Biblical glossary as a research problemThe Biblical glossary is one of the most important phenomena in the history of medieval scholarship, it combines the text of the Scriptures with a commentary in a special graphic layout. It played an important part in the popularisation of the Biblical studies. The glossary appeared around the turn of the twelve century in northern France in the milieu of cathedral school at Laon, with the key figure of Master Anselm. Already before the mid-twelve century glosses to individual books of the Bible gained huge popularity, and had hundreds of copies. At a certain time – it is thought today that it was the early thirteenth century – the text of the Glossary got stabilised. And although in the thirteenth century its popularity began to fade, it was copied to the end of the medieval period, and then many times published in print.Modern research into the glossary, although initiated in the nineteenth century, has in fact been developed in the 1980s. But ambitious source research and comparative analyses have shown that the Biblical glossary is a very difficult discipline. It was comparatively easy for researchers to have got through hagiographical legends that grew up around the glossary (for example the alleged authorship of Walafrid Strabon), but despite all the efforts only one book (Song of Songs) and some other fragments were published in a critical edition. In the course of ongoing studies more and more apparently “sure” points in our knowledge about the glossary are discredited, such as, for instance, the conviction that the glossary text had stabilised at one point of time. What hampers the research is mainly an enormous number of manuscript copies containing glosses, amounting to thousands of them. What is more, the production of those manuscripts was strictly standardised, making it difficult to establish not only their actual chronology, but also their place of origin. The research into the Biblical glossary is still a growing field of study.
The article deals with the development of graphical systems of presenting history in universal chronicles on the instances of Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome in late antiquity, Martinus Polonus in the thirteenth century, and Werner Rolevinck at the break of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. With the translation of the Eusebius’ Chronikoi Canones performed by Jerome, the synchronistic table was introduced into the Western historiographical tradition. This form of presenting history became firmly rooted in Latin chronicles, in particular within the genre of universal chronicles, which endeavoured to recount the history of mankind from Adam to the Final Judgement, and were very popular well into the early modern period. The author argues that the chronicles of Eusebius/Jerome and Martinus Polonus simply utilized synchronicity, in their pursuit to produce encyclopaedic works, aimed at the scholarly reader. In their intention, the synchronistic table was a technical means for a more effective presentation of past events. With Werner Rolevinck the case was different. The layout introduced by him was no longer asynchronistic table, but an attempt at visualizing history, with very little attention paid to precise dating of various events and persons. He constructed his complicated graphical system for religious purposes, to contemplate the magnificence of God’s creation, in accordance with the ideas of the devotio moderna, and destined his work for a much wider audience than scholars.
Composed between the years 1468–1472 by the Carthusian monk from Cologne Werner Rolevinck, the Fasciculus Temporum belonged to the last wave of medieval universal chronicles, distinguished by the fact that these works received immediate printed distribution. However, the information content and type furnished by Rolevinck with respect to ancient history is truly disillusioning. Compared to previous authors of universal chronicles, ranging back to Martinus Polonus (13th c.), or even earlier writers, Rolevinck’s data and interpretations differ in no respect at all. When one remembers that contemporary renaissance historians were already depicting antiquity in a very different manner, Rolevinck’s attitude seems truly out of place. And yet his work enjoyed tremendous popularity even measured by the standards of the printed book. Over the ten years from the fi rst edition, his chronicle was reprinted fourteen times, and at least that many times over the following years, until his death in 1502. The phenomenon of Rolevinck’s popularity cannot be explained otherwise than by pointing to a completely different function of the book than learned use, typical for earlier universal chronicles. The Fasciculus Temporum should be treated as an element of the religious movement known as devotio moderna. The chronicle was not intended for the intellectuals, but for ordinary people, who could learn from it the doctrine of the divine plan for human salvation inscribed into the history of mankind. The book offered not only the basic facts and names of Biblical history, but also an original visualisation of the historical process in its graphical layout, which could be meditated on. Moreover, it seems that the use of print on the part of Rolevinck was conscious and intentional. This feature too links him with the devotio moderna.
PL
Powstały w latach 1468–1472 Fasciculus temporum kartuza Wernera Rolevincka należy do ostatniej fali średniowiecznych kronik uniwersalnych, które swe upowszechnienie zawdzięczają już nowemu medium druku. Niemniej treści przekazywane przez tę kronikę w odniesieniu do historii starożytnej, zaskakują swym konserwatyzmem. W porównaniu z takimi kronikami jak Marcina Polaka (XIII w.) lub nawet wcześniejszymi, Rolevinck ani na jotę nie wydaje się nowocześniejszy ani pod względem relacjonowanych wydarzeń ani ich interpretacji. Tymczasem współczesna mu historiografi a renesansowa traktowała starożytność już w inny sposób. Niemniej to właśnie Fasciculus temporum zażywał niezwykłej popularności, rozpowszechniony w czternastu wydaniach w pierwszym dziesięcioleciu po ukazaniu się editio princeps, i w co najmniej kolejnych czternastu do śmierci autora w 1502 r., by nie wspomnieć o przekładach na języki narodowe. Zjawisko popularności dzieła Rolevincka daje się wytłumaczyć tylko poprzez skierowanie wzroku ku zupełnie innemu odbiorcy niż publiczność wysoko wykształcona, czyli typowy czytelnik średniowiecznych kronik uniwersalnych. Fasciculus temporum należy postrzegać jako element ruchu religijnego zwanego devotio moderna. Kronika ta powstała z myślą nie tyle o intelektualistach co zwykłych ludziach, którzy mieli przy jej pomocy poznawać naukę o boskim planie zbawienia wpisanym w dzieje ludzkości. Odnotowywała podstawowe wydarzenia i postaci historii biblijnej i późniejszej, porządkując je chronologicznie. Przedstawiała także oryginalną wizualizację dziejów, osiągniętą w drodze specyfi cznego rozplanowania grafi cznego tekstu, podkreślającego ciągłość historii. Wizualizacja ta mogła więc być wykorzystywana nie tylko do celów dydaktycznych lecz także do medytacji. Co więcej, wszystko wskazuje na to, że sięgnięcie przez Rolevincka po druk nie było dziełem przypadku lecz całkowicie świadomym zabiegiem, mającym na celu jak najszersze upowszechnienie książki. Cecha ta również łączy kartuskiego autora z devotio moderna.
This article summarizes the results of the initial query performed in the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in Vilnius within the framework of a joint research project conducted by the authors, entitled “Medieval library’s manuscripts in the collections of the city of Vilnius”. The Wroblewski Library was established in 1912 as a private foundation. During World War II it suffered serious losses. After the war, to its collections were included the remains of various collections primarily from the institutions of Vilnius, but also records acquired from the territories occupied by the Red Army in East Prussia, among others, Konigsberg. The fate of Vilnius manuscripts during this period is very complex, and their history still requires further research. Currently in the Wróblewski Library is 18 manuscripts and fragments that can be classified into the category of medieval Latin library’s manuscripts. These are materials of various provenance and nature, created from 12th to 15th century in the Western Europe, Poland and Teutonic state in Prussia. Similarly divers is their contents, including messages of the Bible (Parisian Bible, Biblical Gloss), theological treatises (Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae; Pseudo-Bonaventure, Summa aurea de gradibus virtutum), historiographical writings (Rufinus of Aquileia, Ecclesiastical History) and law (index to the Decretals of Gregory IX), and liturgical texts (Psalter with musical notation).
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