The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages LANGUAGE THEORY, MYTHOLOGY, AND FICTION JESSE M. GELLRICH Cornell University Press ITH ACA AND LONDON Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that aided in bringing this book to publication Copyright © 1985 by Cornell University First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1987 Second paperback printing 2019 The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-0-8014-1722-1 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-5017-4070-1 (pbk.: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-5017-4071-8 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-5017-4072-5 (epub/mobi) Librarians: A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Excerpts from Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, translated, with a commentary by Charles Singleton, Bollingen Series 80, Volume 1: Inferno, copyright © 1973 by Princeton University Press; Volume 3: Paradiso, copyright © 1975 by Princeton University Press, are reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. For my family and in memory of my father 19°1-197° Letters are indeed the indices of things, the signs of words, in which there is such power that they speak to us without voice the discourse of the absent. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum But the Idolsof the Market-place are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliance of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered phi­ losophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Francis Bacon, Novum organum CONTENTS Acknowledgments 11 Abbreviations 13 Introduction 17 [1] The Argument of the Book: Medieval Writing and Modern Theory 29 [2] The Semiology of Space in the Middle Ages: On Manuscript Painting, Sacred Architecture, Scholasticism, and Music 51 [3] The Language of Mythology: On Medieval Grammar and Hermeneutics 94 [4] Dante's Liber Occultorum and the Structure of Allegory in the Commedia 139 [7] Contents [5] The Origin of Language Reconsidered: Chaucer's House of Fame 167 [6] Problems of Misreading: The "Prologue" to The Legend of Good Women 202 [7] Interpreting the "Naked Text" in the "General Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales 224 [8] Retrospect: On Historical Change 248 Bibliography 257 Index 287 [8] ILLUS TRATIONS [ 1 ] John eats the book. Apocalypse 10.9- 10. Manuscript illumination (early fourteenth century). 16 [2] Matthew receiving the Word of God. Wooden panel. Master Theodoric (ca. 1360). 36 [3] Descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Apocalypse 21.9-27. Manuscript illumination (early fourteenth century). 57 [4] The Trinity. Central triptych panel. Lucca di Tomme (mid-fourteenth century). 58 [5] Cross carpet page. Lindisfarne Gospels (late seventh century). 61 [6] Map of the world (ca. 1300). 63 [ 9] Illustrations [7] David with beast musicians. Psalter. Manuscript illumination (ca. 1300). 8g [8] Harp (detail). Right wing triptych. Garden of Earthly Delights. Hieronymus Bosch (fifteenth century). go [g) Grammar with two children. Wooden statue. Souabe (ca. 1330). 97 [ 10] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my warmest thanks to all the people who have given me support of various kinds during the development of this book. First of all, to Herbert N. Schneidau, whose work in related areas of scholarship inspired my own, lowe a special debt for en­ couragement all along the way, for reading the entire manuscript, and for offering many valuable comments. I am also grateful to James McMichael, not only for reading each of the chapters, but also for being an important influence on my work throughout its several stages. Henry A. Kelly has also been a dependable reader and supporter. So too has Harold E. Toliver, who read and re­ sponded to early sections of this book, shaping its course signifi­ cantly. Hayden White has helped me in countless ways with his generous advice on chapter 1 and on the major themes of succeed­ ing chapters. At Cornell University Press, Bernhard Kendler has taken particular care in handling this manuscript, and I am grate­ ful to him and to the anonymous readers for their extensive re­ sponses. I also thank James L. Calderwood, Robin McAllister, Eugene Kaelin, R. Howard Bloch, John Ahern, Francis Duggan, and Barbara Pavlock for their help during the past several years. Many students have participated in the genesis of this book, too many to name. Their questions and eagerness have been continu­ ously inspiring. To the three students who worked directly on the manuscript, I express my appreciation: to Margaret Ward for help with footnotes in chapters 1, 2, and 3; to Richard Divozzo and Phylis