godman and Neil Wright for a number of constructive suggestions.

page 288 note 5 Manitius's remark (‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’, p. 5 8 2) is salutary: ‘Merkwürdig bleibt es nur, dass Fortunatus auf die Angelsachsen so wenig Einfluss ausgeübt hat, dass sie die von Fortunatus mit so grossem Geschicke angewendete Form des elegischen Distichon meist verschmähen.’

page 289 note 1 There is but one surviving manuscript of Corippus's Iohannidos, a fourteenth-century Italian manuscript, although another was known to Desiderius of Monte Cassino in the eleventh century: the work may never have left Italy. Corippus's other work, In laudem Iustini, survives in only one complete manuscript, a tenth-century Visigothic manuscript (other Spanish manuscripts preserve excerpts of the work). The brief list of ‘borrowings’ from Corippus adduced for Aldhelm by Manitius (‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’, p. 581) must be viewed in the light of this sparse manuscript tradition.

page 289 note 2 Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., MGH, Auct. Antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919)Google Scholar. Verbal reminiscences of Venantius are recorded by Ehwald in his apparatus to Aldhelm's poems (but not in his Index Locorum on pp. 544–6); those previously noted by Manitius (‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’) are designated M, those withoutM are Ehwald's own. Many of the parallels adduced by Manitius strike me as doubtful in the extreme: e.g. CdV 718 and VF iii.xxviii.13 (cernere uultus: the same phrase is found in Lucan v.471); CdV 735 and VF viii.iii.7 (alternis uicibus: once again the phrase is found in Lucan 1,410, an author whom Aldhelm quotes by name and certainly knew); CdV 865 and VF vi.v.23 (lacrimarumflumina: this expression is virtually a cliché in Christian-Latin poetry; cf. Paulinus of Nola, xxxi.421, Paulinus of Périgueux, Vita S. Martini 111.450 etc.). In other words each of the parallels adduced by Manitius must be checked in concordances (wherever possible) of all other classical and Christian-Latin poets.

page 289 note 3 See my discussion of technique, Aldhelm's poetic, ‘Aldhelm's Latin Poetry and Old English Verse’, Comparative Literature 31 (1979), 209–31.Google Scholar

page 290 note 1 Migne, Patrologia Latina 179, col. 1704.

page 290 note 2 This was first pointed out by the Bollandist Godefroid, Henschen, Acta Sanctorum, Februarii 1, 910.Google Scholar

page 290 note 3 There are also some minor discrepancies between the poem and the text of Venantius: e.g., geminae for gemini in 2, the reverse order of the hemistichs in 6 and bona (a metrical solecism) for dona in 18. These discrepancies may be due to the careless transcription of William; cf. my remarks on his careless transcription of other inscriptions, ‘Some Remnants of Bede's Lost Liber Epigrammatum’, EHR 90 (1975), 812–14.Google Scholar

page 291 note 1 Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald.pp. 528–37.

page 291 note 2 Die Briefe des beiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, M., MGH, Epist. Sel. 1 (Berlin, 1916), 227Google Scholar(Ep. 103). The phrase pietatis opus is too common to be a helpful indicator of an author's reading.

page 291 note 3 Adduced by Dümmler (Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini 11, 687). Both the phrases opus pietatis (once again) and arbiter orbis occur frequently in Christian literature and are nothing more than clichés.

page 291 note 4 Variae Collectiones Aenigmatum Merovingicae Aetatis, ed. Glorie, F., Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 133 (Turnhout, 1968), 165–208.Google Scholar

page 291 note 5 Hence Fortunatus is included in the ‘catalogue’ of Bede's reading by Laistner, M. L. W., ‘The Library of the Venerable Bede’, Bede: his Life, Times and Writings, ed. Thompson, A. H. (Oxford, 1935), pp. 237–66Google Scholar, at 264.

