Halporn, 'Early Medieval Bible', Bryn Mawr Medieval Review 9503
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmmr/bmmr-9503-halporn-early
@@@@95.3.2, Gameson, ed., The Early Medieval Bible
Gameson, R., ed. The Early Medieval Bible , Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1994. ISBN 052144540X. $64.95.
Reviewed by James W. Halporn, Indiana and Harvard University
Seven of the papers in this collection were first delivered at a
conference at Oxford 1990; Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500;
four others were written specifically for this volume, although no
distinction is made in the presentation. In addition to the
intrinsic interest of the varied subjects offered, it is most
heartening to see how often the authors indicate that they have only
made a modest beginning and that there is still much work to be done
on their topic. This makes the volume especially important to both
scholars and students of the medieval Bible, since it indicates areas
in which much remains to be explored. As a group, the essays employ
many disciplines: from palaeography to art-history with strong
attention paid to codicology and to the history and production of the
medieval book. The essays present Bible production chronologically,
and I shall follow that order in my discussion.
Patrick McGurk, "The oldest manuscripts of the Latin Bible."
The author, well-known for his studies of early Bibles[[1]],
presents the evidence for Bible MSS prior to A.D. 800 as presented in
Codices Latini Antiquiores. He discusses the external
characteristics of books:
1. size and appearance
2. scripts in which they were written
3. layout of text on page (formats)
how texts were introduced and concluded
4. changes that took place in their external appearance,
and follows these points with a short discussion of decoration and
illustration in early Bibles.
He concludes with a brief survey of function and use of these
Bibles.
The text of McGurk's essay follows this outline exactly, but the
typography of the printed version does not distinguish the division of
sections sufficiently to make the distinction of parts clear to the
reader. I shall summarize his conclusions, while marking the
divisions:
1. Size and Appearance (pp. 2-5)
Single volume Bibles (pandects) were not common before
Carolingian period. Apart from Carolingian Bible before 800, there is
only the Codex Amiatinus, fashioned at the monastery of Wearmouth-
Jarrow (before 716).[[2]]
McGurk summarizes the result of the discussion of extant Biblical
MSS before 600 by P. Petitmengin ("Les plus anciens manuscrits de la
Bible latine," Le monde antique et la Bible, Paris 1985, 89-
123), with two additions and one deletion (see p. 3, fn. 12).
Petitmengin has divided the material following the division shown by
the titles on the books in the Erza painting in the Amiatinus
(Octateuch, Kings-Job, Histories, Psalms, Solomon, Prophets, Gospels,
Epistles, and Acts-Apocalypse).[[3]] The tables on pp. 4 and 5 give a
rough idea of the distribution of texts in the extant codices, but the
figures must be used with caution since some items are counted several
times and the contents of the volume does not always follow the
arrangement of Cassiodorus.
There is wide variety in the actual contents of these codices and
it is clear that much work remains to be done in the analysis of these
manuscripts.
2. Scripts (pp. 5-7)
As is well known, most Bible texts before 600 were written in
uncial, both on the Continent and the British Isles. A few fragments
in capitalis (unfortunately call "rustic" by McGurk) remain, and half-
uncial appears sporadically before 600; after 600, the variety and
level of the scripts are more varied, with texts in cursive minuscule
and other scripts more suited to books for personal use appear. It is
possible, says the author, that there were such books earlier, but
they have disappeared.[[4]]
3. Formats (pp. 7-16)
The tables on p. 9 reveal that books remained about the same size
in the fifth and sixth centuries, but increased in size noticeably in
the seventh and eighth centuries. Of course, formats differed
according to the nature of the individual Biblical books. Thus
Psalters appear more often in long lines and in smaller sizes than
Gospels.
There is an increase in the number of books which appear in two
columns, but this is not true of Irish or South German books (Rhaetian
and Allemannic scriptoria), where books continued to be written in
long lines. Where there were two columns, they were often narrow.
The divisions of the text themselves fell into three categories.
(1) most suited to the books of poetry, set out the verses as single
lines. (2) showed the text laid out as blocks, offering a compressed
appearance, but often with careful punctuation. (3) set the text out
per cola et commata, with each clause and phrase set out on a
new line (sometimes with corresponding right shifts of text).
This third method was most wasteful of space and later MSS merely
punctuate the cola and commata within the block.
McGurk discusses other features such as bounding lines and the
use of initial letters (normally decorated and larger than the regular
script). At the same time there was a move from emphasizing the
colophon to elaborating the incipit.
