Obscurity in Medieval Texts

Obscurity in Medieval Texts
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XXX
Obscurity in Medieval Texts
edited by
Lucie Doležalová, Jeff Rider,
and Alessandro Zironi
Krems 2013
Reviewed by
Tamás Visi
and Myriam White-Le Goff
Cover designed by Petr Doležal with the use of a photo of the interior of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (photo Lucie Doležalová)
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG
DER
CHARLES UNIVERSITY RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

“UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL
INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS”
UND
“PHENOMENOLOGY AND SEMIOTICS” (PRVOUK 18)
BOTH AT THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES, CHARLES UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE
UND DER
CZECH SCIENCE FOUNDATION

WITHIN THE RESEARCH PROJECT
“INTERPRETING AND APPROPRIATING OBSCURITY
IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT CULTURE”
(GAČR P405/10/P112)
Alle Rechte vorbehalten

– ISBN 978-3-901094-32-6
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der mate-

riellen Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, 3500 Krems, Österreich. Für den
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jeglicher Nachdruck, auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. Druck: KOPITU Ges. m. b.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Textual Obscurity in the Middle Ages (Introduction) 1
Lucie Doležalová, Jeff Rider, and Alessandro Zironi
“Clarifications” of Obscurity:
Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading of Plato’s Parmenides 15
Florin George Călian
Lucifica nigris tunc nuntio regna figuris. Poétique textuelle de l’obscuritas
dans les recueils d’énigmes latines du Haut moyen Age (VIIe-VIIIe s.) 32
Christiane Veyrard-Cosme
The Enigmatic Style in Twelfth-Century French Literature 49
Jeff Rider
Mise en abyme in Marie de France’s “Laüstic” 63
Susan Small
Perturbations of the Soul: Alexander of Ashby and Aegidius of Paris
on Understanding Biblical Obscuritas 75
Greti Dinkova-Bruun
Versus obscuri nella poesia didascalica grammaticale del XIII sec. 87
Carla Piccone
Disclosing Secrets: Virgil in Middle High German Poems 110
Alessandro Zironi
Obscuritas legum: Traditional Law, Learned Jurisprudence, and Territorial
Legislation (The Example of Sachsenspiegel and Ius Municipale Maideburgense) 124
Hiram Kümper
To Be Born (Again) from God:
Scriptural Obscurity as a Theological Way Out for Cornelius Agrippa 145
Noel Putnik
Obscuritas in Medieval and Humanist Translation Theories 157
Réka Forrai
The Darkness Within:
First-person Speakers and the Unrepresentable 172
Päivi M. Mehtonen
Contributors 190
Index nominum 194
Index rerum 197
Acknowledgements
This volume grew out of a conference held in Prague in October 6-8, 2011.
The conference and the book were supported by a post-doctoral research
grant from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, “Interpreting and
Appropriating Obscurity in Medieval Manuscript Culture” no. P405/10/
P112 undertaken at the Faculty of Arts at the Charles University in Prague,
by The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports through Institutional
Support for Longterm Development of Research Organizations to the
Faculty of Humanities of the same university (PRVOUK 18 and UNCE
204002), and by the European Research Council under the European
Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC
grant agreement No. 263672. We are much grateful to these institutions.
Further thanks goes to the individual contributors to this volume who have
been very quick and patient during the process, as well as to Petr Doležal
for the cover design and Adéla Nováková for the index.
List of Figures
Figure 1: Scene from one of the Saxon Mirror’s codices picturati (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-
August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 3.1. Aug. 2o, fol. 34r).
Figure 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig Landrecht (Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek,

Cod. 364rot, fol. 526r).
Figure 3: Printed text of a Saxon Mirror with Gloss (Christian Zobel, Leipzig, 1569).
Figure 4: A remissorium from a Saxon Mirror edited in 1536 by Chistoph Zobel (Leipzig)
Figure 5: Editorial report for a Saxon Mirror printed in 1545 by Nikolaus Wolrab
(Leipzig)
Figure 6: Sebastian Stelbagius, Epitome sive summa universae doctrinae iusticiae legalis
(Bautzen, 1564).
Figures 7 and 8: Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und Gloß in eine
richtige Ordnung gebracht (Leipzig 1572).
Textual Obscurity in the Middle Ages
Lucie Doležalová, Jeff Rider, and Alessandro Zironi
When one has “figured out” the meaning of a dream, one has lost touch
with the aliveness and elusiveness of the experience of dreaming; in its
place one has created a flat, bloodless decoded message. 1
Obscurity has been recognized as a component or aspect, a possibility, of

discourse since the very beginnings of European culture. The word has
numerous connotations, some of which contradict one another, and
perhaps refers to a set of ideas rather than to a single idea. Nevertheless,
as this volume shows, the notion is crucial for the overall conception of
reality and its exploration reveals new features of medieval life and
thought.
***
The English word “obscurity” belongs to an ancient semantic field that is

particularly multifaceted in the Sanskrit language, for example, where
the metaphorical meanings of the words for “obscurity” fall into three
different groups which expand in various directions the concrete sense
of darkness:
1) Obscurity as suffering
2) Obscurity as a burden
3) Obscurity as a secret
The first group focuses on the idea of suffering, torment and hopeless-
ness in connection with a situation of obscurity. Sanskrit klistatva
“obscurity (of a text)” is an apt example. It is derived from the main form
klishta, which means “being distressed, tormented” and, used rhetori-
cally, “not easily intelligible.” The word comes from an Indo-European
root *kleik- “to pull with pain” connected to the Slavonic root *kliša
“pliers, scissors.” In other words, the obscurity of a text expressed by the
1 Thomas H. Ogden, “The Dialectically Constituted/Decentered Subject of Psycho-

analysis. I. The Freudian Subject,” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 73
(1992): 521.
2 TEXTUAL OBSCURITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES
word klistatva is something that causes pain and torment, an uneasiness

which provokes suffering. 2 The same sense of deprivation and ignorance
of wisdom can be discovered in the Sanskrit word támas “darkness,
gloom, obscurity,” which can be used to refer to mental darkness and ig-
norance. Its negative meaning is reinforced by the idea that támas is one
of the three constituents of the creation, the one that causes heaviness,
ignorance and, in general, all irrational states of mind (pride, lust, etc.).
The word is also used for the obscuration, the movement from light into
darkness, of the sun or moon in eclipses. The word does not derive from
the Indo-European root *tem(ə)-, temes- “darkness,” which can be
compared, for example, with Latin tenebrae and Old High German demar
“darkness,” or German Dämmerung.3
The second group into which the metaphorical meanings of the
words for “obscurity” in Sanskrit fall is connected with the idea of
something overwhelming and oppressive. This is the case of Sanskrit
atibhāra, which means “excessive burden, excessive obscurity (of a
sentence).” Since -bhara comes from an Indo-European root *bher- “to
bring” (compare Latin ferō or Gothic baíran) and the Sanskrit prefix ati-
is used with nouns and adjectives to add the sense of “excessive,
extraordinary,” the ultimate connotation for obscurity in the form
atibhara is clear. When atibhara is used in a rhetorical context connected
with language, the obscurity of a sentence is perceived in a negative way
as bringing with it an overwhelming burden. 4 A similar semantic context
can be proposed for the Sanskrit term andhátāmisra, which is used to
refer to the complete darkness of the soul. The term is connected to the
word-root andhá “darkness, turbid water” and derives from the Indo-
European root *andho- “blind, obscure,” whose meaning is suggested by
the Latin word andabata―which Varro and Cicero considered a loan-
2 Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit – English Dictionary Etymologically and Philo-

logically Arranged (Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1995) [first ed. 1899],
324; Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, I (Tübingen:
Francke, 20024) [first ed. 1959], 602.
3 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit, 438; Pokorny, Indogermanisches, 1063; Friedrich
Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Berlin, New York: Wal-
ter de Gruyter, 197521) [first ed. 1884], 120; Alois Walde and Johann Baptist
Hoffmann, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg: Carl Winter,
19383) [first ed. 1906], 664.
4 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit, 12; Pokorny, Indogermanisches, 128; Winfred Leh-
mann, A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 57.
INTRODUCTION 3
word from Gallican―which refers to a gladiator who fights without eye-

slits in his helm. 5
The third and last group into which the metaphorical meanings of the
words for “obscurity” in Sanskrit fall is represented by the Sanskrit word
gūdhâtva “obscurity of sense.” It derives from the main word gūdhá
“covered, hidden, invisible, secret, a secret place or mystery,” and is rela-
ted to the derivative form gūdhârtha “the hidden of mystic sense, having
a hidden meaning.” The word gūdhá comes from an Indo-European root
*gheugh-, *ghugh- “to hide; to do something in secret,” and is related to
the Avestic guz- “to hide” or Old Danish gyg “someone who lives (hidden)
in the underworld.”6
The metaphorical meanings of the words for “obscurity” in Sanskrit
thus suggest that obscurity is a negative aspect of communication which
causes suffering or is considered a burden but is also a complex of
knowledge shared and maintained in secrecy by a selected group.
This connection with something secret and mysterious is represen-
ted in ancient Greek by the verb κρύπτω “to hide,” which derives from
the Indo-European root *krā[u]-, *krəu-, *krŭ- “to hide.”7 From the Greek
κρύπτω comes the substantive κρυφιότης “obscurity, secrecy.” The other
Greek word for “obscurity” is σκοτεινός, σκοτεινότης. The Indo-European
root of these words is *skot- “shadow” (Gothic skadus, Old English
sceadu), which shows its fundamental connection with an optical
context,8 and it can be used figuratively to refer to something that
obstructs the discernment of knowledge and thus creates anxiety and
fear. The main word, σκότος, is always used in connection with
communication expressing a negative feeling; it underlines obscurity due
to the lack of clarity in the communication or in the speaker but also due
to the absence of knowledge.
The semantic field for “obscurity” in other Indo-European languages
is based on words that have a chromatic connection to the colors brown
or black or that derive from words connected with smoke or mist. Latin
obscurus, for example, derives from Indo-European *(s)kew-, *skewə,
*skū- “to cover” and can be understood to mean what is covered or hid-
5 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit, 44; Pokorny, Indogermanisches: 41; Walde and Hoff-

mann, Lateinisches, 46.
6 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit, 360–61; Pokorny, Indogermanisches, 450.
7 Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des
mots (Paris: Klicksieck, 1968), 589; Pokorny, Indogermanisches, 617.
8 Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique, 1022; Pokorny, Indogermanisches, 957;
Lehmann, A Gothic, 307.
den by darkness. Latin obscuritas thus means something which is protec-

ted or hidden.
***
Any text may be obscure (or a source of suffering, a burden, or a
secret―in the other meanings of the word) depending on the context, the
interpretative framework in which it is placed. Consequently, clarificati-
ons of obscurity also depend on contexts and interpretative frameworks:
the explanation or solution puts an end to the enigma, turns the obscu-
rity into clarity―but only within the particular environment in which it
was perceived as obscure in the first place. The question of what consti-
tutes a successful interpretation or solution to an obscurity is, again, de-
pendent on the context: must the solution produce general consent, or is
it enough to find one that simply pleases the interpreter himself or her-
self? Must it take into account as many aspects of the text as possible, or
is it enough to address its most troubling feature? One interpretative
community may be puzzled by different features of a text from another,
and thus the same text may be obscure in different communities for dif-
ferent reasons.
Texts that were clear in their original contexts, that is, texts that ope-
rated smoothly in their original community, are liable to become obscure
when transported into a new community, one with different rules and
expectations. Obscurity is in fact a violation of expectations, rules, or or-
der within a particular framework. This is especially apparent when one
deals with texts from the past: they all tend to seem obscure and in need
of explanation to us. Of course, some texts are generally perceived as
more obscure than others because some expectations are more generally
shared than others. For example, if a text violates the grammatical rules
of a language, it will strike more readers as obscure than if it violates
semantic rules or simply does not follow the current stylistic trends.
The solutions to obscurities depend on the available tools and com-
petencies and dealing with obscurity may transform the community that
does so. If it lacks the tools and competences to solve the enigma, the
community may appropriate it, actualize it, or establish new rules that
will accommodate it. In this way, either the enigma itself or the interpre-
tive framework in which it is set is transformed in order to produce a
solution. Thus, obscurity is very productive of change.
Obscurity may, from another point of view, be seen as the normal
state of affairs: this world is in fact naturally obscure and ambiguous.
INTRODUCTION 5
The human desire to impose order and system on it results inevitably in

only partial and temporary solutions. Every system produces only partial
order and leaves part of reality unexplained and obscure. Attempts to
explain the obscure leftovers bring about new systems which will inevit-
ably fail to explain yet other aspects of reality. Reality is thus a dynamic
space on which we impose changing concepts of what is normal and
what is exceptional, what is clear and what is obscure, what is central
and what is marginal, and our focus regularly shifts between the cen-
ter―the canon―and the margins.
The history of the perception and treatment of a textual obscurity can
tell us a great deal about the interpretative communities through which
texts move. The texts that a community deemed worthy of interpretation
were surely not those that simply seemed the most obscure. They were
those that were considered both obscure and meaningful, that is, inter-
pretable; those whose obscurity could be clarified and made useful in a
particular environment. The appropriation of the obscure text aimed at
achieving something and eventually gaining some power in the commu-
nity. It is thus worthwhile to study what texts were considered obscure
under what conditions, and in what ways their obscurity was treated.
Some texts seem to have presented a continuous challenge to interpreta-
tion while others were explained once and the explanation was accepted.
Is it possible to identify what constitutes clarity―what makes an inter-
pretation acceptable—at least within a given community? Is it possible
to specify the origin of the feeling that a particular aspect of a text is
significant and needs to be interpreted? Why were some texts more
likely to be chosen for interpretation than others?
Modern Western readers of medieval texts often find them obscure.
Some of this obscurity is accidental and inevitable and is due to the his-
torical and cultural distance that separates them from medieval authors.
It comes from the disappearance of the material and social contexts in
which these works were written, the loss of their linguistic contexts, the
loss of sources, our ignorance of certain codes that may have governed
their production, the vagaries of the transmission of these texts over the
centuries, and so on.
Some of this accidental obscurity would, of course, have rendered
medieval texts obscure for medieval readers as well. A poorly transmit-
ted, twelfth-century French text might, that is, have been even more ob-
scure to a fifteenth-century Polish reader than it is to a modern French
one. Even when allowances have been made for the historical and cultu-
ral distance between modern readers and medieval authors, however,
many medieval texts seem to be willfully and frustratingly obscure. Some

of this frustration, at least, is due to significant differences between mo-
dern readers’ attitudes towards textual obscurity and those of medieval
readers and authors, who appear to have had a higher tolerance for tex-
tual obscurity than we do. They even seem to have viewed obscurity as
desirable and a virtue in certain texts and certain contexts. Textual
obscurity, that is, was an accepted and inherent part of mainstream me-
dieval “high” culture.
Even though obscurity had been recognized as a component or pos-
sibility of discourse long before the Middle Ages, the tolerance of and
even taste for obscurity in medieval literary circles was new and remar-
kable. It seems to have had three principle sources: the obscurity of the
Bible for medieval readers; a rhetorical and literary tradition of obscure
composition; and a lack of linguistic authority.
As the history of biblical exegesis and its importance in medieval cul-
ture show, the Bible was an obscure text for medieval readers. Given that
communications of supramundane origin seem to have been traditi-
onally and habitually obscure throughout human history (perhaps as a
sign of the incommensurability of the mundane and supramundane),
their obscurity was in fact a guarantee of their divine origin: the more
obscure a passage was, the more pregnant it seemed to be with divine
meaning. Biblical obscurity was thus a promise and a challenge for
medieval exegetes and led them to develop both intricate schemes of
textual interpretation and intricate theories of obscure signification.
Primarily because of the Bible and the discourse surrounding it,
obscurity was also understood to be a part of objective reality. God’s
other “books,” the created universe and history, were likewise felt to be
full of obscure and inexhaustible meaning. God was understood to have
expressed himself obscurely in order to subdue human pride, exercise
the human intellect, and associate the pleasure of discovery with the
revelation of his intentions.
The Church Fathers had, however, already established that
communication between God and mankind had broken down after the
Fall of Adam and Eve. As Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa explain, human
beings are unable to understand plain messages from God because of
their corrupted nature. God thus has to employ oblique means of
communication when addressing them in order to accommodate his
INTRODUCTION 7
message to the imperfection of human intellect. 9 In fact, the source of

obscurity in the Bible is often the surprising character of divine speech.
On the one hand, there was a universal expectation that the Bible be
perfect since it is the word of God. On the other hand, however, medieval
readers could not fail to see certain “imperfections” in the Bible. Since
these imperfections ran contrary to their expectation, they perceived the
“imperfect” passages to be obscure: Why did God bother to record so
many little details concerning the lives of the patriarchs or the prophets?
Why are biblical heroes sometimes praised for apparently immoral
behavior? Why is Jesus sometimes depicted as if he had doubts, when he
was God and God cannot have doubts? The literal meaning of these
passages was clear but the reasons for including them in a sacred and
perfect book were obscure. Why would God include in his revelation so
many banal details, or, as in the case of the Song of Songs, erotic scenes?
These were important cases of obscurity to the medieval mind, and the
usual explanations for them argued that God intentionally concealed his
own divine nature and used human modes of communication in order to
get closer to the human intellect. Thus, for example, Jesus pretends to
have doubts in order to bring his message closer to his disciples, or
inessential little details of a biblical story allude to divine mysteries
which cannot be communicated directly.
In any case, attempts to interpret the Bible, the universe and history
were praiseworthy activities bringing one closer to God.
The interpretation of biblical obscurity also revitalized this old text
composed in and for a radically different culture and made it relevant to
medieval life and preoccupations. And once the machine of textual
exegesis had been built and was running smoothly, its methods of
adjusting and recuperating an old text in new contexts through the in-
terpretation of its obscurities could be applied to a wide array of obscure
or “unacceptable”―ancient and pagan―texts, bringing them into the re-
servoir of medieval culture and enlarging it. These methods made even
the unintentional creation of obscurity culturally productive, as when,
for example, obscurity produced by an “author’s” conceiving of himself
as a mere copyist led to subsequent “clarifications” and further “corrup-
tions.”
Obscurity also had a distinct and established role in the rhetorical
and poetic traditions the Middle Ages inherited from Antiquity. In these
9 Gillian Rosemary Evans, The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle
Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 1–8.
traditions, discourse was understood to consist of a play between clarity

and obscurity, which was something to be actively employed as a par-
ticular way of encoding a message. Its use was recommended, at least
occasionally, as a refreshing strategy to draw attention to one’s dis-
course, to make it more memorable, and to increase the audience’s plea-
sure of understanding by delaying it and making it work for it, although
rhetors and authors were also warned against using it too much or too
often.
Created obscurity was also used as a pedagogical tool, “to establish,”
as Virgilius Maro put it, “students’ acuteness of perception” (sagacitatem
discentium adprobare). 10 It could be used in a related way to make a dis-
course’s meaning less accessible to the uneducated crowds. It thus cre-
ated an additional source of social pleasure for, an elite subaudience of
people who could understand it. Obscurity operated as an “added value,”
separable from the message, making it more accessible to some than to
others.
Created obscurity could similarly be made to serve political ends by
veiling a subversive or contestatory discourse reserved for a group of
initiates. It was thus always suspect to some degree and viewed as a po-
tential challenge to the clarity produced by established order. The play
between obscurity and clarity thus also involved, or was an allegory for,
a play between the margin and the center, the refused and the accepted,
the unknown and the known, anarchy and order, heresy and orthodoxy.
The opposite of obscurity was in fact less clarity than the order, the auth-
ority that produces clarity. A clear discourse can be combined easily with
other clear discourses to produce a totalizing or encyclopedic one, a
single grand discourse of which the many individual discourses are but
parts.
Medieval audiences schooled in these traditions appreciated even
unresolvable obscurity in moderation, which suggests that they did not
always find it necessary to understand a discourse to enjoy it. These tra-
ditions permitted and in some ways encouraged a linguistic creator to
lose himself or herself in language; to develop a metaphor or an
etymology until it broke the bars of received knowledge and developed
new, unforeseen meanings that expanded existing epistemological
10 Epitome 10, Johannes Huemer, ed., Virgilii Maronis Grammatici opera (Leipzig: B.
G. Teubner, 1886), 76; Giovanni Polara, trans., L. Caruso and G. Polara, eds., Vir-
gilius Maro Grammaticus, Epitomi ed Epistole, Nuovo medioevo 9 (Naples: Liguori,
1979), 128.
INTRODUCTION 9
possibilities; to talk or write even when one had nothing to say, for the
pleasure of talking or writing, or to provoke a reaction. Obscure
discourse could, that is, be an inventive, leisure activity, a form of pure
pleasure and pure research.
The tolerance and even taste for obscurity in medieval literary circles
was also in part the result of a lack of linguistic authority. Obscurity is
always relative, is obscure only from the point of view of some norm or
canon: the stronger the norm, the more different kinds of discourse will
appear obscure in relation to it. In the Middle Ages, however, literary
languages were still ill-defined and ill-regulated. Even the leading liter-
ary language, Latin, had no clear spelling guidelines and no settled
grammatical rules, while most of the “vulgar” languages were, so to
speak, uncultivated wildernesses―or absolute democracies.
Many medieval texts that seem quite obscure to modern scholars
were often fully integrated into the mainstream culture; their obscurity
was not considered striking or unusual. The medieval approach to texts
was fuzzy and approximate rather than clearly definable, distinguish-
able, and articulate. Medieval audiences were simply more ready to
tolerate obscurity because it formed an integral part of their world. So-
metimes they did pursue the objectives of system, order, and efficiency
but rarely in a systematic, orderly, and efficient manner: they did not be-
lieve that obscurity could ever be eradicated. They were not scared of
the indescribable, undividable, and ungraspable; they accepted reality as
complex and ultimately unintelligible. Obscurity was not simply a riddle
to be solved. It was a source of wonder, questioning and a search for me-
aning.
Whatever its source, whether created or accidental, obscurity was
also a source of change in the Middle Ages. What entered the culture as
obscure might very quickly become the norm, pushing what was origin-
ally clear to the obscure peripheries. And there were always admirers of
the margins as well as of the center.
Obscurity itself went in and out of fashion during the Middle Ages. It
was more normal, more tolerated, more desirable at some times than
others. One might suggest, for example, that the exegetical triumphs of
the eleventh century led to the flowering of obscurantism in the twelfth,
which led in turn to the encyclopedism of the thirteenth, which led to the
obscure flamboyance of the later Middle Ages.
The study of medieval attitudes towards, and uses of obscurity, is, fi-
nally, an important form of self-reflection that can teach us much about
our own attitudes towards obscure texts, including those of the Middle
Ages, and our own desires to understand and thus recuperate those
texts, both past and present.
***
The essays collected in this volume present “partial successes:” interpre-

tations of particular obscurities in which, however, a certain degree of
obscurity persists. For example, biblical exegesis, which can never be
completely “satisfactory” (since the Bible cannot be fully comprehended
in this life), or interpretations that do not meet with universal consent or
that are built of strange associations and suspicious links and seem ob-
scure in themselves. This “persistent obscurity” is of two kinds. One is an
enigma which seems to have been created in order to remain enigmatic
as a means to provoke interpretation. Greti Dinkova-Bruun and Noel
Putnik discuss this kind of obscurity in the Bible, while Florin George
Călian focuses on provocative enigmas in Plato and Jeff Rider on those of
twelfth-century French literature. The second kind of persistent obscure-
ity is found in texts that were probably not meant to be enigmatic but be-
came obscure when transferred to a new community, and have been
transmitted without any fixed interpretation attached to them. These
obscure texts continued to be handed down perhaps through inertia or
because of the authority attached to them. They were often strikingly
“successful,” that is widely copied and read, as Hiram Kümper shows.
The essays are presented here in a rough chronological order but this
is not intended to suggest any development in the perception, use, or in-
terpretation of obscurity. There are subjects that reappear in the essays
across the volume, such as discussions of the deliberate creation of
obscurities within particular communities (Veyrard-Cosme, Rider, Picco-
ne), the (often obscure) medieval strategies for interpreting obscurities
(Călian, Dinkova-Bruun, Forrai, Putnik, Kümper), or the contemporary
interpretations of medieval obscurities (Zironi, Small, Mehtonen).
***
Florin George Călian discusses an example of interpreting obscurity

which seems rather obscure in itself: interpreting Plato allegorically in a
neoplatonic context. Based on his analysis of Proclus’s interpretation of
Plato’s Parmenides, Călian explores allegory as a philosophical device ra-
ther than a literary mechanism, and asks why someone would read a
philosophical text allegorically, and what conditions allowed allegory to
INTRODUCTION 11
be included in a philosophical inquiry. In this case, he suggests that they

were the authority of the author (Plato’s texts were believed to be both
coherent organisms with a hidden meaning, and divinely inspired), and
the belief of the neoplatonic interpretive community in the principle
“panta en pasin,” that is, the interconnectedness of reality whose ele-
ments can thus be used to explain each other.11
Christiane Veyrard-Cosme analyzes Latin collections of riddles
from the seventh and the eighth centuries (dominated by the works of
Aldhelm) and the nature of the textual poetics created within the insular
monastic environment. Veyrard-Cosme argues that obscurity, linked to
brevity, was perceived within this environment as an inherent part of the
created order and an important tool for spiritual instruction: the collec-
tions of enigmas were intended to be microcosmic representations of the
universe, and their enigmatic qualities reflected the enigmas of the
world. The riddles imitated God’s creation both by their order and by
their obscurity. Their poetic form initiated the reader to the pursuit of
higher meaning and proved the reality of a higher level of existence.
Thus, the same interpretative framework was to be applied to solving
the riddles and to understanding the created world.
Jeff Rider, too, addresses the deliberate creation of enigma in a par-
ticular social environment. He argues that when French literature
emerged in the twelfth century it did so from and against a cleri-
cal―ecclesiastical, learned and Latinate―background. Its authors had
been trained in clerical schools or at least in the clerical tradition and the
literature they created was in some sense Latinate literature for people
who did not know Latin, had not been to school, and were used to oral
entertainments. The literature that evolved from this encounter wel-
comed some obscurity as a provocation to interpretation and resulted in
an enigmatic style in the works of twelfth-century court poets like Marie
de France and Chrétien de Troyes, who sought first and foremost to en-
tertain their audiences. They also embraced the enigmatic style in order
to endow the aristocratic life portrayed in their works with its own spir-
itual dimension, a mysterious, quasi-allegorical aura, suggesting they had
a hidden higher meaning for those who have ears to hear. The audience
11 In spite of the obvious similarities, this is a different theoretical model of

obscurity than the mainstream Christian ideas about the obscurity of the Bible.
E.g. there is no notion of the original sin, no idea of God taking on human form
and accommodating his message to human imperfection in neoplatonism, and in
Christianity there is no principle “panta en pasin.”
for works in French had changed significantly by the mid-thirteenth cen-

tury, however, and the French literary tradition had grown increasingly
independent of the Latin one. The enigmatic style gave way to a more
“realistic” and often ironic style anchored more clearly in secular con-
cerns and reflecting more clearly worldly attitudes.
Susan Small’s essay explores the ways in which the hermeneutic
device of “mise en abyme,” or infinite regress, serves to organize and
elucidate the semiotic structures underlying Marie de France’s twelfth-
century “Lay of the Nightingale.” Tracing the complex interplay of mir-
ror-image symmetry and kaleidoscopic refraction in “Laüstic,” the essay
finds its center in the figure of the dead nightingale, wrapped in an em-
broidered shroud and enclosed in a jeweled casket at what T.S. Eliot
might term the inert, ambiguous, and endlessly reflective “still point of
the turning world.”
Greti Dinkova-Bruun’s contribution introduces the treatment of
biblical obscurity in an educational context. Alexander of Ashby and
Aegidius of Paris, both writing at the beginning of the thirteenth century,
propose two different views about the perplexing nature of the biblical
narrative for the sake of students. In the prologue to his biblical versifi-
cation, the Breuisssima Comprehensio historiarum, Alexander outlines
three main turbationes that confuse the carnal soul when it attempts to
understand scripture: obscuritas significationis, uarietas expositionis, and
mutatio personarum. Being a preacher and a teacher, Alexander then
goes on to explain these difficulties and to give practical advice to his
readers on how to deal with them. Aegidius takes a much more mystical
approach. In his prose prologue to Peter Riga’s Evangelium, he links the
obscurity of the Bible to the Book of Revelation and the seven seals men-
tioned in it. Scripture is sealed by God with signacula and enigmata
which can be understood only by those who know how to unlock their
secrets. Despite their differences, both Alexander and Aegidius exemplify
scholastic methods of study and strive to bring order and clarity to the
vast field of theological thought inherited from previous centuries in
order to make it useful in the classroom.
Carla Piccone also deals with thirteenth-century didactics, but she
introduces us to the practice of teaching Latin grammar. She draws our
attention to examples of widely diffused grammatical didactic poetry
(Alexander de Villa Dei’s Doctrinale puerorum, Eberhard of Béthune’s
Grecismus, and Conradus de Mure’s Novus Grecismus) that are, upon a
first uncontextualized reading, very obscure because they are highly
condensed, eliptic, and closely connected to longer textbooks (e.g., Pris-
INTRODUCTION 13
cian’s Latin grammar) with which one has to be familiar in order to

understand them. They are highly condensed in order to be more easily
memorized and were intended to be accompanied by the oral instruction
of the master, which made them clear and useful. For those who were
instructed on the correct use of these verses, they are clear. Brevitas
leads to firmior memoria and facilior acceptio. Obscura brevitas is a vice;
brevitas should always be lucida. In the way they operate, these verses
are similar to versus memoriales and differentiales, which address the
subject of equivoca, homophones, or exceptions to a particular gram-
matical rule, often in a very cryptic manner. The fact that these verses
were already frequently glossed in medieval manuscripts suggests that
they often already seemed obscure then.
Alessandro Zironi’s essay discusses the role and reception of the
Latin poet Virgil in Middle High German literature during the thirteenth
century. According to a so-called Liber Maronis, Virgil was himself an ob-
scure figure who cryptically transmitted forbidden arts, specifically the
ars notoria. The representation of Virgil as a magician and / or necro-
mancer probably originated in Naples, but thanks to British and German
intellectuals like Gervase of Tilbury and Konrad von Querfurt, it rapidly
spread throughout Western Europe, and to Germany in particular. When
the stories about Virgil reached Germany, they were incorporated into
poems like Zabulons Buch and Reinfried von Braunschweig, and thus be-
came popular among a courtly public. In this case study, we thus witness
the productive force of obscurity as the obscure figure of Virgil produces
a variety of new meanings and associations.
Hiram Kümper discusses the obscurity that arises through the
process of transmission and reception, and focuses on the practices
within a community of later readers who strive to use texts that have be-
come unintelligible but still possess great authority. Using the examples
of traditional Saxon legal texts, the Saxon Mirror and the Magdeburg Law
(Weichbildrecht), he discusses the various attempts of changing audi-
ences to understand these highly authoritative yet increasingly obscure
texts and make them useful.
Noel Putnik examines some examples of the ways the Renaissance
Neoplatonist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) reinterpreted
some of the standard doctrines of Christian orthodoxy by dwelling on the
obscurities and ambivalences of Scripture. He argues that Agrippa’s aim
in doing so was to legitimize his theological synthesis by grounding it in
the Bible. One of the cases in question is Agrippa’s treatment of the
Johannine and Pauline notions of spiritual rebirth. For example, by ap-
plying his exegetical methods to 1 John 3: 9, Agrippa apparently changed

the basic theological meaning of the passage and attributed an aura of
orthodoxy to an otherwise highly heterodoxical idea―that of spiritual
rebirth as understood in the late antique Corpus Hermeticum. However,
the basic theological sense of the notion was itself unclear, thus enabling
Agrippa to build it into his Platonic-Hermetic paradigm of spirituality.
Putnik demonstrates that reinterpreting obscurities in Scripture was a
deliberate rhetorical and literary strategy for Agrippa that served an im-
portant goal: to apologize for his synthesis and increase its persuasive
power.
Reka Forrai traces the lineage of the concept of obscuritas in
translation theories from Antiquity to the Renaissance. She argues that
medieval and humanist translation practices were based on two differ-
ent understandings of obscurity. Medieval translation practice focused
mostly on philosophical and theological texts, and used a philosophical
concept of obscurity. Obscurity in this practice was not a negative result
of an unskillful translation, but a characteristic of the original text which
had to be respected and taken into account. Humanists, on the other
hand, considered obscurity from the point of view of rhetoric, and
tended to see it as a shortcoming to be avoided, the opposite of clarity.
One should therefore not judge the achievements of the medieval trans-
lators according to humanist (or for that matter, modern) criteria, but
instead try to reconstruct the value system according to which these
translations were produced.
Päivi M. Mehtonen explores the links between first-person speech
and obscure language in medieval historical and mystical texts as well as
in later fiction that emulates such pre-modern forms. Mystical first-
person speakers often emphasize the obscurity of the experiences that
they and they alone have had, or the limits of their ability to understand
them. Starting from the medieval reception of Cicero’s doctrine of the
genus obscurum and the modern notion of auto-communication, the
essay discusses cases of first-person literature that alternate between
narrative and non-narrative forms (e.g., meditative essays, “descriptions”
of an inner state as well as medieval and modern fiction that adopts such
forms). This final chapter aptly illustrates that part of our experience
always remains obscure and surpasses our ability to articulate it. Thus,
however difficult it is to grasp and communicate, obscurity forms a
natural part of everyday life.
“Clarifications” of Obscurity:
Conditions for Proclus’s Allegorical Reading
of Plato’s Parmenides
Florin George Călian
Exegetical work on philosophical systems requires not only that one give
an account of the structure of a system’s assumptions and arguments,
but also of its forms, such as the form of expression (or genre: dialogue,
poem, aphorisms, and so on), or its form of argumentation (clear cut dis-
cursive exposition, logical formalization, metaphorical, allegorical
discourse, and so forth). These formal considerations may seem to be
secondary, merely ornamental issues, but they can raise unexpected
questions. The literal reading of a text has its counter-part in allegorical
interpretation. This way of reading, which must have started with the
first readers of Homer and found a fertile ground in Philo’s allegorical
commentaries on the Bible, was amazingly natural for Proclus (c. 411–
485), whose writings and commentaries represent the last phases of late
antique philosophy, and particularly of the relation between philosophy
and rhetoric.
Proclus was a major systemic philosopher of late Neoplatonism.
Beside his fame as one of the last notable heads of the Platonic Academy,
he was also known in his youth as a rhetorician with a profound
curiosity about divination and theurgy. He was a practitioner of magic
and it is said that he knew how to bring rain and that, through a
particular rite, he saved Attica from a dreadful drought. 1 Proclus was de-
voted to the Greek gods, especially Athena, whom he invokes at the be-
ginning of his commentary on the Parmenides:
I pray to all the gods and goddesses to guide my mind . . . to kindle in me a
shining light of truth . . . to open the gates of my soul to receive the inspired
guidance of Plato. 2
1 Marinus, Vita Procli, 28. See Marinus, Proclus ou Sur le Bonheur, ed. and French
trans. Henri-Dominique Saffrey and Alain Philippe Segonds (Paris: Les Belles Let-
tres, 2001), 33. Vita Procli, a hagiographical biography written by his pupil, Mari-
nus, is the main source of information that we have about Proclus.
2 Glenn R. Morrow and John M. Dillon, Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 19. See also Proclus, Théologie pla-
16 FLORIN GEORGE CǍLIAN
He consistently opposed Christianity and supported the dying old reli-

gions, and, paradoxically, he influenced medieval Christian philosophy to
a considerable degree, through Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s “pla-
giarism” of his work. 3
Proclus used the allegorical method at length in his philosophical
commentaries on Plato’s dialogues and developed a substantial allegori-
cal technique, even in his commentary on the Parmenides, a dialogue
which would, at first glance, hardly seem likely to inspire an allegorical
reading, given its technicalities and aridity.4 His efforts to charge the text
with heavy allegorical meaning challenge both the literary critic and the
philosopher to clarify what he was doing. Some tenets of Proclus’s
commentary on Plato’s Parmenides will thus be scrutinized as a case
study in the present article, in an attempt to delineate and to discuss the
main suppositions of the Proclean allegorical reading. My hypothesis is
that allegory is a philosophical rather than a literary mechanism and
bears for Proclus philosophical implications as one of his main
methodological devices. The main question addressed here is: Why
would someone question allegorically a philosophical text? Or, in other
words: What are the prerequisites for using allegory as part of a
philosophical inquiry? I wish to focus on why one would read a
philosophical text allegorically rather than how such a reading was done
(discovered, invented, transmitted through a certain tradition, etc.)
tonicienne I, 1, 2, 4, ed. and French trans. L. G. Westerink and H. D. Saffrey (Paris:

Les Belles Lettres, 1968), 7–8, 17–18. For a comparative reading of the
invocations from the Parmenides and Platonic Theology see Robbert Maarten van
den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2001),
225–26.
3 A consistent overview of the hidden presence of Proclean philosophy in medieval
thinking is provided in Proclus, The Elements of Theology: A Revised Text with
Translation, Introduction, and Commentary, ed. E. R. Dodds, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992). Pseudo-Dionysius’s plagiarism of Proclus was
massive: “he followed Proclus slavishly in many of the details of his doctrine”
(Dodds in Proclus, The Elements of Theology, xxvii-xxviii). See also Egbert P. Bos
and P. A. Meijer, eds., On Proclus and His Influence in Medieval Philosophy (Leiden:
Brill, 1991).
4 The most studied allegorical commentaries of Proclus are those that focus on
Homer. See Oiva Kuisma, Proclus’ Defence of Homer (Helsinki: Societas Scien-
tiarum Fennica, 1996); Anne D. R. Sheppard, Studies on the 5th [fifth] and 6th
[sixth] Essays of Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1980); and Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist
Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (London: University of
California Press, 1989).
PROCLUS’S ALLEGORICAL READING OF PLATO’S PARMENIDES 17
Opacity and Clarity
A philosophical discourse is not always a model of clear speech, clear ar-

gumentation, or clear ideas. On the contrary, it is frequently full of
obscure concepts and follows an obscure paradigm, or may be expressed
in such obscure language and rhetoric that it verges on gratuitous
meaninglessness. For late antique philosophy, the tension between non-
figurative speech and rhetorical speech, which could be found in Plato’s
dialogues (the tension between logos and mythos, or between philosophy
and poetry), was a means for finding further layers of meanings. Like the
Christian exegesis of the Bible, Platonist commentators tried to clarify
and make sense of the rhetorical and decorative features of Plato’s dia-
logues. Far from reading Plato literally, the Neoplatonists followed the
principle that Plato’s texts always require more than a prima facie read-
ing, both where the text is obscure philosophically (because of unclear
argumentation) and where the text is not at all philosophical, but merely
a kind of rhetorical exposition (a captatio benevolentiae).
In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories (6.33), Simplicius notes
that
Aristotle did not use myths or symbolic enigmas in the way some of his prede-
cessors did [Pythagoras and Plato], but […] preferred obscurity of formulation
to every other form of concealment. 5
It was thus natural to charge philosophers with using intentionally ob-
scure language,6 and Aristotle is thought, according to Simplicius, to have
had a preference for it.7 How was it possible that the language of philoso-
5 Cited in Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, tr. G. R.

Morrow (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), xxiv. The formulation is
very unclear. Why is “myth” or “symbolic enigma” an alternative to “obscurity of
formulation”? Is Aristotle deliberate in his obscurity? Simplicius is perhaps refer-
ring to the so-called esoteric writings as opposed to the exoteric ones.
6 Aristotle’s obscurity was a subject of study for the ancient reader as well as for
the modern one. Bishop Hippolytus thinks that Aristotle’s account of the soul is
obscure, while Atticus affirms that he is seeking to avoid criticism by using “ob-
scure language.” See Jonathan Barnes, “Metacommentary,” in Jonathan Barnes,
Method and Metaphysics: Essays in Ancient Philosophy I, ed. Maddalena Bonelli
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 195.
7 Simplicius made a similar claim in the Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (8. 18–
20): Aristotle practiced “obscurity, thereby discouraging the more idle students”
(Barnes, “Metacommentary,” 197).
phy, which, according to modern ideas, should avoid obscurity, was per-
ceived as intentionally obscure? It seems that for ancient philosophers
one had to use an obscure discourse to discuss the intelligible world. For
example, in a passage from his commentary on the first book of Euclid’s
Elements (11), Proclus notes that in the Republic (533d), Plato observes
that
Socrates describes the knowledge of the understandable as being more ob-
scure than the highest science, but clearer than the judgments of opinion. 8
In contrast to Aristotle’s obscurity, which was supposed to be inten-
tional, the obscurity of Plato’s language was perceived as being, in a
sense, natural, that is, necessary. However, there are passages in the Pla-
tonic corpus that are so obscure that one cannot be sure that the reason
for this lack of clarity is precisely a “higher science,” which cannot be ex-
pressed by unambiguous speech.
Throughout his prose and in curious ways at times, Plato was an en-
igmatic writer. Two small examples may illustrate the nature of some of
the puzzles Plato’s writings pose. In Phaedo, the dialogue which presents
the last hours of Socrates, Plato writes, surprisingly, that he was sick and
absent from the scene. It is the only self-referential passage of all the Pla-
tonic dialogues and it has intrigued scholars for a long time: why does
Plato mention himself only here as a dramatis persona – indeed, as an
absent dramatis persona? Again, the same dialogue offers the riddling
last words of the dying Socrates: “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius:
please pay the debt, and don’t neglect it.”9
Moreover, why did Plato choose to write philosophy in the form of
dialogues? Can one ignore the literary form, the narrative frame, and fo-
cus solely on the ideas it contains? Why did he choose the specific char-
acters he did and not other ones? Why do some characters appear more
8 Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, 10.

9 Plato, Phaedo 118, 7–8, trans. David Gallop (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 72.
This is not the only type of intentional obscurity to be found in Plato’s dialogues;
there are several. For example, the passage in the Republic in which Plato speaks
about a eugenic number, the so called, “nuptial number,” became notorious for its
obscurity (Republic, VIII, 546b). Comparing a riddle of Atticus with Plato’s
description of the “nuptial number,” Cicero exclaims: “Your enigma of the juice-
merchants from Velia has simply defeated me, it’s darker than the Platonic Num-
ber” (“Aenigma succonum ex Velia plane non intellexi; est enim numero Platonis
obscurius”; Letters to Atticus VII, 13. 5, ed. and trans. D. R. Shackleton-Bailey
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004], 16–17).
frequently than others? These dialogues are full of conflicting remarks

and uncertain claims.
The puzzling passages―which still puzzle scholars nowadays and
which elude philosophical elucidation as well as other sorts of interpre-
tations (e.g. historical-critical ones)―are abundant in all dialogues and
are present at different narrative layers. There was thus disagreement
about the interpretation of Plato’s writings almost immediately after his
death. Speusippus reformulated Plato’s philosophy in terms of mathe-
matics. Xenocrates followed the same line of interpretation. Aristotle at-
tributed to Plato ideas that can hardly be found in his dialogues; and so
on. All these interpretations―each of them with its peculiarities―were a
natural consequence of the fact that Plato was by no means a clear
author. For Proclus, a philosophical text’s resistance to clear interpreta-
tion led to a suspicion that it might be read allegorically. As John Dillon
remarked in the introduction to the first book of Proclus’s commentary
on the Parmenides, allegorical exegesis uses such “apparent contradic-
tion in the text to reveal a higher truth.”10 Thus allegory is a way to unify
a text and make it meaningful even when it lacks any obvious unity or
clear meaning.
Allegorizing Plato’s Parmenides

Proclus’s learned commentary on the Parmenides is not, however, an al-
legorical interpretation of the entire dialogue. It attempts, rather, to elu-
cidate allegorically some of the apparently unintelligible passages of the
introduction of the Parmenides that sets the stage for the philosophical
discussion that follows, passages that could easily be overlooked by the
modern reader since, in the economy of the dialogue, the introduction
might not be considered part of the argument. Thus, Proclus’s allegorical
method of interpretation actually discovers, or creates, further “obscuri-
ties” in the dialogue. The transmission of the original conversation, the
characters, their determinations and other details, like, for example, the
place of the conversation, are shown to function as mythical and eternal
archetypes. This allegorical interpretation of the introduction raises the
narrative frame to the level of mythical story.
10 See Morrow and Dillon, “Introduction” to Book I in Proclus’ Commentary on

Plato’s Parmenides, 14.
The Parmenides11 starts with the arrival at Athens of the narrator of

the dialogue, an unknown character named Cephalus of Klazomenae,
along with his countrymen, who are genuinely interested in philosophy.
Adeimantus welcomes them and they ask him to take them to Plato’s
half-brother, Antiphon, whom they ask to talk about a discussion that
took place a long time ago between a young Socrates and two Eleatics:
Zeno (who was then in his forties) and Parmenides (who was then about
sixty-five). Antiphon tells them that he heard and learned by heart a de-
scription of the discussion from Pythodorus (a student of Zeno), who had
been present at the original dialogue which had taken place in his house,
and then begins his narrative.12
Unlike the narrator of most Platonic dialogues, the raconteur of the
Parmenides was not present at the original talk. With the exception of the
Symposium, the Parmenides is the only other text in Plato’s corpus in
which the information that lies at the core of the dialogue has been
transmitted through three successive stages (the original discussion is
retold by Pythodorous, then by Antiphon, and finally by Cephalus).13
There are some scholars who think that this manner of telling the story
11 It is surprising to learn that the Neoplatonists thought that Plato’s Parmenides, a

dialogue that others have always considered a model and a masterpiece of philo-
sophical obscurity, contained the clearest presentation of Plato’s theological pro-
gram and was the key to understanding all the other dialogues and all of Plato’s
other mythologies and philosophical programs. The second part of the dialogue,
which seems to be more of a logical exercise, was the starting point for the con-
struction of a mystical metaphysics by Neoplatonic philosophers.
12 Cephalus, who memorized the whole discussion from Antiphon, starts narrating
the original conversation ex abrupto to an unknown audience and in an unknown
place. Interestingly, he is able to recount the entire conversation, but starts with
the confession that he is unable to remember the name of Adeimantus’s half-
brother (126b): “Your half brother on your mother’s side – what was his name?
I’ve forgotten” (Plato, Complete Works, ed. John Madison Cooper and D. S.
Hutchinson, trans. Mary Louise Gill and Paul Ryan [Indianapolis: Hackett Pub-
lishing, 1997], 360). It remains unclear why Plato introduced the apparently
unnecessary intermediaries between Cephalus, the final narrator, and
Pythodorus, the initial narrator.
13 See also Reginald E. Allen, Plato’s Parmenides (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1997), 69–72. Something similar can be seen in a passage from the Timaeus,
where the myth of Atlantis is learned from a fifth generation narrator: Plato nar-
rates an account he heard from Critias, who heard it from an old man, who heard
it from Solon, who heard it from an Egyptian priest.
is principally decorative, while others believe that “this complex narra-

tive scheme is not accidental”14 and suggest that
the more one reads Plato, the more one becomes aware that the literary ele-
ments, such as setting, character, prologue, and epilogue, are carefully chosen
to give an aesthetic statement about the entire dialogue’s structure and inten-
tion. 15
Proclus pays as close attention to the dramatic qualities of the dialogues
as he does to their main arguments. Accordingly, Proclus does not think
that either Plato’s choice of characters or the way in which he constructs
the sequence of transmission of the original discussion is accidental.
These features may seem to be rather insignificant details for the mod-
ern reader, 16 but for Proclus they provide additional meaning to the en-
tire dialogue.17 For the modern reader, the prologue of the dialogue may
not seem to contribute to the philosophical argument developed in it, but
for Proclus it is a genuine philosophical language that resembles meta-
physics.
For an exegete like Proclus, the effect of the mise-en-scène goes be-
yond pure esthetics and touches metaphysical principles. He believes
that it is impossible to understand Plato’s complete philosophical pro-
gram in this dialogue without paying close attention to the sequence of
narrators. The layers of communication are necessary and indicate that
one cannot have direct access to Platonic forms. The prologue and the
core content of the dialogue therefore cannot be separated. In his com-
mentary on the Alcibiades, Proclus says this plainly:
The introductions to the dialogues of Plato accord with their overall aims and
have not been invented by Plato for the sake of dramatic charm . . . nor do they
aim at mere accurate narrative, as some have considered . . . these circum-
stances depend on the general purpose of the dialogues. 18
14 Allen, Plato’s Parmenides, 69.

15 Robert Sherrick Brumbaugh, Plato on the One: The Hypotheses in the Parmenides
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 26.
16 Tarrant remarks that “to the modern reader Proclus’ ingenuity will probably
seem like a reduction ad absurdum of the view that prologues are significant”
(Harold Tarrant, Plato’s First Interpreters [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000],
40).
17 Reading a dialogue as a whole in which each feature has its meaning is specific to
the Neoplatonists and is a late development: “the significance of each detail of the
text is plainly a principle of post-Iamblichean allegorizing” (Dillon, “Introduc-
tion,” in Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, 13).
18 Proclus, In Alcibiadem 18.13–19.10, trans. W. O’Neill, in Proclus: Alcibiades I: A
Translation and Commentary (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), 11–12. See
In his commentary on the Parmenides, furthermore, Proclus says:

studying any Platonic dialogue we must look especially at the matters that are
its subject and see how the details of the prologue prefigure them. 19
Proclus’s way of interpreting suggests that it is inappropriate to ask if
the exposition is fictive or historical. Proclus interprets the prologue as a
chronicle of metaphysical principles, neither historical nor fictive, which
describes plastically how the forms enter the world. He allegorizes eve-
rything he can. For example, being “outside the city walls” signifies the
transcendence of the gods. He also allegorizes the transmission of the
initial conversation, the characters, and the origin of the characters, as
follows:
Allegorization of the narrative transmission. 20 Proclus interprets the
various stages in the transmission of the original conversation as the
progression of the forms into matter, as a chain of ontological levels:
Cephalus’s audience represents the primordial material (hypodoche) in
which the Demiurge, according to the Timaeus, impresses the forms; An-
tiphon’s speech to Cephalus represents the progression of the forms into
physikai ousiai; Pythodorus’s description of the conversation to Antiphon
stands for the progression of the forms into souls (Antiphon’s interest in
horses is related to the image of the soul in Plato’s Phaedrus); the con-
versation itself stands for the Nous and the intelligible world of the
forms.
Allegorization of the characters.21 According to Proclus, Parmenides
is an analogon for the unparticipated and divine Intellect (Nous); Zeno is
an analogon for the participated Intellect (nous); and Socrates represents
(eoike) the particular intellect. Proclus discovers other kinds of analogia
as well: Parmenides is the symbol of Being, Zeno that of Life, Socrates
that of Intellect; Pythodorus stands for the angels, Aristoteles for individ-
ual souls (the fact that he becomes one of the thirty tyrants signifies the
keenness of the souls to descend into the tyranny of the passions), Py-
thodorus for the “divine Soul” (he uncovers the intelligible world and
receives logoi from it), Antiphon for the “demonic soul” (his association
with horsemanship hints that he desires to rule the physical world),
Cephalus for the “individual soul.” These allegorizations allow Proclus to
also James A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the

Later Neoplatonists (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 84–85.
19 Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 659, p. 47.
20 Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 626–27, p. 25–26.
further allegorize the phases of the initial discussion. For example, he

interprets Socrates’s turning from Zeno towards Parmenides as the re-
turn of the Nous through Life towards Being. 22
Allegorization of the origin of the characters. 23 Unexpectedly, Proclus
interprets even the origins of the main characters. With respect to the
first lemma―“When we arrived in Athens from our home in Clazomenae,
we encountered Adeimantus and Glaucon in agora” (126a)―Proclus
identifies the city Clazomenae with the Ionian school, which is a symbol
of Nature, and Parmenides and Zeno with the Italian school, a symbol of
the intellectual being:
let us take Ionia as a symbol (symbolon) of nature, Italy as a symbol of intellec-
tual being, and Athens as the intermediary that provides a way up for the souls
who are aroused to move from nature to Intellect.
Arriving from Clazomenae “expresses the activity of gods which trans-
cend the reason-principles in nature,” while meeting with Glaucon and
Adeimantus “indicates the sovereignty of the dyad in the unified plural-
ity.” As a consequence, he writes:
But these things, as I said, bear the likeness (eikon) of gods themselves and
make it very easy for those who wish to follow the analogy (analogia). 24
22 Dillon rightly asks how one should comprehend the characters: as eikones or
symbola? He concludes that since they represent a “higher” truth, they should be
taken as symbola. On the other hand, as Dillon observes, the arrangement of the
three passive listeners in the Timaeus (I 9) is understood as an eikon. Later on (I
198), the arrangement of speeches is understood as symbolon for the creation of
the Universe (John Dillon, “Image, Symbol and Analogy: Three Basic Concepts of
Neoplatonic Allegorical Exegesis,” in The Significance of Neoplatonism, ed. R.
Baine Harris [Norfolk, Virginia: International Society for Neoplatonic Studies,
1976], 253).
24 Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides 662, p. 49. This last elucidation cre-
ates some technical problems. Analogy is here understood as a way of establish-
ing relations between the apparent meaning of the text and the transcendent
realm. It assumes a theory of correspondence in which each semantic element
corresponds to a metaphysical one, and the term retains the sense of “geomet-
rical proportion” from its mathematical uses. In this context “it signifies the
correspondence between the surface meaning of the text (or of the characters,
things and actions mentioned in text) and the metaphysical truths of which it, or
they, are the expressions” (Dillon, “Image, Symbol and Analogy,” 255). According
to Dillon, Proclus’s interpretations show that he did not distinguish between
symbolon and eikon. Some Neoplatonists used a more specific meaning of symbo-
lon to mean “any object or any message capable of a double level of interpreta-
tion,” although this meaning was, as Luc Brisson puts it, “reserved to a small
Conditions for Allegory and Likeness
The attempt to explain allegorically philosophical obscurity (Plato’s rea-

sons, for example, for choosing a specific storyline) was familiar to the
late antique reader and student of philosophy. Neoplatonic philosophers
were especially open to the allegorical interpretation of Plato’s works
because they believed
(1) that nothing in Plato’s corpus is unintended or there by chance
(2) that his writings were divinely inspired
(3) in the principle “panta en pasin”
These interrelated beliefs are necessary conditions for the allegorical
interpretation of Plato’s work. The third is in fact more than a condition;
it is one of the foundational Neoplatonic metaphysical principles. Let us,
therefore, look at each of them more closely.
(1) The belief that nothing in Plato’s corpus is unintended or there by
chance. In the In Alcibiadem (10.3), Proclus asserts that the dialogues
must possess what the whole cosmos possesses; and an analogous part must
be assigned therein to the good, part to the intellect, part to the soul, part to
the form and part to the underlying nature itself. 25
And indeed the late Platonists understood the dialogue as a cosmos, and
the cosmos as a dialogue. The Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Phi-
losophy thus describes the virtues of the dialogue form in the following
manner:
For in the same way that a dialogue has different personages each speaking in
character, so does the universe comprise existences of various natures ex-
pressing themselves in various ways; for the utterance of each is according to
number of initiates” (Luc Brisson, How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical

Interpretation and Classical Mythology [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2008], 58). Additionally, it seems that the ancient allegorists did not distinguish
between symbol and allegory, “but used the terms as synonyms” (Peter T. Struck,
“Allegory and Ascent in Neoplatonism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Allegory,
ed. Rita Copeland and Peter T. Struck [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010], 69). The key notion in the above commentary is analogia, which seems
indistinguishable from allegoria. As Dillon puts it, Proclus’s analogia is the heart
of his allegorical interpretation, but he provides “no clue as to what precise rules
are to be followed in fixing the analogiai.” Indeed, adds Dillon, “there were in fact
none that could be formulated,” although this does not mean that “the resulting
allegory is arbitrary” (Dillon, “Image, Symbol and Analogy,” 256).
25 O’Neil, Proclus: Alcibiades I, 6–7.
its nature. It was in imitation, then, of God’s creation, the cosmos, that he did
this. Either this is the reason, or it is that the cosmos is a kind of dialogue. 26
This way of thinking was reinforced by the belief that “the dialogues as a
whole constituted a well-ordered arrangement, or cosmos, of intercon-
nected conversations.” 27 The dialogue is a microcosm of the cosmos; it is
understood “as a microcosmic organism, and as a corollary, its creator as
microcosmic demiurge.” 28
Moreover, in speaking about the functions of Plato’s prologues in the
In Alcibiadem (19), Proclus insists that:
on the one hand, the subject matter in fact or word is adapted to the immedi-
ate aim, while on the other hand what is wanting to the completion of the topic
under discussion is supplied; but all together, as in an initiation, have refer-
ence to the overall achievement of the objects of enquiry. 29
Each element is necessary and none can be ignored lest the puzzle re-
main incomplete. This holistic view is yet another condition for a correct
allegorical interpretation. In fact, Proclus’s ideas on this subject resemble
ideas in the Phaidros (246c), where Plato concludes that:
Every speech must be put together like a living creature, with a body of its
own; it must be neither without head nor without legs; and it must have mid-
dle and extremities that are fitting both to one another and to the whole
work. 30
A dialogue thus presents itself to the commentator as a complex riddle
whose every part can say or suggest something about another part.31
Like the parts of the cosmos, each of which resonates with the whole, the
parts of a dialogue resonate with the whole of the dialogue, with its
26 Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy 15, ed. and trans. Leendert Gerrit
Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1962), 28.
27 Jacob Howland, “Re-Reading Plato: The Problem of Platonic Chronology,” Phoenix
45.3 (1991): 194.
28 Coulter, The Literary Microcosm, 102.
29 O’Neil, Proclus: Alcibiades I, 12. See also Coulter, The Literary Microcosm, 85.
30 Plato, Phaedrus (246c), trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff
(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995), 62.
31 The ancient commentator (both the Neoplatonist and the Christian one)
struggles to go beyond the text, but does not specify explicitly his method of
forcing the text to say something else. In this regard, Lamberton remarks that the
goal of the commentator “is to find the hidden meanings, the correspondences
that carry the thrust of the text beyond the explicit. Once he has asserted their
existence, he rarely feels the need to provide a theoretical substructure for his
claims” (Lamberton, Homer the Theologian, 20).
skopos.32 A dialogue thus needs a solution and Proclus’s interpretation

functions as a cipher. Through the allegorical method he decodes the
hidden message. In the case of the Parmenides, Proclus offers the key to
understanding the text in the chain of transmission depicted in the pro-
logue: metaphysical hierarchy is depicted as narrative hierarchy.
(2) The belief that Plato’s writings were divinely inspired. Plato’s Neo-
platonic commentators considered his dialogues to have been “divinely
inspired.”33 This is why each text is a whole with multiple layers of mean-
ing. Coulter considers that, for the Neoplatonists, Plato “was, in a very
real sense, a god and far above criticism.” 34 Proclus himself writes in his
Platonic Theology (I, 1) that Plato was the only man through whom secret
theological knowledge was made public, while in the beginning of the
commentary on the Parmenides (617–618), he assumes that his elucida-
tion of this specific dialogue is like “the initiation into a mystery cult,”35
praying “all the orders of the divine beings help . . . to share in this most
illuminating and mystical vision that Plato reveals to us in the Parmeni-
des.” 36
(3) The belief in the principle “panta en pasin.” Late antique philoso-
phers found likenesses between philosophical systems and religious be-
liefs, between philosophical texts and religious scriptures, between the
32 The strong unity of each dialogue justifies the commentator’s “meticulous

examination of every word in the text. . . There can be no purely extraneous ele-
ments in the dialogue, nor any unit of meaning so small that it plays no role in the
overall plan of the work.” The unity of the dialogues “often took the form of alle-
gorical readings of the text” (Dirk Baltzly and Harold Tarrant, “General Introduction
to the Commentary,” in Tarrant, Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, vol. I
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007], 17).
33 In both traditions, the exegete must make sense of the obscurities that could be
turned into an occasion for pleasing and explaining. At least, in the case of Augus-
tine it can be said that “the purpose of allegory is two-fold: to please and to
explain (what cannot be expressed or understood directly). For Augustine, these
purposes are complementary, not contradictory” (Frederick Van Fleteren, “Prin-
ciples of Augustine’s Hermeneutic: An Overview,” in Augustine: Biblical Exegete,
ed. F. Van Fleteren and J. C. Schnaubelt [New York: Peter Lang, 2001], 9).
35 Van Den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary, 226.
36 Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 659, p. 19. Not surprisingly, Pseudo-
Dionysius the Areopagite substitutes Jesus for Plato in his plagiaristic
paraphrase of Platonic Theology. For textual correspondences see Istvan Perczel,
“Pseudo-Dionysius and the Platonic Theology: A Preliminary Study,” in A. P.
Segonds and C. Steel, eds., Proclus et la théologie platonicienne (Paris: Les Belles
Lettres, 2000), 500–01.
text as microcosms and the texture of the universe. 37 The formal struc-
ture and the content of Platonic texts thus imitated those of the universe
and similar tools were needed to read the book of nature and a Platonic
text. Nothing, moreover, obliged a reader to limit a Platonic text to only
one meaning. The different layers of meaning a reader can discover in a
Platonic text depend on his erudition and intention, and all the meanings
one can discover in a text are interrelated according to the doctrine
panta en pasin.38 Given these beliefs, and given the correspondences
between the physical and intelligible worlds, allegorizing a text is a very
natural philosophical and religious behavior. A religious attitude toward
a text and a meta-textual reading are simply two of the consequences of
these beliefs. These beliefs do not explain Proclus’s ideas about how to
perform an allegorical reading or why he preferred one allegorical
reading to another one, but they do show that his allegorical reading was
part of a continuum, an expected consequence of his conception of the
world.
Plato himself was one of the first philosophers who thought that it
was inadmissible to take ad litteram the words of Homer, which, at first
37 The links between the structures of the text and metaphysical principles are
assured by the same principles that make theurgy possible. Theurgy confers
authority on allegorical analysis, and it is worth noting that Proclus, unlike
Porphyry, believed that theurgy is superior to all human wisdom (Platonic Theol-
ogy, I, 25 ). Theurgical beliefs imply that material things share divinity: a statue is
not an imitation of divinity; it is a divinity (since it replicates divine features). For
the language of theurgy, and that of mysteries as well, as used in allegory see
Sheppard, “Allegory, Symbols and Mysteries,” in Studies on the 5th [fifth] and 6th
[sixth] Essays of Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic, 145–61.
38 The conviction that everything is related to everything seems to be a common
place for late antique thinking. Proclus uses the principle of panta en pasin
explicitly in his Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, 627, and he formulates it in
proposition 103 of his The Elements of Theology (Proclus, The Elements of Theol-
ogy, 92–93). Talking about the unity of everything, Proclus differentiates also
between “a hidden unity, in which everything is everything,” and a “differentiated
unity, in which all things partake of one another” (Commentary on Plato's Par-
menides, 627, p. 128). The panta en pasin principle has a long history: Syrianus
ascribed it to the Pythagoreans, and Iamblichus to Numenius (Proclus, Elements
of Theology, 93, 254). See also Cristina d’Ancona Costa, “Les Sentences de
Porphyre entre les Ennéades de Plotin et les Éléments de théologie de Proclus,”
in Porphyre, Sentences I, ed. Luc Brisson (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin,
2005), 189–92.
glance, were an affront to the gods.39 Proclus’s solution to this problem

was to discover allegories of philosophical principles in myths and poetic
stories and he thus dismissed the platonic interdiction on poetry in the
philosophical polis. Poetry’s affront to the gods became a pretext for al-
legorizing, which became a modus operandi for Neoplatonism. 40 If, for
Plato, poetry is just a copy of a copy, for the Neoplatonists, and especially
for Proclus, imitation is significant, indicative of other layers of meaning.
Especially in the sixth essay of the commentary on the Republic, Proclus
claims that the mimetic layer is surpassed by that of the didactic, which
is in turn exceeded by the symbolic.41
Plato would have dismissed such allegorical reading.42 There is a
trace of reserve in Proclus’s enterprise as well. His interpretations are
neither true nor false. They are rather meditations in the margin of the
39 It is worth noticing that Augustine (De Civitate Dei, II, 7) is sympathetic with
Plato: “Once all worshippers of such gods are motivated by… ‘lust imbued with
the heat of poison’ they [some philosophers] prefer to investigate the doings of
Jupiter rather than Plato’s teachings” (See Augustine, City of God Books I & II, tr. P.
G. Walsh [Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2005], 115).
40 In this respect, Dillon rightly observes that the “‘scandal’ of immoral stories had
been used ever since the beginnings of allegory as a compelling reason why these
stories must be allegorized” (Dillon, “Image, Symbol and Analogy,” 252). Indeed,
Marinus (Vita Procli, 22) testifies ardently that for Proclus myth is a bearer of
truth: Proclus “learned with ease all of Greek and non-Greek theology and also
that truth which had been hidden in the form of myths; he explained all these in a
very enthusiastic manner to all who wished and were able to understand, and
brought them into harmony” (See “Marianus’ Life of Proclus,” in L. J. Rosán, The
Philosophy of Proclus: The Final Phase of Ancient Thought [New York: Cosmos,
1949], 25). Nevertheless, Plato, in the Republic II (378 a–e), rejects stories in the
polis, even if they are allegorical: “we won’t admit stories into our city―whether
allegorical or not”, since “the young can’t distinguish what is allegorical from
what isn’t” (tr. G. Grube, rev. C. Reeve in Plato, Complete Works, 1017).
41 Proclus, Commentaire sur la République 191.25–193, trans. André-Jean Festugière
(Paris: Librairie Philosophique Vrin, 1970), 209–10.
42 What looks like a secondary trope in Plato, but was used sometimes as a
philosophical tool (e.g., the “allegory of the cave” from the beginning of the book
vii of the Republic), was taken as a way, if not the way, of doing philosophy in late
Neoplatonism. However, the Middle Platonists resisted using allegory as a tool, at
least to some degree, and criticized the practice of allegorical interpretation as an
alteration of the text; in this respect, Plutarch notes that “Some commentators
forcibly distorted the stories [i.e. myths] through what used to be termed ‘deeper
meanings’ but are nowadays called ‘allegorical interpretations’” (Brisson, How
Philosophers Saved Myths, 58).
text.43 The text is a pretext for what seems to be a theological exercise.

