Liber Floridus

Contents Volume 2 / 2016 Vol. Articles 2 FRANCESCO BENOZZO Origins of Human Language: 2016 Deductive Evidence for Speaking Australopithecus LOUIS-JACQUES DORAIS Wendat Ethnophilology: How a Canadian Indigenous Nation is Reviving its Language Philology JOHANNES STOBBE Written Aesthetic Experience. Philology as Recognition An International Journal MAHMOUD SALEM ELSHEIKH on the Evolution of Languages, Cultures and Texts The Arabic Sources of Rāzī’s Al-Manṣūrī fī ’ṭ-ṭibb

MAURIZIO ASCARI Philology of Conceptualization: Geometry and the Secularization of the Early Modern Imagination

KALEIGH JOY BANGOR Philological Investigations: Hannah Arendt’s Berichte on Eichmann in Jerusalem

MIGUEL CASAS GÓMEZ From Philology to Linguistics: The Influence of Saussure in the Development of Semantics

CARMEN VARO VARO Beyond the Opposites: Philological and Cognitive Aspects of Linguistic Polarization

LORENZO MANTOVANI Philology and Toponymy. Commons, Place Names and Collective Memories in the Rural Landscape of Emilia

Discussions

ROMAIN JALABERT – FEDERICO TARRAGONI Philology Philologie et révolution Crossings SUMAN GUPTA Philology of the Contemporary World: On Storying the Financial Crisis Review Article EPHRAIM NISSAN Lexical Remarks Prompted by A Smyrneika Lexicon, a Trove for Contact Linguistics Reviews SUMAN GUPTA Philology and Global English Studies: Retracings (Maurizio Ascari) ALBERT DEROLEZ The Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus: A Study of the Original Manuscript (Ephraim Nissan) MARC MICHAEL EPSTEIN (ED.) Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts (Ephraim Nissan) Peter Lang Vol. 2/2016 CONSTANCE CLASSEN The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch (Ephraim Nissan) Contents Volume 2 / 2016 Vol. Articles 2 FRANCESCO BENOZZO Origins of Human Language: 2016 Deductive Evidence for Speaking Australopithecus LOUIS-JACQUES DORAIS Wendat Ethnophilology: How a Canadian Indigenous Nation is Reviving its Language Philology JOHANNES STOBBE Written Aesthetic Experience. Philology as Recognition An International Journal MAHMOUD SALEM ELSHEIKH on the Evolution of Languages, Cultures and Texts The Arabic Sources of Rāzī’s Al-Manṣūrī fī ’ṭ-ṭibb

MAURIZIO ASCARI Philology of Conceptualization: Geometry and the Secularization of the Early Modern Imagination

KALEIGH JOY BANGOR Philological Investigations: Hannah Arendt’s Berichte on Eichmann in Jerusalem

MIGUEL CASAS GÓMEZ From Philology to Linguistics: The Influence of Saussure in the Development of Semantics

CARMEN VARO VARO Beyond the Opposites: Philological and Cognitive Aspects of Linguistic Polarization

LORENZO MANTOVANI Philology and Toponymy. Commons, Place Names and Collective Memories in the Rural Landscape of Emilia

Discussions

Editorial Board: Rossend Arques (Lexicography, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain) Xaverio Ballester (Classical Philology, Universitat de Valéncia, Spain) Francesco Benozzo (Ethnophilology, Università di Bologna, Italy) Vladimir Biti (Slavic Philology, Universität Wien, Austria) Daniela Boccassini (French and Italian Philology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) Salwa Castelo-Branco (Ethnomusicology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) Mattia Cavagna (Romance Philology, Université de Louvain, Belgium) Louis-Jacques Dorais (Arctic Philology, Emeritus, Université Laval, Québec) Markus Eberl (Pre-Columbian Philology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA) Matthias Egeler (Scandinavian Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany) Keir Douglas Elam (English Literature, Università di Bologna, Italy) Andrea Fassò (Romance Philology, Emeritus, Università di Bologna, Italy) Inés Fernández-Ordóñez (Spanish Philology and Linguistics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) Fabio Foresti (Sociolinguistics, Università di Bologna, Italy) Roslyn Frank (Ethnolinguistics, Emeritus, University of Iowa, USA) Beatrice Gründler (Arabic Philology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) Mihály Hoppál (Ethnology, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest, Hungary) Martin Kern (East Asian Philology, Princeton University, USA) John Koch (Celtic Philology, Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd, Aberystwyth, UK) Albert Lloret (Digital Philology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA) Anna Maranini (Classical Philology, Università di Bologna, Italy) Matteo Meschiari (Cultural Anthropology, Università di Palermo, Italy) Alberto Montaner Frutos (Spanish and Semitic Philology, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain) Gonzalo Navaza (Toponimy, Universidade de Vigo, Spain) Ephraim Nissan (Historical and Computational Linguistics, Goldsmith College, London, UK) Stephen Oppenheimer (Genetics, Oxford University, UK) Marcel Otte (Prehistoric Studies, Université de Liège, Belgium) Michael Papio (Italian Philology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA) José Manuel Pedrosa Bartolomé (Oral Philology, Universidad de Alcalá, Spain) Andrea Piras (Iranian Philology, Università di Bologna, Italy) Stefano Rapisarda (Romance Philology, Università di Catania, Italy) Uta Reuster-Jahn (African Philology, Universität Hamburg, Germany) Dario Seglie (Archaeology, Politecnico di Torino, Italy) Bora Cem Sevencan (Archaeology, Oulun Yliopistoo, Finland) Wayne Storey (Textual Philology, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA) Marco Veglia (Italian Literature, Università di Bologna, Italy) Philology An International Journal on the Evolution of Languages, Cultures and Texts

General editor: Francesco Benozzo

Volume 2 / 2016

PETER LANG Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Oxford · Wien Editorial Address: Francesco Benozzo Università di Bologna Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Moderne Via Cartoleria 5 I-40124 Bologna, Italy [email protected]

Subscriptions: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers Wabernstrasse 40 CH-3007 Bern Switzerland Phone +41 31 306 17 17 Fax +41 31 306 17 27 E-Mail: [email protected] www.peterlang.com

1 volume per year

Subscription Rates: CHF 59.– / €* 52.– / €** 54.– / € 49.– / £ 39.– / US-$ 64.– * incl. VAT ( valid for Germany and EU customers without VAT Reg No) ** incl. VAT (valid for Austria)