The discussion of illustration is merely a sketch of some of the
features of early codices, with attention fixed on the major monuments
of the period.
The section on function and use of these codices suggests that a
good number of them were for liturgical use, but others were designed
or came to be used for study and commentary. Still others, of course,
were intended as major gifts or testaments to the power and purse of
the monasteries and courts by whom they were commissioned. Like other
works of art, they were intended for admiration and for the greater
glory of God.
Richard Gameson, "The Royal 1.B.vii Gospels and English book
production in the seventh and eighth centuries"
A modest volume, whose origin cannot be determined, is the object
of this study to determine its place among early gospel books of
Insular type and what it can tell us about book production in England
in the period under consideration. It is similar in the text and its
arrangement as well as in content to the Lindisfarne Gospels, but with
editorial revisions to bring it into line with the Italian textual
recension found in the Durham Gospels (also probably from
Lindisfarne). The general decoration is meager and comprises a small
selection of standard features, which has led the book to be, in
Gameson's words, "the Cinderella of Insular manuscript art" (p. 37).
But precisely these features, which this MS shares with other
books of equally modest intentions, make it significant. The
requirement of the many churches in Anglo-Saxon England for codices of
the Latin Bible made it necessary to produce books in a shorter time
than would have been required for such artistic monuments as the
Lindisfarne Gospels. This volume probably offers us a truer picture of
the kinds of MSS current in its period. As in the case of the
possible cursive and other minuscule texts discussed by McGurk, so,
here, too a large percent of the codices of this kind are only
fragmentary, which attests to their serious use. These lower level
gospel books reflect also the economic difficulties experienced by the
English church in the seventh and eighth centuries. And finally, the
distinction between the fine artistic products and these more modest
books also reflects the hierarchical structure of the English church.
There follow three chapters on codicology and textual evidence
for Biblical texts in the Carolingian period:
1. David Ganz, "Mass production of early medieval manuscripts: the
Carolingian Bibles from Tours"
During the Carolingian period the scriptoria at Tours provided a
steady and continued supply of Bibles, probably supplying two full
Bibles each year for a period of over half a century. It needs to be
emphasized, of course, that this book production was for export, that
is, to supply the needs of a number of libraries.
From an economic standpoint this production of full Bibles, as
can be seen from extant examples, was far less lavish than the
Amiatine pandect. They usually contain approximately 450 leaves in
contrast to the 1030 leaves of the Amiatinus. This more economical
use of writing material also required a fully trained group of expert
scribes. Such volumes were intended for church use in liturgical
reading, which was considerably aided by the clear hands, careful
divisions of the text, and a hierarchy of scripts. Alcuin describes
the excellence of these codices in one of his poems (MGH, PAK 1.288-
92).[[5]]
Although scholars should not exaggerate the uniform nature of the
Bibles from Tours, it is clear that these scriptoria, engaged as it
were in what seems to be a Bible industry, were central to the
development of the Carolingian scriptorium and, naturally, to the
study of the Bible itself.
Ganz concludes his study with a list of Tour Bibles and
fragments, but the list does not seem complete.[[6]]
2. Rosamond McKitterick, "Carolingian Bible production: the Tours
anomaly"
This is an important follow-up of Ganz's discussion. The Tours
or Alcuin Bible was not intended to present an official text but a
correct text of the Bible (the author properly refers to the work of
Bonafatius Fischer, but her references in her first footnote need to
be updated and corrected).[[7]]
Influence of the Tours Bible:
1. in actual text;
2. in order of the books, definition of the scriptural
canon, chapter divisions and headings
3. in the physical format and layout.
These are the ways in which a scriptorium affects the textual
version. In other words, codicology, palaeography, and study of the
text are mutually dependent. The views of R. Loewe, "The Medieval
History of the Latin Vulgate," The Cambridge History of the Bible
II, Cambridge 1969, 102ff. must be revised, although it represents
current (though weak) views of Bible production in the Carolingian
period.
What we need first is proper cataloguing of the MSS: that is, a
clear identification of the recension to which the particular item
belongs. What do we know of non-Alcuinian Bibles? Tours was not the
only center to embark on production of a corrected, let alone edited,
text of the Bible. There are the well-known version of Theodulf of
Orleans as well as that produced by Maurdramnus of Corbie (for which
he may have developed the so-called "Maurdramnus minuscule," the
earliest datable Caroline minuscule). Many Bibles were produced in
other areas and at other monasteries, all operating with the means at
their disposal, mostly without much influence from the Tours
(Alcuinian) version. Indeed, there were many local versions, and even
the production of Old Latin texts as well.