Distancing himself both from Plato and from his own commentary, Pro-
clus says:
In general these analogies should not be taken as unimportant, especially if we
believe Plato, who said that nothing else is so beneficial to the soul as what
draws it from phenomena to being, freeing us from the former and making it
easy for us to imagine immaterial nature with the help of these. 44
He points out that it is more important to have a meta-textual reading
than a literal one. Even if the accuracy of a text’s content is hard to es-
tablish, the effort of interpreting it allegorically will ultimately elevate
the soul. Proclus further adds:
So that even if Plato himself did not formulate these matters in this way it
would be beneficial for us to do so. For it is a good exercise for a well endowed
soul which is capable of moving from images to their archetypes and delights
in observing these all-pervading analogies. 45
In this passage one can see the Platonic theory in action: every structure
in the phenomenal world corresponds to its intelligible archetype; there
is no such thing as a non-archetypal structure in the world, since all
things have a divine model. Plato’s text itself is a perfect copy of its intel-
ligible archetype and it can transport the reader from the phenomenal to
the intelligible world.
Conclusion
For Proclus, the prologues, the characters, and the main speakers of
Plato’s dialogues are not gratuitous, but full of significance and cannot be
neglected in the economy of philosophical argumentation. The dialogues’
plain, non-philosophical features stand for metaphysical realities. His
reading is a philosophical exegesis with elements that resemble religious
practices. By the fifth century, his method of interpretation had become
an established tool of late Platonism, existing alongside and, to some de-
gree, in competition with the interpretational practices of Alexandrian
Christians with respect to biblical texts (especially Philo’s reading of the
43 Proclus’s use of hypothetical formulations―for example, “If we should be

required to give a likely analogy” (Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides
628, p. 27)―gives the impression that he is aware that his technique and his
allegorical commentary provide a model of allegorical interpretation.
44 Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 675, p. 59.
45 Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides 675–76, p. 59.
Book of Genesis, or Augustine’s quest for an allegorical reading of biblical

books). Even if Proclus was hostile to Christianity, he shared with these
Christians a taste for and a pleasure in meta-meaning.
Like deconstruction or structuralism in recent decades, allegorical in-
terpretation in the late antique world was a means of “clarifying” obscu-
rities by an even more obscure discourse (since one can figure out the
conditions for allegorical reading, but not the internal reason for allego-
rizing in one manner and not in another). The allegorical method clarifies
the obscurity―or, in other words, clarifies the apparent gratuity of the
rhetoric―in philosophical discourse. Proclus creates the frame for an
analysis that is neither true nor false, but is rather a sort of a game for
which the rules are to some extent flexible (the most undeniable rule
being the sacred nature of the text) and which is potentially endless (de-
pending on the abilities of the interpreter). 46
Proclus’s commentaries show that allegorical readings of Plato cre-
ated a specialized jargon for the philosophy of the fifth century. The pur-
pose of his allegorical commentaries was to initiate readers into the mul-
tiple layers of Plato’s text and presupposed that “the author intended
that the reader seek beneath the surface some second or indirect mean-
ing.”47 Proclus’s introductive commentary on the Parmenides, which was
most probably a handbook for his students, can be taken as an example
of how to interpret allegorically, i.e., how to elevate one’s comprehension
beyond the literal level of a text. The extravagance of his commentary
should in fact secure him a place in the history of religion,48 rather than
in that of literary criticism, 49 since his attitude towards the text turns
46 This taste for unpacking layers of meanings would subsequently have an impres-
sive role in the theological discourse and its multi-layered reading of the Bible
and, even later, in understanding the language of nature, in which each physical
event can be interpreted through otherwise analysis.
48 See, for example, Donald Andrew Russell, Criticism in Antiquity (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981), 95, where allegory is said to “have to do
more with the history of religion and ethics than with that of literary criticism,”
or Peter T. Struck, Birth of the Symbol (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2008), 7: “The allegorists’ interpretive exuberances, of course, fall outside of lit-
erary criticism as Aristotle deﬁned it, so one is more likely to see allegorism
classiﬁed as speculative philosophy, naive science, or theology.”
49 I am inclined to think that Coulter’s remark that Proclus “surely merits a more
secure place in the history of literary criticism” (Coulter, The Literary Microcosm,
vii) is a bad-turn in understanding the function and purpose of allegory in the
case of the Neoplatonists.
Plato’s dialogue into a fetish and comes close to magical thinking, divina-
tion, or theurgy.
Lucifica nigris tunc nuntio regna figuris. 1
Poétique textuelle de l’obscuritas dans les recueils
d’énigmes latines du Haut moyen Age (VIIe–VIIIe s.)
Christiane Veyrard-Cosme
Il dit “feu,” il dit “foudre,” il dit “montagnes,” il dit “cieux”; et la seule

chose voulue par toutes ces choses est d’annoncer le Seigneur Sauveur.
Cette figure est appelée énigme, c’est-à-dire une phrase obscure, où on
dit une chose et veut qu’une autre soit comprise. 2
La recherche ne s’intéresse que depuis peu à un champ de la latinité

haut-médiévale qui s’enracine dans des traditions antiques et offre aux
littératures vernaculaires des siècles suivants matière à composition et
production, celui des recueils d’énigmes latines. 3 Dans le cadre d’une
enquête sur l’obscuritas au Moyen Age, 4 notre étude, pour proposer une
1 “J’annonce le royaume de lumière en de noires figures,” in Aenigmata Laures-

hamensia, éd. François Glorie, CCSL, CXXXIII (Turnout: Brepols, 1968), 358.
2 “Dixit ‘ignem,’ dixit ‘fulgura,’ dixit ‘montes,’ dixit ‘caelos’; et per haec omnia unum
uotum est annuntiare Dominum Saluatorem. Quod schema dicitur aenigma, id est
obscura sententia, quando aliud dicit et aliud uult intellegi” (Cassiodore, In Psalm.
96.6; texte cité par Manuela Bergamin, dans son article “I ‘Mirabilia’ negli Aenig-
mata Symposii,” in Mirabilia. Conceptions et représentations de l’extraordinaire
dans le monde antique. Actes du colloque international, Lausanne, 20–22 mars
2003, éd. Philippe Mudry, Olivier Bianchi et Olivier Thévenaz [Bern: Peter Lang,
2004], 140).
3 Cf. l’article fondamentale de Wolfgang Schultz, “Rätsel,” Realencyclopädie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft I A 1 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuch-
handlung, 1914), 62–125. Cf. aussi le panorama de Giovanni Polara, “Aenigmata,”
in Lo Spazio letterario del medioevo 1. Il medioevo latino, vol. I. la produzione del
testo, tome II, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, Claudio Leonardi, Enrico Menestò (Rome:
Salerno Editrice, 1993), 197–216. Voir également, sur le site www.psychanaly-
se.lu, l’article stimulant de X. Papais, “La voix nouée de l’énigme,” 1–8. Voir sur les
énigmes d’Aldhelm, notre article, sous presse, “Procédés et enjeux des énigmes
latines du Haut moyen Age. Les Aenigmata Aldhelmi (VIIe–VIIIe s.),” Revue des
Etudes Latines (2012): 250–63.
4 Qu’il nous soit permis de remercier ici bien vivement Mme Lucie Doležalová et
l’Université Charles de Prague pour leur accueil si chaleureux et l’organisation
d’un colloque qui fut un véritable temps d’échanges et de découvertes.
POÉTIQUE TEXTUELLE DE L’OBSCURITAS 33
définition du terme, se fondera spécifiquement sur les énigmes en vers

du monde haut médiéval dans l’Occident latin des VIIe–VIIIe siècles,
prenant forme assertive―négative ou positive―et constituées en recueil
placé sous le nom d’un auteur ou d’une collection. 5 Après avoir évoqué,
dans un premier temps, le corpus étudié et signalé quelques éléments de
métapoétique présents dans l’énigme latine du haut moyen-âge, nous
aborderons des points de poétique textuelle de l’énigme qui servent
l’obscuritas, avant de nous interroger, pour finir, sur le lien entre obscuri-
tas et cheminement spirituel dans un univers chrétien.
I. Enigme médiolatine et éléments métapoétiques sur

l’obscuritas
Les recueils d’aenigmata se présentent comme des collections de

poèmes de longueur variable, le plus souvent, cependant, de pièces cour-
tes, portant une marque énonciative à la première personne. Un seul de
ces recueils, celui que l’on doit à Aldhelm (640–709), premier anglo-
saxon à avoir écrit un grand nombre d’œuvres en langue latine, avance
explicitement des remarques proprement métapoétiques, dans la pré-
face et le prologue qu’il compose pour ses énigmes. Les cinq autres col-
lections de notre corpus sont, elles, dépourvues de ces paratextes,
sources pourtant fondamentales de réflexions génériques. C’est
davantage au cœur même de l’écriture de ces énigmes que l’on peut,
parfois, déceler une amorce de définition, comme nous le verrons. 6
5 Les recueils pris en compte ici sont au nombre de six: Aenigmata Tatuini, éd.
François Glorie, CCSL, CXXXIII (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), 167–208 ; Aenigmata
Eusebii, éd. François Glorie, ibid., 209–71; Aenigmata Bonifacii, éd. François Glo-
rie, ibid., 279–343; Aenigmata Laureshamensia, ibid., 345–58; Aenigmata Ald-
helmi, éd. Marie De Marco, ibid., 360–540; Aenigmata in Dei nomine Tullii seu
Aenigmata quaestionum artis rhetoricae (Aenigmata Bernensia), éd. François Glo-
rie, CCSL, CXXXIIIA (Turnhout: Brepols, 1968), 541–610.
6 Signalons les jalons antiques ayant cherché à produire une définition de l’énigme:
si Cicéron dans son Sur l’orateur III, 167, ne propose qu’une définition en creux
de l’énigme, la prenant comme contre-point du bon style de l’oratio, d’autres
auteurs comme Aristote (Poétique 22, 1458 A), ou Quintilien (Institution Oratoire
VIII, 6, 52) qui voit en l’énigme “cette allégorie qui est très obscure” (“haec
allegoria quae est obscurior”), usant ici de la valeur intensive du comparatif,
proposent des formules de caractérisation opératoires. Ce sont en fait les
grammairiens de la tardo-antiquité, qui, à l’image de Sacerdos ou Diomède,
classent l’énigme dans les Vitia orationis en la prenant comme forme d’obscurité.
34 CHRISTIANE VEYRARD-COSME
I.1 Six recueils médiévaux pour un genre d’écriture anciennement attesté
Le corpus que nous avons délimité comprend, en premier lieu, une col-
lection intitulée Aenigmata quaestionum artis rhetoricae, également
désignée par les titres Aenigmata Bernensia, ou Aenigmata Tullii. Parmi
les neuf manuscrits, allant du VIIIe au XIVe siècles, qui nous la transmet-
tent, le témoin le plus ancien est le manuscrit 661 de Bern (fol. 73–80v),
datant de la première moitié du VIIIe siècle, qui, toutefois, propose
seulement vingt-huit de l’ensemble des soixante-deux énigmes de cinq
hexamètres rythmiques que semble avoir totalisées la collection elle-
même. Cette collection, rassemblée par un moine irlandais de Bobbio,
concerne des items consacrés à des objets donnant d’eux-mêmes une
description à la première personne qui ne manque point d’évoquer
également leurs père et mère. En témoigne l’exemple ci-dessous, dont la
solution est “la tablette de cire:”
Dissemblable à elle-même, ma mère me mit bas,
sans semence virile, je suis créée et produite.
Naissant de moi-même, je suis arrachée par le fer au ventre,
ma mère, toute coupée qu’elle soit, est en vie, moi, les flammes me brûlent.
Tant que je suis brillante, je ne puis concéder de plainte,
mais j’apporte grand profit, si je modifie ma noire physionomie. 7
Ainsi pour Diomède (§ 449–50): “Les défauts de style sont de trois sortes: ce qui
est obscure, ce qui manque d’ornement, ce qui est barbare. Les formes
d’obscurité sont au nombre de huit: acyrologie, pléonasme, périssologie,
macrologie, amphibologie, tautologie, ellipse, énigme“ (“Vitia orationis generalia
sunt tria, obscurum inornatum barbarum. Obscuritatis species sunt octo,
acyrologia pleonasmos perissologia macrologia amphibolia tautologia ellipsis
aenigma”). Puis il définit ainsi l’énigme (§ 450): “L’énigme est une phrase sens
dessus dessous en raison d’éléments incroyables” (“aenigma est per incredibilia
confusa sententia”). Sacerdos, lui, en VI, 427 et sq., explique: “Sur l’énigme:
l’énigme, ou griphus, est une parole obscure, un problème simple, mais une
allégorie difficile, avant qu’on ne la saisisse, puis, une fois saisie, qui porte à
sourire, comme par exemple ‘Ma mère m’a donné naissance, puis, elle tire son
origine de moi’, à propos de la glace, qui est issue de l’eau et, une fois dissoute,
donne de l’eau; ou le charbon né de la flamme qui donne une flamme” (“De
aenigmate. Aenigma uel griphus est dictio obscura, quaestio uulgaris, allegoria
difficilis, antequam fuerit intellecta, postea ridicula, ut est ‘mater me genuit,
eadem mox gignitur ex me’, de glacie, quae de aqua procreata aquam soluta parit;
uel carbo de flamma natus [flammam] gignit”). Les références empruntées aux
grammairiens latins sont à lire dans l’édition de Heinrich Keil, Grammatici Latini
(Hildesheim: Olms, 1857–64).
7 “Dissimilem sibi me mater concipit infra / Et nullo uirili creta de semine fundor. /
Dum nascor sponte, gladio diuellor a uentre, / Caesa uiuit mater, ego nam flam-
Si l’on se fonde sur les données stylistiques et le contenu de chaque

énigme, on relève nombre d’objets d’écriture, et des paires constituées
comme suit: herbe et épices, vin et miel, astres et ciel, lumière et ombre.
Signalons cependant l’ordonnancement fluctuant des énigmes selon les
témoins manuscrits. L’ordre des items dans le manuscrit de Bern fournit
ainsi la séquence de thèmes suivante: la lampe, le sel, la table, le calice,
l’oeuf, la farine, le grain, la vigne, le bateau, l’olivier, la palme, le crible, le
balais, la tablette de cire, le miel, l’abeille, le mouton, l’étincelle de feu, le
parchemin, les lettres de l’alphabet, la graine de moutarde, le papyrus, le
miroir, le poisson, l’éponge, la rose, le lys, le crocus. Ce manuscrit, selon
Bernhard Bischoff, fut écrit dans l’Est de la France au VIIIe siècle. Il a la
particularité de transmettre également un glossaire.8 Nous sommes donc
en milieu monastique et dans un univers de grammairiens, ce qui n’est
guère étonnant dans un contexte influencé par le monde insulaire. 9
On doit ensuite à Aldhelm, né aux alentours de 640 et mort vers 709,
des aenigmata écrites à la fin du VIIe siècle. Lettré rompu à l’étude de
l’hébreu, du grec et du latin, celui qui devait devenir abbé de Malm-
esbury en 675, avant d’être le premier évêque de Sherborne (Salisbury)
en 705, choisit d’insérer dans une lettre qu’il adresse au roi Ealdfrith sur
les mystères du mètre et de la scansion, une introduction au genre de
l’énigme proprement dit.
Puis c’est Boniface (675–754), évangélisateur de la Germanie bien
connu, épistolier fameux, mais aussi passeur et inventeur de systèmes de
cryptographie, qui, en l’an 722, compose, pour sa correspondante et
mis aduror. / Nullum clara manens possum concedere quaestum; / plurem fero
lucrum, nigro si corpore mutor” (Aenigmata Tullii, XIX, 565).
8 Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhun-
derts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen). Teil I: Aachen-Lambach (Wiesbaden: Har-
rassowitz Verlag, 1998), ici no. 609A, p. 131.
9 Sur cette influence de la grammaire, voir également Martin Irvine, The Making of
Textual Culture. Grammatica and Literary Theory, 350–1100 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1994), en particulier dans les pages 1–2 et 8, qui
soulignent l’importance de la grammaire dans la mise en place d’un modèle
d’apprentissage, d’interprétation, de connaissance. Jouant un rôle dans le cadrage
de l’approche littéraire, la grammaire dans le monde du haut moyen âge, loin de
se cantonner à la description de phénomènes, s’avère aussi productive. Notons
que Martin Irvine classe en p. 11 les énigmes dans la catégorie “Carolingian
poetry Aenigmata collections (Boniface, Aldhelm, etc).” Cf. également María Pilar
Cuartero Sancho, “Las colecciones de Luis de Escobar y Juan Gonzalez de la Torre
en la tradición clasica, medieval y humanistica de las colecciones de enigmas,”
Criticon 56 (1992): 53–79, en particulier pp. 59–64, sur le haut moyen âge.
parente Lioba, un corpus de vingt énigmes réunies sous le titre De

uirtutibus et uitiis10; la particularité de ces quelque cent quatre-vingt-
huit hexamètres est de fournir la solution en transparence, dans la
mesure où le recours à l’acrostiche permet au poète d’exercer un
contrôle strict sur l’interprétation de chaque item, mesure d’autant plus
pédagogique que ces énigmes sont volontiers d’usage en milieu
monastique pour instruire les pueri. C’est ainsi qu’on peut trouver
l’exemple suivant qui aboutit à la formule “Neglegentia ait” qu’on peut
lire en axe vertical:
Non, sur terre, il n’est point de vierge plus folle que moi
En négligence l’emportant sur toutes les autres.
Grâces, à mon Seigneur, je dédaigne de rendre dignement, pour
La manière dont la limpide lumière parcourt la terre
Et dont les astres, au ciel, font une belle parure, à Lui qui, du
Genre humain est Seigneur et Créateur,
Et de quelle matière Il a voulu façonner la forme des différentes créatures.
N’ignorant point, dans ma vie, le mal, sans savoir le bien, enfreignant
Tant de lois humaines, et les commandements très hauts du Christ,
Je les méprise toujours et toujours refuse de rechercher ce que l’
Arbitre de la terre enjoint aux êtres mortels.
Ah, je ne désire pas ce qui est ardu, sans craindre pour autant l’abîme des
profondeurs.
Insensible sur terre à la peur de la mort, de vivre je n’ai cure
Tandis que mes excès me valent le nom de “vierge folle.” 11
Le corpus compte également, en quatrième et cinquième places, les
énigmes d’Eusèbe et de Tatwine, qui ont vécu peu de temps après Boni-
face. Deux manuscrits seulement transmettent ces recueils, et les trans-
mettent dans un ordre qu’a curieusement interverti l’éditeur Glorie,
10 Aenigmata Bonifacii, 312.

11 Notre traduction a voulu respecter l’acrostiche, mais l’acrostiche latin, au prix
d’une légère distorsion graphique et syntaxique, de ce poème qu’on trouve dans
l’édition de François Glorie déjà citée, en p. 311 (nous préparons actuellement, en
vue de publication, la traduction des recueils d’énigmes éditées par ce cher-
cheur): “Non est in terris me uirgo stultior ulla, / Existens cunctis neglectu
audacior una. / Grates dedignor domino persoluere dignas, / Limpida quoque
modo perlustrent lumina terras, / Et caeli speciem depingent sidera pulchram, /
Gentis humanae aut dominus quis conditor esset, / Ex qua re uarias uoluisset
fingere formas ; / Non ignara mali, recti sed nescia uiuens, / Tot hominum leges
et iussa altissima Christi, / Infringens semper spernendo querere nolo, / Aut quid
praeciperet mortalibus arbiter orbis. / Ardua non cupio, uereor non ima
profundi. / In terra mortem timeo, non uiuere curo, / Talibus exuberans dicor
‘stultissima uirgo’.”
puisque l’édition commence par donner le texte de Tatwine, avant de

proposer celui du moine Eusèbe-Hwaetberth, alors que les témoins
manuscrits offrent tout deux l’ordre inverse. 12 Toujours est-il que les
manuscrits proposent les soixante énigmes d’Eusèbe, suivies des
quarante composées par l’archevêque de Cantorbéry Tatwine, soit un
total de cent items, qui est le nombre des pièces composées par Sympho-
sius, poète tardo-antique modèle de ces moines insulaires du Haut
Moyen Age qui voient en lui le père fondateur de l’écriture énigmatique,
comme le souligne Aldhelm. 13
Eusèbe offre, en ouverture de ses soixante énigmes en vers, un De
Deo, fermant son recueil sur un De bubone et une note sépulcrale que
nous commenterons plus avant; il évoque le monde animal, l’astronomie,
la liturgie et l’univers de l’étude dans une approche métapoétique, en
présentant notamment le matériel d’écriture, les alphabets grec et latin.
Quant à celui qui lui succède dans les manuscrits, Tatwine (mort en 734),
il est passé à la postérité pour avoir rédigé une Grammaire, et pour avoir
composé quarante énigmes en hexamètres qui s’ouvrent sur un De
philosophia et s’achèvent sur un De radiis solis. Etayant son recueil sur
l’apport de Symphosius, il montre une attention toute particulière aux
instruments d’écriture, offrant ainsi une mise en abyme du travail de
l’écrivain: parchemin, plume, encre sont convoqués. Joignant la théorie à
la pratique, le poète achève son recueil sur une proposition ludique faite
au lectorat auquel il propose de procéder à une seconde lecture, en
prenant soin toutefois de relever la première lettre du premier vers des
quarante énigmes, pour trouver l’hexamètre qu’elles forment une fois
mises bout à bout, et, ensuite, de noter, de même, les dernières lettres
des mêmes vers pour découvrir un second hexamètre, et de pouvoir en-
fin lire l’énoncé suivant: “En tordant de manière différente et variée les
brins des quatre fois dix énigmes que voici / Celui qui les a échafaudées
12 Il s’agit de deux manuscrits du début du XIe siècle, Cambridge, University Library,

Gg. V. 35 (fol. 370–374v) et London, British Library, Regius 12. C. XXIII (fol. 113v–
121v) pour le texte d’Eusèbe et Cambridge, University Library, Gg. V. 35 (fol.
374v–377v) et London, British Library, Regius 12. C. XXIII (fol. 121v–127) pour le
texte de Tatwine.
13 Aenigmata Tatuini, 167–208; Aenigmata Eusebii, 209–71. Sur Symphosius, voir
Aenigmata Symphosii, éd. François Glorie, CCSL, CXXXIIIA (Turnhout: Brepols,
1968), 611–741, et Manuela Bergamin, Aenigmata Symposii: la fondazione
dell’enigmistica come genere poetico (Firenze: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo,
2005).
les a tissées et tressées au fil de ses vers.” 14 La solution demande donc,

pour être trouvée, de revenir sur le parcours de la lecture, de la-
borieusement et soigneusement relever les indices. Le cheminement
aboutit à un résultat, tout comme l’agencement interne des items énig-
matiques relève d’une progression voulue comme quête du sens et de la
vraie sagesse, celle qu’octroie le Soleil de la dernière énigme, qui renvoie,
en clausule de ce corpus, au Dieu de la première énigme transmise par
ces deux manuscrits.
Le sixième et dernier recueil avance douze énigmes, qu’on désigne
comme étant les Aenigmata Laureshamensia. Un seul manuscrit, datant
du IXe siècle, actuellement à la Bibliothèque Apostolique Vaticane, pro-
venant de Saint-Nazaire de Lorsch, transmet cet ensemble de dimensions
modestes.15 Dans ces items qui commencent par un De homine suivi d’un
De anima, le lecteur découvre plantes et animaux, objets d’usage courant
et matériel d’étude, puisque la liste des items décline outre les deux
premiers, eau, glace, coupe de vin, neige, châtaigne, embryon, plume, lu-
minaire, taureau et encre. Le dernier item lance fièrement le vers dont
nous avons fait le titre du présent article, vers auquel le mot figura,
terme propre à la géométrie, la rhétorique et l’art figuré, donne son
épaisseur, et une clé d’interprétation sans doute pour l’intégralité du
recueil: “J’annonce le royaume de lumière en de noires figures.”
Oeuvres monastiques, ayant eu une diffusion relativement modeste,
ces aenigmata organisées en collection ont donc pour point commun de
naître en zones insulaires, ou fortement marquées par l’apport insulaire,
et sont destinées à un public restreint de lettrés, moines (ou moniales,
pour le texte de Boniface) adorateurs du Verbe, mais habiles, eux aussi, à
interpréter les textes et les mystères du verbe humain.
I.2 L’approche aldhelmienne de l’aenigma
Nous avons tout récemment eu l’occasion d’examiner l’écriture énigma-

tique aldhelmienne, si bien que nous nous contenterons de signaler les
principaux aperçus de l’approche de cette écriture dans cette sous-par-
tie, en renvoyant notre lecteur à notre article.16
14 “Sub deno quater haec diuerse enigmata torquens / Stamine metrorum exstruc-
tor conserta retexit” (Aenigmata Tatuini, 167).
15 Il s’agit du manuscrit Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Palatinus Latinus 1753 (fol.
115r/v–117r/v). Voir Aenigmata Laureshamensia, 345–58.
16 Cf. article cité en n. 3.
Le prologue qu’il rédige “Super Enigmata” commence par le nom du

poète Simfosius (Symphosius) pour le domaine latin, en tant que
praticien de l’énigme, avant de mentionner, pour le domaine grec, celui
d’Aristote, pris comme théoricien. Réservant ses plus longs développe-
ments au poète latin, Aldhelm accorde de fait à Symphosius non
seulement une place prééminente mais également une fonction d’auctor,
de garant de sa propre écriture énigmatique. L’énigme est occulta propo-
sitio si l’on en croit sa présentation et semble étroitement liée à la tech-
nicité d’une langue poétique:
A ce qu’on lit, le poète Symphosius, versificateur doté d’une grande habileté
dans l’art métrique, composa d’obscures énoncés énigmatiques sous un
énoncé très mince en des lignes ludiques et donna chacune des formules
proposées en trois vers. Et Aristote lui aussi, le plus pénétrant des philosophes,
fournit des énigmes en prose, en rien moins complexes, fort de son
éloquence. 17
Ainsi, pour lui, l’énoncé de l’énigme se distingue des autres par un con-
tenu renfermé et caché, secret et enclos: “une énigme est une sorte de
proposition secrète et cachée.”18
A l’image de l’acception des termes qui désignent l’énigme, emprun-
tés au règne végétal, comme griphus ou scirpus, l’univers métaphorique
d’Aldhelm est fait de végétation enchevêtrée, de ramifications qui proli-
fèrent, en des bois qui se signalent par leur obscurité et leur épaisseur
opaque:
Dans la forêt si dense de la latinité tout entière dans les fourrés boisés des syl-
labes où l’antique tradition des anciens déclare qu’ont proliféré les ramifica-
tions multiples des règles (métriques) parties de chacune des racines des
mots, cette tâche ne se laisse pas facilement appréhender des ignorants, tout
particulièrement de ceux qui n’ont aucun savoir de la métrique. 19
Poète, dont Bède le Vénérable admirait profondément le style éclatant en
17 “Simfosius poeta, uersificus metricae artis peritia praeditus, occultas enigmatum

propositiones exili materia sumpta ludibundis apicibus legitur cecinisse et
singulas quasque propositionum formulas tribus uersiculis terminasse; sed et
Aristoteles philosophorum acerrimus, perplexa nihilominus enigmata prosae
locutionis facundia fretus argumentatur” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, 371).
18 “enigma clanculum et latens propositio componitur” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, 372).
19 “in tam densa totius latinitatis silua et nemorosis sillabarum saltibus, ubi de
singulis uerborum radicibus multiplices regularum ramusculos pullulasse anti-
qua ueterum traditio declarat, rudibus non facile negotium deprehenditur et
praesertim metricae artis disciplina carentibus” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, 373).
le définissant comme un écrivain “brillant par son style,” 20 Aldhelm

choisit de recourir aux vocables les plus rares et, souvent, les plus
abscons pour avertir son lecteur, le royal disciple auquel il s’adresse,
mais par delà, tout lecteur potentiel, du but auquel doit tendre tout
homme qui entend résoudre une énigme et qui consiste à ramener
l’ordre au sein du chaos verbal:
afin qu’une fois clairement distingués ces éléments, il n’y ait plus de chaos dû à
l’explosion et à la collision (de termes) ni de sombre abîme dû au fracas de la
synalèphe pour masquer la lumière à qui mène la scansion ou pour obscurcir
la vision du lecteur. 21
Les termes employés soulignent l’étroite interrelation entre obstacle,
obscurité et abîme, chaos et ténèbres, la claire vision étant réservée à
celui qui saura “perspicere,” c’est-à-dire parvenir à percer et mettre à
jour ce qui s’interpose entre le texte et lui. La valeur intensive du pré-
verbe per- permet ici de traduire l’effort à consentir pour mener à son
terme la quête du sens.
Toutefois, dès cet extrait en prose, se pose la question du rôle des so-
norités, allitérations, assonances, et des figures de style ou de sens, dans
la difficulté du cheminement du sens. Or, dans l’écriture énigmatique du
haut moyen âge, la poésie est la forme par essence du vecteur du mes-
sage obscure qui se livre dans un chaos délibérément recherché.
II. Poésie et sens
La forme poétique choisie par l’auteur du recueil d’énigmes ne semble

point anodine: alors que la prose latine, même d’art, repose sur un prin-
cipe par essence cognitif, puisque son langage a la particularité d’être
référentiel et d’engager la délivrance d’une information, la poésie, elle,
ne semble guère avoir pour objet premier la transitivité du message:
informer de manière immédiate n’est pas la préoccupation première du
poète.22 Dès lors, comment poser la question du sens de l’énigme sans
s’interroger au préalable sur les caractéristiques du medium utilisé?
20 “sermone nitidus” (Bède, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, ed. B. Colgrave,

R.A.B. Mynors [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969], V, 18).
21 “quatenus his perspectis nullum deinceps explosae collisionis chaos et latebro-
sum confractae sinaliphae baratrum lucem scandentis confundat aciemque
legentis obtundat” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, 376).
22 Cf. sur ces points Catherine Fromilhague et Anne Sancier-Chateau, Analyses stylis-
tiques. Formes et genres (Paris: Nathan, 2000), 6.
II.1 Le langage poétique de l’énigme: la brièveté enclose
Soumis à des codes et à des lois, l’unité poétique qu’est l’énigme―le

poème qu’elle constitue―met en avant les voies qu’elle emprunte et
redessine volontiers. Ciselant le profil sonore, phonétique, des mots qui
sont la matière première que travaille le verbe du poète, le poème
énigmatique recourt au jeu d’associations sonores pour mettre en corre-
spondance tabulaire, verticale, des signifiants dont le caractère est souli-
gné par différents procédés que nous étudierons infra. Objet donné à
voir, lire, entendre, recopier, l’énigme obéit à une disposition graphique
précise, et se donne comme une unité autonome, délimitée graphique-
ment, close. Sémiotiquement complexe, le poème énigmatique se signale
dans sa fonction poétique qui est faite de règles et de codes, ceux de la
métrique. Le corps global du poème est donc immédiatement perceptible
dans son cadre, comme symétrie achevée. Mais le contenu, lui, repose sur
la recherche de l’obscuriloquium, selon la formule isidorienne. Cette ca-
ractéristique repose sur deux stratégies, l’une qui est une esthétique de
la breuitas, ou brièveté, l’autre qui est la mise en oeuvre de différents
procédés qui viennent faire obstacle, en conformité avec le sens du pré-
fixe ob- du mot obscuritas, ou assombrissement, en lien avec l’acception
commune du terme latin.
La forme poétique est l’instrument rêvé pour induire la breuitas,
terme qu’on entendra ici au sens de rapport interne à la parole, le mini-
mum étant lié par essence au maximum, et la concision, définie ici
comme résidant dans le rapport entre élément donné et sens à
dégager.23 La brièveté est alors moins ce qui est court, par opposition à
ce qui est long, que ce qui vise à créer la densité du propos. Dans une
telle configuration, l’espace du poème est contraignant, au plan
graphique, tout autant que les règles qui président à sa composition sont
un carcan, répondant, au plan interne, à un énoncé qui est lui-même
contraint à la concision, selon plusieurs voies, comme, par exemple,
l’allusion, la litote, l’ellipse et la métaphore. Cette brièveté obtenue par
différents stratagèmes d’écriture est stratégie de dévoilement
initiatique: l’énigme met en avant dans le vocabulaire, notamment en se
23 Cf. Catherine Croizy-Naquet, Laurence Harf-Lancner, et Michelle Szkilnik, éds.,

Faire court. L’esthétique de la brièveté dans la littérature du Moyen Age (Paris:
Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2011), et la formule qu’on trouve dans leur
Préface, p. 14: “la brièveté est un art de l’allusion et l’auditeur doit saisir sponta-
nément tout ce que contient la forme condensée.”
fondant sur l’adjectif mirus, mira, mirum et ses dérivés, l’étonnement que
fait naître tout ce qui est en dehors de la sphère ordinaire, comme le
thauma dans la philosophie des Anciens précédait nécessairement le
cheminement sur la voie de la sagesse. Chaque énigme souligne l’extra-
ordinaire, comme en témoigne l’exemple suivant, le crocus:
Dans ma petitesse, je me cache et me dissimule dans les ombres de l’été
Et, tout enseveli que je sois, mes membres, sous la terre, sont en vie.
Les froids frimas de l’automne, je m’y plie volontiers
Et à l’approche de la brume, je donne alors des fleurs merveilleuses
Belle est ma demeure, mais plus beau encore, moi, sous terre,
Malgré la petite taille qu’offre mon apparence, je triomphe des aromates. 24
On le voit également à travers cet autre exemple, qui évoque le ciel:
De jour en jour, je montre mon visage connu, auréolé,
Et souvent je rends beau celui qui, toujours, semblait laid.
Innombrables sont les biens qu’à tous j’apporte, et admirables,
Sans être, sous le poids considérable de ces biens, aucunement chargé.
J’ai beau n’avoir pas de dos, tous admirent ma face,
Les bons et les méchants, sous mon ombre, je prends. 25
II.2 Stratégies rhétoriques de l’obscuritas énigmatique
L’énonciation à la première personne ancre l’énoncé énigmatique dans

une tradition étrusco-romaine, celle de l’objet parlant: comme le vase qui
proclame “j’appartiens à un tel” dans l’inscription gravée sur ses flancs,
comme la coupe pleine qu’il faut vider jusqu’à la lie pour découvrir en
son fond le message incisé dans le métal à la première personne, 26 le
poème est objet qui miroite sous les yeux du lecteur ou à l’oreille de
l’auditeur. Mais l’énonciation à la première personne est une fiction
monologique:27 sous le je, ce n’est pas le je lyrique qu’il faut entendre, ce
24 “Paruulus aestiuas latens abscondor in umbras / Et sepulto mihi membra sub tel-
lore uiuunt. / Frigidas autumni libens adsuesco pruinas / Et bruma propinqua
miros sic profero flores. / Pulchra mihi domus manet sed pulchrior infra / Modi-
cus in forma clausus aromata uinco” (Aenigmata Tulli, XXXVI, 582).
25 “Promiscuo per diem uultu dum reddor amictus, / Pulchrum saepe reddo, turpis
qui semper habetur. / Innumeras ego res cunctis fero mirandas, / Pondere sub
magno rerum nec grauor onustus. / Nullus mihi dorsum, faciem sed cuncti miran-
tur. / Et me cum bonis malos recipio tecto” (Aenigmata Tulli, LX, 607).
26 Sur l’objet parlant dans l’antiquité romaine, cf. Emmanuelle Valette-Cagnac, La
lecture à Rome (Paris: Belin, 1997).
27 Sur la perspective énonciative de la poésie lyrique, cf. Fromilhague et Sancier-
Chateau, Analyses stylistiques, 6–7.
n’est pas le sujet unique d’une expérience, c’est un je qui se laisse investir
par d’autres voix que celle de l’objet qu’il semble représenter.
Le lecteur de l’énigme, appelé, à son tour, à dire je en prononçant le
poème, est un porte-voix qui a ceci de particulier qu’il donne de
l’ampleur au message tout en démultipliant la source de l’énonciation: ce
je s’incarne dans le corps du lecteur et de l’auditeur qui reçoit le poème,
permettant au “verbe” du poète de “prendre chair,” l’espace de la lecture.
La réception est, alors, en partie diffractée, brouillée, et le sens du mes-
sage est, davantage encore, mis à distance.
A cette confusion extra-textuelle, correspond une confusion intra-
textuelle, verbale, qui repose sur un ensemble de stratagèmes destinés à
entretenir l’obscurité du propos. Les stratagèmes relèvent majoritaire-
ment des tropes, qui “tournent” le vers en le tordant et le complexifiant.
Il serait vain de prétendre proposer un panorama de ces procédés. Nous
nous contenterons ici d’en mettre en avant quelques uns qui sont
représentatifs des moyens utilisés par les auteurs de ces recueils.
Chiasme, épanadiplose sont des stratégies de clôture stylistique de
l’énoncé, lui-même enclos dans le cadre métrique. Polyptote et variations
permettent d’enrichir les procédés d’itération qu’on observe dans
l’anaphore et ses variantes. La répétition de la négation permet de
souligner l’illogisme apparent de l’énoncé, tandis que le recours à des
vocables opposés, à des séries d’antonymes, instaurent au creux du texte
une impossibilité et donnent au poème une caractéristique paradoxale,
celle de reposer sur l’indicible, l’ineffable, tout en se faisant énoncé inca-
pable de dire.
Examinons l’énigme du poivre. Elle repose sur l’énantiose et dessine
une boucle chiasmatique:
Je n’ai nulle puissance, si, intact, je demeure à jamais:
Je suis fort si je suis brisé, cassé j’ai grand pouvoir
Je mords qui me mord de ma morsure, sans pourtant le blesser de ma dent. 28
Quant à l’énigme de la glace, elle utilise allitérations, assonances pour
souligner l’illogique du propos:
Formée d’un corps plein qui me vient d’un père tout petit,
Je ne suis point portée par ma mère, c’est elle qui est portée.
Moi, naître, je ne puis, si je ne suis d’abord engendrée par mon père
Et venue au monde, de nouveau, moi, je conçois ma mère.
L’hiver je sers, dans la dépendance, les parents que j’ai conçus
28 “Nulla mihi uirtus sospes si mansero semper / Vigeo nam caesus, confractus
ualeo multum / Mordeo mordentem morsu, nec uulnero dente” (Aenigmata Tulli,
XXXVII, 583).
Et l’été de nouveau, je les livre, à ses feux, pour en être recuits. 29

Parfois, certaines énigmes se font restriction verbale, devenant obscures
par condensation de l’énoncé. Ainsi trouve-t-on dans les Enigmes de
Lorsch cet exemple, qui joue sur les syllabes du mot châtaigne
“casta/nea:”
Un produit des forêts s’écrit en huit lettres.
Si l’on ôte en même temps les trois dernières,
On a bien du mal à en trouver une seule, au beau milieu de mille. 30
III. Enjeux de l’obscuritas énigmatique
L’énoncé du poème énigmatique a fonction d’indice. Il est comme l’index,

qui permet de désigner du doigt une direction, un ailleurs du sens. Il dit,
non le signifié, mais le sens, la voie à emprunter. Il est invitation au voy-
age, cheminement et initiation par degrés. Et la voie qu’il désigne est
celle de la Vie, qu’il annonce en multipliant les références à la mort et à
l’obscurité du monde chtonien. Si l’obscuritas de l’énigme est retard ap-
porté à la progression, elle est également passage nécessaire, par l’effort
qu’elle demande au lecteur qui cherche à l’interpréter, pour instaurer à
nouveau une forme de lumière et de révélation.
III.1 Vertu ordonnatrice de l’obscuritas
Le réagencement du monde passe par la sortie du chaos, grâce au verbe

poétique, qui, à l’image du verbe divin appelant à la lumière le monde,
propose un ordre correspondant aux valeurs du groupe auquel appar-
tient le poète, l’Eglise qui voit le monde avec un regard qui lui est propre
et qui est proposé aux contemporains. Ce regard propose de voir en
l’univers créé par l’entité divine un tout qui fait sens, et, par l’admiration
qu’il suscite, dit la grandeur du Créateur et la nécessité pour les hommes
de le louer dans sa création, pour les moines la nécessité de prendre en
charge l’initiation des lecteurs à ce monde de mirabilia qui, une fois dé-
29 “Corpore formata pleno de paruulo patre / Nec a matre feror, nisi feratur et ipsa.
/ Nasci uetor ego, si non genuero patrem, / Et cretam rursus ego concipio
matrem. / Hieme conceptos pendens meos seruo parentes / Et aestiuo rursus
ignibus trado coquendos” (Aenigma Tulli, XXXVIII, 584).
30 “Scribitur octono siluarum grammate lignum / Vltima terna simul tuleris si gram-
mata demens, / Milibus in multis uix postea cernitur una” (Aenigmata
Laureshamensia, VII, 353).
couvert, doit susciter la louange du verbe humain devant la puissance du

Logos créateur.
Or le statut rhétorique de l’énigme, ce qu’on appelle également son
régime, est d’offrir non point un poème isolé mais un recueil ou une col-
lection d’items. L’énigme n’est point insérée dans un texte englobant, elle
est texte mis en série. Le discours du recueil énigmatique se dit donc en
pointillés; il adopte une forme discontinue. 31 La brièveté et l’obscurité
sont ici celles des fragments qui jalonnent le manuscrit et dont il con-
vient de se demander s’ils se prêtent ou non à la mise en œuvre d’un
agencement particulier, qui coifferait en quelque sorte l’ensemble des
items de chaque recueil.
De fait, comme on l’a déjà signalé dans la présentation du corpus,
plusieurs de ces recueils semblent placer en ouverture et en fin de collec-
tion des énigmes significatives, De Deo, De animo, De caelo. . . . Est-ce à
dire que les poètes attendent de leurs lecteurs une interrogation ultime,
sur le sens de l’agencement des fragments, et laissent des indices suscep-
tibles de conduire ces mêmes lecteurs sur la piste d’un sens ultime? Si tel
est le cas, comment alors ne pas remarquer que les cent énigmes
d’Aldhelm proposent en énigme 50 un poème dont la solution est le
Millefeuilles, plante aux ramifications naturelles en éventail, qui masque
sans doute une métonymie manifestant la complexité du manuscrit com-
portant le recueil énigmatique?
Dans la langue des Grecs tout comme dans la langue latine
Je suis appelé le millefeuille né de l’herbe fraiche.
C’est pour cette raison que j’aurai dix fois cent noms,
Fleurissante autrefois dans des petites tiges de telle façon que nulle herbe ne
germe
Par d’innombrables sillons au sentier de terre. 32
Cet énoncé renferme une clé de lecture donnée grâce à la tmèse “mille. . .
folium” du deuxième vers; mais il insiste bien davantage encore sur la
pluralité des noms qu’il contient, c’est à dire sans doute sur les
innombrables objets auxquels font allusion les nombreuses énigmes qui
composent le recueil “millefeuille.” Dès lors, la question posée est celle
31 Sur ces points, cf. Bernard Roukhomovsky, Lire les formes brèves (Paris: Nathan
Université, 2001).
32 “Prorsus Achiuorum lingua pariterque Latina / M i l le uocor uiridi f o l i u m de
cespite natum. / Idcirco d e c i e s ce n t e n u m nomen habebo, / Cauliculis florens
quondam sic nulla frutescit / Herba per innumeros telluris limite sulcos” (Aenig-
mata Aldhelmi, L, 437). Nous renvoyons, pour l’analyse détaillée de ce texte
métapoétique, à notre article de la Revue des Etudes Latines.
du rôle laissé au lecteur: ce dernier a pour ainsi dire la mission de ter-

miner le processus d’interprétation, en lisant et surtout relisant―on l’a
vu avec le jeu proposé par Tatwine au terme de son recueil―des énigmes
qu’il s’agit de soumettre à d’autres investigations. En désignant son lec-
teur comme étant un uates, Tatwine lui confie une tâche imposante et
lourde de significations: 33 si l’on se fonde sur les sens, attestés dès
l’Antiquité pour ce terme, de “prophète” ou de “devin,” voire de “poète
inspiré,”34 le lecteur-uates devient, par conséquent, non seulement relais
herméneutique, mais se doit aussi de porter à un degré supérieur
l’interprétation première. L’obscuritas est donc défi lancé à la capacité
herméneutique d’un public par ailleurs rompu aux différents sens de
l’Ecriture sainte et à l’exégèse allégorisante.
III.2 Obscuritas et écriture ultime
A) De l’énigme au tombeau, du tombeau à la vie

Si la forme poétique a déjà en soi bien des points en commun avec la
forme épigrammatique, l’inscription, le genre de l’épitaphe, aspects que
nous avons eu l’occasion d’étudier ailleurs, la forme poétique de l’énigme
semble liée à une initiation à une forme d’Au-delà, comme si l’au-delà du
sens premier (l’énigme, étant une forme de métaphore, se fait passage
vers l’ailleurs) avait pour mission d’annoncer l’Au-Delà auxquels les
moines qui composent ces énigmes espèrent accéder.
Nombre d’énigmes déploient des champs sémantiques mettant en
avant la thématique de la cachette et de l’élément caché, l’univers sous
terre, l’ombre et le froid, l’ensevelissement et la sépulture.
Or, dans le bestiaire des énigmes surgit le paon, symbole christique
fameux, qui, pourtant, nous est présenté par Aldhelm sans la moindre
allusion au christianisme, alors même que l’intertextualité permet
d’identifier, sur la base de repérages déjà effectués par l’éditeur, Paulin
33 “(Le poète) salue maintenant à bon droit en ses vers tressés le lecteur prophète /
L’invitant à joindre les premières lettres au tout début des premiers vers / Et de
la même façon les dernières, celles qui sont rubriquées. / Qu’arrivé au terme, il
fasse demi-tour et parcoure de nouveau son chemin jusqu’au bout !” (“Versibus
intextis uatem nunc iure salutat / Litterulas summa capitum hortans iungere
primas / Versibus extremas hisdem, ex minio coloratas ; / Conuersus gradiens
rursum perscandat ab imo!” Aenigmata Tatuini, Conclusio poetae de supra dictis
aenigmatibus, 208).
34 Cf. sur ce point, Danielle Molinari, “Problématique du ‘uates’ chez Horace,” Noesis
4 (2000): 197–98.
de Nole, Augustin (qui, dans son De Ciuitate Dei, XXII, 4 en fait le symbole
de l’immortalité) ou Isidore.
Je suis remarquable d’apparence, admirable sur toute la terre,
Fait d’os, de nerfs, de rouge sang.
Tant que la vie est ma compagne, il n’est point de forme en or
Qui ait plus d’éclat rougeoyant que moi et au moment de ma mort, ma chair ne
pourrit jamais. 35
La salamandre, chez Aldhelm, succède à l’énigme du paon. Et, tout en
parallélisme antithétiques, l’énoncé du poème met en exergue le
phénomène qui semble présenter comme un adynaton, une impossibilité
majeure, ou un phénomène allant au rebours des lois naturelles, être
dans la flamme sans brûler:
Au beau milieu du feu, en vie, je ne sens pas les flammes
Je cause le malheur du bûcher et m’en ris
Et malgré le foyer crépitant, l’étincelle scintillante,
Brûler, je ne puis: les flammes, à l’ardeur dévorante, se font tiédeur. 36
Quant à l’énigme des folios de parchemin, qu’offre le recueil d’Eusèbe,
elle montre comment la lettre de l’énigme peut être indice du sens du
monde, par translatio de vérité. Ne s’achève-t-elle point sur l’affirmation
“responsum mortua famur”?
Avant par notre intermédiaire nul son, nul mot ne résonnait
Mais aujourd’hui distincts, nous émettons, sans voix, des mots
Tandis que champs vierges, nous brillons de mille figures sombres
Vivants, nous ne parlons pas; morts, nous disons la réponse. 37
B) Du tombeau au Monument littéraire

Si la parole du poète est confusion recherchée, l’inscription de son nom
est souvent soulignée:
Ah, toi qui tout ensemble tiens en ton empire céleste le sceptre
Le lumineux tribunal du royaume des cieux,
Dotant cet illustre royaume, que tu gouvernes, de lois éternelles―ainsi les
Horribles membres de Behemoth, tu les tordis, pour sa peine,
En le précipitant jadis de l'altière citadelle dans l'étendue livide, toi
35 “Sum namque excellens specie, mirandus in orbe, / Ossibus ac neruis ac rubro

sanguine cretus. / Cum mihi uita comes fuerit, nihil aurea forma / Plus rubet et
moriens mea numquam pulpa putrescit” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, XIV, 397).
36 “Ignibus in mediis uiuens non sentio flammas, / Sed detrimenta rogi penitus ludi-
bria faxo. / Nec crepitante foco nec scintillante fauilla / Ardeo, sed flammae
flagranti torre tepescunt” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, XV, 397).
37 “Antea per nos uox resonabat uerba nequaquam / Distincta sine nunc uoce edere
uerba solemus; / Candida sed cum arua lustramur milibus atris; / Viua nihil
loquimur, responsum mortua famur” (Aenigmata Eusebii, XXXII, 242).
Le maître de celui qui compose ces vers et poèmes,