page 291 note 6 Ed. Kendall, C. B., Bedae Venerabilis Opera I: Opera Didascalica, ed. Jones, C. W., CCSL 123A (Turnhout, 1975), 59–41Google Scholar; the citations from Fortunatus are found on pp. 89, 90, 109 (twice), 114(thrice), 117, 123, 124, 126 and 128.

page 291 note 7 Ed. Jones, Bedae Opera Didascalica, pp. 1—57; the citation from Fortunatus is found on p. 57.

page 291 note 8 Historia Ecclesiastica 1.7; Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), p. 28.Google Scholar

page 291 note 9 Expl. Apoc. I.ii(PL 93, col. 138).

page 291 note 10 Bedas metrische Vita S. Cutbberti, ed. Jaager, W., Palaestra 198 (Leipzig, 1935)Google Scholar. Jaager lists many parallels to Venantius in his apparatus; those he takes from Manitius (‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’) he marks with (M), following Ehwald's precedent.

page 292 note 1 The phrase monachorum examina is found also in the epitaph for St Wilfrid which Bede quotes (HE v.19); since this epitaph was apparently not known by ‘Eddius’ Stephanus, the occurrence of the phrase may be a slight indicator that Bede himself was the author of the epitaph.

page 292 note 2 The only other parallel noted by Manitius to a poem of Venantius preserved solely in this manuscript is De Die Iudicii 36 and VF app. xxiii.25 (arbiter orbis); but I have already remarked that arbiter orbit is a cliche in Christian-Latin writings.

page 293 note 1 Versus 1552 (ed. Dümmler, Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini 1, 204). There is a recent study of the library at York by Stallbaumer, V. R. (‘The York Cathedral School’, ABR 22 (1971), 286–97).Google Scholar

page 293 note 2 Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, p. 262 (Ep. 124).

page 293 note 3 Occurrences of the phrase iustitiae cultor are discussed in detail by Wallach, L.(Alcuin and Charlemagne (Ithaca, N.Y., 1959), pp. 194–6 and 262).Google Scholar

page 293 note 4 Alcuin expresses his reverence for Venantius in an epigram, ptd Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini i, ed. Dümmler, 326. Two hymns of Venantius are quoted in the Officia per ferias which are printed among Alcuin's works, PL 101, cols. 509–612; but these Officia ate certainly not by Alcuin: see Wilmart, A., ‘Le manuel deprière de Saint Jean Gualbert’, RB 48 (1936), 259–99, at 263Google Scholar, n. 2.

page 293 note 5 Those printed by Dümmler as nos. i, ii and iv.

page 293 note 6 The title is editorial and is Dümmler's confection. Although the manuscript tradition of the Versus is wholly continental (see Godman, P. J., ‘Mabillon, Ruinart, Gale et L‘Eboracum d’Alcuin’, Revue Mabillon 59 (1978), 1–7Google Scholar, and ‘The Tradition of Alcuin's Poem on York’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, forthcoming, there are several reasons for believing that the poem was composed in England: its subject is specifically English, it draws on materials which were collected at York (the so-called York Annals embedded in the Historia Regum attributed to Simeon of Durham) and it was known to the Northumbrian poet Æthelwulf within a few years of Alcuin's death in 804. However, this evidence is circumstantial at best and the date of composition and place of origin of the poem on York are matters requiring further investigation.

page 294 note 1 See the list of verbal reminiscences compiled by Dümmler (Poetae Laiini Aevi Carolini 11, 691–3).

page 294 note 2 Ed. K. Strecker, ibid, iv.2, 943–61. In Strecker's exhaustive apparatus to this poem there is but one parallel adduced to Venantius (line 261 and VF vi.i.21: iustitiae cultor). As I have noted, the phrase iustitiae cultor is a common tag in Late Latin and early medieval Latin poetry. The poet of the Miracula S. Nynie was apparently incapable of independent expression; his poem is a virtual cento of lines from classroom auctores. In other words, if he had known Venantius, we should certainly expect to find a number of verbatim repetitions of Venantian expressions.

