Abstract
At the 1996 Groningen encyclopedia congress, Christel Meier presented an article on the classification and arrangement of knowledge in medieval encyclopedias. She argued that our understanding of the organization of these works can be enhanced by focusing on three specific topics: the intended audience of these works, their purposes, and the socio-cultural context in which they emerged. This approach enabled her to distinguish the general encyclopedias from several types of Western encyclopedias that were written for particular needs and purposes or for a specific audience.1
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References
Christel Meier, “Organisation of Knowledge and Encyclopaedic ordo: Functions and Purposes of a Universal Literary Genre,” in Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts: Proceedings of the Second COMERS Congress, Groningen, 1–4 July 1996, ed. Peter Binkley (Leiden, 1997), 103–26.
Michel De Boüard, “Réflexions sur l’encyclopédisme médiéval,” in LEncyclo-pédisme: Actes du Colloque de Caen, 12–16 janvier 1987, ed. Annie Becq (Paris, 1991), 281.
De Boüard, “Réflexions,” 285.
On the definition of the medieval encyclopedia, see Bernard Ribémont, “On the Definition of an Encyclopaedic Genre in the Middle Ages,” in Binkley, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, 47–61. On the systematic arrangement of information in the encyclopedias, see Eva Albrecht, “The Organization of Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum maius and of Some Other Latin Encyclopedias,” in the present volume, 48–55.
Notably, provisions 10 and 11. See Constitutionen concilii quarti Lateranensis una cum commentariis glossatorum, 1981, ed. A. García y García, in Monumenta iuris canonici, Series A: Corpus glossatorum, Vol. 2 (Vatican City, 1981), 59–60.
See Mary A. Rouse and Richard H. Rouse, “The Development of Research Tools in the Thirteenth Century,” in A. Garcíay Garcí, Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame, Ind., 1991) 221–55;
and Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, “Ordinatio and Compilatio Revisited,” in Ad litteram: Authoritative Texts and Their Medieval Readers, ed. Mark D. Jordan and Kent Emery Jr. (Notre Dame, 1992), 113–34, esp. 126–7.
See Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, “Tabula alphabetica: Von den Anfängen alphabetischer Registerarbeiten zu geschichtlichen Werken (Vincenz von Beauvais OP, Johannes von Hautfuney, Paulinus Minorita OFM),” in Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel, Vol. 2 (Göttingen, 1972), 902–7; and Albrecht, “Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum maius,” 55–7.
On this subject see, e.g., Mark D. Jordan, “Aquinas Reading Aristotle’s Ethics” in Jordan and Emery, Ad Utieram, 229–49.
See Meier, “Organisation of Knowledge,” 113–25. On the criterion of comprehensiveness, see Robert L. Fowler, “Encyclopaedias: Definitions and Theoretical Problems,” in Binkley, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, 9.
For an excellent discussion of the notion of Weltbuch, see Christel Meier, “Grundzüge der mittelalterlichen Enzyklopädik: Zu Inhalten, Formen und Funktionen einer problematischen Gattung,” in Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit. Symposion Wolfenbüttel, 1981, ed. Ludger Grenzmann and Karl Stackmann (Stuttgart, 1984), 472–80.
These combinations are discussed in some detail in Albrecht, “Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum maius,” 49–50.
This concise description of the Augustian idea is taken from Peter Binkley, “Preachers’ Responses to Thirteenth-Century Encyclopaedism,” in Ludger Grenzmann and Karl Stackmann, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, 80.
Libellas apologeticus, chap. 5. The translation is adapted from Binkley, “Preachers’ Responses,” 80. The text, as quoted in Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, “Geschichtsbetrachtung bei Vincenz von Beauvais: Die Apologia actoris zum Speculum maius,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 34 (1978): 473, runs as follows: Ipsa namque mens plerumque paululum a prefatis cogitationum et affectionum fecibus se erigens, et in specula rationis—ut potest—assurgens, quasi de quodam eminenti loco totius mundi magnitudinem uno ictu considerat, infinita loca diversis creature generibus repleta intra se continentem. Evum quoque totius mundi videlicet a principio usque nunc uno quodam aspectu nichilominus conspicit, ibique tempora omnia per diversas generationum successiones rerum mutationes continentia quasi sub quadam linea comprehendit, et inde saltern intuitu fidei ad cogitandum utcumque creatoris ipsius magnitudinem, pulchritudinem atque perpetuitatem ascendit.
On Alexander Neckam, see Richard W. Hunt, The Schools and the Cloister: The Life and Writings of Alexander Nequam (1157–1217), ed. Margaret Gibson (Oxford, 1984).
Alexandri Neckam, “De naturis rerum libro duo, “with the Poem of the Same Author,” De laudibus divinae sapientiae,” ed. Thomas Wright (London, 1863; reprint, Nendeln, 1967).
See Hunt, Schools and the Cloister, 80.
See Neckam, De naturis rerum libro duo, 1–3.
See Neckam, De naturis rerum libro duo, book 1, chap. 3 (69–70), 61 (110), and 75 (120).
See Hunt, Schools and the Cloister, 82, n. 79.
For an introduction to Bartholomaeus and his work, see Michael C. Seymour (and colleagues), Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopedia (Aldershot, 1992).
See Bartholomaei Anglici de Genuinis Rerum Coelestium, Terrestrium et Inferarum Propietatibus, Libri XVIII& Cui accessit Liber XIX. de Variarum Rerum Accidentibus, ed. Georgius B. Pontanus (Frankfurt, 1601; reprint, Frankfurt am Main, 1964), 1 resp. 1261; a similar idea is expressed in book 3,19 (70).