Maintenant accorde-moi ta lumière en récompense, à moi qui puis en mes rudes
Vers dévoiler les énigmes secrètes du monde;
Seigneur Dieu, ainsi, tu accordes, à qui n'en est point digne, gratuitement ta
grâce. 38
Ainsi commence la Préface d’Aldhelm. Acrostiche et téléstiche permet-
tent de dresser une stèle qui, tout en chantant le Dieu Arbiter, le
Créateur, dans l’axe horizontal du poème, propose en axe vertical
l’inscription du poète Aldhelmus. Le poème est à la croisée de ces ordon-
nées. L’homme poète fait monter vers l’entité divine une psalmodie
énigmatique qui dit Dieu dans le jeu des contraires et des paradoxes. Le
recueil est monumentum, inscrivant la célébration divine et le nom
humain.
Les moines qui composèrent ces recueils étaient des grammairiens,
habitués à manipuler les outils de connaissance de la langue, à recon-
naître les différentes figures de mots et de sens qui faisaient l’ornement
d’un énoncé. Grammairiens pour lesquels l’interprétation des textes
n’avait pas de secret, ils étaient aussi des exégètes accomplis, rompus à
une forme d’exégèse, la symbolisation, qui était un mode de lecture des
Ecritures, mais pouvait également se faire mode d’écriture: l’énigme,
dans son obscuritas, montre comment l’exégèse peut aussi produire des
symboles et comment les tentatives d’explication du monde pouvaient
emprunter voie (uia) et voix (uox) obscures pour aller vers la Lumière.
Dans l’enclos des monastères, et l’enclos des manuscrits, les collections
d’énigmes du Haut moyen Age entendaient sans nul doute offrir un
monde en miniature qui disait l’Incommensurable.
Toutefois, la Renaissance carolingienne, fondée sur une volonté de
clarification et de lisibilité, a sans doute constitué un temps d’arrêt dans
la production des énigmes latines en recueil, se contentant d’accorder
quelque place aux jeux lettrés et aux inflexions énigmatiques de
l’écriture de cour. Désormais, pour nombre de potentes de ce monde car-
olingien, l’obscuritas devenait la marque de l’insoumission religieuse ou
politique et devait, en tant que telle, être avant tout contenue.
38 “Arbiter, aethereo iugiter qui regmine sceptrA / Lucifluumque simul caeli regale
tribunaL / Disponis moderans aeternis legibus illuD, / Horrida nam multans tor-
sisti membra VehemotH, / Ex alta quondam rueret dum luridus arcE, / Limpida
dictanti metrorum carmina praesuL / Munera nunc largire, rudis quo pandere
reruM / Versibus enigmata queam clandistina fatV: / Sic, Deus, indignis tua gratis
dona rependiS” (Aenigmata Aldhelmi, Praefatio, 377).
The Enigmatic Style in Twelfth-Century
French Literature
Jeff Rider
At one point in his commentary on Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy,

after interpreting the myth of Orpheus, the twelfth-century grammarian,
William of Conches (1120–1154), breaks off to comment:
No one should criticize our interpretation of this fable just because he finds
another interpretation of it while reading Fulgentius, for one can come up with
various interpretations of the same thing depending on how one looks at it. This
variety of interpretations is a cause for rejoicing rather than concern, as long as
each explanation is free from contradictions. 1
In the third quarter of the twelfth century, Marie de France wrote some-
thing similar in a much-discussed passage in the prologue to her Lais:
It was the custom of the old authors, as Priscian testifies, to speak somewhat ob-
scurely in their books so that those who were to come after them and had to
study their books might gloss the letters they found written there and use their
own judgment to fill out the meaning. These philosophers knew, they
understood from their own experience, that as time went on people’s judgment
would become more subtle and they would be better able to keep for
themselves part of that in their works which might be lost. 2
Towards the end of the century, moreover, Chrétien de Troyes began his
Story of the Grail by writing that
1 “[S]i aliquis legens Fulgentium aliter hanc fabulam exponi videat, idcirco hanc
nostram non vituperet, quia de eadem re secundum diversam considerationem
diverse inveniuntur expositiones. Sed non est curandum de diversitate exposi-
tionum, immo gaudendum, sed de contrarietate si in expositione esset” (cited in
Edouard Jeauneau, “L’usage de la notion d’integumentum à travers les gloses de
Guillaume de Conches,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Âge
24 [1957]: 47). All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
2 “Custume fu as anciëns, / Ceo testimoine Preciëns, / Es livres ke jadis feseient, /
Assez oscurement diseient / Pur ceus ki a venir esteient / E ki aprendre les
deveient, / K’i peüssent gloser la lettre / E de lur sen le surplus mettre. / Li phi-
losophe le saveient, / Par eus meïsmes l’entendeient, / Cum plus trespassereit li
tens, / Plus serreient sutil de sens / E plus se savreient garder / De ceo k’i ert a
trespasser” (Marie de France, Lais, Prologue 9–22, ed. Jean Rychner [Paris: Cham-
pion, 1971], 1–2).
50 JEFF RIDER
Whoever sows sparingly, reaps sparingly, but he who wishes to reap plentifully
casts his seed on ground that will bear him fruit a hundredfold; for good seed
withers and dies in worthless soil. Chrétien sows and casts the seed of a romance
that he is beginning and sows it in such a good place that he cannot fail to profit
greatly from it for he does it for the worthiest man in the Empire of Rome, that is,
Count Philip of Flanders. 3
As I have shown elsewhere, this passage is more complicated than it
might at first seem, but the core metaphor is clear. Writing a romance is
like sowing a seed and that seed grows more or less well depending on
the soil―which is to say the listener or reader―in which it is sown. In a
poor listener or reader, the seed will wither and die; in a good one, it will
bear fruit―which is to say meaning―a hundredfold. 4
Common to all three authors is the notion that a text’s meanings are
produced by hearers or readers whose capacities, interests and concerns
determine what the text means to them. A text’s meanings are not fixed,
are not something transmitted from the author to the hearer or reader,
and, in the case of a secular, poetic text, are not even subject to the
blinders of orthodoxy; they are, rather, something the hearers or readers
imagine while hearing or reading the text. “The word comes to the ears
like whistling wind,” Chrétien writes at the beginning of The Knight with
the Lion,
3 “Qui petit seime petit quiaut / Et qui auques recoillir viaut / En tel leu sa semence
espande / Que fruit a cent doble li rande, / Car en terre qui rien ne vaut / Bone
semence seiche et faut. / Crestïens seime et fait semence / D’un romanz que il
encommence / Et si lo seime en sin bon leu / Qu’il ne puet ester sanz grant preu.
/ Il le fait por lo plus prodome / Qui soit en l’empire de Rome, / C’est li cuens
Felipes de Flandres” (Chrétien de Troyes, Le Conte du graal 1–13, ed. Charles
Méla [Paris: Livre de Poche, 1990], 26; The Story of the Grail [Perceval], in
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. William Kibler [Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1991], 381 [trans. modified]).
4 See Jeff Rider, “Wild Oats: The Parable of the Sower in the Prologue to Chrétien
de Troyes’ Conte du graal,” in Philologies Old and New: Essays in Honor of Peter
Florian Dembowski, ed. Carol Chase and Joan Tasker Grimbert (Princeton, NJ:
Edward C. Armstrong Monographs, 2001), 251–66. For another reflection on
these authors’ use of obscurity, see Carlo Donà, “Oscurità ed enigma in Marie de
France e Chrétien de Troyes,” in Obscuritas: Retorica e poetica dell’oscuro. Atti del
XXVII Convegno Interuniversitario di Bressanone (12–15 Iuglio 2001), ed. Fran-
cesco Zambon and Giosuè Lachin (Trento: Editrice Università degli Studi di
Trento, 2004), 103–15.
ENIGMATIC STYLE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRENCH LITERATURE 51
but doesn’t stop or linger there; instead it quickly leaves if the heart is not alert
and ready to grasp it, for the heart can grasp and enclose and retain it when it
comes. 5
A second notion, which is common to both Marie and Chrétien at
least―who were writers rather than interpreters―and is, indeed, illus-
trated in the passages cited above in which they set it forth, is that given
that meaning is not communicated from the author to hearers or
readers, but is instead produced by them, the best way for a writer to
ensure that his or her work will continue to be read and will bear
meaning a hundredfold is to write “somewhat obscurely.” The
“somewhat” is important. If one writes too obscurely, one will not be
read. If one writes too clearly, one limits both the meaningfulness and
the potential audience of one’s work by binding it too closely to a single
context. By writing somewhat obscurely, one gives one’s work the best
chance of being endlessly meaningful, of provoking meaning for many
people at many times in many places.6
What we find reflected in these three passages is what I will call a
taste for, an aesthetic of, enigma, which was a central part of the twelfth-
century French literary tradition. Although the concept of enigma is pre-
5 “As oreilles vient le parole, / Aussi comme li vens qui vole, / Mais n’i arreste ne
demore, / Ains s’en part en mout petit d’ore, / Se li cuers n’est si estilliés / C’a
prendre soit appareilliés; / Que chil le puet en son venir / Prendre et enclorre et
retenir” (Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au lion 158–64, ed. and French trans.
David Hult [Paris: Livre de Poche, 1994], 60; The Knight with the Lion [Yvain], in
Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, 297 [trans. modified]).
6 This anticipates, from a productive or rhetorical point of view, Paul Riceour’s
hermeneutics of appropriation, which is founded on the fact that a text’s refer-
ence changes as it is handed on over time. “In my view,” writes Ricoeur, “the text
is much more than a particular case of intersubjective communication: it is the
paradigm of distanciation in communication. As such, it displays a fundamental
characteristic of the very historicity of human experience, namely that it is com-
munication in and through distance. . . . An essential characteristic of a literary
work, and of a work of art in general, is that it transcends its own psycho-socio-
logical conditions of production and thereby opens itself to an unlimited series of
readings, themselves situated in different socio-cultural conditions. In short, the
text must be able, from the sociological as well as the psychological point of view,
to ‘decontextualize’ itself in such a way that it can be ‘recontextualised’ in a new
situation – as accomplished, precisely, by the act of reading” (“The Hermeneutical
Function of Distanciation,” in Paul Riceour, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences,
ed. and trans. John B. Thompson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris:
Editions de la Maison de Sciences de l’Homme, 1981], 131, 139; cf. Ricoeur,
“Appropriation,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, 182–93).
52 JEFF RIDER
sent at the very beginning of the classical rhetorical tradition and is

discussed, notably, by Aristotle and Cicero, Quintilian gives it the place it
holds in all subsequent treatises on rhetoric and grammar: among the
tropes, as a species of allegory. In his Institutio oratoria, Quintilian
defines a trope as “the artistic alteration of a word or a phrase from its
proper meaning to another” and writes that metaphor is the most
common and best of tropes. Allegory is a continuous series of metaphors
which “either presents one thing in words and another in meaning, or
else something absolutely opposed to the meaning of the words.” He
subsequently identifies this second type of allegory, where what is meant
is absolutely opposed to what is said, as irony. “When, however, an
allegory is too obscure,” he writes, “we call it an enigma.” Enigma, in
other words, is a species of allegory, a continuous series of metaphors
whose meaning is ambiguous and obscure. 7
The particular value of enigma, according to Classical rhetorical trea-
tises, is the pleasure it procures the audience by means of its metaphoric
nature. The treatises agree that metaphor is an important device,
perhaps an orator’s most useful tool, and is a source of great pleasure for
an audience. As Cicero’s orator Crassus observes,
everybody derives more pleasure from words used metaphorically and not in
their proper sense than from the proper names belonging to the objects. . . .
even in cases where there are plenty of proper words available, words not
used in their proper sense give people much more pleasure, if the metaphor is
a good one.
The seductiveness of metaphor is so great, in fact, that Crassus feels
obliged to admonish his interlocutors that “only such metaphors should
be used as either make the meaning clearer . . . or such as better convey
the whole meaning of the matter.” The danger is that the pleasure pro-
cured by metaphor will become the goal of the discourse, rather than the
transmission of meaning: the desire to please the audience through the
use of metaphor may overcome the obligation to instruct them and this
will lead to obscurity. Cicero thus recognizes both a value and a danger
in the use of metaphor. “There is,” he writes, “no mode of speech more
effective in the case of single words, and none that adds more brilliance
7 “[V]erbi vel sermonis a propria significatione in aliam cum virtute mutatio. . . . aut
aliud verbis aliud sensu ostendit aut etiam interim contrarium. . . . Sed allegoria,
quae est obscurior, aenigma dicitur” (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8.6.1, 44, 52;
trans. H. E. Butler, 4 vols., Loeb Classical Library [London: Heineman; New York:
Putnam’s Sons, 1920–22], 3: 300–01, 326–27, 330–31).
to the style,” but he also realizes that the pleasure afforded by metaphor
may become the only reason for its use.8
Cicero writes that allegory, like the metaphors of which it is made up,
is “a valuable stylistic ornament.” But here too there is a danger: when
one uses allegory, Cicero warns, “care must be taken to avoid obscu-
rity―and in fact it is usually the way in which what are called enigmas
are made.” 9 Allegory, in other words, is a continuous use of metaphor
which still serves to convey the intended meaning; in the case of enigma,
the meaning is obscure and the discourse serves principally to amuse. An
enigmatic discourse pleases immensely, that is, but it does not instruct
insofar as its meaning is obscure. It is a sort of metaphoric inebriation,
where metaphor is used principally for the pleasure it procures.
Noteworthy evidence of the entertaining pleasure provided by
enigma is to be found in Aulus Gellius’s Attic Nights, where he relates
that he and some fellow Roman students in Athens used to meet for din-
ner during the Saturnalia and spend the evening
very merrily yet temperately, not “relaxing our minds,” as the saying is―for, as
Musonius asserts, to relax the mind is like losing it―but diverting our minds a
little and relieving them by the delights of pleasant and improving
conversation:
the host would pose a series of enigmas and obscure questions (of which
Gellius gives seven examples) and a guest who solved an enigma or an-
swered a question received a prize and a laurel crown. Quintilian also
testifies to the pleasure to be derived from enigma by first mentioning it,
not in the part of the Institutio devoted to tropes, but in a discussion of
“the sources from which laughter may be legitimately derived or the
topics where it may be naturally employed.” Pompeius similarly defines
enigma as “that game which children play amongst themselves when
they ask each other little questions which none can understand,” while
8 “[E]a transferri oportet quae aut clariorem faciunt rem . . . aut quo significatur
magis res tota . . . omnes translates et alienis magis delectantur verbis quam pro-
priis et suis . . . sed in suorum verborum maxima copia tamen homines aliena
multo magis, si sunt ratione translate, delectant. . . . Modus autem nullus est flor-
entior in singulis verbis nec qui plus luminis afferat orationi” (Cicero, De Oratore
3.39.157–3.40.159, 3.41.166; trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols., Loeb
Classical Library [London: Heineman; Cambridge: Harvard, 1942], 2: 122–25,
130–31 [trans. modified]).
9 “[M]agnum ornamentum orationis. In quo obscuritas fugienda est: etenim ex hoc
genere fiunt ea quae dicuntur aenigmata” (De Oratore 3.42.167, 2: 131).
54 JEFF RIDER
Gervase of Melkley, in the thirteenth century, writes that “enigma is any

obscure proposition testing one’s talent for guessing.” 10
The identification of enigma as obscure allegory passed from the
classical textbook to the medieval textbook without interruption or
significant modification, and by the middle of the fourth century the ex-
position of the concept had achieved the form it would retain throughout
the Middle Ages. “An enigma,” writes Donatus in his Ars maior (c. 340–
360), “is an obscure proposition which is composed by means of a
hidden resemblance between things.”11
Even Augustine’s concept of enigma, which he perceives to be one of
God’s principal means of revelation and examples of which he finds in
Scripture and the soul, is nonetheless the simple, traditional grammatical
concept. In his treatise On the Trinity, he launches his commentary on
Paul’s use of the words “in enigma” by writing:
these words are altogether unintelligible to those who have never had those
basic lessons in which is taught a certain doctrine concerning modes of speaking
which the Greeks call tropes, which Greek word we also use in Latin. . . . There
are, however, several species of this trope, that is of allegory, among which
there is indeed one called enigma . . . so that every enigma is an allegory, but not
every allegory is an enigma. What, therefore, is allegory if not that trope where
one thing is to be understood by means of another thing . . . . Enigma, I can
briefly explain, is an obscure allegory. 12
10 “[H]ilare prorsum ac modeste, non, ut dicitur, ‘remittentes animum’ – nam ‘remit-

tere,’ inquit Musonius, ‘animum quasi amittere est’ –, sed demulcentes eum
paulum atque laxantes iucundis honestisque sermonum inlectationibus” (Aulus
Gellius, Attic Nights 18.2, trans. John C. Rolfe, 3 vols., Loeb Classical Library
[London: Heinemann; New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1927–28], 3: 297–303:); “unde
autem concilietur risus et quibus locis peti soleat” (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria
6.3.35, 51; 2: 456–57, 464–65); “aenigma est, quo ludunt etiam parvuli inter se,
quando sibi proponent quaestiunculas, quas nullus intelleget” (Pompeius, Com-
mentum artis Donati, in Grammatici latini, vol. 5: Artium scriptores minores, ed.
Heinrich Keil [Leipzig: Teubner, 1868], 311); “Enigma est quelibet obscura sen-
tentia probans ingenium divinandi” (Gervase of Melkley, Ars poetica, ed. Hans-
Jürgen Gräbener, Forschungen zur Romanischen Philologie 17 [Münster: Aschen-
dorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965], 149).
11 “Aenigma est obscura sententia per occultam similitudinem rerum” (Aelius
Donatus, Ars maior, ed. Louis Holtz, in Louis Holz, Donat et la tradition de
l’enseignement grammatical [Paris: CNRS, 1981], 672).
12 “[M]ultis hoc incognitum est qui eas litteras nesciunt, in quibus est doctrina
quaedam de locutionem modus, quos Graeci tropos vocant, eoque graeco vocab-
ulo etiam nos utimur pro latino. . . . Hujus autem tropi, id est allegoriae, plures
sunt species, in quibus est etiam quod dicitur aenigma. . . . ita omne aenigma alle-
goria est, non omnis allegoria aenigma est. Quid ergo est allegoria, nisi tropus ubi
The examples of enigma with which Augustine illustrates the just-cited

passage are all drawn from the Bible, but he also recognizes the exist-
ence of enigmas in secular texts. In his Seven Questions Concerning the
Heptateuch, in the course of a commentary on a passage from Numbers,
he explains the unusual word “enigmatisters” by noting that they seem
to be composing a song. He therefore concludes that
it is not incredible to think that those whom we call poets were then called
enigmatisters, for it is the habit and the license of poets to mix the enigmas of
fables with their songs, by which they are understood to signify something.
Indeed, enigmas were probably then nothing other than that tropical locution
which must be broken if that which lies hidden in the enigma is to be
understood. 13
The passage shows that Augustine considered the enigmas of secular po-
ets to be comparable to the enigmas of the divinely inspired biblical
ones.
ex alio aliud intellegitur . . . . Aenigma est autem, ut breviter explicem, obscura

allegoria” (Augustine, La Trinité 15.9.15, in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, vols. 15–
16, ed. and French trans. M. Mellet and Th. Camelot [Paris: Desclée De Brouwer,
1955], 2:458–60). On this passage in particular and enigma in the classical and
medieval rhetorical tradition in general, see Eleanor Cook, “The Figure of
Enigma: Rhetoric, History, Poetry,” Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric
19 (2001): 349–78; on the sources and treatment of obscurity in this tradition
more generally, see Jan Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity in the Latin Tradition,”
Mediaevalia: A Journal of Medieval Studies 19 (1996 for 1993): 101–70; and Irène
Rosier-Catach, ed., L’Ambiguïté; cinq études historiques (Lille: Presses Universi-
taires de Lille, 1988).
13 “[N]on incredibiliter putantur isti aenigmatistae sic tunc appellati, quos poetas
nos appellamus, eo quo poetarum sit consuetudo atque licentia miscere
carminibus suis aenigmata fabularum, quibus aliquid significare intellegantur.
Non enim aliter essent aenigmata, nisi esset illic tropica locutio, qua discussa
perueniretur ad intellectum qui in aenigmate latitaret” (Augustine, Quaestionum
in Heptateuchum libri VIII Quaest. 45, ed. J. Fraipont, Corpus Christianorum,
Series Latina 33 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1958], 263–64). I would like to thank Tamás
Visi for pointing out to me that Augustine’s word “enigmatisters”
(“aenigmatistae”) is based on the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, which
translates a Hebrew word meaning “those who speak parables/proverbs” as
“αίνιγματισταί” (“enigmatisters”). The Hebrew word is from the same root as the
Hebrew title of the book Proverbs. The phrase in which the word is used (Num.
21:27) introduces a citation from an ancient poem and many modern translators
render the Hebrew phrase as “poets”: modern scholars, in sum, have reached the
same conclusion as Augustine. Compare Origen, Homily XIII on Numbers, 2.1.
56 JEFF RIDER
The definition of enigma as an obscure allegory is repeated by essentially

every grammarian in the Middle Ages. “An enigma,” writes Isidore of
Seville,
is an obscure question which is difficult to understand, unless it is explained . . .
The difference between allegory and enigma is that the power of allegory is
double and indicates one thing figuratively beneath another; enigma, however,
has a meaning which is most obscure and adumbrated through certain
semblances. 14
“An enigma,” writes Hugh of Saint Victor, copying Donatus word for
word, “is an obscure proposition which is composed by means of a hid-
den resemblance between things.”15 “An enigma,” echoes Mathew of
Vendôme, “is an obscurity in propositions which is hidden by a certain
covering of words.” 16 Enigma thus had a well-defined place in the
remarkably stable medieval rhetorical and grammatical tradition and
was taught in the schools along with the rest of that tradition.
Within this tradition, the composition of an enigmatic text was alto-
gether comparable to the composition of an allegorical or ironic one. As
Karl F. Morrison puts it, enigma was considered “an expository strategy”
or “a deliberate strategy of thought” which
locates closure, not in the text, but, if at all, in the mind of the reader or
spectator . . . according to principles entirely unanticipated by the author. 17
Medieval scholars, moreover, discovered enigmas in every form of dis-
course. Does one not read, asked Aldhelm of Malmesbury (c. 650–709),
that “the poet Simphosius . . . sang the hidden propositions of enigmas,
raising slight matter to the heights of playfulness?” Did not “Aristotle, the
most penetrating of the philosophers, likewise produce difficult enigmas
in eloquent prose as proofs?” Does one not find enigmas “inserted
14 “Aenigma est quaestio obscura quae difficile intellegitur, nisi aperiatur . . . . Inter
allegoriam autem et aenigma hoc interest, quod allegoriae vis gemina est et sub
res aliud figuraliter indicat; aenigma vero sensus tantum obscurus est, et per
quasdam imagines adumbrates” (Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lind-
say, 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1911], 1.37.26).
15 “Enigma est obscura sententia per occultam similitudinem rerum” (Hugh of Saint
Victor, De grammatica, ed. Jean Leclercq, in Jean Leclercq, “Le ‘De grammatica’ de
Hugues de Saint Victor,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age
14 [1943/45], 321).
16 “Aenigma est sententiarum obscuritas quodam verborum involucro occultata”
(Mathew of Vendôme, Ars Versificatoria 3.44, ed. Edmond Faral, in Edmond Faral,
Les Arts poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe siècle [Paris: Champion, 1924], 177).
17 Karl F. Morrison, “Hermeneutics and Enigma: Bernard of Clairvaux’s De con-
sideratione,” Viator 19 (1988): 129–51.
throughout the sacred heights of literature?” 18 Poetry, philosophy,

Scripture: all three could be enigmatic, and enigma was used as an ex-
pository strategy by such twelfth-century writers as Abelard, Bernardus
Silvestris, Gratian, Anselm of Havelberg, Gerhoch of Reichersberg and
Bernard of Clairvaux. 19
Unlike the classical rhetoricians, however, medieval scholars did not
view discursive obscurity as a fault to be avoided. The warnings against
the dangers of obscurity which accompany the discussion of enigma in
the classical textbooks tend to disappear from the medieval textbooks.
An enigmatic discourse’s fruitful ability to provoke multiple interpreta-
tions was, on the contrary, recognized and lauded throughout the Middle
Ages. 20 Encountering an obscure passage in the Bible, for example,
Augustine writes:
Perhaps it has been set down the more darkly, in order that it might generate
many meanings, and that men might come away from it the more enriched,
finding something enclosed that could be opened in many ways, more than if
they had found it, already open, in one way only. 21
Abelard writes similarly that
the holy prophets, too, when the Spirit speaks through them, do not
understand all the meanings towards which their words are directed, but often
are aware of only one meaning, even though the Spirit speaking through them
18 “Simfosius poeta . . . . occultas enigmatum propositiones exili materia sumpta

ludibundis apicibus . . . cecinisse . . . Aristoteles, philosophorum acerrimus, per-
plexa nihilominus enigmata e prosae locutionis facundia fretus argumentatur. . . .
in sacris litterarum apicibus insertum” (Aldhelm of Malmesbury, De metris et
enigmatibus ac pedum regulis 6–7, in Opera, ed. Rudolf Ehwald, MGH AA 15 [Ber-
lin: Weidmann, 1919], 75–76). Abelard likewise thought that philosophers, poets
and prophets “use language in essentially the same, ‘veiled’ way” (Peter Dronke,
Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism, Mittellateinische
Studien und Texte 9 [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974], 61–64).
19 See Morrison and, for Bernardus Silvestris, Dronke, Fabula, 134–35.
20 Winthrop Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary
Influence of the School of Chartres (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972),
255–57; Donà, “Oscurità ed enigma,” 104–05; and Ziolkowski, “Theories of
Obscurity,” 130–33, 138–53, all likewise draw attention to this shift in attitude
towards the enigmatic between the classical period and the Middle Ages.
21 “Ideo enim forte obscurius positum est, ut multus intellectus generet, et ditiores
discedant homines, quia clausum inuenerunt quod multis modis aperiretur,
quam si uno modo apertum inuenirent” (Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos
CXXVI.11, ed. Eligius Dekkers and J. Fraipont, 3 vols. Corpus Christianorum,
Series Latina 38–40 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1990], 3:1865; trans. Dronke, Fabula, 57
n. 2 [cont. from 56]).
58 JEFF RIDER
foresees many meanings there, so that later he may inspire some

interpretations in some interpreters and other in others. 22
Writing a deliberately enigmatic text was thus very much a possibility
within the literary tradition in which Marie de France, Chrétien de
Troyes and other twelfth-century French authors were formed and thus
part of the nascent French literature that emerged in the twelfth century.
Preoccupied by legal and political concerns, Classical forensic rhetori-
cians were, as we have seen, wary of the inebriating pleasure that comes
from such texts. One can understand, however, why twelfth-century
court poets like Marie and Chrétien, who sought first and foremost to
entertain their audiences, embraced the enigmatic style. I think they also
did so because another of their goals was to endow the aristocratic life
portrayed in their works with its own spiritual dimension, a secular
aristocratic spirituality independent of contemporary mainstream
Catholic spirituality. And one way to do so was to endow their works
with a mysterious, quasi-allegorical aura, suggesting they had a hidden
higher meaning for those who have ears to hear. 23
While enigmatic texts did not suddenly cease to be written in French
in the thirteenth century, they do seem to have become less frequent and
less popular from that time on. The great anti-enigmatic romance, the
Quest of the Holy Grail, was written about 1225 and we find in it a strik-
ing exposition of a new aesthetic and hermeneutic model that would
become increasingly influential in Western culture and is probably still
the most influential model today. When Eve picked the fruit from the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden, the author
of the Quest writes, she broke “off as she did so a twig of the tree itself, as
it often happens that the twig adheres to the gathered fruit.” Eve broke
off the twig when she gave the fruit to Adam, but kept it absentmindedly
in her hand and indeed still had it in her hand when they were expelled
from the garden. “When . . . ,” writes the author,
22 Theologia Christiana 1.117, in Petri Abaelardi Opera Theologica, ed. Eligius M.

Buytaert, 3 vols., Corpus Christianorum 11–13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969–87),
2:121, trans. Dronke, Fabula, 63–64: “et sancti prophetae, cum aliqua Spiritus
Sanctus per eos loquitur, non omnes sententias ad quas se habent uerba sua
intelligent; sed saepe unam tantum in eis habent, cum Spiritus ipse qui per eos
loquitur multas ibi prouideat, quarum postmodum alias aliis expositoribus et
alias aliis inspirat.”
23 See Jeff Rider, “Marvels and the Marvelous,” in The Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed.
Norris J. Lacy, 2 ed. (New York: Garland, 1991), 311–13.
she saw the twig, it caught her eye because it was still as fresh and green as if it
had just been picked. She knew that the tree from which it had been broken was
the cause of her exile and her misery. So she said then that, in remembrance of the
cruel loss she had suffered through that tree, she would keep the branch for as
long as she could, where it would often be before her eyes to remind her of her
great misfortune.
Then Eve bethought herself that she had neither casket nor any other box in
which to house it, for no such things as yet existed. So she thrust it into the ground,
so that it stood erect, saying that in this way it would often catch her eye. . . .
This branch which the first sinner brought with her out of Paradise was
charged with meaning. In that she held it in her hand it betokened a great happi-
ness, as though she were speaking to her heirs that were to follow her . . ., and
saying to them through the medium of this twig:
“Be not dismayed if we are banished from our inheritance: it is not lost to us
eternally; see here a sign of our return hereafter.” 24
This twig, eternally fresh and green, charged with meaning, transmits
Eve’s voice and unchanging message down the centuries to her heirs. It is
a promise, a legal or contractual message, and Eve’s first impulse is to
place it in a box or casket for safe-keeping, although she cannot do so be-
cause such things have not yet been invented. This tale evokes what I
will call the box-model of hermeneutics, according to which an author
puts meaning in a text, just as Eve would have liked to put the twig in a
box. The author’s voice survives down the centuries, eternally fresh and
green, closed in a box-like text which readers must open in order to hear
that voice and its message. All authority in this model belongs to the au-
24 “[E]le cueilli . . . de l’arbre meismes .i. rainsel auvec le fruit, si com l’avient sovent
que li rains s’en vient auvec le fruit com l’en le quelt. . . . Lors s’aperçut et voit le
rainsel bel et verdoiant come celui qui mainte[nant] avoit esté cueilli, si sot que li
arbres dont li fruiz avoit esté estoit acheson de son deseritement et de sa
mesaise. Lors dist Eve que en remenbrance de sa grant perte qui par cel arbre li
estoir avenue, garderoit elle le rainsel tant com ele le porroit plus et si le metroit
en tel leu que ele le verroit sovent. Et lors s’apensa qu’ele n’avait ne huche ne
autre [estui] en quoi ele le peust estoier, car encores au tens de lors n’estoit nuls
tel chose. Si le ficha dedenz terre, si qu’il se tint tout droiz, et dist que einsi le ver-
roit ele assez sovent. . . . Icil rains que la premiere pecherresse aporta [de]
paradis si fu pleins de [molt] grant senefiance. Car einsi com ele le portoit en sa
main senefioit il une grant leece, tot aussi come se ele parlast a ses oirs qui
encore estoient a venir . . . et li rains senefia tot aussi com s’ele lor deist: ‘Ne vos
esmaiez mie se nos somes jeté hors de nostre heritaje: car nos ne l’avons mie
perdu a toz jorz ; vez ici les enseignes que encore i serons’” (La Quête du Saint
Graal 11.253–54, ed. Fanni Bogdanow, French trans. Anne Berrie [Paris: Livre de
Poche, 2006], 516–20; The Quest of the Holy Grail, trans. P. M. Matarasso
[Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969], 222–23).
60 JEFF RIDER
thor. The meaning is entirely his or hers. The reader’s job, indeed the
reader’s obligation, is to open the textbox and hear the author’s message.
This is the model of promissory texts and contracts, the kind of text that
was dear to the growing medieval patrician class. It is a binding, authori-
tarian model that banishes all obscurity―and all hints of a secular spirit-
uality―and grounds meaning in a clear set of references.25
This model is diametrically opposite to the seed-model of hermeneu-
tics shared by Guillaume de Conches, Abelard, Marie de France and
Chrétien. For them, the text is a seed that grows differently, produces
different meanings, in each reader, in which each reader produces
meanings appropriate to his or her capacities, interests and situation,
and in which “this variety of interpretations is a cause for rejoicing
rather than concern.” This model―which emerged from a clerical
synthesis of Classical rhetoric and biblical hermeneutics―does not bind
readers, locates the authority for determining meaning in them, and
welcomes some obscurity as a provocation to interpretation. 26
25 The avowed purpose of the author of the Quest is “to bring to a close the adven-
tures of the Holy Grail (a achever les aventures del [Saint] Graal)” (La Quête 1.11,
96; The Quest, 37) and he declares that “just as folly and error fled at His
[Christ’s] advent and truth stood revealed, even so has Our Lord chosen you [the
Quest’s hero, Galahad] from among all other knights to ride abroad through many
lands to put an end to the hazards that afflict them and make their meaning and
their causes plain (tot einsi com l’error et la folie s’en foï par la venue de lui et la
verité fu adonc [aparanz et] manifeste, ausi vos a Nostre Sires esleu sor toz
chevaliers por envoier par les estranges terres por abatre les greveuses
aventures et a fere conoistre coment eles sont avenues)” (La Quête 2.43, 158; The
Quest, 64). In more modern terms, one might say that the author of the Quest
wanted to put an end to the obscurity surrounding the grail and the Arthurian
world (and to Arthurian narratives in general) and teach his readers how to
interpret what they read correctly, which is to say, in an edifying and doctrinally
acceptable manner, but he fails in some very interesting ways and his story gets
away from him even as he tells it. In the midst of the above-cited passage in
which he sets forth the box-model of hermeneutics, for example, he tells us that
when Eve stuck the twig into the ground, “it quickened and took root in the soil
and grew (crut et reprist en la terre [et enracina])” (La Quête 11.254, 518; The
Quest, 223). This twig eventually grew into a large white tree, then turned green
and produced numerous green saplings, and then later turned red and produced
numerous red saplings. Despite the author’s intentions and efforts, Eve’s message
grows and changes with time and circumstance, recalling Chrétien’s seed
metaphor.
26 “Augustine and other allegorizing exegetes,” writes Ziolkowski, “had opened the
door . . . to allegorical and obscure writing – to writing that demanded an alle-
gorical mode of thought, to writing that encouraged readers and listeners to
When French literature emerged in the twelfth century it did so from

and against a clerical, that is, ecclesiastical, learned and Latinate, back-
ground.27 Its authors had been trained in clerical schools or at least in
the clerical tradition and the literature they created was in some sense
Latinate literature for people who did not know Latin, had not been to
school, and were used to oral entertainments. It was a literature that had
to please an unschooled audience but whose authors nonetheless
wanted to write sophisticated literature and thus had to teach their au-
dience to enjoy such literature as well as entertaining it.
The world had changed considerably by the time the Quest of the Holy
Grail was composed around 1225. The clerical tradition, on the one hand,
was becoming more scholastic and encyclopedic, which led it to prefer
an allegorical style to an enigmatic one.28 Buoyed by growing wealth, the
speculate upon its opacity. Their work led to an acceptance among a variety of
authors that obscurity had a valid place even outside the Bible and that it could
enable all manners of writings to attain the most sublime heights. The multiple
interpretations that an obscure style could enable held the potential of elevating
poetry alongside theology, and this was a potential that poets on the order of
Alan of Lille and Dante [and, I would add, Marie de France and Chrétien de
Troyes] could ill afford to leave untried” (152–53). See also Jacqueline
Cerquiligni, “Polysémie, ambiguïté et équivoque dans la théorie et la pratique
poétiques du Moyen Age français,” in Rosier, ed., L’Ambiguïté, 167–80.
27 It is still useful, in this connection, to read Edmond Faral, Recherches sur les
sources latines des contes et romans courtois du moyen âge (Paris: Champion,
1913). See also Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry, 220–41.
28 This new attitude is apparent in Aquinas’s explanation of Aristotle’s critique of
Plato: “Having introduced Plato’s view, Aristotle here rejects it. In this connection
it is important to realize that very often, when Aristotle rejects Plato’s views, he
is rejecting them not with respect to Plato’s intention but with respect to how his
words sound. Aristotle acts in this way because Plato had a faulty manner of
teaching: he says everything figuratively and teaches through symbols, intending
through his words something different from how they themselves sound. (Thus
he said that soul is a circle.) So, to prevent someone from falling into error on
account of these words, Aristotle argues against Plato with respect to how his
words sound” (“Posita opinione Platonis, hic Aristoteles reprobat eam. Ubi
notandum est quod plerumque quando reprobat opiniones Platonis, non
reprobat eas quantum ad intentionem Platonis, sed quantum ad sonum
uerborum eius; quod ideo facit quia Plato habuit malum modum docendi: omnia
enim figurate dicit, et per simbola docet, intendens aliud per uerba quam sonent
ipsa verba, sicut quod dixit animam esse circulum; et ideo ne aliquis propter ipsa
uerba incidat in errorem, Aristotiles disputat contra eum quantum ad id quod
uerba eius sonant”) (Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima 1.8, in Opera
Omnia, vol. 45.1 [Rome: Commissio Leonina; Paris: Vrin, 1984], 38.407a2; A
62 JEFF RIDER
secular audience for literary entertainments, on the other hand, had be-
come significantly larger and more varied and secular literature had
begun to develop its own tradition, distinct from the clerical one.
Anchored more clearly in secular concerns and reflecting more clearly
worldly attitudes, it favored a “realistic” and often ironic style to an en-
igmatic one. For French literature at least, the twelfth century thus
seems to me to be the heyday of the seed-model of hermeneutics and of
what one might call the enigmatic style.
Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, trans. Robert Pasnau [New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1999], 62–63). This passage was brought to my attention by
reading Alessandro Zironi, “Il Libro di Zabulon fra astronomia e occultismo,” in
Obscuritas, ed. Zambon and Lachin, 202. On Aquinas’s preference for allegory
over enigma and the effect of such a preference on literary creation, see also
Cook, “The Figure of Enigma,” 370.
Mise en abyme in Marie de France’s “Laüstic”
Susan Small
Mise en abyme, or infinite regress, is a hermeneutic device which pro-

duces meaning through the juxtaposition of analogous structures. Its use
is perhaps most prevalent in literature, although it has important paral-
lels in other disciplines, most notably that of visual arts, where replica-
tion draws the eye to the isomorphism and infinite interconnectivity of
spatial configurations. The introduction of the term “mise en abyme” in a
literary context is generally attributed to the late-nineteenth-century
French writer, André Gide, who borrowed it from the field of heraldry;
the notion of a “text-within-a-text” was, said Gide, similar to the relation
which obtained between an object placed at the center point (the
“abyme”) of a heraldic shield and the shield itself; both devices operated
by means of an analogy between one structure and the structure which
contained it.1 Meaning was produced through the interaction (or, more
specifically, mirroring) of similar structures, each reflecting and thereby
complicating and interrogating the other. Given its focus on specularity,
it would seem inevitable that mise en abyme should emerge, some half a
century later, as the sine qua non of the French Nouveau Roman [New
Novel], with its focus on metafictional reflexivity. Within the kaleido-
scopic detail of a text (literary or other), mise en abyme acts both as a fil-
ter and a catalyst, bringing into focus systems of semiotic relations
whose analogous structures can be seen to reflect, and reflect upon, each
other. It is in this way that it functions as a hermeneutic device, revealing
intricate webs of symmetric semiosis underlying and supporting the
surface of the text.
1 Cf. Lucien Dällenbach, “André Gide’s shields,” in Lucien Dällenbach, The Mirror in
the Text, trans. Jeremy Whitely with Emma Hughes (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1989), 7–19, esp. 7–8. Originally Le récit spéculaire: essai sur la mise
en abyme (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1977) ; and André Gide, Journal 1889–1939
(Paris: Gallimard, Pléiade, 1948), 41, cf. Journals 1889–1949, trans. J. O’Brien
(London: Penguin, 1984), 30–31.
64 SUSAN SMALL
If the use of the term mise en abyme is modern, however, the concept
itself is not. In his study of mirror imagery in medieval and renaissance
texts, Herbert Grabes observes a parallel between similarity, analogy,
and the classical principle of imitatio, in which the world is conceptual-
ized throughout the period as an “increasingly complex fabric of analo-
gies,” each strand of which can be seen and, therefore, interpreted in
terms of the others. 2 Within this world of echoes, asymmetry (and the
complementary notions of absence, silence, dislocation, refraction, eras-
ure and loss) can be seen as a rent in the “fabric of analogies.” Moreover,
as Lucien Dällenbach observes in The Mirror in the Text, the placement of
one object en abyme in another produces a hole or lacuna at the center of
the object in which it is placed, altering its identity and initiating “[a]n
infinite illusion . . . or an unlimited interplay of substitutions.” 3
This interplay is strikingly represented in the twelfth-century lay of
“Laüstic” [The Nightingale] by Marie de France, which contains a jeweled
casket which contains an embroidered cloth which contains a dead
nightingale: a structure that clearly replicates Dällenbach’s definition of
mise en abyme as “any internal mirror that reflects the whole of the nar-
rative by simple, repeated or ‘specious’ (or paradoxical) duplication.”4
Moreover, the collection of lays containing “Laüstic” itself is preceded by
a prologue in which Marie famously declares her writing project: to fol-
low the ancient practice of obscuring the meaning of the text in order
that it might be read and interpreted by future generations with the
hermeneutic tools at their disposal:
It was the custom of the Ancients,
As Priscian testifies
That in the books that they wrote
They would say things quite obscurely
So that those who should come after them
And wish to learn from them
Might gloss the letter
And add their own understanding to them. 5
2 Herbert Grabes, The Mutable Glass: Mirror-imagery in Titles and Texts of the Mid-
dle Ages and English Renaissance, trans. Gordon Collier (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982), 112–13.
3 Dällenbach, Mirror, 111.
5 “Custume fu as ancïens, / Ceo testimoine Precïens, / Es livres ke jadis feseient, /
Assez oscurement diseient / Pur ceus ki a venir esteient / E ki aprendre les
deveient, / K’I peüssent gloser la letter / E de lur sen le surplus mettre” (Marie de
France, Les Lais de Marie de France, trans. Jean Rychner [Paris: Champion, 1983],
MISE EN ABYME IN MARIE THE FRANCE’ S “LAÜSTIC“ 65
The object of my paper is, therefore, to elucidate the semiotic structure

underlying the lay of “Laüstic” in terms of the concept of the mise en
abyme. To this end, I will first present a plot summary of “Laüstic,” fol-
lowed by an analysis of its plot structure. I will argue that the lay has a
bi-partite narrative structure: the first part of which is based on the
principle of mirror-image symmetry, and the second on the related but
more refractory concept of mise en abyme itself.
The story can be summarized as follows: Two knights of equal wealth
and prowess, equally respected by their peers, live in neighboring
houses separated only by a wall. The only apparent difference between
the two knights is that one of them is married and one is not. The unmar-
ried knight falls in love with the wife of the married knight. The two lov-
ers engage in an intense, secret platonic love affair from their bedroom
windows. One night, the lady’s husband becomes suspicious and asks her
why she has been spending so much time at the window. She tells him
that she has been listening to the nightingale singing in the garden. The
following day, her husband has the bird trapped and brought to him. He
summons his wife and, telling her that the nightingale will no longer
keep her awake, breaks its neck and flings its bloody body at her. Terri-
fied that her lover will think she no longer loves him, she wraps the
nightingale’s body in a cloth on which she has embroidered the story of
its tragic death. She gives the body to a messenger, asking him to deliver
it to her lover and to tell him what has happened. Her lover, heartbroken,
places the body of the nightingale in the embroidered cloth in a jeweled
casket which he carries with him forever.
In The Mirror in the Text, Dällenbach cites the dead nightingale in
“Laüstic” as a classic example of “[t]he paradigms that are used as meta-
phors for the locus of a metaphysical narrative”6; in “Laüstic,” he
explains,
the remains of the bird that is an emblem of love poetry are wrapped in an em-
broidered silk shroud covered in writing, and kept like a relic in a case which
recalls other caskets in literature. 7
“Prologue,” ll. 11–19). All quotations from the Lais will be taken from this edition.
All unattributed English translations will be my own.
7 Dällenbach, Mirror, 181–82. Paul Zumthor poses this same question in terms of
the modalities of Greimassian semiotics (A. J. Greimas, Du sens: Essais sémiotiques
[Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970], 168): “The existence of three performers (the
Lady, the Lover, and the Husband) and of a single object (love) has to be taken
into account; at any given moment the object is substituted by the nightingale in
66 SUSAN SMALL
In other words, the dead nightingale lies at the bottom of a textual abyss,
a sort of memento scribendi, distilling and “deciphering” an originary
meta-text. 8 I will further argue that not only does the dead nightingale
(as object) constitute the locus of a metaphysical narrative but that the
nightingale’s death itself (as act) is the catalyst that converts a pleasing
(if somewhat predictable) love story into a profound commentary on the
nature of writing and memory. In structural terms, the highly symmet-
rical (if mobile) mirror structure which characterizes the opening pages
of “Laüstic” is fractured by the death of the nightingale, which acts as
what one critic terms a “hole in the information-bearing sign system”; its
death is a pivotal moment of disequilibrium, throwing the narrative into
a tailspin and restructuring it as a mise en abyme. 9
The story opens with a striking representation of mirror-image (or
reflection) symmetry: two knights, two houses, two good men. 10 Almost
immediately, however, this symmetry is broken down into its compo-
nent parts; the two knights become “the one” and “the other,” 11 and a
previously undisclosed third element (the wife of “the one”) is revealed,
effectively transforming the initial mirror-image symmetry relation into
a classic love triangle. The lady, in other words, functions as a sort of
“dangerous supplement,” introducing the possibility―the quasi-
virtue of equivalences taken from courtly love lyric” (Paul Zumthor, Towards a
Medieval Poetics, trans. Philip Bennett [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1992], 319). Peter Haidu, who proposes a distinction between the “pure
sign, a sign signifying nothing but signification” and “the metonymic, contiguous
serious of signs […] that discursively explicate the solitary, polyvalent sign,”
observes that “[i]n ‘Laüstic,’ the doubled sign structure forms a mise-en-abyme:
the small syntagm that reflects a narrative’s totality.” The dead bird is, for Haidu,
the “sign of pure love,” the embroidered shroud its “explicatory narrativization”
(Haidu, Subject Medieval / Modern: Text and Governance in the Middle Ages [Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 2004], 128–29).
8 John. J. White, “The Semiotics of the mise-en-abyme,” in The Motivated Sign:
Iconicity in Language and Literature 2, ed. Olga Fischer and Max Nänny
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000), 34, in reference to Dällenbach, Mirror, 181.
9 Margaret M. Boland locates the structural center of the collection of lays in the
tombs of “Yonec,” flanked by the coffins in “Deus Amans” and the reliquary in
“Laüstic” (Margaret M. Boland, Architectural Structure in the Lais of Marie de
France [New York: Peter Lang, 1995], 62).
10 “[d]ui chevalier” (l. 9), “deus forz maisuns” (l. 10), “la bunté des deus baruns” (l.
11). The Larousse Dictionnaire de l’ancien français defines a “maison fort” as a
“manoir fortifié,” a fortified dwelling.
11 “The one has married a lady” (“Li uns aveit femme espusee” [l. 13]); “The other
was a bachelor” (“Li autres fu uns bachelers” [l. 17]; my emphasis).
certainty―of change. Indeed, we are only twenty-three lines into the lay
when Marie reveals that the bachelor knight loves the lady, 12 and, only
three lines further on, tells us that the lady loves him as well.13 The
exclusivity of this “above all else” implies both the reciprocity of the
relationship between the bachelor knight and the married woman and
the concomitant exclusion of the lady’s husband. Moreover, if we assume
(as I think we must) that Marie’s initial representation of the
relationship between the two knights occulted not only the presence of
the lady but also the existence of an exclusive and reciprocal erotic (or at
least sexual) relationship between her and her husband, then what has
occurred in the first twenty-three lines of the lay is a complete, but still
symmetrical, reconfiguration of the original affective mirror relation.
In strictly formal terms, the “binary opposition” between the two
actants is maintained; their function has simply been reassigned. The
bachelor knight is now to the married lady (and she to him) what her
husband was to her (and she to him) before. Any change in the affective
relationship between the two knights themselves is left unmentioned
and has, in any case, no effect on the formal actantial structure of the lay:
two knights, two houses, two good men. The fact that the reader is
initially unaware that both knights love the same lady serves only to
reinforce the mirror symmetry relation between the two. Interestingly,
too, Marie takes the proximity of the two knights’ “two houses” and
reformulates it as a sort of architectural aphrodisiac: not only do the
bachelor knight and the married woman, she says, fall in love with each
other “because he lived close to her,”14 but they are also able to conceal
their love from her husband
For their dwellings were close
Their houses were next to each other
As were their rooms and their donjons. 15
12 “He loved his neighbour’s wife” (“La femme sun veisin ama”).
13 “She loved him above all else” (“ele l’ama sur tute rien”).
14 “pur ceo qu’il iert pres de li” (l. 28).
15 “[k]ar pres esteient lur repere: / Preceines furent lur maisuns / E lur sales e lur
dunguns” (ll. 34–36). As Judith P. Shoaf notes in her online translation of this pas-
sage (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jshoaf/Marie/laustic.pdf – last accessed
January 8, 2013), “propinquity” figured in the “art of courtly love” in the twelfth
century: “Lovers who live near together can cure each other of the torments that
come from love, can help each other in their common sufferings, and can nourish
their love by mutual exchanges and efforts” (“Amantes enim ex propinquo
degentes poenarum, quae ex amore procedunt, alternatim sibi possunt esse
remedia et in suis se compassionibus adiuvare et suum amoren mutuis vicibus ac
68 SUSAN SMALL
Despite this fortuitous contiguity, however, the first knight now appears
to be entirely absent from the equation. Indeed, his physical absence
from his own house is given as the occasion for several encounters
between his neighbor and his wife. Of course, in his absence, his function
as what the actantial model of structural semantics would term the
“obstacle” is taken over by the very literal wall between the two houses:
“There was no barrier or obstacle / Except a high wall of grey stone.”16
Moreover, it is at this point in the narrative that even the strict
surveillance, which denotes the presence of the lady’s husband, 17 is no
obstacle to the intense reciprocity of the relationship between the lady
and the other knight. There being no possibility of physical contact,
however, their two facing bedchambers (with their erotically suggestive
open windows) become the site of an intense exchange of sexual
substitutes. The narrative continues:
From the chamber where the lady lay,
When she went to the window,
She could talk with her lover
on her part, and he to her,
And they could exchange gifts
laboribus enutrire” (my emphasis); Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love,
trans. John Jay Parry [New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1941], 98–99;
Andreas Capellanus, De amore libri tres I.6.G., “Loquitur nobilior nobili,” Para. 359
[http://www.thelatin library.com/capellanus.html] last accessed January 8,
2013).
16 “N’i aveit bare ne devise / Fors un haut mur de piere bise” (ll. 37–38); I have high-
lighted the word “except” because it marks, in Old French, not only exception, as
here and several lines later, (“They were both very happy / Except….” [“Mut
esteient amdui a eise, / Fors….” (ll. 46–47)]), but exclusion as well. It is,
moreover, highly significant in terms of Derridean theory of mourning and the
erotic, which opposes “introjection,” in which “language acts and makes up for
absence by representing, by giving figurative shape to presence,” and
“incorporation,” which “creates a typography within the psyche where the
beloved is kept” (quoted in Martin Kavka, Jewish Messianism and the History of
Philosophy [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004], 200, 199). See also
“Fors,” Jacques Derrida’s foreword to Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s The
Wolf Man's Magic Word: A Cryptonomy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1986). This distinction is, as we will see, crucial in the lover’s response to
the dead nightingale. Paul Zumthor designates the function of “fors” in lines 47–
57 of “Laüstic” as “restriction (fors que, ‘except’) of previous affirmation,
producing retrospective ambiguity” (Zumthor, Poetics, 320).
17 “For the lady was closely guarded / When he [her husband] was in the area”
(“Kar la dame ert estreit gardee / Quant cil esteit en la cuntree” [ll. 49–50]).
By tossing them back and forth to each other. 18

Of course, it is the lady’s husband, the “sleeping partner” in this erotic
game, whose occulted presence will eventually tip the balance in favor of
his marriage. For it is he who, in the dark and intimate space of the bed-
room he alone shares with the lady, begins to invoke the rules of mar-
riage against those of the game of courtly love, demanding that she
account for her absences, becoming angry and asking “why she arose and
where she went.”19 Interestingly, the husband is, with respect to his
doubts, also playing the role of the courtly lover himself, for, as Andreas
Capellanus remarks in the chapter of his Art of Courtly Love entitled “Of
the signs of mutual love” the man who notices that his lover is absent
more often (“If you see that your lover is missing all sorts of opportuni-
ties to be with you”) or comes up with pretexts for not being with him
(“or is putting false obstacles in your path”) has good reason to suspect
that she is in love with another man.20 Moreover, the lady in “Laüstic”
does use what proves to be a highly significant pretext to explain her
nightly absences to her husband (“My lord, the lady replied, / He has no
joy in this world / Who does not hear the nightingale sing. / It is for that
reason that I go there”), 21 and this, too, is a sign of her desire to leave
him.
It is, therefore, at this precise point―at the virtual midpoint of the
narrative (ll. 7-156)―that the nightingale begins to function as the tick-
ing time bomb at the heart of its structure. The device does not immedi-
ately explode nor does the structure implode; the duration of time
implicit in both the injunction and the narrative (“He thought of one
thing only: / He will trap the nightingale”)22 defers the final act and
allows for a final reconfiguration of the spatial coordinates involved. For,
one line after the nightingale is identified as the husband’s target, the
18 “Des chambres u la dame jut, / Quant a la fenestre s’estut, / Poeit parler a sun ami
/ De l’autre part, e il a li, / E lur aveirs entrechangier / E par geter e par lancier”
(ll. 39–44).
19 “[p]ur quei levot e u ala” (l. 82).
20 “Sed si coamantem cognoveris se ultra solitum, ut eam non videas, absentare”; “Si
enim videris amantem occasiones in coamantem requirere varias vel falsa
impedimenta opponere” (Andreas Capellanus, Courtly Love, 157; Andreas Capel-
lanus, De amore II.5, “De notitia mutui amoris,” 3, 2 [http://www.thelatinlibrary.
com/capellanus/capellanus2.html] last accessed January 8, 2013).
21 “Sire, la dame li respunt, / Il nen ad joië en cest mund / Ki n’ot le laüstic chanter.
/ Pur ceo me vois ici ester” (ll. 83–86).
22 “D’une chose se purpensa: / le laüstic enginnera” (ll. 95–96).
70 SUSAN SMALL
house is transformed from a dwelling into a center of command and its

garden, once an idyllic locus amoenus (“And the garden flowered”),23 into
a minefield (“There was not a servant in the house / Who did not make
traps, snares or nets / And place them throughout the garden”).24 The
servants follow the husband’s orders to take the bird alive and deliver it
to him, and suddenly we are back in the lady’s bedroom. The second
knight, the lover, whom we might have expected to be the silent witness
of the scene that follows, is, presumably, no longer at his window; he
must later be told what happened. The lady, too, is once again absent,
though no longer at her window, either. It is up to the husband to set the
stage and summon the final player: “My lady, he said, where are you? /
Come here, speak to me!” 25 Ten lines later, the bird is dead (“And he
killed it out of spite: / He broke its neck with his two hands”). 26
I suggested earlier that the point in the narrative at which the hus-
band breaks the bird’s neck is the juncture at which the mirror-image
symmetry of the underlying semiotic structure of “Laüstic” is shattered
and refracted into the dizzying kaleidoscope image of the mise en abyme.
Syntagms from the mirror symmetry structure are reflected in the post-
apocalyptic narrative as in a distortion or funhouse rear-view mirror.
But, as I noted earlier as well, it is the point at which the husband recog-
nizes the bird as the pretext it is that it all begins to fall apart, and this,
too, is reflected in layers of functional and syntagmatic distortion; the
bedroom with its bedroom window changes from the simple spatial co-
ordinate marking an architectural symmetry (“From the bedroom where
the lady lay / When to the window she went”)27 at the beginning of the
story to the spot from which the bird as target is first sighted (“She went
to be at the window”) 28 and then to the scene of its murder (“He came to
the lady’s room”)29; the husband’s “My lady, he said, where are you?” (l.
105) just prior to the bird’s murder is an eerie echo of his earlier “And
many times he asked her . . . where she went”30 just prior to its identifica-
tion; the husband’s injunction to “Come here, speak to me!” (l.106) is a
23 “E li vergier ierent fluri” (l. 59).

24 “Il n’ot vallet en sa meisun / Ne face engin, reis u laçun, / Puis les mettent par le
vergier” (ll. 95–97).
25 “Dame, fet-il, u estes vus? / Venez avant, parlez a nus!” (ll. 105–06).
26 “E il l’ocist par engresté: / Le col li rumpt a ses deus meins” (ll. 114–15).
27 “Des chambres u la dame jut / Quant a la fenestre s’estut” (ll. 39–40).
28 “A la fenestre ester veneit” (l. 73).
29 “As chambres a la dame vint” (l. 104).
30 “Et meintefeiz li demanda . . . u ala” (ll. 81–82).
perversion of the uninhibited love talk between the lady and the other
knight: “But their one consolation was that / Be it night or day / They
could speak to each other.”31 The corruption in the communication sys-
tem is not at this point complete, however; for if the conversations
between the lady and her lover are intimate exchanges, the husband’s
questions to the lady, as intrusive as they might be, do not remain unan-
swered. It is only when the lady asks her husband to give the nightingale
to her that the break is complete, for when the husband, in response,
kills the bird and flings its broken body at her (“He threw the body at his
wife”), 32 he is staging a bloody, one-sided re-enactment of the gift
exchange between his wife and the other man (“And they could exchange
gifts / By tossing them back and forth to each other”).33 The resulting
bloodstain on the lady’s dress marks, as well, the shift from a linguistic to
a brutally graphic code of communication.
The death of the nightingale marks as well the beginning of a very lit-
eral mise en abyme, a fall into the abyss. The clarity of the mirror-image
system of relationships which operated within the lay up to the point at
which the lady revealed the bird’s presence has been smeared and then
shattered. The song of the nightingale, the love talk, and even the threats
31 “Mes de tant aveient retur, / U fust par nuit u fust par jur, / Qu’ensemble poeient
parler” (ll. 51–53).
32 “Sur la dame le cors geta” (l. 116; my emphasis).
33 “E lur aveirs entrechangier / E par geter e par lancier” (ll. 43–44; my emphasis).
The French edition of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, which devotes two pages
to the nightingale, uses the verb “lancer” (“he throws it” [“le lance”]), to describe
the way in which the nightingale emits its song (Pline L’Ancien, Histoire naturelle,
Livre X, para 43, sec 82, ed. E. de Saint Denis [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1961], 57).
In French slang, the verb lancer (to throw) is a synonym for éjaculer (to ejacu-
late), the noun lance (lance) for “penis,” rompre une lance (to break a lance)
means “to have sex,” as do manier, manipuler and être aux mains (all derived
from main [hand]) (see Pierre Giraud, Dictionnaire érotique [Paris: Payot, 1978]).
The nightingale of course has, since its appearance in classical Latin literature,
been a metaphor for the penis. See Madeleine Jeay, “La cruauté de Philomèle:
Métamorphoses médiévales du mythe ovidien,” in Violence et fiction jusqu’à la
révolution, ed. Martine Debaisieux and Gabrielle Verdier (Tübingen: Gunter Narr
Verlag, 1998), 111–20, esp. 115. See, for example, Giovanni Boccaccio, Il
Decameron, Giornata Quinta, Novella Quarta (Bari: Laterza, 1927), 370. If the lady
and the other man in “Laüstic” were engaging in deep erotic play through the
intermediary of the nightingale in the garden, the husband, by breaking its neck
with his two hands, is not only stopping their game but also playing a solitary
sexual game of his own.
72 SUSAN SMALL
(“It [the nightingale] will keep you awake no more”)34 have been
silenced. The houses and gardens have shrunken to the space of a single
room. The once luminous symmetry lies in ruins; the husband has
walked out, the lover is nowhere to be seen and the lady is alone in her
bedchamber with a dead bird. However radiant the storyline, it would
seem that it has now come to an end.
And yet, this is not the end of the story, for, as Peter Haidu observes,
“Marie’s semiosis juxtaposes the dynamics of lithe narrative linearity
with the radiating stasis of symbolism.”35 The lady may be alone in her
bedchamber with a dead bird, but that bird is a potent symbol of love,
sex and poetry, and she knows it. Like the violated and voiceless Philo-
mena, she writes down her story and sends it by way of a messenger to
the one person she is desperate to reach. Unlike Philomena (who, after a
final, horrific encounter with her violator, escapes by turning into a
nightingale herself), the lady in “Laüstic” has the solution near at hand:
“I’ll send him the nightingale,” she decides; “I’ll send him the story.”36 In
so doing, she escapes the spiral vortex of despair she was pulled into by
the death of the bird. She is still with her husband, of course; on a surface
level, the institutions which have, from the beginning, governed the rela-
tionships in the lay remain in place. The love affair between the lady and
the bachelor knight has not―has not ever―replaced her marriage; the
pull of the abyss has turned its worm-eaten corpse inside out and
exposed it for what it is, but it is not dead. The mangled body of the bird
is the last of the gifts she can send to her lover: one last, vicarious and
solitary fling. So she dresses the body of the bird as carefully as if it were
a dead bride, wrapped in a fine gown embroidered with the story of its
demise (“In a piece of brocade / Embroidered with words of gold / She
wrapped the little bird”). 37
It is in this move from orality to the written word that the lady, I
would suggest, most closely resembles Marie de France herself, writing
down the stories she had heard, collecting them, and sending them like
flowers to her lord so that she (and they) might not be forgotten. Marie,
who, as she explains in the prologue to her collection of lays, was herself
imitating the Ancients,
34 “Il ne vus esveillerat meis” (l. 110).

