Vita Prima Research Articles

“Nature is All Personal”: St Francis of Assisi in the Ontology of Mikhail Prishvin

This article analyses Franciscan ideas in the work of M. Prishvin from 1908–1953 in the context of European and Russian Francisciana of the Silver Age. The texts reveal direct and hidden references to the image of St Francis of Assisi and Franciscan texts (The Canticle of Brother Sun and Vita Prima by Thomas of Celano, and Little Flowers of St Francis). It is shown that Franciscan texts become a source of direct, ontological, and personalistic experience of the world as a beautiful and miraculous integrity for Prishvin, creating a paradisiacal harmony between man and creation. St Francis’ compassion for nature became one of Prishvin’s creative impulses in Ginseng (1933) and The Golden Horn (1934). The Franciscan experience of nature in its living reality and personalist uniqueness (nature as subject, not object) is one of the main sources of “kindred (merciful) attention”, Prishvin’s main ontological and life-creating principle. Prishvin polemicised against the opposite of Franciscanism, the utilitarian, object-oriented attitude towards nature in Soviet practice, in which the living, ontological, and personal reality of nature was perceived as an object and replaced by a “patriotic” and utilitarian ideology. In the 1940s, Prishvin returned to the cultural myth of St Francis as a renaissance figure, which emerged in the Russian religious and philosophical renaissance at the turn of the twentieth century; in this myth, St Francis, through his acceptance and justification of the world as God’s creation, overcomes medieval ascetic dualism (matter as evil, the gap between flesh and pirit) and expresses humanistic values (personalism and ontologism), thus uniting God and the world, Christianity and nature, Christianity and culture. For Prishvin’s concept of the integrity of being (the unity of the earthly and the heavenly, the flesh and the spirit), St Francis becomes one of the main sources. What also makes Prishvin similar to St Francis is the concept of joy, which the writer experiences ontologically as the essential basis of being. The image of St Francis becomes not only a literary but also an existential, ontological and creative response of the writer to the challenges of his time. Summing up his life, Prishvin defines his life-creative strategy and mission in the tragic twentieth century in the spirit of St Francis (‘life is happiness’).

A Reappraisal of the Vita Secunda of St Fursa: The Connacht Origins of a Continental Saint

The Vita Secunda Fursei collated by Arnulph of Lagny, recounting the seventh-century saint’s Galway origins, is discredited because of its late eleventh century date. Through analysis of 1) placenames, archaeology, genealogies and Connacht history, 2) an early Vita Prima Fursei embedded in Arnulph’s text, and 3) Arnulph’s methods, this paper concludes that the Vita Secunda deserves rehabilitation.

Francis’s animal brotherhood in Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima

Francis of Assisi’s encounters with nonhuman animals in Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima open into ‘contact zones’ between human and nonhuman animals that challenge traditional social hierarchies. Following Mary Louise Pratt’s and Donna Haraway’s foregrounding of these spaces as sites of contention and transformation, we explore the way that Francis’s behaviour with nonhuman animals draws attention to them as victims of economic, social, and moral inequalities. Within the contact zones found in Celano’s hagiography, Francis engages directly with orthodox ontologies articulated by Augustine and Aquinas that separate human and nonhuman. Indeed, Francis’s actions toward animals reimagine horizontal relationships between subjects who span the human-nonhuman animal distinction. Lastly, in exploring Francis’s encounters with nonhuman animals, we draw on Carol J. Adams’s notion of the absent referent to discuss the saint’s efforts to restore subjecthood to nonhuman animals whose subjectivity has been annihilated by medieval culture.

Gendered Womb-Healing: Malevolent Magic and Spiritual Medicine in the Early Medieval Lives of St Brigit

This paper examines what have been termed ‘abortion miracles’ attributed to the hagiographies of St Brigit of Kildare. Of the early vitae of St Brigit, two have survived in their entirety: the seventh-century Life of St Brigit by Cogitosus and the Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae. ‘Abortion miracles’ in hagiographies are largely unique to Ireland and past scholars have theorised their existence and placement as a defiance of early Christian morality, while others have theorised their inclusion to demonstrate the value of chastity in early medieval Irish Christianity. This paper refocuses the argument by separating medieval abortion as an act of maleficium, or ‘malevolent magic’, as described in the Irish penitentials, and argues that the miracles found in Irish hagiography are medicines of penance, called wombhealing.