All the same, the size and artistry of script led to a real sense
of the superiority of the Tours Bible. McKitterick pursues the
general nature of the Tours Bible production and what this meant for
the general run of Carolingian Bibles.
Given the quantity of Bibles produced, it is obvious that most
were intended for export. In addition to luxurious codices, there was
attention also to the dissemination of a particular text. Yet, again,
the format of these codices should not lead us to consider them as
major influences on the texts.
Considerable attention was paid to the ease of reference in these
books. The Bibles had a clear teaching function, with their careful
organization of summaries, lists of Biblical books, use of various
scripts for different parts, and the segregation of Biblical units by
a carefully planned hierarchy of scripts. Although the Tours Bible
was designed for communication, its context yet remains unknown to us.
McKitterick thinks that the Tours Bibles were intended for public
instruction, while the Bibles of Theodulf were more for private
scholarship.
3. Margaret Gibson, "Carolingian Glossed Psalters"
The author distinguishes the gloss from marginal notes. The
annotation is complete from moment of production; always in the set
margins, never between the lines. It is "a learned embellishment to a
volume which is distinguished by variety of ornament and elegance of
script at least as much as by the quality of its text" (p. 79).
About two dozen MSS survive, either whole or in fragments. As
Gibson remarks, these books are "technically innovative but
exegetically conservative. The strict mise-en-page inhibits
additions, clarifications, readers' comments; there is no scope for
second thoughts or new material" (p. 79). She points out that these
Psalters served as a kind of prototype for the Glossa Ordinaria.
In the construction of these books, the script of text and of the
apparatus are clearly differentiated. The page is ruled to
accommodate the marginal gloss. Each gloss begins with a lemma,
linking it to the relevant passage in text, but there are no other
means for identifying and placing individual glosses.
These Psalters contain additions as well:
prefaces (from Augustine, Jerome, Cassiodorus, Isidore), but the
list is not fixed,
liturgical supplements: six OT Canticles followed by eight more
recent Canticles and Creeds,
an extended litany,
a major collection of prayers.
Italian Glossed Psalters include intercalated narrative drawings.
The glossed Psalter became established as a luxury MS in France at the
end of the tenth century, continuing to the mid-eleventh. The model
of the mise-en-page may have been Byzantine.
The exegesis that appears in the gloss is mainly drawn from
Augustine and Cassiodorus. In the seventh century this patristic
inheritance was reworked in earliest of the medieval commentaries:
Glosa ex traditione seniorum (first half of the seventh
century), drawing principally on Augustine; the Breviarium of
Ps.-Jerome (mid seventh century), using the Glosa and Cassiodorus.
There is also a series of introductions to individual Psalms
attributed to Bede (c. 700 +). This 'liber de titulis psalmorum'
consists of excerpts from Cassiodorus' Psalm Commentary,
abridged, slightly reordered and deployed as a continuous commentary
with lemmata. All this material circulated well into eleventh
century, both in its original form and as an element in a Glossed
Psalter.
There is also the commentary in the Mondsee Psalter (before 778),
for which Cassiodorus is again the prime source --another witness to
the systematic study of the Psalter in pre-Carolingian Europe. Not
only is the commentary textually indebted to Cassiodorus. The
Mondsee MS opens with full-page illustrations of Christ and David
manifestly in the same tradition as the two pictures of David in
Durham B.II.30 (an abridged version of Cassiodorus' commentary, of the
end of the eighth century, from an Insular foundation, probably
Wearmouth-Jarrow).
As for the context of such Psalters, Gibson notes that valid
prototypes do not survive. The mise-en-page of the Glossed Psalter is
rarely applied to other Biblical books. The integrated glossed page
does not seem to be found in texts that were routinely explicated in a
Carolingian school (Donatus and Priscian, Vergil, Boethius, Martianus
Capella); these contain marginal and interlinear annotation. On this
point she differs from Guy Lobrichon.[[8]]. Schoolmasters, however,
were always reluctant to accept the constrictions of a mise-en-page
that was too elegant to be emended.
Richard Marsden, "The Old Testament in late Anglo-Saxon England:
preliminary observations on the textual evidence"
A study of the form in which OT books circulated and the texts
which they transmitted during the monastic revival of the second half
of the tenth century. Little material survives: one Bible (London BL
Royal 1. E. vii-viii, lacking the first half of Genesis in the
original script), single leaves from two others, to which can be added
OT books or extracts copied into some other non-biblical MSS.
