Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part I, the background; the Old English Lapidary

Peter Kitson

doi:10.1017/S0263675100002854

Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part I, the background; the Old English Lapidary

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008

Peter Kitson

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Peter Kitson: Affiliation:
Emmanuel College, Cambridge

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Jewels have always fascinated man. They have been admired simply for their beauty – their depth of colour and their different propensities for catching and reflecting light. The combination of these qualities, rare in nature, has encouraged the attribution to them of many magical and medical powers. The rareness of gems and the distance and inaccessibility of the places from which many are obtained have caused them to figure curiously in legends and travellers' tales. The Anglo-Saxons appreciated the beauty of jewels, as their jewellery shows. Nor were they without interest in precious stones they could not possess; but it has been hard for modern readers to discover what their ideas about them were. The mid-eleventh-century manuscript, London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii, contains what is by common repute the oldest vernacular lapidary in western Europe. No edition has distinguished its sources accurately or analysed the process of its composition. It has been difficult, more generally, to see how the Anglo-Saxons' ideas fitted into those more widely current. There is no reliable published survey of lapidary writings between late antiquity and the late eleventh century.

Type: Research Article
Information: Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 7 , December 1978 , pp. 9 - 60

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100002854 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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^{page 9 note 1} It has been edited by von Fleischhacker, R. (‘Ein altenglischer Lapidar‘, ZDA 34 (1890), 229–35Google Scholar), Garrett, R. M. (Precious Stones in Old English Literature (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 311–40Google Scholar) and Evans, Joan and Serjeantson, Mary S. (English Mediaeval Lapidaries, Early Eng. Text Soc. o.s. 190 (London, 1933Google Scholar), xi–1 and 13–15). Garrett's edition is the best.

^{page 9 note 2} The most satisfactory general history is that in Closs, A., ‘Die Steinbücher in kulturhistorischer Überschau’, Graz Landesmuseum Joanneum Mineralogisches Mitteilungsblatt 8 (1958), 1–34Google Scholar, but in thirty-four pages ranging over Europe, Islam and the orient, there is little on the Latin west in the first millennium. Evans, Joan, Magical Jewels of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, particularly in England (Oxford, 1922)Google Scholar is full on Hellenistic Alexandria and on medieval lapidaries after the late-eleventh-century poem by Marbod, but offers little concerning the intervening period. Evans, J. and Studer, P., Anglo-Norman Lapidaries (Paris, 1924)Google Scholar has little to say of Dark Age lapidary transmission. Both the Latin and the Arabic portions of Evans's and Studer's diagram of filiations (between pp. 12 and 13) contain serious errors for the period before Marbod. Evans in both books seems to have been ignorant of the important work on Arabic lapidaries by Ruška, J. (Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles (Heidelberg, 1912)).Google Scholar The purported history of pre-thirteenth-century lapidaries in Baisier, L., The Lapidaire Chrétien (New York, 1936)Google Scholar is riddled with errors of omission and commission. Terpening, R. H., ‘The Lapidary of L'Intelligenza: its Literary Background’, Neophilologus 60 (1976), 75–88CrossRef Google Scholar, is to a considerable extent unsound and resuscitates some old errors. Thorndike, Lynn, A History of Magic and Experimental Science 1 and 11, ‘The First Thirteen Centuries of our Era’ (New York, 1923)Google Scholar is often mote acute than Evans on those writers whom both cover, but Thorndike was hampered by his lack of interest in biblical commentaries.

^{page 10 note 1} This caveat is important. One hindrance is that many of the texts from which inferences should be drawn have not been edited. These include most of those treated by Thorndike, L. (‘DeLapidibus’, Ambix 8 (1960), 6–23CrossRef Google Scholar; but see below, p. 22, n. 9), many of which are from eleventh-and twelfth-century manuscripts, and by Steinschneider, M. (‘Lapidarien: ein culturgeschichtlicher Versuch’, Semitic Studies in memory of Rev. Dr Alexander Kohut, ed. Kohut, G. A. (Berlin, 1897), pp. 42–72)Google Scholar. Steinschneider assembled the largest lists yet published of Latin as well as Arabic lapidary material. Ruška (Steinbucb, esp. pp. 50–2) had more to say on the Arabic. For two unpublished tracts which, if independent, were early enough to be relevant to my discussion, see below, p. 22, n. 2 and p. 29, n. 2.

^{page 10 note 2} I use the following abbreviations: BCS = Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. de Gray Birch, W. (London, 1885–1893)Google Scholar, cited by charter number; BT = Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. N., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898Google Scholar; Suppl = /Supplement to BT by T. N. Toller (Oxford, 1921)Google Scholar; Add = Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda to BT by A. Campbell (Oxford, 1972))Google Scholar; CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina; CGL = Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, ed. Goetz, G., 7 vols. (Leipzig, 1888–1923)Google Scholar; CML = Corpus Medicorum Latinorum; CSEL = Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum; DSB = Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Gillispie, C. C., 14 vols. (New York, 1970–1976)Google Scholar; GL = Glossaria Latina, ed. Lindsay, W. M. et al. , 5 vols. (Paris, 1926–1931)Google Scholar; Holthausen = Holthausen, F., Altengliscbes etymologisches Wörterbuch, ed. Matthes, H. C. (Heidelberg, 1963)Google Scholar; MQ = Medicina de Quadrupedihus; MGH = Monumenta Germaniae Historica; MLW = Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch (Munich, 1967–)Google Scholar; OED = The Oxford English Dictionary; OEL = the Old English Lapidary; PW = Pauly's Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. Wissowa, G. et al. (Stuttgart, 1894–)Google Scholar; SS = Die althochdeutschen Glossen, ed. Steinmeyer, E. and Sievers, E. (Berlin, 1879–1922)Google Scholar; and WW = Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies by Thomas Wright, ed. Wülcker, R. P. (London, 1884)Google Scholar. I wish to thank Mr Peter Dronke for many helpful suggestions at earlier stages of this research, and Professors Whitelock and Clemoes and Dr Michael Lapidge for valuable criticisms of earlier versions of this article.

^{page 10 note 3} Conveniently ed. and trans. Eichholz, D. E., 1 Pliny: Natural History volume X libri XXXVI-XXXVII, Loeb Classical Lib. (London, 1962).Google Scholar

^{page 10 note 4} Ed. T. Mommsen (Berlin, 1895).

^{page 11 note 1} Ed. Lindsay, W. M., Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX (Oxford, 1911) 11.Google Scholar

^{page 11 note 2} Nat. Hist. xxx.10 and passim.

^{page 11 note 3} Though the indulgently unsceptical compendium of Fernie, W. T., MD, (Precious Stones (Curative) (Bristol and London, 1907))Google Scholar suggests that even nowadays serious people can believe there is something in it. Cf. Evans, Magical Jewels, pp. 189–94.

^{page 11 note 4} E.g., the first- or second-century Perso-Greek magical compilation called the Kyranides (= Cyranides or Koiranides or Kyraniden), on which see Ganszyniec, PW xii (1925), 127–34, and Mély, F. de, ‘Les Lapidaires grecs: textes’, Les Lapidaires de l'antiquité et du moyen âge ii (Paris, 1898)Google Scholar, and ‘Les Lapidaires grecs: traduction’, Ibid. iii.i (Paris, 1902). (The two volumes are mostly not on identical material.) On medieval Latin adaptations of the Kyranides, see Thorndike, History of Science ii, ch. 46.

^{page 11 note 5} For general accounts see Thorndike, Ibid. 1, chs. 25–6; that of Singer, C. in Grattan, J. H. G. and Singer, C., Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine (London, 1952)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 25–31; and Talbot, C. H., Medicine in Medieval England (London, 1967)Google Scholar, ch. 1, esp. pp. 11–12. Singer's is fuller but less reliable than Talbot's.

^{page 11 note 6} Described Evans, Magical Jewels, ch. 1, and the majority printed de Mély, Lapidaires ii. They have been treated most notably by Wellmann, M. (‘Die Stein- und Gemmenbücher der Antike’, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Medizin 4.4 (1935), 86–149Google Scholar), with wide-ranging detail but very speculatively in places; by Wirbelauer, K. W. (Antike Lapidarien (Würzburg, 1937))Google Scholar, less widely but more moderately; and by Bidez, J. and Cumont, F. (Les Mages hellénisés (Paris, 1938) 1, 128–30 and 188–98, and 11, 197–207 and 303–6)Google Scholar, cautiously.

^{page 12 note 1} See, e.g., Wellmann, ‘Steinbücher’, p. 139; Wirbelauer, , Antike Lapidarien, p. 43Google Scholar; and Barb, A. A., ‘The Survival of Magic Arts’, The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, ed. Momigliano, A. (Oxford, 1963), pp. 100–25Google Scholar. Barb conjectured (p. 118) that Damigeron was an Alexandrian Jew. It is agreed that he was probably Alexandrian.

^{page 12 note 2} The majority were assembled and analysed by Rose, V. (‘Damigeron de Lapidibus’, Hermes 9 (1875), 471–91)Google Scholar. Wirbelauer (Antike Lapidarien, p. 42, n. 102), added some others; see below, app., p. 58, n. 10.

^{page 12 note 3} ‘Fifth century’ is the date usually given, but see below, pp. 15–17.

^{page 12 note 4} See below, pp. 17–19.

^{page 12 note 5} Evans, (Magical Jewels, p. 33Google Scholar) and Thorndike (History of Science 1, 776) assigned it to the years between 1067 and 1081, when Marbod was head of the school at Angers. Manitius, M. (Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich, 1931) 111, 719 and 724Google Scholar) preferred a date not long before Marbod's elevation to the bishopric in 1096. The poem is most conveniently ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina 171, cols. 1735–70. There is no critical edition. Beckmann, J., Marbodi liberLapidum seu de Gemmis (Göttingen, 1799Google Scholar) is still the fullest.

^{page 12 note 6} Variant versions ed. Ruška, , Steinbuch, pp. 183–208Google Scholar, and Rose, V., ‘Aristoteles de Lapidibus und Arnoldus Saxo’, ZDA 18 (1875), 320–455, at 384–97Google Scholar. Thorndike, L., ‘The Latin Pseudo-Aristotle and Medieval Occult Science’, JEGP 21 (1922), 229–58Google Scholar, describes this lapidary at pp. 242–7. Ruška's book remains the standard work. Closs, ‘Steinbücher’, pp. 12–16, esp. 13, modifies Ruška's arguments slightly. Ullmann, M., ‘Der literarische Hintergrund des Steinbuches des Aristoteles’, Actas do IV Congresso de estudes drabes e islémicos 1968 (Leyden, 1971), pp. 291–9Google Scholar, adds very little of interest to non-Arabists.

^{page 12 note 7} Ed. Rose, ‘Aristoteles und Arnoldus’, pp. 428–47.

^{page 12 note 8} Notably by Blake in his otherwise useful and informative introduction to Blake, R. P. and Vis, H. de, Epiphanius on the Twelve Stones (London, 1934).Google Scholar

^{page 12 note 9} On Arnoldus see Rose, ‘Aristoteles und Arnoldus’, passim, and Thorndike, , History of Science 11 430–2Google Scholar; Thorndike pointed out that Rose had considerably overstated Arnoldus's importance.