See, e.g., Heinz Meyer, “Ordo rerum und Registerhilfen in mittelalterlichen Enzyklopädiehandschriften,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 25 (1991): 335, for marginal notes “on preachers and monks” (Nota de predicatoribus and contemplatiuis) and “on Christ’s Passion” (Nota de passione Christi) in Bartholomaeus’ section on the pelican; idem, “Zu Formen und Funktionen der Textbearbeitung und Werkerschließung in der überlieferung des Liber de proprietatibus rerum,” in Der Codex im Gebrauch: Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums, 11–13 Juni 1992, ed. Christel Meier, Dagmar Hüpper and Hagen Keller (Munich, 1996), 214–6, for notes “on Christ or the bishop” (Nota de Christo siue de prelato), “on contempt of God” (Nota de contemptu Dei), and “on Christ’s death” (Nota de morte Christi) also in the section on the pelican; Juris G. Lidaka, “Bartholomaeus Anglicus in the Thirteenth Century,” in Binkley, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, 405, for a gloss “on the gathering of temporal or spiritual wealth” (Nota de aggregacione diviciarum temporalium uel spiritualium) in the section on the porcupine gathering apples; and the Lexikon des Mittelalters, Vol. 1 (Munich, 1977), 1492–3, for marginal notes “about a gormandizer” (Nota de gula) and “against jealousy” (Nota contra invidiam).
On Thomas of Cantimpré, see Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, ed. H. Boese (Berlin, 1973), v–xi;
Thomas Cantimpratensis, Lexikon des Mittelalters, Vol. 8 (Munich, 1996) 711–14.
See Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, prologue, 4–5.
Thomas Cantimpratensis, Liber de natura rerum, book 4, resp. chap. 76 (151), chap. 80 (154) and chap. 83 (155).
Around the year 1245 the Speculum maius was a bipartite work consisting of the Speculum naturale and the Speculum historíale, with each part containing thirty books, and each book divided into chapters. Soon afterwards, Vincent began to expand, update and rearrange his work. On the genesis of the Speculum maius, see Monique Paulmier-[Foucart], “Etude sur l’état des connaissances au milieu du XIIIe siècle: Nouvelles recherches sur la genèse du Speculum maius de Vincent de Beauvais,” Spicae 1 (1978): 91–121; Johannes B. Voorbij, “La version Klosterneuburg et la version Douai du Speculum historíale, manifestations de l’évolution du texte,” in Vincent de Beauvais: intentions et réceptions d’une oeuvre encyclopédique au moyen âge: Actes du XIV e Colloque de l’Institut d’études médiévales, organisé conjointement par l’Atelier Vincent de Beauvais & et l’Institut d’études médiévales & 27–30 avril 1988, ed. Monique Paulmier-Foucart, Serge Lusignan and Alain Nadeau, Cahiers d’études médiévales, Cahier spécial, 4 (Saint-Laurent [Montreal], 1990), 111–40; M.-C. Duchenne, “Autour de 1254, une révision capétienne du Speculum historíale,” in Paulmier-Foucart, Lusignan, Nadeau, Vincent de Beauvais, 141–66; and Johannes B. Voorbij, “Het Speculum historíale van Vincent van Beauvais: Een studie van zijn ontstaansgeschiedenis” (Ph.D. diss., Groningen, 1991).
See Libellus apologeticus, chaps. 4 and 17. See further, Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, “Geschichtsbetrachtung bei Vincenz von Beauvais,” 469–70 and 493.
Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum naturale 13, c. 94 and 98, in Bibliotheca Mundi: Vincentii Burgundi, ex ordine Praedicatorum venerabilis episcopi Bellovacensis, Speculum quadruplex, naturale, doctrinale, morale, historíale &, ed. Benedictines of St. Vaast, Vol. 1 (Douai, 1624; reprint, Graz, 1964–1965), 1434 and 1435–6.
At present we know of fifteen manuscript copies of Alexander Neckam’s work (see Hunt, Schools and the Cloister, 134–6); more than 165 copies of Bartho-lomaeus’ De proprietatibus rerum (see Seymour, Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopedia, 257–61); and more than 150 copies of Thomas’ De natura rerum (see Thomas Kaeppeli and Emilio Panella, Scriptores ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi, Vol. 4 (Rome, 1993), 347). As for Vincent’s Speculum maius, one can mention 190 copies, or more than 300, depending on the parameters chosen (see Johannes B. Voorbij, “Gebrauchsaspekte des Speculum maius von Vinzenz von Beauvais,” in: Meier, Hüpper, and Keller, Der Codex im Gebrauch, 226–31).
Catalogues of the medieval libraries of English religious houses suggest that the encyclopedias are vastly outnumbered by patristic texts, saints’ lives, service-books, and Bibles. See Michael W. Twomey, “Towards a Reception History of Western Medieval Encyclopaedias in England Before 1500,” in Binkley, Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts, 349.
With regard to the following paragraph, see further, Voorbij, “Gebrauchsaspekte des Speculum maius von Vinzenz von Beauvais,” 226–31.
This information is derived from the publications mentioned in n. 29.
See Michael C. Seymour, “Some Medieval French Readers of De proprietatibus rerum” Scriptorium 28 (1974): 100–3.
See Twomey, “Towards a Reception History,” 358.
See Voorbij, “Het Speculum historíale,” 292–338; and idem, “Gebrauchsaspekte des Speculum maius,” 238–9.
See Jacques Berlioz and Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu, “Les recueils dexempla et la diffusion de l’encyclopédisme médiéval,” in L’enciclopedismo medievale, ed. Michelangelo Picone (Ravenna, 1994), 179–212.
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Voorbij, J.B. (2000). Purpose and Audience: Perspectives on the Thirteenth-Century Encyclopedias of Alexander Neckam, Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Thomas of Cantimpré and Vincent of Beauvais. In: Harvey, S. (eds) The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9389-2_2
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