Davide Battagliola, post-doctoral researcher from the University of Milan visited the Anglo-Norman Dictionary project for 4 weeks in July-August 2018 – thanks to a bursary from the AND and the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council). During this period, he was able to continue his research in Aberyswyth, making use of the materials, resources and expertise of the AND team.
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Writing Morality in the Anglo-Norman World
We can find a high number of continental
manuscripts transmitting the Livre de Moralitez. This French translation
of William of Conches’ Moralium Dogma Philosophorum achieved a
remarkable success throughout Europe during the Middle Ages; yet, little did we
know about the circulation of this moral treatise in medieval Britain.
The treatise opens with the author falling asleep
and being visited in his dream by ancient philosophers and writers (miniature taken from
the ms. Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, L.III.14)
In
his 1929 edition, John Holmberg already pointed out how the manuscript K
(Paris, BnF, fr 25407), the only Anglo-Norman witness, offered a remarkably
different text than the version widely read on the Continent. Whats’s more, K
appeared to provide a more reliable version of the work. One may ask why
Holmberg did not use this manuscript to establish his edition, but we all know
that back in the 1920s the Anglo-Norman language was still considered nothing
more than the faux français d’Angleterre…
The
Swedish scholar also supposed the existence of a common source for the
manuscript K and Paris, BnF, 1822 (= L), which transmits an abridged form of
the treatise. Traditionally thought to be produced in Wallonie, L was
copied by Servais Copale. In his latest monograph, Keith Busby affirms that the
scribe operated in Ireland, a statement which would in fact need further study.
But, regardless of its geographical provenance, the manuscript L undoubtedly
exhibits an interesting mixture of both Anglo-Norman and Walloon traits. Moreover,
Holmberg was not aware of the existence of another insular witness, that is
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Library, 405 (Cc).
During
my staying at Aberystwyth – funded by a bursary from the Anglo-Norman
Dictionary together with the AHRC – I had the opportunity to study these three
manuscripts from a textual and linguistic point a view. It has been of
particular interest to focus on the lexical peculiarities of this version. Take
for example the following sentence about the virtue (!) of cruelty:
La tierce meniere de cruaté est de
chacier hors des genz les larrons, les ocianz et touz cels qui mainent tel
meniere de vie, car il ne font a soffrir en compaignie de genz
(The third kind of cruelty is to chase
away thieves, murderers and all those who lead such kind of life, as they are
not to be tolerated in the community)
Whereas
the Continental version uses the form ocianz, manuscripts K and L read homicides;
interestingly enough, Cc chooses the otherwise unattested form murdrerus
(cf. AND entry murdrier).
An
analysis of the context of K and Cc also allowed me to explain the occasional
presence of sentences drawn from the Bible, one of the most striking feature of
the Anglo-Norman redaction. In a treatise mostly composed of quotes by great
men of the Antiquity, such as Seneca and Cicero, these biblical insertions can
be attributed to the influence of monastic Orders: indeed, the codex Cc
belonged to the Hospitaller brethren of Saint John of Jerasulem in Waterford;
as for L, the scribe Servais Copale worked in harness with the Hiberno-Norman
Dominican author Jofroi de Waterford.
BnF fr.
1822 also transmits Jofroi de
Waterford's adaption of the ‘Secretum Secretorum’. This version contains a
curious section devoted to the different vareties of wine
Once
again a comparison with the continental version is of great interest. In
Holmberg’s edition we read:
Li membre de felonie si sont paors,
auarice et couoitise. Paors est quant ·i· hons viaut nuire a ·i· autre et il a
paor, si nel fait, qu'il i ait domage.
(The parts of felony are fear, greed and covetousness.
Fear is when a man wants to harm another one and he is afraid of having a
damage if he does not do that)
The insular witnesses replace paors
with peresce
(‘lazyness’). No wonder that, within the cold walls of a cloister, a monk could
indulge from time to time in the sweet temptation of staying in bed until late!
Of course the Anglo-Norman Livre de Moralitez gives a nicer ring to it:
Peresce si est qant hom devient lent et
parceus de ben fere pur pur (sic) pour de
terrene damage.
(Laziness is when someone becomes slow and
lazy in doing good deeds because he is afraid of wordly damages)
Were these insertion a mean to
counterpoint the mundane, maybe too secular, nature of William of Conches’
compendium? It is just one of the many questions arising from this fascinating
Anglo-Norman adaptation of the Livre de Moralitez.
- Davide Battagliola
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