page 294 note 3 Ed. A. Campbell (Oxford, 1967). There are two possible borrowings from Venantius: line 258 and VF v.v.ii(uirtute superna), and line 778 and VF viii.iv.19 (uariato lumine). However, without more distinctive expressions than these to judge by, it is difficult to affirm that Æthelwulf had studied Venantius. The other expressions allegedly derived from Venantius (see Dümmler, , Poetae latini Aevi Carolini 11, 697–8Google Scholar) could be more easily derived from Alcuin's poem on York (pontificate apex = Versus 1086 and ordinibus uariis = Versus 1269), with which Æthelwulf was certainly familiar.

page 294 note 4 Attention was first drawn to this florilegium by F. Vollmer (MGH, Auct. Antiq. 14 (Berlin, 1905), xiv-xvii); cf. also the remarks of Strecker (Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini iv.2, 452–4). There is a recent study of the compilation by Constantinescu, R. (‘Alcuin et les “Libelli Precum” de l’époque carolingienne’, Revue d’ Histoire de la Spiritualité 50 (1974), 17–56Google Scholar). Constantinescu's study is an important one, although he has paid more attention to the liturgical texts than to the excerpts from Christian-Latin poetry.

page 294 note 5 Monumenta Alcuiniana, ed. Wattenbach, W. and Dümmler, E. (Berlin, 1873), pp. 838–9.Google Scholar

page 294 note 6 ibid. p. 624.

page 295 note 1 Ptd Poetae Lafini Aevi Carolini 1, ed. Dummler, 266; the poem to Credulus in adonics preserved in the Bamberg manuscript is ptd Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini iv.2, ed. Strecker, 608–10. See my discussion of these two adonic poems, ‘The Authorship of the Adonic Verses ad Fidolium Attributed to Columbanus’, SM 3rd ser. 18.2 (1977), 249–514, at 258–64.Google Scholar

page 295 note 2 The text is a contaminated one: sometimes it agrees with Leo's R (7, alternis uocibus), sometimes with D (130, adglomeranda), and sometimes with AB (161, aruennus, and 304, quod).

page 295 note 3 Note that BN lat. 13048 is a composite codex, and that Part I (fols. 1–30), containing Adamnan's De locis sanctis and the excerpts from Venantius's De Virginitate (Leo's σ), is entirely distinct from Part II (fols. 31–58), containing the unusual anthology of otherwise unknown Venantian poems (Leo's∑ 2). Constantinescu (‘Alcuin et les “Libelli Precum” ‘, p. 55) unfortunately confuses the two sigla.

page 295 note 4 Leo was unaware of both the Bamberg excerpts of De Virginitate as well as of the Zürich manuscript; a future editor of Venantius will have to take them into account.

page 295 note 5 See the remarks of Bieler, L., (Adamnan's De Locis Sanctis, ed. Meehan, D., Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 3 (Dublin, 1958), 30–4).Google Scholar

page 295 note 6 It is worth noticing that the Paris and Zurich excerpts break off at line 178, as does one of Alcuin's excerpts in the Bamberg florilegium. It is also worth recalling, perhaps, that the Paris manuscript was written at Corbie, where some at least of Charlemagne's palace library – for which Alcuin would have been largely responsible – was removed after his death, and that the Zurich manuscript was written by a scribe with insular characteristics at Reichenau, where Alcuin's younger colleague Walahfrid Strabo was active until his death in 849 (the Zürich manuscript was written before 842: see Mohlberg, L. C., Katalog der Handschriften der Zentralbibliothek Zurich I: Mittelalterliche Handschriften (Zurich, 1951), p. 190Google Scholar). It was formerly believed that Rheinau 73 was an autograph of Walahfrid Strabo, but this belief has been rejected by Bischoff, Bernhard (‘Eine Sammelhandschrift Walahfrid Strabos’, Mittelalterliche Studien, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1967) ii,34–51. at 49).Google Scholar