St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales ed. by Lynette Olson

Reviewed by: St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales ed. by Lynette Olson Stephen Joyce Olson, Lynette, ed., St Samson of Dol and the Earliest History of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales (Studies in Celtic History, 37), Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2017; hardback; pp. vii, 219; 1 b/w map; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781783272181. Editor Lynette Olson has collated eight articles based on a colloquium held in 2013 in Sydney on the potentially earliest surviving insular life, that of the significant British monastic and episcopal figure, St Samson of Dol. The Vita Prima Samsonis, dated variously from c. 600 to c. 850 in a Breton context, narrates the life of Samson (d. c. 565), active in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul in the sixth century. The articles, from a range of impressive contributors, investigate questions of dating, ascetic networks, literary contexts, peregrinatio, and commemoration. In a useful introduction, Olson lays out the issues encountered when approaching the Vita Prima Samsonis (VIS). Setting out its unique geographic and chronological landscapes, and the problems marrying them with a satisfactory date of composition, Olson points to the need for contextualizing the work. She raises important questions that are subsequently dealt with by the other contributors. Richard Sowerby tackles the unusual emphasis on Samson's genealogy in the VIS. In examining the narratives stressing Samson's active involvement in extending family control over monastic houses, Sowerby proposes the VIS as an exemplar for spiritual against covetous family networks. In doing so, he advocates that the VIS is based on an earlier original composed in late sixth- or early seventh-century Cornwall, countering detractors of Samson's aristocratic family as it moved from the secular to the religious life. Joseph-Claude Poulin follows up on Sowerby's use of family networks to attempt a dating of the VIS in its current form. His article, in French with an introduction in English, identifies two distinct perspectives in the text. This, combined with an analysis of formal borrowings, leads Poulin to conclude that the VIS was written toward the end of the eighth century in Brittany, but was based on an older version. The theme of formal borrowing is taken up by Caroline Betts in the next chapter. In it, she examines the notable narrative similarities between the VIS and the Gallican life of Bishop Paternus of Avranches (d. c. 564), a neighbouring contemporary of Samson. The Vita Paterni was written by Venantius Fortunatus(d. c. 600) in the last decades of the sixth century. She concludes that the borrowings from the Vita Paterni are integral to the VIS, and must belong to the older lost version in the context of some form of territorial contestation. Subsequently, Ian Wood examines Samson as representative of a British form of peregrinatio, one that precedes the more well-known Irish model as represented by Columbanus (d. c. 615). He argues that Columbanus followed an established British tradition, but that this was subsequently overshadowed by a reading that privileged the Irish. This notion of privileging the Irish is touched upon by Constant Mews in his chapter comparing the literary and liturgical settings of the VIS with a defence of Gallican and Irish liturgical traditions known as the Ratio de cursus, perhaps [End Page 190] written by a devotee of Columbanus in North Italy. Mews notes that while the VIS records the beginnings of a British mission to Europe without acknowledging the British apostle to Ireland, Patrick, the Ratio celebrates an Irish-inspired monastic network in Europe that includes Patrick, inferring distinct contexts in the seventh and eighth centuries respectively. Jonathan Wooding follows up with an examination of the VIS as witness to monasticism. Noting that the main concerns of the VIS are monastic rather than episcopal, he tracks the narrative that reflects Samson as distant from the monastic communities he lived in and as a reluctant abbot, a narrative that propels Samson into the requisite role of pastoral leadership. Wooding argues that the ascetic progression from monastic communities to the solitary life is integral to becoming both a bishop and a peregrinus in the VIS. Finally, Karen Jankulak examines the lack of a cult dedicated...

