Two Aragonese-Latin Sermon Fragments in Cambridge University Library MS 4408

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.