35 Haidu, Subject, 125.
36 “Le laüstic li trametrai” (l. 133); “L’aventure li manderai” (l. 134).
37 “En une piece de samit / A or brusdé e tut escrit / Ad l’oiselet envolupé” (ll. 135–
37).
Who, to be remembered, made them [lays]

About the stories they had heard,
Who were the first to write them down
And send them out into the world. 38
It is also this moment which transforms the nightingale from a songbird
into a libretto, a pretext into a text; this is the relation between symbol
and “explicatory narrativization” in its purest form.39 That is not to say
however, that the function of orality is completely displaced at this point
in the lay (nor at this point in twelfth-century literature in general); the
lady takes the notion of “text-within-a-text” literally, not only wrapping
the “bird as text” inside the “shroud as text” but also repeating the story
to a messenger along with the message to repeat it to the other man.
Jakobsonian message theory avant la lettre! The lady’s message is, of
course, received. Moreover, its receiver, in a mise en abyme of his own,
replicates the “text-within-a-text” structure of the message by sealing the
bird text in the shroud text within what we might (albeit anachronisti-
cally) term a “Chinese box,” itself the quintessential structural metaphor
for mise en abyme:
He had a little casket made
Neither of iron nor of steel
But entirely made of very rare and very expensive
Fine gold and precious stones;
The cover was carefully fitted.
He put the nightingale inside. 40
For Dällenbach, as we have seen, the figure [B] placed en abyme at the
centre of a heraldic shield [A]
produces a lacuna within the identity of A, which is partially lost (in the abyss)
through the shield that is added to it―in other words, the addition of B in fact
subtracts from it. 41
John H. White argues, however, that this lacuna, which he describes as
“the equivalent of a hole in the information-bearing sign system,” is non-
functional in literary uses of mise en abyme. 42 I would suggest, however,
that in the case of “Laüstic,” it is the semiotic value of the information
38 “Ke pur remambrance les firent / Des aventures k’il oïrent / Cil ki primes les
comencierent / E ki avant les enveierent” (ll. 35–38).
39 See above, note 6.
40 “Un vaisselet ad fet forgier; / Unques n’i ot fer ne acier, / Tuz fu d’or fin od bones
pieres, / Mut precïeuses e mut chieres; / Covercle i ot tres bien assis. / Le laüstic
ad dedenz mis” (ll. 149–54).
42 White, “Semiotics,” 34.
74 SUSAN SMALL
produced by B1 (the dead bird) and B2 (the shroud in which it is pre-

sumably still wrapped) that is compromised (or at least altered) by that
of the casket [A] in which they are placed. For the narrative ends with
the sealing of the casket and the mise en place of one final piece of infor-
mation: “Then he had the casket sealed. / He carried it with him forever
after.” 43 Questions of supplementarity and hierarchisation aside, the
function of a sealed casket is to conceal what lies within, to disguise the
ravages of time, loss and degradation. Moreover, there being no lock,
there is no key to any hermeneutic code the casket might contain. All is
sealed; all is surface.
Of course, if we consider the casket itself is a metaphor for the text,
the jewels which stud that surface can be read in terms of a classical
rhetoric which classified tropes as ornamentation, a “dress [that] adorns
the body” rather than the (now decomposed) body of the text itself. 44 It
is the lover, I would suggest, who now “incorporates” the body of the
dead nightingale as a final, solitary act of sexual substitution; for the Der-
ridean psyche in mourning does indeed create
a fantastic mechanism that resurrects the lost beloved within itself in order to
hold on to the intimacy which the psyche cannot, for various reasons, let go. 45
Dällenbach’s claim that the body of the nightingale is the locus of a meta-
phor for an originary metaphysical text must, I believe, be modulated by
the corollary that that locus lies forever at the bottom of an abyss, in a
dark and solitary place of irremediable emptiness and irreparable loss.
43 “Puis fist la chasse enseeler. / Tuz jurs l’ad fete od lui porter” (ll. 155–56).
44 Doreen Innes, “Metaphor, Simile, and Allegory as Ornaments of Style,” in Meta-
phor, Allegory, and the Classical Tradition: Ancient Thought and Modern Revisions,
ed. G.R Boys-Stones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 7.
45 Kavka, Messianism, 199.
Perturbations of the Soul:
Alexander of Ashby and Aegidius of Paris
on Understanding Biblical Obscuritas
Greti Dinkova-Bruun
The mystery of the Bible and the significance of its deeply encoded mes-
sages have shaped Christian discourse from the earliest days of its exist-
ence. The brightest patristic, Carolingian, pre-scholastic and scholastic
minds strove tirelessly to understand the meaning of God’s creation and
the place of humanity in it. They were guided in this endeavor by Holy
Scripture, which however often challenged them with perplexing, con-
tradictory and obscure testimonies. From the time of Augustine
throughout the entire Middle Ages the inherent obscurity of the divine
word was considered an integral part of God’s message. It was univer-
sally believed that the true meaning of Scripture was concealed from the
reader in order to encourage a multiplicity of interpretations that could
only enrich and strengthen the faith of the believer.1 Because of the great
intellectual effort expended in this search for understanding, the truth
uncovered at the end would be even more highly valued, while pride
would be subdued by toil and the intellect freed from disdain towards
what has been discovered without difficulty.2 By devising this learning
strategy God proves to be like the best of teachers who never give their
students easy answers and whose lessons are intricate but memorable.
While this brief description of the inherent nature of biblical obscuri-
tas may be fairly well known, I will show in the following pages how
these thoughts are exemplified in the writings of two thirteenth-century
authors, whose works have not been examined from this perspective.
1 See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, In Psalmum 126, 11, ed. D. E. Dekkers and
I. Fraipont, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 40 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1965),
1865. See also Jan Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity in the Latin Tradition,”
Mediaevalia 19 (1996): 101–67, esp. 146–47.
2 “ad edomandam labore superbiam et intellectum a fastidio reuocandum” (Augus-
tine, De Doctrina Christiana libri IV 2.6, ed. Joseph Martin, Corpus Christianorum
Series Latina 32 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1965], 35).
76 GRETI DINKOVA-BRUUN
The authors in question are the Augustinian prior Alexander of Ashby in

England (d. August 6, 1208 or 1214)3 and the Parisian master and poet
Aegidius (fl. 1200),4 who take two different but complementary ap-
proaches in explaining the perplexing nature of the biblical narrative.
Alexander and Aegidius are examined together in this study because
they both treat the topic of biblical obscuritas in the context of biblical
versification, thus adding a new pedagogical dimension to the theological
significance of the question.
In the prose prologue to his poem, the Breuisssima comprehensio his-
toriarum,5 a text addressed to one of his younger followers, Alexander of
Ashby outlines three principal turbationes that confuse the carnal soul in
its early attempts to understand the meaning of sacred scripture. They
are obscuritas significationis, uarietas expositionis, and mutatio perso-
narum.6 Let us examine more closely what Alexander means by these
turbationes and what solutions he proposes for dealing with the cogni-
tive difficulties created by them.
3 Alexander was the second prior of the small Augustinian house of Canons Ashby
in Northamptonshire. For details on his life, an edition of his epitaph, and the
date of his death, see Greti Dinkova-Bruun, “Alexander of Ashby: New
Biographical Evidence,” Mediaeval Studies 63 (2001): 305–22. According to his
epitaph, Alexander died at the age of sixty, which means that he was born in 1148
or 1154.
4 Little is known about Aegidius of Paris, expect for what he tells us himself. He is
known mostly for revising Peter Riga’s poem the Aurora, but he also wrote a ver-
sified life of Charlemagne entitled the Karolinus, which he presented as a gift to
the future King Louis VIII, on 3 September, 1200. For some recent studies on
Aegidius, see Greti Dinkova-Bruun, “Aegidius of Paris and the Seven Seals: A
Prose Prologue to the Gospels in Peter Riga’s Aurora,” Mediaeval Studies 73
(2011): 119–45; Greti Dinkova-Bruun, “Corrector Ultimus: Aegidius of Paris and
Peter Riga’s Aurora,” in Modes of Authorship in the Middle Ages, ed. Slavica Ran-
cović (Toronto: PIMS, 2012), 172–89; and Greti Dinkova-Bruun, “Charlemagne as
a Model Ruler in the Poem Karolinus by Aegidius of Paris (ca. 1200)” (forthcom-
ing). For further information on Aegidius’s life and literary activity, see Paul
Beichner, Aurora Petri Rigae Versificata, 2 vols. (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1965), 1, xx–xxvi, and Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris: Impri-
merie nationale 1832), 17: 36–69.
5 For the critical edition of this prologue, see Alexandri Essebiensis Opera Poetica,
ed. Greti Dinkova-Bruun, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 188A
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 5–13.
6 “Carnalis autem animus in inicio sacre erudicionis tripliciter turbari solet. Prima
turbacio est de obscuritate significacionis, secunda de uarietate exposicionis, ter-
cia de mutacione personarum” (Alexander of Ashby, Breuisssima comprehensio,
Prologus, 7.52–54). See also Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity,” 150–51.
ALEXANDER OF ASHBY AND AEGIDIUS OF PARIS 77
According to Alexander, obscuritas significationis or obscurity of

meaning causes consternation and bewilderment among the inexperi-
enced readers of the Bible because they fail to grasp why God expresses
himself allegorice et obscure, as though wishing to hide from them the
path to salvation.7 Would God not want the flock of the faithful to acquire
true understanding of his message? If so, why does he obscure and hide
it in difficult and perplexing figurae and allegories? In order to dispel this
confusion Alexander uses three quotations from Augustine’s Enarra-
tiones in Psalmos: one from the exposition on Psalm 140, and two more
from the expositions on Psalms 146 and 147.8 These quotations may
have been borrowed directly from Augustine but it is also possible that
Alexander took them from Peter Lombard’s treatise on the Psalms,
which contains the same passages from Augustine and which by Alexan-
der’s time had become the commentary of choice in scholastic circles.
In either case, according to Augustine (and Lombard), the profound
mysteries of scripture are veiled for three reasons: first, in order to
retain their value (ne uilescant); second, in order to exercise the mind (ut
exerceant); and third, in order to provide spiritual nourishment for the
reader once their hidden meaning is uncovered (ut pascant).9 In this
difficult journey of understanding, one should not be arrogant and
accuse God of expressing himself badly. After all, the patient does not
object to the medications prescribed to him by his doctor; in fact, he
accepts them without complaining. Love of God, faith in his good inten-
tions and humility will lead to sublime peace of mind, pax summa, as
Alexander calls it. If one respects the divine law, one should honor it,
even if one does not comprehend everything in it. If something that is
written in the Bible seems absurd, one should consider it too elevated for
one’s imperfect human intellect and thus embrace it in faith.10 In this
7 Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 7–8.55–79.

8 Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 7–8.59–75. See Augustinus, Enarrationes in
Psalmos, In Psalmum 140, 1–2; In Psalmum 146, 12; In Psalmum 147, 2, 2026,
2131, 2147.
9 “Sunt in scripturis sanctis quedam profunda misteria que ad hoc absconduntur
ne uilescant, ad hoc queruntur ut exerceant, ad hoc aperiuntur ut pascant.
Scriptura enim sacra, si nusquam esset aperta, non te pasceret, si nusquam
occulta, non te exerceret” (Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 7–8.59–61;
quotation from Augustine, In Psalmum 140.1–2).
10 “Qui enim legem diligit, si quid in ea non intelligit, honorat; quod absurde sonare
uidetur, iudicat esse magnum et se nescire” (Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus,
8.77–79).
way, the anxiety created by the first turbatio will be chased away.
The second difficulty stems from the so-called varietas expositionis or
variety of exposition. 11 What Alexander means by “variety of exposition”
is actually the multiplicity of explanations proposed by the various cath-
olic interpreters and theologians in their scholarly treatises on the Bible.
Is it really possible, some people ask, that the Holy Spirit truly intends
for the same words of scripture to contain a multitude of different
meanings? Alexander’s answer to this question is “yes,” each statement
in the Bible is divinely preconditioned to signify many different things
and the task of the reader is to find these hidden layers of signification.
This intellectual pursuit is meant to enrich the word of God and to pro-
vide worthy occupation for all men who have dedicated their lives to the
service of the Lord. All the meanings (omnes sensus) that are found in the
Bible by the Christian exegetes are supposed to be uncovered. 12 The pro-
cess, however, is gradual and complex, resulting in a multitude of diverse
opinions. This process is captured in the prophetic words of Daniel 12:4,
which Alexander did not quote, but which seem to exemplify perfectly
the tenor of his second turbatio: “Many shall pass through and know-
ledge shall be manifold.”13
The final difficulty that confuses the carnal soul when it attempts to
understand the meaning of the Bible is what Alexander calls mutatio per-
sonarum or the change of speaker. 14 This problem seems to be encoun-
tered most often in the Psalter, where the speaker is sometimes Christ
himself, sometimes various parts of his body, and sometimes the reader.
Alexander insists that it is easy to explain this apparent confusion of
expression as long as one remembers that it is always Christ who speaks,
despite what appears at first glance. Christ is the head (caput), and the
head always speaks for the other parts of the body, the membra, be they
physical limbs or the members of the Church. Thus there is no mutatio
personarum really; the speaker is always only one. This understanding of
11 Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 9.80–94.

12 “Omnes autem sensus, quos catholici expositores in scriptures sacris
apposuerunt, spiritus sanctus, quo ipse scripture sacre sunt, apponi et intelligi
uoluit et adhuc plures, qui a te uel a quolibet alio catholice dici possunt” (Breuis-
sima comprehensio, Prologus, 9.90–94).
13 “Pertransibunt plurimi et multiplex erit scientia.” On the meaning of Daniel 12:4,
see Jefferey R. Webb, “Knowledge will be manifold: Daniel 12:4 and the Idea of
Intellectual Progress in the Middle Ages” (unpublished LMS paper, PIMS 2012;
deposed in the PIMS Library).
14 Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 9–10.95–110.
the head-body union as representing the relationship between Christus

and Ecclesia is a very old exegetical principle advanced as early as the
fourth century by the North African Donatist theologian Tyconius.
Indeed, Tyconius’s first rule in his textbook on biblical interpretation
called the Liber Regularum (“The Book of Rules”) deals precisely with the
issue of the unity between Christ and his body the Church.15 These ideas
were widely disseminated in the Latin West through their inclusion in
Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana and Isidore’s Sentences.16
The mutatio personarum concludes the section of Alexander’s pro-
logue that outlines the three turbationes faced by the carnal soul when it
first tries to decipher the messages of the Bible. Being a preacher and a
teacher, Alexander proceeds to give practical advice to his reader on how
the afore mentioned difficulties can be overcome. The answer is simple:
serious dedication to learning. In fact, Alexander proposes a program of
study saying that in order to understand the four senses of scripture one
must begin by mastering the historical or literal level. For this purpose it
is best to start with Hugh of Saint Victor’s Didascalicon, which Alexander
calls Isagogas magistri Hugonis theologi, or with some other short intro-
ductory texts. 17 Second, after identifying the right books, one needs to
find the right teachers. They can be located in the peace and silence of
the cloister where the student will encounter
many masters, extremely skilled in both divine and secular knowledge, who
can expound the theological arguments better than anybody else, because they
know them not only through reasoning, but also through experience. 18
15 See The Book of Rules of Tyconius. Newly Edited from the MSS with an Introduction
and an Examination into the Text of the Biblical Quotations, ed. F. Crawford
Burkitt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894), 1–8. Burkitt’s Latin text
was reprinted and translated in Tyconius: The Book of Rules, trans. William S.
Babcock (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989).
16 See Pamela Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), and Pierre Cazier, “Le Livre
des règles de Tyconius. Sa transmission du De doctrina christiana aux Sentences
d’Isidore de Séville,” Revue des études augustiniennes 19 (1973): 241–61, esp.
245. For Augustine’s text, see his De doctrina christinana 3.30–37, CCSL 32, 102–
06. Rule 1 is discussed in chapter 31, p. 104. Augustine deals with the same issue
in Enarrationes in Psalmos, In Psalmum 140, 3, CCSL 40, 2027–2028.29–30 (“Si
ergo ille caput, nos corpus, unus homo loquitur; siue caput loquatur, siue
membra, unus Christus loquitur.”
17 Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 9–10.95–110, 10. 115–16.
18 “Habes tecum magistros plures, tam in diuinis, quam in secularibus literis
peritissimos, qui theologicas raciones eo melius poterunt exponere, quo eas
uerius nouerunt non solum per scienciam, sed eciam per experienciam”
And finally, one has to develop good learning habits. Here Alexander
quotes from the Epistola ad fratres de Monte Dei attributed in the Middle
Ages to Bernard of Clairvaux, but now known to be the work of William
of St. Thierry.19 The point made herein is that the student has to make a
clear distinction between reading (lectio) and study (studium). The two
are definitely not the same; indeed, they are as different as friendship is
different from hospitality and amiable affection from casual greeting.20
Study needs to be closely connected, first, to understanding what one is
reading; second, to memorizing what one has read; and third, to medi-
tating upon the true significance of the memorized material. The ulti-
mate purpose of the study of Scripture is to discover the glory of the
abundant goodness of God which is laid up for those who fear him. 21 This
aim will make the effort (labor) of the student a delightful (delectabilis)
process rather than a difficult one or, as Alexander puts it himself at the
beginning of his prologue: “The consideration of the benefits of this
study turns toil into play.”22
The somewhat pragmatic and completely demystifying way in which
Alexander presents and solves the problems of biblical obscuritas may
seem somewhat unexpected at first. However, his prologue is repre-
sentative of the changed environment of scholastic study at the begin-
ning of the thirteenth century, an environment in which conscious
attempts are made to render the study of scripture and theology a
rational and manageable academic process. 23 Alexander’s own versifica-
tion of the Bible, which was preceded by the prologue discussed here, is
an excellent example of this new approach to contemporary pedagogical
concerns and methods. As a result, the Brevissima comprehensio
historiarum is a verse digest of the historical books of the Bible that is
(Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 11.134–37).

19 See Guillaume de Saint-Thierry. Lettre aux frères du Mont-Dieu (Lettre d’or), ed.
and French trans. Jean Déchanet, 2 ed., Sources chrétiennes 223 (Paris: Editions
du Cerf, 1985); English translation in The Golden Epistle: A Letter to the Brethren
at Mont Dieu, trans. Theodore Berkeley, 2 ed. (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publica-
tions, 1980).
20 “Et in omni scriptura, tantum distat studium a leccione quantum amicicia ab hos-
picio, socialis affectio a fortuita salutacione” (Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus,
12.152–54).
21 Breuissima comprehensio, Prologus, 13.174–75, which is a quotation of Ps. 30:20.
22 “Laborem in ludum vertit fructus consideratio” (Breuissima comprehensio, Pro-
logus, 5.1).
23 Gillian R. Evans, Old Arts and New Theology: The Beginning of Theology as an Aca-
demic Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 27–37.
meant to serve as a mnemonic aid to the student who is striving to mas-

ter the literal level of biblical study. The linguistic and theological obscu-
rity of scripture is temporarily put aside by Alexander, not because the
poet denies its existence but because he considers the clarification of the
hidden meaning of the sacred page to be the next step in the program of
study his reader is advised to follow.
Aegidius of Paris, the second author under discussion, represents this
next level. In his prose prologue to Peter Riga’s Evangelium, Aegidius
links the obscurity of the Bible to the Book of Revelation and the seven
seals mentioned in it. Scripture is sealed by God with signacula and can
be unlocked (soluenda) only by those who know how to uncover the
secrets of its symbolic language.
Aegidius of Paris and Alexander of Ashby were near contemporaries
but their approaches are somewhat different, even though both wrote
prose introductions to verse renditions of the Bible. If Alexander’s text,
as we already saw, was mainly concerned with the literal sense of the
biblical narrative, Aegidius’s preface is deeply embedded in a long tradi-
tion of prefigurative exegesis which is concerned primarily with the alle-
gorical level of understanding or, as he calls it himself, the altior intelli-
gentia.24
In the opening paragraph of his preface Aegidius compares himself to
John the Evangelist who cries bitterly in Revelation 5 because there is
nobody worthy to open the book sealed with the seven seals. He contin-
ues to say that the sealed book is, of course, the Bible, which could not
truly be called sacred or holy, if it talked simply about the mundane
deeds of men and contained no divine mysteries. It is shameful and
absurd, insists Aegidius, to believe the foolishness of the Jews who hold
the view that the authority and power of scripture are based on some
insignificant historical tales (historicas narratiunculas) that are to be
understood literally. Something more sublime has to be hidden and
searched for in the letter.25 Indeed, Jesus himself says as much in the
24 Ed. Dinkova-Bruun, in “Aegidius of Paris and the Seven Seals,” 137.18.

25 “Liber iste est sacra scriptura continens diuinam preordinationem et eiusdem
promissionem antiquis patribus factam de filio Dei mittendo in carnem ad con-
summandum nostre redemptionis misterium per ipsius passionem et mortem.
Neque enim uere sacra aut diuina scriptura dici posset uel deberet, si tantum de
hominibus ita quod de puris eorum gestis ageret et nulla diuina misteria con-
tineret. Turpe satis est fatuis Iudeis et absurdum credere quod propter quasdam
quantum ad litteram hystoricas narratiunculas tanta auctoritate scriptura ista
polleret, nisi in ipso corpore littere aliquid querendum sublimius latitaret” (in
Gospel of John, chapter 16, verses 12–13:

I have many more things to say to you but you cannot bear them now. But
when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. 26
Until that moment the mysteries of the Bible will remain “not fully
expressed but veiled and obfuscated by figurative imagery and enigmatic
testimonies.”27 The Jew cannot read the Book because it is sealed (signa-
tus), and the pagan philosopher is unable to understand it because in
Jerome’s view he is ignorant of its sacred letters,28 but even the Christian
cannot have a clear and perfect knowledge of its secrets before they are
revealed to him by Christ, “the lion from the tribe of Judah, who is our
teacher in humility and the harbinger of our salvation.”29
Aegidius dedicates the rest of the prologue to showing his reader
how the secrets of the Bible can be understood. His exegetical method is
traditional, meaning that each enigma fulfilled in the New Testament is
exemplified and corroborated by a passage or passages from the Old
Testament, all quoted in rapid succession and without lengthy explana-
tions. Aegidius thus proposes the following clusters of solutions of the
biblical mysteries: first, each of the seven seals of Revelation represents
one sacramental mysterium related to Christ, that is, his incarnation, na-
tivity, passion, resurrection, ascension, the sending of the holy spirit, and
the last judgment;30 second, the seven seals can be interpreted as sym-
bols of the seven ecclesiastical sacraments, that is, baptismus, eucharistia,
confirmatio, ordo, coniugium, penitentia and extrema inunctio. Again,
scriptural testimonies from the Old Testament are presented as illustra-
tions of these solemn religious occasions; and finally, scriptural exam-
ples are presented as statements anticipating the Christian beliefs in the
general resurrection and the last judgment at which the righteous will be
“Aegidius of Paris and the Seven Seals,” 137.21–29)

26 “Adhuc multa habeo vobis dicere sed non potestis portare modo. Cum autem ven-
erit ille Spiritus veritatis docebit vos in omnem veritatem.”
27 “non ad plenum expressa sunt sed figuris et enigmatibus adumbrata” (in
“Aegidius of Paris and the Seven Seals,” 137.32).
28 See Hieronymus, Commentariorum in Esaiam libri I–IX, Prologus, ed. M. Adriaen,
CCSL 77 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), 2.34–40.
29 “Libro ergo sic remanente clauso et nemine aperiente eum nec soluente signacula
eius, uenit tandem ‘leo de tribu Iuda’ (Apoc. 5:5) Christus, scilicet Dauid secun-
dum carnem filius, qui uenit nobis magister esse humilitatis et auctor nostre
salutis” (in “Aegidius of Paris and the Seven Seals,” 138.50–53).
30 For a similar way of interpreting the seals, see E. Ann Matter, “The pseudo-
Alcuinian De septem sigillis: an early Latin apocalypse exegesis,” Traditio 36
(1980): 111–37.
rewarded and the wicked punished.

None of this is new or original as such. Christian exegetes had been
making these connections for centuries. What is unusual is the context in
which these ideas are placed. While Aegidius’s allegorical approach to
understanding the Bible differs from Alexander of Ashby’s, it exemplifies
a similar desire to organize, clarify and versify the available interpreta-
tive knowledge for didactic purposes. If Alexander’s teaching method
was to eliminate scriptural obscurity, Aegidius’s approach was to pro-
pose a way of unlocking its meaning. In this he follows the example of
Peter Riga, whose poem he is revising and expanding and to which he
also adds the prologue under discussion here. Aegidius’s interest in the
allegorical meaning of the sacred page is exemplified by such accretions
to the Aurora as the Misterium de Tobia a correctore appositum, the Alle-
goria de libro Iudith, and the Allegoria de libro Hester. 31 In his own words,
Aegidius seeks to uncover the hidden flavor of the biblical text by crack-
ing open the bone of the letter and tasting the sweet marrow inside. The
scent of typology, continues Aegidius, adds taste to the letter of the text,
and the figure in the words delights like the aroma in the herbs:
I proceed by appending a short addition to the Book of Tobit about the flavor
which words possess through their figurative meaning; for the letter of the
text, though bony on the outside, preserves this flavor inside, so if one sucks on
it (i.e. the letter), its marrow will taste sweet to him. The plain narration of
events is dry as bone on the outside, but the figurative scent, being stronger,
flavors the words. 32
This vivid sensory imagery of pleasant aroma and sweet taste hidden
inside the letter captures perfectly Aegidius’s exegetical approach which
is exemplified also in his prologue to Peter Riga’s Euangelium. In addi-
tion, the way in which the text of the prologue is constructed reveals
another level of signification that is not immediately apparent. The seven
seals of scripture represent first the mysteries of Christ’s incarnation, or
in other words, the past; then they are linked to the ecclesiastical sacra-
ments, thus encompassing the present; and finally, the beliefs in the
second coming of Christ and the last judgment invoke the prophecies
about the future. In this way, without saying so explicitly, Aegidius rein-
31 See Beichner, Aurora, 1:334–38, 383, and 396–98, respectively.

32 “Tobie libro breuiter subscribere pergo, / Quid typico sensu uerba saporis
habent; / Intus enim retinet foris ossea littera textus / Quam qui suggit ei dulce
medulla sapit. / Aret ut os extra rerum narratio pura, / Ac typicus potior uerba
saporat odor” (Beichner, Aurora, vol. 1:334, Misterium de Tobia a correctore
appositum, vv. 1–6).
forces the idea that the Bible contains the entire span of human history
as predetermined by God’s master plan. Hence the meaning of history is
of paramount importance for both Alexander and Aegidius, even though
they approach the concept differently.
Like Alexander, Aegidius is also concerned with memory, which is
closely connected to the idea of historical process. Thus towards the end
of his prologue Aegidius says that “it is easy to find in scripture the mys-
teries locked within it and the sacraments hidden inside, but it is not
easy to remember all of them.”33 Unlike Alexander, however, who gives
detailed practical advice about how the student should train his memory
and who produces a verse compendium to help him do so, Aegidius
relies fully on Christ. “Christ, who is our Lord and master,” says Aegidius,
will reveal the secrets and will grant us understanding in everything we need
to know in order to be saved. Then, once we have been instructed, he will
redeem us; once we have been redeemed, he will keep us in his faith, and
finally he will save and bless us. 34
Through his incarnation and ministry, death and resurrection, Christ has
made humanity part of his heavenly kingdom and the task of every
Christian is to learn about all the major events in his life, which are nar-
rated in the Gospels. Poetic works like the Aurora prove to be very useful
for this purpose because they offer memorable digests of an enormous
quantity of medieval exegetical scholarship on the Bible. As a result, even
though only Christ can grant true knowledge, the believer is encouraged
to learn the basics himself in order to be prepared for the revelations
which will eventually be granted to him. Again, although his starting
point was different from that of Alexander, Aegidius arrived at the same
conclusion: learning to the best of one’s limited human abilities is an
important step towards dispelling scriptural obscurity and unveiling the
meaning of the sacred page.
From an exegetical point of view, the two authors discussed in this
article represent the two major approaches to biblical interpretation: the
33 “Hec sunt que recipit fides catholica, quorum sunt in scripturis signata misteria et
abscondita sacramenta, que facile est in scripturis reperire, sed non facile est
omnia ad memoriam reuocare” (in “Aegidius of Paris and the Seven Seals,”
143.194–96).
34 “Ad hec et alia in hunc modum uenit Christus Dominus et magister noster, ut ea
nobis reuelaret et in his nobis intelligentiam aperiret, quatinus de his tanquam de
necesariis ad salutem instructos nos redderet, instructos redimeret, redemptos
in sua fide conseruaret, postea saluaret et beatificaret” (in “Aegidius of Paris and
the Seven Seals,” 143.196–200).
literal (linguistic and immediate) and the allegorical (symbolic and

delayed), even though, as was shown above, Aegidius does not lack his-
torical sensibilities. In fact, the two approaches are complementary and
represent the overarching belief clearly held in the Middle Ages that
scriptural knowledge and divine truth will be revealed gradually and in
various ways to the one who is searching for them. Mysteries are not
explained easily; in fact, they are revealed only to the initiated who in
this case are the Christian believers. 35 However, diligent study and men-
tal discipline are required as well, if one hopes to reach spiritual enlight-
enment. In this difficult process, the faithful need to progress from literal
to allegorical understanding using all the tools available to them: books
and teachers, memory and meditation, faith and patience. Despite their
differences, both Alexander and Aegidius are early-thirteenth-century
teachers who exemplify the scholastic methods of study and who strive
to bring order and clarity to the vast field of theological thought inher-
ited from previous centuries in order to make it useful in the classroom.
This common purpose, as well as the concern with memorability
expressed by both authors, can be readily explained by the fact that their
prologues, as already mentioned, were written to accompany verse
Bibles. After all, the main reasons for versifying the biblical narrative in
the later Middle Ages were first didactic and second mnemonic.36 In
order for these aims to be achieved successfully, biblical obscuritas had
to be dealt with in one way or another. Thus, Alexander of Ashby
removes obscure and confusing passages from his poem, postponing
their elucidation to the moment when the basics have been learned,
memorized and internalized. Peter Riga and his reviser Aegidius of Paris,
in contrast, take the student to the next level, where obscurity and sym-
bolic language are confronted and clarified to the best ability of the poet.
35 Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity,” 141–43.

36 See, for example, Greti Dinkova-Bruun, “Biblical Versification and Memory in the
Later Middle Ages,” in Culture of Memory in East Central Europe in the Late Middle
Ages and the Early Modern Period, ed. Rafal Wójcik, Prace Biblioteki Uniwer-
syteckiej 30 (Poznan: Biblioteka Uniwersytecka, 2008), 53–64; Greti Dinkova-
Bruun, “Why Versify the Bible in the Later Middle Ages and for Whom?: The Story
of Creation in Verse,” in Dichten als Stoff-Vermittlung: Formen, Ziele, Wirkungen.
Beiträge zur Praxis der Versifikation lateinischer Texte im Mittelalter, ed. Peter
Stotz, Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen, Band 5 (Zürich: Chronos
Verlag, 2008), 41–55; and Greti Dinkova-Bruun, “The Verse Bible as Aide-
mémoire,” in The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages, ed. Lucie Doležalová (Lei-
den: Brill, 2010), 115–31.
The student, meanwhile, is expected to exercise diligence and persis-

tence because the hidden truth of Scripture is so multifaceted and the
paths to uncovering it so manifold that, with God’s help, every Christian
is bound to find the understanding that will enrich his faith and make
him worthier of grace and salvation.
Versus obscuri nella poesia didascalica grammaticale
del XIII sec.
Carla Piccone
1. Questioni preliminari
Porte chiuse destinate ad essere aperte da chiavi adatte, verità coperte

che aspettano di essere svelate, selve intricate che devono essere
attraversate, oscurità che aspetta di essere dissipata. La letteratura
mediolatina si serve di queste metafore per esprimere le difficoltà legate
al processo ermeneutico richiesto da testi di non immediata compren-
sione e conseguentemente ritenuti obscuri.
Dal nostro punto di vista, lo studio dell’obscuritas presenta una diffi-
coltà metodologica: spesso, per via della loro alterità linguistica e
culturale, alcuni prodotti della letteratura medievale ci risultano di non
facile interpretazione e, pertanto, li riteniamo difficilmente comprensi-
bili. In realtà, l’esegesi dei testi risalenti a quel periodo dovrebbe tenere
conto delle condizioni che hanno presieduto alla loro produzione, alla
loro ricezione e alla loro fruizione in un determinato contesto, in cui un
certo linguaggio e certi codici culturali erano condivisi.
Sulla base di queste premesse, è nostra intenzione in prima battuta
chiarire cosa venga percepito come obscurum nella letteratura medio-
latina bassomedievale, per poi passare a verificare se l’obscuritas sia una
categoria applicabile alla poesia didascalica. Al fine di gettare luce su
questa questione, prenderemo in esame alcuni brani tratti dal Doctrinale
di Alessandro di Villadei, dal Grecismus di Eberardo di Béthune e dal
Novus Grecismus di Corrado di Mure, testi accomunati dal fatto di essere
stati scritti nella prima metà del XIII sec. e di offrire una trattazione in
versi della grammatica latina. Sulla base di alcuni brani tratti da queste
opere, tenteremo di stabilire se esse siano state percepite all’epoca della
loro stesura e nei secoli successivi come obscurae e se e come questa
obscuritas, reale o presunta, sia collegata al loro processo di ricezione e
di fruizione o lo abbia in qualche modo influenzato.
88 CARLA PICCONE
2. Forme di obscuritas e problematiche connesse
Goffredo di Vinsauf, Poetria nova (vv. 1074–77):1

Se fai uso, dunque, di termini stranieri o astrusi, mostri cosa sei in grado di fare
con le parole e non ti attieni alle regole della retorica. Questo modo di
esprimersi errato rifugga dall’uso di parole astruse e riprova l’uso di termini
oscuri.
Guglielmo di Conches, De philosophia mundi (IV, 59):2
Dal momento che la grammatica precede ogni altra dottrina, ci siamo proposti
di esporre i suoi principi, poiché, sebbene Prisciano ne parli abbastanza, egli
offre definizioni oscure, non chiarisce le cause, ma non tralascia di trattare in
alcune parti dell’origine delle diverse parti del discorso e dei diversi accenti.
Commento all’Eneide attribuito a Bernardo Silvestre relativo ai versi in
cui la Sibilla predice ad Enea la guerra con Turno (Ad Aen. VI, 98–101):3
AMBAGES: enigma, poiché promette sia cose prospere che avverse o ambages
nel senso di ambiguità, cioè responsi espressi facendo uso di allegorie;
OBSCURIS: finzioni poetiche; VERA: nasconde la verità con le allegorie. Infatti
l’intelligenza rappresenta massimamente il divino; dunque l'allegoria
corrisponde al divino, poiché, come dice Macrobio, “il divino è da nascondere
con le immagini mediate dalle parole.” 4
1 Gaufridus de Vino Salvo, Poetria nova, vv. 1074–77: Si qua feras igitur peregrina
vel abdita verba, / quid possis ex hoc ostendis iusque loquendi / non attendis. Ab
hac macula se retrahat error / oris et obscuris oppone repagula verbis. Il testo
della Poetria nova è edito, tradotto e commentato da Ernest Gallo, The Poetria
Nova and Its Sources in Early Rhetorical Doctrine (The Hague: Mouton, 1971).
2 Guilelmus de Conchis, De philosophia mundi, IV, 59: Quoniam in omni doctrina
grammatica praecedit, de ea dicere proposuimus, quoniam, etsi Priscianus satis
dicat, tamen obscuras dat definitiones, nec exponit causas, nec inventiones diver-
sarum partium et diversorum accentuum in unaquaque praetermittit. Il testo del
De philosophia mundi è stato recentemente edito e tradotto da Marco Albertazzi,
Guilelmus de Conchis, Philosophia (Lavis: La Finestra, 2010). Brevi osservazioni
relative al passo discusso in Mortimer J. Donovan, “Priscian and the Obscurity of
the Ancients,” Speculum 36 (1961): 75–80, spec. 77.
3 Bernardus Silvester, Ad Aen. IV, 98–101: AMBAGES: quia modo prospera, modo
adversa pollicetur vel ambages quasi ambiguitates, id est responsa integumentis
involuta… OBSCURIS: integumentis VERA: Veritatem per integumenta occultat. Intelli-
gentia namque divina precipue docet; divinis ergo precipue integumenta congruunt
quia ut ait Macrobius cuniculis verborum divina sunt tegenda. Julian Ward Jones,
et al., eds., Commentum quod dicitur Bernardi Silvestris super sex libros Aeneidos
Virgilii (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977).
4 Per un’analisi di questo passo, Jan M. Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity in the
Latin Tradition,” Mediaevalia 19 (1996): 101–70, spec. 143–44. Sul concetto di
VERSUS OBSCURI NELLA POESIA DIDASCALICA GRAMMATICALE 89
In questi testi parole, definizioni priscianee ed allegorie hanno in

comune il fatto di essere oscure. Nel primo caso ad essere ritenuta tale è
la singola parola e il fatto di essere rara, di recente conio, di uso regio-
nale, di origine straniera o di afferire ad un linguaggio tecnico
giustificano una sua definizione in questo senso. 5 L’obscuritas può
essere, inoltre, propria di frasi e nello specifico può riferirsi alla sintassi
disordinata di un testo, specchio della confusione di pensiero o di
espressione di chi scrive. Essa può, quindi, esplicarsi da un lato in una
incoerente accumulazione di subordinate, dall’altro nella concentrazione
in poco spazio dell’esposizione di molti concetti. In questo caso la frase
presenterà un andamento ellittico e risulterà caratterizzata da passaggi
impliciti, che rendono la sua comprensione decisamente complessa.
Proprio per questo, questa modalità espressiva viene definita sia in
epoca antica che medievale obscura brevitas.6
Infine, obscura sono anche gli integumenta, le immagini che celano i
significati più reconditi sia delle fabule che delle Sacre Scritture, com-
prensibili unicamente attraverso uno sforzo ermeneutico. L’idea
dell’assenza di luce, insita nel significato dei termini obscurus ed
obscuritas,7 è l’immagine8 che esprime, dunque, una non chiarezza
integumentum in contesto filosofico, teologico e letterario, Frank Bezner, Vela

veritatis. Hermeneutik, Wissen und Sprache in der Intellectual History des 12.
Jahrhunderts (Leiden: Brill, 2005). Per una panoramica sulla diffusione della
metafora del coprire e dello scoprire in relazione all’esegesi di testi pagani e
cristiani in contesto tardoantico, alto e bassomedievale, Henning Brinkmann,
Mittelalterliche Hermeneutik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1980), 170–91.
5 Su questo aspetto, Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity,” 115–17.
6 Sul concetto di brevitas in contesto antico e medievale: Ernst Robert Curtius,
Letteratura europea e Medioevo latino (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 2002), 543–51.
Sull’obscura brevitas, Manfred Fuhrmann, “Obscuritas. Das Problem der Dunkel-
heit in der rhetorischen und literarästhetischen Theorie der Antike,” in Imma-
nente Ästhetik – Ästhetische Reflexion. Lyrik als Paradigma der Moderne, ed. Wolf-
gang Iser (München: Fink, 1966), 47–72, spec. 70–72; Päivi Mehtonen, Obscure
Language, Unclear Literature. Theory and Practice from Quintilian to the Enlight-
enment (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum, 2003), 112–15; Ziolkowski, “Theories
of Obscurity,” 125–27.
7 Sui significati dell’aggettivo obscurus, Novum glossarium mediae latinitatis, ed.
Franz Blatt et al. (Hafniae: Munksgaard, 1983), O, 123–25.
8 Brevi osservazioni a riguardo in Mehtonen, Obscure Language, 70, e Carlo Donà,
“Oscurità ed enigma in Marie de France e Chrétien de Troyes,” in Obscuritas.
Retorica e poetica dell’oscuro, ed. Giosuè Lachin et al. (Trento: Editrice Università
90 CARLA PICCONE
espressiva relativa alla singola parola, alla singola frase o, ampliando la

prospettiva, all’interpretazione di un intero testo. 9 In altre parole, il con-
cetto bassomedievale di obscuritas sembrerebbe corrispondere ai
concetti moderni di ambiguità e polisemia. 10
3. La poesia didascalica a tema grammaticale del XIII sec.:

autori e riflessioni teoriche
Al fine di chiarire come i poeti mediolatini si pongono rispetto al con-

cetto di obscuritas, come si esprimono in merito ad esso e se è osserva-
bile all’atto pratico una devianza rispetto ad eventuali formulazioni
teoriche, è nostra intenzione limitare il nostro interesse ad un ristretto
numero di testi e prendere in esame il Doctrinale di Alessandro di
Villadei11 ed il Grecismus di Eberardo di Béthune, 12 testi scritti in area
francese rispettivamente nel 1199 e nel 1212.13 Entrambi nascono dalla
fusione e dalla trasposizione in esametri di testi preesistenti 14 e for-
di Trento: 2004), 103–15, spec. 101. Cfr. anche Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscu-
rity,” 109.
9 A riguardo, Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity,” 124–38.
10 Su questo aspetto, Jacqueline Cerquiglini, “Polysémie, ambiguïté et équivoque
dans la théorie et la pratique poétiques du Moyen Age français,” in L’ambiguïté.
Cinq études historiques, ed. Irène Rosier (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille,
1988), 167–80, spec. 167.
11 Il testo del Doctrinale, corredato da un’ampia introduzione, è edito da Dietrich
Reichling, Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa Dei. Kritisch-exegetische Ausgabe
mit Einleitung, Verzeichniss der Handschriften und Drucke nebst Registern (Berlin:
Hofmann & Comp., 1893). Un’introduzione alla figura di Alessandro di Villadei e
alle sue opere è fornita in Reinhold F. Glei, “Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale,” in
Lateinische Lehrer Europas, ed. Wolfram Ax (Köln: Böhlau, 2005), 290–310.
12 L’edizione di riferimento del Grecismus è quella di Johannes Wrobel, Eberhardus
Bethuniensis, Grecismus (Breslau: Koebner, 1887).
13 Sulla datazione del Doctrinale, Reichling, “Einleitung,” in Das Doctrinale des
Alexander de Villa Dei, XXIII–XXIV, e Glei, “Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale,” 294.
Su quella del Grecismus, Anne Grondeux, Le Graecismus d’Évrard de Béthune à
travers ses glosses (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 7.
14 Sebbene oggi non sia possibile individuare con certezza tutte le opere rielaborate
e confluite nel Doctrinale, è certo che il grammatico abbia tenuto presente l’Ars
maior di Donato, le Institutiones di Prisciano, materiale più recente derivato da
queste opere ed un testo di Pietro Riga dedicato all’esame dei preteriti e dei
supini (Doctr., v. 16). A riguardo, Reichling, “Einleitung,” XXX–XXXI. Nel Grecismus
sono stati rielaborati, tra gli altri, gli scritti grammaticali di Donato, Prisciano,
niscono un’esposizione sistematica del sapere grammaticale, che viene

inserita all’interno di una situazione fittizia priva di qualunque indica-
zione spaziale o temporale, in cui un maestro parla ad un allievo che
ascolta passivamente i suoi insegnamenti. Proprio in virtù di questi
tratti, i due testi in questione sono catalogabili come poesia didascalica.15
Inoltre, i numerosi commenti di cui essi sono stati oggetto, l’alto numero
di testimoni che ne riportano il testo, le molte edizioni a stampa
dimostrano il fatto che le grammatiche discusse hanno goduto di uno
straordinario successo fino al XVI sec.16
Accanto al Doctrinale e al Grecismus concentreremo la nostra atten-
zione anche sul Novus Grecismus di Corrado di Mure, 17 la cui stesura è
databile intorno al 1244. 18 Esso nasce dal desiderio di contrapporsi alla
grammatica di Eberardo di Béthune, ritenuta troppo complessa e con-
tenente notizie discutibili.19 Di conseguenza, nei primi tre libri del Novus
Grecismus, in cui trova spazio un’esposizione sistematica della gram-
matica latina, confluisce molto materiale mutuato dal Grecismus insieme
a contenuti derivati, tra gli altri, dalle Institutiones e dal relativo com-
mento di Pietro Elia, dal Donatus metricus di Enrico di Avranches, dal
Doctrinale, da Isidoro di Siviglia e da Uguccione da Pisa.20 Nei successivi
sette libri, l’autore passa a trattare di cosmologia, geografia, zoologia,
botanica, anatomia, etica, arti meccaniche e religione, offrendo così una
visione a tutto tondo della realtà.21 Proprio per la pluralità di tematiche
ravvisabili nel Novus Grecismus, esso può essere ritenuto un’opera dida-
scalica di carattere enciclopedico, in cui l’esposizione del sapere gram-
maticale assume un rilievo particolare. Il testo è oggetto di commenti
Pietro Elia, Isidoro di Siviglia e Marbodo di Rennes; su questo aspetto, Grondeux,

Le Graecismus, 19–21.
15 Per una definizione del genere didascalico, Thomas Haye, Das lateinische
Lehrgedicht im Mittelalter. Analyse einer Gattung (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 38.
16 A riguardo, Reichling, “Einleitung,” LXXXIII–CX e, in particolare sul testo di
Eberardo, Grondeux, Le Graecismus, 41.
17 Il testo del Novus Grecismus è stato recentemente edito: Alexandru N. Cizek, ed.,
Conradus de Mure, Novus Grecismus (München: Fink, 2009). Sulla figura di Cor-
rado, Cizek, “Einleitung,” in Conradus de Mure, Novus Grecismus, XV–XVII.
18 Per una datazione dell’opera, Cizek, “Einleitung,” XV.
19 Per un’analisi del prologo del Novus Grecismus, Cizek, “Einleitung,” XXIX–XXX.
20 Per un’ampia panoramica sui contenuti dei primi tre libri dell’opera di Corrado,
Cizek, “Einleitung,” XXXII–LIX.
21 Per un esame del contenuto dei libri IV–X del Novus Grecismus e per la
definizione del materiale precedente in esso confluito, Cizek, “Einleitung,” LX–
LXXIX.
92 CARLA PICCONE
sistematici, ma conosce una diffusione limitata all’area tedesca, 22 causata

probabilmente dalla fortuna di cui a metà del XIII sec. hanno goduto sia il
Doctrinale che il Grecismus.
Il corpus di testi che ci proponiamo di analizzare risulta, dunque,
composto da opere scritte nell’arco di un cinquantennio e afferenti allo
stesso genere letterario, quello didascalico.
Partendo da questi presupposti, rivolgiamo la nostra attenzione alla
Glosa Admirantes al Doctrinale, commento anonimo alla grammatica di
Alessandro di Villadei, databile tra la fine del XIII sec. e l’inizio del XIV e
influenzato della logica aristotelica.23
Esaminiamo, dunque, quanto scrive l’anonimo commentatore nell’
accessus:24
La forma in versi che questo autore [Alessando di Villadei] usa, ha in sé più
vantaggi della prosa che usa Prisciano; e questo si dimostra così: i versi sono
più utili per una facile acquisizione dei contenuti, per una chiara e bella brevità
dell’esposizione e per una memorizzazione più salda. Non è infatti straordi-
nario: questo libro riporta in breve ciò che prima era prolisso e confuso,
descrive in maniera ordinata ciò che prima era disordinato; riferisce con
chiarezza ciò che prima era nebuloso; rende facilmente comprensibile ciò che
prima parecchi disperavano di comprendere.
Partendo dall’assunto che la forma in versi permetta una “chiara brevità”
(lucida brevitas), un’“acquisizione più facile” (facilior acceptio) e una
memorizzazione più salda dei contenuti (memoria firmior), 25 l’anonimo
22 Sulla diffusione dell’opera, Cizek, “Einleitung,” XC–XCI.

23 Ampie sezioni di questa glossa sono pubblicate sulla base del testo tradito in
Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale 252 in Charles Thurot, Notices et extraits de
divers manuscrits latins pour servir à l’histoire des doctrines grammaticales (Paris,
1869). Per alcuni cenni su questo commento, finora mai sistematicamente studia-
to, Reichling, “Einleitung,” LXII.
24 Il testo di questo passo dell’Admirantes è edito in Thurot, Notices et extraits, 102:
Sermo metricus, quem sequitur actor [Alexander de Villa Dei] iste, ad plura se habet
quam prosaycus, quem sequitur Priscianus; et hoc ita probatur: sermo metricus uti-
lis factus est ad faciliorem acceptionem, ad venustam et lucidam brevitatem, et ad
memoriam firmiorem… Non est igitur mirum, si legitur liber iste, in quo compendi-
ose traditur quod erat primitus dispendiosum et confusum, in quo ordinate traditur
quod erat primitus inordinatum, in quo sub luce traditur quod erat primitus
nubilosum, in quo potest capi de facili quod nonnulli capere desperabant.
25 Questo concetto è riassunto nei versi “I versi giovano all'animo, comprendono
molti concetti in poco spazio, si ricordano prima e sono grati al lettore” (Metra
iuvant animos, comprendunt plurima paucis, / pristina commemorant et sunt ea
grata legenti). Essi compaiono in diversi testi composti nell’ambito della scuola
medica salernitana ed aprono il cosiddetto Florilegium Treverense, databile al XIV
commentatore riconosce che Alessandro di Villadei grazie all’uso del

verso riesce a rendere chiaro e sintetico quanto nella prosa priscianea è
prolisso e confuso. La superiorità del testo del maestro francese rispetto
a quello tardoantico risiede, quindi, non in una innovazione a livello di
contenuto, ma unicamente nella scelta di scrivere in versi.26
Questi aspetti vengono ulteriormente approfonditi nella glossa al v.
1550 del Doctrinale, in cui Alessandro sostiene di essersi riproposto di
trattare in versi della quantità sillabica. Forse è proprio questa
dichiarazione a spingere l’anonimo commentatore a soffermarsi ancora
sull’utilità della forma in versi e ad esprimersi come segue: 27
La causa finale è tripartita, perché questa scienza ha come fine il piacere, la
memoria più salda, la chiara e bella brevità. Dico “piacere,” perché le cose ben
strutturate generano in noi piacere. Dico “memoria più salda:” infatti nelle
esposizioni in versi viene osservato un ordine e, come sostiene Aristotele, sono
più facili da ricordare le cose che hanno un ordine. E dico “lucida e bella
brevità:” infatti il verso non elimina nulla, ma non contiene in sé il superfluo.
Queste cause finali possono essere così definite: “il verso è un discorso in versi,
che, procedendo brevemente e per clausole e adornato da una bella unione di
sec. (il testo è edito in Franz Brunhölzl, “Florilegium Treverense,” Mittel-

lateinisches Jahrbuch 1 [1964]: 65–77 e idem, “Florilegium Treverense,” Mittel-
lateinisches Jahrbuch 3 [1966]: 129–217), mostrando così un evidente carattere
proverbiale (Hans Walther, Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis Medii Aevi –
Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in alphabetischer Anord-
nung [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964], no. 14823). Osservazioni su
questi versi in Paul Klopsch, Einführung in die Dichtungslehren des lateinischen
Mittelalters (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980), 65.
26 Questo passo della Glosa Admirantes è analizzato in Bernhard Pabst, “Ein Medien-
wechsel in Theorie und Praxis. Die Umstellung von prosaischen auf versifizierte
Schultexte im 12. bis 14. Jahrhundert und ihre Problematik,” in Dichtung als Stoff-
Vermittlung. Formen, Ziele, Wirkungen. Beiträge zur Praxis der Versifikation
lateinischer Texte im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Stotz (Zürich: Chronos, 2008), 154, e in
Alexandru Cizek, “Docere et delectare. Zur Eigenart der versus differentiales im
Novus Grecismus Konrads von Mure,” in ibidem, 191–212, spec. 193.
27 Questo passo tratto dalla Glosa Admirantes è edito in Thurot, Notices et extraits,
417: Causa finalis trimembris est, quia ista scientia tendit finaliter ad delecta-
tionem, ad memoriam firmiorem, ad lucidam et venustam brevitatem. Ad delecta-
tionem dico, quia in bene or<di>natis delectamur. Ad memoriam firmiorem dico;
nam ordo in sermone metrico observatur, et, ut ait Aristoteles, reminiscibilia sunt
que ordinem habent. Et ad lucidam et venustam brevitatem dico; nam sermo metri-
cus nichil diminutum, nichil in se continet superfluum. Iste cause finales ex descrip-
tione versus sic possunt elici: “Versus est metrica oratio, succincte et clausulatim
progrediens, venusto verborum matrimonio et sententiarum flosculis picturata,
nichil in se superfluum nichilque continens diminutum” [Matth. Vend., Ars I, 1].
94 CARLA PICCONE
parole e dagli ornamenti delle frasi, non contiene in sé né nulla di superfluo e

non elimina nulla.” 28
Inoltre, Egidio di Corbeil nel suo De pulsibus, testo didascalico a tema
medico, la cui stesura è collocabile tra XII e XIII sec., si sofferma nel
prologo della sua opera su Filareto, medico bizantino vissuto probabil-
mente nel IX sec., e a riguardo scrive:29
Ma Filareto cercò di condensare la confusione dei predetti autori (di testi
medici) in un volume così breve, che volendo evitare il Cariddi della confu-
sione, è caduto nella Scilla dell’oscura brevità, che come l’oscurità è nemica del
sapere.
Tanto questo brano del De pulsibus quanto quello precedentemente
ricordato tratto dall’Admirantes evidenziano che un’esposizione dei con-
tenuti né troppo prolissa né troppo concisa realizza quella brevitas, che è
ritenuta una virtus del linguaggio poetico; se invece la materia trattata è
esposta in maniera concettosa e con modalità espressive ellittiche, allora
la brevitas diventa obscura e, dal momento che, come sostiene Egidio di
Corbeil, l’obscuritas è nemica della dottrina, essa diventa un vitium.
In contesto didascalico la riflessione metapoetica relativa alla natura
del versus connette l’obscuritas alla brevitas, concetto a cui, così come
avviene nella riflessione classica e mediolatina sull’argomento, viene
attribuita una natura bivalente. Dal momento che la poesia didascalica
mira ad offrire una trasmissione sistematica del sapere, una eccessiva
brevitas, portatrice di obscuritas, dovrebbe essere evitata a favore della
ricerca del giusto equilibrio tra un’esposizione eccessivamente prolissa
da una troppo concisa.
28 Per una discussione su questo passo, Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel in Theorie und
Praxis,” 153–54. Sul valore estetico del versus in questo passo, rimando al mio
Dalla prosa ai versi. Forme, usi, contesti della versificazione nella poesia didascalica
del XIII sec., la cui uscita è prevista nel 2013 per i tipi di Peter Lang. Formulazioni
chiaramente derivate dal brano dell’Admirantes discusso sono contenute nella
glossa al Grecismus redatta intorno al 1300 da un certo Iupiter, identificato in
Giovanni di Clacy, commentatore, oltre che del testo grammaticale di Eberardo,
anche del Doctrinale e delle Metamorfosi ovidiane. Il testo in questione è pubbli-
cato in Anne Grondeux, ed., Glosa super Graecismum Eberhardi Bethuniensis.
Capitula I–III: De figuris coloribusque rhetoricis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 233–
34. Su Iupiter e sulle caratteristiche del suo commento, Grondeux, Le Grecismus,
401–52.
29 Il seguente passo è riportato in Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 82: Philaretus
autem sub tanto brevitatis volumine praedictorum [medicinae auctorum] confu-
sionem studuit coarctare, qui Charybdim confusionis volens effugere, lapsus est in
Scyllam obscurae brevitatis, quae obscuritas est inimica doctrinae… Per una
riflessione a riguardo, Haye, ivi e Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel,” 153 e 167, n. 10.
4. Esposizione del sapere grammaticale e del lessico

nella poesia didascalica grammaticale
Al fine di chiarire se queste prescrizioni siano state effettivamente

rispettate nei testi didascalici, si analizzeranno alcuni passi del Doctri-
nale e dei “Grecismi”. Consideriamo ora i vv. 880–83 della grammatica di
Alessandro di Villadei:30
-no tramite -ui dà -itum eccetto i derivati di cano; in questi n precede -tum; -psi
dà -ptum e -vi dà -tum. -po dà -ui, se precede e breve dà -itum; se precede m, -po
dà -pi e -ptum; i restanti in -psi danno -ptum.
Esaminiamo ora il passo delle Institutiones di Prisciano dedicato allo
stesso tema (Prisc. Inst., GL II, 530, 1–10 e 531, 15–23):31
Il supino si forma dopo aver tolto -u tra le lettere che concludono il preterito in
-ui bisillabico e dopo aver aggiunto -tum; tuttavia, la penultima è breve, come
posui posĭtum, genui genĭtum. I composti di cano conservano al supino le let-
tere finali del verbo semplice [cano]; diciamo, infatti, cantum e succentum, seb-
bene i composti di cano mutino a in i, ma nel supino essi mutano nuovamente i
in e: succino fa succentum, occino occentum; tempsi temptum, come tutti i verbi
che nel preterito hanno -psi. I verbi che al preterito hanno l'ultima sillaba in -vi
la mutano in -tum secondo la regola precedentemente esposta, come sivi situm,
stravi stratum, crevi cretum, sprevi spretum.
...
Ho presente il solo rumpo che termina in -po preceduto da m e questo verbo,
eliminando m, mutando o in i e allungando la penultima, forma il preterito
30 Reichling, Das Doctrinale (vv. 880–83): -no per -ui dat -itum sine natis a cano;
nam -tum / n praecedit in his; -psi -ptum dat -vique facit -tum. / -po dat -ui, dat -
itum, brevis e si praevenit; m -pi / -ptum remota facit; -psi cetera -ptum dedere.
31 Priscianus, Institutiones, in “Grammatici Latini,” ed. Heinrich Keil, vol. 2 (Hildes-
heim: Olms, 1961), 530, 1–10 e 531, 15–23: Supina in -ui quidem divisas
terminantium praeteritum subtracta u et addita -tum proferuntur, correpta tamen
paenultima, ut posui posĭtum, genui genĭtum. A cano tamen composita primitivi
servant in supino terminationem; cantum enim et succentum dicimus, quamvis in
ipso verbo a in i convertunt ex eo composita, sed in supino iterum i in e transferunt:
succino succentum, occino occentum; tempsi vero temptum facit, sicut omnia in
-psi per praeteritum exeuntia. In -vi vero syllabam desinentia mutant eam in -tum
secundum praedictam regulam, ut sivi situm, stravi stratum, crevi cretum, sprevi
spretum. … In -po desinens m antecedente unum invenio rumpo, quod subtracta m
et o in i conversa facit praeteritum paenultima producta tam in simplici quam in
compositis ab eo: rumpo rūpi, abrumpo abrūpi, corrumpo corrūpi. E vero brevem
paenultimam habentia mutant -o in -ui divisas in praeterito, ut strĕpo strepui,
obstrĕpo obstrepui; r vero vel l vel e productam ante -po habentia o in -si
convertentia faciunt praeteritum, ut scalpo scalpsi, sculpo sculpsi, carpo carpsi,
rēpo repsi, serpo serpsi, sarpo sarpsi.
96 CARLA PICCONE
tanto nel verbo semplice che nei suoi composti: rumpo rūpi, abrumpo abrūpi,
corrumpo corrūpi. I verbi che hanno come penultima e breve mutano al prete-
rito -o in -ui come strĕpo strepui, obstrĕpo obstrepui. I verbi che hanno r, l o e
lunga prima di -po formano il preterito mutando -o in -si, come scalpo scalpsi,
sculpo sculpsi, carpo carpsi, rēpo repsi, serpo serpsi, sarpo sarpsi.
La lettura di questi passi priscianei permette di individuare nella forma-
zione del perfetto e del supino di alcuni verbi appartenenti alla terza
coniugazione l’oggetto di riflessione nei versi del Doctrinale menzionati.
Sebbene l’argomento trattato dai due grammatici sia lo stesso,
nell’esposizione a riguardo contenuta nel testo mediolatino i molti
esempi menzionati nella grammatica tardoantica vengono completa-
mente omessi. Inoltre, mentre Prisciano si sofferma sulla formazione del
supino di cano e dei suoi derivati e offre un esame chiaro delle modalità
in cui i verbi, che presentano nel tema del presente i gruppi -rp-, -lp- ed
-ep-, formano il perfetto e il supino, Alessandro di Villadei si limita ad
inserire nei versi menzionati le forme -tum, -ui ed -itum, -psi, -pi e -ptum,
presupponendo che il lettore sia in grado di decodificarle quali marche
del perfetto e del supino; inoltre questi deve essere in grado di com-
prendere che il cetera del v. 883 si riferisce ai gruppi -ēpo, -lpo e -rpo e di
interpretare il termine natus del v. 880 come termine tecnico nel signifi-
cato di “derivato,” usato probabilmente metri causa al posto dei più abi-
tuali derivatus o derivativus, in quanto costituito da un numero di sillabe
che ben si adatta al contesto prosodico in cui il termine è inserito.
Alessandro di Villadei sottopone, dunque, il materiale offerto dalle
Institutiones ad un processo di riduzione, che si esplica nel caso specifico
nella soppressione e nella condensazione di contenuti,32 con la conse-
guenza che le stesse tematiche presentate in Prisciano vengono esposte
in maniera talmente abbreviata ed ellittica da risultare difficilmente
comprensibili senza una salda conoscenza pregressa della grammatica
latina.
Questa tendenza all’abbreviazione raggiunge la sua acme nei cosid-
detti versus memoriales. Attestati in forma anonima già in epoca altome-
dievale, essi raggiungono il loro momento di massima diffusione in
concomitanza con il periodo di maggior fortuna del genere didascalico,
coincidente con il XII sec. 33 Elencati in raccolte oppure inglobati in testi
32 Sui procedimenti di riduzione o di ampliamento seguiti da Alessandro di Villadei,