^{page 12 note 10} Ruška, , Steinbuch, pp. 36–46 and 91–2Google Scholar, esp. 44–5.

^{page 12 note 11} In §20 in the chapter on stones in his De Virtute Universali, ed. Rose, , ‘Aristoteles und Arnoldus’, pp. 424–7Google Scholar. The dating implications of this attribution were accepted by Ruška (Steinbuch, pp. 38–40) as well as by Rose. Blake (Epiphanius, p. xcvi), wrongly cited Ruška as his authority for dating Arnoldus before Marbod and for asserting that Marbod drew on the work of Arnoldus. In fact Arnoldus drew on that of Marbod; the pseudo-Aristotle and Marbod works are not connected. Klein-Franke, F., ‘The Knowledge of Aristotle's Lapidary during the Latin Middle Ages’, Ambix 17 (1970), 137–42CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed, attempts to show that some of Marbod's details derived from the pseudo-Aristotle. This article suffers from a failure to distinguish between Marbod's poem and the prose accretions, from Bede and elsewhere, printed with the poem in PL 171, as they follow it in one manuscript used for the Migne edition. They are most unlikely to have been added by Marbod himself. As far as Marbod's poem is concerned, Klein-Franke's thesis has been refuted by Halleux, Robert (‘Damigéron, Evax et Marbode’, SM 3rd ser. 15 (1974), 327–47).Google Scholar The manuscript which caused the confusion is Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, Lat. 14470 (which Migne cited as St Victor 905 but which more recent writers state to have been St Victor 310), s. xii/xiii, from the Norman kingdom of Sicily; see Meyer, P., ‘Les Plus Anciens Lapidaires français’, Romania 38 (1909), 44–70, 254–85 and 481–552, at 47–52.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 13 note 1} My references are to the section numbers of the editions cited in nn. 3 and 7 below, and above p. 12, n. 5, respectively.

^{page 13 note 2} Described Mattei-Cerasoli, L., Codices Cavenses I (Cava, 1935), 12–22.Google Scholar

^{page 13 note 3} Contents listed Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae regiae, pars tertia, torn, iv (Paris, 1744), 355Google Scholar; dated Corbett, J., Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques latins 1 (Brussels, 1939), 139Google Scholar (no. 41). This version ed. from this manuscript Pitra, J.-B., Spicilegium Solesmense 111 (Paris, 1855), 324–35Google Scholar; better ed. Abel, E., Orphei Lithica (Berlin, 1881), 161–95Google Scholar, again from this manuscript but using extracts found as marginal accretions in certain manuscripts of Marbod's lapidary. Pitra, J.-B., Analecta sacra Spicilegio Solesmense parata 11 (Paris, 1884), 642–4Google Scholar, lists variant readings from the Cava manuscript and (pp. 644–7) supplies the portions of its text not in the Paris manuscript.

^{page 13 note 4} Described Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), pp. 389–90Google Scholar (no. 328b).

^{page 13 note 5} Described Omont, H., Bibliothèque de l'École des Charles 68 (1907), 16–17Google Scholar, and, with slightly different detail, Meyer, ‘Anciens Lapidaires’, pp. 267–8. The manuscript is dated to the twelfth century by most writers including Evans (Magical Jewels, p. 21), although Evans and Studer (Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, p. 5) followed Meyer in calling it ‘s. xiii in.’.

^{page 13 note 6} Described Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques des départements 1 (Paris, 1849), 473Google Scholar, and Corbett, , Catalogue des MSS alchimiques latins 11 (Brussels, 1951), 133Google Scholar (no. 37).

^{page 13 note 7} See Ker, , Catalogue, p. 390Google Scholar, and Omont, p. 17. James, M. R. (The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1901), p. 274Google Scholar, no. 758) printed from the fifteenth-century catalogue of St Augustine's a very similar contents-list which may well be, as Evans (Magical Jewels, p. 21) half suggested and Halleux (‘Damigéron’, p. 335) assumed, a slightly disordered description of nouv. acq. lat. 873. The manuscript itself has a St Augustine's shelfmark which Omont dated to the fourteenth century. This version ed. Evans, , Magical Jewels, pp. 195–213Google Scholar, from the Oxford and Paris manuscripts. As far as I know, the Montpellier text has not been edited.

^{page 14 note 1} There are ‘Evax’ prefaces in various lapidaries more or less derived from Marbod's as well as in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman Alphabetical Lapidary whose main source is the alphabetical form of the Latin Damigeron. It seems possible prima facie that ‘Evax’ was used in the early Middle Ages as a name for lapidaries generally, just as ‘Bede’ was for computistic works, whether Bede wrote them or not; cf. Jones, C. W., Bedae Pseudepigrapha (New York and Oxford, 1939)Google Scholar, introduction and passim. Such a general usage may be exemplified in the opening words of entry ix of the Anglo-Norman Alphabetical Lapidary, ‘Astrion est, ço dist Evax’, introducing an entry that seems to have been derived from Isidore. (Evans and Studer (Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, p. 5) cite as if it were an independent parallel an entry from a lapidary they present (pp. 12–13 and 202) as a direct derivative.) But the large correspondence between Marbod's lapidary and known versions of Damigeron and the lack of an alternative source for the bulk of his material leave no room for doubt that Marbod's ‘Evax’ connotes Damigeron as his main source.

^{page 14 note 2} Including an astrological passage which immediately follows the introductory epistles in the Paris manuscript (‘Incipit de lapidibus et eorum generibus …’, ed. Abel, , Orphei Lithica, pp. 162–3)Google Scholar, and which Evans, (Magical Jewels, p. 22Google Scholar (cf. p. 95)) regarded as an insertion typical of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Wirbelauer (Antike Lapidarien, p. 21) pointed out that this passage is related to the astrological paragraphs, ‘De sculpturis eorum’ and ‘De lapidibus et eorum sculpturis’ (ed. Pitra, Analecta Sacra 11, 646—7), which are appended at the end of the Cava text. The relation of these astrological materials implies descent from a single longer text in the two manuscripts’ common original. Wirbelauer re-edited them (pp. 22–3) as a continuous text, correcting some of the manuscript corruptions. (Cf. also Bidez and Cumont, Mages hellénisés 1193–6.) The alphabetic version has no remnants of this tract.

^{page 15 note 1} Below, pp. 55–60.

^{page 15 note 2} Pitra's §§22 and 14.

^{page 15 note 3} See below, app., p. 58.

^{page 15 note 4} CML 4, ed. E. Howald and H. Sigerist (Leipzig, 1927), p. 229. The Idpartus letter leads immediately into an originally separate treatise on the medical uses of the badger. It is not clear when this was originally composed (de Vriend, H. J. (The Old English Medicina de Quadrupedibus (Tilburg, 1972), p. xxxviiiGoogle Scholar favours dating it too to the fourth or fifth century), but the letter as we have it was clearly designed as the introduction to the whole compendium. (Cf. Thorndike, , History of Science 1, 600Google Scholar, and CML 4, xxii, xvii and xxvi; de Vriend's objections do not hold water.)

^{page 15 note 5} Ed. Abel, , Orphei Lithica, p. 162Google Scholar, and Evans, , Magical Jewels, p. 195.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 1} Ed. Abel, , Orphei Lithica, pp. 161–2.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 2} To judge by its high tone, concerned with divine mysteries not medical efficacy, and by its occasional Greek words, one of which is acknowledged as such by the translator (allophylis [= ‘to those of foreign race’] …ierarchias, quas Graeci vocanf). The Evax letter looks, on the face of it, much less likely to have had any existence outside this particular Latin work, yet a longer version of it occurs introducing a Greek medical text (quoted Wellmann, ‘Steinbücher’, p. 139), this time purporting to be from Τε$$$θρι$$$, king of the Arabs, to the emperor Tiberius. This enhances the likelihood that the preceding letter in Damigeron is a translation.

^{page 16 note 3} Even ‘Iuro autem tibi … quod meliorem librum Aegyptus non habet’. The letter obviously fits the Greek Damigeron's ambience of Alexandrian magic. Wirbelauer (Antike Lapidarien, p. 48), regards the phrase summits altissimus deus as probably translating ‘Hermes Trismegistos’, so connecting the original, like the Lithica, with Hermetic tradition specifically. The work is ascribed to Damigeron in Pitra's recension immediately before the prefatory letter and again before the main text. The alphabetic recension does not have these ascriptions, introducing the work only as ‘two letters of Evax’. This has led some continental writers to use ‘Evax’ as a serious title for the Latin text, reserving ‘Damigeron’ for the Greek work. That can only cause confusion, as ‘Evax’ was used in the Middle Ages to refer to derivative lapidaries as well as to the Latin Damigeron; cf., e.g., above, p. 14, n. 1. I prefer, with Joan Evans, to speak of the ‘Greek’ and ‘Latin Damigeron’ and to relegate Evax firmly to the realm of fiction. The alphabetic recension retains the mention of Damigeron in the text of its §47 (Pitra's §22).

^{page 16 note 4} See, e.g., CML 4, xxii, and Vriend, de, Old English MQ, p. xli.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 5} See above, p. 11, n. 4.

^{page 16 note 6} See below, app., p. 58.

^{page 16 note 7} That the lapidary in Hatton 76 is in a hand a generation later than that of the Old English medical texts preceding it is open to several interpretations and need not invalidate this argument.

^{page 16 note 8} CML 4, xxiii, and Vriend, de, Old English MQ, pp. xli–xlii.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 9} Ibid. p. xliii.

^{page 16 note 10} CML 4, v.

^{page 16 note 11} MQ 1β.13; CML 4, 237.

^{page 17 note 1} As proved by Mørland, see below, app., p. 57, n. 3.

^{page 17 note 2} The only probable exception is the De medicamentis of Marcellus Empiricus, written in Gaul in the first half of the fifth century; see, e.g., Thorndike, , History of Science 1Google Scholar, ch. 25, esp. pp. 567–8 and 584–5.

^{page 17 note 3} Pitra's §§3, 4, 22 and 36 and the common parts of 9 and 34 provide striking examples of both phenomena.

^{page 17 note 4} See CML 4, xxi. It is odd that the two Latin versions of Oribasius should be thought to represent different translations, when they differ much less than the two versions of MQ, which are regarded as different texts of one work. That makes these analogies all the more problematic. The amount of difference in the case of Damigeron falls somewhere between the other two.

^{page 17 note 5} See, e.g., below, app., p. 55, and above, p. 14, and n. 2.

^{page 17 note 6} See below, app., p. 57.