Cover Photo by Dieter Mueller

ISSN 2297-2625 e-ISSN 2297-2633

All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

Printed in Switzerland Contents Volume II / 2016

Articles

Francesco Benozzo Origins of Human Language: Deductive Evidence for Speaking Australopithecus ��7

Louis-Jacques Dorais Wendat Ethnophilology: How a Canadian Indigenous Nation is Reviving its Language ��25

Johannes Stobbe Written Aesthetic Experience. Philology as Recognition ��47

Mahmoud Salem Elsheikh The Arabic Sources of Rāzī’s Al-Man¡ūrī fī ’¥-¥ibb ��73

Maurizio Ascari Philology of Conceptualization: Geometry and the Secularization of the Early Modern Imagination ��121

Kaleigh Joy Bangor Philological Investigations: Hannah Arendt’s Berichte on Eichmann in Jerusalem ��141

Miguel Casas Gómez From Philology to Linguistics: The Influence of Saussure in the Development of Semantics ��165

Carmen Varo Varo Beyond the Opposites: Philological and Cognitive Aspects of Linguistic Polarization ��217

Lorenzo Mantovani Philology and Toponymy. Commons, Place Names and Collective Memories in the Rural Landscape of Emilia ��237

Discussions

Romain Jalabert – Federico Tarragoni Philologie et Revolution ��255

Crossings

Suman Gupta Philology of the Contemporary World: On Storying the Financial Crisis ��275

Review Article

Ephraim Nissan Lexical Remarks Prompted by A Smyrneika Lexicon, a Trove for Contact Linguistics ��297

Reviews

Suman Gupta Philology and Global English Studies: Retracings (Maurizio Ascari) ��335

Albert Derolez The Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus: A Study of the Original Manuscript (Ephraim Nissan) ��339

Marc Michael Epstein (ed.) Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts (Ephraim Nissan) ��358

Constance Classen The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch (Ephraim Nissan) ��395

Albert Derolez, The Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus: A Study of the Original Manuscript, Ghent, University Library MS 92. (Studies in Me‑ dieval and Early Renaissance Art History, 76) London/Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, an imprint of Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015, 355 pp., hardcover – ISBN: 978‑1‑909400‑22‑1.

The jacket cover of this volume (30.5 cm × 24.5 cm) shows an illumina‑ tion from the manuscript the book discusses. Shown is a lion, with a por‑ cupine standing on its rear legs under his head. It is the opening picture of the Bestiary within the encyclopaedia which the Liber Floridus is. “This picture (f. 56v, fig. 34.1 [on p. 222]), a masterpiece of Romanesque art and by far the most artistic miniature painting in the LF [i.e., the Liber Flori- dus], is interesting for various reasons. First, the animal is depicted in a vertical sense, filling the entire page and partly framed. This is a most unu‑ sual position for a book illustration” (82). “[T]he animal’s tail continues on the next facing text page, f. 57r” (83). The lion is a Christological symbol.

But as an animal, it is said — this is not found in Isidore — the lion suffers from an annual fever, of which he is healed by playing with his cubs and with a porcupine (an early Western example of acupuncture?).1 Hence the little porcupine depicted in front

1 “Leo quotannis febricitat et cum porcello et catulo iocando fibres amittit” (83, si‑ denote 262). It is interesting that on the very day when I wrote, or should I rather say, typed this book review, I also came across an instance of present-day reasoning along the lines of the tradition of the Physiologus or the medieval bestiaries. On 4 July 2016, The Evening Standard, a freely distributed London evening newspaper, published on pp. 36–37, under the rubric “Entrepreneurs”, an article by Alex Law‑ son, entitled “Tech backers channelling MI5 to find London’s next big things”. It was based on an interview with “Alice Bentinck, co-founder of Entrepreneur First”, a tech venture-capital fund helping start‑ups, with a “focus on backing artificial in‑ telligent companies”. “EF differs from a typical investor in how it selects who to back. […] Europe’s superbrains are headhunted from top universities at graduate or PhD level, or shortly after an internship at one of tech’s biggest names. ‘It’s like the MI5 tap on the shoulder’, Bentinck says” (36), the similitude being to how Britain’s intelligence agency recruits spies and their ilk. “With co‑founder Matt Clifford, she has interviewed more than 1000 bright things, looking for talent that understands the ‘deep tech themes coming out of academia’, and can build a start‑up. She’s also hunting for one very specific quality: ‘honeybadgerness’. ‘It’s the African plains’ smallest and most determined mammal. [recte: of Carnivora. Surely not smaller than rodents!] They kill lions by running through their legs and ripping off their balls so the lions bleed to death. Very charming. This symbolises determination, scrappiness, not being afraid to take on big challenges’”. Apart my research and publication track

of the lion. It is quite interesting to see that, more than a century later, the French architect and engineer Villard de Honnecourt depicted a lion with a porcupine in his famous sketchbook. He claims that he made the drawing ‘al vif’, but fails to explain why his lion is accompanied by this tiny animal. (83)

Albert Derolez, born in 1934, is Curator emeritus of Manuscripts and Ear- ly Printed Books at Ghent University Library, and from 1995 to 2005 was President of the Comité International de Paléogrpahie Latine. “The codi cological analysis of the original manuscript was the subject of my PhD thesis presented in 1970 at the University of Ghent; it was published in Dutch in 1978. The findings contained in that publication were presented to an international scholarly audience in a book published in 1998” (3). The Liber Floridus (MS Ghent) is a Latin lavishly illustrated encyclopaedia — a (rather haphazardly ordered) compendium of secular and theological information — completed in 1121 by Lambert, secular canon of St. Omer.2 “The city of Saint-Omer was, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. One of the foremost administrative, economical, and cultural centres of the county of Flanders” (24). The Liber Floridus is the earliest illustrated encyclopaedic compilation of the Latin West. A masterpiece of Romanesque book art, its autograph is one of the most complicated manuscripts ever made. As could be expected of a book entitled Liber Floridus,