Laudatio in Honorem Jacobi Dalaruni

Laudatio in Honorem Jacobi Dalaruni Sean L. Field (bio) Could there be a more auspicious day than 14 July on which to honor a French scholar? Though the idyllic setting of the Saint Bonaventure campus is far from the bustling Place de la Bastille, the date could hardly be more fitting for the recipient of the 2016 Franciscan Institute Medal, given Jacques Dalarun's truly revolutionary contributions to Franciscan scholarship. Born in 1952, on All Saints' Day, Jacques Dalarun worked his way up through the highly competitive French educational hierarchy, reaching the level of professeur certifié by 1974, agrégé d'histoire by 1975, doctor in medieval history by 1984, and habilité à diriger les recherches by 1994. During these years he taught first at the collège level from 1975 to 1984, and then, as his first books began to appear, at the Université de Franche-Comté and the École française de Rome, where he was named Directeur des études médiévales in 1990. He was appointed Directeur de recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in 1997, and served from 1998 to 2004 as Director of the Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes. In 2013 his intellectual achievements were crowned with election to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and thus to the Institut de France. This is the curriculum vitae of a French scholar who has reached the very pinnacle of his profession. All of this success was founded on a string of brilliant studies, beginning in 1985 and 1986 with two ground-breaking volumes on Robert of Arbrissel, the twelfth-century founder of Fontevrault.1 In retrospect, the scholarly approach that has served Jacques so well ever since was already in evidence in these first books: Identify, edit, and translate important new texts; analyze them closely while bringing the reader along at every step; ask new questions, offer new arguments, and push forward the state of historical knowledge. Thus, Jacques was already a rising star in the French scholarly firmament by 1986, but his interest had not yet been caught by specifically [End Page 527] Franciscan topics. His path toward Franciscan subjects was via a road decidedly less traveled. Rather than beginning with Francis or Clare, it was an interest in saints on the margins of society that led Jacques first to figures such as Micheline de Pesaro (d. 1356) and Claire de Rimini (d. 1326), relatively obscure but fascinating Italian holy women, in two studies published in 1992 and 1994.2 These books moved Jacques into Franciscan circles, but they also signaled another enduring element of his career—an attention to medieval women's religious experience, and to the ways in which women as well as men felt and shaped spiritual currents. It seems fair to say, however, that Jacques Dalarun cemented his place as a major scholar of Franciscan history with the trio of studies on Francis of Assisi he published between 1994 and 1999, English versions of which have been published by the Franciscan Institute as Francis of Assisi and the Feminine, The Misadventure of Francis of Assisi, and Francis of Assisi and Power.3 Taken together, these works offered entirely fresh perspectives on Francis by way of modern scholarly approaches to gender and power. They also signaled Jacques's bold intervention in the contentious "Franciscan question"; that is, the long-running debate over how best to use the difficult and contradictory sources in assessing who Francis "really" was. A profound step forward in this debate was Jacques's brilliant 2007 volume Vers une resolution de la question franciscaine. La Légende ombrienne de Thomas de Celano, which pieced together fragmentary textual clues to argue that Thomas must have written a previously unknown life of Francis in the 1230s, between his Vita prima of 1229 and Vita secunda of c. 1247.4 This argument was well received, but for the moment remained a hypothesis awaiting definitive proof. It was also at that point, by 2008, that Jacques took on his extraordinarily productive and important role as director of the collection "Sources franciscaines" for Éditions du Cerf and Éditions franciscaines (continuing now under the auspices of the...

Brigit and Patrick in Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae: Veneration and Jurisdiction

The early medieval cults of the saints Patrick and Brigit are most often associated with their churches at Armagh and Kildare, and the rivalry for preeminence that existed between the two federations. This paper considers the depiction of the saints in the Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae and explores how these portrayals represent the wider cults of both.

Thome Celanensis Vita beati patris nostri Francisci (Vita brevior). Présentation et édition critique

The National Library of France has just acquired a manuscript which has been registered as NAL 3245. Copied in the 1230’s, probably in a friary of the OFM near Assisi for one of the brothers, this very small volume is one of the earliest manuscripts of Franciscan origin. Together with many other texts it contains a Vita beati patris nostri Francisci compiled by Thomas of Celano on the instructions of the Minister General Brother Elias (1232-1239). It is an abridged and updated version of the Vita prima by the same author and this Vita brevior must be the second Vita ever written about il Poverello. Until now only some excerpts edited in 2007 under the title Legende ombrienne were known. This is the first critical edition of the Vita brevior. It has been almost a century since such a discovery in the field of Franciscan studies has been made.

