TWO NEWLY DISCOVERED MANTIC DREAM ALPHABETS IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH

Abstract

Mantic alphabets, bibliomantic devices by means of the alphabet, have survived in large numbers in medieval manuscripts and early printed books. The latest survey reports over eighty text witnesses, in Latin, Greek, and the European vernaculars, and dating from the late twelfth to the late sixteenth century.1 Five of these have been transmitted in French. One text, in Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, MS M. IV. 1 1, fol. ?97? (Namur, s. ??2), was lost in the 1904 fire in the library, and only the final two predictions and the explicit are known from a description of the manuscript.2 Two further texts have been published before: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 405, p. 17 (Waterford (Ireland), s. xiv1),3 and Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, MS fonds etranger 32, fol. 24rb (France, s. xiv).4 The two remaining French mantic alphabets are hitherto unpublished. These newly discovered mantic alphabets are printed here in the light of the other French text witnesses.Mantic alphabets, consisting of an introductory paragraph and an alphabet key, predict the future by the random consultation of books. Through a series of devout actions outlined in the introduction, the user retrieves a letter of the alphabet from a book, which is then looked up in the alphabet key. The key links each letter to a specific prediction. The occasion to use a mantic alphabet is to find out 'de aliqua re', in the words of some Latin specimens, but it is more usual to use the text upon having had a dream, particularly in alphabets copied or printed towards the end of the Middle Ages. In such mantic dream alphabets, the act of dreaming is essential, but the content of the dream is completely irrelevant.5The French texts are mantic dream alphabets, and it stands to reason, therefore, that they are found in the context of other kinds of dream prognostics, such as alphabetical dream books, which interpret the significance of dream images, and dream lunaries, which predict if and when a dream will come true on the basis of the day of the moon on which it took place. This is indeed how the two mantic alphabets presented here were discovered. The first, in London, British Library, MS Additional 15236, fol. 169' (England, s. xiiicx- xiv*), follows an alphabetical dream book and is described in the catalogue as '[rjules for the interpretation of dreams'.6 The second, in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 86, fol. 48 (Worcestershire, s. xiii3/4-xivin), is found in the vicinity of an alphabetical dream book and a collective lunary that also covers dream prediction, and is not identified as a mantic device at all.7 The three other mantic alphabets in French are also encountered near other dream prognostics, indicating that the French texts are exclusively associated with dream divination. Even though descriptive catalogues of manuscripts fail to identify these texts effectively, more mantic dream alphabets are likely to be found upon closer inspection of manuscripts containing other forms of dream divination.The two new mantic alphabets are presented here parallel to the other three. The introductory paragraphs are printed and discussed first, after which the alphabet keys are given:(i) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 405, p. 17: Ky vout saver la syngnifiaunce de sounges, il deit dire ces .iii. salmes al comencement ou bone derocioun: Miserere mei Deus, Deus miseriatur et De profundus; et quant il les avera dit, si prendra un sauter si gardera en le sauter e la prime letre que il trove de la part senestre, taunz purveaunce la sygnifiaunce de son songe trovera. En comensement sy trove A,(2) London, British library, Additional MS 15236, fol. 169': Si vous voyllez sauer q signifie sounge: pnez le sautre entre vos meyns. 7 ditez treis feez vost pat nost. 7 aprez diteez. bene seit le houre ke dieu home fu nee. 7 pus fetez signe de la crois sus le lyuere. …