in the humanities, I have also published extensively, taught, and been a frequent journal guest-editor (nearly twenty times) in artificial intelligence, and moreover I have often published on animals in culture from either an anthropological or a philological perspective. I am not overly impressed with the headhunting criterion Bentinck artic- ulated (it’s her fund, so it’s really up to her), but if anything, it shows how exotica (cf. Pliny and Hildegarde) and bestiaries of old (as distinct from modern zoology) have not entirely lost their lustre and the quaint fascination they used to exercise in earlier historical periods. The illustrated zoology book Orbis Pictus by Jan (Johann, John) Amos Comenius (Komensky) shaped the dubious factoids children entertained for life about animals; its first English edition appeared in 1659, and it was still in print in the 19th century (Reutlingen: Macken, 1835, 3rd edition; New York: T. & J. Swords, 1810, 1st American edition, from the 12th London edition corrected and enlarged). In- terestingly, in the lion image in the Liber Floridus, the porcupine (labelled “porcus”) looks up to the lion (labelled “Leo rex bestiarũ”), and is as far as possible from the lion’s testes, themselves conspicuous under the upper end of his tail. 2 See Penelope C. Mayo, “The Crusaders under the Palm: Allegorical Plants and Cosmic Kingship in the Liber Floridus”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 27 (1973), pp. 29–67. Mayo (ibid., p. 29) remarks that “nine illustrated copies, dating from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, have come down to us”.

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 Reviews 341 plant imagery is prominent, but is far from being the overwhelming iconographical theme. “The Lilium inter Spinas is thus an image of Ecclesia, specifically the Church of Jerusalem, as was the Arbor Palmarum. The latter however, was essentially concerned with secular government”.3 On ff. 140v–141r, there is “a long list of names of trees, plants, and herbs” (124), nearly 500 items “covering two pages of six columns each” (124), and for once “all symbolism is absent” (124), contrary to botanical symbolism elsewhere in the Liber Floridus, and to the symbolism of the Bestiary as well. Lambert of Saint-Omer is not known other than from the internal evidence of the Liber Floridus.4

[A] tendency should be noted which seems typical of Lambert and which is probably related to his advancing age and to his fear of not being able to finish his life’s work. In each chapter, the first series of entries are well-developed, but after the first page or so the entries grow shorter and shorter, filling no more than one line, to end with a two-column layout in which each animal is rushed through in half a line. This gradual transition from description to enumeration is visible in many of the LF chapters. (85)

“Lambert’s hand is easily recognisable thanks to two orthographical id- iosyncrasies” (33). “Lambert wrote the entire codex, except one long chapter and a series of short portions of text” (33). “The mathematical exercises inserted into the Calendar […] indeed seem to point to Lambert as a schoolmaster” (33, sidenote 77). “One would assume that Lambert took profit of the manuscripts present in the chapter library of Saint-Omer whenever possible. There are, indeed, slight indications that he was himself the librarian” (39). “If the problem of Lambert’s textual sources is not entirely solved (especially regarding the circumstances in which he became acquainted with them), at least we know rather well on which texts most of the LF is based. […] For the illustrations, on the other hand, we are

3 Mayo, ibid., p. 51. 4 Derolez states that Lambert “mentions that his father Onulf […] died in 1077. We may assume that Lambert himself died in, or soon after, 1121, the year during which he appears to have made the latest additions to his work” (24). “The last pope mentioned is Calixtus II (1119–24), whose death is not reported” (25, sidenote 57). “The list of kings of Jerusalem […] ends with Baldwin II (1118–31) and that of the patriarchs of Jerusalem, on the same page, with Arnulph (1111–18). These two lists are in the first hand; the names of later kings and patriarchs have been added by other hands. The last count of Flanders whose name was entered in the first hand […] is Charles the Good (1119–27). The list has been expanded by later hands” (ibid.).

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 342 Ephraim Nissan confronted with an almost complete vacuum” (43), but scholars have made suggestions concerning iconographical sources as well. “However, when one seriously compares the surviving illuminations from the Saint-Bertin scriptorium and from other contemporary workshops in northern France and south-western Belgium with the LF pictures, it is impossible to find close similarities in style, technique or iconography. This point can unfor- tunately not be developed here, but the common opinion nowadays is that the originality of the LF is, above all, in its pictures” (43).

The present book aims at bringing together all essential data and findings about the Liber Floridus as a whole. A large part of the text is a revised, updated, and reorgan- ised version of my 1998 book, but there are also new chapters, hundreds of footnotes containing the incipits and other citations of even the smallest sections of the Liber Floridus, abundant illustrations, abundant illustrations, and several tables and index- es, all tending to facilitate the understanding of one of the most complicated manuscripts in existence (and of the traditionally misjudged work it conveys) and to allow further research into this inexhaustible collection of texts and images. As the Ghent University Library has granted worldwide free access to the full digitised version of the original manuscript, it seemed obvious to illustrate the book with a large number of small reproductions of openings (i.e. facing pages — the natural way of viewing a manuscript); the parts missing in the original manuscript are reproduced in the same size after later copies of the Liber Floridus. Full-size reproductions of all pictures and diagrams, as well as a complete transcription of all texts preserved in the original manuscript, are to be found in the monumental 1968 edition. (3) The preface and bibliography, are followed by two pages of “Preliminary Notes and Definitions” concerning the Ghent manuscript, with several diagrams showing the structure of kinds of quires. Next, the introduction comprises ten sections: “A Short Survey of Scholarship on the Liber Flori- dus”,5 “The Author and his Work”, “The Manuscript in General”, “Parch- ment”, “Quire Structure”, “Layout”,6 “Script”, “Illumination”, “The Text,

5 For example, “Among the pictures, the maps, which are exceptionally numerous, have attracted the greatest interest” (23). “Studies on British history in the LF have been written by my brother René Derolez and by David Dumville. Raoul Van Cae- negem and Kristi Di Clemente dealt with the history of Flanders. […] David Ross has written a note on the place of Alexander the Great in the LF” (23). 6 “The twelfth century is generally considered the period during which hard-point ruling, the technique in use during the Early Middle Ages, was gradually replaced by lead (or plummet) ruling. We are not concerned here with the aesthetic implications of this transition from a relief (and thus, in principle, less visible) ruling to a coloured ruling. But it is important to note that both techniques occur in the LF and that they apparently are not used at random” (31).