Osoba i przesłanie św. Franciszka

St. Francis is undoubtedly one of the most popular Christian saints. There are two different biographies of St. Francis. The biography by Thomas da Celano is a historical description of St. Francis` life although written according to the medieval hagiographical canons. St. Bonaventure was a theologian and philosopher first of all. He shows us St. Francis as a perfect follower of Jesus. The other biographies relied heavily on Vita prima, Vita secunda or Legenda maior. Notwithstanding the first biographies based on the very first documents and contemporary relations, some questions still linger. Nevertheless, St. Francis message is clear: equality of all before God, everyone is called for the evangelical life, evangelism through good example rather than through words alone. Important is an emulation the radical poverty of Jesus, fidelity and obedience to the Church, which is represented and guided by pope.

The Sexual Shame of the Chaste: ‘Abortion Miracles’ in Early Medieval Saints’ Lives

The Sexual Shame of the Chaste: ‘Abortion Miracles’ in Early Medieval Saints’ Lives

St Winifred, Bishop Fleetwood and Jacobitism

During the Middle Ages, the cult of St Winifred was the most important of the many Welsh cults centred on wells. Winifred’s story was recounted in two medieval Lives: the Vita prima by Pseudo-Elerius (c. 1100), written from a Welsh perspective, and the Vita secunda by Robert, prior of Shrewsbury, written after the translation of the saint’s supposed relics to his abbey in 1138. According to these, Winifred (fl. c. 650) was educated by St Beuno in North Wales; and, although she had vowed herself to virginity, she inspired the lust of a local prince, Caradog, who, when repulsed, decapitated her. Where her head fell, a spring erupted; and Beuno restored Winifred to life and killed Caradog with a curse. Winifred subsequently became abbess at Gwytherin and, after her death, the spring’s waters were held to cure the sick miraculously. The spring, at Holywell in Flintshire, attracted countless pilgrims in the later Middle Ages, and Henry VII’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, encased it in a fine building. At the Reformation, however, the cult of saints was abolished, the Twenty-Second of the Thirty-Nine Articles specifically denouncing their invocation.

Recherches autour du dossier hagiographique de saint Arnoux, évêque de Gap († avant 1079): BHL 712 et édition de la Vie latine BHL 712b

The hitherto unpublished Vita BHL 712b found in codex Bibl. Angelica 1269 is the key document in the hagiographic file relating to St Arnold, monk of Vendôme and bishop of Gap († before 1079). This Vita prima Arnulphi, written in the 12th century in cathedral circles at Gap, is the source of the lessons in the office of the saint at the beginning of the 13th century. However, in order to meet the expectations of monastic circles in the Vendôme a Vita secunda (BHL 712) was compiled at the end of the 13th century. Its edition in the 18th century for a long time overshadowed the original Vita and it has become necessary to present a critical edition.

Body of a saint, story of a goddess: Origins of the Brigidine tradition

In the eighth century, St. Brigit of Kildare acquired a reputation for divinity that would haunt her literature to the present day. Brigit's earliest hagiographers - Cogitosus and the authors of Vita Prima and Bethu Brigte - sought different ways to claim authority, power and territory for the saint of Kildare, her churches and her clerical successors. Cogitosus, writing ca. 650, had lacked models for Ireland's first female saint, for hagiography was new to Ireland; Christian women still did not have many ways to become saints in the patriarchal societies of early medieval Europe. He emphasized the physical relics of the saint and the importance of her main shrine at Kildare, with its Roman-style church, to authenticate Brigit's dossier. He established her as a saint despite her gender, who traveled, interpreted Christianity for converts and provided churches for her followers. However, the writers of the slightly later Vita Prima and Bethu Brigte had no body on which to base their claims for the saint. Hence, her hagiographers drew on witnesses' stories of Brigit, Cogitosus' vita, the Bible and continental models to establish the saint's reputation and her church's control of territory.They also looked nearer to home in local literary traditions and heroic history in order to cast Brigit as a mistress of the animals, territory and landscape, and the elements, creating Ireland's first female-gendered saint and also a mold for Celtic sanctity that would last for centuries.