^{page 17 note 7} The emphasis, however natural, on the panther's fierceness and on the terror of other animals at its voice is strikingly at variance with the Physiologus and the obvious classical authorities. One passage which Halleux (‘Damigéron’, p. 339) regarded as an insertion derived from Pliny, , Nat. Hist, xxxvi. 141–2Google Scholar and/or Isidore, , Etym. xviGoogle Scholar. iv. 3, but which cannot in fact be so, is on Gagates, ed. Evans, , Magical Jewels, pp. 205Google Scholar, line 38 – 206, line 5. The alphabetic Damigeron's detail is much fuller than Pliny's or Isidore's. The undoubted verbal similarity is to be explained by supposing that here, as elsewhere, Pliny and the Latin Damigeron used similar Greek source material (cf. below, app., p. 59, n. 1). Isidore's ‘Incensus serpentes fugat, daemoniacos prodit, virginitatem deprehendit’, between closely succeeding sentences of Pliny, reads remarkably like a compression of the Latin Damigeron, not Pliny; cf. below, p. 26, n. 4. I know of no other evidence that Isidore knew Damigeron, Greek or Latin. The resemblance can perhaps best be explained by supposing that Isidore's manuscript of Pliny was glossed or interpolated from the Latin Damigeron at this point. One other short passage which may not have been accounted for is the remedy ‘Pro pustulis’ at the end of §23 Frigius. That entry is derived from the Lombard Dioscorides, but the last two lines are not in Stadler's text (Romanische For scbungen 13, 236; see below, app., p. 55, n. 6). His cryptic textual apparatus implies that something like them is present in at least one manuscript and that a hint of them is in another. It may be that the alphabetic Damigeron preserves the fullest text of the Lombard Dioscorides at this point, just as in several passages the alphabetic Dioscorides has the least corrupt text of the alphabetic Damigeron.

^{page 18 note 1} Except in §33 Lithargirum.

^{page 18 note 2} On the texts mentioned in this paragraph see below, app., pp. 55–7.

^{page 18 note 3} E.g. Pitra's §34, ‘tantam magnitudinem habet iste lapis, et ne mireris, quod tanta nomina habet iste lapis’, becomes the alphabetic §26, ‘Neve mireris hunc lapidem tot habere nomina cum tot et tam varias virtutes habeat.’

^{page 18 note 4} Talbot, Outlined, Medicine, pp. 18–20.Google Scholar

^{page 18 note 5} A fragment derived from the translation of Oribasius used in the alphabetic Damigeron occurs in the Leechbook of Bald; see Talbot, , Medicine, pp. 19–20Google Scholar. There are Old English glosses in Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dc. 187+160+186+185 (Ker, Catalogue, no. 102), a Latin medical miscellany including extracts from Oribasius. The manuscript is English, of the mid-twelfth century, clearly going back to an original of the Old English period.

^{page 18 note 6} Cf. Talbot, C. H., ‘Some Notes on Anglo-Saxon Medicine’, Medical Hist. 9 (1965), 156–69CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed, on English knowledge in the ninth century of texts commonly regarded as ‘Salernitan’, and his conclusion (p. 169) that ‘England was, in the ninth and tenth centuries, in no way inferior to its continental neighbours in the assimilation of classical medicine.’

^{page 18 note 7} Nat. Hist, xxxvii. 139–85.

^{page 18 note 8} Talbot, Medicine, esp. p. 19.

^{page 18 note 9} Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., MGH, Auct. Antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), 490Google Scholar (cf. 71). Bede (Historia Ecclesiastica IV.I) calls Theodore ‘vir et saeculari et divina litteratura, et Grece instructus et Latine’, and records (HE v.3) a medical precept attributed to him personally.

^{page 19 note 1} For discussion see Talbot, Medicine, esp. pp. 11, 13 and 16.

^{page 19 note 2} Talbot, So (Medicine, p. 16Google Scholar) interprets a letter from Cyneheard, bishop of Winchester, to Lull in Mainz some time after 754 (ed. Tangl, M., Die Briefe des heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, MGH, Epistolae Selectae 1 (Berlin, 1916), 247)Google Scholar. It indeed seems best to take Cyneheard's aliqua copia of medical books as including those for whose copious presence in England there is some evidence, although the complaint about the foreign materials prescribed (‘pigmenta ultramarina … ignota nobis sunt et difficilia adipiscendum’) would apply equally well to any of the current medical texts.

^{page 19 note 3} Talbot, Medicine, p. 20.

^{page 19 note 4} Pitra's §28 Vulcano becomes Alphabetic §30 a deo (originally a gloss?), P8 Veneris voluptatem becomes A21 venerias (adj., for veriereas) voluptates, P6 Isidem becomes A46 siptacum ( = psittacum, ‘parrot’?) and P19 Milo and P7 Hecates become A3 anulo and A10 acate (= ‘ring’ and a gem-name respectively). P. 35 Apollinis is not in A7 and the P37 sentence containing Latonam et Hippocraten is not in A44. It is possible that the presence of Martis and Narcissi in the three lines of P41 was one reason why that entry is not in the extant alphabetic recension. The latter also makes a mess of P30 Medium vero nomine de Mediodon, reading (A34) quendam virum magum nomine de endon vel derineodon (but the context is corrupt in both and the equation may not be exact) and of P4 Vahntiores Syros (recte Syri), reading (A35) vahntiores esse, although handling the majority of etymology and geography perfectly well. On the credit side are to be set only P7 Gurgonis, A10 Gorgone; P41 and A25 Hercules; P22 <jy>amigeron, A47 Dapniceron; and A35 Neptunum et Nereum deos maris, which for once is corrupted in Pitra's recension to P4 Neptunum marts.

^{page 19 note 5} See below, app., pp. 55 and 56.

^{page 19 note 6} Cf. above, p. 16, n. 7.

^{page 19 note 7} See below, pp. 48–9, and my part II (ASE, forthcoming).

^{page 20 note 1} Halleux (‘Damigéron’, pp. 346–7) quotes passages from the autobiography of Petrus Diaconus as being independent evidence for the presence of a manuscript of the alphabetic Damigeron at Monte Cassino, at least by the first half of the twelfth century. But the wording of these passages, like their tenor, is suspicious (naming Nero not Tiberius), and they look more like an attempt by Petrus to steal the credit for Marbod's poem by claiming it as his own translation than like any real reference to Damigeron.

^{page 20 note 2} Tabulated with Old English lists, below, p. 38.

^{page 20 note 3} Schmidt, P. (Edelsteine (Bonn, 1948), pp. 61–8)Google Scholar quotes a scatter of hostile general moralizings. The Latin Clavis ascribed to St Meliton (d. 190) and inaccurately cited by Terpening (Neophilologus 60, 79) is in fact considerably later (see Lietzmann, PW xv.i (1931), s.v. Meliton (4)); it has very little to say about stones, and that little is not of independent significance. Ptd de Mély, Lapidaires 11, 193–8. Blake (Epiphanius, p. xiv) thinks a better text could be produced; there is no critical edition. He says of its composition that ‘any speculations as to date, place, or author are doomed to be futile in view of the complete absence of all data’.

^{page 20 note 5} Ed. Guenther, O., ‘Epiphanius: De XII Gemmis’, Epistulae imperatorum, pontificum, aliorum, CSEL 35 (Vienna, 1898)Google Scholar, no. 244, pp. 743–73. The edition is most easily used in conjunction with that of Foggini (1743) as reprinted Migne, Patrologia Graeco-Latina 43, cols. 521–72, which contains an index. Migne's section numbers are not exactly the same as Guenther's, but close enough for the index to be of service.

^{page 21 note 1} But see below.

^{page 21 note 2} Ed. and trans. Blake and de Vis, Epiphanius.

^{page 21 note 3} Ibid. p. cxxiii, after a long discussion of all the versions.

^{page 21 note 4} Ibid. p. cxxi; Siegmund, P. A., Die Überlieferung der Griechiscben Christlicben Literatur (Munich, 1949). P- 71Google Scholar. agrees.

^{page 21 note 5} Examined by Blake, , Epiphanius, pp. xc–xcixGoogle Scholar; see also Thorndike, , History of Science 1, 495–6.Google Scholar

^{page 21 note 6} Blake, , Epiphanius, pp. cxiv–cxvi and cxxii.Google Scholar

^{page 21 note 7} Hieronymus: In Esaiam XII-XVIII, ed. Adriaen, M., CCSL 73A (Turnhout, 1963), 611Google Scholar, on Isaiah Liv.11–14.

^{page 21 note 8} Hieronymus: In Hiezechielem, ed. Glorie, F., CCSL 75 (Turnhout, 1964), 394.Google Scholar

^{page 21 note 9} Hieronymus: In Propbetas Minores, ed. Adriaen, M., CCSL 76 (Turnhout, 1969), pp. 318–19.Google Scholar

^{page 21 note 10} Hieronymus: In Danielem, ed. Adriaen, M., CCSL 75A (Turnhout, 1963), 891–2Google Scholar, drawing recognizably on the figural section trans. Blake, , Epiphanius, 153Google Scholar, from the rather garbled Georgian.

^{page 21 note 11} Jerome's comments on jewels will be discussed further in my part II.

^{page 21 note 12} Ptd in parallel with the main Latin version, PGL 43, cols. 321–3.

^{page 21 note 13} Many of the other letters are also by bishops, and many translated from the Greek; see Siegmund, , Überlieferung, p. 143.Google Scholar

^{page 22 note 1} E.g., Evans, , Magical Jewels, p. 31Google Scholar: ‘From the time of Isidore of Seville till the eleventh century there appears to be a break in the chain of Western lapidaries.’ The next that she considers is the Old English. Curiously the same period seems to be nearly as barren of Byzantine lapidaries. (I do not know what Greek patristic literature may hold.)

^{page 22 note 2} Published commentaries conveniently listed McNally, R. E., The Bible in the Early Middle Ages (Westminster, Maryland, 1959)Google Scholar, on Exodus, p. 96; on Ezekiel, p. 103; on Revelation, pp. 116–17. Thorndike (‘De Lapidibus’, p. 6, n. 2) alludes to a tract Diversilates duodecim lapidum in a tenthcentury manuscript, Orléans, Bibliothèque Publique, 343, which he has not seen. The explicit ‘hanc vitam Dominus laudavit’ given by Cuissard, C., Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliotbiques publiques de France: Départements: XII Orléans (Paris, 1889)Google Scholar, suggests that it deals with the stones of the Apocalypse, but does not reveal its affinities, if any, with published cmmentaries.

^{page 22 note 3} Cf. list, McNally's, Bible in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 89–94.Google Scholar

^{page 22 note 4} De Doctrina Christiana II. xvi, ed. Martin, J., CCSL 32 (Turnhout, 1962), 50Google Scholar, and De Genesi contra Manichaeos 11.10 (PL 34, col. 204).

^{page 22 note 5} In Genesim, ed. Jones, C. W., CCSL 118A (Turnhout, 1967), 49–50Google Scholar. Cf. PL 93, col. 269, and PL 91, col. 207, from works falsely attributed to Bede, using the second of the Augustine references cited above.

^{page 22 note 6} At Revelation 11.17 (PL 101, col. 1106).

^{page 22 note 7} The Bede passage ptd PL 93, cols. 197–203, and Walafrid Strabo's PL 94, cols. 748–9.

^{page 22 note 8} PL 91, cols. 465–71. The remainder of the lapidary section (cols. 462–4 and 471–4) is from Isidore.

^{page 22 note 9} E.g., most of the twelve-stone treatises of which Thorndike, ‘De Lapidibus’, gives extracts are obviously derived, whether or not directly, from Bede.

^{page 23 note 1} Adversus Elipandiim iv. ii, ptd PL 101, col. 287.

^{page 23 note 2} Cf. remarks, McNally's, Bible in the Early Middle Ages, p. 84.Google Scholar

^{page 23 note 3} PL 17, cols. 1040–4; dated by McNally c. 859. Discussed further (but inconclusively) in my part II.