Eberardo di Béthune e Corrado di Mure nell’elaborazione del materiale prece-
dente confluito nei loro testi grammaticali rimando al mio Dalla prosa ai versi.
33 Per una panoramica sulla diffusione di questo genere di versi, Dorothea Klein,
“Ad memoriam firmiorem. Merkverse in lateinisch-deutscher Lexikographie des
didascalici dedicati ai temi più disparati, 34 essi rappresentano una sorta

di “sapere franco,” nato e circolante in contesto scolastico, a cui chiunque
avrebbe potuto attingere, facendo propri i loro contenuti. 35 In ambito
grammaticale già Papias nell’XI sec. si serve di questa tipologia di versi,
ma è tra la fine del XII e il XIV sec. che essi risultano essere abbondante-
mente utilizzati in Alessandro di Villadei, in Eberardo di Béthune, nel
commento a Prisciano approntato da Pietro Elia, da Giovanni di Garlan-
dia negli Equivoca, da Giovanni Balbi nel Catholicon, da Uguccione da
Pisa, nella sezione grammaticale del Novus Grecismus e nello Speculum
grammaticae di Ugo Spechtshart.36
Sebbene consapevoli dell’ampia mole di versus memoriales presenti
nei testi grammaticali presi in esame,37 è nostra intenzione offrire alcuni
esempi rappresentativi. Pertanto, distingueremo versi contenenti
l’enumerazione delle eccezioni ad una certa regola grammaticale da
quelli costruiti con gruppi di omonyma, synonima ed equivoca,38 che rap-
presentano una categoria specifica nell’ambito dei versus memoriales,
definita versus differentiales.39
späteren Mittelalters,” in Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Editionen und Studien zur

deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters. Kurt Ruh zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Konrad
Kunze et al. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1989), 133–34; eadem, “Zur Praxis des Latein-
unterrichts: Versus memoriales in lateinisch-deutschen Vokabularen des späten
Mittelalters,” in Latein und Volkssprache im deutschen Mittelalter 1100–1500.
Regensburger Colloquium 1988, ed. Nikolaus Henkel et al. (Tübingen: Niemeyer,
1992), 337–50; Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 258–59; Cizek, “Docere et
delectare,” 194–95.
34 I versus memoriales sono ben attestati in opere a carattere storiografico, medico
ed astronomico. A riguardo, Heribert A. Hilgers, “Versuch über deutsche
Cisiojani,” in Poesie und Gebrauchsliteratur im deutschen Mittelalter. Würzburger
Colloquium 1978, ed. Volker Honemann et al., (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979), 127–
35. Per un esame relativo ai versus memoriales in ambito storiografico, Ludwig
Benkert, “Der historiographische Merkvers,” diss. Würzburg, 1960.
35 A riguardo, Klein, “Zur Praxis,” 346, e Cizek, “Docere et delectare,” 194.
36 Sulla diffusione dei versus memoriales in contesto grammaticale, Vivien Law,
“Why Write a Verse Grammar?” The Journal of Medieval Latin 9 (1999): 46–76,
spec. 55–56.
37 Uno studio sistematico sui versus differentiales contenuti nel Novus Grecismus è
stato condotto da Cizek, “Docere et delectare.”
38 Sulla diffusione di questa tematica in contesto grammaticale antico e tardoantico,
Giorgio Brugnoli, Studi sulle differentiae verborum (Roma: Signorelli, 1955), 7–20.
39 Sui versus differentiales in contesto didascalico mediolatino, Klein, “Zur Praxis,”
341–42, e Cizek, “Docere et delectare,” 195.
98 CARLA PICCONE
I. a. Nel quinto capitolo del suo Doctrinale Alessandro di Villadei sostiene

che il perfetto della prima coniugazione si ottiene sostituendo la desi-
nenza -as del presente indicativo con -ui (vv. 698–99) e continua questa
sua spiegazione, scrivendo (v. 700–04):40
Cre. do. do. mi. iu. sto. pli. fri. so. ne. ve. la. se. cu. to. Infatti cubo, crepo, domo,
frico, mico, nexo, plico, sono, seco, tono, veto, terminano in -ui bisillabico; do dà
dedit, sto stetit, iuvo dà iuvi e lavo lavi.
Il v. 700 appare ad una prima lettura senza dubbio criptico, ma in realtà
il suo senso è chiarito dai versi immediatamente successivi: in esso sono
enumerati quindici verbi che fanno eccezione alle regola precedente-
mente esposta e il versus risulta costituito dalla successione delle loro
prime sillabe, che sono combinate in un esametro leonino in modo tale
da formare delle parole di senso compiuto (credo, domi, iusto, frisone,
vela, secuto). Lo stesso verso viene ripetuto con poche variazioni anche
nel Grecismus di Eberardo di Béthune (XXVI, 119–24).
Passando ora all’analisi dei versus differentiales, ci limiteremo
all’analisi di due esempi:41
II. a. Nel Doctrinale (vv. 446–47) Alessandro di Villadei scrive: 42
Glis è l'animale, glis è la terra dura, glis è il cardo; il primo fa gliris, il secondo
glissis, il terzo glitis.
Entrambi questi versi sono ripetuti senza alcuna variazione nel Grecis-
mus (X, 168–69), mentre il v. 446 viene menzionato in questa forma nelle
Magne Derivationes di Uguccione da Pisa (G 74, 4–7), nella Summa super
Priscianum di Pietro Elia (I, 338), nel Catholicon di Giovanni Balbi (s. v.
glis), nello Speculum grammatice di Ugo Spechtshart 43 e vengono
40 Reichling, Das Doctrinale, vv. 700–04: Cre. do. do. mi. iu. sto. pli. fri. so. ne. ve. la.
se. cu. to. / Nam cubo sive crepo, domo, deinde fricoque micoque, / nexo plicoque,
sono, seco, deinde tonoque vetoque / praetereunt in vi divisas; do dedit et sto / dat
stetit, et iuvi iuvo praeterit et lavo lavi.
41 Per un’analisi più dettagliata a riguardo, rimando a Cizek, “Docere et delectare,”
194–206, e al mio Dalla prosa ai versi.
42 Reichling, Das Doctrinale, vv. 446–47: Glis animal, glis terra tenax, glis lappa voca-
tur; / -ris primus, glissis tenet altera, tertia glitis.
43 Le occorrenze di questo versus sono menzionate in Charles Du Cange, Glossarium
mediae et infimae Latinitatis (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,
1958), IV, 68; Leo Reilly, ed., Petrus Helias, Summa super Priscianum (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1993), I, 338. Il verso in questione è
riportato, inoltre, alla pagina 161v del ms. München, BSB, Clm 3566, in cui è tra-
dito il testo dello Speculum grammaticale di Ugo Spechtshart corredato da
commento.
rielaborati da Corrado di Mure in questi termini (Novus Grecismus II,

594–96):44
Glis è l'animale, glis è la terra dura, glis è il cardo; questo animale, questa terra
dura, questo cardo; quindi il genitivo sarà gliris, glissis, glitis.
Questi versi ricorrono, dunque, in maniera pressoché identica da un
testo grammaticale all’altro ed evidenziano che il sostantivo glis può
indicare sia il “ghiro” sia la “terra compatta” che il “cardo.” Inoltre, tanto
nel Doctrinale che nei “Grecismi” la menzione delle forme del genitivo
chiarisce che i tre significati precedentemente enucleati sono da riferire
a tre diversi significanti, glis – gliris, glis – glissis e glis – glitis; a questa
notazione Corrado di Mure aggiunge anche ragguagli in merito al genere
dei tre termini. 45 Il fine dei versus differentiales discussi è, dunque, da
ravvisare nella volontà di distinguere, attraverso la menzione dei loro
significati, delle loro forme del genitivo e tramite la definizione del loro
genere, termini che risultano omografi unicamente nelle loro forme al
nominativo e conseguentemente differiscono nel significato e nella
declinazione.
II.b. Corrado di Mure scrive (Novus Grecismus II, 775–78):46
La mola macina il grano triturandolo, ma moles ti indica il peso e nei riti sacri
mola è farina mista a sale… Mola è anche ciò che è pesante o viene trascinato
da un asino.
In questi versi vengono menzionati i diversi significati del termine mola,
individuati in “macina di mulino”; “mola,” intesa nel senso di focaccia
utilizzata nei riti religiosi in epoca romana; “peso.” Questo è, inoltre, il
significato del termine moles. Successivamente Corrado scrive (II, 781):
Tu mole mole mole, tibi namque molit mola mole.
Tu macina con il peso per la mola (intesa nel senso di “focaccia”), infatti la
macina di mulino macina per te per il suo peso. 47
Nel verso compaiono, dunque, i termini moles e mola in tutte le accezioni
precedentemente ricordate; ad essi si aggiunge anche la forma mole,
imperativo del verbo molĕre. In questo modo il verso racchiude in sé
44 Cizek, Novus Grecismus II, 594–96: Glis animal, glis terra tenax, glis lappa vocatur;
/ hic animal, hec terra tenax, hoc lappa vocatur. / Hinc gliris glissis genitivus, erit
quoque glitis.
45 Un’analisi di questo verso è fornito in Cizek, “Docere et delectare,” 197.
46 Cizek, Novus Grecismus, II, 775–78: Grana terendo molit mola, sed moles tibi
signat / pondus et in sacris mola sit sale mixta farina. / … / Quod gravis est aut per
asinum trahitur, mola…
47 Questo verso è oggetto di discussione in Cizek, “Docere et delectare,” 202, che
però lo ritiene privo di senso.
100 CARLA PICCONE
omografi polisemici, omofoni e paronimi, risultando così fortemente

allitterante, e mostra al contempo la varietà semantica del termine mola
e la sua differenza di significato rispetto al fonicamente molto simile
moles. Il fine del verso è, dunque, quello di raccogliere nello spazio di un
esametro termini molto simili a livello fonico in un contesto dotato di
significato, in modo da rendere evidenti le loro differenze semantiche.
Come si è visto, i versus differentiales si caratterizzano per il fatto di
essere costituiti da omonyma e paronomasie, risultando così ricchi di fi-
gure di suono. In alcuni casi, come avviene nell’ultimo esempio discusso,
la maggiore intensificazione di questo tratto e la presenza in essi di
omofoni e omografi genera spesso dei veri e propri indovinelli, che non
sono mai di immediata comprensione.48 Proprio in virtù di queste carat-
teristiche essi sono rappresentativi di quel gusto per la poesia ingegnosa
ed artificiale, che Curtius definisce “manierismo formale” e che ritiene un
fenomeno sovratemporale dello spirito. 49
L’analisi precedentemente condotta sul passo del Doctrinale relativo
alla formazione del perfetto e del supino di alcuni verbi di terza coniuga-
zione ha evidenziato il fatto che nel testo di Alessandro l’esposizione del
sapere grammaticale si snoda attraverso passaggi concettuali impliciti,
con la conseguenza che esso risulta estremamente conciso ed ellittico.
Inoltre, l’esame dei versus memoriales e differentiales ha mostrato come
essi concentrino nello spazio di un verso l’enunciazione delle eccezioni
ad una certa regola o mirino a distinguere termini fonicamente molto
simili, ma divergenti a livello semantico. Proprio la presenza in essi di
omographa, omonyma ed equivoca fa sì che questa tipologia di versi sia
spesso assimilabile agli indovinelli, per definitionem di non sempre facile
interpretazione.
Sulla base di queste osservazioni, saremmo portati a ritenere che le
modalità espressive ravvisabili nelle grammatiche discusse coincidano
con quelle proprie dell’obscura brevitas, così come essa è descritta nella
48 Di carattere introduttivo sulle forme dell’indovinello nella letteratura tardoantica

e mediolatina il contributo di Giovanni Polara, “Aenigmata,” in Lo spazio
letterario del Medioevo 1. Il Medioevo Latino, vol. I: La produzione del testo, vol. II,
ed. Guglielmo Cavallo et al. (Roma: Salerno, 1993), 197–216; cfr. anche Monica
Longobardi, “Ah! Che rebus,” Italiano e oltre 13 (1998): 155–63, spec. 155–59.
49 Accanto al “manierismo formale” Curtius individua anche un manierismo che si
esplica a livello di contenuto. Esempi di “manierismi formali” nella poesia antica,
tardoantica e medievale in Curtius, Letteratura europea, 313–17; sui “manierismi
contenutistici,” ibidem, 305–13; sulla definizione di “manierismo,” ibidem, 303–
04.
Glosa Admirantes al Doctrinale e nel prologo del De pulsibus di Egidio di

Corbeil; se così fosse, l’esposizione del sapere grammaticale riportata nel
Doctrinale e nei “Grecismi” sarebbe caratterizzata da obscuritas sia a
livello lessicale che sintattico.
5. Versus obscuri o presunti tali?
Al fine di chiarire se questa nostra ipotesi possa essere confermata o

smentita, ci sembra opportuno ampliare la nostra prospettiva e soffer-
marci su altri testi didascalici a tema grammaticale di poco successivi a
quelli presi in esame.
Ad un paio di decenni di distanza dalla stesura del Doctrinale,
Giovanni di Garlandia scrive l’Ars lectoria Ecclesie, dedicata all’espo-
sizione delle regole della prosodia latina. 50 Il testo è tradito in nove
manoscritti ed alcune delle glosse riportate nel testimone più antico
(Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek, 546)51 si caratterizzano per l’uso della prima
persona singolare, si soffermano abbondantemente sui passi più contro-
versi dell’opera, evidenziano una notevole familiarità con le sue fonti e
presentano rimandi interni al testo, mostrando così un’ottima conoscen-
za dello stesso52; sulla base di questi elementi si è ritenuto che Giovanni
di Garlandia stesso abbia glossato la sua Ars. 53
Successivamente, nel 1346, Ugo Spechtshart scrive la Forma discendi,
in cui propone un modello di lezione di latino di livello elementare. Nella
chiusa della sua opera l’autore dichiara: “Quando Ugo scriveva questo
trattato, aggiunse da un libro diverso glosse rosa e con le proprie mani
scrisse questa opera.” 54 In questi versi, dunque, l’ammissione da parte
50 L’editio princeps del testo è offerta in Elsa Marguin-Hamon, L’Ars lectoria ecclesie
de Jean de Garlande. Une grammaire versifiée du XIIIe siècle et ses gloses
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). La composizione dell’opera è collocabile intorno al
1225. Su questo aspetto, ibidem, 77–78.
51 Per una descrizione dei testimoni che ne riportano il testo, Marguin-Hamon,
Introduction à L’Ars lectoria ecclesie, 13–49; sulla sua tradizione manoscritta,
ibidem, 52–60.
52 Sulla glossa al testo, ibidem, 67–94, spec. 86–96.
53 Osservazioni in merito in Bernhard Pabst, “Text und Paratext als Sinneinheit?
Lehrhafte Dichtungen des Mittelalters und ihre Glossierung,” Wolfram-Studien 19
(2006): 117–45, spec. 125–26.
54 Hugo tractatum quando dictaverat istum, / adiunxit glosas vario de codice rosas /
et propriis librum manibus conscripserat istum. Il testo menzionato è edito in
Adolf Diehl, “Speculum grammaticae und Forma discendi des Hugo Spechtshart
102 CARLA PICCONE
del poeta didascalico di aver aggiunto glosae rosae al testo da lui com-
posto permette di ritenere con certezza che egli alluda alla pratica dell’
autoglossa.55
Infine, tra il 1404 e il 1405 Godofredo di Utrecht scrive nell’area di
Lovanio il Gramaticale, 56 testo in esametri leonini tradito unicamente in
tre manoscritti e dedicato a morfologia e sintassi latine57. L’opera si apre
con questi versi (vv. 1–4):58
Mi preparo a scrivere per giovani studenti il Grammaticale, non criticando, ma
nominando i miei maestri, che nessun intelletto infantile è in grado né di
imparare a memoria né di ricordare, qualora essi vengano compresi.
La glossa ad essi riporta: 59
Nota anche che questo libro è molto utile per i giovani che devono accostarsi
allo studio della grammatica, poiché comprende molte cose e in uno stile molto
facile; così è indubbiamente molto più utile di Alessandro, che in numerosi
passi è molto difficile per i giovani.
Godofredo si propone, dunque, di non criticare le autorità grammaticali
del suo tempo, ma di trasporre i contenuti delle loro opere in una forma
più accessibile all’“intelletto infantile.” È poi la glossa a chiarire che il
Gramaticale grazie al suo “stile semplice” è certamente più adatto per gli
von Reutlingen,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für deutsche Erziehung und

Schulgeschichte 20 (1910): 1–26, spec. 26.
55 Osservazioni a riguardo in Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 369–70 e Pabst,
“Text und Paratext,” 126–27.
56 Il testo del Grammaticale è edito da Christian Klinger, ed., Godefridi de Traiecto
Gramaticale. Untersuchung und kritische Ausgabe (Ratingen: Henn, 1973).
57 Il testo è tradito in un manoscritto di Basilea (Basel, UB, F. IV. 48) e in due testi-
moni monacensi (München, BSB, Clm 19867 e Clm 14133), databili tra la metà e
la fine del XV sec. Per una dettagliata descrizione dei tre testimoni, Klinger,
Einleitung zu Godefridi de Traiecto Gramaticale, 113–36. Sulla figura e sulle opere
di Godofredo da Utrecht, ibidem, 14–24; per una panoramica introduttiva al
contenuto del Gramaticale, ibidem, 44–46.
58 Klinger, ed., Godefridi de Traiecto (vv. 1–4): “Scribere clericulis paro Gramaticale
novellis, / non reprobando meos sed declarando magistros, / quos infantilis
nequit intellectulus omnis / mentetenus capere nec adeptos quit retinere.”
L’incipit dell’opera contiene un evidente richiamo a quello del Doctrinale (v. 1:
Scribere clericulis paro Doctrinale novellis). Sull’avverbio mentetenus Peter Stotz,
Handbuch der lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters, Bd. 2 (München: Beck, 2000),
VI, 100, 4 con relativa bibliografia sull’argomento.
59 “… Item nota, quod iste liber multum utilis est iuvenibus in gramatica introducen-
dis, quoniam multa comprehendit et sub valde facili stilo, et ideo indubie multum
utilior est Alexandro, qui in multis passibus est valde difficilis pro iuvenibus.” Il
suo testo è tradito in Basilea, UB, F. IV. 49 e München, BSB, Clm 19867 ed è ricos-
truito in Klinger, ed., Grammaticale, 255.
studenti del Doctrinale, ritenuto complesso. È, quindi, sulla base di

queste premesse che il materiale contenuto nella grammatica del mae-
stro francese viene abbreviato, semplificato, sistematizzato, corretto e
rifuso in un nuovo testo, il Gramaticale, appunto, che nasce program-
maticamente come una versione semplificata dell’opera di Alessandro. 60
L’esistenza di grammatiche in versi in parte glossate dai loro stessi
autori e di riscritture delle stesse scevre da qualunque intento polemico,
ma dettate dalla necessità di renderle accessibili, dimostra che questa
tipologia di testi, intesa nella loro essenza di successione di versi, è per-
cepita dagli stessi poeti didascalici difficilis, obscura e, dunque, di non
facile comprensione e fruizione.61
Tanto Alessandro di Villadei quanto gli autori dei “Grecismi” men-
zionano nei prologhi e chiamano in causa “maestri” e “allievi,” che rap-
presentano il gruppo sociologicamente ben definito, a cui i grammatici
oggetto di esame si rivolgono.62 Inoltre, essi stessi sono stati insegnanti
di scuola63 e, pertanto, le loro opere sono scritti di maestri composti per
allievi e altri maestri, che nascono e trovano conseguentemente il loro
naturale contesto di fruizione in ambito scolastico, 64 in cui per questa
tipologia di opere è prevista una ricezione mnemonica.65 Nelle loro
composizioni i poeti didascalici analizzati rielaborano in versi una
pluralità di ipotesti, sottoponendoli, come si è visto, ad un processo di
soppressione e condensazione,66 al fine di poter fornire al loro Lettore
Modello,67 identificabile, dunque, nei pueri, una sorta di summa relativa
ad un dato sapere in una forma, quella in versi, percepita quale garante
di brevità di esposizione e di facile memorizzazione. Tuttavia, l’auto-
glossa approntata da alcuni poeti didascalici alle proprie opere
dimostrerebbe che essi stessi riconoscessero che tanto l’esposizione del
60 Sugli interventi apportati da Godofredo al testo di Alessandro, Klinger, “Einlei-

tung,” 44–62.
61 Su questo aspetto, Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 369.
62 A riguardo, Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 119.
63 Per alcune notizie biografiche relative ad Alessandro di Villadei, Reichling, Einlei-
tung, XXI–XXIV e Glei, “Alexander de Villa Dei,” 293–94. Per la biografia di
Eberardo di Béthune, cfr. Grondeux, Le Grecismus, 7, e per quella di Corrado di
Mure, Cizek, “Einleitung,” xv–xvii.
64 Su questo aspetto, Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 113.
65 A riguardo rimando al mio Dalla prosa ai versi.
66 Sull’originalità della poesia didascalica, Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 77–81;
cfr. anche Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel,” 163.
67 Sul concetto di Lettore Modello, Umberto Eco, Lector in fabula. La cooperazione
interpretativa nei testi narrativi (Milano: Bompiani, 2002), 50–56.
104 CARLA PICCONE
sapere grammaticale per le sue formulazioni ellittiche quanto i versus

memoriales per la loro ambiguità, seppur usati al fine di facilitare la loro
memorizzazione, generassero obscuritas. D’altro canto, come suggerisce
il prologo del Doctrinale (vv. 7–10),68 gli stessi autori didascalici sono
consapevoli che i loro scritti sarebbero stati oggetto di lectio, 69 di spiega-
zione orale da parte del magister, che avrebbe sciolto formulazioni ellit-
tiche e versus memoriales, dissipando conseguentemente la loro obscuri-
tas. Nel loro processo di ricezione è, quindi, la compenetrazione tra testo
scritto e spiegazione orale e, dunque, tra scrittura e oralità,70 che
permette di colmare durante la lezione quelle “Leerstellen in Text, die
bewusst zu didaktischen Zwecken gelassen wurden,” 71 trasformando
così l’obscuritas propria di questo genere di opere in luciditas e permet-
tendo così una loro consapevole memorizzazione da parte dei pueri. 72
Il poeta didascalico attinge, dunque, alle conoscenze inerenti al tema
trattato nella sua opera, fa uso delle convenzioni del genere didascalico
ed è a conoscenza del fatto che il suo scritto sia destinato ad essere
recepito mnemonicamente nelle scuole. Di conseguenza, si serve
scientemente di modalità espressive che da un lato avrebbero dovuto
facilitare la memorizzazione della sua opera, ma che dall’altro risultano
obscurae; egli sa però che la loro obscuritas sarebbe stata dissipata nel
corso della loro spiegazione orale a lezione. È, dunque, grazie a queste
68 Per un’analisi di questo passo, rimando al mio Dalla prosa ai versi.

69 Sulle modalità di ricezione di questi testi, Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel,” 162 e il
mio Dalla prosa ai versi.
70 La questione è stata indagata in relazione alla poesia didascalica da Klaus
Grubmüller, “Mündlichkeit, Schriftlichkeit und Unterricht. Zur Erforschung ihrer
Interferenzen in der Literatur des Mittelalters,” Der Deutschunterricht. Beiträge
zu seiner Praxis und wissenschaftlichen Grundlegung 1 (1989): 41–54, spec. 48–
51. Rimando, inoltre, ad Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 131; Pabst, “Ein
Medienwechsel,” 161–62, ed infine al mio Dalla prosa ai versi. Su oralità e
scrittura in epoca medievale, basterà in questa sede menzionare Paul Zumthor,
La lettera e la voce. Sulla “letteratura” medievale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990);
Dennis H. Green, “Über Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in der deutschen
Literatur des Mittelalters. Drei Rezeptionsweisen und ihre Erfassung,” in
Philologie als Kulturwissenschaft. Festschrift für Karl Stackmann zum 65.
Geburtstag, ed. Ludger Grenzmann et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1987), 1–20.
71 Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel,” 161.
72 Sulla ricezione mnemonica di questa tipologia di opere, rimando al mio Dalla
prosa ai versi.
conoscenze, a questa enciclopedia,73 che il poeta didascalico è in grado di

muovere un sapere precostituito, quale quello grammaticale, in funzione
dell’esigenza di memorizzazione dello stesso da parte del proprio Let-
tore Modello.
Inoltre, il fatto che da un lato il genere didascalico e, nello specifico, il
Doctrinale e il Grecismus,74 abbiano goduto nei secoli del Basso Medioevo
di uno straordinario successo e la constatazione, dall’altro, della scarsa
fortuna di versioni semplificate di questa tipologia di testi, quale il Gra-
maticale di Godofredo di Utrecht, 75 dimostrano, dunque, che le strategie
messe in atto dai vari poeti didascalici nella composizione delle loro
opere riescono ad andare incontro con successo alle esigenze del loro
pubblico, che conseguentemente ne sancisce il successo.
A distanza di pochi anni dalla loro stesura, sia la grammatica di Ales-
sandro di Villadei che quella di Eberardo di Béthune diventano oggetto di
interesse di Giovanni di Garlandia, che correda entrambe con brevi nota-
zioni marginali, oggi rintracciabili in diversi manoscritti.76 I successivi
approcci intenzionalista e modista alla grammatica, ampiamente diffusi
73 Sul concetto di enciclopedia, Eco, Lector in fabula, 11–26, e, per alcune riflessioni
a riguardo, Maria Pia Pozzato, Semiotica del testo. Metodi, autori, esempi (Roma:
Carocci, 2002), 118–19.
74 Il Doctrinale è tradito in circa 400 manoscritti, è stato abbondantemente
commentato e fino al XV sec., è stato abbondamente stampato e ha fornito mate-
riale per parodie e centoni. Il testo del Grecismus ci è restituito da 255 testimoni
databili tra XIII e XV sec. ed è corredato da commento. Il Novus Grecismus, invece,
riportato in quatttordici testimoni, conosce una tradizione unicamente regionale.
Per un elenco dei testimoni del Doctrinale e del Grecismus, Geoffrey L. Bursill-
Hall, A Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts (Stuttgart e Bad
Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1981). Sulle edizioni a stampa della grammatica
di Alessandro di Villadei, Reichling, “Einleitung,” clxxi–ccxc. Sulla tradizione
manoscritta del Novus Grecismus, Cizek, “Einleitung,” lxxii–xc.
75 Il testo è tradito unicamente in tre testimoni (Basel, UB F. IV. 49; München, BSB,
Clm 19867 e Clm 14133), prodotti nel sud dell’area germanica e databili tra il
1455 e il 1470. Sui manoscritti menzionati, cfr. Klinger, “Einleitung,” 113; 122–
23; 129–30.
76 Il punto sullo stato della ricerca a riguardo è fornito da Marguin-Hamon,
“Introduction,” 65, che offre, inoltre, un elenco dei manoscritti del Doctrinale in
cui è rintracciabile il commento al testo di Giovanni di Garlandia. Sul commento
di questo autore al Grecismus, Anne Grondeux, “La tradition manuscrite des
commentaires au Grecismus d’Évrard de Béthune,” in Manuscripts and Tradition
of Grammatical Texts from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Proceedings of a Confer-
ence held at Erice, 16–23 October 1997, ed. Mario De Nonno et al. (Cassino:
Edizioni dell’Università di Cassino, 2000), 516–20.
106 CARLA PICCONE
in contesto accademico tra XIII e XIV sec., influenzano anche la Glosa

Admirantes al Doctrinale77 e le diverse tradizioni di commento al Grecis-
mus78; inoltre, l’accumulazione dei suoi diversi stadi porta ad un
progressivo accrescimento del suo volume nei singoli testimoni, fatto che
rende ben conto della sua natura fluida e multiforme.79
Nella prima metà del XV sec. anche il Novus Grecismus è stato oggetto
di un paio di commenti sistematici al testo e di un commento per loci
selecti 80; essi sono stati finora ignorati dalla critica ed aspettano ancora
di essere editi ed adeguatamente studiati.
Al fine di chiarire i rapporti esistenti tra testo in versi e commento,
concentriamo la nostra attenzione su un incunabolo pubblicato a Reut-
lingen nel 1490, 81 in cui è riportato il testo grammaticale di Alessandro
di Villadei corredato dalla Glosa Notabilis, approntata nel 1488 dal
teologo di Colonia Gerhard von Zutphen. 82 I versi 880–83 del Doctrinale
precedentemente esaminati presentano delle glosse interlineari che
permettono di identificare come tali le desinenze del perfetto e del
supino in esso inglobate; una glossa marginale si sofferma, inoltre, sul
significato dei verbi menzionati nei versi oggetto di commento. Inoltre, a
proposito del versus memorialis riportato al v. 700 (cre. do. do. mi. iu. sto.
pli. fri. so. ne. ve. la. se. cu. to.) già discusso, l’incunabolo riporta una glossa
interlineare, in cui si menzionano nella loro interezza i verbi abbreviati
nel verso in questione e un’ampia glossa marginale, in cui vengono
passati in rassegna sia i loro significati sia i loro paradigmi.
Le glosse al Grecismus, in parte oggi leggibili nell’edizione approntata
da Anne Grondeux, offrono del concetto di euphonia (Ad Grec. II, 7–8), a
cui Eberardo dedica solamente due versi (II, 7–8),83 un dettagliato esame
77 Per le caratteristiche della Glosa Admirantes e sulla sua diffusione in ambito

tedesco, Reichling, “Einleitung,” lxiv–lxv.
78 Sui commenti al Grecismus, fondamentale risulta essere la monografia di Gron-
deux, Le Grecismus, ed eadem, “La tradition manuscrite.”
79 Su questo fenomeno, Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel,” 162–63; Grondeux, Introduc-
tion, Glosa super Graecismus Eberhardi Bethuniensis. Capitula I–III: De figuris
coloribusque rhetoricis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), xi–xiii.
80 Sui commenti al Novus Grecismus, Cizek, “Einleitung,” lxxxii–lxxxiii e lxxxvi–
lxxxvii.
81 Il testo della Glosa Notabilis consultato è quello riportato insieme al Doctrinale
nell’incunabolo pubblicato a Reutlingen intorno al 1490 dal tipografo Michael
Greytt (GW 1053), oggi conservato a Monaco (München, BSB, Ink. A–271).
82 Per le caratteristiche della Glosa Notabilis e sulla sua diffusione in ambito
tedesco, Reichling, “Einleitung,” lxiv–lxv.
83 Grondeux, Glosa super Graecismus.
e chiariscono al contempo anche gli esempi chiamati in causa dal

maestro francese. 84 Esse presentano, poi, una obiectio relativa al fatto se
la nozione presa in esame sia da annoverare tra i vitia o tra le virtutes del
discorso e viene offerta la relativa solutio, le cui argomentazioni si
appoggiano ad Alessandro di Villadei, Aristotele e Tommaso d’Aquino,
concordemente con il procedimento proprio della quaestio scolastica.
L’analisi condotta sul commento ad alcuni passi del Doctrinale e del
Grecismus ha evidenziato che le glosse interlineari offrono la chiave per
interpretare espressioni ellittiche contenute nel testo o permettono di
comprendere il senso dei versus memoriales, configurandosi così come lo
strumento in grado di dissipare l’obscuritas insita in questo genere di
formulazioni; nelle glosse marginali, invece, vengono affrontate temati-
che di tipo lessicale o di stampo filosofico, i cui spunti sono offerti dal
testo in versi. 85
Glosse e commenti ovviano, dunque, con le loro spiegazioni all’obscu-
ritas lessicale e sintattica connaturata alla poesia didascalica intesa come
susseguirsi di versi e, conseguentemente, testo e relative glosse, perce-
piti nella loro unitarietà, sviluppano un rapporto simbiotico evidente
anche nella tradizione manoscritta, in cui i due elementi sono spesso
traditi insieme. 86
6. Conclusioni
In epoca bassomedievale il concetto di obscuritas sembrerebbe riferirsi

sulla base dei testi esaminati a singoli termini difficilmente intelligibili
per la loro rarità, per la loro origine straniera o per il loro recente conio;
a frasi costruite in maniera troppo complessa o troppo concettosa; alle
possibili interpretazioni di un testo. Pertanto, questa nozione trova
84 I versi del Grecismus dedicati all’euphonia (II, 7–8: ma sia per te l’eufonia una pa-
rola sonoramente bella, come se si dicesse Tytides e meridies; ast euphonia sit tibi
dictio pulchra sonora, / ut si dicatur “Tytides meridiesque”) sono commentati in
questi termini (303–05): L’eufonia si ha quando una lettera viene mutata in
un’altra per avere un suono migliore, come quando si dice meridies al posto di
medidies e Tytides per Tydides (Euphonia est quando littera in litteram mutatur
causa pulchre sonoritatis, ut cum dicitur “meridies” pro “medidies,” “Tytides” pro
“Tydides”).
85 A riguardo, Pabst, “Ein Medienwechsel,” 162–64.
86 Osservazioni a riguardo in Haye, Das lateinische Lehrgedicht, 369–70.
108 CARLA PICCONE
applicazione in ambito lessicale, sintattico e semantico e risulterebbe

essere sovrapponibile ai moderni concetti di polisemia ed ambiguità.
Nel XIII sec. la riflessione metapoetica relativa al genere didascalico
associa l’obscuritas all’eccessiva brevitas nell’esposizione dei contenuti
ed è proprio da essa che il poeta didascalico dovrebbe fuggire, optando
per la lucida brevitas, ritenuta una caratteristica propria del versus
insieme alla firmior memoria e alla facilior acceptio.
L’analisi condotta sulle grammatiche dei due maestri francesi e sulla
sezione grammaticale del Novus Grecismus dovrebbe aver evidenziato
che le loro formulazioni presentano spesso passaggi logici impliciti ed
espressioni spesso ambigue ed incomprensibili in assenza di conoscenze
pregresse. Questo stato di cose sembra, dunque, realizzare quell’obscura
brevitas chiamata in causa nelle riflessioni metapoetiche sulla forma del
genere didascalico. La forma estrema di questa brevità nell’espressione
si realizza nell’ampio uso ravvisabile nelle grammatiche esaminate dei
cosiddetti versus memoriales e versus differentiales, in cui in forme crip-
tiche sono elencate le eccezioni ad una regola grammaticale preceden-
temente esposta o mirano a distinguere il significato di omonyma ed
equivoca, obscura sia a livello lessicale che sintattico.
L’autoglossa condotta sui propri testi da parte di autori di opere
grammaticali coeve a quelle esaminate e l’esistenza di una versione sem-
plificata del Doctrinale approntata da Godofredo di Utrecht lasciano sup-
porre che questa tipologia di scritti, intesa come un susseguirsi di versi,
fosse percepita come obscura da successivi fruitori e dai loro stessi au-
tori, il cui fine era quello di raccogliere in un unico scritto il sapere su un
dato argomento sparso in più ipotesti in una forma condensata e facile
da memorizzare, fatto garantito dal loro punto di vista dall’uso del verso.
Considerando che questa tipologia di opere trova ricezione in contesto
scolastico, i loro autori fanno uso di queste modalità espressive per for-
nire al loro Lettore Modello, i pueri, un testo più facile da imparare a
memoria, prevedendo però che i passaggi più complessi dei loro scritti
sarebbero stati oggetto di lectio da parte del magister. Pertanto, l’unità
testo inteso come alternanza di versi: spiegazione orale va a dissipare
l’obscuritas ad essi connaturata, rendendoli così accessibili nei loro con-
tenuti e, dunque, più facili da memorizzare.
Infine, tanto il Doctrinale che i “Grecismi,” come molti altri testi dida-
scalici, sono stati nel corso degli anni abbondantemente oggetto di
commenti, che non solo contengono gli elementi in grado di chiarire i
passi più ambigui, ma aggiungono a quello contenuto nel testo in versi
anche altro materiale, che spesso deriva dagli ipotesti della stessa
grammatica in versi e che rispecchia la speculazione grammaticale coeva

influenzata dalla filosofia aristotelica. Pertanto, anche l’unità testo–com-
mento riesce a dissipare l’obscuritas insita in questo genere di opere.
La straordinaria fortuna di cui hanno goduto almeno fino all’inizio del
XVI sec. il Doctrinale e il Grecismus e il fatto che tanto questi scritti
quanto quello di Corrado di Mure siano stati abbondantemente commen-
tati permettono di trarre due ordini di conclusioni: in prima battuta le
opere esaminate, così come la produzione didascalica coeva in generale,
sono state effettivamente percepite come obscurae secondo i parametri
della riflessione metapoetica sul genere didascalico e nella percezione
dei loro stessi autori. In secondo luogo va sottolineato come esse
acquistino in luciditas nel loro processo di fruizione e ricezione. Dunque,
il genere didascalico con il suo linguaggio, con le sue modalità espressive
e di ricezione, per noi oggi estremamente stranianti, ma ben diffusi e
condivisi in contesto scolastico nei secoli del Basso Medioevo, è riuscito
ad andare incontro alle esigenze del suo pubblico, che ne ha conse-
guentemente sancito la straordinaria fortuna.
Disclosing Secrets:
Virgil in Middle High German Poems
Alessandro Zironi
Virgil as a Magician
During the Middle Ages, Virgil became a versatile character in literature

throughout Europe. Since Domenico Comparetti’s pioneering book, Virgil
in the Middle Ages, this particular topic in medieval literature has been
widely examined.1 Nevertheless, many questions still remain unan-
swered, one of them being the peculiarity of the German tradition. The
presence of Virgil in German literature differs, in particular, from his
presence in other European traditions in the demoniac characterization
ascribed to the Latin poet in certain works. 2 In particular, Virgil is con-
nected with the existence of a secret book written by the Latin poet, in
which the access to ars notoria and magic arts are hidden through
obscure sentences. The obscurity of the contents of Virgil’s secret book
became object of a wide interest in German literary production during
the thirteenth century and warrants an investigation into the origin and
diffusion of this aspect of Virgil’s reception which will also take into
account the popularization of themes like the obscurity in the transmis-
sion of forbidden arts among a lay public living in the German courts.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Virgil was well known in
German courts thanks to Heinrich von Veldeke’s rewriting of the Aeneid,
to which particular attention was paid in the cultural milieu of Land-
grave Hermann of Thuringia.3 The representation of Virgil as a magician
1 Domenico Comparetti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo (Livorno: F. Vigo, 1872), repr. edi-
tion by Giorgio Pasquali (Firenze: La nuova Italia, 1937–41, 2nd ed. 1943).
2 Otto Neudeck, “Möglichkeiten der Dichter-Stilisierung in mittelhochdeutscher
Literatur: Neidhart, Wolfram, Vergil,” Euphorion 88 (1994): 349; Franz Josef
Worstbrock, “Vergil,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon,
ed. Kurt Ruh, vol. 10 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999), 276.
3 Maria Grazia Saibene, “Le ‘Metamorfosi’ di Ovidio nella traduzione di Albrecht
von Halberstadt,” in L’antichità nella cultura europea del Medioevo, ed. Rosanna
Brusegan and Alessandro Zironi (Greifswald: Reineke, 1998), 21–22.
VIRGIL IN MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN POEMS 111
in vernacular German literature goes back to Wolfram von Eschenbach,

who cites Virgil in his poem Parzival.4 In the long section of the poem
devoted to Gawain, the knight meets the necromancer Clinschor who
was born in the Terra di Lavoro, a plain near Naples, and is a descendant
of the Latin poet.5 Since Wolfram reports that Virgil was the ancestor of
the sorcerer Clinschor, it must be assumed that the former was also a
magician.
Virgil is associated with the city of Naples in a literary tradition
which started immediately after his death: Latin authors, like Pliny the
Younger, recalled the poet’s tomb just outside the walls of the city. Vir-
gil’s grave was situated more precisely on the road to Pozzuoli in the Vita
Svetonii vulgo Donatiana.6 Ultimately, the widespread knowledge of the
site of Virgil’s tomb is to be attributed to Jerome’s translation of the
Chronicon of Eusebius of Caesarea. 7 After having recalled that Virgil died
in Brindisi and that his bones were carried to Naples, Jerome reports the
epitaph engraved on the tomb.8
Comparetti imagined that some popular, oral stories about the poet
in Naples developed alongside a written biographical transmission
4 Neudeck, “Möglichkeiten,” 350.

5 “His land is called Terre de Labur. He is born of the descendants of one who also
devised many marvels. Virgil of Naples” (Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival and
Titurel, trans. Cyril Edwards, Oxford World’s Classics [Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006], 275); “sîn lant heizt Terre de Lâbûr: / von des nâchkomn er ist
erborn, / der ouch vil wunders het erkorn, / von Nâpels Virgilîus. / Clinschor des
neve warp alsus,” (Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival 656,14–18, Text und
Übersetzung, 2nd ed. with text from the 6th edition by Karl Lachmann [Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter, 2003], 660).
6 Jan M. Ziolkowski and Michael C. J. Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition. The First Fif-
teen Hundred Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 185.
7 Rudolf Helm, Die Chronik des Hieronymus, in Helm, ed., Eusebius Werke, VII, part 1
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1956), 165h; Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian
Tradition, 201.
8 “Virgil dies at Brindisi under the consulships of Sentius Saturninus and Lucretius
Cinna. His bones, carried over to Naples, are buried at the second milepost from
the city, with an epitaph of this sort written above, which he himself had dictated
as he was dying: Mantua gave birth to me, the Calabrians snatched me away, Par-
thenope now holds me; I sang of pastures, plowlands, and leaders” (Ziolkowski
and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 201); “Vergilius Brundisii moritur Sentio
Saturnino et Lucretio Cinna conss. Ossa eius Neapolim translata in secondo ab
urbe miliario seplieuntur titulo istius modi supra scripto, quem moriens ipse dic-
taverat: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc / Parthenope; cecini pas-
cua rura duces” (Die Chronik des Hieronymus, 165).
112 ALESSANDRO ZIRONI
concerning Virgil during the Early Middle Ages. His theory has been
fiercely contested by subsequent scholars, 9 but, even if Romantic in its
approach, Comparetti’s conclusion should not be definitively rejected.
The greatest obstacle to Comparetti’s theory was the lack of sources
which might demonstrate the link between Naples and how Virgil came
to be characterised as a magician. The most ancient text dates back to the
middle of the twelfth century: it is a passage in the Policraticus by John of
Salisbury, where the author speaks about a mechanical fly constructed
by Virgil which could drive real flies from Naples, in this way ridding the
city of the plague.10 After John of Salisbury’s assertions, several other
writers likewise claimed that Virgil was a magician.11 A considerable
number of clerics who wrote about Virgil as a sorcerer and astrologer
came from Germany and Britain, but the reasons for the spread of this
belief among Germans and Britons in particular remain unclear. The
association of Virgil with demoniac practices, which appeared in Ger-
many for the first time with Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, seems
even more obscure.
If we consider a group of texts from the early Middle Ages, it may be
possible to find a solution to these controversial questions. John of
Salerno (Joannes Italus Cluniacensis or Joannes Romanus) lived for some
years in Naples and Salerno in the middle of the tenth century. While he
was in Salerno, he came into contact with Greek books and the Hellenic
cultural milieu, and wrote his Vita Sancti Odonis. In this work, he asserts
that Odo dreamt of a beautiful pot from which snakes issued when it was
opened. Odo was quick to think that the pot had belonged to Virgil, and
considered the snakes to be negative symbols of past pagan poetry.12
The Vita Popponis Abbatis, written in the middle of the eleventh century,
reports what happened to a young monk, Gazo, who, in a delirium caused
by a high fever, was terrified by the apparition of a host of spirits:
9 Wilhelm Viëtor, “Der Ursprung der Virgilsage,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philolo-
gie 1 (1877): 165–78; Giorgio Pasquali, “Prefazione dell’editore,” in Domenico
Comparetti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo, ed. Giorgio Pasquali (Florence: La nuova Italia,
1937), I, xxiii; Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 826–27.
10 John of Salisbury, Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi carnotensis Policratici sive De
nugis Curialium et vestigiis Philosophorum libri 8, ed. Clemens C. J. Webb (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1909), 1, iv, 26.
11 Ziolkowski and Putnam, The Virgilian Tradition, 825.
12 John of Salerno (Ioannes Italus Cluniacensis), Vita Sancti Odonis, in Patrologiae
latinae cursus completus 133 (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1853), xii, 49.
Aeneas, Turnus, Virgil and many other characters from the Aeneid. 13 The
presence of Virgil in nightmares is quite frequent, as had already been
mentioned in a letter written in the ninth century by the Swabian
Ermenrich of Ellwagen to the abbot Grimald of St. Gall. Ermenrich
reports a vision in which Virgil’s tomb is plunged into the Stygian
swamp. Moreover, the poet causes nightmares, appearing as a ghost with
a trident.14 Here are two final examples. The first comes from the Histo-
riae by Raoul Glaber, dating back to the beginning of the eleventh
century. He wrote about Vilgard to whom devils appeared in the guise of
Virgil, Horace and Juvenal.15 The second source is perhaps the most curi-
ous and interesting. It comes from Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum
Historiale, which was widely circulated. In chapter 26 in the edition pub-
lished in Douai in 1624 (chapter XXVII, 4 in the fourteenth-century MS
Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, 797), Hugh of Cluny cannot sleep
because he dreams that beasts and snakes are lying under his head. He
wakes up to find the Liber Maronis under his pillow. He throws it away,
and thereafter sleeps peacefully.16
Massimo Oldoni, who found most of the previous sources, argued
that the demoniac image of Virgil developed during the tenth century in
Naples and Salerno, two cities which were still in close contact with Byz-
antine culture: the interest in mechanical automata is assumed to have
come from there and was henceforth constantly present in narratives
involving Virgil, the magician.17 As far as the magic powers ascribed to
Virgil are concerned, two main pieces of evidence can be adduced. The
first is the well-known interpretation of the prophecy contained in the
fourth Eclogue, where Virgil was supposed to have predicted Jesus’s
13 Everhelm, Vita Popponis abbatis, ed. Wilhelm Wattenbach, in M.G.H., SS., 11

(Hannover: Impensis bibliopolii aulici Hahniani, 1854), 32, 314.
14 Ermenrich of Ellwagen, Epistula ad Grimaldum abbatem, in M.G.H., Epistolae, 5,
Epistolae Karolini Aevi 3 (Berlin: apud Weidmannos, 1899), 24, 561.
15 Rodolfo il Glabro [Raoul (Rodulfus) Glaber], Cronache dell’anno mille (Storie), ed.
and trans. Guglielmo Cavallo and Giovanni Orlandi (Rome: Fondazione Lorenzo
Valla, 1990), 106–09.
16 Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale (ex MS Douai, BM, 797 from the 14th
cent.): http://atilf.atilf.fr/bichard/: xxvii, 4; Vincentius Bellovancensis, Speculum
quadruplex, sive speculum maius: naturale, doctrinale, morale, historiale (Graz:
Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1964) (repr. of edit. Duaci, ex Officina
typographica Baltazaris, 1624): 5, xxvi.
17 Massimo Oldoni, “L’ignoto Liber Maronis medievale tradotto dall’antico,” in Lec-
tures médiévales de Virgile. Acte du colloque organisé par l’Ecole française de Rome
(Rome, 25–28 octobre 1982) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1985), 365.
birth. The second piece of evidence comes from a long literary tradition
that goes back at least to Macrobius’s Saturnalia, where he asserted that
Virgil’s poetry contained all human knowledge: “omnium disciplinarum
peritus.” 18 Moreover, Fabius Planciade Fulgentius tried to discover
Virgil’s occult knowledge through etymological interpretations in his
Expositio Virgilianae continentiae secundum philosophos moralis, a work
that was widely read during the Middle Ages, in particular in the twelfth
century. 19
It is easy to see how the tradition connected with Virgil’s tomb in
Naples, the poet’s extensive knowledge, his prediction of Christ’s coming,
his association with Byzantine automata, and the existence of a book
which causes nightmares to virtuous Christians combined to give Virgil
the reputation of being a magician. The demoniac connotation, even if
not very widespread, had existed at least since the ninth century and cir-
culated in clerical milieux throughout Europe.
Virgil and the ars notoria
During the twelfth century, some clerics from Northern Europe, and
from Britain and Germany in particular, spent some time in southern
Italy, namely in Naples and Salerno. When reporting their journey, they
quite frequently told stories about Virgil in connection with his burial
place, with the automata he created to help the inhabitants of Naples or
Rome and, finally, with the existence of a book of magic arts which had
belonged to him. An epistle by Conrad of Querfurt (†1202), bishop of
Hildesheim and Würzburg and chancellor to Emperor Henry VI, is of par-
ticular significance for the German context. He wrote from Sicily, probab-
ly in 1196, to the prior of the abbey of Hildesheim. In this letter,
preserved in the Chronicle of the Slavs written by his contemporary
Arnold of Lübeck, Conrad relates many anecdotes about the magician
Virgil and the marvellous things he created: a city in a glass bottle, a
bronze horse, a bronze fly, the serpent gate in Naples, the preservation of
meat at the butcher’s block in Naples, the means he devised for defend-
18 Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Saturnalia, apparatu critico instruxit, in som-

nium Scipionis commentarios selecta varietate lectionis ornavit Iacobus Willis,
2nd ed. (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1970), I, 16.12.
19 Worstbrock, “Vergil,” 253.
ing Naples from the volcano Vesuvius and a statement about the Baths of
Virgil (at Baia, near Naples). 20
The most famous of all these early German statements about Virgil as
a magician is certainly the passage in the third part of the Otia Imperialia
by Gervase of Tilbury († c.1228). Gervase, who was born in the last dec-
ade of the eleventh century, spent most of his short life in Italy. He stud-
ied in Bologna, stayed in Venice and lived some years in Sicily at the
court of the Norman king, William II, who gave him a villa in Nola, a town
in the Terra di Lavoro north of Naples. He settled in Arles, where he
wrote his famous work for the Emperor, Otto IV. His final years are still
the object of much scholarly debate.21 During a stay in Naples, he was
informed by his former master in Bologna, Giovanni Pignatelli, at that
time archdeacon of Naples, 22 about “what great wonders Virgil per-
formed in this city,”23 for instance, the marvellous machines and charms
he created to protect Naples. Many of them were also reported by Con-
rad von Querfurt, but what is completely new is the description of the
search for Virgil’s lost burial place by a man from Britain,
a man of great learning: proficient and highly talented at the trivium and quad-
rivium, he had achieved much in medical studies, and was unrivalled in
astronomy, 24
who was given permission by King Roger II of Sicily (1095–1154) to take
possession of Virgil’s bones. Thanks to “arte sua,” he discovered the
grave, hidden in a mountain, where Virgil’s corpse still lay undisturbed.
At the poet’s head was a book, “in which the art of magic was written
down, along with other signs relating to his practice of that art.”25 The
inhabitants of Naples refused to give up the bones, so he could take away
only the book, which was later seen by Gervase himself by permission of
the cardinal of Naples, under the pontificate of Pope Alexander III.
20 Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica, in M.G.H., SS. 21, ed. Johann Martin Lappenberg
(Hannover: Impensis bibliopolii aulici Hahniani, 1869), 192–96.
21 Banks and Binns, “Introduction,” in Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia.
Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S. E. Banks and James Wallace Binns,
Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), xxv–xxxvii.
22 Banks and Binns, “Introduction,” xxvi.
23 “Quanta miranda Virgilius in hac urbe fuerit operatus” (Otia Imperialia, iii, 12,
580).
24 “summe litteratus, in trivio et quadrivio potens et accutissimus, in fisica
operosus, in astronomia summus” (Otia Imperialia, iii, 112, 802).
25 “in quo ars notaria erat inscripta, cum aliis studii eius caracteribus” (Otia Imperi-
alia, iii, 112, 802).
Gervase admits to having made some successful experiments following

the book’s instructions.
Virgil’s bones had previously been an object of interest to other
authors. For example, John of Salisbury noted in his Polycraticus that a
French scholar was interested in the poet’s corpse, 26 while Conrad of
Querfurt writes that Virgil’s bones were kept in a castle by the sea in
Naples, namely the Castel dell’Ovo.27 As none of these authors mentions
any book, it is evident that Gervase of Tilbury added a new piece of
information that he had found elsewhere or, more simply, had just
invented.
Another particularity of Gervase’s text lies in the fact that he men-
tions the existence of a book of ars notoria in connection with Virgil. As
Lynn Thorndike defines it, the
Ars Notoria, or Notory Art, . . . seeks to gain knowledge from a communion with
God by invocation of angels, mystic figures, and magical prayers. We are told
that the Creator revealed this art through an angel to Solomon one night while
he was praying, and that by it one can in a short time acquire all the liberal and
mechanical arts. 28
More recent studies have demonstrated that the ars notoria was not
transmitted directly from Eastern or Arabian culture, but spread from
Northern Italy, more specifically from Bologna, starting at the beginning
of the thirteenth century.29 Gervase of Tilbury’s citation is hence one of
the oldest pieces of evidence about a theurgic practice which had no
demoniac implications. On the contrary, it was mainly used in order to
increase a person’s memory and instill knowledge. The period spent by
Gervase of Tilbury in Bologna may explain the existence of a book of ars
notoria connected to Virgil in his Otia Imperialia. 30 At Gervase’s time, a
tradition concerning the poet’s extensive knowledge of the liberal and
mechanical arts that were used to help the people of Naples had already
been established. Ascribing these abilities to a knowledge of the recently
discovered ars notoria was a very small step. Further evidence of this
26 John of Salisbury, Ioannis Saresberiensis, ii, 23, 132.
27 Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica, v, 194.
28 Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. II (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1923), 279.
29 Julien Véronèse, “The ars notoria in the Medieval and Early Modern Period: Study
of a Manuscript Tradition of Theurgic Magic (XIIth–XVIIth century),” Societas
Magica Newsletter 10 (2003): 7; Julien Véronèse, L’ars notoria au Moyen Age.
Introduction et édition critique, Micrologus’ Library, Salomon Latinus 1 (Florence:
Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2007), 17 and 24.
30 Véronèse, L’ars notoria, 24.
association of Virgil with the ars notoria comes from the Dolopathos of
John of Alta Silva, a monk in Lorraine, which was written at roughly the
same time. In John’s work, Virgil is teacher to prince Lucinius and writes
a book that permits his pupil to learn in a very short time, which is one of
the characteristics of ars notoria.31
Gervase of Tilbury and the German Reception
Gervase’s Otia Imperialia were contemporary with Wolfram von Eschen-

bach’s Parzival, the first German text alluding to Virgil as a magician, but
there is no evidence of any direct contact between Wolfram and Gervase.
We likewise have no evidence that Wolfram might have known or read
the Otia Imperialia, since the manuscript diffusion of Otia Imperialia does
not suggest any contact between the two authors: Gervase worked on a
draft copy of Otia Imperialia (Vatican City, Vat. lat. 933 [N]) until the sec-
ond decade of the century, 32 and, as far as we know, during the first
decades of the thirteenth century, Gervase’s work had principally been
copied in France and southern England, but never in Germany. 33 The lack
of manuscripts in German territories does not, however, exclude their
existence a priori, or, at least, a dissemination of the work and recent
editors admit that “there is ample evidence that the book was produced
over a substantial period of time and subjected to constant correction
and improvement.”34 As was often the case in the Middle Ages, other,
earlier versions of the text were already circulating, and it is more than
likely that the Otia Imperialia were known also to the German public: its
dedication to Emperor Otto IV of Braunschweig should be sufficient
proof of this. Moreover, the creators of the famous world map of Ebsdorf
(Braunschweig) were unquestionably familiar with the Otia Imperialia.35
Conrad of Querfurt and Gervase of Tilbury, two authors who speak
about Virgil as a magician in the years around 1200, thus imported the
notion of Virgil the magician from southern Italy to Germany. Gervase
then augmented his marvellous narration about Virgil by adding the
31 Johannis de Alta Silva, Dolopathos, sive De rege et septem sapientibus, in Historia

septem sapientum 2, ed. Alfons Hilka (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1913), 13–23.
32 Banks and Binns, “Introduction,” lxiii.
33 Banks and Binns, “Introduction,” lxiii.
34 Banks and Binns, “Introduction,” lxxx.
35 Banks and Binns, “Introduction,” xxxv, lxxxvi.
book of ars notoria, about which he had presumably heard in Bologna.