Talking about Ourselves: The Shift in Franciscan Writing from Hagiography to History (1235-1247)

TALKING ABOUT OURSELVES: THE SHIFT IN FRANCISCAN WRITING FROM HAGIOGRAPHY TO HISTORY (1235-1247) INTRODUCTION On 16 July 1228, the town of Assisi was delirious with joy as one of the their native sons, Francesco di Bernardone, was enrolled in the catalogue of saints of the Roman Church by Pope Gregory IX, surrounded by his cardinals, friars from across Europe and countless others from the Umbrian countryside. The account of these joyous events at the church of San Giorgio comes to us from the pen of Thomas of Celano.1 Thomas was an eyewitness to these events, having arrived only recently on the scene to begin his work as official hagiographer of the Poor Man of Assisi. Under normal circumstances, the vita of a commissioned hagiographer would have constituted one of the most important elements of the canonization dossier, supportive of the cause under consideration. In this instance, however, the process of canonization had not only been initiated but actually accelerated by Gregory IX, intent upon the spiritual renewal and political allegiance of the Church in the Spoleto Valley.2 As a result, Celano's report of these heady events, 1ICeI 123-126. The process of canonization had only recently been formalized by the Holy See during die pontificate of Innocent III in his bull Licet apostólica Sedes (1201), edited in R. Foreville, Un procès de canonisation à Taube du XIIIe siècle (12011202 ): le Livre de saint Gilbert de Sempringham (Paris: 1943) 27-28. The reason for the formalization of this process, which involved die centralization of the proceedings in die hands of die Curia, was primarily to ensure a more reliable verification of the miracles attributed to die candidate for canonization. The process will evolve somewhat over the next two decades whereby the following items became part of the established proceedings: (1) a request for a formal process initiated from die local level (e.g., bishop, civil leaders); (2) the appointment of three " commissioners" (one of whom would typically be the local bishop) to oversee the process of inquiry on the fama et miracula of the candidate; (3) an inquiry normally conducted at or near the tomb of the candidate; (4) die commissioning of a vita of the candidate which would be used to support the cause for sanctity; and (5) the redaction of die testimonies gathered by notaries which would be sealed and sent to die Curia. Given these specifications, it is rather clear that die process initiated by Gregory IX had circumvented a number of die recently established procedures. On 37 Franciscan Studies 58 (2000) 38Michael F. CusATO, O.F.M. though placed at the conclusion of his work, actually represents the very first pages drafted by the hagiographer in fulfillment of his commission. The work, therefore, would be completed only in February of the following year,3 giving us what has come to be called the Vita prima: the first major hagiographical statement on the life and meaning of Francis of Assisi. The Order had begun talking about its founder, the saint. In the decades that followed, however, the friars, while ostensibly still concerned with telling the Francis story in their texts, actually began a process of talking about themselves—of telling the story of their Order within the narrative of the story of their founder. This shift in emphasis—from Francis to the fraternity—can be traced to three particular events, each of which triggered the redaction of new texts specifically about the Order itself. The following study is an attempt to chart this critical shift in Franciscan writing EVENT I: THE PUBLICATION OF THE BULL QfJO ELONGATI Within two years of the canonization, the joy of those July days had turned sour. First came the fiasco of the translation of the remains of Francis from their repository at San Giorgio to the crypt of the new double church of San Francesco, already largely completed under the direction of Elias of Cortona. In an attempt to preserve the integrity of the body of Francis from the hands of pilgrims eager for relics, it seems that Elias had conducted a surreptitious translation of the remains under cover of night a few days before the...