^{page 23 note 4} PL 94, cols. 539–57.

^{page 23 note 5} The eighth-century date generally given is a relict of its attribution to Bede. For the ill-defined dating evidence so far adduced, see Dekkers, E., Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 2nd ed. (Steenbrugge, 1962)Google Scholar, no. 1129 (cf. 1155f) and references there cited. The English origin asserted by some writers is definitely to be scouted.

^{page 23 note 6} For references, see Dumville, D. N., ‘Biblical Apocrypha and the Early Irish: a Preliminary Investigation’, Proc. of the R. Irish Acad. 73c (1973), 299–328, at 315.Google Scholar

^{page 23 note 7} PL 94, cols. 551–2.

^{page 23 note 8} To be demonstrated in my part II.

^{page 23 note 9} PL 94, col. 543.

^{page 23 note 10} It should be remarked that lapidary historians have not touched Irish vernacular literature, apart from noting the existence of a translation of Marbod's poem. I gather that there is not likely to be anything important earlier (I am grateful to Dr Kay Muhr and Mr Patrick Sims-Williams for discussion on this point); but the subject deserves investigation.

^{page 24 note 1} Theodore's was the one flourishing school of Greek which ever existed in Anglo-Saxon England. On its exceptional character, see, e.g., Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 181–2Google Scholar. Bede (HE v.23) is explicit about the fluent Greek of some of Theodore's pupils.

^{page 24 note 2} Bischoff, B., ‘Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Fruhmittelalter’, Sacris Erudiri 6 (1954), 189–281, at 193.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 24 note 3} The ‘B Version’ of Florence McCulloch, Mediaeval Latin and French Bestiaries (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1960), p. 25Google Scholar. McCulloch provides a comprehensive account of the history and bibliography of the various Physiologus versions and a selective analysis of the stories and their development. Thorndike, , History of Science 1, 497–503Google Scholar supplies useful general comments.

^{page 24 note 4} Adamas means both ‘adamant’ and ‘diamond’ in modern English. Adamas and diamas were parallel Latin names of the same stone, which was at once the hardest substance known and a gem of worth. The original adamas was always the commoner name in the early medieval period. The distinction between the embodiment of hardness and the epitome of preciousness is a later Middle and Modern English development. For early use of diamond/adamant, see Tolansky, S., The History and Use of Diamond (London, 1962)Google Scholar, and for copious early traditions, Laufer, B., The Diamond: a Study in Chinese and Hellenistic Folk-Lore, Publ. of the Field Museum of Natt. His., Chicago, Anthropological Ser. 15.1 (Chicago, 1915)Google Scholar. Barb, A. A. (‘Lapis adamas: der Blutstein’, Hommages à Marcel Renard I, ed. Bibauw, J., Collectio Latomus 101 (Brussels, 1969), 66–82)Google Scholar offers some interesting etymological suggestions, but some of the connections he draws between the traditions of different gems are probably forbidden by Laufer's material.

^{page 24 note 5} The ‘B-Is Version’ of McCulloch, Bestiaries, pp. 28–9. If Alcuin was alluding to the Physiologus, he carries ‘B-Is’ back a century or more before the earliest extant manuscript.

^{page 24 note 6} Ed. E. Hoffmann, CSEL 40 (Vienna, 1900); chapters with stones at 11, 517–26.

^{page 25 note 1} Aenigmata 9, 25 and 24; ed. Ehwald, Aldbelmi Opera, pp. 102, 108 and 107.

^{page 25 note 2} Frigida nam chalibis suspendo metallaper auras (‘ For I hold iron's cold metals suspended through the airs’).

^{page 25 note 3} De Civ. Dei xxi. 6.

^{page 25 note 4} Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 148. So does Isidore, who begins his chapter De Lapidibus Insignioribus (Etym. xvi.iv) with the stones selected by Augustine (plus gagates) but tones down Augustine's story.

^{page 25 note 5} Even eorc(n)anstan is denied native origin by some lexicographers, but the derivation from Chaldean which they favour looks more fanciful than convincing. The Germanic and other cognates offered by BT and by Vries, Jan de, Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed. (Leyden, 1977)Google Scholar, s.v. jarknasteinn, though not dose, give a likelier linguistic context. (ON jarknasteinn itself is generally regarded as a borrowing from Old English.) The phrase ‘eorcnanstanum unionibus 7 carbunculis þæm gimcynnum swiðast gefrætwode’ (Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, ed. Rypins, S., Three Old English Prose Texts, EETS o.s. 161 (London, 1924), 6)Google Scholar, translating ‘margaritis, unionibus et carbunculis exornati’ (Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem, ed. Boer, W. Walther (The Hague, 1953), p. 6)Google Scholar, is interesting in showing that the explanation of margarita by eorcnanstan in biblical glosses was standard enough already in the ninth century to be applied to literary translations. (On the date of the Old English Epistola Alexandri see Sisam, K., Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 88–9.) Native contexts such as The Ruin 36 and Beowulf 1208 betray no hint of a restricted meaning.

^{page 25 note 6} Meregrot is the normal word for a pearl. The word ærl, found three times in glosses to an unclear lemma, is also of Latin origin; see Holthausen and BT Add, s.v., for different explanations.

^{page 26 note 1} Assembled, Garrett, Precious Stones, pp. 57–63.Google Scholar

^{page 26 note 2} Solinus 102, 9–11, and Isidore Etym. xvi. xiv. 3 both name Britain as the chief supplier of jet. Bede (HE i.i) draws upon the former.

^{page 26 note 3} Chs. LXV and LXVI; Leecbdoms, Wortcmning and Starcraft of Early England, ed. Cockayne, T. O., Rolls Ser. (London, 1864–1866), 11, 296.Google Scholar

^{page 26 note 4} The other ingredients in the recipe in ch. LXV, myrrh, wine and frankincense, suggest it may have a foreign model. The prescription is ‘Against elf and against strange sidsa’ (interpreted by Cockayne as ‘visitor’, by BT as ‘charm’), which probably implies incorporation into a native scheme of superstitions. Ch. LXVI is devoted to the stone's eight virtues (mægen), which may be summarized as follows: (i) against thunderbolts, (ii) and (iv) against demons and (vi) against witchcraft, (iii) and (viii) against venom and snake-bite and (v) and (vii) for general health and handsomeness. Joan Evans (Magical Jewels, p. 53) observes that (iii), (v), (vii) and (viii) are paralleled in the obvious Latin sources, but thinks (i), (ii), (iv) and (vi) ‘may possibly represent an English traditional belief’. In fact (ii), (iv) and (vi) are paralleled in the statements from §27 of the alphabetic Damigeron, ‘epilepticos prodit … Demonibus et omnibus maleficis resistit’ and ‘Omnes fraudes et ligamenta omnia dissolvit’ (the latter being ‘Omnem fraudem et ligamenta persolvit’ in §20 of Pitta's recension) and in a statement of Isidore's related to the first (see above, p. 17, n. 7). The use of jet as a prophylactic against thunder and lightning damage does not, however, seem to be paralleled. It may well be native. Its position first in the list could well be a sign that it was the property of jet most widely agreed among the Anglo-Saxons. It is inherently likely that some of the beliefs about stones current in the classical world descended to the Anglo-Saxons from their continental ancestors or from Romano-British popular belief. The number coming through either medium is not likely to have been substantial. We have no sure means of identifying which, if any, but jet seems a good candidate. One would expect native superstitions about it, at least in Yorkshire. The very existence of the chapter on jet may indicate that its subject was important in popular belief for more than a single property. It is the last medical item in Bald's Leechbook (followed only by a paragraph on weights and measures, and the colophon) and looks as if it were originally a separate tract. If so, there are no obvious parallels. If jet figured in popular belief one might expect it to have had a name. The tenth-century gloss W 416, 2 gagates: sæcol may be an indication, or the popular designation may have been no more than ‘se blaca stan’.

^{page 26 note 5} E.g., Lactantius, De ave phoenice 137Google Scholar ‘Ingentes oculi: credas geminos hyacinthos’ becomes The Phoenix 301b–4 ‘Is seo eaggebyrd / stearc ond hiwe stane gelicast, / gladum gimme, þonne in goldfate / smiþa orþoncum biseted weorþeð.’

^{page 26 note 6} The Salisbury Psalter, ed. C., and Sisam, K., EETS o.s. 242 (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar as quoted; Der altenglische Regius-Psalter, ed. Roeder, F. (Halle, 1904)Google Scholar, basowan; Heraltengliscbe Arundel-Psalter, ed. Oess, G. (Heidelberg, 1910)Google Scholar, baseman; and The Vitellius Psalter, ed. Rosier, J. L. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1962)Google Scholar, b … truncated.

^{page 27 note 1} See C., and Sisam, K., Salisbury Psalter, pp. 52–75.Google Scholar

^{page 27 note 2} On the date, see further, below, p. 42.

^{page 27 note 3} Precious Stones, p. 57.

^{page 27 note 4} Ch. LXIV; Cockayne, Leecbdoms 11, 290. According to Meaney, Audrey, ‘Alfred, the Patriarch and the White Stone’, summarized ANZAMRS, Bull. of the Australian and New Zealand Assoc. for Med. and Renaissance Stud. 6 (1971), 22–3Google Scholar, the virtues of the ‘mysterious white stone … approach those of white or crystalline quartz in British folk-lore’. ‘Black stones’ (petras nigras) are mentioned as an article of commerce in the correspondence of Charlemagne and Offa in 796 (Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Haddan, A. W. and Stubbs, W., in (Oxford, 1871), 487)Google Scholar, but as something more substantial than gems; Blair, P. Hunter (Roman Britain and Early England (London, 1969), p. 277)Google Scholar conjectures that they were Tournai stone for making fonts.

^{page 27 note 5} Perhaps one should mention the ‘lytle stanas on swealwan bridda magan’ (Cockayne, , Leecbdoms 11, 306)Google Scholar, which, though technically chelidonii, are not named by either the Old English writer or his source, Marcellus Empiricus.

^{page 27 note 6} 887b, 1415a, 2553b and 2744b; the last two references are to the same rock.

^{page 27 note 7} Excluding stones qualified by a genitive personal name, of which there are about two-thirds as many as there are of those described by colour. Middendorff, H., Altenglisches Flurnamenbuch (Halle, 1902)Google Scholar, gives a misleading impression by failing to indicate relative frequence of occurrence.

^{page 27 note 8} I am indebted to Dr Leslie Webster, of the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities at the British Museum, for discussing this and archaeological questions generally.