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 Reviews 343 its Structure, and the Table of Contents”, “The Sources of the Liber Flori- dus”.Thhe introduction is followed by Chapters I to IX (“The Preliminary Texts”, “The Main Body of the Liber Floridus”, i.e., folios 14r to 144r,7 “The First Supplement”, “The Second Supplement”, “The Third Supple- ment”, “The Fourth Supplement”, “The Last Chapters”, “Final Texts”, and “The Genesis of the Liber Floridus as a Whole”). Next, one finds the un- numbered “Conclusions” chapter, and by two appendices: “The Copies of the Liber Floridus and Related Manuscripts” (in two parts), and “Survey of the Manuscript Sources of the Liber Floridus”, in three parts, the first two listing manuscripts supposed to have belonged to medieval libraries in Saint-Omer and Saint-Bertin, and the third being “Index of the Manu- scripts used or possibly used by Lambert”. Illustration credits to libraries (201) precede the colour or greyscale plates (205–263).8 These are followed by four tables (“Present-Day Structure of the Quires”, “Genesis of the Quires”, “Quire Groups with Identical Ruling”, and “Synoptical Table of Contents”), then four indices (“Manuscripts”, “Incipits of Poems, Poet- ical Fragments and Hymns”, “Titles in Lambert’s Table of Contents”, and “”names and Subjects”).

[Folio 20r] carries a picture titled ‘The House of Daedalus, in which King Minos placed the Minotaur’. It represents a circular maze with an image of the Minotaur at its centre, depicted as a centaur holding a sword. The picture seems to have been altered by later hands, the more so as the figure in the Wolfenbüttel manuscript — generally considered a faithful copy of the original — is much more detailed. One may note that the maze is actually not a proper labyrinth, as there are no crossroads in it. In respect of this feature it is comparable to mazes in church floors, such as the quad- rangular labyrinth which, in the abbey church of Saint-Bertin, was placed over the tomb of young William, son of Count Robert II of Jerusalem, who died in 1109. (58) The fifthrota, facing the so-called sphere of the moon, is of a different nature9 (f. 26r, fig. 21.2): the ‘Sphere of Apuleius concerning Life and Death’ contains a divinatory table, which is mostly ascribed to Pythagoras and not to the second-century A.D. Ro- man author and philosopher Apuleius, whose name is somehow associated with sor- cery. There is only one other table in the LF which substantiates the belief, still active

7 For example, Derolez states: “We have shown that originally f. 14v faced f. 17r, and f. 17v faced f. 21r. Let us now turn to the later parts of quire III” (56). 8 P. 203 shows a reproduction of a large zone map of the world from ff. 92v–93r in the Ghent manuscript, where the facing pages are surmounted by a crescent: the map’s folding upper section. 9 Vis-à-vis the diagram of the sunrises and sunsets, and the diagram of lunar phases, which precede.

in the early twelfth century, that divinatory practices, although of dubious orthodoxy for a Christian, are interesting enough to be recorded (299, fig. 94.1).10 The diagram is a number prognosis intended to predict whether a sick or wounded person would be healed or would die, and whether the healing or death would follow soon, or in the medium or long term. The calculation is based on the person’s name transposed in numerical data and the age of the moon when he or she fell ill or was wounded. If the result appears in the upper half of the diagram, he or she will be healed (Vita) and, if in the lower, he or she will die (Mors). (67) The Martianus [Capella] excerpt [on peoples and monsters] is very much shortened and presents errors caused by a too rapid reading of the source. It covers the lower half of f. 50r, the whole of f. 50v, and the upper half of f. 51r (figs 30.2–31.2). It deals with foreign peoples and their habits or characteristics, monsters etc. In order not to impair the beauty of the codex, Lambert transcribed the final part of chapter XXXI (52), which stood on f. 51r, on the recto of the inserted leaf, added the Martianus di- gest after it, erased on f. 51r the part of chapter XXXI he had just transcribed, and was faced once again with the problem of filling with adequate text the remainder of the verso of the inserted leaf plus the erased space on p. 51r. He recurred to the expedient we saw above (p. 61), the only way to fill rapidly whatever area with text: by assem- bling excerpts from the LF itself. In the present case, they are about strange animals, herbs, gold, the Third, Fourth and Fifth Ages of the World, and Alexander the Great. In the margins there are a list of the queens of the Amazons (f. 50r), a list of monsters, and notes on linear measures and the height of the Tower of Babel (f. 50v). (79)

“It is in the reverse of the lion picture (f. 56r) that Lambert shows the originality of his thought11 and the extraordinary care he takes in arranging his materials12 during the early phases of the making of his book” (83). In fact, even though he used the bestiary from Isidore’s Etymologiae, Lam- bert considered the lion to be a Christological symbol “much more so than for Isidore” (83). “This, of course, is in itself a link between the ‘religious nomenclature’ in the preceding chapters and the Bestiary. But the immedi- ate transition between the two sections are 67 and 68 (chapters XLIII and

10 “Numbers in bold type throughout the book point to the chapter divisions of the LF as were established by Delisle (1906)” (19). The reference is to L. Delisle, “Notice sur les manuscripts du ‘Liber floridus’ de Lambert, chanoine de Saint-Omer”, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques, 38 (1906), pp. 577–791. 11 Not that Lambert is usually credited with much originality; he was thoroughly quite derivative. 12 Clearly, not the way this would be done in a modern encyclopaedia. It is this discrep- ancy that gives us modern readers the first impression that the ordering is haphazard, but for Lambert is was not haphazard.

XLIV), that fill f. 56r. They both deal with the sybils, pagan prophetesses that evidently recall the chapter on the pagan deities copied on the facing page (64). One of the sibyls, however, is believed to have announced the Passion of Christ and His second coming at the Last Judgment. Dealing with the sybils is consequently a fitting introduction to the picture and description of the lion following immediately after” (83). The Ghent original manuscript (at least in its present state) of the Li ber Floridus does not contain a note “which the copies of Family III quote here. It contains a distich which Herbert, archdeacon of Thérouanne,13 would have brought with him from Italy in 1112” (84). It is a prophecy announcing the arrival of King Cyrus. Derolez points out that “Lambert has doubtless associated Christ with Christ and His coming” (84). I think I can marshal more cogent textual evidence; Lambert or his sources may have been thinking of one particular locus from Scripture, namely, “Thus saith the Lord to His anointed/Messiah, to Cyrus” (Isaiah 45:1). Derolez does cite Isaiah 45:1, but the wording is not quoted, and therefore may be lost on readers. Of the rabbinic exegetes based in medieval France, Rashi14 ad locum stated: “Any name of great status is called ‘anointment’”. David Kimḥi15

