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‘Céphalologie’: A Recurring Theme in Classical and Mediaeval Lore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Edmund Colledge  and
J. C. Marler
Edmund Colledge
Affiliation:
The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
J. C. Marler
Affiliation:
The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
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Extract

In the whole field of mediaeval hagiography, one of our most urgent needs is the establishment of trustworthy critical texts of James of Voragine's Legenda aurea, and of the Latin's various vernacular translations. Very soon after its first publication, the Legenda began to be copied throughout Western Christendom at a great rate, very often by professional scribes working for stationers who would expect them to write at speed while reproducing this encyclopaedia of the saints' deeds and marvels. Thus, from the beginnings of its manuscript tradition, corruptions and errors were introduced; and we still lack the means to correct them. For want of anything better, scholars must still refer to the edition of the Latin by Johann G. T. Graesse; but this cannot be used with any confidence. As Jacobus J. A. Zuidweg has observed in a summary of his findings, ‘Force nous était donc de nous servir de l’édition … quelque défectueuse qu'elle fût. Le texte de cette édition, qui fourmille de fautes se rapportant tant au texte même qu'à la ponctuation, est basé sur un exemplaire imprimé, datant du 15e siècle.’ Elsewhere, Zuidweg points out that Graesse's edition is incomplete, without, for example, James's chapter 73, dealing with Bede. The preparation and presentation of such critical texts would be a vast undertaking, more, probably, than could be achieved by any one person. Several gifted and zealous scholars have announced preliminary studies towards it, but have in the end found themselves defeated by the scope of the task and by its complexities. Not long ago, Konrad Kunze announced the inauguration of a card-index catalogue at Freiburg, which is to comprise all the Latin and vernacular manuscripts and printed texts of the Legenda aurea. This would now be indispensable for any proposed critical editions; but it does not seem that such editorial work is intended (Analecta Bollandiana 95 [1977] 168).

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 37 , 1981 , pp. 411 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Separate acknowledgment will be made of the help and information which we have received from numerous generous friends and colleagues; but at the outset we wish to record our gratitude for the continuing support of the Humanities Research Council of Canada for Edmund Colledge's researches, which has made possible the investigation of the many unpublished mediaeval manuscripts which are reported here.Google Scholar

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14 a dieu: om. P2.Google Scholar

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38 Ba: parare.Google Scholar

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77 The earliest printed text is that of Adolf van Meetkercke or Merkerke, by Hubert Goltzius (Bruges 1565). We had hoped to use the text in MS Leiden University Library Vossii graecus 59, f. 179, an anthology of Greek fragments written in Italy c. a.d. 1500, and at one time owned by Christina of Sweden; but it proved to be too defective to serve our purposes. We are grateful to the Oxford University Press for permission to quote from the edition by Powell, J. U., Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford 1925).Google Scholar

78 See Classical Heritage, catalogue of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge 1978) no. 44. We aknowledge the permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, and the help of the Librarian and his staff, in obtaining and using this photograph.Google Scholar

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100 Plate 2. For permission to consult their MS 49, to have the minature photographed, and to reproduce it here, we are grateful to the Librarian, his staff, and the authorities of Keble College.Google Scholar

101 For this iconographical convention, see Colledge, Edmund and Walsh, James, edd., A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich (2 vols.; Toronto 1978) 2.623 n. 33.Google Scholar

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