^{page 27 note 9} It is a curious coincidence that Aldhelm in his riddle on Dracontia twice states that it is a reddish Peter Kit son gem (purpureis æ fucis and rubra), although both Pliny and Isidore state that it is a translucent white, and even Solinus (whom, for this reason, Ehwald names as source) could well be taken as saying the same. Did Aldhelm have native traditions, different from those of his authorities, by which dragons should be associated with red jewels

^{page 28 note 1} The Épinal and Erfurt glossaries are largely identical; see Campbell, Alistair, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar, §12, and Old English Glosses in the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, ed. Pheifer, J. D. (Oxford, 1974), pp. xxiii, xxvi, xxviii and xliiiGoogle Scholar. The glossaries are henceforth cited as Ep, Erf, Corp and Leyd, with entries numbered as in, respectively, The Epinal Glossary, ed. Sweet, H. (London, 1883)Google Scholar; Glossarium Amplonianum Primum in CGL v; The Corpus Glossary, ed. Lindsay, W. M. (Cambridge, 1921)Google Scholar; and A Late Eighth-Century Latin-Anglo-Saxon Glossary Preserved in the Library of the Leiden University, ed. Hessels, J. H. (Cambridge, 1906).Google Scholar

^{page 28 note 2} As Lindsay, W. M. noted (The Corpus, Épinal, Erfurt and Leyden Glossaries (London, 1921), p. 37).Google Scholar

^{page 28 note 3} See, e.g., Pheifer, , ÉpErf Glossary, p. IviiGoogle Scholar, and Kuhn, S. M., ‘On the Consonantal Phonemes of Old English’, Philological Essays in honour of H. D. Merritt, ed. Rosier, J. L. (The Hague, 1970), pp. 16–49, at 18.Google Scholar

^{page 28 note 4} See Lindsay, CorpÉpErfLeyd Glossaries, passim.

^{page 28 note 5} In CGL and GL.

^{page 28 note 6} Goetz touches on the manuscripts and compilation of this glossary (CGL iv, xxxix-xlii). As he prints (Ibid, iv, 601) only a specimen of its glosses, those beginning with B and G in which another of the relevant jewel-names could not occur, it is impossible to say what relationship, if any, this glossary bears to the English glosses in question. (It could well be derivative; cf. the Vergil glosses of English marginal origin which Lindsay and his colleagues (GL v, introductions) find in the likewise fairly late continental Aa and Abba glossaries.)

^{page 28 note 7} Ibid. 1.

^{page 29 note 1} This is the drift of Lindsay, W. M., ‘The Shorter Glosses of Placidus’, Jnl of Philol. 34 (1918), 256–66Google Scholar; CGL 1, 70 seems not to disagree.

^{page 29 note 2} Pannier, L., Les Lapidaires franfais du moyen âge (Paris, 1882), p. 212Google Scholar, and Evans, , Magical Jewels, p. 73Google Scholar, cite as from Sinner, J. R., Catalogue des manuscrits de Berne 1 (Berne, 1760), 361 ff.Google Scholar, what is described as a Latin glossary dealing with the twelve Exodus stones. The reference is false; nor have I been able to find a corresponding entry in Hagen, H., Catalogus Codicum Bernensium (Berne, 1875)Google Scholar. The description seems to be of a short tract rather than a glossary.

^{page 29 note 3} Ep 17A25 and 17C20; Erf 376, 26 and 377, 3; and Corp O171 and O173.

^{page 29 note 4} Corp H78.

^{page 29 note 5} Ep 28A27, Erf 399, 6 and Corp U251, with spelling variations. Lindsay, Corp Glossary, is surely wrong in calling this a gloss to Ezekiel xxxvii.17.

^{page 29 note 6} Ep 11C17 and Corp H98, with spelling variation.

^{page 29 note 7} Ep 25E27, Erf 394, 27 and Corp S94.

^{page 29 note 8} Nat. Hist, xxxvii.181.

^{page 29 note 9} Garrett, , Precious Stones, pp. 40–5Google Scholar, assembled most Old English and Anglo-Latin lapidary glosses then published. In addition there is a sprinkling in the Latin-Latin portions of the tenth-century Harley Glossary, as ptd Oliphant, R. T., The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary (The Hague, 1966)Google Scholar: B157 Berulus … genus saxi candidi (paralleled by Berillus: genus lapidis candidi in several glossaries in CGL, of which the seventh-century prototype (1, 125) of Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 912 (iv, 211, 7) may be the common original); B376 BoueIlium: carbunculus (sc. bdellium; these two gems are associated in the Old Latin version of Genesis 11.12: cf. above, p. 22); D815 Dracontides: lapis a dracone vocatur (Dracontites, Isidore Etym. xvi.xiv.7); and F333 Fingites: nomen lapidis Cappadociae (Phengites, Etym. xvi.iv.23).

^{page 29 note 10} For which Meritt, H. D., Fact and Lore about Old English Words (Stanford, 1954), p. 73Google Scholar, offers a possible explanation.

^{page 30 note 1} E.g. dream-interpretation, which is psychologically much more basic than jewel-lore and yet is expounded in treatises in Old English, and in popular literature in various countries down to our own day, deriving demonstrably from Hellenistic works; see Forster, M., ‘Beitragezur mittelalterlichen Volkskunde’ iv and ix, ASNSL, 125 (1910), 39–70Google Scholar, and 134(1916), 264–93. To what extent the Old English treatises were already ‘popular’ is uncertain.

^{page 30 note 2} Evans, , Magical Jewels, p. 94Google Scholar, discussing a slightly later period, but still, in my judgement, wrongly.

^{page 30 note 3} History of Science 1, 777–8.

^{page 30 note 4} Cf. discussions above, pp. 24–5, and below, p. 46.

^{page 30 note 5} Garrett, , Precious Stones, pp. 15–16Google Scholar, gives some literary examples; cf. above, p. 29 and below, app., pp. 56–7.

^{page 30 note 6} See above, p. 22. As Garrett pointed out (Precious Stones, p. 12), carbuncle imagery is implied in Tatwine's Riddle 35 Pruna, De, Collectiones Aenigmatum Merovingicae Aetatis, ed. Glorie, F., CCSL 133 (Turnhout, 1968), 202.Google Scholar

^{page 30 note 7} Ed. Tangl, , Bonifatius-Briefe, p. 6Google Scholar: ‘… id est divinam sapientiam, quae est splendidior auro, speciosior argento, ignitior carbunculo, candidior cristallo, pretiosior topazio, et secundum sanctionem ingeniosi contionatoris omne pretiosum non est ea dignum’. Tangl dates the letter to 716–17.

^{page 30 note 8} See above, p. 26, n. 4.

^{page 30 note 9} But Dr Leslie Webster tells me that this is no longer confidently upheld and that identification of origin by analysis of trace elements has hardly begun.

^{page 31 note 1} Nat. Hist. XXXVII. 92–7.

^{page 31 note 2} I owe this information to Mr Peter Dronke.

^{page 31 note 3} On the large number of manuscripts, see Laistner, M. L. W. and King, H. H., A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, N.Y., 1943), p. 26Google Scholar, and on the many derivative works, see above, pp. 22–3.

^{page 31 note 4} See Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 240–8Google Scholar (no. 186), and Förster, M., ‘Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Volkskunde III: Inhaltsangabe des volkskundlichen Sammelkodex Tiberius A.III’, ASNSL. 121 (1908), 307–46.Google Scholar

^{page 32 note 1} See Ker, , Catalogue, p. 240.Google Scholar

^{page 32 note 2} On the pitfalls of naming, see below, app., p. 56, n. 3. Smith, G. F. H., Gemstones, 13th ed., rev. Phillips, F. C. (London, 1962)Google Scholar has pertinent comments on some classical descriptions and their subjects, e.g. beryl (including diamond) and topaz.

^{page 32 note 3} See below, p. 35.

^{page 34 note 1} H. Wanley, Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium, quae in Angliae bibliothecis extant. … Catalogus (Hickes, G., Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archaeologicus II; Oxford, 1705), p. 198Google Scholar. Hence Sharon Turner, the first modern scholar to bring OEL before a non-specialist public, described, and gave a condensed translation of, its first half only (History of the Anglo-Saxons, 4th ed. (London, 1823) III, 55Google Scholar). The ‘B.M. Cott. Tit.D. iii, fol. 98V, eleventh century’ of Evans, Magical Jewels, p. 72, is a garbled reference to OEL, not some other work.

^{page 34 note 2} The lateness is evinced by such features as smoothing of ea to e in ebtopa, lece and wexsð and unrounding of y, most conspiciously in dricræftum.

^{page 34 note 3} Betwinan for betweonan and opær for oper. Initial Æ for E in Ændlyfta belongs to a wider area of southern England. See Campbell, Grammar, §193(d) and C., and Sisam, K., Salisbury Psalter, pp. 13–14Google Scholar. Garrett, (Precious Stones, p. 35)Google Scholar, following Sievers's Grammar, cited embe (for ymbe) as a Kenticism, but Campbell (Grammar, §372, n. 2) regards it as normal when the word is unaccented.

^{page 34 note 4} See Ker's Catalogue for references to the editions of the many separate pieces. The most important linguistic comments are by Förster ‘Volkskunde’ IV, pp. 44–5, and ‘Vom Fortleben antiker Sammellunare im Englischen und in anderen Volkssprachen’, Anglia 67–8 (1944), 1–171, at 64–77)Google Scholar and F. Kluge, in his edition of the Monasteriales [sic] Indicia, which immediately precedes OEL and is in the same hand (‘Zur Geschichte der Zeichensprache. Angelsächsische Indicia Monasterialia’, Tecbmers Internationale Zeitscbrift für allgemeine Spracbwissenscbaft 2 (1885), 116–37,Google Scholar esp. 130–1). The two Förster articles cited have as their particular subjects continuous gloss texts, which could not well be of earlier origin than Tiberius A. iii; but the manuscript practice is so homogeneous that Förster's analysis is equally illuminating for those texts which were earlier.

^{page 35 note 1} English Mediaeval Lapidaries, pp. xii and 13.

^{page 35 note 2} Above, pp. 28–30.

^{page 35 note 3} Precious Stones, pp. 33–5.

^{page 35 note 4} Cited above, p. 28, n. 2.

^{page 35 note 5} Hessels, , Leiden Glossary, p. 43.Google Scholar

^{page 37 note 1} Precious Stones, p. 34.

^{page 37 note 2} E.g., on 73r and 74v, pages about the same in colour as OEL's pages (a necessary condition, since page colour varies more widely than ink colour).

^{page 37 note 3} Contrast the glosses of s. xi² (Ker, , Catalogue, p. 240)Google Scholar, written with a much finer pen in a darker brown ink.

^{page 37 note 4} Etym. 1.xxi.2; whence Byrhtferth (Byrhtferth's Manual, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS o.s. 177 (London, 1929), 184Google Scholar): ‘Asteriscus ys namcuð tacen þæt; man sett forwel oft on halgum bocum, gif þær hwæt byð forlæten, and þus he ys amearcod: *.’ Thus even a reader without Latin might have been familiar with the sign.

^{page 37 note 5} Precious Stones, p. 34.

^{page 38 note 1} Jewish Antiquities 111.168 and Jewish War v.234; Josephus, ed. Thackeray, H. St J., Loeb Classical Lib. iv (London, 1930), 394–6Google Scholar, and iii (London, 1928), 272, ligure both times being mistranslated as jacinth. The identification is old, having been made by Epiphanius (the Latin version, CSEL 35, 752–3, or PGL 43, cols. 337–8, is rather less emphatic than the Georgian, trans. Blake, Epiphanius, p. 116); but it is still an error. Smith, , Gemstones, p. 222Google Scholar, tabulates Josephus's lists together with the Septuagint, Vulgate and A.V. forms of the Exodus list. Our own Authorized Version is the most wayward. Baisier, , Lapidaire Chrétien, pp. 6–7Google Scholar, gives tables including the Hebrew names. Cf. Pannier, , Lapidaires français, pp. 210–11Google Scholar. Emanuel, H., Diamonds and Precious Stones (London, 1865), pp. 36–7Google Scholar has tables which include the Syriac and other eastern versions.