The evidence seems to favor two main formats, a larger one for
pandects (e.g., the Amiatinus), and a smaller one for volumes
containing a limited number of Biblical books, thus paralleling the
Continental evidence (for which more evidence has survived).
The surviving evidence of these three items suggests that in the
late Anglo-Saxon period the text of the OT was mainly influenced by
the Carolingian traditions of the Continent. But this Continental
evidence has not yet been sufficiently studied. As an appendix, the
author includes a list of surviving MSS, divided between Bibles and
part-Bibles on the one hand, and the OT in non-biblical codices.
Larry M. Ayres, "The Italian Giant Bibles: aspects of their
Touronian ancestry and early history"
A discussion of style of decorated initials in some Romanesque
Bibles from Italy. These eleventh century Bibles used transalpine
Carolingian models. The author sees these Bibles as part of a renewal
of the monastic life. They foreshadow the development of Bible
illustration in North European monasteries during the Romanesque
period. The study suggests that the early history of these Bibles can
be tied to a Roman scriptorium, perhaps related in some way to
Desiderius of Monte Cassino.
Laura Light, "French Bibles c. 1200-30: a new look at the origin
of the Paris Bible"
The author examines the contents of a small number of N. France
Bibles, possibly from Paris. The textual study concentrates on the
order of the biblical books, the prologues, the capitula lists and the
chapters. It alters the current view of the Paris Bible by showing
that this Bible of around 1230 does not present a new direction in the
Vulgate transmission, but reflects features in the group of Bibles
under discussion, which were copied in the period 1200-1230. In other
words, the Paris Bible was not a thorough-going revision of the
Vulgate, but involved only minor modifications of a Bible already in
existence for some thirty years.
In discussing the order of Biblical books, the author surveys the
orders suggested by Jerome and Augustine, and explains why the order
in these thirteenth century books was different. The prologues
introduced several changes from earlier books, pointing to a second
revision of the Vulgate. The capitula lists reflects the usage of the
commentaries of the second half of the twelfth century.
All of this suggests that there was a revision of the Vulgate in
Paris around 1200. "The Bible produced by this revision was
characterized by a certain order of the Biblical books, a set of
prologues which included six which were new to MSS of the unglossed
Bible and a new series of capitula lists. Many of these Bibles also
included indications of modern chapter divisions copied in the
margins" (p. 172).
The long tradition of the Glossa Ordinaria seems to have
influenced the new set of prologues. The new one-volume Bible may
have been a convenient tool in the classroom, but it was also
certainly an essential reference tool for the working scholar, who was
not only a teacher, but also a composer of sermons.
The author concludes by calling this study only a sketch and
urges that the topics should be investigated more thoroughly. As an
appendix, she includes a list of early thirteenth-century Bibles
related to the Paris Bible.
Elizabeth A. Peterson, "The textual basis for visual errors in
French Gothic Psalter illustration"
The author has chosen for discussion some seven fully illustrated
Psalm books and one MS of the commentary on the Psalms by Peter
Lombard. They range in date from the late twelfth through the end of
the thirteenth century. They contain historiated initials for most of
the 150 Psalms. This wide variety of examples, from a range of
workshops, show nevertheless that the initials to a particular Psalm
reveal a high degree of "iconographic correspondence." The discussion
centers on errors of understanding, often of the directions for the
particular illustration. The most amusing, perhaps, is a comparison
of Psalm 118.176: erraui sicut ovis... The legend in Cambridge UL,
Ee.iv.24 reflects the legend in Manchester John Rylands UL, Latin 22,
"quidam fert ovem" by writing "Uns home porte une oeille sus ses
espaules ("A man carries a sheep on his shoulders"); the illustrator
of Paris BN lat. 10435 misread the e of oeille as an r, thus changing
the sheep (oeille) into an ear (orille). Sure enough, the
illustration in the Paris codex depicts a man carrying an ear.
Erik Petersen, "The Bible as subject and object of illustration:
the making of a medieval manuscript, Hamburg 1255"
The Hamburg Bible contains illustrations that refer to the
production of a medieval book. This article focuses on aspects of
these illustrations as organic to the entire book, with the purpose of
explaining why they appear in this Bible. This involves some five
factors, all laid out carefully in a well-organized discussion:
description of the three volumes of the work, the 'licentia pictoria,'
the free choices available in the construction of a book in this
period, examination of some of the illustrations as well as their
arrangement. This leads to some discussion of the dean Bertoldus who
commissioned the book (he had also been a scribe), the scribe Karolus,
and the unnamed painter. Finally, he presents a sketch of the main
steps and intentions in the creation and production of this Bible.
