363 an Unknown Fourteenth Century Lecture of The

363 AN UNKNOWN FOURTEENTH CENTURY LECTURE OF THE ORLÉANS SCHOOL: JEAN NICOT ON BOOK VI OF THE CODE by MARGUERITEDUYNSTEE (Leyden) Dedicated to Professor Domenico Maffei on the occasion of his 65th birthday The authorship of a fourteenth century work transmitted in the Vatican manuscript Borghese 92 presents an intriguing problem. The manuscript con- tains a lecture on the sixth book of the Code2 and a repetitio on a title of the second book3. Regrettably, the first quire of the manuscript is missing4, and with it the original incipit of the work and possibly the name of its author. Still, in another part of the manuscript, the identity of the author was formerly preserved intact, i.e. in the colophon of the work, which has been added at a later date and is written in a different hand. But an unkind cut clipped the manuscript leaves. Now no more is left than a hint of the author's name. Only the first three letters of the name remain: N-I-C, 'NIC'. The single other key in the explicit which could have helped to identify the author has also been tantalisingly muti- lated. This clue, referring to the diocese of which the author was bishop, has been cut down to merely the initial letter: a single 'A'. The colophon now reads5: Explicit lectura sexti libri reverendissimiin christo patris ac domini domini nic episcopi a Thus the only evidence presenting a trace of an explicit attribution in the 364 manuscript itself is to one NIC who had been bishop of a diocese whose Latin appellation starts with an A. Who is this NIC, bishop of A? In her catalogue of the Codices burghesiani Anneliese Maier opts for the seem- ingly obvious solution: NIColaus. Her description of the manuscript reads: Nic(olai) <... ? ... ) episcopi <... ? ... ) Lectura sexti libri (Codicis Justiniani)6. Unfortunately, many a bishop was called Nicolaus. Consulting Eubel's Hierar- chia catholica medii aeVi7 for the fourteenth century, more than 60 persons named Nicolaus can be found under the dioceses beginning with an A: from Nicolaus episcopus Abelonensis (Alibérion on the island of Euboea, Greece) to Nicolaus episcopus Azotensis (Ashdod in Palestine). Of course, as these two names show, not all of them are likely candidates to have taught civil law at one of the medieval universities before entering their ecclesiastical career. We do not therefore have to take all of these bishops into consideration. Nevertheless, dis- regarding the most unlikely cases, too many names remain which correspond to Maier's conjecture. Amongst others, one could think of Nicolaus de Archeiis (d'Arcis), bishop of Auxerre, and Nicolaus de Coulon (de Tholon or de Toulon), bishop of Autun, the only two, relying on a stated legal connection in Eubel, ex- plicitly said to be licentiatus in utroque jure and licentiatus in legibus8. Unfor- tunately, we do not know which university they attended, nor are we aware whether they have taught at all after obtaining their degrees. It seems, however, that they pursued a career in practice rather than an academic one. Thus Nicolaus de Archeiis was i.a. advocatus for the bishop of Laon, chancellor of the duke of Orl6ans, and, from 1362, advocatus, later counsellor of king Charles V, before becoming bishop of Auxerre in 1372. He died on the 24th of September 13769. Nicolaus de Coulon is found to have been cancellarius of the duke of Burgundy and cantor of the cathedral of Autun, in which city he became bishop in 1387, a year after his nomination in Coutances. Nicolaus de Coulon stayed in Autun until his death on the 20th of December 1400'0. Nevertheless, the solution proposed by Maier leaves room for too many pos- sibilities to permit a specific identification of our author. A more serious objec- tion is that it might in fact be leading us astray in that it excludes other possibili- ties for resolving 'NIC'. .

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