² CSEL 35, 755, or PGL 43, col. 341.

^{page 39 note 1} Nat. Hist. xxxvi.61, the only one of Pliny's onyx passages which is even comparable. Isidore Etym. xvi.viii.3 is not. Solinus does not mention onyx.

^{page 39 note 2} Mély, De, Lapidaires 11, 197.Google Scholar

^{page 39 note 3} On flavus and fulvus, see André, J., Étude sur Its termes de couleur dans la langue laline, Études et Commentaires 7 (Paris, 1949), 128–56.Google Scholar

^{page 39 note 4} I have probably complete collations for a study, in hand, of Old English colour names.

^{page 39 note 5} On classical furvus, see Andre, , Couleur, p. 60.Google Scholar

^{page 39 note 6} The ‘Third Erfurt’ glossary has aquiluus (aquilus), fulvus: bruun locar (The Oldest English Texts, ed. Sweet, H., EETS o.s. 83 (London, 1885), 109Google Scholar; cited Lindsay, CorpÉpErfLeyd Glossaries, p. 82); EpErf 433 (ed. Pheifer) furuum: bruun; W 404, 21 (tenth-century) Furuum. i. nigrum: brun; and Old English Glosses, ed Meritt, H. D. (Oxford, 1945), p. 43Google ScholarFurfum: dun (ninth-century continental manuscript using earlier Old English gloss on Genesis xxx.32).

^{page 39 note 7} ‘Remarks on the Corpus Glossary’, Classical Quarterly 13 (1919), 89–108, at 103.Google Scholar

^{page 40 note 1} Professor Clemoes and I have arrived at this explanation in consultation.

^{page 40 note 2} Bradley, Ibid, (quoted by Lindsay, CorpÉrfLeyd Glossaries, p. 36), erroneously stated that EpErf Corp lack the first two gems. They lack only the second. But an ancestor of Corp obviously had only the gem-name for the first, so that a scribe filled the gap with nomen gemmae.

^{page 41 note 1} Etym. xvi.vii.7.

^{page 41 note 2} Ed. Mommsen, p. 195, line 4.

^{page 41 note 3} Mély, De, hapidaires 11, 194.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 4} CSEL 35, 745, or PGL 43, col. 324.

^{page 42 note 1} Mély, De, Lapidairesn 11, 194.Google Scholar

^{page 42 note 2} CSEL 35, 747 (misprinting prasimus for prasinus), or PGL 43, col. 326.

^{page 42 note 3} Cf. PW, s.v. topazus, ōτοπάζιον.

^{page 42 note 4} Mély, De, Lapidaires 11, 194Google Scholar; CSEL 35, 746, or PGL 43, col. 324.

^{page 42 note 5} Above, pp. 26–7.

^{page 42 note 6} Laistner and King, Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts, p. 25.

^{page 42 note 7} PL 93, col. 200C.

^{page 42 note 8} E.g. Strabo xvi.4.6 and Diodorus Siculus 111.39.

^{page 42 note 9} PL 93, cols. 200C-201A.

^{page 42 note 10} E.g. Damigeron Pitra §29 Topatozontes and Cava §52 Topaziondo not fit.

^{page 42 note 11} Enarrationes in Psalmos; PL 37, col. 1579.

^{page 43 note 1} As cited above, p. 21, n. 7: ‘Et Plinium Secundum, eumdem apud Latinos oratorem et philosophum, qui in opere pulcherrimo Naturalis Historiae tricesimum septimum librum, qui et extremus est, lapidum atque gemmarum disputatione complevit.’

^{page 43 note 2} Nat. Hist. XXXVII.115–18.

^{page 43 note 3} And in such later ones as I have met. The elements of green and smoke are present in Epiphanius (CSEL 35, 751, or PGL 43, col. 334), but neither is prominent.

^{page 43 note 4} Nat. Hist. XXXVII. 120.

^{page 43 note 5} Ibid. XXXVII.104.

^{page 43 note 6} Ibid. XXXVII.95. The Greek adjectives χαλκηδόνιος ‘Chalcedonian’, and Καρχηδόνιος ‘Carthaginian’, fell together in later Latin as c(b)alc(h)edonius, and the lore of several varieties of gemstone called after those places of origin can also be seen to have fallen together. The confusion seems to have been chronologically uneven. As far as one can tell through the corruptions, Pitra's recension of Damigeron (fifth to sixth century) hardly shows it (though it was complete, of course, before the (tenth-century?) alphabetical recension of Damigeron). It is already apparent in the (fifth-century) Latin Epiphanius, though; and it may already have been reflected in Epiphanius's Greek (c.394). The confusion was present in another Greek work. Σωκράτους καί Διουсίου περί λίθων ed. Mesk, J., ‘Ein unedierter Tractat ΠΕΡΙ ΛΙΘΩΝ’, Wiener Studien 20 (1898), 309–21Google Scholar, which is not dated either by its editor or in the discussion by T. Hopfner (PW XIII (1927), s.v. Λιθικά, cols. 747–69, at 755 and 764–5), but which, with its prominent Olympian deities and admixture of Christian Paradise geography, presumably belongs to the fourth or fifth century.

^{page 43 note 7} PL 93, col. 198B.

^{page 43 note 8} Nat. Hist. XXXVII. 86.

^{page 44 note 1} Ibid. 87.

^{page 44 note 2} Ibid. 90–1.

^{page 44 note 3} Ibid. 126.

^{page 44 note 4} Ibid. 76.

^{page 44 note 5} Ibid. 109.

^{page 44 note 6} Ibid. 113.

^{page 44 note 7} Ibid. 121–3.

^{page 45 note 1} Ibid. 92; Etym. xvi.xiv.i; and see above, pp. 22 and 30–1.

^{page 45 note 2} This would chime interestingly with the arguments above, pp. 29–30.

^{page 45 note 3} See below, esp. p. 53.

^{page 45 note 4} See above, p. 34.

^{page 45 note 5} To judge from the citations in MLW, the correct Greek ending -as was always commoner than the Latin back-formation -ans from pl. -antes. Of the main lapidary writings only Solinus and the alphabetical recension of Damigeron have adamans; Pliny, Isidore, Pitra's recension of Damigeron, the early Physiologus versions and even Marbod use adamas.

^{page 45 note 6} E.g. as a variant reading in Solinus (ed. Mommsen, p. 57, line 11) and as the choice of Marbod and his derivatives generally.

^{page 45 note 7} CSEL 40.11, 519.

^{page 45 note 8} Nat. Hist. xxxvii.59: ‘praeterquam eximias incudes malleosque ferreos frangens’.

^{page 46 note 1} Precious Stones, p. 38.

^{page 46 note 2} CSEL 40.11, 520.

^{page 46 note 3} Above, pp. 24–5.

^{page 46 note 4} CGL v, 309, line 57.

^{page 46 note 5} Nat. Hist. XXXVI.126–30 and XXXVII.6I and Etym. xvi.iv.i and xvi.xiii.3.

^{page 46 note 6} And a natural one, to convey the acceleration of the iron as it is drawn close to the magnet. Thus Pliny (Nat. Hist. XXXVI. 127) speaks of iron which ‘ut prope venit, adsilit’ to a magnet. The contexts are too different for us to suppose that the Old English writer used Pliny. Such statements of the properties of things are rare in extant Old English, but we may compare Ælfric's remark on oil and water (Catholic Homilies, 2nd ser., ed. Thorpe, B. (London, 1846), p. 564)Google Scholar, ‘Geot ðu ðone ele ær, geot ðu siððan, æfre he oferswið þone oðerne wætan’ (‘Pour the oil first or pour it afterwards, it consistently masters the other liquid’).

^{page 47 note 1} Magnets were objects of curiosity, fairly widely known, if hardly common, among the well-to-doof Roman times. There could have been some in any of the successor countries of the early Middle Ages, although none of Anglo-Saxon provenance is known to archaeologists. The lodestone's value for navigation seems to have been known in north-west Europe by the early eleventh century, but the evidence is against its use by Anglo-Saxon navigators (or by their Norse contemporaries). I owe this information to Mr Alan Binns of the University of Hull.

^{page 47 note 2} CSEL 40.11, 521.

^{page 47 note 3} Etym. xvi.iv.4 and ed. Mommsen, p. 57, line 11.

^{page 47 note 4} Nat. Hist. XXXVII.146.

^{page 47 note 5} CSEL 40.11, 522.

^{page 47 note 6} Etym. xvi.iv.5; ed. Mommsen, p. 159; and Nat. Hist. XXXVII.189. It is quite another kind of ‘pyrites’ which Pliny (Nat. Hist. XXXVI.138) specifies should be struck with a nail or another stone, ‘davo vel altero lapide’, to give off a strong spark for kindling.

^{page 47 note 7} CSEL 40.11, 522.

^{page 47 note 8} Ed. Mommsen, p. 19.

^{page 47 note 9} Ibid. p. 42.

^{page 47 note 10} Ibid. p. 45.

^{page 47 note 11} Ibid. p. 53.

^{page 47 note 12} Considered below, p. 53.

^{page 48 note 1} All the manuscripts used by Mommsen give this word the ending -ius. He prints alectoria to agree with Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXXVII.144, Solinus's source. In fact Pliny has the accusative plural aleciorias, from which Solinus could easily have derived alectorius. Solinus repeatedly shows inability to form correct nominatives from Pliny's oblique cases.

^{page 48 note 2} See above, p. 30.

^{page 48 note 3} ‘Cuius est optimus’ is the reading of Hatton 76. Evans, , Magical Jewels, p. 197Google Scholar, prints ‘Qui es optimus’ from nouv. acq. lat. 873. The Cava text of Pitra's recension has an essentially similar entry for Asius. (The two recensions differ in such a way as to suggest that the alphabetic has lost the last sentence and Cava the middle portion of their common original.) Of the related medical texts (see below, app., p. 5 5), Ad Paternianum agrees closely with Cava, the alphabetic Dioscorides with the alphabetic Damigeron. The Cava text does not bear on the present point because of corruption. Ad Paternianum reads ‘Cuius’, which is enough to establish it as the original reading of Damigeron. There is little doubt that Hatton 76 represents the true reading of the alphabetic recension.

^{page 48 note 4} Hatton 76 aptileie; nouv. acq. lat. 873 paulee.

^{page 48 note 5} Both manuscripts scribitur.

^{page 48 note 6} Cf. above, p. 19.

^{page 48 note 7} §22 begins ‘Syrtius vero lapis, qui et Sapphirus appellatur’; but, as no further connection is made, a reader would be likely to regard this as a mere anomaly of naming.

^{page 48 note 8} His Assius(Nat. Hist. XXXVII.132–3) is not said to be white and is not connected with Alexandria.

^{page 48 note 9} Nat. Hist. XXXVII.182.

^{page 49 note 1} The Latin means ‘so comely in appearance that, faint stars being within and shining forth under a cloud, a saffron-yellow colour pervades it’. The Greek accusative absolute construction would have invited corruption; so too, however construed, would the irregular use of perfundere in the Latin if the second class be correct (see next note).

