On Monday I wrote to Lincoln Cathedral Library. I wanted copies of three pages from their 12th century manuscript 7. These contain a copy of the Life of St Botulph on folios 82r-83r. The email bore speedy fruit, considering that Monday was a holiday. On the Tuesday Claire Arrand, the manuscript librarian, responded. She advised me that she could take some photographs of the three pages for £15 (about $20), there and then, and that there was an admission charge of £25 ($33) if I came and did it myself in person. I had made clear that smartphone photographs would be ideal, so long as I could read the text. I gladly agreed, and the photographs arrived an hour or so later. Frankly that was excellent service!
The images were marvellously clear, which was a nice change from fuzzy microfilm scans. Here’s an excerpt from folio 82r, showing the start of the text.
There seems to be a tummy bug going around, and I have not escaped. But yesterday and today, I took the d’Achery edition of the “Life”, which I have in Word format, and started to transcribe the photographs. The idea is that I can do electronic comparison of the various witnesses to the text.
I must say that I have rather enjoyed it. You feel far closer to the text once you do this. The printed edition helps a lot with the abbreviations. Although I have just noticed that, having opened the d’Achery word document a little while ago, to correct a typo, I got confused and started modifying that instead of my Lincoln file! Luckily I am using Git to control both documents, and I can compare changes since the last commit and just revert.
Initially I ignored the punctuation, but as I progressed through it, I became aware that these are sense groups, intended for reading aloud, and therefore of value for the translation, a guide to how the medieval reader understood the text. So now I shall go back and correct it again.
Interestingly the ancestor of the semi-colon is in use, the “punctus elevatus”, which looks like an upside-down semi-colon. See for example column 1, line 6, after “fervore”:
The “full stop” appears to be a comma. New sentences start with a capital – see “Erant” on line 8 in the first image. I don’t know what the squiggle after “patrie sue” is! The text is abbreviated. The elevated “9” after words is “us”. The “7” over “conusatione” is “er”, i.e. “conversatione”. The next word starts with P with a squiggle, the abbreviation for “pro”. Some very common words just get a macron, e.g. “gra” for “gratia”.
Here’s my transcription of the first column, with line breaks here in case anyone wants to compare:
Sancti Botulphi abbis. Lectio prima.
Beatus pater Botulphus divina
reservatus pietate, ut doctrina
& sancta conversatione prodesset nativae
patriae suae, postquam Dei gratia, & divino
profecerat sanctae religionis fervore; disposuit
iam ad Angliam pro caritatis
studio repedare. Erant autem in eodem
monasterio quo morabatur, sorores duae
Ethelmundi regis, qui tunc australibus
praeerat anglis, quae diligebant praecipue
And a quick translation, since it is tedious to work with words that one does not understand:
Of Abbot Saint Botulph. First Lesson.
Blessed Father Botulph, preserved by divine piety, so that he might benefit his native country through his doctrine and holy way of life, after he had made progress by the grace of God, and by his divine fervor for holy religion, now resolved to return to England for the sake of doing good. Now in the same monastery where he was staying, there were two sisters of King Ethelmund, who then ruled over the southern English, who especially loved [Father Botulph].
How different is this from the d’Achery text? Not very, I think. It’s quite close to the full text, and just missing chapters 1-3. But it will be easier to see it, once I have done an electronic comparison.
Onward.
Do you know what rule the author followed? I recently just finished reading the Rule of Saint Benedict and am curious to see if this person followed a similar rule.
The “Life” mentions the rule of St Benedict, so I think Folcard must have been a Benedictine. His work was first edited by the Maurist fathers in their “Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti.”