The author argues that the illustrations of book production, all
from the scribe's point of view, are not placed in a random fashion,
but are part of a series that connects the three volumes. Although
none of the information contained in the illustrations differs from
that offered in other books, as a whole the work represents another
important document in medieval codicology.
Lesley Smith, "The theology of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century
Bible"
This brief discussion turns on the point that for the medieval
interpreters, "the Bible as a collection of words is a collection of
signs which point, through different methods of interpretation, to
various meanings, which separately and together point beyond
themselves to the Creator God" (227).
One minor quibble: the author quotes (230) Peter the Chanter
(Verbum Abbreviatum, PL 205.368) as addressing a brother who
"wishes to become a librarian"; the Latin reads bibliothecam
facere which suggests rather the creation of a library. This does
not change the meaning of Peter's reply, however.
The volume concludes with a useful index of manuscripts, and a
cursory index of people and places. All in all, a fitting second
volume for the series of palaeographical and codicological studies
from Cambridge. The copious illustrations also help the reader to
understand the arguments of the papers, and are an important addition
to the texts. What is most clear from this conference is how much
work still remains to be done on the subject, and how important it is
that Bernhard Bischoff's census of ninth-century MSS not remain
unpublished. Scholarly cataloguing of Biblical MSS is also a major
desideratum.
NOTES
1. Latin Gospel Books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800, Paris 1961.
2. There are other fragments from another Wearmouth-Jarrow Bible
(Bede tells us that three pandects were fashioned at the order of
Ceolfrid, abbot of the monastery): London BL Add 37777 + Add. 45025
[CLA II2.117] + Loan 81 [B. Bischoff and V. Brown, "Addenda to
Codices Latini Antiquiores, Medieval Studies<.i> 47 (1985):
351-2] ), but this last item (also known as the Bankes leaf) may
belong to the third pandect, according to Margaret T. Gibson, The
Bible in the Latin West, Notre Dame, 1993, 4 and fn. 21; pl. 3
(24f.).
3. It should have been noted by McGurk that the titles have probably
not been correctly transcribed and Job was not included in the section
with Kings, thus agreeing more closely with Cassiodorus
Institutiones I.1-9 (K. Corsano, "The First Quire of the Codex
Amiatinus and the Institutiones of Cassiodorus",
Scriptorium 41 (1987): 16; it seems odd that this important
article with a fascinating thesis is ignored by McGurk and Gibson).
4. For reasons for this, see E. Dekkers-A. Hoste, "De la penurie
des manuscrits anciens des ouvrages le plus souvent copies,"
"Sapientiae Doctrina" ... Melanges offerts a ...
Bascour, Louvain, 1980 [ = RechTheolMed, numero
special], 24-37.
5. I would offer an alternative to Ganz's translation of the last
line of this poem (pp. 56 and 59). The word accentus most
likely does not mean "accent" (I doubt that it ever has that meaning
in this period), but rather pronunciation (one of its ordinary
classical meanings as a Latin translation of Greek prosodia;
for a definition see Cassiodorus, Institutiones II.1.2:
accentus est vitio carens vocis artificiosa pronuntiatio [95.5f.
Mynors], with the idea that the reader in his rendering of the text
shows, by his knowledge of the text that he can express it properly in
oral delivery.
6. See B. Fischer, "Die Alkuin-Bibeln," Lateinische
Bibelhandschriften im fruhen Mittalter, Freiburg 1985 [= Vetus
Latina. Aus der Geschichte der altlateinischen Bibel, 11], 203-403.
7. The article "Bibeltext und Bibelreform unter Karl dem Grossen" is
now more accessible in his Lateinische Bibelhandschriften im
fruhen Mittelalter, Freiburg 1985 [= Vetus Latina. Aus der
Geschichte der altlateinischen Bibel 11] 101-202; for "Bibelausgaben
des fruhen Mittelalters," see the same volume, 35-100; the study
Die Alkuin-Bibel is not the first volume of Vetus Latina, but
the first volume of Vetus Latina. Aus der Geschichte der
altlateinischen Bibel.
8. The author (p. 91 fn. 47) differs from the study of mise-en-
page for the St. Bertin Psalter (s. x ex., Boulonge-sur-mer BM 20)
presented by Guy Lobrichon, "Le Psautier d'Otbert," Mise en page et
mise en texte du livre manuscrit, Paris 1990, 174-178. It would
have been helpful, however, if she had been able to include in her
study the illustrations of Psalter rulings that Lobrichon offers on
176-77.