^{page 49 note 2} The reading of Mommsen's second class of manuscripts, which is closer than that of the first to Pliny's words e melleo colore croco refulgentes and so has a claim to be the original.

^{page 49 note 3} Below, p. 52.

^{page 49 note 4} The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library, 1650 (Aldbelm's ‘De Laudibus Virginitatis’), ed. Goosens, L. (Brussels, 1974)Google Scholar, no. 5088, and Old English Glosses, ed. Napier, A. S. (Oxford, 1900), 1, 5206Google Scholar. Croceo: rubicundo occurs in the Corpus Glossary and in some continental glossaries. (Lindsay, GL r, ad loc., derives it from Vergil glosses.) But OEL's author was a poor enough Latinist to have been unlikely to use a Latin–Latin glossary.

^{page 49 note 5} Above, p. 18.

^{page 49 note 6} Cary, G., Tie Medieval Alexander (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar, and Ross, D. J. A., Alexander Historiatus (London, 1962).Google Scholar

^{page 49 note 7} Medieval Alexander, p. 19.

^{page 49 note 8} The Poetical Dialogues of Solomon and Saturn, ed. Menner, R. J. (New York, 1941).Google Scholar

^{page 49 note 9} Cary, , Medieval Alexander, p. 19.Google Scholar

^{page 49 note 10} Sections 9, 15a, 27, 33b, 35, 36 and 40 as numbered by Rose, , ‘Aristoteles und Arnoldus’; Ruška, Steinbuch, pp. 194–5, 198, 202, 204, 205 and 206Google Scholar. Most of the Alexander stories are among the tales recounted by Thorndike (‘The Latin Pseudo-Aristotle’, pp. 242–7).

^{page 50 note 1} Laufer, (The Diamond, pp. 6–21)Google Scholar discusses in detail this and cognate stories.

^{page 50 note 2} So in one manuscript of the Latin version, ed. Rose, ‘Aristoteles und Arnoldus’, pp. 389–90.

^{page 50 note 3} See Ullmann, ‘Literarische Hintergrund’, p. 293.

^{page 50 note 4} Ed. Mommsen, pp. 45–6.

^{page 50 note 5} Cf. frequent ð for d in classical names in the Old English Orosius; see J. M. Bately, ‘The Old English Orosius: the Question of Dictation’, Anglia 84 (1966), 255–304, at 258–61, 264–7 and 301–3.

^{page 50 note 6} Ed. Mommsen, p. 53.

^{page 51 note 1} On the analogy of his other phrases for countries and an island. His expression for Lucania is unlikely to be relevant, since Solinus gives it just a glancing reference, ‘in parte Lucaniae’, in no way suggesting that it is a significant area. Corsica and Sicily are presented in a section on islands, Sicily being distinctly the more important.

^{page 51 note 2} He may even have mistakenly thought lapidemsicilia was lapidēinsicilia.

^{page 51 note 3} Pliny, whose account is much clearer (Nat. Hist. XXXVII.J), calls them maculis.

^{page 51 note 4} Discussed Henig, M., A Corpus of Roman Engraved Gemstones from British Sites, Brit. Archaeol. Reports 8 (Oxford, 1974) 1Google Scholar, ch. 12, and described Ibid. II.

^{page 51 note 5} Cf. especially a late-tenth-century ring found at Faversham, set with a late Roman sard intaglio depicting two figures with various accoutrements; Dalton, O. M., Catalogue of the Finger Rings (Early Christian, Byzantine, Teutonic, Mediaeval and Later) … in the [British] Museum (London, 1912), p. 34Google Scholar, no. 206, and Henig, Corpus, no. 413, pl. XIII. (Henig has the clearer plate.) Dr Leslie Webster has drawn my attention to a late-tenth-century ring from Hitchin, recently discovered and not yet published, set with a red chalcedony intaglio of Mars helmeted, with spear and shield. Anyone who had seen the fine detail of such intaglios would have had no difficulty in believing in a stone cut with a convincing representation of a man piping with nine pipes (pan-pipes ?) and a man harping.

^{page 51 note 6} Several seal-dies survive, as well as literary references.

^{page 51 note 7} One seventh-century Anglo-Saxon ring found at Snape (Henig, Corpus, no. 205) is generally described as a signet-ring.

^{page 51 note 8} Ælfric seems to have thought it intelligible enough to an ordinary congregation not to need explanation. In his homily ‘De Falsis Diis’ the words from Daniel XIV. 10 ‘et claude ostium, et signa anulo tuo’ are translated without comment ‘and beluc þa duru … and geinsegla þa locu mid þinum agenum hringe’ (Homilies of Ælfric: a Supplementary Collection, ed. Pope, J. C., EETS 259–60 (London, 1967–1968), 698Google Scholar, lines 394–5). The Old English version of the ‘Vindicta Salvatoris’ legend has a similar reference in passing: ‘And þa scytan he dyde þa on an gylden fæt and hyt myd hys hringe geinseglode’ (Angelsächsiscbe Homilien und Heiligenleben, ed. Assmann, B. (1889, repr. Darmstadt, 1964), p. 190Google Scholar, lines 251–3). Pliny, , Nat. Hist. XXXVIIGoogle Scholar, refers to the practice more than half a dozen times. Whether or not OEL's author knew Pliny, he would have known the most striking of these allusions as touched up by Solinus (ed. Mommsen, p. 194, treating lychniten after Pliny's lychnis, Nat. Hist. XXXVII.104): ‘contumaciter scalpturis resistens ac si quando insignita est, dum signa exprimit, quasi quodam animali morsu partem cerae retentat’.

^{page 52 note 1} See below, p. 54.

^{page 52 note 2} I am grateful to Dr R. I. Page for tightening these arguments, although he is not answerable for the conclusion.

^{page 52 note 3} As in ‘Pirrus epira cyning’, (King Alfred's Orosius, ed. Sweet, H., EETS o.s. 79 (London, 1883), 152)Google Scholar. From unfamiliar epira to well-known persea would be an easy scribal corruption.

^{page 52 note 4} OED says ‘bagpipe’, not strictly in accord with its citations.

^{page 52 note 5} Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Zupitza, J. (1880, repr. Berlin etc. 1966), p. 302Google Scholar, in a list of seventeen musical terms, all but two of which have single-word equivalents. The double rendering suggests a concept still foreign. (The other exception is the rather technical lituus.)

^{page 52 note 6} Clemoes, P. A. M., ‘The Chronology of Ælfric's Works’, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickens, ed. Clemoes, (London, 1959), pp. 212–47, at PP. 223, 226 and 244.Google Scholar

^{page 52 note 7} Goossens lists the ‘Abingdon group’ in a discussion of Old English-glossed Aldhelm manuscripts in general (Brussels Glosses, pp. 16–27, at pp. 17–20).Google Scholar

^{page 52 note 8} Ibid. no. 1643 and Napier, Old English Glosses, 1, 1644.

^{page 52 note 9} E.g. Goossens, Brussels Glosses, no. 3018 in the same glossary. BT has a few examples. Musica is glossed often enough for this piplic to be strikingly unusual.

^{page 53 note 1} See above, p. 49.

^{page 53 note 2} To someone with a tenth-century education musa meant, clearly, not the divine muse but the cornemuse. Meritt has pointed out a further indirect example, camena: sangpipe in the early-eleventh-century Boulogne Prudentius glosses (The Old English Prudentius Glosses at Boulogne-sur-Mer, ed. Meritt, H. D. (Stanford, 1959)Google Scholar, no. 125), which must go back to a similar equation wrongly joined to a gloss Camena: musa as in CGL n, 570, 39. Ibid, v, 617, 44, Camena vel piplia est musa, from an eleventh-century manuscript at Metz, also looks connected.

^{page 53 note 3} Cf. C., and Sisam, K., Salisbury Psalter, pp. 74–5Google Scholar, and Goossens, , Brussels Glosses, p. 21.Google Scholar

^{page 53 note 4} Goossens lists thirteen.

^{page 53 note 5} E.g. the main glossary in BL Cotton Cleopatra A. iii; Ker, Catalogue, no. 143, art. I.

^{page 53 note 6} Ed. Mommsen, pp. 40–1. The form is lyncurius in Isidore, Etym. xvi.viii.8, as in ancient writers generally. Solinus has once again been deceived by Pliny's accusative (Nat. Hist. XXXVII.52).

^{page 53 note 7} WW 148, 10, misprinted Flestria from an error in Junius's transcript of the early-eleventh-century manuscript BL Add. 32,246.

^{page 53 note 8} Fact and Lore, p. 105.

^{page 53 note 9} Etym. XVI.viii.8 and XVI.xiii.8.

^{page 54 note 1} See Solinus, p. cv.

^{page 54 note 2} Sometimes there are two lines of quite ingenious variants for such expressions as curalliachates and par atque gummi. An ingenious variant, not noted by Mommsen, provided Bede with a phrase on the jacinth; see my part II.

^{page 54 note 3} ‘Cum … a feliciore autem litterarum Latinarum aevo ram rerum eius exilitas quam sermonis infantia abhorreat’, as Mommsen remarks (Solinus, p. vi).

^{page 55 note 1} See above, p. 13.

^{page 55 note 2} ‘Steinbücher’, pp. 138, esp. n. 5, and 142. Closs (‘ Steinbücher’, p. 8) gave eighty as the number of stones in the original Latin Damigeron, evidently considering the Cava manuscript to represent it.

^{page 55 note 3} ‘Damigéron’, pp. 330–4.

^{page 55 note 4} Ed. Galeni omnia quae exstant opera … ex octava Iuntarum editione (Venice, 1609)Google Scholar, Opera spuria, 84r–91r. The stones in question are on fol. 91.

^{page 55 note 5} As Wellmann and Halleux both concluded. Wellmann did not state his reasons. Halleux (‘Damigéron’, pp. 332–3) argued from the corrupt state of the Cava text. This reasoning strikes me as extremely hazardous, since much of the corruptness is clearly due to errors of transmission and conceivably all may be. But the last of these fourteen chapters, as Ad Paternianum has it, on lapis misy, refers back to chalcitis, which is treated earlier in Ad Paternianum (the Junta ed., 86r) but which is not in any extant recension of Damigeron. The reference is somewhat obscured by corruption in the Cava text, but presumably was in the common original.

^{page 55 note 6} See further, above, p. 48, n. 3.

^{page 55 note 7} Bk 1 ed. Hoffmann, K. and Auracher, T. M., Komaniscbe Forschungen I (1882), 49–105Google Scholar, and better ed. Mihuescu, H., Dioscoride Latino Materia Medica Libro Primo (Iaşi, Rumania, 1938)Google Scholar; bks. II-v ed. Stadler, H., Romanische Forscbungen 10 (1897), 181–247 and 369–446Google Scholar; II (1899), 1–121; 13 (1902), 161–243; and (index) 14 (1903), 601–36.

^{page 55 note 8} ‘Steinbücher’, p. 142.

^{page 56 note 1} Cava 76 morothos, Ad Pat. morochthos, Damigeron ΛευκογραØìc ἣ μόροξοc (Rose, ‘Damigeron’, p. 484). The identity is made certain by the Lombard Dioscorides (v.160, p. 239), which equates leucographidu with moroctos.

