The Glossa Ordinaria Manuscripts of the Biblioteca Capitolare of Monza

Abstract

The Glossa ordinaria is a set of standardized glosses to the Vulgate Bible text. It was developed in the early twelfth century and remained a standard feature of the Latin Bible through the early age of printing. Important scholarly studies of the past few decades have clarified much about the origin and use of the Glossa ordinaria, but there has been less attention given to the way in which Glossed Bibles were collected in medieval libraries. Before the advent of printing, manuscripts of the Glossa ordinaria always circulated in the format of part-Bibles, copies of specific biblical books or collections of similar books; as a result, collections were often spotty and are thought to have been somewhat randomly assembled. This study examines the remarkable set of Glossa ordinaria manuscripts in the Biblioteca Capitolare of Monza, Italy, where an almost complete Glossed Bible (missing only the books of Maccabees and Ruth) were collected in the late twelfth century. Special attention is given to several canons of the Monza Cathedral who donated these books to the library, especially one Guidotto, who left a number of manuscripts signed with his name, some of which say they were copied especially for the cathedral library. This suggests a deliberate medieval attempt to collect a Glossed Bible, and invites further exploration of other canonical libraries to more closely determine the relationship between the Glossa ordinaria and the biblical scholarship and book collecting habits of medieval Augustinian Canons.