Furthermore, Gervase and Conrad also played a considerable role in the
courts of the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and were conse-
quently well-known in their time in German courts.
In the same years, Wolfram von Eschenbach was affiliated with the
court of Hermann of Thuringia, who was an important person in the
political dynamics of that period. It is hard to believe that Wolfram did
not know about the works of Conrad of Querfurt and Gervase of Tilbury,
especially since Wolfram reveals in his literary works that he knew the
French and German poetic production of his times, and was also an
omnivorous reader of every kind of text. The representation of Virgil as
Clinschor’s ancestor connects Wolfram to the creation of the image of
Virgil as a magician, a figure that was well on the way to being defined in
the same years. We could almost say that Wolfram was à-la-page. In the
few lines devoted to Virgil, Wolfram indirectly shows substantial
knowledge about the new stories concerning him: he came from Naples,
more precisely from the Terra di Lavoro (Terra de Lâbûr), where the
Campi Flegrei (namely Avernus), Baia, and so on are located. Virgil came
from a city where he worked many marvels and his grandson was also a
man who knew magic arts, that is to say, Virgil had transmitted his wis-
dom to him. All the attributes that would characterize Virgil in subse-
quent poetic production can already be found here.
Virgil in Middle High German Poems
But it is thanks to two thirteenth-century poems, Zabulons Buch and

Reinfried von Braunschweig, that the existence of the book of ars notoria
in connection with Virgil is clearly introduced into German narrative.36
36 About Zabulons Buch cf. Karl Simrock, Der Wartburgkrieg (Stuttgart: Cotta’scher
Verlag, 1858), 184–229 and 300–05; Tom Albert Rompelman, Der Wartburgkrieg
(Amsterdam: H. L. Paris, 1939), 70; Günter Schweikle, Parodie und Polemik in mit-
telhochdeutscher Dichtung. 123 Texte von Kürenberg bis Frauenlob samt dem
Wartburgkrieg nach der Großen Liederhandschrift C (Stuttgart: Helfant Texte,
1986), 131–39; Burghart Wachinger, “Der Wartburgkrieg,” in Die deutsche Litera-
tur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh, vol. 10 (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1999), 753–56; Alessandro Zironi, Enigmi di sapienza nel Medioevo
tedesco, Studi e testi di linguistica e filologia germanica (Padova: Unipress, 2001),
205–99. For Reinfried von Braunschweig cf. Alfred Ebenbauer, “Reinfried von
Braunschweig,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed.
Their authors recalled information that had been circulating in Germany

since the beginning of the century, including the passage from Parzival.
In both poems Virgil travels to the magnetic mountain in order to find a
treasure. After many adventures which recall episodes and passages in
Herzog Ernst,37 Virgil finds a demon imprisoned in a glass in the form of a
fly. After having been granted his freedom by Virgil, the devil reveals to
him the existence of the book of Zabulon and leads the poet to the place
where it is hidden. This is the version from Zabulons Buch:
I’ll reveal to you how you’ll patronize all arts.
Nearby me lies a book
About which, Virgil, I want to tell you. So, hear:
With it you will be superior to all clerics,
It stays by me
And you will take
What Zabulon wrote with his own hands. 38
The demon describes the place where the book is to be found: for one
thousand years, an iron statue had hidden it. In the head of the statue
there is a letter. Virgil goes with the demon to the place where the statue
stands, breaks the statue and takes the book. 39 That is all the text tells us
Kurt Ruh, vol. 7 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1989), 1171–76.

37 The structure of Herzog Ernst is far too complex to discuss here and would lead
our investigation too far from its main purpose. For a useful presentation of Her-
zog Ernst cf. Gustav Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Aus-
gang des Mittelalters, zweiter Teil, Die mittelhochdeutsche Literatur, I, frühmittel-
hochdeutsche Zeit (München: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1922), 39–
58; Bernhard Sowinski, “Nachwort,” in Herzog Ernst, Ein mittelalterliches
Abenteuerbuch (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 1979), 405–29; Hans Szklenar and
Hans-Joachim Behr, “Herzog Ernst,” in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters.
Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh, vol. 3 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), 1170–91.
38 “ich wil dir offenlîch verjehen, du wirst noch künste rîch. / ein buoch hie nâhe bî
mir lît, / des wil ich wîsen dich, Virgilius, wizzez endelîch, / dâ mit du allen
pfaffen obe ligst, / dâz bî mir bleip, / und an gesigst, / daz Zabulon mit sîner
hende schreip” (Zabulons Buch 32, 10–16; Zironi, Enigmi di sapienza, 236).
39 “An iron figure stands nearby / Which has hidden the text for a full thousand
years. / That it was made by magic means / No one can doubt. / A letter lies in its
head, from which it gets its force / It grasps strongly a stick in its hands: / I give
you the power to control all this;” “He broke the figure without any effort. /
Cunningly the book was in Virgil’s hands / And he took it with him over the sea”
(“Ein êrîn bilt stêt nâh hie bî, / daz dâ der schrift gehuotet hât vollîchen tûsent
jâr. / daz ez mit zouber dar gemachet sî, / vervâhet niht ein hâr. / Ein brief im in
dem höupte lît, dâ von ez hât die kraft, / gewaltic einen klüpfel füert ez mit der
hende sîn, / des gibe ich dir meisterschaft.” “Er brach daz bilt gar âne wer, / mit
listen wart Virgilius daz buoch in sîne hant; / er fuort ez mit im hin über daz
about how Virgil came into possession of Zabulon’s book, but we can
assume that the iron statue was probably an automaton like the ones
Virgil made and which were typical of most of the stories involving him
as a magician. 40
The episode is described in greater detail in Reinfried von Braun-
schweig. The interminable, yet incomplete poem devotes more than 700
lines to the scene.41 The poem says that Virgil took three (!) necromantic
books which had been written by Savilôn (ll. 21028–29). Together with
Reinfried, Virgil discovers Savilôn’s secret place, the entrance to which is
barred by a heavy stone (ll. 21283–91). Inside the cavern, they see an
automaton with a hammer in his hand and, sitting on a chair, an old man
who is apparently dead but is in reality in a death-like state of uncon-
sciousness. 42 At his feet they see a book tied with a chain to the wall (ll.
21292–99) (now there is only one book!). The automaton had been
made in order to strike anyone who might try to steal the book from the
man’s feet. (ll. 21485–94). A small letter is hidden in the old man’s ear (ll.
21510–11). Virgil suddenly seizes the book, and the automaton strikes
the old man dead (ll. 21682–85). Obviously the old man was Savilôn him-
self, who preferred in his old age to hide in a cave that he had built with
the help of some demons. He wanted to keep secret what he had read in
the stars when he was a young man, namely the birth of Jesus to a virgin.
In Reinfried von Braunschweig, Savilôn is an Athenian prince with a
Jewish mother and a pagan father (ll. 21315–16; 21357–59). He is the
first man to understand astronomy, necromancy and all the forbidden
arts:
He was the first who ever
understood astronomy,
for he―thanks to his wisdom―knew
it and necromancy
just as he appreciated all arts
that are forbidden. 43
mer”; Zabulons Buch 33, 5–11; 34, 1–3: Zironi, Enigmi di sapienza, 238).
40 John Webster Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer: Studies in Virgilian Legends (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934): 117–35; Ziolkowski and Putnam,
The Virgilian, 826–28.
41 Reinfrid von Braunschweig, ed. Karl Bartsch, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Verein
109 (Stuttgart: Litterarischer Verein, 1871), 610–31, ll. 20989–21720.
42 “He sat on a chair / dead still living” (“er ûf einem sezzel saz / tôt noch lebende”;
Reinfrid von Braunschweig, 625, ll. 21498–99).
43 “Er was der êrste dem ie wart / astronomîe bekant, / wan er mit sînen sinnen
vant / sî und negromanzîe / swie daz diu kunst nu sîe / verboten iedô was sî
He wrote his prophecy in a brief letter whose content will be read by

Virgil:
Then he saw the letters
and also the graphemes:
this was even carved.
Then Virgil could read
that also Octavian
was emperor in Rome
and that from the pure lovely
maiden mother Mary was born
God as man on the earth. 44
As far as the book is concerned, we do not know its subject matter. The
anonymous author of Reinfried von Braunschweig reveals only the disap-
pointing information that “they found written in the book / many mar-
vellous marvels.” 45 We can certainly agree with Oldoni when he stresses
that the content of Virgil’s book is never revealed because the biography
and the works of the poet do not permit any speculation about magic or
necromantic practices. 46 Only the revelation about the birth of Jesus is
disclosed. The juxtaposition of the disclosed message of salvation and
the obscure content of the liber Virgilii may explain how Virgil was still
perceived by German poets in the thirteenth century: rather than being a
sorcerer or necromancer, Virgil is the unconscious instrument of God’s
plan for salvation. 47 Zabulons Buch and Reinfried von Braunschweig are
two texts which narrate the previous events, thus clarifying how Virgil
was to become a magician.
As the battle of Acre is cited in Reinfried von Braunschweig, there is
no doubt that the poem was written after 1291. Some years before,
wert” (Reinfrid von Braunschweig, 620, ll. 21328–33).

44 “dô man die karakter sach / und ouch der figûren schrift. / diz waz eben in der
trift, / dô diz vant Virgilîus, / daz ouch Octavîânus / ze Rôme lepte keiserlîch /
und diu reine minneclîch / Mariâ muoter magt gebar / got mensch ûf die erden
har” (Reinfrid von Braunschweig, 630, ll. 21672–80).
45 “Funden and dem buoch geschriben / wunderlîcher wunder vil” (Reinfrid von
Braunschweig, 619, ll. 21308–09).
46 Oldoni, L’ignoto Liber Maronis, 369.
47 Otto Neudeck, “Möglichkeiten der Dichter-Stilisierung in mittelhochdeutscher
Literatur: Neidhart, Wolfram, Vergil,” Euphorion 88 (1994): 351; Sonja Kerth and
Elisabeth Lienert, “Die Sabilon-Erzählung der ‚Erweiterten Christherre-Chronik’
und der ‚Weltchronik’ Heinrichs von München,” in Studien zur Weltchronik Hein-
richs von München, ed. Horst Brunner, vol. 1, Wissensliteratur im Mittelalter 29
(Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1998), 435.
probably about 1280, Jans Enikel composed his Weltchronik, in which

Virgil is said to be “the son of Hell.”48 In Enikel’s chronicle, however,
Virgil is not involved in the discovery of messages, prophecies or books,
but becomes a magician because he frees a crowd of demons who had
been imprisoned in a bottle. At the very end of the thirteenth century,
the figure of Virgil is transformed into a simpler character, where magic
is interpreted as demoniac knowledge; here, what arouses the reader’s
interest is the telling of marvellous facts without any complicated moral
implications.
Conclusion
Wolfram von Eschenbach is the writer who transfers Virgil from clerical
culture to the public of the courts. Otto Neudeck stressed that Wolfram
did not introduce any new aspects into his characterization of the poet:49
this operation was carried out by the later poets who linked Virgil to
Wolfram von Eschenbach. They were both poets, whose reputation
depended on admiration for their profound knowledge of the seven arts
rather than on their aesthetic and lyrical talents. Moreover, in the spec-
ulation of the medieval reader, both Wolfram’s Parzival and Virgil’s
fourth Eclogue conveyed the idea of the eschatological promise which
had to be interpreted and deciphered, in other words, disclosed. In Par-
zival, Flegetanis reads the revelation of the Grail in the celestial spheres.
Virgil is a pagan because he lived before the birth of Christ, but he is at
the same time a Christian, because he becomes instrumentum Dei, just
like Flegetanis, in Wolfram’s work.
Zabulons Buch and Reinfried von Braunschweig, which were com-
posed during the thirteenth century, present Virgil as a messianic actor
in representations where the exotic and much-appreciated atmosphere
and scenarios of the marvellous East conveyed by the widely-known
poem Herzog Ernst are fused with new stories from Italy and England,
both of which were in close contact with the northern and central cul-
tural areas of Germany, Lorraine, Thuringia and Braunschweig. Thanks
to these writers, the figure of Virgil became known to a wider public and
48 “der helle kint,” in Jans Enikel, Jansen Enikels Weltchronik, ed. Philipp Strauch, in
M.G.H., Deutsche Chroniken 3 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1900), 462, l.
23270.
49 Neudeck, Möglichkeiten der Dichter-Stilisierung, 352.
connected with magic, necromancy, forbidden arts, and finally with a

book pertaining to Christian revelation, the ars notoria, composed by
Solomon, the wise king of the Jews. Virgil, who knew the ars notoria in
his turn, was the wisest of the pagan poets, just as Wolfram was the
champion of an obscure culture that had extended beyond the walls of
monasteries, the desks of universities and the studia of the clerics to
reach the halls of the courts, where, amidst poetic lines about knights,
damsels, demons and saints, the secrets of the seven arts were finally
disclosed to a lay audience.
Obscuritas legum: Traditional Law,
Learned Jurisprudence, and Territorial Legislation
(The Example of Sachsenspiegel
and Ius Municipale Maideburgense)
Hiram Kümper
Jurisprudence deals intrinsically with authoritative texts. Like theology,

it is entangled with script and its understanding, which is why both dis-
ciplines are usually considered hermeneutic. It is then no wonder that
both share a common problem as well: the authoritative texts to which
both are bound may be quite old. And this is why legal hermeneutics
sometimes faces challenges―or even fails.1 Like any other text, a law-
book that has been preserved for a long time with only a few or even no
adaptations, may certainly become obscure. The consequences of that
obscurity will be the focus of this paper.
The argument will be unfolded in three steps. First, I will introduce
both the Saxon Mirror and the Magdeburg Law as parts of a common
Saxon Law (ius Saxoniae), as an insoluble amalgam, and as incredible
successes in medieval and early modern Europe over a period of at least
five hundred years.2 I will then, secondly, go on to discuss briefly the
problems that arose through the continuing use of outdated legal texts
1 The body of literature on this problem is already vast. To name but one title,
Obscurity and Clarity in the Law: Prospects and Challenges, ed. Anne Wagner and
Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), provides multiple challeng-
ing perspectives.
2 I have tried to trace this enormous influence in my doctoral thesis: Sachsenrecht:
Studien zur Geschichte des sächsischen Landrechts in Mittelalter und früher
Neuzeit (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007). There are quite a number of works
published in English on the Saxon Mirror, including a translation: Maria Dobozy,
ed., The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth-Century (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), but only a few on the Magdeburg Law.
For readers who are unfamiliar with German the bi-lingual popular book Saxon
Mirror and Magdeburger Law: The Groundwork for Europe (Potsdam: Handel und
Wandel, 2005), is a good starting point.
OBSCURITAS LEGUM 125
that had become linguistically obscure, and present contemporary voices

that called for a reaction to their use. As we will see, however, none of
those contemporaries was interested in ceasing to use these texts or
replacing them with some more modern or more efficient code. Rather,
people were astonishingly keen to keep their legal tradition. In a third
step, I will review a number of very different attempts to adapt this tra-
ditional Saxon law to the interests and needs of a changing juridical cul-
ture from medieval to early modern times.
Ius Saxoniae: The Saxon Mirror and Magdeburg Law as a Legal

Amalgam
The Saxon Mirror (Sachsenspiegel) is the earliest in a series of vernacular

law-books that gave German legal culture its character throughout the
later Middle Ages.3 It was written in the first quarter of the thirteenth
century by one Eike from the small village of Repgow near Magdeburg
and Halberstadt in the then comparatively newly colonized areas east of
the river Elbe. Six charters dated between 1209 and 1233 prove that von
Repgow was a historical person.4 Apart from that, everything we know
or presume about him rests upon the little he says about himself in the
rhymed preamble to his law-book. According to these few verses, he had
first written his book in Latin and was then encouraged to translate it
into German by Earl Hoyer von Falkenstein. The Latin original is lost, but
the German version had tremendous success and is preserved in some
450 manuscripts, including fragments.
The Saxon Mirror comprises a collection of customary laws, mostly
dealing with the rural culture from which Eike came and thus with the
rights and laws of both peasants and rural nobility. His Mirror is divided
into two major parts: a part dealing with land-law (lantrecht), which is
subdivided into three books, and a part dealing with feudal law (len-
recht). However, Eike also included a number of laws dealing with impe-
3 The so-called Mühlhäuser Rechtsbuch is generally considered to have been writ-
ten at approximately the same time; cf. Hans Patze, “Zum ältesten Rechtsbuch der
Reichsstadt Mühlhausen in Thüringen aus dem Anfang des 13. Jahrhunderts,”
Jahrbuch für die Geschichte Mittel- und Ostdeutschlands 9/10 (1961): 59–126.
Helmut Coing, Epochen deutscher Rechtsgeschichte (Munich: Beck, 1967), 26, has
termed Germany’s later Middle Ages “the era of law-books” (“Rechtsbücherzeit”).
4 These can be easily accessed in a reprint in Alexander Ignor, Über das allgemeine
Rechtsdenken Eikes von Repgow (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1984), 325–30.
126 HIRAM KÜMPER
rial law and with what we would nowadays probably call “public law,”
some of which turned out to be excitingly influential. For instance, the
seven electoral princes, who for centuries elected the German king, and
thus the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, appear in the Saxon Mirror
for the first time.5
The Magdeburg Law, or Ius Maideburgense, as contemporaries often
called it, was, like Eike’s Saxon Mirror, compiled privately by one or more
anonymous people at roughly the same time, probably only a little after
Eike translated his Mirror into German. The text’s development is even
more complex than that of the Saxon Mirror, although it has not been as
well-researched, and it did not achieve its most widely-disseminated
form, the Vulgata, until the end of the thirteenth century.6 We still lack a
modern edition of the text today.7 The activities of the Magdeburg Panel
of Judges (Schöppenstuhl), a council of lay jurists that became the central
authority for interpreting the law in the towns that claimed to follow the
“Saxon Law,” have been markedly more prominent in legal historical
research. Some of these cities were explicitly given the privilege to follow
Magdeburg Law by their town lords; others had produced their own law-
books, either privately or at the demand of a city’s council, to make sure
their local laws were compatible with Saxon Law. Whenever these towns
were uncertain about the application of a particular rule of the law, they
asked for help in its interpretation from the Magdeburg Panel of Judges,
5 This is not the place to discuss the still heavily debated origins of the electoral
princes’ collegium. The last contribution to this debate is Frank-Reiner Erkens,
“Anmerkungen zu einer neuen Theorie über die Entstehung des Kurfürsten-
kollegs,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 119
(2011): 376–81; and the last survey of the conflicting positions was carried out
by Thomas Ertl, “Alte Thesen und neue Theorien zur Entstehung des Kurfürsten-
kollegiums,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 30 (2003): 619–42.
6 The Magdeburg Law has probably not been as well researched as the Saxon Mir-
ror because legal historians of the nineteenth century judged it unsuccessful in its
attempt to harmonize Saxon and learned legal tradition; cf., for instance, Otto
Stobbe, Geschichte der deutschen Rechtsquellen, vol. 1 (Braunschweig: Duncker &
Humblot, 1860), 379, 387.
7 There are five different editions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
none of which meets modern standards. The division and sequence of the chap-
ters and paragraphs differs from one manuscript, and one edition, to another,
and consequently none of the editions may be said to be the “standard” one. In
this essay, I will refer to Alexander von Daniels, ed., Dat buke wichbelde Recht:
Das saechsische Weichbildrecht nach einer Hs. der Kgl. Bibliothek zu Berlin von
1363 (Berlin: Dümmler, 1853). The manuscript behind this edition is the same
that Homeyer used for his edition of the Saxon Mirror (see footnote 14).
or another one of the similar panels (Oberhöfe) that quickly developed in

the “lands of Saxon Law” in towns like Kraków, Wrocław, Olomouc, and
Opava. 8
The Magdeburg Panel, however, remained the most authoritative and
famous of these panels until far into the sixteenth century, even after it
was officially abolished by Emperor Charles V in 1547. Responses sent
out by the Magdeburg Panel were collected in manuscripts and later in
print from the fifteenth century onwards, and served as model cases for
those judging by Magdeburg Law. The archive of the Magdeburg Panel,
unfortunately, burned during the sack of Magdeburg by Tilly’s troops in
1631; so attempts have been made over the last century to collect as
many of these charters as possible in order to reconstruct from them the
basic ideas of Magdeburg Law.9
The combined influence of the Saxon Mirror and the Magdeburg Law,
as materialized in both the actual town-law (Weichbildrecht) and the let-
ters of the Magdeburg Panel of Judges, was enormous. “Common Saxon
Law” (ius commune Saxonum) became a catchword during the rise of lit-
eracy in German legal culture, especially in the Eastern parts of the
Empire and the neighbouring kingdoms, as early as the thirteenth cen-
tury, but most intensively during the fourteenth and fifteenth. Law-
books were composed in cities in Poland, Moravia, Belarus, Hungary, and
the Baltic. Manuscripts of both the Saxon Mirror and the Ius Maide-
burgense, both often compiled in one manuscript, circulated throughout
Central and Eastern Europe, and towns in Silesia, Prussia, or Bohemia
asked the Magdeburg Panel of Judges for juridical advice.10
The inseparability of the two law-books is also illustrated by the fact
that even the Magdeburg Panel frequently referred to the Saxon Mirror
8 The German term Oberhof is usually applied to a panel comparable to a Superior

Court, which had a codified procedure for giving juridical advice and whose
judgments could not be appealed. The Magdeburg Panel of Judges was more
informal, but—perhaps for this reason?—the most influential of these panels.
9 These few sentences must suffice to sum up the complex history and influence of
the Magdeburg Panel of Judges. For a more detailed account cf. Heiner Lück, “Der
Magdeburger Schöffenstuhl als Teil der Magdeburger Stadtverfassung,” in Hanse
– Städte – Bünde: Die sächsischen Städte zwischen Elbe und Weser um 1500, vol. 1,
ed. Matthias Puhle (Magdeburg: Stadtmuseum Magdeburg, 1996), 138–51.
10 An on-going transnational research project at the Sächsische Akademie der
Wissenschaften Leipzig (Germany) will certainly shed more light on this highly
complex process of legal transmission within in the next few years. For more de-
tails and a list of publications cf. http://www.magdeburger-recht.eu (last ac-
cessed January 11, 2013).
128 HIRAM KÜMPER
rather than their own town law (wichbild) when they gave juridical
advice on Common Saxon Law, or even when Magdeburg itself was a
party to a legal conflict. 11 In 1387, for instance, four prominent media-
tors (“gekorn schidelude”), amongst them the bishops of Halberstadt and
Brandenburg, issued a charter concerning a legal dispute between Mag-
deburg and its archbishop Albrecht over a salt spring in Groß-Salze
(nowadays Schönbek in Saxony).12 In their charter they paraphrased the
Magdeburg aldermen’s complaint: the archbishop’s men
had taken possession of the brine and dispersed our burghers and other peo-
ple, both clerics and laymen, [and therefore acted] against this chapter of the
common land-law which states: “One shall not expel anyone from his property
holding . . . .” 13
This refers to II 24 § 1 of Eike’s Saxon Mirror. 14 From the fourteenth cen-
tury onwards compilers of law-books and the Magdeburg Panel of Judges
distinguished increasingly between the Saxon land-law (landrecht) and
town-law (wichbild) but they still tried to compile global depictions of
the Saxon Law for use in both rural and urban contexts.
Saxon Law and Legal Traditionalism
The success of Saxon Law, however, was not without its draw-backs and
caveats, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. On the one
hand, a growing number of contemporaries noted the differences
between customary Saxon law and the learned tradition of the ius
commune, that from the fourteenth century onwards increasingly gained
11 A number of examples are provided in Kümper, Sachsenrecht, 231–40.

12 Gustav Hertel, ed., Urkundenbuch der Stadt Magdeburg (Halle: Otto Hendel,
1896), 399–403 (No. 629).
13 “sek des bornen heft undirwunden und unse borgen mit den andirn papen und
leyen entweret wedder dat capittel des gemeynen lantrechtis, dare steyt: ‘men
schal nymande ute sinen weren wissen . . .’” (Hertel, Urkundenbuch, p. 402). The
English translation, as elsewhere in this article where not explicitly stated other-
wise, is mine.
14 “No one may expel a person from his property holding by court order, even if he
came into it unlawfully, unless the claimant can dispossess him with a legitimate
claim when he is present . . .” (Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 100); “Man ne sal niemanne
ut sinen geweren wisen von gerichtes halven, al si he dar mit unrechte an komen,
man ne breke sie eme mit rechter klage, dar he selve to jegenwarde si . . . ” (Carl
Gustav Homeyer, ed., Des Sachsenspiegels erster Theil oder das sächsische
Landrecht, 3rd ed. [Berlin: Dümmler, 1861], 214).
recognition north of the Alps, as well as other legal customs, such as

French, Polish, or Flemish ones. On the other hand, legal practitioners
were more and more concerned about the inner structure of both the
Saxon Mirror and the Ius Maideburgense; to them both seemed to have
been compiled without any system―a lack that pained the growing
number of German jurists who had been trained in the learned laws at
Europe’s universities.
The encounter with other legal traditions was not completely prob-
lematic; it had its positive aspects as well. Indeed, for many German
jurists, Saxon Law must have seemed more attractive than other tradi-
tions―as its broad reception suggests. When Emperor Charles V. pro-
posed his plans for a new penal code―the later Constitutio Criminalis
Carolina, issued in 1532―at the Augsburg Reichstag in 1530, the Electors
of Saxony and Brandenburg
refused to give up their Saxon Law that has been in use by their ancestors as
long as man can remember, and therefore they would stick to their laws and
would not accept the new penal code. 15
The lack of systematization of both the Saxon Mirror and the Ius Maide-
burgense was more problematic because it was harder to find any reason
for it. Indeed, there is no apparent reason for this lack of order in both
the Mirror and the town law-book.16 Some chapters do clearly belong
together, but others give the impression of having been inserted ran-
domly in the collections. Here, for example, are the opening chapters of
book III of the Saxon Mirror:17
III 1 Concerning the rape of a girl or a woman, and all those who
follow the hue and cry for a red-handed deed.
III 2 Concerning priests and Jews who carry arms.
III 3 No woman bearing a child and no feebleminded person may
be sentenced.
III 4 When a person demands back what he transferred or sold.
III 5 Whatever a person lends or transfers for safe keeping.
15 “. . . das se von oeren seczichen rechten, welge uber menschengedencken by oene

gehalten, nicht abstehen wolln, soltn by denselbigen verharren und deysse nuwe
halzsgerichts ordenungh nicht annemen noch in deyselbige bewilligen haben”
(Herbert Grundmann, ed., Valentin von Tetleben: Protokoll des Augsburger Reichs-
tages 1530 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958], 89).
16 A number of studies have tried to find one. Instead of naming them all I refer the
reader only to Ignor, Über das Allgemeines Rechtsdenken, who discusses them all
and gives his own interpretation.
17 Translations are taken from Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 56–57.
130 HIRAM KÜMPER
III 6 If a servant loses his master’s property at dice.

III 7 A Jew need not be a Christian man’s guarantor. If one accepts
belongings as collateral.
Some of the chapters seem to be linked thematically, but others do not.
The Mirror jumps back and forth between matters of procedure, of penal
law, of the law of obligations, etc. The same is true for its civic equivalent,
the Ius Maideburgense. Here is a more or less random snippet from the
chapters of one fourteenth-century manuscript of the Ius: 18
LXVII If someone claims moveable goods from someone else.
LXVIII No adult judge may entitle a guardian for his court. What
happens if a man is asked for a judgment and is unwilling to
respond.
LXIX On minor wounds. If a suit is barred. On major wounds.
LXX If someone sells a horse to someone else.
LXXI On theft.
LXXII On theft during day light.
Like the Saxon Mirror, the Ius Maideburgense looks sloppy to the modern
reader―and it seems that it did so already to rather close contemporar-
ies. From at least the fifteenth century, there were efforts to revise the
Saxon Mirror both to bring it up to date and (even more importantly) to
give it a clear order. Early traces of these efforts can only be guessed at.
In a letter written in early 1411, Johannes Stalberg, an abbreviator from
Northern Germany working at the papal court, praised his friend
Dietrich von Niem for the positive effects of his engagement with the
Saxon law (“sentencias Saxonicas”), and also referred to Dietrich’s cor-
rective work on the Mirror―sadly without providing details.19
In 1493, the Common Superior Court of Altenburg and Leipzig pro-
posed, in the course of a discussion about new procedures, “that the
Saxon Mirror be reformed so that one may continue to judge by common
Saxon Law.”20 It might well be that this proposal was a reaction to the
rule Prince Albrecht had imposed on the Superior Court just a few years
18 Von Daniels, Dat buke wichbelde Recht, col. 74.

19 Hermann Heimpel, Dietrich von Niem (c. 1340–1418) (Münster: Aschendorff,
1932), 317: “O quam laudabilis et felix vestre huius sapiencie et studii litterarum
infinitorumque laborum vestrorum finis, qui correctione des Spigels.”
20 “Item dass der Sachsenspiegel gereformiret werde also das man noch land-
leufiges Sechsisches Recht spreche” (Theodor Muther, “Kleiner Beitrag zur Ges-
chichte der sächsischen Konstitutionen und des Sachsenspiegels,” Zeitschrift für
Rechtsgeschichte 4 [1864]: 169).
before, in 1488:
At this court, everything shall be judged by Saxon Laws, as far as they are law-
ful, still in use, and clearly expressed. But everything that is not regulated, is
obscure or is incomprehensible shall be judged and explained according to the
common laws [scil. the ius commune]. 21
The Saxon jurists in Altenburg and Leipzig in 1493 probably feared the
implementation of the learned laws, the ius commune, by virtue of the
prince’s ruling. Only few decades later, when Prince Johann Friedrich
outlined new procedures in 1534, the Court refused to follow them
because they did not go far enough in terms of legal reformation: “Espe-
cially the obscure book of the Saxon Mirror with its many double mean-
ings has caused many unlawful judgements and quarrel in our lands.”22
The passage that I quote here goes on for some time and gives a very
graphic impression of how annoyed the panel was with the situation.
Prince Johann Friedrich did not, however, reform the Saxon Mirror.
He replied that such an endeavour was impossible at that moment and
the longed-for reform had to wait a number of years. In the meantime, a
number of aids had been developed to address the problems the voiced
by the Common Superior Court of Altenburg and Leipzig in 1493.
Explaining and Systematizing Saxon Law: Early Glosses,

Commentaries, and other Exegetic Aids―from Manuscript
to Print
We might well start with one outstanding example of the ways in which
efforts were made to render the Saxon Mirror more useful. Four manu-
scripts of the text, all beautifully illuminated, have caught scholarly
interest since at least the middle of the eighteenth century. All stem from
one and the same lost ancestor and therefore share many visual aspects.
21 “Es sullen auch alle Sachenn vor dem gerichte nach Sechßigischenn Rechtenn, wu
das rechtlich vnd bestendigk, ausgedruckt, vorsprochenn werddenn wu es aber
vnaußgedrucket tunkel adder vnvornemlich ist, Sal es erföllunge vnd dewtunge
nach gemeynen Rechtenn nehmen” (Christian Gottfried Kretschmann, Geschichte
des Churfürstlich Sächsischen Oberhofgerichts zu Leipzig von seiner Entstehung
1483 an bis zum Ausgange des 18. Jahrhunderts: nebst einer kurzen Darstellung
seiner gegenwärtigen Verfassung [Leipzig: Crusius, 1804], 36).
22 “Sunderlich das vnvorstentlich Buch des Sachssenspiegels des zwespoldigen
vorstandt vilerley vnbiliche vrtail gefallen vnd im lande vil Zcang vnnd hadder”
(Muther, “Kleiner Beitrag,” 170–71).
132 HIRAM KÜMPER
I will not discuss the famous illustrations here at any length since their
function is still uncertain despite the multitude of plausible interpreta-
tions that have already been proposed.23 Most researchers now agree
that these illustrations are far more than mere decorations, but hardly
anyone would still propose that the scenes served as a way of transmit-
ting the legal ideas of the Mirror to the illiterate, as some sort of consue-
tudines pauperum, so to speak. They might indeed have helped readers
understand the text, but they are by no means a substitute for it. Rather,
these illustrations might be seen as a sort of explanatory commentary, as
well as a mnemonic device to help find articles quickly.
Fig. 1: Scene from one of the Saxon Mirror’s codices picturati (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-
August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 3.1. Aug. 2o, fol. 34r). 24
23 They are discussed in Dagmar Hüpper, “Funktionstypen der Bilder in den Codices
picturati des Sachsenspiegels,” in Pragmatische Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter:
Erscheinungsformen und Entwicklungsstufen, ed. Hagen Keller, Klaus Grubmüller,
and Nikolaus Staubach (Munich: Fink, 1992), 231–49. A comprehensive
discussion in English of the most important aspects of the quest may be found in
Madeline H. Cavines and Charles H. Nelso, “Silent Witnesses, Absent Women, and
the Law Courts in Medieval Germany,” in Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputa-
tion in Medieval Europe, ed. Thelma Fenster and Daniel Lord Smail (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2003), 47–72.
24 Drawing taken from Christian Ulrich Grupen, Teutsche Alterthümer zur Erleuter-
ung des Sächsischen und Schwäbischen Land- und Lehn-Rechts (Hannover: J.W.
In another small group of manuscripts, all dating from the fifteenth

century and seemingly from the diocese of Hildesheim, not too far from
the Saxon Mirror’s place of origin, the sequence of the articles is rear-
ranged into what was apparently a clearer order for the compiler of their
archetype, although this new order is no clearer than the old one in
many places, at least for a modern reader. 25 Indices likewise appear
slowly in manuscripts of the Saxon Mirror from the fifteenth century
onwards. These indices usually have little in common with modern ones,
but they do combine alphabetical groupings with thematic ones.
Burgen / wu man umbe

vorgeburgette schult
clagen sol vij
Behalden / was eyn man
zcu behalden thut xiiij
ab der stirbit, dem icht zcu
behalden getan ist xvj
Burghafftig / wer der sy
xxxiij
Dingslete zcu vorbithen j
wer zcu dinge komen sal j
Dÿbe / was diben ader ro-
bern abegeÿagit wirt xv
Wer umbe dube gefangen
wirt xxxj
Fig. 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig

Landrecht (Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 364rot,
fol. 526r).
Schmidt, 1746), 104.

25 Cf. Kümper, Sachsenrecht, 160–61.
134 HIRAM KÜMPER
Glosses were yet another means of adapting the Saxon Mirror to new
circumstances and making it more useful―and one of these new circum-
stances definitely was the spreading of the learned laws, the ius
commune, in northern Europe. We have already mentioned some of the
Saxon jurists’ distrust of, and even resistance to this movement. Others,
however, thought rather of harmonizing the two legal spheres.
Already sometime in the 1330s, Johann von Buch (c. 1290–c. 1356), a
learned jurist who had been trained in Bologna, annotated the land-law
of the Saxon Mirror with corresponding passages from the ius commune.
This widely recognized gloss (glossa) was particularly influential for the
development of Saxon Law in two ways: first, Johann came up with the
idea that the Saxon Mirror was modelled upon a privilege that
Charlemagne had given the Saxons after their defeat and Christianiza-
tion, and that Eike had merely translated this privilege and added a few
chapters of his own―which, consequently, Johann did not gloss. Second,
his gloss succeeded in harmonizing and explaining the contradictory and
obscure passages of the Mirror. Johann even went so far as to quietly
reconfigure the Saxon Law in a number of ways. 26 The gloss soon spread
in a vast number of manuscripts along with the Saxon Mirror and was
even frequently quoted as an authoritative source along with the Mirror
and the Magdeburg Law. The latter also was glossed during the fifteenth
century.
Johann’s gloss was followed by a number of others, and also further
adapted, so that the history of the text has grown very complex, but
almost any edition suffices to give us an impression of the effect of the
gloss on the presentation of the Saxon Mirror and its practical use. Fig. 3
is an example of the way the text is presented in a number of similar edi-
tions from the sixteenth century. Three phrases from an article of the
Saxon Mirror, printed in bold, are glossed, with their first words figuring
as indices: Es mag auch kein weib/etc., Zueignn/etc. and Spreche sie aber
das es ihr/etc. The gloss explains or specifies certain details and adds
parallels or evidence from other legal sources―notably the Magdeburg
Law, abbreviated with Weich. Moreover, in this specific edition, a num-
ber of Latin allegationes have been inserted between the text of the
Saxon Mirror and the gloss. The redundancies between these allegations
and the gloss remind us that three texts―the Saxon Mirror, the gloss, and
the allegations―have been compiled here.
26 Details are provided by Bernd Kannowski, Die Umgestaltung des Sachsenspiegels

durch die Buch’sche Glosse (Hannover: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung, 2008).
Fig. 3: Printed text of a Saxon Mirror with Gloss (Christian Zobel, Leipzig, 1569)
Article III 78 provides a good example of the way in which Johann

glossed the Saxon Mirror. This article reads:
[§ 1.] The king and every judge preside over capital crimes and serious felo-
nies, the property of each of his men and kin, and does not act disloyally
thereby.
[§ 2.] In turn, the man may on behalf of his king and judge certainly oppose any
injustice and help resist it in all ways possible. Even where his kin or lord is
concerned, he does not act disloyally. 27
27 Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 136; “[§ 1.] Die koning unde iewelk richtere mut wol rich-
ter over hals unde over hant unde over erve iewelkes sines mannes unde mages,
136 HIRAM KÜMPER
Maria Dobozy, whose translation is quoted here, understands the second

paragraph as an imperative for judicial assistance. This is in line with the
currently accepted interpretation of the paragraph,28 but some scholars
read § 2 in another way. They―including me―would translate it rather
as:
[§ 2.] A man must also resist injustice perpetrated by his king or judge, and
help in resisting it all the time, and also his kin or lord, and does not act disloy-
ally.
Both translations are justified linguistically, but Johann von Buch must
have understood III 78 § 2 in the second way. Still, he could not imagine
anyone actively resisting the Roman king and so he comments:
Note with care that he writes: his king, and not: the king. For by saying his king
he means just any king, such as the king of Bohemia or of Denmark. One may
lawfully resist these kings and their judges. Had he said the king, he would
have meant the Roman king. And this would have been unjust, for nobody may
lawfully resist him. . . . 29
Johann von Buch was doubtlessly the most influential glossator of the
Saxon Mirror, but he was not the only one. Numerous less known legal
writings blossomed from the fifteenth century onwards to explain cer-
tain passages of the Mirror and Magdeburg Law, written not only by
practitioners from the Panels of Judges (Schöffenstühle) but now also by
legal professors of the emerging German universities, especially from
Leipzig. One of the more famous examples might be Dietrich von Bocks-
dorf, who composed a number of small pieces to adapt the Saxon Mirror
to contemporary situations. 30 As time went on, the printed editions of
unde ne dut dar an weder sine trüwe nicht. [§ 2.] De man mut ok wol sime kon-
inge unde sime richtere unrechtes wederstand, und san helpen weren to aller
wis, al si he sin mach oder sin herre, unde ne dut dar an weder sine trüwe nicht”
(Homeyer, Des Sachsenspiegels Erster Theil, 374).
28 I discuss this problem in more detail in Kümper, Sachsenrecht, 555–62.
29 “Vnde sineme koninge et cetera. Dit nym behendeliken, dat hir steyt: Sineme kon-
inge, vnde nicht: Deme koninge. Wente dar mede, dat he secht: Sime koninge, dar
mede menet he sunderlike koninge, alse den koningh van Bemen edder dene van
Denemarken. Dessen koningen mot men wol alle des wedderstan, des men
eneme richtere wedderstan mod. Hedde he auer gesecht: Deme koninge, so hedde
he de Romeschen koningh ghemenet. So were dat vnrecht ghewesen, we deme en
man nemand wedderstan . . .” (Franz-Michael Kaufmann, ed., Glossen zum
Sachsenspiegel-Landrecht. Buch’sche Glosse, vol. 3 [Hannover: Hahn’sche Buch-
handlung, 2002], 1459; italics are all taken from the original).
30 Cf. Christoph H. F. Mayer, “Dietrich von Bocksdorf († 1466) – Kleriker, Jurist,
Professor. Zugleich zur ‚Unvernunft’ heimischer Gewohnheit im Zeitalter der
Rezeption,” in Tangermünde, die Altmark und das Reichsrecht: Impulse aus dem
the Mirror and the Magdeburg Law became more academic in their edi-
torial design to suit the new needs of legal culture. The most successful
editions of both law-books were published in Leipzig, beginning in 1535.
They were edited by the law professor Christoph Zobel (1499–1560)
who added to them material drawn from both juridical writings and legal
practice.31 After his death, his son-in-law continued to publish editions of
the Mirror, the last being printed in Heidelberg in 1614.32
Fig. 4: A remissorium from a Saxon Mirror edited in 1536 by Chistoph Zobel (Leipzig)
One of the most characteristic innovations of the early printed editions is

the inclusion of a remissorium or repetitorium (Fig. 4) to make the Mirror
more accessible.33 This new type of indexing had emerged already within
Norden des Reiches für eine europäische Rechtskultur, ed. Heiner Lück (Stuttgart:
S. Hirzel, 2008), 92–141. A detailed study on this fascinating jurist will soon be
published by Marek Wejwoda (Leipzig).
31 On Zobel cf. Konrad Krause, Alma mater Lipsiensis: Geschichte der Universität
Leipzig von 1409 bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2003),
49–50.
32 A handlist of all these editions and their content is provided in Hiram Kümper,
ed., Secundum Iura Saxonica: Sechs prozessrechtliche Traktate der frühen Neuzeit
(Nordhausen: Bautz, 2005), 106–11.
33 More examples than the ones mentioned here are discussed in Kümper, Sachsen-
138 HIRAM KÜMPER
manuscript culture and replaced the thematic indices (like the one
shown in Fig. 2) in many manuscripts. The afore named Dietrich von
Bocksdorf, for instance, compiled a huge but as yet unedited repertorium
that included references to the Saxon Mirror, the Magdeburg Law, and
the law-book of Meissen, a close relative of both the law-books. 34
In view of the popularity of the Saxon Law in the sixteenth century,
on the one hand, and the number of different editions available on the
book market, on the other, an edition’s comprehensiveness and ease of
use must have been major selling points. Figure 5, for instance, shows a
table from a 1545 edition of the Saxon Mirror in which its editor, Nikolas
Wolrab, lists all the advantages of his new edition.
• the text and a gloss in both German and Latin
• the subdivision of the capitula into paragraphs
• additiones to each article
• a revision of all allegationes to the learned laws
• an alphabetical repertorium
The allegationes that Wolrab mentions have already been shown above
in Fig. 3. Some were attributed to Dietrich of Bocksdorf, others were
added by unnamed jurists, and still others probably by the editors, like
Christoph Zobel, themselves.
The growing concern about the divergences between traditional
Saxon Law and the learned laws ultimately generated another type of
literature, the differentiae juris, which can also be considered an effort to
interpret the obscurities of the Saxon Law. These were thematic compila-
tions that sought to resolve apparent contradictions between the two
traditions with respect to specific points. Sebastian Stelbagius’s Epitome
(Fig. 6) offer one example of this genre.
recht, 180–87.
34 There is no edition. A manuscript probably written in 1464 by one of Bocksdorf’s
pupils is preserved in Zwickau, Ratsschulbibliothek, Ms. II, VIII, 28.
Fig. 5: Editorial report for a Saxon Mirror printed in 1545 by Nikolaus Wolrab
(Leipzig)
140 HIRAM KÜMPER
Fig. 6: Sebastian Stelbagius, Epitome sive summa universae doctrinae iusticiae legalis
(Bautzen, 1564)
The Compendium juris civilis et Saxonici, which was written sometime

around 1537 by Konrad Lagus, but not printed until 1597, provides
another example of an effort to address the obscurities of the Saxon Law.
35 The Saxon Mirror, Lagus complained, was “written in such a disorderly
35 Cf. Theodor Muther, Zur Geschichte der Rechtswissenschaft und der Universitäten
in Deutschland. Gesammelte Aufsätze (Jena: H. Dufft, 1876), 319–23. On Lagus cf.
manner that not one single piece is in the right place, but it switches back
and forth between this and that.”36 Stelbagius and Lagus, however, were
already headed down the path to the usum modernus pandectarum, the
specific form of academic German jurisprudence that struggled with the
discrepancies between traditional and learned laws until virtually the
end of the Old Empire in 1806.
The Constitutiones electorales Saxonicae Divi Augusti and

Melchior Kling’s Revised Saxon Mirror―a Postscript?
We have now seen a number of different attempts to keep a law-book

that had become obscure in terms of both its meaning and its structure
accessible within a changing juridical culture. Some, especially editors,
who wanted their books to be sold, were more optimistic about this pos-
sibility than others. Pessimists, on the other hand, emphasised the
obscurity―especially in terms of structure―of the old-fashioned law-
book.
Among them was Melchior Kling (1504–1571), a professor of Canon
Law at Leipzig University.37 The Saxon Mirror, Kling asserted in a letter
to the Elector August of Saxony, was written without any systematic
order (“gantz ane ordnung”) so that no-one could actually follow its rules
(“das sich schir Niemandts darein Richten kan”)―and still it was used in
every-day juridical practice (“Vnd ist doch in teglicher vbung”). This is
why he, Kling, had planned “to systematize” the Saxon law “so that
everyone could easily understand it and find his way through it.”38 His
Hans Erich Troje, “Konrad Lagus (um 1500–1546) und die europäische
Rechtswissenschaft,” in Wittenberg: Ein Zentrum europäischer Rechtsgeschichte
und Rechtskultur, ed. Heiner Lück and Heinrich de Wall (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006),
150–73; and Gerhard Theuerkauf, Lex, Speculum, Compendium iuris: Rechtsauf-
zeichnung und Rechtsbewußtsein in Norddeutschland vom 8. bis zum 16. Jahrhun-
dert (Cologne: Böhlau, 1968), 183–216.
36 “. . . so unordentlich geschrieben, das darinnen kein stücke schier ist, wie es sol,
in sonderheit vorgenommen, sondern hin und herwider von diesen und von
jenen rechtsfällen” (Konrad Lagus, Compendium juris civils et Saxonici [Magde-
burg: Francken, 1597], 4).
37 On his life and writings cf. Rolf Lieberwirth, “Melchior Kling (1504–1571), Refor-
mations- und Reformjurist,” in Wittenberg: ein Zentrum europäischer Rechtsges-
chichte und Rechtskultur, ed. Heiner Lück (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006), 35–62.
38 “in eine solche ordnung zu bringen das es ein Jeder leichtlich verstehen vnnd sich
drein richten solt” (Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und
142 HIRAM KÜMPER
idea was actually fairly simple and in perfect keeping with the legal
thinking of contemporary jurists trained in the learned laws. Instead of
the traditional three books of the Saxon Mirror, he divided the material
into four books: one on the legal personae (the king, dukes, suitors,
testators, etc.), a second on procedures (citation, sentences, appellation,
etc.), a third on various kinds of suits brought for civil matters, such as
the law of obligations, inheritance, etc., and a fourth on penal law.
According to this plan, Kling hoped to
write it in easily understandable German words, with the grace of God, so that
not one single line in the whole Saxon Mirror would remain that was not
placed in the proper chapter. 39
How did Kling realize this plan? First, as proposed in his letter, he
arranged the articles of the Saxon Mirror in a completely new sequence
inspired by the dogmatic structures of the learned laws. He maintained a
reference to each article’s place in the existing editions of the Mirror,
however, in order to facilitate comparison with those editions and on
account of the huge existing literature. He also provided cautious com-
ments on the articles and paragraphs he had newly combined. Here are
two examples of his work.
The first example (Fig. 7) explains the meaning of article III 58 to the
contemporary reader, for whom it might well have been problematic:
The imperial princes of the realm shall have as lord no layperson other than
the king. A banner fief that makes a man a crown vassal is valid only when it is
conferred by the king. Whatever a second man receives before the king does
not make him first holder of the estate because another had already been
invested with it before. Therefore, the estate cannot elevate him to a crown
vassal. 40
This rule had been obsolete for a long time because of the growing com-
plexity of the Empire’s feudal landscape. Kling updates the article by
Gloß in eine richtige Ordnung gebracht [Leipzig, 1572], introduction [no pagina-
tion or foliation]).
39 “wolte es mit gueten verstendigen deutzschenn wortenn, vermittelst gottlicher
hülffe dermassen schreiben das In gantzen Sachssenspiegel nicht ein einige Zeil
sein solte, die nicht vnter Iren ordentlich tittl gebrach were” (Kling, Das Gantze
Sechsisch Landrecht, introduction).
40 Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 131; “Des rikes vorsten ne solen nenen leien to herren
hebben, wen den koning. It n'is nen vanlen, dar die man af moge des rikes vorste
wesen, he ne untva't von deme koninge. Svat so en ander man vor ime untveit,
dar n’is jene die vorderste an'me lene nicht, went it en ander vor ime untfeng,
unde ne mach des rikes vorste dar af nicht sin” (Homeyer, Des Sachsenspiegels
Erster Theil, 354).
explaining that nobody can become an imperial prince of the realm by

other means than by royal investiture. He does not, however, forbid the-
se princes from forming feudal bonds with their equals. In the second
example (Fig. 8), Kling first shortens the article. In full the Saxon Mirror
III 55 states:
None but the king may judge the imperial princes at the level of life and health.
As for the Schöffen[-barfreien] class, if they are convicted and sentenced to
capital punishment, then only the bailiff may execute them. 41
Fig. 7 and 8: Melchior Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht mit Text und Gloß in eine
richtige Ordnung gebracht (Leipzig 1572)
Kling quotes only the second sentence, leaving aside the king’s high
jurisdiction over the imperial princes. The Schöffen―or rather Schöffen-
barfreie―who are the subject of the second sentence, were a peculiar
41 Dobozy, Saxon Mirror, 130; “Over de vorsten lif unde ire gesunt ne mut neman
richtere sin, wan die koning. Over scepenbare vrie lüde, svenne se iren lif ver-
werken unde verdelet sin, ne mut neman richten wenne die echte vronde bode”
(Homeyer, Des Sachsenspiegels Erster Theil, 351).
144 HIRAM KÜMPER
class of men in legal history for there is no proof of their existence before
the Saxon Mirror and some scholars have supposed that Eike might have
invented them.42 Consequently, Kling notes: “This is no longer valid.” 43
Kling, however, had not been the only one complaining to the dukes
of Saxony―in 1556, for example, Melchior Osse (1506–1557) also wrote
his famous political testament (Politisches Testament an Augustum
Churfursten zu Sachssen) to the Elector August of Saxony44―and the suc-
cess of Kling’s revised edition of the Saxon Mirror, which was published
posthumously in 1572, was doubtlessly much reduced by August of Sax-
ony’s issuing the Constitutiones electorales Saxonicae just a few months
earlier, even though the Constitutiones dealt only with certain controver-
sial issues that had arisen from the diversity of norms and legal practices
in the ducal lands and left a good deal of other matters untouched.45 The
Constitutiones thus never replaced either the Saxon Mirror or the Magde-
burg Law in juridical practice. Their influence in broad regions of Central
and Eastern Europe was unaffected by the Saxon legislation, and both
law-books continued to be consulted by practitioners and cited in juridi-
cal writings. The innovative approach and conception that lay at the
origin of these works was a milestone in the history of an astonishing
legal traditionalism within the lands of Saxon Law that perpetually
invented new strategies and formats to guarantee the continued accessi-
bility of its central authoritative texts―a history that does certainly not
end in the sixteenth century. 46
42 The discussion is quite complex and is summarized in Karl Kroeschell, “Von der
Gewohnheit zum Recht: Der Sachsenspiegel im späten Mittelalter,” in Recht und
Verfassung im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, vol. 1, ed. Hartmut
Boockmann, Bernd Moeller, et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998),
68–92.
43 “Diß ist auch nicht also in brauch” (Kling, Das Gantze Sechsisch Landrecht, f.
101r).
44 Cf. Oswald Artur Hecker, ed., Schriften Dr. Melchiors von Osse: mit einem Lebens-
abriss und einem Anhange von Briefen und Akten (Leipzig: Teubner, 1922), 280
and 287.
45 Details on the drafting of the Constitutiones are provided by Hermann Theodor
Schletter, Die Constitutionen Kurfürst August’s von Sachsen vom Jahre 1572. Ge-
schichte, Quellenkunde und dogmengeschichtliche Charakteristik derselben (Leip-
zig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1857).
46 For a continuation until the early twentieth century cf. Kümper, Sachsenrecht,
285–334.
To Be Born (Again) from God: Scriptural Obscurity
as a Theological Way Out for Cornelius Agrippa
Noel Putnik
In some of the works of Agrippa von Nettesheim, a Renaissance thinker

who was as unorthodox as he was controversial in his blending of vari-
ous Christian and non-Christian doctrines, one finds a curious phenome-
non which might be termed “orthodoxy building.” In this paper I examine
the phenomenon in the context of Agrippa’s rhetorical strategies as well
as his theological preferences and interpretations. The main argument is
that Agrippa’s construction of “orthodoxy” was necessary for his
attempted theological synthesis and that, among other means, his inter-
pretation of scriptural obscurities played a significant role in that pro-
cess.
A well-known humanist, occultist, and theologian of his time, Hein-
rich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535) was one of the
most important German representatives of a broad philosophical current
often labeled Renaissance Neoplatonism. 1 This highly eclectic
intellectual trend of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was based on
several major developments of the time:
1. the rediscovery of late antique Hermetic and Neoplatonic writings
that were later translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino;
2. the reevaluation and recognition of various previously suppressed
or neglected forms of medieval magic, Christian, Jewish, and
Muslim alike;
3. a new intellectual climate marked by the emergence of various
reform ideas and movements.
1 For a summary discussion of Agrippa’s role in Renaissance Neoplatonism see

Charles Nauert, Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1965), 8–115. See also Cornelius Agrippa, De occulta
philosophia libri tres, ed. Vittoria Perrone Compagni (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 1–10;
Marc Van der Poel, Cornelius Agrippa, the Humanist Theologian and his
Declamations (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 15–49; and Christopher I. Lehrich, The
Language of Demons and Angels. Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy (Leiden:
Brill, 2003), 25–32.
146 NOEL PUTNIK
Within this contextual framework, Agrippa wrote his numerous treatises

and shaped his doctrines with the single purpose of offering crisis-
stricken Western Christianity his own version of spiritual reform. In a
nutshell, he merged various elements of the Kabbalah, late antique
Hermetic and Neoplatonic doctrines, and medieval magic with Christian
teachings, “enriching” them with some elements of these traditions.2
Such an approach to the crisis of Western Christianity was hardly
surprising. Agrippa belonged to a generation of humanists immediately
following that of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. He was a
younger contemporary of Johann Reuchlin, Abbot Johann Trithemius,
Francesco Zorzi, and Lodovico Lazzarelli, to mention only a few well-
known names. He shared with these humanists, to a greater or lesser
degree, a peculiar worldview marked by their attempts to construct syn-
cretic philosophical and theological systems that would unify or recon-
cile Christianity with the above-mentioned traditions. All such attempts
were fundamentally heterodox and eclectic in nature.3 On the other
hand, Agrippa was also a contemporary of Desiderius Erasmus, John
Colet, Martin Luther, and many others who also sought to reform West-
ern Christianity, but without the aid of non-Christian or heterodox doc-
trines. Agrippa self-consciously aligned himself with these thinkers as
well and this double allegiance presents a major problem for interpret-
ing the German humanist’s work and ideas. 4
2 For a comprehensive overview of the intermingling of these traditions see
György E. Szőnyi, John Dee’s Occultism: Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs
(New York: State University of New York Press, 2004), 41–151.
3 From a huge body of literature treating the peculiar syncretism of these human-
ists I mention only a few works most directly related to the topic of this paper:
Noel L. Brann, Trithemius and Magical Theology. A Chapter in the Controversy over
Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe (New York: SUNY Press, 1999); Stephen A.
Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486). The Evolution of Tradi-
tional Religious and Philosophical Systems (Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renais-
sance Texts and Studies, 1998); Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Science in the
Renaissance. A Study in Intellectual Patterns (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1972); Wouter Hanegraaff and R. M. Bouthoorn, Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447–
1500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents (Tempe: Arizona Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005); Michael J. B. Allen and Valery Rees,
eds., Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy (Leiden: Brill, 2002);
Paola Zambelli, White Magic, Black Magic in the European Renaissance. From
Ficino, Pico, Della Porta to Trithemius, Agrippa, Bruno (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
4 Van der Poel’s above-mentioned study (see note 1) discusses this “other side” of
Agrippa’s thought exceptionally well. See also Lewis Spitz, The Religious Renais-
sance of the German Humanists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963);
SCRIPTURAL OBSCURITY IN CORNELIUS AGRIPPA 147
Agrippa von Nettesheim is best known as one of the great Renais-

sance magi. If not a practicing magician (the available biographical data
reveal too little in this respect), he was certainly one of the most
important theorists of magic of his time. His main work, the famous De
occulta philosophia libri tres (Three Books of Occult Philosophy), can be
described as a kind of encyclopedia of magic and occultism interpreted
within a philosophical framework usually defined as Neoplatonic. The
chief goal of the magus, as the author formulates it, is to achieve spiritual
ascension, that is, to enter the realm of God and his powers and restore
man’s prelapsarian divine position.5 Furthermore, Agrippa proposes
magic as the best means to achieve this lofty goal. In articulating his
religio-magical program, he relied significantly on the Corpus Hermeti-
cum, a well-known late antique collection of theosophical treatises
attributed to the legendary figure Hermes Trismegistus. Given the “other
side” of Agrippa’s thought (that is, the “orthodox” Christian side), one
wonders how Christianity fits into this highly unorthodox conceptual
framework.
Although intellectual history has granted Agrippa the role of a
Renaissance magus (a failed and disappointed one, I should add), a num-
ber of his works show distinctly Christian theological features, and some
are even purely exegetical. 6 Recent scholarship has done a lot to bring to
light this previously neglected or misinterpreted theological component
of Agrippa’s thought, which is strongly Christian in argument and tone.7
Even his main work, the De occulta philosophia, is permeated with
instances of biblical exegesis peculiar to his syncretic and eclectic
thought.
Paola Zambelli, “Magic and Radical Reformation in Agrippa of Nettesheim,” Jour-

nal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976): 69–103; and Amos Edel-
heit, Ficino, Pico and Savonarola: the Evolution of Humanist Theology 1461/2–
1498 (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
5 This is the thesis I argue for in my work The Pious Impiety of Agrippa’s Magic:
Two Conflicting Notions of Ascension in the Works of Cornelius Agrippa
(Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2010). See also Szőnyi’s concept of
exaltation in his John Dee’s Occultism, 19–37.
6 Some examples of Agrippa’s exegetical works are his De originali peccato and
Dialogus de homine, as well as the now unfortunately lost commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans.
7 Marc Van der Poel and Vittoria Perrone Compagni are currently the main propo-
nents of the “re-Christianization” of Agrippa’s thought; see Van der Poel,
Cornelius Agrippa, the Humanist Theologian, passim, and Perrone Compagni’s
Introduction in Agrippa, De occulta philosophia, 1–53.
148 NOEL PUTNIK
The claim that Agrippa resorted to Christian doctrine instrumentally,

using it merely as a “facade” or a “safety-device” for his heretical
teachings, has long been discarded in scholarship as overly simplistic
and inadequate for a number of reasons. In the process of building his
attempted synthesis, the German humanist was seriously concerned
with the question of orthodoxy. I maintain that, for Agrippa, constructing
a whole new mode of Christian orthodoxy, rather than just making his
heterodoxy “sound” or “seem” orthodox, was the crucial requirement for
his synthesis to work at all. 8
What are the basic features of Agrippa’s “new orthodoxy”? First and
foremost, it is based on the standard Ficinian notion of multiple revela-
tions. The revelation of Jesus Christ was just the most recent and, admit-
tedly, most sublime confirmation of the original twofold revelation given
to Moses and to Hermes Trismegistus.9 In several instances Agrippa al-
most explicitly equated Christ’s miracle-working with that of magicians,
for the simple reason that he saw magical wonder-working as an indica-
tor of one’s spiritual advancement. For a truly illuminated soul, Agrippa
believed, it is only natural to perform works of magic and this is the only
proper way to understand the miracles of the prophets and the apostles.
In other words, magic and Christianity emerged as complementary forms
of a single, universal, and primeval spiritual tradition. Furthermore, what
goes for Christianity goes for literally every other religious tradition:
they all share a common supernatural origin with magic, being nothing
but different branches of one and the same ancient revelation.
This bold religio-magical syncretism was the backbone of Agrippa’s
call for the rehabilitation of magic in the eyes of his Christian audience,
but also for the rehabilitation of Christianity itself, which in the eyes of
Agrippa and many of his contemporaries had suffered tremendous de-
8 The “safety-device” argument goes back to Lynn Thondike’s History of Magic and
Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–58),
5:129–38, and was influentially echoed in Frances Yates’s early works, but even
she abandoned it in her Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 37–47. Nowadays it is almost entirely rejected;
see, for instance, Lehrich, The Language of Demons and Angels, 41, and Michael H.
Keefer, “Agrippa’s Dilemma: Hermetic ‘Rebirth’ and the Ambivalences of De vani-
tate and De occulta philosophia,” Rennaisance Quarterly 41.4 (1991): 614–53.
However, Paola Zambelli still adheres to this line of interpretation (see below).
9 This “myth of a continuous esoteric tradition,” as Charles G. Nauert puts it, is ana-
lyzed minutely in his “Magic and Skepticism in Agrippa’s Thought,” Journal of the
History of Ideas 18.2 (1957): 161–82.
gradation. With many other fellow humanists, he was convinced that,

due mostly to the centuries-long influence of rigid Aristotelian
scholasticism, Western Christianity had almost lost touch with its
spiritual roots.10 One of the symptoms of this loss was the common
Christian scornful rejection of magic. Agrippa’s intention was to
reanimate this nearly-collapsed Christianity, to bring it back to its
suppressed “identity,” a task that required quite a bit of creative ex-
egesis. As one reads in Agrippa’s Dehortatio gentilis theologiae (A Dis-
suasion against Pagan Theology, c. 1518), his goal was “to enrich the
Church of God with the cleansed writings of the pagans.” 11 The
“cleansing” of these writings was the starting point of Agrippa’s exegesis.
In much simplified terms, it implied making Hermes Trismegistus
theologically compatible with Christ and the apostles although Arippa
was not especially concerned as to whether the doctors of the Church
would accept this compatibility.
There is a need for an important remark here. In my view, what
Agrippa meant by “enriching the Church of God with the cleansed writ-
ings of the pagans” was not Christianizing Hermetism, as is often argued,
but rather “Hermeticizing” Christianity. This seemingly minor difference
in emphasis conceals an important difference in perspective. The idea
that Agrippa sought to Christianize Hermetism implies that the backbone
of his religious identification was Hermetic, which would make his alle-
giance to Christianity a sort of outer layer or protective facade. In other
words, this way of thinking would make Agrippa a Nicodemite, an inten-
tionally false Christian, which is what some scholars believe. 12 On the
other hand, the idea that Agrippa sought to Hermeticize Christianity
implies that he identified with Christianity―that, indeed, he felt himself
to be profoundly Christian―even though his understanding of Christian-
ity was highly unconventional and problematic from the standard theo-
logical point of view. 13 The difference pertains to the long-debated ques-
tion of his religious and intellectual identities. Nowadays there seems to
10 Van der Poel, Cornelius Agrippa, the Humanist Theologian, 50–93.