^{page 56 note 2} ‘Damigéron’, pp. 335–41.

^{page 56 note 3} A more normal spelling is Phrygius. Among the following names 32 means ‘lynx-stone’, 22 ‘haematite’ and 27 ‘ jet’. Here and elsewhere I have preferred to quote the original forms rather than to modernize jewel-names, because corresponding modern names (where they exist) and their classical counterparts do not always refer to the same stones. D. E. Eichholz and Dr Stanley Smith in vol. x of the Loeb Pliny (pp. ix-x and passim) make useful detailed comments. Smith, Gemstones, is the only recent book on jewels in general to pay detailed attention to classical nomenclature. Ch. XVII discusses biblical gems and considers briefly the problems of biblical and classical names. Ch. XIII expatiates on the quite wide variations as to which names apply to which minerals even in modern times. OED has some illuminating entries drawing on King, C. W., Antique Gems (London, 1860)Google Scholar. That book is mainly about actual gems. Two other books by King which remain the most copious on ancient ideas and the histories of particular kinds of jewel are The Natural History of the Precious Stones and of the Precious Metals and The Natural History of Gems or Decorative Stones (both London, 1867).Google Scholar

^{page 56 note 4} Halleux is certainly wrong to name the Lombard Dioscorides as an additional source for the last-named. Comparison of texts seems to imply, though, that the alphabetic redactor of Damigeron had a rather fuller text of Ad Paternianum than that of the Junta edition.

^{page 56 note 5} Ed. A. Molinier in vols. v and VI (Paris, 1873 and 1876) of Œuvres d'Oribase, ed. U. C. Bussemaker and C. Daremberg. The passage in question is at VI, 483–4, translating the Greek at v, 625.

^{page 56 note 6} The latter contradicts Damigeron's entry for Galactites (Pitra's §34, Alphabetic §26). Contradiction on its own would not be sufficient to establish borrowing, since there are some contradictions about identities and descriptions between undoubtedly original portions of the Latin Damigeron. This and the practice of substitution will make all the harder the task of any critical editor trying to establish the original content of Damigeron, Greek or Latin.

^{page 57 note 1} Ed., with lengthy notes, Abel, Orphei Lithica; text, pp. 15–38. Also ptd Abel, Orpbica (Leipzig, 1885), pp. 103–35Google Scholar, and de Mély, Lapidaires 11, 135–59, with a few of the notes from Abel's editions appended; trans. King, C. W., The Natural History, Ancient and Modern, of the Precious Stones and Gems and of the Precious Metals (London, 1865), pp. 375–96Google Scholar. Considered as a lapidary, the Lithica is rather vague and literary. A prose epitome interpolated with more detailed descriptions, ptd Abel, Orphei Lithica, pp. 138–53, is more important for the text of the Greek Damigeron. The Lithica was analysed in detail by Wellmann (‘Steinbücher’, pp. 115–24). Wirbelauer (Antike Lapidarien, pp. 2–13) studied its affinities with other Hellenistic lapidaries, making some mention of Pitra's recension of the Latin Damigeron but not of the alphabetic recension or Marbod. The fourth-century date and a localization in Asia Minor have been derived, somewhat nebulously, by taking some of the poem's contents as veiled allusions to particular events. The argument was begun by Tyrwhitt, Thomas, $$$ΑEΘΩΝ: De Lapidibus (London, 1781), pp. vii–xiiGoogle Scholar, and perhaps put most convincingly by Barb, ‘Survival of Magic Arts’, pp. 117–19.

^{page 57 note 2} Œuvres d'Oribase VI, introduction, esp. p. xxvi.

^{page 57 note 3} Die laleinischen Oribasiusühersetzungen (Oslo, 1932)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 45–51 and 187–94. Similarly Kudlien, F. (DSB x, 230–1Google Scholar) refers to the ‘early (fifth-century [?]) Latin translations’. (Talbot, (Medicine, p. 20Google Scholar) arbitrarily calls the later translation seventh-century.)

^{page 57 note 4} See Riddle, J. M. on Dioscorides, DSB IV, 119–23Google Scholar, esp. 121 and 123. Halleux referred to an edition of the alphabetic Dioscorides printed at Lyons in 1512. I have used a twelfth-century Durham manuscript, Cambridge, Jesus College Q. D. 2 (44). I am grateful to the Librarian, Mr D. J. V. Fisher, for allowing me to consult it at short notice. The attribution to Constantine is discussed Riddle, J. M., ‘The Latin Alphabetical Dioscorides’, Actes du Xllle congrès international d'histoire des sciences, Sections III and IV (Moscow, 1974), p. 207Google Scholar (?) - inconclusively, according to Halleux, but I have not been able to see the article.

^{page 57 note 5} All but one, lithargirum, are in a block under lapis. Cf. the Ad Paternianum (above, p. 5 5) and a section of the Lombard Dioscorides which draws on the latter (bk v; ed. Stadler, pp. 235–9).

^{page 57 note 6} DSB IV, 121.

^{page 57 note 7} Riddle seems to imply use of a Greek text of Damigeron; but the consistent verbal echoes leave no doubt that it was the alphabetic Latin one.

^{page 58 note 1} The alphabetic Dioscorides does not even show independent use of the Lombard Dioscorides, as Halleux asserted that it does at the end of the gagates entry. There, as in some other entries, the alphabetic Dioscorides merely rearranges sentences, in setting forth material from the alphabetic Damigeron. Its fifteen entries from Damigeron thus constitute the largest example of the practice of substitution already mentioned.

^{page 58 note 2} The Latin texts are ed. Howald and Sigerist, CML 4.

^{page 58 note 3} On the date, see above, p. 16. The author's own title seems to have been Liber medicinae ex animalibus, but I follow the one which is familiar to English readers since Cockayne used it for the edition of the Old English version, Leechdoms 1, 326–75.

^{page 58 note 4} Including the Nennian Wonders of Britain, the Dancers of Colbeck, Epistola Alexandri ad Jiristotelem and a bestiary.

^{page 58 note 5} In this case, on the pulse. There are a few pages left over, filled up with short pieces on chronology and prognostication, but it looks as if the medical texts and lapidaries were the last items in the main design.

^{page 58 note 6} It is followed, according to the catalogue (see above, p. 13, n. 6), by ‘Experimenta de urina, de sanguine, etc. (en français)’.

^{page 58 note 7} The Paris catalogue does not give page numbers, and the Paris and Cava catalogues give different amounts of detail; but it seems probable from the two descriptions that this miscellany is part of a larger scholarly miscellany covering science, geography and ecclesiastical history, and that items 9–37 of the Paris manuscript correspond closely enough to those in Cava 151r–398r to have had a common original in toto.

^{page 58 note 8} This letter should rate separate mention in the Paris catalogue were it present in the BN manuscript; presumably, therefore, its insertion in the Cava manuscript reflects association in some older manuscript other than the hypothetical common original.

^{page 58 note 9} Pannier, , Lapidaires français p. 7.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 10} Marbod's §21 Alabandina and §55 Gegolitus correspond in subject to passages on ‘Αλαβαυδηυόc Άλαβανδικόc and Tηκόλιθοc traceable to the Greek Damigeron. The Greek passages are short enough and Marbod was elsewhere selective enough for this correspondence, even without close agreement in detail, to be a possible (though of course not certain) indication of ultimately common derivation. Among the Greek passages which Rose and Wirbelauer (see above, p. 12, n. 2) have shown to derive from the Greek Damigeron are partial equivalents to the Latin Pitra §§1 6, 7, 9, 10, 13,14, 16,17, 20, 26, 29, 30, 34, 35 and 37 and Cava 76. The parallels adduced by Wirbelauer for §§4, 25 and 27 and Cava 53, 58 and 64 show similar magical uses but of nonidentical gems, and cannot, therefore, be confidently upheld as deriving from the Greek Damigeron.

^{page 59 note 1} The general similarity of gem-lore attributed to Magi, including Damigeron, by ancient writers (see Bidez, and Cumont, , Mages hellénisés 11, 197–206 and 303–6Google Scholar for excerpts from various sources designed to illustrate this) requires that such comparisons be taken into account in any attempt to estimate the original content of the Greek or Latin Damigeron, even though it will be difficult to make them lead anywhere. The gems in question here are §45 Liperea, §15 Chrysoprassus and §37 Gelacia.

^{page 59 note 2} ‘Damigeron’, pp. 343–7. Halleux argued further that Marbod used a text of the alphabetic Damigeron with accretions from these two works of Constantine. The Paris manuscript is such a text: its Damigeron is followed (I86V–187V) by some excerpts from De gradibus and De physicis ligaturis, in the same hand and with no indication of a change of text. (In Omont's description these and some lapidary excerpts from Solinus which follow them are not distinguished from the main lapidary. Evans and Studer (Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, pp. 367 and 373) drew attention to the passages from De gradibus.) The excerpts from Depbysicis ligaturis match those Halleux showed Marbod used; but if Marbod's text had a corresponding series for De gradibus it is surprising that he used only one. Marbod may perfectly well have had complete texts of the Constantine works. The excerpts in nouv. acq. lat. 873 may well have been chosen because of their correspondence with material in Marbod's poem. They cannot safely be used as evidence for the circulation of texts a century earlier. A brief source analysis of Marbod's poem may be of service, since none seems to be available: the Latin Damigeron was the principal source for §§1–7, 10–12, 17–20, 24–32, 36, 39, 41–3, 49, 51 and 57; Isidore was the principal source for §§8–9, 14–16, 21, 23, 33, 35, 38, 46–8, 50, 52, 56 and 59 and probably for §§37, 40, and 44–5 and was a subsidiary source for §§4, 7, 11–13, 20, 26, 28 and 41–2; Pliny was the principal source for §§34, 53–5 and 58 and possibly for §§37, 40 and 44–5 and was a subsidiary source for §§3, 7, 24 and 50; Solinus was the principal source for §60 and a subsidiary source for §§2, 7 and 20; Depbysicis ligaturis was used for §§7, 9,10,14 and 22 and De gradibus for §14; Bede's Explanatio Apocalypsis seems to have supplied the opening of §13; and Civescelestispatrie (see above, p. 10) probably provided one line of §8. Marbod has added some commonplace properties to §1 and two mercenary lines to §16. The Brahmins of §50 and Scythia in §45 seem to be Marbod's own embellishments and sard for Isidore's carchedonius in §21 seems to be his arbitrary alteration.

^{page 59 note 3} Especially if Marbod substituted classical material for lost entries from Damigeron, as, to our knowledge, he substituted Isidore's for Damigeron's information on pyrites in his §56. It is interesting in this regard that he should have taken the gems of the Apocalypse as a series while including hardly any data from Christian writers. If the possibility that some later medieval lapidaries drew information from parts of Damigeron now lost is ever shown to be a likelihood, one would expect all the more that this was true of Marbod's too. But it is possible that all the cases where the theory would prima facie be applicable can in fact better be explained as above, p. 14, n. 1. (The assumptions about filiations implied in Evans, and Studer, , Anglo-Norman Lapidaries, pp. 362–3Google Scholar, are too tangled for any likelihood to be shown.)

^{page 60 note 1} The substitution of sard for chalcedony in §21.

^{page 60 note 2} Scythia in §45.

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Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part I, the background; the Old English Lapidary

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