The Book and the City. The Liber Floridus as a Circular Enclosure of Creation, History and Incarnation

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the significance of the idealized city in Lambert of Saint-Omer’s famous Liber floridus (completed c. 1121). To this end, we move from the historical and material reality of Saint-Omer, one of the most dynamic centres of urban development in early twelfth-century Flanders, to the autograph manuscript of the Liber (MS Ghent, University Library, 92). In doing so, we ask to what extent both the city as a general concept, and more specifically the town of Saint-Omer, are present in Lambert’s work of compilation. We argue that the key to answering this question lies in the Liber’s specific structure, more so than in its actual content. This insight requires us to read and approach the codex no longer solely as a linear composition, marked by an associative sequence of topics, chapters and illuminations dealing with salvation history and creation. Lambert’s work emerges as a markedly circular composition, consisting of different concentric layers and constructed around a specific central text, that is an adaptation of Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur Deus homo.