Ancient History in the Carolingian World
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ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE CAROLINGIAN WORLD CAROLINGIAN MARGINAL ANNOTATIONS ON THE WORKS OF SALLUST AND JUSTINUS Lenneke van Raaij front cover: Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, VLQ 32, 38v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16025, 15v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 16024, 14r ; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, n.a.l. 1601, 25r. Ancient history in the Carolingian World. Carolingian marginal annotations on the works of Sallust and Justinus Lenneke van Raaij (3749258) Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, track Medieval Studies RMA thesis, August 2016 supervisor: prof. dr. Mariken Teeuwen second supervisor: prof. dr. Marco Mostert TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 8 1.1 Ancient history in a Carolingian world ................................................................. 8 1.2 Modern scholarship on Roman historiography ................................................. 11 1.3 Methodology ........................................................................................................... 13 2 Annotating Sallust ......................................................................................................... 17 2.1 Sallust and his works ............................................................................................. 17 2.2 The transmission of Sallust’s works ..................................................................... 18 2.2.1 Complete witnesses ......................................................................................... 19 2.2.2 Florilegia and miscellanies ............................................................................. 20 2.3 Marginalia ................................................................................................................ 22 2.3.1 General remarks on the marginalia .............................................................. 23 2.4 Annotating Paris, lat. 16024 ................................................................................... 23 2.4.1 Majuscule catchphrases .................................................................................. 24 2.4.2 Speeches and letters ........................................................................................ 26 2.4.3 Nota-signs ......................................................................................................... 28 2.4.4 Vocabulary ....................................................................................................... 29 2.4.5 The annotator ................................................................................................... 30 2.5 Annotating Paris, lat. 16025 ................................................................................... 31 2.5.1 Type α, the teacher .......................................................................................... 33 2.5.2 The γ-type ......................................................................................................... 34 2.5.3 Isidore, Priscian and Servius .......................................................................... 36 2.5.4 Interlinear glosses ............................................................................................ 38 2.5.5 The annotators ................................................................................................. 41 3 Annotating Justinus ...................................................................................................... 42 3.1 Justinus and his work ............................................................................................. 42 3.2 Introduction to the manuscripts and their margins .......................................... 44 3.2.1 florilegia ............................................................................................................ 44 3.2.2 complete witnesses .......................................................................................... 45 [5] 3.3 Paris, n.a.l. 1601 ....................................................................................................... 46 3.4 Gieβen H 79 ............................................................................................................. 47 3.5 VLQ 32 ...................................................................................................................... 49 3.5.1 Keywords .......................................................................................................... 50 3.5.2 Attention signs ................................................................................................. 51 3.5.3 Detailed information ....................................................................................... 53 3.6 The marginal commentary of books I-XI ............................................................ 53 3.6.1 Marginal commentary .................................................................................... 54 3.6.2 Shared interest ................................................................................................. 56 3.7 Conclusion: learning from Justinus? .................................................................... 57 4 Two ends of a spectrum ............................................................................................... 60 4.1 Manuscript evidence: two ends of a spectrum ................................................... 60 4.1.1 Sallust and Justinus in one manuscript ........................................................ 61 4.2 Sallust, Justinus and the liberal arts ..................................................................... 64 4.2.1 Sallust and Grammar ...................................................................................... 65 4.2.2 Justinus and oratory ........................................................................................ 67 4.3 Sallust, Justinus and historiography .................................................................... 69 4.3.1 Romans, Trojans and the Jews ....................................................................... 69 4.3.2 Translatio imperii ? ............................................................................................ 71 4.4 Mirrors of Princes ................................................................................................... 73 4.4.1 Kings and rulers in the margin ...................................................................... 74 4.5 Military strategy and the behaviour of soldiers ................................................. 77 4.5.1 Learning about the practice of war ............................................................... 78 4.6 The annotators ......................................................................................................... 80 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 82 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 84 Appendix I - Manuscript Descriptions .............................................................................. 89 Appendix II Nota-signs Paris, lat. 16024 ............................................................................ 93 Appendix III Chrismon signs in Paris, lat. 16025 ........................................................... 100 [6] Appendix IV Marginal Commentary ............................................................................... 102 Appendix V Transcriptions from Paris, lat. 6256 ............................................................ 111 [7] INTRODUCTION Ceterum ex aliis negotiis quae ingenio exercentur, in primis magno usui est memoria rerum gestarum. - Sallust, Bellum Jugurthinum, 4.11 ‘But among sundry intellectual pursuits, the recording of past deeds is especially serviceable.’2 Nine centuries after the composition of these words by the Roman historian Sallust (86 – 36 BC), Carolingian scholars had their own thoughts about what it was that made history ‘serviceable’. Now, another millennium later, I will try to reconstruct what ninth-century scholars found useful and interesting about historical writings such as those of Sallust. 1.1 Ancient history in a Carolingian world Recently, a volume has been published on history writing in the Early Middle Ages: The Resources of the Past in Early Medieval Europe.3 The editors concluded that, in the early medieval period, historians relied on late-antique Christian chronicles and histories to construct their own past, to define their identity and write about the Roman empire. Especially the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea (263-339 AD) was a fruitful source for their historiography.4 In the ninth century, when classical texts 1 In this thesis, I will not use the edition Leighton Reynolds made of the works of Sallust for quotations of the texts, but the ninth-century manuscripts themselves. (L.D. Reynolds, C. Sallusti Crispi. Catilina, Iugurtha, Historiarum, Fragmenta Selecta, Appendix Sallustiana (Oxford, 1991)) Readings and punctuation differ considerably from the ninth-century manuscripts studied, as Reynolds based his edition on manuscripts from the eleventh century onwards. Contrary to the ninth-century manuscripts that use classical spelling, the manuscripts from the eleventh century onwards use archaic spelling. As my research is explicitly on the ninth-century manuscripts, I believe it necessary to