Back in April 2021, I got interested in the “Life” of the anglosaxon saint, St. Botolph, which is BHL 1428 in the standard list/repertory of Latin hagiographical texts, the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina. I even gathered the materials to translate his “Life” here. But I didn’t do anything more about it, because I learned that someone was preparing a critical edition of the text, and had already made a draft translation.
However this week I got bored, and decided that I don’t feel like waiting. So I have started to prepare a translation of that Life, from the Bollandist text. It’s only 11 chapters, so not very long, and the Latin is fairly simple. I’ll post it here when it’s done.
The Bollandist editor, Daniel Papebroch, adds a few notes, some of which are text critical. He states that his text is that of Mabillon, who published the Acta Sanctorum OSB in 1672,[1] plus two manuscripts. He also refers to a “Codex Uticensis,” whatever that may be – I hardly think Cato of Utica was involved here! So there is room for research.
Something that interests me is the story of the transfer (“translatio”) of Botolph’s remains from his ruined monastery at “Ikanho” – probably Iken in Suffolk – to Burgh (or possibly Grundisburgh) in Suffolk, where they remained for fifty years, until they were transferred to various places, including the great abbey at Bury St Edmunds. I looked at the “Translatio” text (BHL 1431) but it doesn’t include this information. So where does it come from? Another point to research. [Update: Oops – I did that last time.]
Something that is always worthwhile, in these circumstances, is an intensive Google search using the BHL number. This I did yesterday, and it brought up something that I had always wondered about.
For patristics, we have the CPL and CPG volumes, listing authors and works. For hagiography we have the BHL and BHG volumes. But I never knew that a similar set of volumes existed for medieval texts. And it does, in 11 volumes: the Repertorium Fontium Historiae Medii Aevi, published in Italy from 1952 down to our own time. I was able to find online a copy of volume 4, which covers Folcard, the author of the Life.
I don’t know if there is a standard abbreviation for this – RFHMA? – but it gives some bibliography on p.479. Some more stuff in there to look into.
The Google search gave me 5 manuscripts. I imagine the BHLms site would give some as well, but this seems to have gone, according to the Bollandist website, replaced by something at the IRHT called Légendiers Latins. I’ll have to look into this as well.
So… a few nice things to chase up there! Expect some more posts soon!