13 In the wide margin of f. 230v, Lambert listed “the bishops of Thérouanne, from Aud- mundus to Lambert’s contemporary John (1099–1130); it is strange that according to the author, the latter’s episcopacy would have begin in 1096” (157). 14 Rashi is Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, or Isaacides (Troyes, Champagne, 1040 – Worms, 1105; in Christian sources: Rabi Salomon). He studied at the rabbinic academies Troyes, Mainz, and Worms. In 1070, Rashi returned to Troyes and founded his own renowned school there. See: Gilbert Dahan, Gérard Nahon and Élie Nicolas (eds.), Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au Moyen Âge (Collection de la Revue des Études Juives, 16; Paris & Louvain: Peeters, 1997); S. Schwarzfuchs, Rachi de Troyes (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991); G. Sed-Rajna (ed.), Rashi, 1040–1990 (Paris: Le Cerf, 1993); V. Malka, Rachi (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993); Esra Shere- shevsky, Rashi, the Man and his World (New York: Sepher–Hermon Press, 1982); Sa- rah Kamin, “Rashi’s Exegetical Canonisation with Respect to the Distinction between Peshat and Derash”, Immanuel, 11 (1980), pp. 16–32; B.J. Gelles, Peshat and Derash in the Exegesis of Rashi (Leiden: Brill, 1981). 15 The Provençal exegete and grammarian Rabbi David Ḳimḥi (or Radaḳ, b. 1160?, d. 1235?) is one the main Jewish medieval biblical exegetes; Christian Hebraists or apologetes, too, published sometimes his biblical commentaries. See: Frank Tal- mage, David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries (Harvard Judaic Monographs, 1; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). David Ḳimḥi’s grammatical writings were analysed by the linguist William Chomsky (father of the more famous

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 346 Ephraim Nissan ad locum stated: “Just as it [Scripture] called him ‘My shepherd’ [(Isai- ah 44:28)], likewise it called him ‘His anointed’, that is to say: ‘My king, because I enthroned him so he would destroy Babylon’, and the king is ‘anointed’. Or the, as kingship is by anointment, the appointment a person is appointed for anything is called by the word ‘anointment’. […] Like- wise, ‘to His anointed, to Cyrus’, His appointed, because G‑d appointed him king”. Eliezer of Beaugency (Belgançi)16 explained the semantics of a preposition: “‘to Cyrus’, [i.e.] about His anointed, about Cyrus”, whereas in a gloss to Isaiah 44:28 he stated: “‘to Cyrus’: all kings of Persia are called ‘Cyrus’ after the first of them, as indeed the first Cyrus did not build the city [Jerusalem] and the Temple” (Darius did). Also Joseph Kara17 interprets

linguist Noam Chomsky), who nevertheless only translated its introduction verbatim, reorganizing the rest in a form accessible to readers used to modern grammars. See: W. Chomsky, David Kimhi’s Hebrew Grammar (Mikhlol) Systematically Presented and Critically Annotated (New York: Bloch, 1952; repr.: 2001, pbk). 16 Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency (blgn¡y, now usually pronounced belgántsi when that exegete is mentioned by scholars in Israel) belonged to the second generation of the Tosa- phists (glossators of the Babylonian Talmud), whose own first generation was the one after Rashi. The French adjective beau ‘cute’ derives from an older form bel. Rather than being a Tosaphist himself, R. Eliezer of Beaugency is only known as a commen- tator on the Bible, not the Talmud. Only his commentaries to Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets are extant, and this in only one manuscript (Oxford Bodleyan in Menaḥem Cohen (ed.), Mikra’ot Gedolot [י] and [ט] .Opp. 625). See on pp ,1465 HaKeter: Isaiah (Hebrew), Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1996. On Eliezer of Beaugency, see Yitzhak Berger, “The Contextual Exegesis of Rab- bi Eliezer of Beaugency and the Climax of the Northern French Peshat Tradition”, Jewish Studies Quarterly, 15(2), 2008, pp. 115–129; Robert Harris, “Contextual Reading: Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency’s Commentary on Jonah”, on pp. 79–101 in Bringing the Hidden to Light: Studies in Honor of Stephen A. Geller, edited by Diane Sharon and Kathryn Kravits (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, on behalf of New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2007). 17 Joseph (ben Simeon) Ḳara (c. 1065 – c. 1135) was an important biblical exegete (). He was born and lived in Troyes, Rashi’s city. Concerning his period, consider that he heard an interpretation to Ezekiel 10:9 from Isaac ben Asher of Speyer, who died before 1133 (according to Ephraim Elimelech Urbach, The Tosaphists: Their History, Writings and Meth- ods [Hebrew], 1st edition, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1955, p. 148. The Tosaphists were commentators about the Babylonian Talmud, other than Rashi’s glossa or- dinaria, from northern France or from Germany. Their activity resembles that of the Christian glossators of the Corpus Juris Civilis). The commentaries considered in this section are in Hebrew. Nevertheless, data can be gleaned also for Old French; see Cyril Aslanov, “Le français de Rabbi Joseph Kara et de Rabbi Eliézer

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 Reviews 347 the same preposition, but he renders “to (le‑) His anointed/Messiah” with “from (mi‑) His anointed/Messiah” which actually ascribes to the preposition mi‑ ‘from’ the sense of Romance de ‘about’ (cf. de ‘from’), which is not the usage in Biblical Hebrew, but sometimes occurs in medieval He- brew from Europe. “[F]or each class of animals — except for the mammals — Lambert chooses a fantastic or semi-fantastic cruel animal as a prototype. By this, and by his rearrangement of the text, he altered the original character of Isidorian, i.e. antique, natural history” (85). Concerning mammals, Lam- bert juxtaposed extracts from Physiologus and material from Isodore of Seville. “Not contented with altering the Isodorian subject matter into one more symbolic, Lambert, in a second phase, emphasised this symbolic character of the animal world by introducing data from Physiologus” (85). The following is a sample of the discussion Derolez provides concerning the Bestiary within the Liber Floridus:

