Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 32 (1060) Glossae collectae to Priscian and as "Leiden Glossary;' etc.; 'Ars Medicine" ('Articella")

Abstract

126. Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek 32 (1060)

Glossae collectae to Priscian and as "Leiden Glossary;' etc.;

'Ars Medicine" ('Articella")

[Ker App. 9, Gneuss -]

HISTORY: A compilation of two distinct manuscripts, the first being a mid-10c collection of glossaries (pp. 1-222) containing relatively sparse OHG glosses, some OE-derived, written cooperatively quire-by-quire by many scribes; the second part (pp. 223-357) is a standard compendium of Salernitan medical treatises known as the "Ars medicine" or ''Articella;' of which pp. 223-310 is 12c and pp. 311-357 early 13c; the first five items of this part are in a single late 12c hand, and the last item, the "Tegne" of Galen, which was the last component added to the original ''Articella;' consists of three quires written in a slightly later hand. The origin of the two parts is uncertain: the first may be from Reichenau or another A-S foundation in the Alemannic-speaking area; Teitge (2004: 27, 36) posited Freising as the origin of the Priscian gloss (also found in Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 6408 [326], ff. 1r-47v, and Leiden, Bibliothek der Rijksuniversiteit, Cod. Voss. Lat. 8° 37, ff. lr-30r, the "F-group"); the second part may be of Einsiedeln origin. The two parts were probably in the Einsiedeln abbey library by the mid-14c. Both parts show evidence of having been handled by the Einsiedeln librarian in the 1340s, Heinrich von Ligerz. On the back of a mutilated notice of excommunication dated 1319 that the 19c librarian P. Gall Morel found in the library and took as the isolated remains of a pastedown is the inscription "Liber Glosarum ex Prise ... | antiqus et alia mult .. :' in the hand of Ligerz; Meier (1896: 18) surmised that it was lost from the inside front cover of this book, which indeed shows the impressions of a lost pastedown. At the bottom of the first page of the second part (p. 223) is the inscription 'Hie h<abe>t<ur> <conti>n<en>t<ur> q<uin>q<ue> lib<ri> p<ri>[ ncipa]'les' i<n> medicina: in a hand similar to Ligerz's (see Meier 1896: 43); the inscription implies this was the first page of a volume at the time and its darkened condition betokens that the volume had been unbound for a time. The "quinque libri" comprise the first five items of''Artes medicine", pp. 233-310 of this manuscript; the sixth item, "Tegni" of Galen, comprises three early 13c quires, pp. 311-357, which must have been added to complete the basic "Articella" ensemble in Ligerz's time or shortly thereafter. The present medieval binding of leather-covered boards with a lost strap, containing the two parts, therefore dates no earlier than Ligerz's tenure, not to the 12c/13c as is often said. An old shelfmark, 'f' 203: appears on the flyleaf. [Note: Einsiedeln was founded in 861 as a cell of St. Meinrad of Reichenau and continues to this day as a great non-diocesan Benedictine abbey and pilgrimage site. For the medieval history of its library, founded in the mid-lOc, see Bruckner 1943: 5. 15-91. Bruckner mentions the parts of MS 32 as among the "foreign books" perhaps acquired in the 12c, though he concedes that the second part could perhaps have been written at Einsiedeln (47, and note 50). He does not include MS 32 in his catalogue of manuscripts having their origin at Einsiedeln (169-184).)