11 “ecclesiam Dei locupletare repurgatis literis ethnicorum” (Henrici Cornelii
Agrippa ab Nettesheim, armatae militiae equitis aurati et iuris utriusque ac medici-
nae doctoris operum pars posterior [Lyon: per Beringos fratres, n.d.], 489–90).
12 Zambelli, White Magic, Black Magic, 115–88. Her thesis on Agrippa’s Nico-
demitism echoes Thorndike’s position, although in a very different context, by
linking Agrippa to Radical Reformation. See also Van der Poel, Agrippa, the
Humanist Theologian, 133–36, on Agrippa’s explicit allegiance to Rome.
13 See footnote 4.
150 NOEL PUTNIK
be a considerable scholarly consensus that Agrippa’s allegiance to Chris-

tianity went far beyond mere declarations and attempts to mask his
heretical doctrines. 14
With this delicate distinction in mind, I move on to a close examina-
tion of some of the rhetorical approaches the German humanist uses in
his treatment of Scripture. When, in the pursuit of his synthesis, Agrippa
refers to Christian and non-Christian authorities, both camps appear to
be on equal terms, that is, to confirm and support each other. In this con-
text it is particularly interesting to examine Agrippa’s treatment of cer-
tain biblical obscurities (or what he sees as such) as these could provide
him with the opportunity to construct new meanings by selecting and
reinterpreting certain passages or phrases.
The two main modes of Agrippa’s approach to the Bible are recontex-
tualizing and misquoting. Recontextualizing involves taking a quotation
out of its original context and transplanting it into a new context to sup-
port one’s claim or argument. What follows is both a simple and inter-
esting example of recontextualizing taken from Agrippa’s De occulta
philosophia, a work which at first glance deals solely with magic and
occultism. In the fourth chapter of Book III, the German humanist quotes
the Apostle Paul:
Therefore those who are more religiously instructed do not undertake even
the smallest work without divine invocation, as the Doctor of Nations com-
mands in Colossians saying: Whatever you shall do in word or deed, do all in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ giving thanks to God the Father through him. 15
Agrippa thus refers to Colossians 3:17 in a passage on how to practice
magic. Agrippa takes the Apostle’s words literally―he quite clearly says
“whatever you do”―even though the author of the epistle most certainly
could not have had in mind the magical practices Agrippa advocates it in
14 In my opinion, this is the position of Van der Poel, Perrone Compagni, and, to
some extent, Lehrich, although he is not primarily concerned with the problem of
Agrippa’s orthodoxy. On the other hand, scholars like Keefer and Szőnyi tend to
emphasize the unsolvable, paradoxical character of Agrippa’s intellectual and
religious identity.
15 “Iccirco qui religiosius eruditi sunt nec modicum quodvis opus absque divina
invocatione adgrediuntur, sicut ad Colossenses praecipit Doctor gentium in-
quiens: Quaecumque feceritis in verbo aut opere, omnia in nomine Domini Iesu
Christi facite, gratias agentes Deo patri per ipsum” (Agrippa, De occulta philoso-
phia, 409). The English translation is taken from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa,
Three Books of Occult Philosophy, trans. James Freake, with a commentary by
Donald Tyson (St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1997), 450. Paul’s words are itali-
cized both in Latin and in English.
his third book (including, among other forbidden procedures, con-

jurations and necromancy). Notwithstanding this incongruence, and
even though this quotation appears at the beginning of Book III, in which
he discusses the forms of magic most strongly condemned by the Church,
Agrippa concludes that it is perfectly legitimate to practice magic as long
as one does it in the name of Jesus Christ―dixit Paulus! Thus Agrippa
supports his problematic argument with scriptural authority, which
plays a crucial role in the rhetorical strategy of his works. This simple
example shows the general pattern of theological “cherry-picking”
common to all Renaissance eclecticists.
Quotations with minor changes are already interpretations if the
changes are significant enough and if one has reason to suspect that they
are intentional. No doubt, mistakes are often accidental as medieval and
Renaissance authors tend to quote from memory. However, sometimes it
is evident that what looks like a lapsus memoriae could well be a deliber-
ate alteration.
In Agrippa’s case, the matter is further complicated by the fact that,
unlike many other humanists of his day, he did not know Greek well.16
Consequently his studies of the Bible were based on the Vulgate in the
same way his readings of Plato and Corpus Hermeticum were largely
confined to Ficino's translations. Neither Agrippa’s works and
correspondence nor any known biographical data reveal anything,
moreover, about what version or versions of the Vulgate the German
humanist read.17 It may thus be that what in some cases looks like
deliberate misquotation is in fact an alternative reading from one of the
numerous copies of the Vulgate circulating in Europe at the time. Any
analysis of Agrippa’s use of biblical references will therefore be tinged
with a certain degree of speculation. I believe, however, that we can
16 This was aptly demonstrated by Nauert, Agrippa, 119, who concludes: “For all
practical purposes Agrippa's significant readings were confined to books
available in Latin, though he may have been able to draw on Hebrew and Greek
texts to a limited extent.” Agrippa admits this himself in his work De beatissimae
Annae monogamia, as also shown by Nauert.
17 See Nauert, Agrippa, 116–19. Neither Keefer nor Van der Poel provides any data
of this kind in their examinations of Agrippa’s use of Biblical references. Even
Perrone Compagni’s critical editions of the De occulta philosophia and De triplici
ratione cognoscendi Deum provide no help. Van der Poel cuts this Gordian knot by
proposing that “since we don’t know which text Agrippa used and since we may
assume that he usually (or, at least, occasionally) quoted from memory, it seems
best to me to use a modern edition of the Vulgate as point of reference” (personal
correspondence, January 28, 2010).
152 NOEL PUTNIK
reduce this element of speculation to an acceptable minimum if the

analysis is carefully contextualised and, where possible, strenghtened by
indirect philological evidence. This uncertainty must nevertheless be
kept in mind when discussing Agrippa’s references to the Bible.
One possible example of creative exegesis hidden in a misquotation is
to be found in Agrippa’s reference to another famous statement by the
Apostle Paul. In the peroration of his second major work, the De incerti-
tudine et vanitate scientiarum atque artium, atque excellentia verbi Dei
declamatio (Declamation on the Uncertainty and Vanity of Sciences and
Arts, and the Excellence of the Word of God), Agrippa paraphrases Paul’s
words as follows: “Therefore remove the veil of your intellect . . . and
soon with unveiled face you will climb from glory to glory.”18 However, II
Corinthians 3:18 reads slightly differently: “But we all, with unveiled face
. . . are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.”19
Apart from some obviously insignificant changes caused by paraphras-
ing, one notices that Paul’s passive verb transformamur (“we are being
transformed”) is replaced by an active one, transcendetis (“you will
climb”).20 Thus the whole passage acquires a subtly Hermetic―and even
Pelagian―tonality. Instead of being transformed by God, it is we, by vir-
tue of our own efforts, who climb or transcend to glory. This difference
corresponds closely to the main incongruity between the Christian and
the Hermetic paradigms of spiritual ascension―in fact, so closely that
18 “Amovete ergo nunc velamen intellectus vestri . . . et mox revelata facie
transcendetis de claritate in claritatem” (Agrippa, Operum pars posterior, 312).
The translation is taken from Keefer, “Agrippa’s Dilemma,” 640. Keefer was the
first to bring up this particular example.
19 “Nos vero omnes, revelata facie . . . in eandem imaginem transformamur a clari-
tate in claritatem” (Biblical text here and elsewhere is taken from Vulgata Clem-
entina, http://vulsearch.sourceforge.net/html/2Cor.html [last accessed: Decem-
ber 27, 2012]). The translation here and elsewhere is taken from the New Amer-
ican Standard Bible, http://nasb.scripturetext.com (last accessed: December 27,
2012), which conveniently renders the Latin transformamur as “we are being
transformed.”
20 Transformamur is the Latin translation of Paul’s verb μεταμορφούμεθα, which
exhibits only the passive meaning in New Testament Greek (see Frederick
William Danker, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other
Early Christian Literature [Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,
2000], 639–40). Agrippa’s alteration cannot therefore be a philological criticism
of the Vulgate based on his insight into the Greek original, especially given his
limited knowledge of Greek. For the same reason it seems far-fetched to suppose
that any available version of the Vulgate would render the strongly passive verb
μεταμορφόομαι the way Agrippa did.
one must think of a deliberate alteration, or at least of a semi-conscious

adjustment to the author’s own worldview.21
One of the most interesting cases of misquotation, or at least dubious
quotation, is linked to Agrippa’s Hermetic interpretation of the Christian
mystery of spiritual rebirth or regeneration. As M. H. Keefer rightly
points out, the Hermetic-Christian doctrine of spiritual rebirth is a cen-
tral tenet of Agrippa’s faith. It is the nucleus to which all the other ele-
ments of his synthesis were added subsequently. His exegesis of this
relatively frequent and relatively obscure notion from the New Testa-
ment undoubtedly reveals Hermetic and magical implications.
In his early treatise titled De triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum (On the
Three ways of Knowing God, 1516), which is usually regarded as the first
autonomous expression of his theological views, Agrippa examines the
notion that we can know God only through faith. In the course of a long
series of quotations and references to biblical and patristic texts, he
refers to the expression “to be born (again) from God” used by the Apos-
tle John. There is a curious textual confusion about this reference. In the
margin of the 1529 Opera edition, published in Antwerp, 22 Agrippa
writes: “Therefore, John says that such a soul is born again from God.” 23
He refers the reader to 1 John 3:9, which in fact reads: “No one who is
born of God practices sin.”24 Since Agrippa personally oversaw the
preparations for the printing of the 1529 edition of his Opera, this is not
likely to be a printer’s error. On the basis of this minor alteration Marc
Van der Poel seems to suggest that the German humanist added the word
iterum (again) in order to adjust this biblical reference to the conceptual
framework of Neoplatonism and the Hermetic doctrine of spiritual
rebirth. 25
Indeed, the Johannine reference mentioned in the margin does not
contain the word iterum, but does the addition of this word really mean
that Agrippa was trying to change the theological sense of the quotation?
No doubt, such an effort would be in accordance with the general prac-
tice of the time, but in this case, I do not think that the alteration was
21 See Keefer, “Agrippa’s Dilemma,” 639–40.

22 The Hague, Royal Library, 229 G 41.
23 “Ideo huiusmodi animam Ioannes ait nasci iterum ex Deo” (De triplici ratione
cognoscendi Deum 5, ed. in Vittoria Perrone Compagni, Ermetismo e Cristianesimo
in Agrippa. Il De triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum [Florence: Edizioni Polistampa,
2005], 144; my translation).
24 “omnis qui natus est ex Deo peccatum non facit.”
25 Van der Poel, Cornelius Agrippa, the Humanist Theologian, 73.
154 NOEL PUTNIK
necessarily intentional. There are a few passages in the Gospel of John

that do contain the word again, although in the form denuo. The best
known is John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to
you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” 26 This
is in reply to Nicodemus the Pharisee, who wonders how can a man
enter his mother’s womb and be born again. Jesus explains that it means
being born of the Spirit and concludes (John 3:7): “Do not marvel that I
said to you: ‘You must be born again.’” 27 One finds a similar expression in
1 Peter 1:23: “for you have been born again not of seed which is perish-
able but imperishable, that is, through the word of God.”28 Thus it might
well be that Agrippa had in mind another biblical passage, which did
contain the word again. In that case, the mistaken reference on the mar-
gin remains enigmatic. In other words, it is not always easy to distin-
guish a mistake from intentional misquotation. However, although the
German humanist may have deliberately misquoted less often than
thought, some examples clearly reveal such an approach.
The way Agrippa comments on the Johannine reference is explicitly
Hermetic and Neoplatonic:
Therefore, John says that such a soul is “born again from God,” inasmuch as the
light of the supreme God―just like the ray of the Sun, which diminishes its
body and turns into a fiery nature―flows down through angelic minds all the
way to our soul merged in the body and stimulates it to strip off all its carnality
and become a son of God. 29
The way Agrippa interprets John’s words is remarkable. In nuce, the
standard Christian understanding of spiritual rebirth implies starting a
new life marked by Holy Communion. To be born again is to begin anew
in Christ; it implies developing a new nature, new principles, new affec-
tions, and new aims. A Christian is born again ἄνοθεν, that is both denuo
(again) and desuper (from above). A classical reference for this notion is
found in Colossians 3:9:
you laid aside the old self and have put on the new self who is being renewed
26 “Respondit Iesus et dixit ei: amen amen dico tibi nisi quis natus fuerit denuo non
potest videre regnum Dei.”
27 “Non mireris quia dixi tibi oportet vos nasci denuo.”
28 “Renati non ex semine corruptibili sed incorruptibili per verbum Dei.”
29 “Ideo huiusmodi animam Ioannes ait ‘nasci iterum ex Deo,’ siquidem Dei summi
lumen – quemadmodum radius solis, corpus attenuans et in igneam convertens
naturam – per mentes angelicas usque ad animam nostram defluens, instīgat
animam carni immersam ut denudata ab omni carnalitate fiat Dei filius” (De tri-
plici ratione cognoscendi Deum 5, 144–46 [my translation]).
to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. 30
One could also think in this connection of Romans 12:2: “do not be con-
formed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind.”31
In other words, the standard doctrinal understanding of spiritual
rebirth implies an imitatio Christi so strong that it ultimately changes
one’s nature. What remains theologically obscure, however, is how far
this change goes. What does it imply, in anthropological and eschatologi-
cal terms, to become the novus homo of Saint Paul? It will suffice here to
mention the early theological controversies over the issue of the Resur-
rection and Paul’s σῶμα πνευματικόν (spiritual body) from 1 Corinthians
15:44 to suggest that from the very beginning the Christian concept of
rebirth has been veiled with certain obscurities. 32
It is these obscurities that Agrippa exploits in order to import and
legitimize the Hermetic notion of spiritual rebirth, which differs signifi-
cantly, if not fundamentally, from that of doctrinal Christianity. This
Hermetic idea, especially as found in discourses I, IV, VII, and XIII of the
Corpus Hermeticum, is rigidly dualistic. What needs to be born again is
the soul, whereas the body is the principal cause of ignorance and suf-
fering. It is “the odious tunic that strangles you and drags you down,”
“the garment of ignorance, the foundation of vice, the bonds of corrup-
tion, the dark cage, the living death, the sentient corpse, the portable
tomb,”33 and one must rip it off in order to achieve regeneration. More-
over, one finds in discourse XIII an explicit discussion on the immaterial
body that closely resembles Paul’s “spiritual body,” a body that is not
different from the soul.34
Another crucial difference between the Christian paradigm and the
Hermetic one is that in the latter regeneration serves one sole purpose:
that of the soul’s becoming god. Hence Agrippa reinterprets John’s con-
30 “Expoliantes vos veterem hominem et induentes novum eum qui renovatur in

agnitionem secundum imaginem eius qui creavit eum.”
31 “Nolite conformari huic saeculo sed reformamini in novitate sensus vestri.”
32 See, for instance, Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western
Christianity, 200–1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 3–6, and
Charles Francis Digby Moule, “St. Paul and Dualism: the Pauline Conception of
Resurrection,” New Testament Studies 13 (1965–66): 106–23.
33 Hermetica. The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English
Translation, with Notes and Introduction,” ed. and trans. Brian P. Copenhaver
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 24 (discourse VII).
34 Hermetica, 49–54.
156 NOEL PUTNIK
cept of rebirth by emphasizing the bodily enslavement of the soul and

the necessity of stripping off all its carnality. This is why he employs light
imagery like Al-Kindi’s ray-theory and Plotinus’s analogy of the Sun
(“just like the ray of the Sun, which diminishes its body and turns into a
fiery nature” 35) in order to describe the emanation of God’s mercy. In
other words, Agrippa’s exegesis results in a compound of theological
opposites so complex that it could easily lead readers into utter confu-
sion―or, on the other hand, provoke them into revisiting some old
anthropological obscurities and reopening some early Christian theo-
logical controversies. Agrippa certainly hoped for the latter. Whether he
managed to avoid the former is an entirely different problem.
35 See the quotation above, footnote 26.

Obscuritas in Medieval and Humanist
Translation Theories
Réka Forrai
Despite the continuous attempts of medievalists to dispel it, the qualifier

saecula obscura still hangs over the Middle Ages like a dark cloud. Obscu-
rity, moreover, is a literary topos as well as a historiographical one.
Medieval culture was often labeled obscure by poets and historians alike:
neither the Humanist Petrach, nor the enlightened Gibbon, for example,
thought very highly of it. But by calling the Latinity of the Hisperica
Famina or that of a labyrinthine scholastic argument obscure, we do
nothing more than admit that these texts are inaccessible to us.
Languages age and so do translations. Generation after generation,
words―regardless of whether they are used to write legal texts, philoso-
phy, poems or private letters―go from clear to blurred, transforming
reading into deciphering. All great works of literature in the western
canon are re-translated by almost every generation since, after a while,
the language of the translation no longer clarifies, but obscures the
meaning of the original text. Translation is thus a particularly useful
angle from which to study obscurity, especially from the comparative
perspective of two historical periods like the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. The Renaissance Greek-Latin (re)translation movements
justified and glorified themselves by condemning the medieval
renderings as obscuring their originals. Judging the medieval period
according to our own standards of clearness is a practice we have
inherited from the humanists. Many of our misconceptions about the
techniques of medieval translation come from taking for granted the
humanist critique of them.
Rather than arguing that medieval translation practices were not
abstruse, I propose to investigate the different understandings of the
term obscuritas from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Obscurity was
understood in very different, sometimes contradictory ways in ancient,
medieval and humanist translation theory. At first glance, two different
interpretations of obscurity are apparent. Readers use it critically when
158 RÉKA FORRAI
obscurity is seen as damage done to a clear text by an unskilled

translator. Translators, on the other hand, use it apologetically,
attributing obscurity to the original text itself. One’s first impression
then is that readers blame the translators whenever they fail to
understand a text, whereas translators blame the text whenever they are
unable to translate it clearly. But on closer reading, much more is
involved. In the first case, the term is applied to a faulty translation. Here,
obscuritas is an unfortunate new layer covering the original text that has
been produced by the shortcomings of the translator’s craftsmanship
and has to be removed in order for the text to be understood. In the
second case, it describes an inherent characteristic of the source-text. In
this instance, the obscure material usually strongly resists the
translator’s efforts. Obscurity belongs to the text’s nature: it is intended
to slow down and deepen the reading process. I will distinguish between
these two approaches by calling them rhetorical and philosophical
obscurity. Thus I argue for the existence of a positive dimension of
obscurity in the Middle Ages, which is lost in humanist rhetoric.
Already in classical Antiquity, Romans thought there was something
inherently obscure in the Greek language. For Lucretius (c. 99–55 BCE),
translating Greek philosophical ideas into Latin verses meant also a
purification and simplification of an overly complicated system. In this
process, the poverty of Latin is turned into an advantage:
Nor do I fail to understand that it is difficult to make clear the dark discoveries
of the Greeks in Latin verses, especially since we have often to employ new
words because of the poverty of the language and the novelty of the matters. 1
The simplicity of Latin was seen to be in sharp contrast with the
sophistication of Greek. The competitive Roman spirit translated this
opposition into the antithetic pair of clearness versus obscurity, straight-
forwardness versus confusing intricacy.2
1 “Nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta / difficile inlustrare Latinis uersi-
bus esse, / multa nouis uerbis praesertim cum sit agendum / propter egestatem
linguae et rerum nouitatem” (Lucretius, De rerum natura, I, 136–39, trans. W.H.D.
Rouse [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959; reprint of the revised
third edition from 1937], 12–13).
2 Cf. Joseph Farrell, Latin Letters and Latin Culture from Ancient to Modern Times
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 50–51: “In his doxography
Lucretius systematically debunks the idea that Greek is superior to Latin as a me-
dium for poetry and philosophy on every score: its supposedly greater beauty
and mellifluous qualities, its larger vocabulary, the ease with which it forms com-
pounds, its capacity for subtle philosophical expression, all are revealed as traps
that lead to obscurity, muddled thinking, silliness.”
MEDIEVAL AND HUMANIST TRANSLATION THEORIES 159
In his chapters on obscurity, Quintilian (born c. 35) opposed obscuri-

tas to perspicuitas, clarity.3 According to him, there are many ways to
create misunderstandings: excessively complicated4 or excessively con-
cise5 speech can be equally obscure, as are rhetorical figures when they
are used carelessly or excessively. He also cautioned rhetors against
those who value obscurity as a positive concept, confusing foggy formu-
lation with deepness of thought.6 Ambiguitas is a synonym for obscuritas
3 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8, II, 1–11, 12–21, trans. H. E. Butler (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1921), 196–208. On perspicuitas in translation
theory, see Frederick M. Rener, Language and Translation from Cicero to Tyler
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989), 77–79.
4 “A greater source of obscurity is, however, to be found in the construction and
combination of words, and the ways in which this may occur are still more
numerous. Therefore, a sentence should never be so long that it is impossible to
follow its drift, nor should its conclusion be unduly postponed by transposition
or an excessive use of hyperbaton. Still worse is the result when the order of the
words is confused as in the line: In the midmost sea / Rocks are there by Italians
altars called” (“Plus tamen est obscuritatis in contextu et continuatione sermonis,
et plures modi. Quare nec sit tam longus ut eum prosequi non possit intentio, nec
traiectione vel ultra modum hyperbato finis eius differatur. Quibus adhuc peior
est mixtura uerborum, qualis in illo uersu: ‘saxa uocant Itali mediis quae in flucti-
bus aras’”; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8, II, 14, pp. 204–05).
5 “Others are consumed with a passion for brevity and omit words which are actu-
ally necessary to the sense, regarding it as a matter of complete indifference
whether their meaning is intelligible to others, so long as they know what they
mean themselves. For my own part, I regard as useless words which make such a
demand upon the ingenuity of the hearer” (“Alii breuitatem aemulati necessaria
quoque orationi subtrahunt uerba, et, uelut satis sit scire ipsos quid dicere uelint,
quantum ad alios pertineat nihili putant: at ego uitiosum sermonem dixerim
quem auditor suo ingenio intellegit”; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8, II, 19, pp.
206–07).
6 “Such expressions are regarded as ingenious, daring and eloquent, simply
because of their ambiguity, and quite a number of persons have become infected
by the belief that a passage which requires a commentator must for that very
reason be a masterpiece of elegance. Nay, there is even a class of hearer who
finds a special pleasure in such passages; for the fact that they can provide an
answer to the riddle fills them with an ecstasy of self-congratulation, as if they
had not merely heard the phrase, but invented it” (“Ingeniosa haec et fortia et ex
ancipiti diserta creduntur, peruasitque iam multos ista persuasio, ut id [iam]
demum eleganter atque exquisite dictum putent quod interpretandum sit. Sed
auditoribus etiam nonnullis grata sunt haec, quae cum intellexerunt acumine suo
delectantur, et gaudent non quasi audierint sed quasi inuenerint”; Quintilian,
Institutio oratoria 8, II, 21, pp. 208–09).
160 RÉKA FORRAI
in his rhetorical terminology.7

While a rhetorician should avoid obscurity, a philosopher can choose
to use it, if so he pleases. Late Antique philosophical commentaries often
claimed to clarify the thoughts of intentionally obscure or ambiguous
philosophers like the pre-Socratics or Aristotle. In this case, the degree of
a text’s obscurity was considered a measure of the difficulty of its themes
and arguments. Calling a philosopher obscure was not a critical
judgment, but an observation about the level of complexity of the work.
This obscurity could be caused by the complicated subject matter, the
philosopher’s knotty argument, or the reader’s level of understanding.
According to Cicero (106–43 BCE), philosophical obscurity has two
acceptable sources: a philosopher may choose to write obscurely or his
subject-matter may require it.8
7 “Above all, ambiguity must be avoided, and by ambiguity I mean not merely the
kind of which I have already spoken, where the sense is uncertain, as in the
clause Chremetem audivi percussisse Demean, but also that form of ambiguity
which, although it does not actually result in obscuring the sense, falls into the
same verbal error as if a man should say visum a se hominem librum scribentem
(that he had seen a man writing a book). For although it is clear that the book
was being written by the man, the sentence is badly put together and its author
has made it as ambiguous as he could. Again, some writers introduce a whole
host of useless words; for, in their eagerness to avoid ordinary methods of
expression, and allured by false ideals of beauty they wrap up everything in a
multitude of words simply and solely because they are unwilling to make a direct
and simple statement of the facts: and then they link up and involve one of those
long-winded clauses with others like it, and extend their periods to a lengths
beyond the compass of mortal breath” (“Vitanda in primis ambiguitas, non haec
solum, de cuius genere supra dictum est, quae incertum intellectum facit, ut
‘Chremetem audiui percussisse Demean,’ sed illa quoque, quae etiam si turbare
non potest sensum in idem tamen uerborum uitium incidit, ut si quis dicat ‘uisum
a se hominem librum scribentem’. Nam etiam si librum ab homine scribi patet,
male tamen composuerit, feceritque ambiguum quantum in ipso fuit. Est etiam in
quibusdam turba inanium uerborum, qui, dum communem loquendi morem
reformidant, ducti specie nitoris circumeunt omnia copiosa loquacitate, eo quod
dicere nolunt ipsa: deinde illam seriem cum alia simili iungentes miscentesque
ultra quam ullus spiritus durare possit extendunt”; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria
8, II, 16–17, pp. 204–07).
8 “Obscurity is excusable on two grounds: it may be deliberately adopted, as in the
case of Heraclitus, ‘The surname of the Obscure who bore,/So dark his philo-
sophic lore’; or the obscurity may be due to the abstruseness of the subject and
not of the style – an instance of this is Plato’s Timaeus” (“Duobus modis sine rep-
rehensione fit, si aut de industria facias ut Heraclitus – cognomento qui
σκοτεινός perhibetur quia de natura nimis obscure memoravit – aut cum rerum
Since the late Antique and medieval Greek-Latin translation canon

consisted mostly of philosophical and theological works, this concept of
philosophical obscurity was more prevalent than the rhetorical one. But
translators still faced the question of what they should do with such
obscure passages? Should they leave them obscure or attempt to simplify
and clarify them? In philosophical education this was the duty of the
commentator, but it was not clear whether translators were also
commentators or whether they should leave interpretation to someone
else. Rufinus of Aquileia (340/345–410), for example, chose to emend
Origen’s (184/185–253/254) work as well as translate it. In his
prologue, he affirmed that Origen’s On the Principles was in all respects
difficult and obscure, and that its subject-matter gave philosophers
countless troubles. 9 This statement was followed by a brief description
of his methodology, in which he admitted that he rearranged Origen’s
passages as he had found it suitable, in order to clarify obscure ones―he
claims, however, that he did that using Origen's own words from
elsewhere. 10
obscuritas non verborum facit ut non intelligatur oratio, qualis est in Timaeo
Platonis”; Cicero, De finibus II, V, 15, trans. H. Rackham [Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1914], 94–95). He then goes on to mention a third type
of obscurity, which has no explanation and is the fault of the writer. Cf. Jonathan
Barnes, “Metacommentary,” in Oxford Studies of Ancient Philosophy 10 (1992):
267–81. See also Jaap Mansfeld, “Insight by hindsight: Intentional Unclarity in
Presocratic Proems,” in Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 40 (1995):
225–32. For a detailed discussion of the understanding of ambiguum and
dubitabilis in medieval philosophy see Dragoş Calma, “Du bon usage des grecs et
des arabes. Réflexions sur la censure de 1277,” in Christian Readings of Aristotle
from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, ed. Luca Bianchi, Studia Artistarum 29
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 115–84.
9 “et praecipue istos, quos nunc exigis ut interpreter, id est peri archon, quod uel
de principiis uel de principatibus dici potest, qui sunt re uera alias et
obscurissimi et difficillimi. De rebus enim ibi talibus disputat, in quibus philo-
sophi omni sua aetate consumpta inuenire potuerunt nihil”; Tyrannii Rufini
Opera, ed. M. Simonetti, CCSL 20 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1961), 246. Cf. Marguerite
Harl, “Origène et les interprétations patristiques grecques de l’‘obscurité’
biblique,” Vigiliae Christianae 36, 4 (1982): 334–71.
10 “If, however, speaking as he does to men of knowledge and discernment, he has
occasionally expressed himself obscurely in the effort to be brief, I have, to make
the passage clearer, added such remarks on the same subject as I have read in a
fuller form in his other books, bearing in mind the need for explanation. But I
have said nothing of my own, simply giving back to him his own statements
found in other places” (Origen, On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth [New
162 RÉKA FORRAI
Rufinus’s method of dealing with the author’s obscurity is thus an

interventionist one: Origen had supposed that his readers would be
knowledgable, but Rufinus did not and thus tried to make explicit what-
ever was implicit in the original. Brevity here is a synonym for obscurity
and it was to be avoided because the danger of obscurity in a theological
text is that it can lead to heretical interpretation. Rufinus also argued
that if knowledgable readers or scribes don’t emend the text, then more
obscurities will get generated for the readers. 11 In their debate on
translating Origen, Jerome (347–420) and Rufinus thus held opposite
views about the role of the translator: Jerome contested Rufinus’s tactic
of combining the two functions of translator and commentator.
The second most obscure Greek theologian after Origen is arguably
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. He was successfully translated into
Latin in the ninth century by John Scottus Eriugena. Eriugena chose a
different path from Rufinus. In the preface to his translation of Pseudo-
Dionysius, he warned his eventual readers of the danger of finding his
version obscure, because he, as a faithful interpreter, had to leave the
text impenetrable.12 But he intended this more as a clarification than an
apology. In his view, the obscurity was already there in the original, and
one way to try to understand it was to use the work of a commentator
like Maximus Confessor. 13 Eriugena didn’t consider it his duty to make
York: Harper and Row, 1966], lxiii); “Si qua sane uelut peritis iam et scientibus
loquens, dum breuiter transire uult, obscurius protulit, nos, ut manifestior fieret
locus, ea quae de ipsa re in aliis eius libris apertius legeramus adiecimus
explanationi studentes. Nihil tamen nostrum diximus, sed licet in aliis locis dicta,
sua tamen sibi reddidimus” (Tyrannii Rufini Opera, 246).
11 “(everyone who shall either transcribe or read these books) shall emend it and
make it distinct to the very letter, and shall not allow a manuscript to remain in-
correct or indistinct, lest the difficulty of ascertaining the meaning, if the manu-
script is not distinct, should increase the obscurities of the work for those that
read it” (Origen, On First Principles, lxiv); “et inemendatum uel non distinctum
codicem non habeat, ne sensuum difficultas, si distinctus codex non sit, maiores
obscuritates legentibus generet” (Tyrannii Rufini Opera, 246).
12 “si obscuram minusque apertam praedictae interpretationis seriem iudicaverit,
videat me interpretem huius operis esse, non expositorem”; E. Dümmler, Ernst
Perels and others, eds. MGH Epistolae 6 Karolini Aevi 4 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1902–
1925), 159.
13 “Fortassis autem qualicunque apologia defensus, non tam densas subierim caligi-
nes, nisi viderem, praefatum beatissimum Maximum saepissime in processu sui
operis obscurissimas sanctissimi theologi Dionysii Areopagitae sententias, cuius
symbolicos theologicosque sensus nuper Vobis similiter jubentibus transtuli,
introduxisse, mirabilique modo dilucidasse, in tantum, ut nullo modo dubitarem,
the text maius apertam (clearer) than it is, but delegated this task instead
to the expositor, the commentator on the work. In the case of Rufinus,
these were overlapping functions, the translator having full powers over
the author. But what seemed to be a possibility in Rufinus’s late
Antiquity was not even considered in the Middle Ages. Respect for the
authority of the theologian and fear of responsibility for the heretical
accusations that might eventually result from combining interpretation
and translation reduced the translator’s freedom.
Obscurity was thus valued and respected in theological discourse.
But what about other literary genres? The Neapolitan translation school
that flourished in the ninth and tenth centuries and specialized in hagio-
graphic texts despised obscurity deeply, seeing in it a vice of translation.
Admittedly, the sources of this view are also more problematic: con-
demnation of the previous version was often part of the justification for a
new translation and thus cannot always be taken at face value. However,
it is not by chance that these criticisms occurred mostly in the context of
translating hagiography, that is to say, a type of narrative, and not
technical writing.
One of the translators, Bonitus, complains both about the absurdity
and the obscurity of the earlier version of the Gesta Theodori.14 His col-
league, Guarimpotus, in his prologue to the Passio Blasii (BHL 1380–
1379), claimed that the other translation had lost the meaning and the
clarity of the original, truth had been replaced by falsity, clearness by
obscurity, and wise words had been turned into stupidity.15 He
considered it the duty of the translator to groom the text by reordering,
cutting out the superficial parts, adding what was missing and clarifying
what was unclear. 16 The genre and the use of the texts required a certain
divinam clementiam, quae illuminat abscondita tenebrarum, sua ineffabili pro-

videntia hoc disposuisse, ut ea quidem, quae nobis maxime obstrusa in praedictis
beati Dionysii libris, aut vix pervia, sensusque nostros fugere videbantur,
aperiret, sapientissimo praefato Maximo lucidissime explanante”; Maximi
Confessoris, Ambigua ad Iohannem, iuxta Iohannis Scotti Eriugenae latinam inter-
pretationem, ed. E. Jeanuneau, Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 18, 3 (Turn-
hout: Brepols, 1988), p. 3, l. 15–25.
14 “Tanta eas absurditate faminum, tantaque obscuritate sensuum replevere”; Boni-
tus, “Vita Theodori,” in AASS, February, vol. 2, 30–31.
15 “de virissimis falsa, de liquidissimis obscura ac de praeclaris reddire turpia”;
Guarimpoto, Passio Blasii, in Paul Devos, “L’oeuvre de Guarimpotus hagiographe
napolitain,” Analecta Bollandiana 76 (1958): 157.
16 “inordinata componimus, superflua resecamus, quod deest adhibemus, quodque
obscurum est ad liquidum ducere curamus”; Guarimpoto, Passio Blasii, 158.
164 RÉKA FORRAI
level of stylistic attractiveness to facilitate oral understanding. As

Guarimpotus also argued, it is important that a text that is intended to be
read and listened to in the liturgy should avoid being ridiculed by the
audience.17 For these translators of hagiographic texts, there was no
obscurity in the source-text. It was caused, rather, by the translator’s
miscomprehension, his inadequate skills, or his chosen methodology.
Word-to-word translation techniques, which became the standard
way to render treatises written in a technical language, be it philo-
sophical, theological, legal or medical, seem inevitably to have produced
obscurity. The medieval Corpus Aristotelicum, which was built up during
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with this method, so enraged Roger
Bacon that he could suggest only one remedy (which, luckily, he could
not carry out): to burn all the manuscripts. 18
This type of criticism escalated with the arrival of Humanism. Let me
illustrate it with two incidents: first, a passage from Ambrogio Traversari
(1386–1439), an Italian humanist, who, in his preface to his translation
of John Climacus’s Scala Paradisi (dedicated to Matteo Guidone, c. 1419)
speaks in the following terms about the previous translator of the work:
Meanwhile they will not in the least deny that his translation is extremely
obscure. What therefore is my crime if what was translated obscurely I have
tried to render more clear or rather more Latin? Moreover, is it necessary to
say how erudite that translator was? They may contend that he revealed
himself to be very learned in both languages. I, dissenting completely from
them, will affirm truthfully that in neither was he fully adequate. For it will be
easily established by anyone who has even a mediocre knowledge of the
language that he did not understand correctly most of the Greek. And whoever
affirms that he could have been erudite in Latin signifies with little doubt his
own ignorance. If they will assert he was a holy man, easily and willingly I will
agree. Because he was a saint, however, it does not follow that he was erudite
and capable of translating. For holiness is one thing, erudition another. Indeed
if he was a saint, he ought not to have attempted what he could not execute
17 “absurdissima extitit Passio, ut non solum non intellegeretur, verum etiam ridicu-
lum legentibus et audientibus eius incompta denotaret obscuritas”; Guarimpoto,
Passio Blasii, 158.
18 “Certus igitur sum quod melius esset latinis quod sapientia Aristotelis non esset
translata, quam tali obscuritate et perversitate tradita . . . et sic omnes qui aliquid
sciunt negligunt perversam translationem Aristotelis, et querunt remedia sicut
possunt . . . si enim haberem potestatem super libros Aristotelis ego facerem om-
nes cremari, quia non est nisi temporis amissio studere in illis, et causa erroris, et
multiplicatio ignorantiae ultra id quod valeat explicari”; Roger Bacon, “Compen-
dium studii philosophiae,” in Fratris Rogeri Baconi opera quaedam hactenus
inedita, ed. J.S. Brewer (London: Longmans, 1859), 469.
properly, nor to have approached this task which exceeded his power. For one
causes injury to a learned man by rendering his utterance in an ignorant and
rustic way.” 19
The medieval translator referred to was Angelo Clareno (1247–1337), a
Franciscan friar from Cingoli. During the two long periods he had spent
in Greece―in the Corinthian bay (1295–1297) and in eastern Thessaly
(1298/9–1304/5)―he translated a substantial amount of Greek spiritual
literature, including the Scala Paradisi of John Climachus, a number of
writings of Basil the Great (including the Rule, letters, and prologues to
several of his ascetic pieces), and a letter of Saint John Chrysostom to
Ciriacus. According to his hagiographer, he had acquired the language
through the Holy Spirit, while spending Christmas in a Greek monastery.
Another indignant voice was that of Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444).
Encountering the earlier version of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics sent
him into fits of rage and contempt. In 1417 he attempted to replace this
earlier, medieval version with a fresh one by himself.20 In the preface to
his translation, he called the medieval version of the Aristotelian text
more barbarian than Latin, immature, ignorant, absurd and awkward,
and the translator half-Latin and half-Greek, incompetent in both
19 “Praeterea traductionem illam esse obscurissimam ne ipsi quidem negabunt.

Quod ergo crimen meum est, si quod ille obscurius transtulit, apertius ipse, et ali-
quanto etiam latinius convertere conatus sum? Porro quam fuerit ille Interpres
eruditus quid adtinet dicere? Contendant isti peritissimum illum in utraque lin-
gua exstitisse: ego ab illis longe dissentiens, in neutra illum satis plenum fuisse
veraciter adseverabo. Nam graeco pleraque non recte intellexisse cuilibet eius
linguae vel mediocriter perito facile constabit: et latine erudite posuisse, qui ad-
firmat sese imperitissimum esse haud obscure significat. Sanctissimum illum
fuisse virum si adseverant; facile, ac perlubenter consentiam: non tamen, quia
sanctus fuerit, eruditum etiam fuisse sequitur, atque idoneum ad transferendum.
Aliud enim sanctitas est, atque aliud eruditio. Imo vero si sanctus fuit; ne id
quidem tentare debuit, quod commode implere non posset, neque id onus subire,
quod virium suarum excederet modum. Facit enim iniuriam doctissimo viro, qui
illum imperite, ac rustice loquentem reddit;” Ambrosii Traversarii Generalis
Camaldulensium latinae epistolae, ed. Laurentius Mehus, 2 vols, (Florentiae: ex
Typographio Caesareo, 1759; reprint Bologna: Forni, 1968), vol. 2, col. 962 (book
23, letter 7); trans. Charles L. Stinger, Humanism and the Church Fathers. Ambro-
gio Traversari [1386–1439] and Christian Antiquity in the Italian Renaissance (Al-
bany: State University of New York Press, 1977), 111.
20 Cf. Hanna-Barbara Gerl, Philosophie und Philologie. Leonardo Brunis Übertragung
der Nikomachischen Ethik in Ihren Philosophischen Prämisen (München: Wilhelm
Fink, 1981). For related writings of Bruni, cf. Paolo Viti, ed., Leonardo Bruni, Sulla
perfetta traduzione (Napoli: Liguori, 2004).
166 RÉKA FORRAI
languages, an author of a work that is altogether unworthy of Aristotle

and of the Latin language, perverted, full of twisted words, obscure con-
cepts and a shaky doctrine. 21 The identity of the medieval translator(s)
was unknown to Bruni at the time but he used a version that had been
translated in the mid-thirteenth century by Robert Grosseteste, bishop of
Lincoln, and revised by William of Moerbeke, the famous medieval
translator of the entire Corpus Aristotelicum.
Moerbeke, Grosseteste and Angelo Clareno had no chance to defend
themselves from these accusations of obscurity. Their cause was taken
up, however, by Alonso of Carthagena (1384–1456), a converted Jew
from Spain, bishop of Burgos, famous church politician, canon lawyer,
and learned humanist, who wrote a little treatise against Bruni’s
accusations. 22 From Alonso’s defense, it is clear that humanist and
medieval translation theories operated in two entirely different
conceptual worlds, and thus must be judged according to their own
criteria, rather than each other’s and our own.
These medieval translators practiced the most widespread method
among the medieval guild of translators, that is to say, the so called
verbum e verbo method. We would now call it literal translation in
English, that is, a word-for-word faithful following of the original. This
translation practice conceives of the sentence as a chain, where only two
elements have semantic value: the chain itself and the links, or words, of
which it is composed, which are defined by their meaning and their
position in the chain, and not, for example, by their relation to other links
in the chain.
21 “O ferreum hominem! Hoccine est interpretari? . . . Ego igitur infinitis paene

huiusmodi erroribus permotus, cum haec indigna Aristotele, indignaque nobis ac
lingua nostra arbitrarer, cum suauitatem horum librorum, quae Graeco sermone
maxima est, in asperitatem conversam, nomina intorta, res obscuratas,
doctrinam labefactatam viderem, laborem suscepi novae traductionis, in qua, ut
cetera omittam, id assecutum me puto, ut hos libros nunc primum Latinos
fecerim, cum antea non essent”; A. Birkenmajer, “Der Streit des Alonso von
Cartagena mit Leonardo Bruni Aretino,” in Vermischte Untersuchungen zur
Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, ed. Clemens Baeumker (Münster:
Verlag der Aschendorffschen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1922), 159.
22 See González Rolán, A. Moreno Hernández, P. Saquiero Suárez-Somonte, Human-
ismo y Teoría de la Traducción en España e Italia en la primera mitad del siglo XV.
Edición y Estudio de la Controversia Alphonsiana: Alonso de Cartagena vs. L. Bruni
y P. Candido Decembrio, (Madrid: Ediciones clásicas, 2000) and María Morrás, “El
debate entre Leonardo Bruni y Alonso de Cartagena: las razones de una polé-
mica,” Quaderns. Revista de traducció 7 (2002): 33–57.
Why did medieval translators have such a notorious predilection for

literal translation? How, if at all, can such a practice be explained? This
question has troubled specialists of medieval translation theory and
practice for a long time,23 and although it has not been completely
answered, major misconceptions have already been removed: the lack of
a good knowledge of Greek or Latin, for example, is no longer considered
a sufficient explanation for the phenomenon. The literal method was not
chosen because of one’s limited capacities (even if, from certain
viewpoints, these capacities, or rather the tools for developing them,
were quite limited). Translators were often good rhetoricians when it
came to their own prose and the commentaries they often provided on
the texts they translated show that they grasped the texts’ meanings
perfectly even if they did have problems with Greek and thus rendered it
somewhat awkwardly. Word-for-word translation was not therefore a
primitive form of interpretation, not the result of a handicap, but a
choice. Translators were conscious of the impossibility of creating a
perfect translation.
A translation was not expected to be explicit, or clear, or, horribile
dictu, beautiful. Texts were to be concise and terminologically coherent,
and should not attempt to interpret themselves, so to speak. For this,
there were commentaries. A text had to be deciphered, and if you
manage, promises Alonso, what seemed so repulsive at the beginning,
will actually become beautiful and not a syllable will be in the wrong
place.24
In the effort of reading, one had to distinguish between text and com-
mentary. 25 This too is a very medieval concept, rooted in late antique
educational practice. Hellenistic philosophical and literary exegesis, at
least the way it was practiced in schools, was based on literal exposition
followed by a paraphrase type of commentary. Thus literal translation is
the interlingual application of an originally intra-lingual textual transfor-
mation, which in turn was a school-technique of textual exegesis. Jerome
23 Cf. Paolo Chiesa, “Ad verbum or ad sensum? Modelli e coscienza metodologica

della traduzione tra tarda antichitt e alto medioevo,” Medioevo e Rinascimento 1
(1987): 1–51.
24 “sed cum studiosi ingenio vel glossarum auxilio quod conceperit pandere cogitur,
sic eius dulce fulget eloquium, ut eius maiestatem mirari cogamur et nedum
verbum aliquod, sed nec syllabam deficere arbitremur, quae obmissa videbantur,
ex industria sic conscripta cernentes”; Birkenmajer, Der Streit, 167.
25 “textuum ac glossarum non debet similis esse locutio”; Birkenmajer, Der Streit,
167.
168 RÉKA FORRAI
himself says that it is the commentator’s role to make plain what the
author expressed obscurely.26
Medieval translations are strongly dependent on this concept of
reading. Texts were expected to be obscure and had to be unlocked; they
did not unlock themselves. And this in turn brings us to the issue of
meaning. Texts did not explain themselves because their explanation did
not lie within, but beyond the shell of letters, words, and language in
general. Bruni repeatedly defines translation as a rendering from one
language to another. 27 Alonso, on the other hand, explicitly says that he
does not know Greek and does not even care about it. For one has to
understand not what Aristotle wrote down in Greek, but what he
thought, what he must have meant.28 For this, one does not need to use
Greek texts, but simply sound reasoning, as Greek texts might be faulty
themselves, not presenting very clearly what Aristotle should have had
in his mind. Also, chances are that Aristotle might have meant something
more reasonable than what he actually said.29
According to this reasoning, if someone finds in a Greek text that 2
plus 2 equals 5, one should translate 2 plus 2 equals 4, as there are obvi-
ous extralingual elements which support the verity of the second ver-
sion, and refute the logic of the first. In philosophy, this ultimate external
reference point is reason. Different idioms follow and express the same
reason; that is why, Alonso argues, there is no need for him to know
Greek in order to critically assess the translation. In theology, this reason
is God, or his revelation. The external pressure of orthodoxy upon
translators played a huge role in shaping translation techniques. Texts
were supposed to be faithful not to the literary category of what could be
today called the author’s intention, but rather to the religious system of
26 “Commentarii quid operis habent? Alterius dicta edisserunt, quae obscurae

scripta sunt, plano sermone manifestant”; Hieronymus, Apologia Adversus Libros
Rufini, I, 16 in P. Lardet, ed., Apologie Contre Rufin, SC 303 (Paris: du Cerf, 1983),
44.
27 “Interpretatio autem recta, si graeco respondet, vitiosa, se non respondet. Itaque
omnis interpretatio contentio unius linguae ad alteram est”; Birkenmajer, Der
Streit, 189.
28 “Non ergo an in Graeco sic scriptum est, sed an sic scribi potuit, ut translator
noster edixit illis in locis, ubi dire reprehensus est, inquiramus”; Birkenmajer, Der
Streit, 166.
29 “Cum igitur Aristoteles ipse non rationem ab auctoritate, sed auctoritatem a
ratione consecutus est, quicquid rationi consonant, haec Aristoteles dixisse
putandus est et Graece arbitremur scriptum fuisse, quicquid Latinis verbis trans-
latio nostra sapienter depromit”; Birkenmajer, Der Streit, 166.
which they were part.

