CN.04102012.002
David Hook
MIMSS, Oxford
Faculty
of Medieval & Modern Languages, University of Oxford
Description
Cambridge
University Library MS 4408 is a box of loose MS fragments and single
leaves and contains some individual pieces of Hispanic interest,
including paper bifolia in Catalan and the single vellum leaf that is
the subject of this note; the latter piece is numbered (5) in the
box. Its existence was brought to my attention some years ago by
Michael Gullick, who noticed it while examining Romanesque MSS at
Cambridge. The leaf (the maximum dimensions of which measure 175 x
126mm) is written in dense black ink in a clear but not entirely
regular libraria media
hand, in a script palaeographically similar in stage of development
to (but much less accomplished in execution than) that of the MS of
the Historia Roderici.
The text is presented in a single text block occupying twenty-one
lines per side; there is a single red two-line initial ‘A’ on the
verso, opening the new
text after the red rubric ‘Sermo de die natalis domini’ which
occupies the remaining space in line 2 after the first sermon ends
earlier in the line. There are later Latin marginalia in a tiny
Gothic cursive on the outer and foot margins of the recto,
and a single line of Hebrew characters in a light brown ink has been
added in the foot margin of the verso.
The latter has been partly deciphered and its central element
identified by Dr César Merchán-Hamann of the Bodleian Library, to
whom I am grateful for this analysis, as a common benedictional
formula (‘peace be upon him/her’) frequently attached to names of
deceased religious authorities. The leaf is stained and has sustained
some damage to the outer margin and the outer lower corner; there is
also some loss of text into the gutter. The CUL identification ‘Add.
4408 (5)’ has been added in ink in the upper margin of the recto.
I am grateful to Dr Patrick Zutshi of Cambridge University Library
for permission to publish the text here.
Text
The leaf
contains the last twenty-three lines of one sermon, occupying the
recto and the first
one and a half lines of the verso,
and the rubric (as quoted above) and first nineteen lines of another,
the latter being for Christmas Day. Neither sermon is complete in
this copy. The technique is to follow quoted Biblical or
biblically-based liturgical text in Latin (sometimes reduced to
merely the initial letters of the words quoted) with its translation
into the vernacular; the vernacular is used also for the accompanying
explication and moral comment, and this indicates the nature of the
target congregation. Direct address to them by use of ‘Sennores’,
and their association with the preacher through use of the the
first-person plural and pronouns, are characteristic stylistic
resources in both sermons.
Edition
In the
following transcription contractions (including nomina
sacra) are resolved in italics, with the
exception of Latin Biblical quotations reduced to initial letters in
the MS, which are preserved in that form but identified in full form
in the accompanying notes on sources. Superscript letters in the same
hand as the text are not treated as contractions or interlinear
additions but as principal text. Word separation, capitals, and line
breaks are those of the original MS; redundant contraction strokes
where no contraction is present (e.g. on ‘coysos’ in line 18) are
ignored. The Tironian sign is represented in this transcription by
the ampersand. Punctuation of the original is restricted to punctus
and punctus elevatus,
which are here represented by the full stop and the colon
respectively. Bold type denotes the sections of text written in red
ink. Double vertical strokes mark the end of a side; ellipses within
brackets represent illegible or lost letters, and letters between
brackets represent conjecturally restored letters.
