Library News: A Manuscript Fragment Preserved Intact
Apr 6 2015
A Manuscript Fragment Preserved Intact
By David A. Jordan
At the 13 November 2014 Bloomsbury London auction, antiquarian bookseller Christopher Edwards represented the Stanford University Libraries and successfully bid on lot 369, described as a fragment comprising 49 folia from a decorated manuscript on vellum produced in France in the mid- to late- 13th century of the De Laudibus Beatae Mariae Virginis of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus. The acquisition augments Stanford’s 13th-century manuscripts, which are important but not plentiful. Longstanding holdings of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Codex 0414) and the Statutes of Marseilles (Codex 0342) were expanded recently by a Parisian portable Bible (Codex 1053) with a full cycle of 84 historiated initials and Interpretation of Hebrew Names (Codex 0870) in its original board binding, and now by this substantial fragment (awaiting cataloging).
Traditionally attributed to Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-1280), the great natural philosopher who interpreted Aristotle and was the teacher of Thomas of Aquinas, the De laudibus has been described by Henry Osborn Taylor as “prodigious” and “astounding”: “Symbolically, Mary is everything imaginable; she has every virtue and a mass of power and privileges” (The Mediaeval Mind, 1951 ed., v. 2, pp. 461-2). Ann W. Astell found in it connections to other works of Albertus Magnus: “Both De Eucharistica and his twelve-book, encyclopedic praise of Mary are filled with quotations from the Song of Songs” (Eating Beauty, 2006, p.58). Despite these similarities, most modern scholars doubt that Albertus wrote the work. R. E. Kaske, for instance, said, “The most elaborate medieval encyclopedia on Mary is by Richard of St. Laurence (13th C) … A shorter but very useful work by Albertus himself is the Biblia Mariana … arranged by books of the Bible; within each book it proceeds chapter by chapter, explaining all references, both literal and allegorical, to Mary” (Medieval Christian Literary Imagery, 1988, p.143). More recently, Brian Reynolds also attributed the work to Richard of Saint Laurence and said of its depiction of Mary that “just as Christ, the Mediator between God and humanity, came through her, humanity can approach God through her” (Gateway to Heaven, 2012, p. 234).
The fragment acquired by Stanford preserves parts of Book XI, summarized in the 1651 edition of Albertus’s Opera as De munitionibus, & navigiis, quae possunt signare Mariam, including allegorical comparisons of Mary to a civitas (city), munitio (protective wall), and navis (ship) as well as the book’s explicit (closing words). It also contains a significant portion of the concluding and highly influential Book XII, De horto concluso, cui sponsus comparat Mariam in Canticis (again according to the 1651 heading). In the surviving leaves labelled Maria ortus (i.e. hortus) conclusus (Mary the enclosed garden), the garden is imbued with delectabilibus (pleasures), floribus (flowers), and aromatibus (spices) while Mary is allegorically paradysus (paradise), lilium (lily), rosa (rose), and pluvia (rainfall). A marginal comment cites Boethius. The motif of an enclosed or walled garden emblematic of the Virgin Mary originated in the Song of Songs and became a prominent theme in late medieval and early modern art and poetry, perhaps transmitted by this pseudo-Albertan work.
The manuscript, in excellent condition except for some cockling, will reward further codicological analysis. The parchment leaves are relatively small (c. 185 x 130 mm.) and irregularly shaped, indicating that some were cut from the shoulders and thus not intended for a deluxe, illustrated manuscript or wealthy patron. Hair follicles are visible throughout, as are the prickings placed in the outer margins for ruling. The script is Gothic Textualis, with the text arranged in double columns of 40 lines.
This fragment of De Laudibus Beatae Mariae Virginis has a brief traceable provenance. It was auctioned at the 5 December 2006 Sotheby’s sale as lot 56, a group of unbound leaves. The purchaser subsequently bound them (although at least one folium is incorrectly ordered) in modern vellum housed in a half cloth box labeled “Manuscript, Albertus Magnus, The Praise of the Blessed Virgin, 1250.” We at the Stanford Libraries applaud the bookselling and collecting communities for preserving intact this rather early and potentially significant manuscript. Had it been dispersed as single leaves, sharing the modern fate of so many such fragments, it would be impossible now to reconstruct how Book XII, on Mary the enclosed garden, was understood by medieval readers through the complex and intricate series of marginalia connected by long, red lines to the text, which surely merit a fuller examination as the manuscript’s most compelling visual characteristic.