Beyond the verbum and sensum, there was a category called veritas
that is perhaps much closer than sensum to what we would term
“meaning” today. Nevertheless, the task of the translator was not to
grasp and to express this truth, but only to present a version of the text
that would allow the reader to reach its veritas by himself. A translator
was supposed only to make this veritas accessible, rather than express it,
since translation was not supposed to interpret in the sense of deciding
on a meaning. On the level of terminology, perhaps this can be caught in
the distinction between interpretare and intellegere, the first being the
task of the translator, the second the task of the audience, that is to say,
the reader or commentator. It is along these lines that Boethius distin-
guishes between his translation and his commentary on the Isagoge of
Porphyrus: he was after uncorrupted truth, not beauty of the style, when
he translated the work. While he claims he is guilty of translating
faithfully, he seems to think this is unavoidable, and should be remedied
later via commentaries. 30
That is one of the reasons why the contamination of Latin with Greek
and other foreign expressions does not seem as scandalous to medieval
scholars as it does to Bruni, who was obviously brought up on Quintil-
ian’s notion of various lexical obscurities to be avoided. Every thought,
every concept was thought to have a perfect expression, or rather, a
most concise and more precise expression, which needed to be found
regardless of the language. A concise foreign word was considered supe-
rior to a loose circumscription in Latin, said Alonso. 31
According to Alonso words are like hostages taken in wartime from
the enemy.32 And in the war of scientific discussion, one needed to be
rigorous and accurate, and not to complicate what is simple. He argued
30 “Secundus hic arreptae expositionis labor nostrae seriem translationis expediet,

in qua quidem uereor ne subierim fidi interpretis culpam, cum uerbum uerbo
espressum comparatumque reddiderim. Cuius incepti ratio est quod in his
scriptis in quibus rerum cognitio quaeritur, non luculentae orationis lepos sed
incorrupta ueritas exprimenda est”; Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii in Isagogen Por-
phyrii commenta, ed. S. Brandt, CSEL 48 (Vienna: Tempsky and Leipzig: Freytag,
1906), XVIII.
31 “Nonne melius fuit illa, ut iacebant, dimittere, ut sub nostris refulis declinata inter
Latina haberemus, significatione earum per descriptiones et sequentia plene
percepta – quam circumlocutionibus totam scripturae seriem perturbare?”;
Birkenmajer, Der Streit, 169.
32 “quasi ab hostibus capta alienas voces et nomina”; Birkenmajer, Der Streit, 168.
170 RÉKA FORRAI
that one needs to examine the semantic field of the Latin words, rather
than looking for superficial equivalence with Greek, as the Latin term
should refer back to the essence of the philosophical discourse, rather
than to the way it was expressed in Greek. 33
There was, therefore, a crucial difference in the attitude of medieval
and humanist translators towards obscurity. For the former, it was a
philosophical, theological concept, an admirable quality of dense and
concise texts, which could also act as a filter and defend the text from
inept readers. Unlocking obscure passages was the role of the com-
mentator rather than the translator. As the Neapolitan hagiographic
translations testify, however, not all obscurity was tolerated: narrative
texts, especially those used in liturgy, were to be polished in order to
facilitate their immediate grasp by the audience.
Humanists, on the other hand, operated with the rhetorical concept
of obscuritas. Criticism based on such a concept would, however, have
been meaningless to medieval translators of philosophical works: they
would never have dreamed of trying to find and restore elegantia to the
Aristotelian corpus 34―neither would we, for that matter. For humanists,
obscurity was a rhetorical vice to be avoided, in contrast with clarity and
elegance. Theirs was a purist approach that resented the usage of Greek
neologisms or of any technical vocabulary in fact. During the late
Renaissance, this conflict over translation methodologies became part of
33 “Quisquis tamen ille fuerit, obscuritate arguendus non est, cum in omnibus fere
scientiis textuum conditores brevitati studuerunt. Nam sicut alia principem, alia
oratorem decet oratio et aliter iudicem, aliter advocatum congruit loqui, sic tex-
tuum ac glossarum non debet similis esse locutio: nam breviter textus nos docet,
glossule vero quid textus senserit aperire solent; quod tam in liberalibus artibus,
quam in naturalibus scientiis ac iurium doctrinis saepe repertum est, ut, his
saepe solis verbis plerumque contenti sint, quibus conceptus sensus includi vix
valuit, adeo quod plerique rudimenta artium amore brevitatis adinuenta
duxuerunt. Non ergo translationis incusandus est, qui recte intellectus breuibus
uniuersa conclusit. Procul dubio enim in primis armis quodammodo translatio
haec defendere se uidetur et uiolentiam legentis uiriliter propulsare; sed cum
studiosi ingenio uel glossarum auxilio quod conceperit pandere cogitur, sic eius
dulce fulget eloquium, ut eius maiestatem mirari cogamur et nedum uerbum
aliquod, sed nec syllabam deficere arbitremur, quae obmissa uidebantur, ex
industria sic conscripta cernentes”; Birkenmajer, Der Streit, 167.
34 The Humanists adhered to Cicero’s statement about Aristotle’s “pouring forth a
golden stream of eloquence” (“flumen orationis aureum fundens Aristoteles”;
Cicero, Academicorum Priorum Liber II, 38, in Cicero, De natura deorum. Academ-
ica, trans. H. Rackham [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1933], 620–
21).
a larger debate between scholastics and humanists, philosophy and

rhetoric.35 As a result, obscurity lost the positive connotations of its
semantic field. Medieval translation theory and practice, however, re-
mind us that obscurity is inherent in human discourse: inherent in
language, inherent in philosophy, inherent in theology, inherent in
translation. It is a manifold and powerful presence that requires a
manifold methodology that is genre and audience dependent.
35 Cf. Erika Rummel, Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 11: “The battle lines were
drawn and the stereotypes established: all scholastic theologians were obscu-
rantists who had never read classical authors, wrote atrocious Latin, and were
interested only in esoteric quibbles, while all humanists were grammarians and
wordspinners, interested in form rather than substance, pseudo-Christians
whose brains had been addled by reading pagan literature.”
The Darkness Within: First-person Speakers
and the Unrepresentable*
Päivi M. Mehtonen
If there is union of all the faculties, the soul cannot communicate the
fact, even if it so desires (when actually experiencing it, I mean): if it
can communicate it, then it is not a union. 1
He lies not who speaks of unity with images, dreams and faces―he who
stutters of unity. 2
Many genres that favor first-person narration are described, somewhat

routinely, as presenting a first-person speaker even if that same agent
may also be the (only) receiver of the utterance. To this group belong
solitary speeches or intrapersonal communication such as the private
diary, talking to oneself or sub-vocalizing, (internal) praying or repeating
what one hears―as well as literature that simulates or parodies these
situations and speeches, that is, adopts aspects of “solitary” discourse in
texts addressed to an audience. Since God and other spiritual beings have
been unfashionable addressees in secular modern communication
models, the rough scheme the speaker “I”―the message―the receiver “I”
(or an “I–I” model) has been suggested as a way of describing such
private discourses that do not add to the information we already have
but serve other functions. 3 This paradoxical scheme seems particularly
interesting with respect to medieval, early modern and modern texts
where the first-person speakers often emphasize the obscurity of the
material that they―and they alone―have experienced, or their limited
skills or understanding in approaching it.
* This article is part of my larger study A Quest for Abstract Literature: Medievalism
and Mysticism, funded by the Academy of Finland (project 125257).
1 The Life of the Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus, in The Complete Works, vol. 1, trans.
and ed. Allison Peers (London: Burns & Oates, 2002), 105.
2 Martin Buber, Ekstatische Konfessionen, changed new edition (orig. 1909; Leipzig:
Insel-Verlag, 1921), 21.
3 E.g., Yuri M. Lotman, “Autocommunication: ‘I’ and ‘Other’ as Addressees,” in Uni-
verse of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, trans. Ann Shukman (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 20–35, esp. 22.
FIRST-PERSON SPEAKERS AND THE UNREPRESENTABLE 173
Such genres―to be discussed in more detail in the second part of the

article―do not fit well into the influential schema underlying Cicero’s
discussion on speaking well and obscuritas in De inventione (c. 84 BCE), a
small treatise on rhetorical invention later embellished by medieval
commentators. Cicero takes up an (already then) old topic as he explores
the different kinds of court cases. The obscure case, genus obscurum, is
one “in which either the auditors are slow of wit, or the case involves
matters which are rather difficult to grasp.” 4 The communication model
implied by this observation is strikingly minimalist as it mentions only
the message itself (or the difficulty of “things”) and the receiver―not the
speaker―as possible sources of obscurity. This ideal of a good speaker
served the aims of public speech and Roman education, but did not work
quite as well in the later Christian culture of humilitas and its literary
forms. In the medieval commentaries on De inventione, the short-
comings in the communication model were augmented and the classical
myth of the perfect speaker discredited. Commentators from Victorinus
and Grillius in the fourth and fifth centuries to Thierry of Chartres in the
twelfth century added a third component of obscurity: imbecillitas
loquentis, that is, speakers who do not understand what they are saying.5
Such speakers may curtail a presentation excessively, fall into inchoate
verbosity or offer extremely convoluted arguments.
Although obscurity is treated as a vice in these discussions, many
authoritative writers participated in cultivating it as a virtue. This is not
just the legacy of the early Christian confessional practices―Saint Augus-
tine famously excavating the “dark areas” of memory images in the mind
(e.g., Confessiones, Book 10);6 such themes and forms of literature also
4 Cicero, De inventione. De optimo genere oratorum. Topica, trans. H. M. Hubbell

(1947; London: Heinemann and Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1993), 1.15.20.
5 Thierry of Chartres, Comm. S. De inv. 1.15.20, in The Latin Rhetorical Commen-
taries, ed. K. M. Fredborg (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1988), 110. See Päivi M. Mehtonen, Obscure Language, Unclear Literature (Hel-
sinki: The Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2003), 77–79, for a
discussion of the other mentioned sources.
6 On the vaguer concepts of “self” and “identity,” see, for instance, Roy Porter, ed.,
Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance (London: Routledge, 1997). It
has been suggested that the early Middle Ages “introduced the inwardness of
radical reflexivity” (Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern
Identity [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], 131); and that the medi-
eval confessional practices supported strong “techniques of the self” as individual
sinners were required to employ various means of publicizing their inner
174 PÄIVI M. MEHTONEN
leaned on classical topoi in presenting the speaking consciousness and

body.7 Moreover, the notion of a “sender I – receiver I” communication is
an interesting case within the obscuritas tradition. Consider: a vague
prayer, not understood by the one who prays? An obscure diary, not
grasped by the diarist him or herself? Indeed, this is in a nutshell a
feature not uncommon in mystical literature and the modern novel was
influenced by it (from Robert Musil to Samuel Beckett). While genuinely
solitary and personal voices remain private and unshared in real life, I
will suggest that much first-person literature that balances between
narrative and non-narrative forms (e.g., meditative essays, “descriptions”
of an inner state, and fiction that adopts such forms) in fact emulates
such “I–I” communication.
The links between first-person speech and difficult or obscure lan-
guage also exist in modern theory (without references to medieval or
early modern material). Yuri Lotman’s discussion of “autocommunica-
tion” or “I–I” system is an extension and critique of an old-school
communication model that assumed, according to Lotman, that before
the act of communication there exists information or a message known
to “me” (the sender) and not to “you” (the receiver). However, in auto-
communication the subject is transmitting a message to itself. Such
communication is at work, for instance, in diary jottings (“which are
made not in order to remember certain things but to elucidate the
writer’s inner state”), a prayer, 8 or a second reading of a familiar text. In
all these cases, the message is reformulated and acquires new meanings
in the process. Particularly interesting here is Lotman’s observation that
such autocommunication often tends to be condensed and difficult, even
cryptographic, as it does not have to be explained in detail but may still
foster a sense of individual existence and self-discovery.9 Likewise, some
thoughts and desires (Foucault, discussed in Kim Atkins, ed., Self and Subjectivity
[Oxford: Blackwell, 2005], 208). Such views are stimulating but also so general
that they do not lend themselves to the exploration of the ultimate difficulty and
construction of the textual I, in its individual occasions and their diverse prac-
tices.
7 See, for example, Judith Perkins, The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative
Representation in the Early Christian Era (London: Routledge, 1995).
8 Although a prayer “may be thought of as a message to an external powerful force
rather than a message to oneself,” it is discussed by Lotman as an “I–I” communi-
cation. It does not require vocalization to be communicated and it does not add to
the information we already have; its functions serve other ends (Lotman,
“Autocommunication,” 30).
9 Lotman, “Autocommunication,” 20–21, 32.
linguists have suggested that related phenomena such as intrapersonal

communication or inner speech are often radically elliptic; inner speech
“does not possess any separate, idiosyncratic, logical and grammatical
structure.”10
These features lend themselves readily to stylization in what could be
called pseudo-autocommunication, which emulates the unstructured and
unclear features of “private” discourse even when it is addressed to an
audience. In the Middle Ages to such difficult and obscure material, in
both Cicero’s and Lotman’s sense, belonged the attempts to speak of
spiritual inner states that were known to the speaker alone but were
under strong cultural and communal pressure to be made public for the
benefit of a religious or other cause (to meet, for instance, the demand
for hagiographic heroes or role models). Much early mystical literature
was close to obscure oral speech and “I–I” communication whereas in the
later Middle Ages and early modern period the forms of first-person
narration had gone through a process of letterarizzazione, becoming
established topoi and devices of a particular poetics.11 While focusing
strictly on first-person narration―and leaving aside such vaguer con-
cepts as “self” or “subject”―this essay takes liberty in detecting evolving
forms and manifestations of obscure presentation in both medieval and
modern material, the latter directly influenced by the former.
The first part of this chapter illustrates cases of the “framed I,” where
the first-person voice is typically presented speaking in direct discourse
embedded in a narrative frame. The second part then discusses more
10 Roman Jakobson, “The Sound Shape of Language,” in Selected Writings VIII (Ber-
lin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1987), 82. See H. Porter Abbott’s definition of (Samuel
Beckett’s) autography or autographical reading as responding to “writing not as a
mode of recovery or reconstruction or even fictionalizing of the past but as a
mode of action taken in the moment of writing” (Beckett Writing Beckett: The
Author in the Autograph [Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1996], x). Such prose
invites the reader to think of autobiography, yet repeatedly sabotages both the
narrative character and historical authority of autobiography (2, 11).
11 This is vast claim that cannot be documented in the limited space available here.
For related work with different materials, see Päivi M. Mehtonen, “The Apophatic
First-Person Speaker in Eckhart’s Sermons,” in Modes of Authorship in the Middle
Ages, ed. Slavica Ranković et al. (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval
Studies Press, 2012), 79–96; and eadem, “Speak Fiction: Rhetorical Fabrication of
Narrative in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie,” in Medieval Nar-
ratives Between History and Fiction: From the Centre to the Periphery of Europe, c.
1100–1400, ed. Panagiotis A. Agapitos and Lars Boje Mortensen (Copenhagen:
Museum Tusculanum Press, 2012), 81–101.
complex examples of the “unframed I,” where the first-person narra-

tion―stressing the difficulty of its construction―dominates the text. The
seemingly small word ego-ich-I thus evokes a bundle of issues regarding
the content, form and the speaker in a text, from the allegedly difficult
materia to the self-proclaimed imbecillitas loquentis. How does the (re-
presented) mind think of and express itself and its inner states? What is
“I” and how did it become such?
The Framed “I”: Interior and Exterior Action
In early and high medieval long narrative literature―from romance to

mystical texts―the first-person speech is often framed as direct dis-
course embedded in a third-person (or combined third and first-person)
context. There is a significant division of work in romance structure: in
the embedded direct discourse the first-person narration works as a
medium for handling vaguer materials of inner action, fantasy and vision
than are allowed in the frame narrative. However, even in the frame nar-
rative the “I” can be an elusive category. In the historical romance, a shift
of narrator may serve as a stylistic effect when the writer is processing
and interpolating pre-existing material. For instance, in Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Historia regum Britanniae, c.
1135–1138), the main teller is referred to with “I,” “Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth,” and “he.” The seemingly simple and pseudo-chronological plot
offers various cases of first-person narration, sometimes interrupted
with epic interventions in the third person.
… as I said … Geoffrey of Monmouth will not be silent even about this [the adul-
terous relation of Mordred, king Arthur’s nephew, with Queen Ganhumara],
most noble earl, but, just as he found it written in the British book and heard
from Walter of Oxford, a man very familiar with many histories, he will tell, in
his poor style, but briefly, of the battles the famous king fought against his
nephew, when he returned to Britain after his victory. 12
12 “. . . dixi . . . Ne hoc quidem, consul auguste, Galfridus Monemutensis tacebit, sed

ut in praefato Britannico sermone inuenit et a Waltero Oxenefordensi, in multis
historiis peritissimo uiro, audiuit, uili licet stilo, breuiter tamen propalabit, quae
proelia inclitus ille rex post uictoriam istam in Britanniam reuersus cum nepote
suo commiserit” (Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain [De
gestis Britonum (Historia Regum Britanniae)], ed. Michael D. Reeve, trans. Neil
Wright [Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007], 246–49; emphasis added).
On the one hand, shifts from the first to the third person may serve
stylistic purposes as when the narrator concedes his own poor or
clear style. On the other, they may follow from the fact that the
writer is reworking pre-existing material; he may simply substitute
his own ego for that of his source, or he “inherits” the first-person
narration with the older materia he is using.13
In addition to such shifts at the main level of narration, Geoffrey’s
Historia also contains embedded speeches and letters where the charac-
ters speak in the first person. Thus the narrator’s task is to manage two
modes of materia, the (pseudo)historical chronology of the British kings
and the embedded direct speech acts of the characters. For my gradually
evolving argument it is important to observe that it is this level of
embedded speech acts that contains the most fabulous tales, future
tenses, obscure prophecies and hypothetical events. In other words, ver-
batim speeches, letters or dialogues introduce present-tense discourse
into a past-tense frame narrative. Thus the narrator of Geoffrey’s Historia
is only partly reliable when he (repeatedly) mentions that he is using
unsophisticated, brief and clear narration, claiming to omit material that
some of his predecessors have treated “with sufficient prolixity.”14 In the
Historia, this prolixity and ambiguity is the privilege of the characters’
direct discourse. The characters that speak and write directly are freer to
produce the kinds of verbal prolixity, lofty style, lies and irrealis narratio
that are unrepresentable in the main narrative of Geoffrey’s history.15
Nowhere is this as obvious as in Merlin’s obscure prophecies and the
“ambiguity of his words” (ambiguitas uerborum), which form the longest
reported verbatim speech in the work and depict destruction, bloodshed,
new worlds, speaking forests and stones and dragons carrying the naked
giant.
13 Cf. Leo Spitzer, “Note on the Poetic and the Empirical ‘I’ in Medieval Authors,”
Traditio 4 (1946): 414–22; and Mehtonen, “The Apophatic First-Person Speaker,”
79–96.
14 “satis prolixe” (The History of the Kings of Britain, 15, 47, 129–30).
15 Irrealis narratio consists of verbalizations of experience that is unrealized “either
because it is predicated as taking place in the future or because it is in some sense
hypothetical.” Dreams and visions also belong to the realm of irrealis (unreal)
narration (Suzanne Fleischman, Tense and Narrativity: From Medieval Perfor-
mance to Modern Fiction [Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990], 104–05, 112).
In Geoffrey’s History, hypothetical sequences of events also occur in speeches
reported indirectly by the narrator, but hardly ever otherwise in the first-level
narration. See Mehtonen “Speak Fiction.”
In the Middle Ages there were, of course, authoritative models for

such narration in the prophets of the Old Testament or the Book of
Revelation of the New Testament. These were often referred to in
medieval commentaries as prime examples of obscuritas. In his
commentaries on Ezekiel and Hosea, for instance, Saint Jerome (c. 348–
420) uses the Ciceronian division of genus obscurum to point out the
forms of obscurity in the Book of Ezekiel―a text that deals with visions
that excite and perturb the prophet’s imagination: a ball of fire encircled
by radiance, strange creatures half man, half beast, the eating of a scroll,
godlessness. The commentator nonetheless emphasizes that it is the
reader’s duty to attain a true awareness of what the things described are
in fact intended to convey.16 What Jerome does not mention is that the
Old Testament prophets―Ezekiel and Hosea included―are good exam-
ples of obscure first-person narration and shifting points of view
between “I” and “he.” In the Bible, too, fabulous and obscure narration is
often the province of the first-person singular.
Just as in Merlin’s speech in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, the
first-person speaker is (usually) presented as the sole witness to the
narrated events in religious vision literature. Their reporting becomes a
sort of stylized autocommunication as the “I” is not communicating a
paraphrasable narrative of action or a considered message but pieces of
something it attempts (or presents itself as attempting) to decode while
presenting it. For instance, the Frauenmystik of the high Middle Ages of-
ten presents a frame narrative where somebody―repeatedly―poses the
visionary a question; then the answer (the “content” of the vision) is pre-
sented in first-person narration, as in this dialogue between Anna von
Munzingen and Else von Neustadt:
Then the Sister asked her whether she could recall anyone. She answered: “I
cannot even recall myself well. I don’t know where the mind and heart go,
except simply in him. My soul rests in God and knows all things in him, and
then I see the purity of my soul and that it is without blemish.” . . . The Sister
asked again what he would look like if she saw him with her outer vision. She
said: “He appears as a beautiful and gentle young man, and the room is full of
angels and saints. He sits next to me and looks at me compassionately.” 17
16 Comm. in Hiez. 13, Praef., CCSL 75:I, 606; Comm. in Osee 1.ii.16, 17, CCSL 76, 29.
17 “Da fragte sie die Schwester, ob sie dann jemands gedenken könnte. Da sprach
sie: ‘Ich kann dann meiner selbst nicht gut gedenken. Wohin Sinn oder Herz
komme, als allein in ihn, das weiß ich nicht. Meine Seele legt sich dann in Gott und
weiß alle Dinge in ihm, und dann sehe ich die Lauterkeit meiner Seele und daß sie
ohne ale Flecken ist’ . . . Da fragte wieder die Schwester, wie der wäre, den sie mit
äußerem Gesicht sähe. Da sprach sie: ‘Er erscheint wie ein schöner liebreicher
Here the alleged uncertainty and hesitation of the speaker is an

important part of the message, together with the “plot” of the vision.
Whereas the frame narrative focuses on the vita exterior of the charac-
ters or their communities, the vita interior as presented by the first-
person narrators bustles with the fuzzier activity of allegedly ineffable
visions, obscure fantasies and (either physical or intellectual) difficulties
in describing these. This is evident in the following report by Alpais of
Cudot (1150–1211), embedded in the “editor’s” narrative frame of her
life; the speaker proceeds repetitively in the process of seeing inner
things.
But it seems to me that I report to you the visions I see in my repose as hap-
pening in the manner I report them. But what they refer to or what they mean
or what most of them want and whether they have occurred . . . or been estab-
lished in the manner or order in which they appear to me to have occurred or
been established, this I do not know well. But whatever the truth of this thing
may be, this one thing I know, that I am not deceived or deceiving; for what I
say to you, I see as I say it, and I say as I see it. 18
The processes of reporting, experiencing and interpreting in the first-

person narration mingle, as if these deeds simultaneously legitimate each
other.
The self-conscious use of such materials and rhetoric deviates from
both ancient and medieval ideals of truthfulness in discourse. In the old
controversy about whether speeches should be accepted in historical
writing or not, the negative answer is interesting for a student of first-
person speech: if history explores the sequences of cause and effect―as
for instance the Greek historian Polybius (c. 200–118 B.C.E.) claimed it
should―then speeches should be excluded from historical accounts
because they are obviously invented, displays of the historian’s oratorical
Jüngling, und die Kammer wird voll von Engeln und Heiligen. Er sitzt bei mir und
sieht mich gar gütig an’,” (Anna von Munzingen, “Die Chronik der Anna von
Munzingen,” ed. J. König, Freiburger Diözesan Archiv 13 [Freiburg im Breisgau:
Herder, 1880], cited in Buber, Ekstatische Konfessionen, 105; my translation).
18 “Visiones quidem, quas vobis refero, sicut michi videtur, sic in requie mea fieri
video, sicut eas refero. Set quid pretendant aut quid significent vel quid sibi velint
plures earum et utrum eo modo vel ordine fiant … aut administrentur, quomodo
vel ordine michi fieri vel administrari videntur, non satis agnosco. Quomodocum-
que autem se rei veritas habeat, hoc unum scio, quod nec fallor nec fallo, quin ea,
que vobis dico, sic videam sicut et dico, et sic dicam sicut et video” (Alpais von
Cudot IV.xvii, in Elisabeth Stein, ed., Leben und Visionen der Alpais von Cudot
[1150–1211] [Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1995], 215; my translation).
skills rather than the transcription of words actually spoken. 19 This

attitude was already contested in medieval historical narrative (e.g.
Geoffrey of Monmouth), and in mystical treatises: the first-person narra-
tion becomes an authoritative form for the description of things seen in
visions and relating to the interior person as a space where the narrative
rule of cause and effect does not hold.
First person narration also offered latitude and license for modes of
imagination which were seen as excessive in the traditional education of
the trivium: visions, fantasies and utopias. In medieval school rhetoric
and arts of poetry, the topic of obscuritas was often mentioned. The
aspiring writer was warned against the pitfalls of vices that ran counter
to the rule of clarity: lying (i.e., excessive fiction), discontinuity, incon-
sistency, prolixity and obscurity in writing. 20 Some of these features
became virtues and markers of authenticity or spiritual clarity, however,
in literature depicting inner states of mind and events that might appear
inexplicable to the speakers themselves.
The examples cited above from the Chronicle of Anna von Munzingen
and the visions of Alpais of Cudot belong to the genre of Gnadenvita and
are fluent in depicting the godhead, yet repetitive to the point of hyper-
bole in expressing the “I.” In other words, not God but the “I” is the ulti-
mate unrepresentable. The first-person speaker remains something that
modern textual theory calls “supranarratable”: something that defies
narrative, as for instance in the specifics of highly charged emotional
scenes―or even “the antinarratable”: something that transgresses social
laws or taboos and for that reason remains unspoken. The medieval
mystical “I” is a similar phenomenon; the pronoun is ubiquitous on the
surface of the texts but as soon as one starts focusing on it, it begins to
appear as a repetitive act that tells less about the person or “self” and
more about the metaphysical quest of a community that acknowledges
the limits of language and understanding. This was also pointed out by
later mystics such as Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582): human beings
go about “like silly little shepherd-boys, thinking we are learning to know
something of Thee when the very most we can know amounts to nothing
19 See Eric MacPhail, “The Plot of History from Antiquity to the Renaissance,” Jour-
nal of the History of Ideas 62 (2001): 7–8.
20 John of Garland, Parisiana poetria 5.301–302, ed. and trans. T. Lawler (New Ha-
ven: Yale University Press, 1974); cf. Mehtonen, Obscure Language, 103–22.
at all, for even in ourselves there are deep secrets which we cannot
fathom.”21
Herein lies an important difference between mysticisms. The written
“I” in the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius, Meister Eckhart or John
of the Cross is “rationalist” in its methods of disseminating the spiritual
message. Although mystical obscurities, states of unknowing and trans-
cendent silences beyond the capacities of human language are constantly
evoked, the writers themselves proceed like scholars and masters of
their topic. When Eckhart preaches the limited possibilities of human
language to capture spiritual realms in his sermons, the first-person
speakers therein are nevertheless able to muster up coherent (logical
and rhetorical) paradoxes in elegant and uninterrupted narration. The
sublime themes and issues are not narrated as radically interrupting the
speaking “I.” To put it succinctly, aberration is not among the devices
favoured by these prose writers.
In the women mystics, states of unknowing that contaminate the very
act of speaking and the (rhetorical) presentation of the imbecillitas
loquentis as a virtue are more common. The language of the excerpt from
the Chronicle of Anna von Munzingen cited above, for example, is lucid
although the passage develops the theme of uncertainty. The style of the
passage from the visions of Alpais of Cudot likewise resonates with the
theme, and is effective even when it is repetitive and tautological. The
later phases of mystical discourse emphasised these aspects even more.
The Unframed I
However clearly I may wish to describe these matters which concern prayer, they
will be very obscure to anyone who has no experience of it. 22
Remarkably, the issues of first-person narration and the legitimation of

obscure literary forms lie at the heart of modern medievalism and the
21 “Y andamos acá como unos pastorcillos bobos, que nos parece alcanzamos algo
de Vos, y debe ser tanto como nonada, pues en nosotros mesmos están grandes
secretos que no entendemos” (Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle 4.2, trans. E. Allison
Peer [New York: Image Books, 1989], 82; Santa Teresa, Las moradas, Colección
Austral (1939; Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1985) 4.2, 54).
22 “Por claro que yo quiera decir estas cosas de oración, será bien escuro para quien
no tuviere espiriencia” (Teresa of Avila [Teresa de Jesús], in The Life of the Holy
Mother Teresa of Jesus, in The Complete Works, vol. 1, trans. and ed. Allison Peers
[London: Burns & Oates, 2002], 62; Libro de la Vida 10.9, ed. Dámaso Chicharro,
7th ed. [Catedra: Letras Hispanicas, 1987], 189).
reception of medieval mysticism in the earliest avant-garde circles of the

1900s in central Europe. Mysticism fits well with the agenda of anti-
realism and the search for an anti-Cartesian expression of inner states, as
part of the critical scrutiny of language (Sprachkritik) and linguistic
experimentation. The edition of Meister Eckhart’s texts (1903) by the
cultural critic and anarchist Gustav Landauer, for instance, and the
anthology of mystical texts (1909) published by the Jewish philosopher
Martin Buber, philosopher or theologian of secularism, were related to
such projects near the circles of early German-speaking expressionism.
Buber presents his edition and translation of Ekstatische Konfessionen
(Ecstatic Confessions), which includes many chapters on woman mystics
from Hildegard of Bingen to Teresa of Avila and Anna Katharina
Emmerich, as bringing together “entirely forgotten documents” and the
Middle Ages are well represented by the mostly first-person texts of the
German, Italian, English, Swedish, Dutch and Spanish mystics. These
writers, says Buber, undertake “a work on the impossible, a creation in
the dark.” 23 Buber’s interest stemmed from Jewish mystical literature
(Hassidism) as well as contemporary Austrian-German Sprachkritik (as
exemplified in the work of Fritz Mauthner and Buber’s good friend Lan-
dauer); in his doctoral dissertation of 1904 Buber had addressed the
problem of individuation in Nikolaus of Cusa and Jakob Böhme, late
medieval and early modern thinkers and mystics who had, according to
Buber, founded the new metaphysics of the individual.
The anti-realist and anti-narrative ethos emerging from this
background and pre-Freudian empiricist psychology at the turn of the
century kindled an interest in Europe in old narrative forms of
presenting the “I.”24 The vast literature of medieval and early modern
inner visions represented a combination of inwardness and the
supernatural (or hypernatural), without the burden of coherent plots or
23 “eine Arbeit am Unmöglichen, eine Schöpfung im Dunkel” (Buber, Ekstatische

Konfessionen, 21).
24 Judith Ryan has explored the influence of empiricist psychology and captures well
its literary consequences (with reference to later writers such as Franz Kafka,
Gertrude Stein and Robert Musil): “In response to the empiricists’ dissolution of
familiar categories of thought, they invent new linguistic techniques and experi-
ment with new literary structures. If there is no subject in the conventional [i.e.
post-Cartesian] sense, there can be no conventional language; similarly, if there is
no self, there can be no traditional plot, no familiar character development” (The
Vanishing Subject: Early Psychology and Literary Modernism [Chicago: The Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1991], 3).
detailed description of events and places. For instance, in the introduc-

tion to the Ekstatische Konfessionen, Buber claims that the mystic’s “crea-
tion in the dark” is not a divinely ordered act of unity but consists of
something more immanent and valuable: the utterances of a singular
human being transmitted in language to another human being. No trans-
human unity legitimates these speeches; they are unique and unified in
themselves. In the text of a mystic we simply receive “the word of the
I.” 25 Conscious that the mystical texts were seldom actually written by
the speaking “I,” the early Buber—anticipating his later dialogic philo-
sophy—emphasizes the linguistic and intersubjective nature of this
transmission.
This early twentieth-century reception of medieval and modern
mysticism and appreciation of the ways it cherishes the unrepresentable
(or its “attempt to say the unsayable”26) influenced European linguistic
literature in the decades to come; apart from German literature, the
works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett are eminent examples. 27 The
late medieval and early modern mystical discourses provided Beckett,
especially, with models of autocommunication for further stylization. To
the forms of the “framed I,” presented in the first part of this essay, must
be added influential examples of an “unframed I” where the uncertainty
and obscurity of the first-person speaker becomes the dominant mode.
Unspeakers
“I am straining every nerve, sisters, to explain to you this operation of

love, yet I do not know any way of doing so.” 28 Resembling a Beckettian
25 “das Wort des Ich” (Buber, Ekstatische Konfessionen, 6).

26 “Versuch, das Unsagbare zu sagen” (Buber, Ekstatische Konfessionen, 18).
27 For “godless mysticism” in German literature (Robert Musil, Heinrich Mann, Ger-
hart Hauptmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, etc.), see Uwe Spörl, Gottlose Mystik in
der deutschen Literatur um die Jahrhundertwende (Paderborn: Ferdinand
Schöningh, 1997). On the direct connections of Sprachkritik, Joyce and Beckett,
see, for example, Linda Ben-Zvi, “Biographical, Textual, and Historical Origins,” in
Samuel Beckett Studies, ed. Lois Oppenheim (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2004), 137. The attraction especially of the young Beckett to medieval writers
was obvious: his early prose and poetry were inspired by the complex forms of
the mystics, troubadour poetry, Dante, and Chaucer.
28 “Deshaciéndome estoy, herrnanas, por daros a entender esta operación de amor,
y no se como” (Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle 6.2, 135; Santa Teresa, Las moradas
6.2, 96).
sentence in its bareness and negation, this sentence could have been
spoken by Molloy, in the first part of the Beckett trilogy (1951–1953),
whose language gradually becomes a peculiar autocommunicative exer-
cise while the reader follows his monologue; it could also have been spo-
ken by the even more fragmented narrator of the third part of the trilogy,
The Unnamable (1953), who is constantly bothered by the bodily pain of
speaking and understanding: “I don’t know. I could know. But I shall not
know. Not this time. It is I who write, who cannot rise my hand from my
knee.” 29
However, the author of the above-cited sentence is a woman and a
mystic, Saint Teresa of Avila, who presents herself struggling with narra-
tion in her well-known spiritual works Interior Castle (Moradas, 1577)
and Life (Vida, 1562–1566), where the spiritual quest is presented by a
first-person autobiographer who frequently describes herself in states of
anamnesis and epistemological doubt. Although the comparison of
Teresa and Beckett may at first seem mutually unfruitful, neither of them
here represents just herself or himself; they stand rather for two distinct
yet interrelated traditions of pseudo-autocommunication: the critique of
conventional language in mysticism and in avant-garde literature.30
The stylization of the “I–I” discourse is evident in the ways in which
communication itself is thematized, beginning with doubting the reasons
for speaking and the existence of an external audience. Thus Teresa ori-
ents herself towards her community as an audience: “I do not know why
I have said this, sisters, nor to what purpose, for I have not understood it
29 Samuel Beckett, “The Unnamable,” in S. Beckett, The Beckett Trilogy. Molloy,

Malone Dies, The Unnamable (Picador: Pan Books, 1979), 276.
30 The vast Beckett scholarship somewhat surprisingly links his writing specifically
to Pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine, Meister Eckart, John of the Cross or Angelus Sile-
sius. See for instance the contributions in Harold Coward and Toby Foshay, eds.,
Derrida and Negative Theology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992); Shira Wolosky, Lan-
guage Mysticism: The Negative Way of Language in Eliot, Beckett, and Celan
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 90–134; and John D. Caputo, “Apos-
tles of the Impossible: On God and the Gift in Derrida and Marion,” in God, the Gift,
and Postmodernism, ed. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1999), 196–97. In discussions of negative theology as
well as postmodern philosophy and fiction, the only (cursory) reference to medi-
eval woman mystics known to me is by Joy Morny “Conclusion. Divine Reserva-
tions,” in Coward and Foshay, Derrida and Negative Theology, 255–57. In Beckett
studies St. Teresa’s name is briefly mentioned by Mary Bryden, “Beckett and Reli-
gion,” in Samuel Beckett Studies, 166.
all myself.” 31 Teresa often refers explicitly to things described in mística

teulogia but concedes her inability to use or understand “the proper
terms” therein; instead, she sometimes finds it a help to “utter foolish-
ness.” 32 Beckett’s Molloy likewise feels “like a fool who knows neither
where he is going nor why he is going there” and takes the authorial sus-
picion a step further: “Sometimes you would think I was writing for the
public. [. . .] And I said, with rapture, here is something I can study all my
life, and never understand.” 33 Not only is the existence of a clear message
and audience questioned; at times the speaking I appears radically plu-
ral: Teresa’s speaker suffers from noises in the head whereas in the
Beckett trilogy the speaker conducts internal arguments with himself as
for instance happens at the end of The Unnamable. As Lyons and others
have observed, such a division of voices or a “super-voice” characterises
Beckett’s heroes: one part of the speaking consciousness wants to halt
and “to lose himself in darkness and silence”; the other voice within him
urges him to continue. 34
The doubting, seemingly reluctant and uncannily plural first-person
speakers frequently refer to the indefinite parties commissioning or even
pressing them to move from meditation to text production. “Only those
who have commanded me to write this,” reveals Teresa in her Life about
the reverend spiritual fathers who asked her to write it, “know that I am
doing so, and at the moment they are not here.”35 The motives for and
processes of writing are constantly reflected, and in terms of inspiration
and invention the motives could not be further from the romanticist
inner spark which guides the poet-genius’s hand. Both Teresa’s and
Beckett’s I’s write because they are told to do so. Teresa complains that it
is hard for a woman who is writing simply what she has been
commanded to use spiritual language: “Your Reverence will be amused
31 “No sé a qué propósito he dicho esto, hermanas, ni para qué, que no me he enten-
dido” (Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle 6.6.5, 171; Santa Teresa, Las moradas 6.6,
120).
32 “Con decir disbarates me remedio algunas veces” (Life 18.2, 106; Libro de la Vida
18.2, 247–48).
33 Samuel Beckett, “Molloy,” in The Beckett Trilogy, 156.
34 Charles R. Lyons, Samuel Beckett (London: Macmillan, 1983), 104; Andrew K.
Kennedy, Samuel Beckett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 145.
35 “solos los que me lo mandan escribir saben que lo escribo, y al presente no está
aquí” (Life 10, 67; Libro de la Vida 10.7, 188).
to see how stupid I am.” 36 The demand for “published” reports of inner
visions is expressed with acerbic irony:
I have done what Your Reverence commanded me, and written at length, on
the condition that Your Reverence will do as you promised me and tear up
anything that seems to you wrong. I had not finished reading through what I
had written when Your Reverence sent for it. 37
The commissioner is given permission to erase or add freely 38 and read-
ers are left to wonder what may have been altered or censored and,
ultimately, whose text they are reading. The atmosphere of the beginning
of Beckett’s Molloy is similar, albeit slightly more depressing. The pro-
tagonist is in a room where somebody comes to take away the pages
written by the first-person speaker. 39 The writer’s anxieties with respect
to his autocommunication―he does not know whether he is writing for
the public or not―resemble those of the mystic.
Modern language theory and linguistics associate certain stylistic
characteristics―repetition, obscurity, ungrammaticality and so forth―
with autocommunication and inner speech, which raises the question of
whether or not these characteristics also exist in the self-consciously
stylized autocommunication of Teresa and Beckett. In comparing the
tasks of translating the complete works Saint John of the Cross and his
teacher Teresa, E. Allison Peers noted John’s “crystal-clear expression”
and his “logical and orderly mind,” as well as “great objectivity.” What-
ever the last qualification may mean in the realm of mysticism, John’s
prose nevertheless has little in common with Teresa’s Spanish prose,
which, according to Peers, consists of inflammatory phrases; “outbursts
of sanctified commonsense, humour and irony”; disjointed, elliptical,
parenthetical and “gaily ungrammatical” sentences; repetition; semipho-
netic transliterations of Latin texts; breathless sentences; disconnected
observations, transpositions, ellipses as well as sudden suspension of
36 “servirá de dar recreación a vuesa merced de ver tanta torpeza” (Life 11, 64; cf.
65, 204; Libro de la Vida 11, 193).
37 Life, Letter, 299. This letter is not printed in the Spanish edition of Vida used here.
38 Life 7, 47; 17, 100; Libro de la Vida 7.22, 168.
39 The figure of “they” featured already in Beckett’s early prose such as The Expelled
and Mercier and Camier. On philosophical and existentialist interpretations of this
figure as Heideggerian “lostness in the ‘they’” (Verlorenheit in das Man), see Raili
Elovaara, The Problem of Identity in Samuel Beckett’s Prose: An Approach from
Philosophies of Existence (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae,
1976), 79, 126–34, 199; also Anthony Uhlmann, Beckett and Poststructuralism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 162–65.
thought.40
Similar stylistic and compositional devices are at work in Beckett’s
prose, including the “grimly weighted precision” of its language, a reli-
ance on the rhetorical figure of aposiopesis (an unexplained break into
silence41), as well as the narrator’s “difficulty organising his documenta-
tion.”42 These features of mystical and literary first-person prose not only
hyperbolize some features of autocommunication; they also continue
traditional rhetorical strategies of imbecillitas loquentis such as pleading
one’s incapacity to handle the matter in order to capture the good will of
the audience. In De inventione, moreover, Cicero recommended two op-
tions for beginning the speech if the speaker anticipates an obscure case:
either particularly clearly―perspicue―by elucidating matters down to the
last detail, or by employing the tactics of insinuation rather than a
straightforward opening, thus winning the audience and the judge over
not perspicue but obscure, by way of obfuscation and digression. In
literature, such license to downright obscurity (or statements of ob-
scurity) was not left unused. Both Teresa and Beckett combine stylistic
obscurity and perspicuity in a masterful way; Stanley Cavell, for instance,
has observed Beckett’s hidden literality:
The words strew obscurities across our path and seem willfully to thwart
comprehension; and then time after time we discover that their meaning has
been missed only because it was so utterly bare―totally, therefore unnoticea-
bly, in view. 43
What emerges is first-person prose that is both meditative and ironic in
some way. Under the watchful control of some absent and non-visible
“they,” the first-person speakers in both Teresa and Beckett exaggerate
their humility and ignorance in a way that contradicts their skill and
egoism so blatantly that the result is irony and laughter: “I confess that
others have written about it much better elsewhere, and I have felt great
confusion and shame in writing of it, though less than I should.”44 A simi-
lar effect is produced by a narration of inner experience that is (alleged-
40 Preface, in Teresa, Life, xiv, xviii, xxxvii–xxxviii.

41 See H. Porter Abbott, “Narrative,” in Samuel Beckett Studies, 8, 15.
42 Susan Brienza, Samuel Beckett’s New Worlds: Style in Metafiction (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press 1987), 50, on Murphy.
43 Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), 119.
44 “y habránlos escrito en otras parte muy mijor, yo lo confieso, y que con harta
confusión y vergüenza lo he escrito, aunque no tanta como había de tener” (Life
12, 73; Libro de la Vida 12.7, 204–05).
ly) interrupted by lapses of poor memory and inoperative mnemo-

technique.45 This representation and fictionalizing of obscurity and the
primal difficulty of speaking is so frequent in Teresa’s work that it
becomes both a theme and a technique. In terms of poetics, it resembles
the “figure of evasion” Wolosky has found in Beckett’s figure of the self as
a challenge of representation. What emerges is not unitary essence but “a
scene of intrarelation between the self and its images of itself.” 46
Conclusion
The foregrounding of language in the representations of writing and

speaking discussed here produces a relative ineffability and obscurity in
certain modes of expression. Although it is possible to define obscuritas
as a stylistic device, 47 it also appears as a vaguer effect of themes and
forms such as pseudo-autocommunication. Further exploration of more
material might reveal interplay between cases where the result actually
is gibberish or “an unknown language” to the reader (for instance, Hilde-
gard of Bingen’s lingua ignota) and those where the speaker merely
claims to be uttering nonsense, as in the cases discussed here.
Each new era up-dates its obscurity canons, and the avant-garde pe-
riod of the early 1900s was no exception. Martin Buber, the admirer of
world mysticisms in Ekstatische Konfessionen, was praised by a contem-
porary critic and fellow expressionist, Hermann Bahr, for his obscure
language, his dunkle Rede, and the way he expresses the non-conceptual
and silence in language―something that nineteenth-century positivist
science and realistic literature had completely neglected and lost sight
of. 48 Bahr wonders: why does a writer who has so much to say to his con-
temporaries say it in such a way that the reader must first translate the
45 E.g., Life 11, 64–65; Libro de la Vida 11.6, 192–93. See also books 10 and 34 of the
Life/Libro de la Vida.
46 Wolosky, Language Mysticism, 71, 74, 81.
47 See Jan Ziolkowski, “Theories of Obscurity in the Latin Tradition,” Mediaevalia 19
(1996): 101–70; John T. Hamilton, Soliciting Darkness: Pindar, Obscurity, and the
Classical Tradition, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 47 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); and Mehtonen, Obscure Language.
48 The titles of the works of Buber’s fellow expressionists included “The last I,” “The
self cannot be saved” (Bahr), and so forth. See Andreas Berlage, Empfindung, Ich
und Sprache um 1900. Ernst Mach, Hermann Bahr und Fritz Mauthner im Zusam-
menhang (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1994).
words into other words in order to understand them? In reading Buber,

even a native speaker of German must translate Buber’s German prose
before he or she can understand it.49 Why bother? This question was
tackled in medieval texts: why in the first place should one believe that
obscure visions or incomprehensible texts are worth reporting and the
effort of reading? The pleasure, excitement and humor involved in
pseudo-autocommunication lead to an aesthetics of obscurity that
deserves an independent exploration.
49 Hermann Bahr, Expressionismus (1916; München: Delphin-Verlag, 1920), 40–43.

Contributors
Florin George Călian (b. 1978) received an MA in Greek-Roman His-
tory and Archeology at the University of Bucharest in 2007, and an MA in
Medieval Studies at the Central European University in Budapest in
2009. He has published articles on ancient psychology of action and his-
toriography of science. He is also one of the editors of the journal Scholé
– Independent Review of Philosophy. He has been a PhD Candidate of the
Department of Philosophy at the Central European University, Budapest,
since 2009. His current research is focused on the philosophy of mathe-
matics in Plato’s late dialogues.
Greti Dinkova-Bruun (b. 1963) is a Fellow and Librarian of the Pon-

tifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS), Toronto. In 1999, she
obtained her PhD at the Centre for Medieval Studies in Toronto and in
2001 received her L.M.S (Licence in Mediaeval Studies) at PIMS. In addi-
tion to articles published in Mediaeval Studies, Viator, Sacris Erudiri, Mit-
tellateinisches Jahrbuch, and Archives d’Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du
Moyen Age she is responsible for a number of critical editions and trans-
lations of medieval texts including Alexandri Essebiensis Opera Poetica,
CCCM 188A (Turnhout, 2004) and The Ancestry of Jesus. Excerpts from
“Liber Generationis Iesu Christi Filii Dauid Filii Abraham” (Matthew 1:1–
17), TMLT 28 (Toronto, 2005). Her field of study is Latin biblical versifi-
cation, mnemonic poetry, and medieval Latin.
Lucie Doležalová (b. 1977) received her PhD in Medieval Studies at

the Central European University in Budapest in 2005 and her habilita-
tion in 2012 at the Charles University in Prague where she works as
Associate Professor of Medieval Latin. She has authored monographs on
the medieval reception of the Cena Cypriani (Trier, 2007), and on a bibli-
cal mnemonic aid Summarium biblie (Krems, 2012), and edited several
collective volumes (e.g., The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages, Lei-
den, 2010, and Retelling the Bible: Historical, Literary, and Social Contexts,
Frankfurt am Main, 2011). Her current research concentrates on the art
of memory in late medieval Central Europe, mnemonics, and manuscript
miscellanies.
CONTRIBUTORS 191
Réka Forrai received her PhD in Medieval Studies at the Central Euro-
pean University in Budapest in 2008 and is currently a Postdoctoral
Fellow at the Centre for Medieval Literature at the University of South-
ern Denmark, Odense (2012–2015). She has published extensively on
questions related to medieval Greek-Latin translation theory and prac-
tice. Her current research focuses on papal involvement in the spreading
of Greek culture in the West during the Middle Ages.
Hiram Kümper (b. 1981) received his doctorate in Medieval and Mod-
ern History at Mannheim University in 2007, and has been an assistant
professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Bielefeld University
since 2009. His research has focused on legal history but he is also con-
tinuously engaged in the history of historiography and in “public history”
in its widest sense. His current research concentrates on the conceptu-
alization of rape in pre-modern Europe.
Päivi M. Mehtonen is Academy Research Fellow (Academy of Fin-

land) and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature at the universities
of Helsinki and Tampere. Among her recent publications are the vol-
ume Gothic Topographies: Language, Nation and “Race” (Ashgate, 2013,
co-edited with Matti Savolainen) and the articles “Encyclopaedic Nichts:
Mauthner, Mysticism and the Avant-Garde?” (Angelaki, 2012), and “The
Apophatic First-Person Speaker in Eckhart’s Sermons” (in Modes of
Authorship in the Middle Ages, ed. Slavica Ranković et al., Toronto, 2012).
She is the author of Obscure Language, Unclear Literature: Theory and
Practice from Quintilian to the Enlightenment (2003) and the editor of
Illuminating Darkness: Approaches to Obscurity and Nothingness in
Literature (2007).
Carla Piccone (b. 1977) received her MA in Classics at the University

of Siena (2003) and her PhD in Medieval Latin Philology in Zurich
(2011). She has worked as a post-doc at the Zentrum für Mittelalter- und
Frühneuzeitforschung of the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen since
2009. Her research focuses on grammatical didactic poetry from the
High Middle Ages, epic and panegyric during humanism, and the theory
of literature. Her monograph Dalla prosa ai versi. Forme, usi, contesti
della versificazione nella poesia didascalica del XIII sec. is forthcoming
from Peter Lang.
192 CONTRIBUTORS
Noel Putnik (b. 1974) holds a BA in Classical Philology from the Fac-
ulty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia, and an MA in Medieval
Studies from the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. In his
MA thesis (2007) he dealt with the work of the German humanist Hein-
rich Cornelius Agrippa and his attempt to synthesize various spiritual
and Hermetic doctrines. He has published a book titled The Pious Impiety
of Agrippa's Magic: Two Conflicting Notions of Ascension in the Works of
Cornelius Agrippa (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag, 2010). The subject of his
ongoing PhD research at the Central European University is the hetero-
dox Christian anthropology of the Renaissance Neoplatonists and, within
this context, the intellectual position of Cornelius Agrippa.
Jeff Rider received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Uni-
versity of Chicago and is a professor of French and Medieval Studies at
Wesleyan University. His work focuses on the history and literature of
northern Europe from the 11th through the 13th centuries. His recent
publications include editions of Walter of Thérouanne’s “Vita Karoli
comitis Flandrię” et “Vita domni Ioannis Morinensis episcopi,” (2006), and
Le Lai du conseil (co-edited with Brinduşa Elena Grigoriu and Catharina
Peersman, 2013), and a translation of Galbert of Bruges’s Murder,
Betrayal, and Slaughter of the Glorious Count Charles of Flanders
(forthcoming 2013). He has recently co-edited volumes of essays on
Galbert of Bruges and the Historiography of Medieval Flanders (with Alan
V. Murray, 2009), Le Diocèse de Thérouanne au Moyen Age (with Benoît-
Michel Tock, 2010), and The Inner Life of Women in Medieval Romance
Literature: Grief, Guilt and Hypocrisy (with Jamie Friedman, 2011). He is
currently at work on an English translation of Walter of Thérouanne’s
Vita Karoli comitis Flandrie, and an edition of the Flandria Generosa. He
has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the Fulbright Commission, the American Philosophical Society, the
Rotary Foundation, and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for
Science and the Arts.
Susan Small (b. 1952) is an Associate Professor of French at King’s

University College at Western University, in London, Ontario, Canada,
where she received her Ph.D. and the Governor General’s Gold Medal for
Academic Excellence in 2004. Her publications include “Quelques impli-
cations sémiotiques de l’homonymie cygne / signe telle qu’elle s’applique
à Milun” (Mediaevalia, 2006); “The Language of Philomena’s Lament” (in
Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature, 2010); “Cligés Uncut: Some
CONTRIBUTORS 193
Notes Towards a Redescription of the Battle Scenes in Chrétien de

Troyes’ Cligés” (in War and Peace: New Perspectives in European History
and Literature, 700–1800, 2011); “Fairy Tale Fashionista” (in Postmodern
Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales: How Applying New Methods Generates
New Meanings, 2011); “Frontier Girl Goes Feral in Eighteenth-Century
France: The Amazing True Story of Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc”
(in Making Monstrosity. Exploring the Cultural History of Continental
European Freak Shows and “Freakery,” 2012); and “The Medieval
Werewolf Model of Reading Skin” (in Reading Skin in Medieval Literature
and Culture, forthcoming 2013). She is currently working on the themes
of flaying and disgust in medieval French literature.
Christiane Veyrard Cosme (b. 1963), was a student at the Ecole

Normale Supérieure de Fontenay, and received an aggregation in Lettres
Classiques (1985), a doctorate (1992), and a habilitation in Latin Lan-
guage and Literature (2008) from the University of Paris 3–Sorbonne
nouvelle, where she is currently a Professor of Latin. Her research con-
centrates on high medieval Latin literature, especially epistolography
and hagiography. After having proposed a narratological approach to
Alcuin’s prose hagiographic works (L'oeuvre hagiographique en prose
d'Alcuin, Florence, 2003), she is currently preparing the publication of
her habilitation (an edition, translation and commentary on Alcuin’s
letters). She recently co-edited volumes on La grâce de Thalie ou la
beauté du rire (Paris, 2010) and L’Hagiographie mérovingienne à travers
ses réécritures (Stuttgart, 2010).
Alessandro Zironi (b. 1964) received his PhD in Germanic Philology

at the University of Florence, and works as an Associate Professor of
Germanic Philology at the University of Bologna. His research focuses on
Middle High German literature, especially the complex of poetic texts
called Wartburgkrieg and texts connected with Theoderic the Great’s
poetic cycle. His research fields also include the Gothic language and lit-
erature (with particular attention to the codicological approach to texts),
and the literary and intersemiotic reception of the Germanic medieval
past in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His recent publications
include the volume L’eredità dei Goti. Testi barbarici in età carolingia
(Spoleto, 2009) and an article on “Elaborazione del mito nibelungico e
creazione dell’identità tedesca nel cinema di Fritz Lang: Die Nibelungen
(1924),” in Metamorfosi del mito classico nel cinema, ed. G. P. Brunetta
(Bologna, 2011).
Index nominum
Abelard, Peter – 57, 60
Aegidius of Paris – 12, 75-86 passim
Agrippa von Nettesheim, Heinrich Cornelius – 13, 145-156 passim
Aldhelm – 11, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 45-48, 56, 57
Alexander de Villa Dei – 12, 87, 90, 92, 93, 95-98, 103, 105-107
Alexander of Ashby – 12, 75-86 passim
Alonso of Carthagena – 166-169
Alpais of Cudot – 179-181
Aquinas, Thomas – 61, 62,
Aristotle – 17-19, 22, 30, 39, 52, 56, 57, 61, 62, 93, 160, 161, 165, 166, 168, 170
Augustine of Hippo – 6, 26, 28, 30, 54, 55, 57, 60, 75, 77, 79, 173, 184
Bacon, Roger – 164
Bahr, Hermann – 188, 189
Balbi, Giovanni – 97, 98
Beckett, Samuel – 174, 175, 183-188
Beda Venerabilis – 39, 40
Bernard of Clairvaux – 56, 57, 80
Bernardus Silvestris – 57, 88
Boethius – 49, 169
Boniface – 35, 36, 38
Bonitus – 163
Bruni, Leonardo – 165-169 passim
Buber, Martin – 172, 179, 182, 183, 188, 189
Capellanus, Andreas – 68, 69
Chrétien de Troyes – 11, 49-51, 58-61 passim, 89
Chrysostom, John – 165
Cicero – 2, 14, 18, 33, 52, 53, 159-161, 170, 173, 175, 178, 187
Clareno, Angelo – 165, 166
Climacus, John – 164, 165
Conrad of Mure – 12, 87, 91, 93, 96, 99, 103, 109
Conrad of Querfurt – 114-118
Dällenbach, Lucien – 63-66, 73, 74
Derrida, Jacques – 68, 184
Dietrich vom Bocksdorf – 136, 138
Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo – 16, 26, 162
Donatus – 54, 56, 91
Eberhard of Béthune – 12, 87, 90, 91, 94, 96-98, 103, 105, 106
Eckhart, Meister – 175, 181, 182
Egidius of Corbeil – 94, 101
Eike of Repgow – 125, 126, 128, 134, 144
Eliot, Thomas Sterns – 11
Eriugena, John Scotus – 162, 163
Ermenrich of Ellwagen – 113
Euclid – 17, 18
INDEX NOMINUM 195
Eusebius of Caesarea – 111

Ficino, Marsilio – 145-147, 151
Gellius, Aulus – 53, 54
Geoffrey of Monmouth – 175-178, 180
Geoffrey of Vinsauf – 88
Gervase of Melkley – 54
Gervase of Tilbury – 13, 115-118
Gide, André – 63
Grabes, Herbert – 64
Grillius – 173
Grosseteste, Robert – 166
Guarimpotus – 163, 164
Helias, Petrus – 98
Henry of Avranches – 91
Hildegard of Bingen – 182, 188
Hugh of Cluny – 113
Hugh of Saint Victor – 56, 79
Isidore of Seville – 47, 56, 79, 91
Jerome, Saint – 82, 111, 162, 167, 178
Johann von Buch – 134-136
John of Alta Silva – 117
John of Garland – 97, 101, 105, 180
John of Salerno – 112
John of Salisbury – 112, 116
Kling, Melchior – 141-144 passim
Lagus, Konrad – 140, 141
Lombard, Peter – 77
Lotman, Yuri – 172, 174, 175
Lucretius – 111, 158
Macrobius – 88, 114
Marie de France – 11, 49, 50, 58, 60, 61, 63-74 passim, 89
Moerbeke, William of – 166
Origen – 55, 161, 162
Osse, Melchior – 144
Parmenides – 10, 15-31 passim
Paul, Saint – 150-152, 155
Philo of Alexandria – 15, 29
Plato – 10, 15-31 passim, 61, 151, 160, 161
Pliny the Younger – 111
Polybius – 179
Pompeius – 53, 54
Porphyrus – 27, 169
Priscian – 12, 49, 64, 88, 90, 92, 95-98
Proclus – 10, 15-31 passim
Pythodorus – 20, 22
Quintilian – 33, 52-54, 89, 159, 160, 169
196 INDEX NOMINUM
Raoul Glaber – 113

Riga, Peter – 12, 76, 81, 83, 85, 90
Rufinus of Aquileia – 161-163, 168
Simplicius – 17
Socrates – 18, 20, 22, 23
Stelbagius, Sebastian – 138, 140, 141
Symphosius – 37, 39
Tatwine – 36, 37, 46
Teresa of Avila – 180-185
Thierry of Chartres – 173
Traversari, Ambrogio – 164, 165
Trismegistus, Hermes – 147-149
Tyconius – 79
Uguccione da Pisa – 91, 97, 98
Victorinus – 173
Vincent of Beauvais – 113
Virgil – 13, 88, 110-123 passim
Virgilius Maro Grammaticus – 7, 8
William of Conches – 49, 60, 88
William of Saint Thierry – 80
Wolfram von Eschenbach – 111, 112, 117, 118, 122
Zeno – 20, 22, 23
Zobel, Christoph – 135, 137, 138
Index rerum
acrostich – 36, 48
aesthetics – 21, 51, 58, 122, 189
allegory – 8, 10, 11, 15-31 passim, 33, 34, 46, 52-63 passim, 74, 77, 81-89 passim
Antiquity – 7, 13, 30, 33, 42, 46, 105, 157, 158, 163, 165, 180
ars notoria – 13, 110, 114-118, 123
Bible – 6-17 passim, 30, 55, 57, 61, 75, 77-85, 150-152, 178
Prophets – 78, 178
Psalms – 32, 57, 75, 77, 79
Revelation of John – 12, 81, 82, 178
brevitas – 12, 89, 92-94, 100, 108
Carolingian Renaissance – 48
Christianity, Christian doctrine – 10, 13, 16, 30, 75, 79, 145-150, 155
enigma – 3, 4, 9, 10-12, 17, 18, 32-48 passim, 49-62 passim, 82, 88, 89
exegesis – 6, 7, 9, 17, 19, 23, 29, 46, 48, 81, 82, 147, 149, 152, 153, 156, 167
French texts – 5, 10, 11, 49-62 passim, 118
grammar – 4, 8, 12, 34, 35, 37, 48, 49, 52, 54, 56, 171, 175, 186
grammatical poetry – 87-109 passim
homophony – 12
humanism – 164-166
imitatio – 64, 155
law – 13, 77, 97, 124-144 passim, 166, 180
linguistics – 5, 6, 8, 71, 81, 85, 87, 118, 125, 136, 182, 183, 186
literal sense – 81
magic – 13, 15, 31, 68, 110-123 passim, 145-151, 153
memory – 12, 66, 80, 84, 85, 92, 93, 96, 97, 100, 102-108, 116, 151, 173, 188
metaphor – 1-3, 8, 15, 39, 41, 46, 50, 52, 53, 60, 65, 71, 73, 74
Middle High German texts – 13, 110-123 passim
mise en abyme – 11, 37, 63-74 passim
mutatio personarum – 12, 76, 78, 79
neoplatonism – 10, 15, 23, 24, 28, 153
Renaissance neoplatonism – 13, 145
philosophy – 10, 15-31 passim, 37, 39, 42, 49, 56, 57, 82, 88, 114, 145-151 passim,
157-171 passim, 182-184
prophecy – 83, 113, 121, 122, 177
rhetorics – 6, 7, 13-15, 17, 30, 34, 52, 55-58, 60, 74, 145, 150, 151, 158-161, 167-173
passim, 179-181, 187
Sanskrit – 1-3
scholastics – 171
student, study – 7, 12, 17, 22, 24, 30, 53, 75, 79-81, 84-86, 102, 103, 179
style – 11, 33, 39, 40, 49, 53, 58, 61, 62, 160, 169, 176, 177, 181
theology – 12-16, 26-30, 61, 76-81, 85, 145-156 passim, 161-164, 168-171 passim,
181-184 passim
translation – 13, 14, 111, 136, 151, 157-171 passim, 182
versus differentiales – 12, 93, 97-100, 108

Obscurity in Medieval Texts

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Obscurity in Medieval Texts

MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM

GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG

CHARLES UNIVERSITY RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

CZECH SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der mate-

Figure 2: Index for a manuscript of the Richtsteig Landrecht (Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek,

Obscurity has been recognized as a component or aspect, a possibility, of

The English word “obscurity” belongs to an ancient semantic field that is

1 Thomas H. Ogden, “The Dialectically Constituted/Decentered Subject of Psycho-

word klistatva is something that causes pain and torment, an uneasiness

2 Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit – English Dictionary Etymologically and Philo-

word from Gallican―which refers to a gladiator who fights without eye-

5 Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit, 44; Pokorny, Indogermanisches: 41; Walde and Hoff-

den by darkness. Latin obscuritas thus means something which is protec-

The human desire to impose order and system on it results inevitably in

many medieval texts seem to be willfully and frustratingly obscure. Some

message to the imperfection of human intellect. 9 In fact, the source of

traditions, discourse was understood to consist of a play between clarity

The essays collected in this volume present “partial successes:” interpre-

Florin George Călian discusses an example of interpreting obscurity

be included in a philosophical inquiry. In this case, he suggests that they

11 In spite of the obvious similarities, this is a different theoretical model of

for works in French had changed significantly by the mid-thirteenth cen-

cian’s Latin grammar) with which one has to be familiar in order to

plying his exegetical methods to 1 John 3: 9, Agrippa apparently changed

He consistently opposed Christianity and supported the dying old reli-

tonicienne I, 1, 2, 4, ed. and French trans. L. G. Westerink and H. D. Saffrey (Paris:

Opacity and Clarity

A philosophical discourse is not always a model of clear speech, clear ar-

5 Cited in Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, tr. G. R.

8 Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, 10.

frequently than others? These dialogues are full of conflicting remarks

Allegorizing Plato’s Parmenides

10 See Morrow and Dillon, “Introduction” to Book I in Proclus’ Commentary on

The Parmenides11 starts with the arrival at Athens of the narrator of

11 It is surprising to learn that the Neoplatonists thought that Plato’s Parmenides, a

is principally decorative, while others believe that “this complex narra-

14 Allen, Plato’s Parmenides, 69.

In his commentary on the Parmenides, furthermore, Proclus says:

also James A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the

further allegorize the phases of the initial discussion. For example, he

Conditions for Allegory and Likeness

The attempt to explain allegorically philosophical obscurity (Plato’s rea-

number of initiates” (Luc Brisson, How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical

skopos.32 A dialogue thus needs a solution and Proclus’s interpretation

32 The strong unity of each dialogue justifies the commentator’s “meticulous

glance, were an affront to the gods.39 Proclus’s solution to this problem

text.43 The text is a pretext for what seems to be a theological exercise.

43 Proclus’s use of hypothetical formulations―for example, “If we should be

Book of Genesis, or Augustine’s quest for an allegorical reading of biblical

Il dit “feu,” il dit “foudre,” il dit “montagnes,” il dit “cieux”; et la seule

La recherche ne s’intéresse que depuis peu à un champ de la latinité

1 “J’annonce le royaume de lumière en de noires figures,” in Aenigmata Laures-

définition du terme, se fondera spécifiquement sur les énigmes en vers

I. Enigme médiolatine et éléments métapoétiques sur

Les recueils d’aenigmata se présentent comme des collections de

I.1 Six recueils médiévaux pour un genre d’écriture anciennement attesté

Si l’on se fonde sur les données stylistiques et le contenu de chaque

parente Lioba, un corpus de vingt énigmes réunies sous le titre De

10 Aenigmata Bonifacii, 312.

puisque l’édition commence par donner le texte de Tatwine, avant de

12 Il s’agit de deux manuscrits du début du XIe siècle, Cambridge, University Library,