SOME RECENT EDITIONS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES

After a long gestation, the Collaborative Edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was first advertised in a prospectus issued in 1981. Originally no fewer than twenty-three volumes were planned for the series, each by a separate editor, under the joint general editorship of David Dumville and Simon Keynes. Of these, volumes 3-9 were to be straightforward editions of the Old English texts generally known as MSS A-G; volumes 1-2 and 10-14 were to be comparative editions of chronological groups of annals taken from these texts or their supposed precursors; volumes 15-22 were to be editions of various related chronicles and annals in Latin and Anglo-Norman. Finally, volume 23 was planned as a general introduction to the series, with notes and a comprehensive index. One major Latin chronicle, generally known as `John of Worcester', was omitted from the series because a separate edition by Patrick McGurk was already in hand. The first three volumes to be published were volume 4, MS B, ed. Simon Taylor (1983); volume 17, The Annals of St Neots with Vita prima Sancti Neoti, ed. David Dumville and Michael Lapidge (1985); and volume 3, MSA, ed. Janet M. Bately (1986).t Now, after a gap of nearly a decade, volumes 1, 6 and lo have appeared. Meanwhile there have been unannounced revisions of the original plan. Of the recent editions, only volume 6 has been published as described in the prospectus. Originally, volume 1 was to have been entitled The Common Stock (MSS,ABCG, with ref. to DEF), to A.D. 892; in the event this number now appears as a facsimile of MS F, a new departure for the series. Volume lo, originally planned to carry the title Continuations of the Common Stock, A.D. 893-975, is now presented as The Abingdon Chronicle, which was originally to be volume 12. Has the ancient concept of a `Common Stock' been set aside? Only time can tell. Having noted that the general editors of the series are no longer named in the two most recently published volumes, I made some enquiries and discovered that they have in fact withdrawn from the project. At the time of writing, it appears that the future of several of the remaining seventeen volumes of the Collaborative Edition is, to say the least, uncertain. The matter is important, not least because readers of individual volumes which have already appeared will wish to know how they are to be related to others in the series, and who is now responsible for the overall plan. Meanwhile, the time is ripe for an overview of recent work. Let us begin with volume lo of the Collaborative Edition, entitled The Abingdon Chronicle and edited by Patrick Conner. An immediate caveat is necessary. For centuries now, the B and C texts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle have themselves been known, rightly or wrongly, as The Abingdon Chronicles.2 Readers should not be misled by the title of volume io into the natural assumption that it is an edition of one or both of these texts, for such is not the case. In his preface, Conner admits disarmingly: `The Abingdon Chronicle apparently no longer survives ... it is even possible that there was never a manuscript which contained what I represent here as Abingdon's Chronicle, but only a series of texts which drew in different ways upon material produced at Abingdon at different times'. Quite so. Why, then, the title chosen for his book? To avoid all confusion, it will be referred to here as `Conner's Abingdon Chronicle'. This volume, then, is a reconstruction and edition of a hypothetical text or texts, thought to be precursors to later manuscripts which have survived, but whose provenance and circumstances of composition have yet to be established. As such it represents a radical departure from traditional chronicle studies and it should be assessed accordingly. Is the edition of a phantom text a valid concept? Readers are invited to ponder on this conundrum. The vernacular annals selected for Conner's edition stretch from 956 to ggo and then (after a gap of a quarter of a century) from 1016 to 1066 For the most part these reconstructed annals depend on MS C of the AngloSaxon Chronicle, supplemented where necessary by MSS B, D and E. …

The Cistercian world: monastic writings of the twelfth century (review)