recto
| 1 | como el cieruo desea del agua dela fuent: quando a |
| grant set assi desea la mie alma ati señor. Y | |
| abrio las lenguas delos mudos quando disso. | |
| Agite penitenciam. Quando el dixo que prisiesen peni | |
| 5 | tençia los que primero auien uerguenza: clamaron peni |
| tencia Clamo el ladron enla cruz. & dixo. Mi | |
| serere mei domine dum uenerjs in regnum tuum. | |
| Señor aue mercet de mi: quando fores alto regno. | |
| Hodie mecum eris: in paradiso. Y el dixo oy | |
| 10 | seras conmigo: enel paradiso. Assi clamo mer |
| cet sancta maria magdalena. Assi fezo alos | |
| mudos fablar: Sennores conplido es lo que el | |
| prophetizo. Oy maes catar nos deuemos que non | |
| seamos ciegos: recognoscamos el nuestro señor | |
| 15 | en cielo. Non seamos sordos que nos digan Prop |
| terea uos non audistis quia ex domino non estis. Que | |
| nonos digan por que uos non oydes: Ka non | |
| sodes dedios: Non seamos coysos: cora[...]mos | |
| contra dios. Non seamos mudos. manifeste | |
| 20 | mos nuestros peccados. Que quando uenemos de |
| lant christus. enel dia del iudiçio [......] || |
verso
| 1 | mos con el entrar enel paradiso celestial. Vbi [....] |
| v. & r. per o. s. s. amen. Sermo de die natalis domini. [..] | |
| AppaRujt BENIGNitas Et humanita[s] | |
| saluatoris nostri domini. Non ex operibus iustici[..] | |
| 5 | q[..] fecimus nos s[..]s. s. m. s. n. fecit. Señor[..] |
| diz nos la sancta scirptura que aparescida no[s] | |
| es grant salut. & grant bien: en este dia. | |
| Maes non por uebras nin por merescimientos | |
| de nos mas por la sue piadat & por la | |
| 10 | sue misericordia nos saluo & nos saco: dela po |
| destat del diablo. El diablo nos auie metud[..] | |
| ensso podestat. con gra[n]t engenno por el pec | |
| cado de adan. Maes el nuestro señor que non quiso sofr[..] | |
| elengenno del enemigo mortal saconos d[..] | |
| 15 | so podestat por grant saber: assi como nos |
| auia el metudos por grant engenno. Tal om[..] | |
| era ad enbiar en saluamiento de tod el mun | |
| do: que non podiesse seder uenzudo. & con corazon lo | |
| fiziese: & con saber lo pensase. Non era ad enbiar | |
| 20 | omne puro alidiar conel diablo ca uenzudu seria. |
| Adan omne puro fue maes por humana fra || |
Linguistic Notes
Certain
critical linguistic characteristics of the text are associable with
the region of the Peninsula to the east and north-east of Old
Castile. The principal points of general linguistic interest noted
in the sermons are as follows.
recto
| 1 | fuent: apocope of final -e gives final -nt consonant group. |
| 2 | grant set: final -nt and -t; la mie: article plus possessive adjective; adjective form (raised final vowel). |
| 3 | preterite form disso (cf. dixo 9). |
| 5 | auien: -ie imperfect form; clamaron: initial cl- group. |
| 6 | clamo: initial cl- group. |
| 8 | mercet: final -t; fores: undiphthongised form; alto: article plus possessive adjective (= al tu), and adjective form. |
| 10 | paradiso: intervocalic -d-; clamo: initial cl- group. |
| 11 | fezo. |
| 13 | maes (Castilian más, mas); cf. verso, lines 8, 13, 21. |
| 14 | recognoscamos, spelling of nasal -gn-; el nuestro: article plus possessive. |
| 18 | coysos: a redundant contraction mark is present on this word in the MS; adj. < L coxus (Castilian cojo). Forms such as this persist in Aragonese to the modern era: see Rafael Andolz, Diccionario aragonés (Zaragoza: Editorial Librería General, 1977), s.v. coixo. |
| 20 | delant: apocope of final vowel producing -nt group. |
| 21 | iudiçio: intervocalic -d-. |
verso
| 1 | paradiso: intervocalic -d-. |
| 6 | diz: apocope of final vowel; scirptura: scribal transposition of -ri-. |
| 7 | grant salut; final -nt, -t. |
| 8 | uebras: diphthongised form (Castilian obras). |
| 9 | la sue: article plus possessive, and feminine adjective form; piadat: final -t, and open vowel. |
| 10 | podestat: final -t; grant: final –nt. |
| 11 | auie metudo: -ie imperfect. |
| 12 | sso: possessive without article; gra[n]t: final -nt; podestat: final –t. |
| 13 | el nuestro: article plus possessive. |
| 16 | auia: -ia imperfect; metudos: agreement with preceding direct object. |
| 17 | ad for a (an Aragonese characteristic; cf. line 19); tod: apocope. |
| 18 | seder: for ser. |
Certain
forms among those listed can be recognized as diagnostic Aragonese
linguistic features include the conservation of Latin initial cl-
(Castilian: cl > ll-,
Leonese: cl > ch-)
consistently in clamo,
clamaron; the
conservation of intervocalic Latin -d-
(paradiso, Castilian
paraiso; iudiçio,
Castilian juicio);
sedere > seder
(alternative seyer;
Castilian seer, ser);
ad for a;
coysos (Aragonese
coixos, Castilian
coxos, cojos).