Ain the chapter on birds, too […] Lambert rearranged the sequence of the animals as compared with Isidore and added fresh data. […] The final part of this chapter is remarkable: the last two paragraphs on f. 60r, dealing with the woodpecker and the crane, are quite extensive in contrast to the extremely short preceding notes on countless birds, which seems to indicate that Lambert originally wanted to end the chapter on birds on this page. The treatment of the birds was actually terminated at the bottom of f. 60r, and the two final paragraphs on the verso, about the gull and the falcon, feel almost like an afterthought. This part shows many signs of erasure and rewriting, the meaning of which is not clear. The alterations, visible through different ink shades, are no doubt to be connected with the use of another source, but also with the design of the long tail of the dragon, the animal depicted on the same page at the head of the chapter on reptiles. (86)

de Beaugency d’après leurs commentaires sur Ezéchiel”, Revue des Etudes Juives, 159 (2000), pp. 425–446. The biblical exegesis by Rashi, Joseph Kara, and Eliezer of Beaugency are the subject of Robert Harris, “Structure and Composition in Isaiah 1–12: A Twelfth Century Rab- binic Perspective”, on pp. 171–187 in As Those Who are Taught: The Reception of Isai- ah from the LXX to the SBL, edited by Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia Tull (SBL Symposium Series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006); and Robert Harris, “Twelfth-Century Biblical Exegetes and the Invention of Literature”, on pp. 311–329 in The Multiple Meaning of Scripture: The Role of Exegesis in Early-Christian and Medieval Culture, edited by Ienje van ’t Spijker, (Commentaria, 2, Leiden: Brill, 2009).

Finally, the picture of the crocodile (f. 61v, fig. 37.1) at the end of the short chapter XLVIII dealing with fishes and water animals (at least this is the title in the text of the LF), has been thoroughly changed: the original animal’s head was erased and replaced by [recte: with] a strange man’s head with a mustache [recte: moustache], in order to conform the picture [recte: to make the picture conform] to the text where Lambert added the words ‘it has a human face’ (faciem habet hominis) to the description provided by Isidore. But the reader’s attention is particularly drawn by anomalies, which are at first sight further proof of Lambert’s inability to arrange his materials logically: in contrast to the chapters on other classes [of animals], the one on fishes deals with no more than three animals. (86)

Instead of the Lapidary immediately following the Bestiary, “Lambert preferred to separate the two sections from each other by a chapter on the Marvels of Britain” (88). “[M]ost of these marvels are of a hydrological nature” (88). “The text is freely excerpted from the ninth-century histori- an Nennius. Parts have been inserted from other sources” (88).18 Lambert opened the Lapidary by surveying the twelve precious stones mentioned in the Apocalypse, and a picture of the Heavenly Jerusalem appears, under which a few lines that remained free “now contain the beginning of a description of the construction of the Temple (in earthly Jerusalem!) by King Solomon” (89). Those lines are written on erasure.19 A history of Britain is separated from a history of Normandy by a chapter entitled “On the Hebdomads of the Years” (93). After the history of Normandy, turning to kings and patriarchs of Jerusalem, on “the last

18 One comes across British material also elsewhere in the Liber Floridus. “On ff. 81v–83r there follows a long narration of the vision of a British layman called Dro- thelmus, who after his death was led by a luminous guide through Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise, and returned to life where he entered a convent to pass the rest of his days in the severest ascetism. This chapter, numbered LXIV, is an almost exact copy of a passage in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People” [V, 12] (97). See pp. 488–498 in Beda Venerabilis, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, edited by B. Colgrave and R. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). The theme of the Drothelmus narrative is the subject of a book by Martha Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). Derolez also writes: “On f. 216r, Lambert copied the vision of a British priest who was guided through the after-life, and in which sinful Christianity is threatened by the invasion of ferocious heathen peoples” (146–147). 19 There is also a lapidary on f. 229r–v (156), part of the Fourth Supplement of the Liber Floridus.

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 Reviews 349 page of the quire, Lambert has painted his famous palm tree (fig. 43.1): a large tree with semi-circular foliage standing on a mount, and whose symbolism is not as obvious as one would expect. It is true that the cap- tions ‘Church’, ‘Mount Zion’, ‘Land of Judah’, and the quotations from Ecclesiasticus point to the palm tree as a symbol of the Church. However, the palm is also a well-known symbol of victory” (93–94), which refers to the First Crusade. Of another part of the Liber Floridus, Penelope Mayo wrote: “It is almost unnecessary to acknowledge that Lambert is unique in representing the confrontation of Ecclesia and Synagoga in the final enactment of human history on the Mount of Olives rather than at the time of the Cruci- fixion at Golgotha […]. The seven wars of Jerusalem, beginning with the city’s destruction under Nebuchadnezzar and ending with the anticipated battle of the Apocalypse, is a theme which runs throughout the whole of the Liber Floridus”.20 “Chapter CLXII covers folios 231v to 232v; divided into two parts, as in the case of the Lilium, it opens with the double illustration of the Arbor Bona and Arbor Mala, and concludes on the verso of folio 232 with the representation of the Second Dream of Nebuchadnezzar”. In fact:21 “The Arbor Bona and Arbor Mala on folios 231v and 232 form two-thirds of an entirely pictorial chapter (CLXII); the last third represents the Second Dream of Nebuchadnezzar on folio 232v. As the trees are symbolic and embrace moral systems while the Dream of Nebuchadnezzar is historical and includes, among other texts, a series of genealogies, this chapter also reflects the same tripartite organization seen in those chapters containing the Arbor Palmarum and the Lilium inter Spinas. The Arbor Bona is a twelve-branched tree with Caritas at is root”. Lambert uses the good trees (species are enumerated) in an allegory for the Church, and also for the Crusaders having conquered Jerusalem.

20 This quotation and the next are from Mayo, ibid., p. 47. 21 Mayo, ibid., p. 52.

The good tree (Arbor Bona), from folio 231v of the Ghent manuscript of the Liber Flori- dus. “The twelve plants which reinforce the Liberal Arts are medicinal and restorative in nature. They also appeal directly to the senses as Lambert lists them elsewhere in the Liber Floridus under the heading of ‘aromatic herbs’. For the corresponding series of trees, which accompany the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Lambert first sets down the eight trees from Ecclesiasticus representing the Church Triumphant” (Mayo, ibid., pp. 49–50).

The Beatitude Trees of folio 139v from the Ghent manuscript of the Liber Floridus comprise the tree of Lebanon (Lybanus), the tree of Zion (Syon), the tree of Kadesh (Cades), and the tree of Jericho (Hiericho). “Lambert first sets down the eight trees from Ecclesias- ticus representing the Church Triumphant. By this time he had made use of them on two previous occasions in the Liber Floridus, in the first instance in identifying the theological character of the Arbor Palmarum within the context of established scripture, and in the second in the individual representations of the trees on folios 139v–140, where they were related to the eight Beatitudes” (Mayo, ibid., pp. 49–50).