156 Reviews Matarasso, Pauline, ed. & trans., The Cistercian world: monastic writings of the twelfth century, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1993; paper; pp. xxi, 319; R.R.P. AUS$13.95. This Penguin Classic provides an anthology of writings of various Cistercian authors of the twelfth century. Famous figures, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St Thierry and Aehed of Rievaulx, share space with the less well known Guerric of Igny, Isaac of Stella, Gilbert of Hoyland, John of Ford, and A d a m of Perseigne. It is pleasing to see in translation such historically valuable texts as the Admonition of Stephen Harding and the Exordium Parvum, describing the early history of the Order. Unfortunately, not all the texts are translated in their entirety. Only individual chapters are translated of such important hagiographical writing as the Vita prima of Bernard of Clairvaux. The passages chosen single out 'attractive virtues' of the abbot of Clairvaux rather than the full picture of Bernard's political allegiances or strict asceticism. Fascinating episodes in the Vita prima about the influence of his mother and his rejection of feminine temptation are not translated. Although Bernard's life and writings perhaps deserve a whole volume, the anthology still serves to introduce something of his intensely personal reflections on love and the experience of spiritual enlightenment. William of St Thierry is another author who warrants rather fuller presentation than the three meditations presented here. The best of these writings focus with great intensity on the emotions and personal experience. Perhaps the most appealing is Aehed of Rievaulx, the great theorist of friendship. The passages chosen from Walter Daniel's Life of Aelred, as weU as Aehed's On spiritual friendship and The mirror of charity may provoke readers to seek out fuller translations of these twelfthcentury classics. Musicologists m a y not know of the biting commentary on contemporary musical practice in The mirror of charity. The Cistercian writings should not be dismissed simply as manifestations of an otherworldly piety. Not alltextsare equally interesting. John of Ford's Life of Wulfric of Haselbury introduces a figure probably known only to a handful of specialists. It seems a shame that the life of a relatively minor anchorite should be given twice the amount of space as the Vita prima, a collection of lives of a personality of much greater importance to the period. Any anthology such as this is bound to attract complaints from specialists that i t does not contain all their favourite texts. Nonetheless, this volume's Reviews 157 achievement is to bring these writings to the attention of a wider audience that would not automatically have access to volumes in the Cistercian Fathers series. Something is better than nothing. Matarasso's translation is fresh and idiomatic, avoiding the stodginess that can beset 'pious'texts.Her rendition of the anonymous Description of the abbey of Clairvaux fully recaptures the naturalistic elegance of this masterpiece of twelfth-century prose. The text also happens to teach us a lot about the sophistication of irrigation at the abbey. This inexpensive volume provides a valuable addition to the growing number of Penguin Classics from the medieval period. Constant J. M e w s Department of History Monash University. Mayer, Hans E., Kings and lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Collected studies series, 437), Aldershot, Variorum, 1994; cloth; pp. x, 338; R.R.P. £52.50. This is the third volume of the collected studies of Hans Mayer to appear in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, the two previous ones being: Kreuzztige und lateinischer Orient and Probleme des lateinischen KOnigreichs Jerusalem (both 1983). This latest collection of Mayer's articles comprises eighteen studies in German, English, and French published between 1982 and 1991. Professor Mayer of Kiel University is amongst the most prominent scholars of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the world. His output is prolific and it would be impossible to do more than to list the various studies here if each were to be mentioned. Therefore, comment has been limited to selected articles. Mayer's work is always full of surprises. If it has a particular characteristic, it is that he is a master of ferretting away at primary...

David Dumville and Michael Lapidge (ed), The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti = the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a collaborative edition xvii

"David Dumville and Michael Lapidge (ed), The Annals of St Neots with Vita Prima Sancti Neoti = the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a collaborative edition xvii." Peritia, 8(), pp. 227–228

La Vie ancienne de saint Samson et l’histoire

The First Vita Samsonis and History. The First Life of St. Samson is generally considered as dating back from the early VIIth c., which is rather unprobable. If saint Samson, probably attending the Paris Concile around 561, really died in 565, it is surprising that facts could be altered to such extent within fifty years : Childebert’s wife, for example, is depicted as a particularly hateful queen. One should also take into account that the redactor, himself very old, received his informations from an octogenarian, a nephew of Henoc the deacon, a cousin of saint Samson, who had written a Life and collected informations from the saint’s mother, long after he died. The author finally does not conceal the chronological gap : a span of 150 years, nearly three life-times, would not be exaggerated ; this would place the composition, at the earliest, in the early (or middle) VIIIth c. Such a date would not ruin the historical value of the Life (cf. Celtic customs, and some linguistical celticisms), but it invites us to treat it most cautiously. The Vita prima would then precede by more than one century the Vita secunda.