Such solutions are recorded in the relevant sections of standard
manuals such as Vicente García de Diego, Dialectología
española, 3rd
edition (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1978), and Alonso
Zamora Vicente, Dialectología española,
2nd edition
(Madrid: Gredos, 1967).
Dating evidence
The
combination of linguistic features such as the general occurrence of
article plus possessive adjective solutions (only one case occurs
without an article), and -ie imperfect endings (with a single case of
-ia) could be consistent with a date for the text in the second half
of the XIIth century or the first half of the XIIIth.
Sources
Vulgate
editions collated for this study are Biblia
sacra iuxta Vulgatam Clementinam nova editio,
Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 14, ed. Alberto Colunga and Lorenzo
Turrado (7th ed.,
Madrid: BAC, 1985); Nova Vulgata Bibliorum
Sacrorum editio (Rome: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, 1979); and Biblia sacra Vulgatae
editionis [...], 2 vols (Paris: P.
Lethielleux, 1891). Textual variants in the relevant passages are
minor, (recorded here as ‘[otherwise...]’), and it is uncertain
which precise form (let alone which manuscript) of the biblical text
was used by the author of the sermons.
recto
| 1.2 | The text immediately preceding the opening words of the extant text must have been that of Psalm 42 (41).2: ‘Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus’, the vernacular translation of which begins the extant fragment. |
| 4 | ‘Agite penitenciam’: various occurrences e.g. Matthew 3.2 (‘Poenitentiam agite’, from John the Baptist), and less precise instances such as Acts 2.38 (‘Poenitentiam – inquit – agite’, from St Peter), Acts 8.22 (‘Poenitentiam itaque age’, St Peter), Apocalypse 2.5 (‘Age poenitentiam’). Christ’s own words elsewhere are a less precise parallel (e.g. Luke 13.3: ‘sed nisi poenitentiam habueritis, omnes similiter peribitis’), and a common OT and NT formulation is simply ‘Poenitemini’ (e.g. Acts 3:19). |
| 6.9 | Luke 23.42-43: ‘“Domine [otherwise ‘Iesu’], memento mei cum veneris in regnum tuum”. Et dixit illi Jesus [otherwise om. ‘Jesus’]: “Amen dico tibi: Hodie mecum eris in paradiso.”’ This is given here as ‘miserere’ for ‘memento’. |
| 15-16 | John 8.47: ‘propterea vos non auditis, quia ex Deo non estis’. |
verso
| 1.2 | Numerous liturgical occurrences, e.g. Missale Romanum, at offertory (‘Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus: per omnia saecula saeculorum’), following Agnus Dei (‘Qui vivis et regnas Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum’), and at purification of the chalice (‘Qui vivas et regnas in saecula saeculorum’); but note that in this sermon the quotation begins with ‘Ubi’ not ‘Qui’, a neat locative modification of the text to fit the context of the immediately preceding phrase. |
| 3.5 | Titus 3.4-5: ‘Cum autem benignitas et humanitas apparuit Salvatoris nostri Dei, non ex operibus iustitiae, quae fecimus nos, sed secundum suam misericordiam salvos nos fecit [...]’. |
Received 04 October
2012.
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