Four more Beatitude Trees from the Liber Floridus (from folio 140 of the Ghent manuscript). “In order to complete the requisite number of twelve trees, Lambert added the lau- rel, known from antiquity throughout the Middle Ages as a victory symbol, and concluded with the fir, pine, and box. These last three trees are the famous triad of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Second Coming of Zion (Isa. 60:13) in which the powerful messianic proclamation of Zion appears in her promise: ‘And the glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.’ In view of the climate of the First Crusade, Lambert could hardly have selected a more apposite passage in scriptural or exegetic literature than the sixtieth prophecy of Isaiah. For Isaiah states that nations and kings from all over shall come to Jerusalem, that even the sea shall aid her by naval attachments, and that the sons of these foreigners shall again raise her walls and administer her.” (Mayo, ibid., p. 50).

Interestingly, Lambert included poems, mainly by Petrus Pictor, his fellow canon in Saint-Omer, and in order to do so, Lambert deleted almost the entire text of the Truce of Soissons on ff. 83v–84r (100). “One may assume that being probably the only members of the chapter active in the literary field, Lambert and Peter knew each other well and were even friends” (100). Petrus “painted during the day in order to be able to write poetry by night” (100), according to what he states in his poems. On f. 84v, “the first paragraph contains only the end of the text of the Truce of God, pro- claimed at a council at Soissons, probably in 1092” (97). “The two series of Petrus Pictor poems included here [on ff. 83v–84r] and at another place in the LF do not comprise the Laus Flandriae, so they most probably an- tedate Petrus’ departure. Either Lambert found them in the chapter library, or — a more attractive theory — they were handed over to him by Petrus when he left, and Lambert copied them in the LF as a kind of tribute to his exiled (or deceased) friend. In that way, Lambert’s encyclopedia is not only the earliest source for most of Peter’s poems, but also one which is geographically closest to the place where they were written” (100–101). The poems by Petrus Pictor on ff. 83v–84r include two in theology, as well as one on the Nativity, and also “De denario, a satire on the power of money (104), which shows that Peter is at his best in this genre, even if with him the tendency towards exaggeration and coarseness is strong (as will be especially be seen in the second group of his poems, to be discussed later). Money can buy everything in the world: power, justice, wisdom, love: denarius is mightier than Jupiter himself ” (101). The subjects of the texts are quite disparate, indeed in this or that quire “hopelessly disparate” (109), such as “a long and interesting list of apocryphal books ascribed [i.e., the list] to Pope Gelasius I (492–96), copied on f. 99v, followed by a list of magi and heretics extracted from the same source, on ff. 99v–100r” (108), or then notes on the hereafter, which in part “deal with the question of the shape in which monstrous and crippled human beings will resurrect” (108). And “a short compilation about the mountains not covered by the Flood” appears twice in the Liber Floridus: on f. 2r, and on f. 102r (109). The second series of poems by Petrus Pictor is in the Second Supple- ment to the Liber Floridus, which among the other things contains texts concerning Alexander the Great, a short history of the world after Orosius, a history of the popes, the Donation of Constantine, and a long history of Julius Caesar. But the Second Supplement also comprises poems by Petrus

Pictor (ff. 162v–166r): a poem on the degeneration of the once great Rome, a poem on simony, then “a double poem on the grueling effect of indigence, physical hunger and thirst […], and the worse mental hunger and thirst, i.e. greed […], which is insatiable and leads humanity to the worst crimes […] (ff. 163r–164r). The evil of cupidity, with which Dindimus [in another text of the Second Supplement] already reproached Alexander, could not have found a more eloquent satirist than Petrus Pictor” (132). “The poet surpasses himself in the last and longest poem, De muliere mala, an incredibly sharp satire against women (chapter CXXXIV, ff. 164r–166r). Peter forgoes all measure in describing the innumerable female vices in their enormity. The poem includes a long section dealing with the Phae- dra-episode […] Only the last of the 350 verses bring a more positive note: ‘Woman is rarely good, but when she is good she deserves a crown’. […] It is not without interest that Lambert has entered corrections into the poems on hunger and thirst and on woman” (132). “After this […] tribute to his friend Petrus Pictor, Lambert started the first of three historical chapters, which were to extend over 81 pages and which will show our encyclopedist as an industrious (if not brilliant) historical compiler” (132). In the Third Supplement, one finds history of the Roman emperors, and a vision which Charles the Bald supposedly had before he lost his empire to Arnulph of Carinthia in the year 887 (141), as well as a picture and facing text on Noah’s Ark. “Lambert attributes this text to Hegesippus. In reality it is an extract from Freculphus of Lisieux. By this mistake the author betrays that he has been using the manuscript from the chapter library comprising the historical works of both Hegesippus and Freculphus, in that order” (143). Then Lambert turns to enumerating disasters, and next, he “deals with two successive divisions of the Frankish Empire” (147), and there is a “famous map of Europe in the form of a quarter of a circle (fig. 90.2 [on p. 251])” (147). One finds e.g. other dreams (Scipio’s, and Nebuchadnezzar’s) in the Fourth Supplement, which also contains astronomical and meteorological texts, and e.g. “on the double page ff. 231v–232r, is one of the most celebrat- ed of all LF pictures: Lambert’s unique creation of the Trees of Virtues and Vices (chapter CLXII, fig. 86)” (155).