Bernard of Besse: Praises of Blessed Francis (Liber de laudibus Beati Francisci)

BERNARD OF BESSE: PRAISES OF BLESSED FRANCIS (LIBER DE LAUDIBUS BEATI FRANCISCI) INTRODUCTION I Bernard's Life.1 The Chronica XXIV Generalium Ordinis Minorum (Chronicle of the XXIV Generals) completed in 1378, is the earliest source to mention Bernard, calling him "Bernard of Besse of the Province of Aquitaine."2 In the seventeenth century, Luke Wadding notes that Bernard was a member of the Franciscan Custody of Cahors of the Province of Aquitaine, and also was a travelling companion and secretary to the Minister General, St. Bonaventure (1257-1274).» It is difficult to determine exactly Bernard's place of origin. Sbaralea in his Castigatio lists several places in France as possibili1 This study and translation was made possible by a grant from the Younger Scholars Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The following abbreviations have been employed throughout: AF, Analecta Franciscana; AFH, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum; AP, Anonymous of Perugia, ed. Lorenzo di Fonzo, O.F.M. Conv., L'anonimo perugino tra Ie fonti francescane del sec. XIII (Roma: Ed. Miscellanea Francescana, 1972) 435-65, trans. Anonymous of Perugia by Eric Kahn in Damien Isabell, Workbook for Franciscan Studies (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1979); LM, St. Bonaventure, Legenda maior AF 10: 555-652, trans. Ewert Cousins, Bonaventure (New York: Paulist Press, 1978) 117-327; MF, Miscellanea Francescana; 1 CeI, Thomas of Celano, Vita prima s. Francisci, AF 10: 1-117, trans. Placid Hermann in Marion A. Habig (ed.) St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies: English Omnibus..., 4th rev. ed. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983) 225-356; 2 CeI, Thomas of Celano, Vita secunda s. Francisci, AF 10: 127-160, trans. Hermann in Habig, Omnibus, 357-543; 3 CeI, Thomas of Celano, Tractatus de miraculis beati Francisci, AF 10: 269-331, excerpts trans. Hermann in Omnibus, 545-54. 2 AF 3: 262. The Province of Aquitaine refers to the Franciscan Province. 3 Luke Wadding, Annales Minorum (Ad Claras Aquas [Quaracchi], 1931) 5:55 (references to Wadding indicate marginal numbers). A Franciscan custody is a subdivision of a province. 214DAVID AMICO ties.4 The most likely of these is "a town called Besse in the Province of Aquitaine," that probably corresponds to a present-day town called Besse in the Department of Puy de Dôme, part of the Aquitaine of earlier days. This town is very near Cahors, to which custody Bernard belonged, and it seems logical that he would have entered the Order near his place of origin. We know little of Bernard's early days in the Order. Jacques Cambell in his article on Bernard in the New Catholic Encyclopedia says that he was probably residing in the convent of Limoges in January, 1250, but he does not cite his source for this.8 We do know, however, that Bernard held a significant office in the Order as a secretary to the Minister General, St. Bonaventure, one of the most briUiant theologians of his day. That he had the confidence of St. Bonaventure speaks well both for Bernard's competence and his access to information concerning the history he narrates. Indeed, as SaUmbene remarks in his Chronicle, secretaries to the Minister General were known to be "intelligent, well-read, good speakers, excellent writers, good walkers to accompany the General on his visitations, and men of great authority.6 Bernard, therefore, must have possessed many of these characteristics. As secretary, he probably carried out the normal duties of the office, and in fact he himself says that he "travelled through parts of Germany and Flanders with the distinguished Minister General." Beyond this, though, we are not sure of any specific activities. The early sources do not give a date for Bernard's death, but modern scholars place it sometime between 1300 and 1304.7 II Bernard's Works. The Chronicle of the XXIV Generals lists all but one of the six works ascribed to Bernard of Besse.8 It notes, first of all, that Bernard "wrote a Chronicle"—sometimes called a 4 Joannes H. Sbaralea, Supplementum et castigatio ad scriptores trium Ordinum ed. Attilio Nardecchia (Rome, 1908) 2: 141-42. 8 Jacques Cambell, "Bernard of Besse," New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967). • Salimbene de Adam, Crónica ed. Giuseppe...

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Volume XVII. 'The Annals of St. Neots' with 'Vita Prima Sancti Neoti'

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Volume XVII. 'The Annals of St. Neots' with 'Vita Prima Sancti Neoti'