HENRY OF HUNTINGDON AS POET: THE "DE HERBIS" REDISCOVERED

Abstract

A major poetical work by Henry of Huntingdon, the De herbis, has been identified recently in two manuscripts: British Library, Sloane MS 3468, fols 31^sup r^-105^sup v1^ and Prague, Knihovna metropolitni kapituly M. VI (cat. 1359), fols 1^sup r^-47^sup r^. In an important article, Professor George Rigg establishes that the author, 'Henricus' or 'Henricus poeta', is Henry of Huntingdon, whose De herbis was seen by John Leland at the abbey of St Benet Hulme in Norfolk but has long been regarded as 'lost'. Rigg also analyses the content of the Herbal, giving substantial extracts with translations.2The Herbal consists of six books, giving a total of 3,359 lines. Henry's previously identified poetry, two books of Epigramata seria (amounting to 348 and 281 lines) and the occasional poems interspersed with prose in the Historia Anglorum (totalling 216 lines), contain together only 845 lines. The discovery of the Herbal therefore increases the surviving verse fivefold. Remarkable though this is, two-thirds of Henry's poetical output still remains lost: six books of Epigramata iocunda, eight books De amore, and two books which seem to have been shorn from the Herbal - De aromatibus and De gemmis.3 Nevertheless, the scale of the new discovery reinforces my view that we should look at the author primarily as a poet, rather than as a historian.4The Herbal confirms Henry's stature as a skilful and imaginative poet, confident in the use of unusual metres and subtle wordplay. Although about half the poems are based on Macer, De uiribus herbarum, there is considerable originality in many of Henry's reworkings. In the poems not based on Macer, Henry harmonizes classical mythology and Christian theology in praise of the medicinal properties of herbs.Among several autobiographical references in the Herbal, one is of particular interest as providing new evidence of Henry's education. In his poem on the plant Germander, Henry mentions the time 'when I drank the honeyed rivers flowing from the fountains of Anselm' ('dum mellea flumina poto / Fontibus Anselmi manancia').5 This indicates that he attended the lectures of Anselm of Laon, the most prominent theological teacher of his time, who died in 1117.6 The teaching at Laon was heavily biblical: Anselm's glosses on the Psalms and the Epistle to the Romans were to form the foundation of the Glossa ordinaria. Henry's own use of the Psalms in his Historia probably reflects the liturgy rather than a direct debt to Anselm's lectures, but it is worth noting in this connection that one of Henry's lost prose works is a commentary on Psalm 118 (119), Beati immaculati.7 It is impossible to say whether Henry's period of study at Laon - however long it may have been - took place before or after his succession to the archdeaconry of Huntingdon on the death of his father Nicholas in 1110. Nicholas, whom Henry describes as 'stella cleri', presumably therefore a learned man, gave the Great Bible to Lincoln Cathedral (Lincoln MS 1),8 and it may be that before coming to Lincoln some time before 1092 he too had been a pupil at Laon. However that may be, we can certainly add Henry's name to the list of Anglo-Norman clerics who were educated at Laon in the early years of the twelfth century.Henry's connection with Laon may explain his interest in northern French (and Flemish) affairs. His only direct reference to Laon (Laudunum in Gallia) occurs in a passage in the De contemptn mundi describing the wrongdoing of Thomas of Marie: unfortunately this is mistranslated in my edition as 'Louvain'!9 Henry's experience at Laon doubtless contributed to his easy familiarity with English politics, for Laon had close ties with Henry I's court after the appointment of the former royal chancellor Waldric as bishop in 1106.10 Many of Anselm of Laon's Anglo-Norman pupils were to become bishops and high dignitaries in England and Normandy. William of Corbeil, the later Archbishop of Canterbury (1123-36), was both pupil and master at Laon, where he taught the two sons of Ranulph, the king's chancellor. …