Lambert’s highly original thought and skill in bringing diverse ideas together in one great pictorial composition appears finally in Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream, painted on the verso of the Tree of Vices (f. 232v, fig. 87.1). Although of a lower level artistically (and also more deteriorated) than the Tree of Virtues and Vices, this picture is not inferior to them in terms of originality and richness of ideas. The author has included

it in chapter CLXII, ‘The Good and the bad Tree’, although it clearly stands apart. It shows another tree ‘extending to heaven’, which is on the point of being felled and which has an iron ring encircling its roots. It is the tree King Nebuchandnezzar, shown sleeping below, saw in his second dream according to the Book of Daniel, and which God, in a medallion above, orders cut down. The gigantic figure on the left is the statue with the golden head and the clay feet, which the same king saw in his first dream and which is interpreted as an image of the Six Ages of the World (a subject of prime importance to the author of the LF). The greatness of the picture lies in the combination of two motifs in a single composition, in which the tree is cut by the statue. So in this last picture the plant allegory, which was mostly of a moral nature in the preceding ones, turns into an historical and eschatological vision. (155–156)

In the Fourth Supplement, f. 242v “confronts us with one of those inex- plicable breaks in the content of the L F, which have contributed so much to Lambert’s mediocre reputation as an encyclopedist. After the historical chapters and tables he had compiled, to a certain degree independently, he copied a new long text (23 pages!) as chapter CLXX, in the field of anti-Jewish controversy” (161), ascribed to Isidore, on ff. 242v–252bis v. “It occupies the remainder of quire XXXII and also the complete quire XXXIII (ff. 246–252 bis). The latter is entirely composed of single leaves, sewn together into bifolia, which gives an idea of Lambert’s parchment supply during the phase in which he wrote this text” (161). A copy of “the apocryphal correspondence between Jesus and Abgar, king of Edessa” (161–162), one finds medical recipes, then a palimpsest containing “the only music to be found in the LF” (162) in neumatic no- tation (one such page is reproduced on p. 252), and next: “The verso, not erased, contains another surprise: chapter CLXXV is a table divided into 60 little squares, titled ‘The Responses of the Apostles’ (f. 256v, fig. 94.1). This is not the well-known Bible book prognosis normally under- stood by the title Sortes apostolorum, but a dice prognosis” (162), “containing counsels given upon the cating of three dice” (253). Next, Lambert continues, zigzagging among subjects for the rest of the Fourth Supple- ment. Then Derolez begins his own Chapter VII, “The Last Chapters: ff. 271v–287v”, by pointing out: “Apart from the final texts to be discussed below, the LF ends with two full-length chapters, dealing with the history of the Trojan War and with early Roman history” (169). In Chapter IX, “The Genesis of the Liber Floridus as a Whole”, De- rolez states among the other things: “The same evidence used for establish- ing the stratigraphy of the individual quires can be used for studying the even more difficult problem of the stratigraphy of the codex, or the relations

© Peter Lang AG Philology, vol. 2/2016, pp. 335–404 356 Ephraim Nissan among the quires” (173). There are criteria that “allow us to sketch, with a good degree of certainty, the growth of the entire LF from its earliest stages to the addition of the final chapters” (174). Delorez describes on pp. 174– 182 “in thirteen (theoretical) phases, which can be dated approximately between years 1111 and 1121” (174), the making if the Liber Floridus, thus providing “a chronological survey, given here by way of a summary, [as] based on a long and intricate technical discussion, which is impossible to repeat here” (174): it is to be found in his 1978 book in Dutch instead.22 Derolez begins his “Conclusions” chapter as follows:

When on Wednesday 8 June 1121, or shortly thereafter, Canon Lambert of Saint- Omer made his last annotation in the book to which he had given all his thoughts and efforts during the preceding fifteen years, he left behind a great but unfinished and intriguing work. No doubt he was ill at that time and passed away before too long — he certainly would have made more additions and changes to his magnum opus if he had been able to. A mediocre Latinist and a clumsy, even unreliable compiler, but a highly imagi- native scholar and — as we suppose — artist, Lambert obviously conceived the idea of writing his encyclopedia under the influence of two events of his time: the Conquest of England (1066) and the victorious end of the First Crusade (1099). He started working in the troubled atmosphere of the Investiture Struggle and in the wake of the growth of the county of Flanders as a political power. All this explains the unusually strong historical and eschatological components in his book, which are superimposed upon a traditional body of encyclopaedic matter. The latter is essentially based on Isidore of Seville, whose work Lambert transformed in two ways: by stressing the symbolical and moral sense of the world and of history, and by adding pictures as a fundamental part of the encyclopaedic compilation. In both respects, he performed what has been called ‘the first breakaway from tradition’, almost three centuries after Hrabanus Maurus had undertaken a timid Christianised rewriting of the Etymologiae [by Isidore] (it is interesting to observe that lambert had not known Hrabanus’ work until the final stages of his compiling activity). If the selection, the order, and the treatment of the texts in the LF betray an author of great originality, the full greatness of Lambert’s thought and art comes to light in the pictures. (183)

22 Fior the full argumentation Derolez cites pp. 361–379 in A. Derolez, Lambertus qui librum fecit. Een codicologische studie van de Liber Floridus-autograaf (Gent, Uni- versiteitsbibliotheek, hs. 92). With a Summary in English: The Genesis of the Liber Floridus of Lambert of Saint-Omer. Venhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren, 40.89 (Brussels: AWLSK, Paleis der Academiën, 1978).

True, Lambert comes across as a derivative compiler, and sloppy at that. “In spite of its confusing structure and Lambert’s many errors and misun- derstandings, especially visible in the later stages when hurry and deteri- orating mental capacities seem to have impeded the continuation of his work, the LF is an important book” (187), “regarded as such in the Middle Ages, at least in northern France and the southern Low Countries, the area from which it originates” (187), and it was successful, as “[t]he uncom- monly large number of copies made from the twelfth to the early sixteenth century” testify (187).

Because of its pictures, the LF is an outstanding work of art and an inexhaustible resource for iconographical research. It contains some texts not found elsewhere and texts or versions of texts for which it is the earliest evidence: the poems of Petrus Pictor, documents on the Investiture Struggle, one Antichrist prophecy, the Gesta Francorum Hierusalem expugnantium (it shares the primacy of the latter text with a manuscript from Saint-Bertin), a fragment of an account of a count of Flanders. Although hardly a literary work, it does include more poetry than any other encyclo- pedic compilation of the Middle Ages, and it also includes the subject matter of the great medieval cycles of courtly romance: the romance of Alexander, that of Troy, those of King Arthur and Apollonius of Tyre. (187)

Importantly, the volume under review is not a critical edition: the Li ber Floridus is so complex, that it requires an entire book to analyse its structure and summarise in detail its contents and establish the relations between its component. This is the book that Albert Derolez has now provided for an international audience to read in English. Considering the complex subject, Derolez has handled it as smoothly as conceivably possible. The book under review is splendid, and Derolez deserves much praise for his elucidation of the contents and structure of the Liber Floridus, a medieval book to whose scholarship he has made important contributions throughout his career.

Ephraim Nissan Goldsmith College, London