Friday 17th March 14:15—15:45, Session 1
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| Overview of programme | ||||||
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Session: |
Religious Didactic 1 |
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Place: |
Seminarraum 1 |
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Moderator: |
Steven Rozenski |
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Paper 1: |
The Doctrine of the Hert and Two Manuscripts of Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy |
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Paper 2: |
Croatian Translation of the Latin Treatise Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem from the 15th Century |
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Paper 3: |
Peter Idley’s Instructions to his Son: A Unique English Reception of Albertanus’ Treatises |
The Doctrine of the Hert and Two Manuscripts of Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy
Anne Mouron
De doctrina cordis, thought to be the work of Gerard of Lieges,1 was written originally in Latin and then translated into a number of European vernaculars, including Middle English and French. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 365 and London, British Library MS Add. 7970 are devotional manuscripst in French that were commissioned by Margaret for her own library.2 The two manuscripts contain illustrations which have attracted comment by art historians but much less effort has been spent on the texts.
MS Douce 365 is a compilation of nine different treatises by various authors, one of which is given the title ‘La garde du coeur et de l’ame’ by Kathleen Chesney in her article on this manuscript.3 Chesney writes ‘this is a translation of part of De custodia cordis (or De doctrina cordis)’,4 but this does not appear to be the case, although the two texts might be in some ways related. ‘La garde du coeur et de l’ame’ also survives in three other manuscripts in French libraries.5
MS Add. 7970, on the contrary, contains only one text, Le dialogue de la duchesse de Bourgogne a Jésus Christ, by Nicolas Finet, Margaret’s almoner who also compiled another manuscript for her.6
This dialogue is divided into a number of ‘articles’, the first of which is entitled: ‘ De la preparacion du ceur pour deuotement recepuoir Ihesu Crist a sa resufection et tres digne inhabitacion’. Nicolas Finet does not indicate what texts he used for his treatise, but this first article is reminiscent of the first part of De doctrina cordis.This paper purposes to examine how both of these texts, written for Margaret of York, are related to The Doctrine of the Hert and then to establish the role of Margaret as a reader of these texts.
1 Se Nigel Palmer, ‘The Authorship of De doctrina cordis’, in A Companion to the Doctrine of the Hert, ed. By D. Renevey and C. Whitehead (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2010), pp. 19-56.
2 See K. A. Barstow, ‘Appendix: The Library of Margaret of York and some Related Books’, in Margaret of York, Simon, Marmion ... (1992), pp. 257-263, no. 8, p. 260 and no. 2, p. 258.
3 See, Kathleen Chesney, ‘Notes on Some Treatises of Devotion Intended for Margaret of York (MS Douce 365)’, Medium Ævum, 20 (1951), 11-39.
4 Ibid., p. 26.
5 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, 2058; Bibliothèque nationale, MS. Fr. 1134; Bibliothèque Mazarine 788.
6 As far as is known, MS Add. 7970 is a unique manuscript.
Croatian Translation of the Latin Treatise Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem from the 15th Century
Andrea Radošević
This paper will examine older of the two Croatian translations of the Latin treatise Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem. The anonymus Latin text from the late 12th or early 13th century was earlier attributed to the St Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of Froidmont. The Latin treatise was primarly composed for nuns and women audience, but as recent studies about English and Spanish translations have shown the text was sometimes also used in male monasteries.
In both Croatian translations this treatise is attributed to the St Bernard. The first Croatian translation dates from the 15th century and was named Books of the St Bernard. It was written in the Glagolitic script (Petris Miscellany from the 1468) and contains first 13 out of 73 Latin chapters. This translation represents the gender adjustement of the text exclusivelly to the male audience. Almost all parts of the text that in the Latin treatise signal the female recipient were dismissed (mostly in descriptions of women everyday life) or replaced (all the instructions are addresses to brothers, instead of sisters). The emphasis has been shifted from the female instructions for a better life (bene vivendi) to the teachings about the general religious topics. The result of this adaptation was Croatian text composed of useful didactical readings selected from the mentioned chapters.
The second Croatian translation (named The teachings that St Bernard gave to his Sister) dates from the 16th century and it is kept in a few manuscripts written in the Latin script. The translation contains the same number of chapters as Latin treatise, but all the chapters were greatly shortened. When we are talking abouth the length and the amount of the translated chapters, the older translation is much more faithful to the Latin treatise. Unlike older translation, the text from the 16th century is addressed to the female audience.
This research aim to bring new insights about the role of the Liber in medieval vernacular literature. The research will show that parts of this treatise that were written for women also served as a useful source of instructive readings in miscellanies that were made either for the poorly educated monks or for lay audience. In will also be shown that changes in gender adressing of the Croatian text influenced on the later use of translation, considering different didacic compilations in the younger manuscripts.
Peter Idley’s Instructions to his Son: A Unique English Reception of Albertanus’ Treatises
Yoshinobu Kudo
Peter Idley’s Instructions to his Son has not received much critical attention since the publication of Charlotte D’Evelyn’s critical edition in 1935. In particular, while the adaptation of Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne, which constitutes most part of Book II of Instructions, has been given a critical focus by Matthew Sullivan, Book I, which is a selective translation of Albertanus’ Amore Dei and Liber consolationis, has scarcely received substantial study. This paper investigates the practice of Peter Idley’s translation and editing of Albertanus’ two texts. By comparing Idley’s text with its source texts written by Albertanus, it examines which parts Peter Idley selected from Albertanus’ two texts, how he combined and translated them, and where he altered largely. Based on the results from this comparative analysis, it argues about Idley’s editorial intention, and contrasts Idley with another late medieval English version of Albertanus, which is Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee. It also considers the reason for the relative popularity of Idley’s text for fifteenth-century readers, witnessed by nine surviving manuscripts. Finally, this paper places and looks Idley in the broader context of European receptions of Albertanus, and presents Idley as a unique example of an English reception of Albertanus.