Floyd for assistance with the Bibliography. The librarians at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz have of­ fered resource materials; and the reference and art librarians at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, have worked with me tire- [ 11] Acknowledgments lessly on sources and addresses for permissions. Thanks, too, go to Elizabeth Beatson of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton Uni­ versity for research on one of the illustrations. The editors of Clio have kindly granted me permission to publish as chapter 1 a revised version of an essay that originally appeared in Clio 10, 3 (1981):245-263. D. Reidel Publishing Company has allowed me to adopt for chapter 3 a few pages that appeared in An­ alecta Husserliana 18 (1984): 186-189. I am also grateful to the fol­ lowing museums and libraries, which have supplied photographs for the illustrations and granted me permission to reproduce them: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Curators of Karlstejn Castle, the Putnam Foundation, the Timken Art Gallery, the De­ partment of Manuscripts in the British Library, the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral, the Austrian National Library, the Prado Museum, and the Bavarian National Museum. Finally, the assistance of my mother and the presence of my chil­ dren have been sources of renewed encouragement, especially to­ ward the end. But I thank, more than anyone else, my wife, Michelle, for her continuing interest in the ideas of this book, her deep insight into them, and her many thoughtful suggestions. Without her excellent intelligence about literary matters and her devoted support of my daily efforts, the development of this vol­ ume would have been very different. JESSE M. GELLRICH Ann Arbor, Michigan ABBREVIATIONS me Actes 4 Arts Liberaux et Philosophie au Moyen Age. Actes du 4 Congres International de Philosophie Medievale ALMA Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi CI Critical Inquiry CIMAGL Cahiers de I'lnstitut du Moyen-Age Grec et Latin CJL Canadian Journal of Linguistics CPDMA Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi EIC Essays in Criticism ELH English Literary History ES English Studies FL Foundations of Language HL Historiographia Linguistica: International Journalfo r the History of Linguistics JEGP Journalof English and Germanic Philology JHI Journal of the History oj Ideas Lg Language MLN Modern Language Notes MLQ Modern Language Quarterly MLR ModernLanguage Review MP Modern Philology MS Mediaeval Studies MSLL Monograph Series on Languagesand Linguistics NLH New Literary History NM Neuphilologische Mitteilungen PBA Proceedings of the British Academy PL Patrologia Latina PQ Philological Quarterly REL Review of English Literature SiHoL Studies in the History of Linguistics SPh Studia Phonetica UCSLL University of Colorado Studies in Language and Literature UTQ University of Toronto Quarterly The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages Plate 1. John eats the book. Apocalypse 10.9- 10 (early fourteenth cen­ tury). Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 1968. MS 68.174, fot. 16v• And I went to the angel, saying unto him that he should give me the book. And he said to me: Take the book and eat it up.... And I took the book from the hand of the angel and ate it up; and it was in my mouth, sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it my belly was bitter. Apocalypse 10.9-10 [ 1 6] INTROD UCTION For Christ is a sort of book written into the skin of the virgin .... That book was spoken in the disposition of the Father, written in the conception of the mother, exposited in the clarificationof the nativity, corrected in the passion, erased in the flagellation, punc­ tuated in the imprint of the wounds, adorned in the crucifixion above the pulpit, illuminated in the outpouring of blood, bound in the resurrection, and examined in the ascension. Pierre Bersuire, Repertorium morale This book is intended, first of all, to carry on the work of such scholars as Johan Huizinga, Erich Auerbach, Ernst Curtius, Charles Singleton, and D. W. Robertson, Jr., who have helped to assess the place of literature among the various cultural forms of the middle ages.' But it is also devoted to reconsidering the grounds on which this place may be established in light of propos­ als in critical theory that have emerged since structuralism. I attempt to develop a systematic approach to the continuity of me­ dieval ideas about speaking, writing, and texts-the history of auc­ tores ("authors") and auctoritates ("sources"); this history is studied in theological and philosophical traditions as well as in medieval fictional writing.