APPENDIX
INTRODUCTION
i3 have been used, he did a very thorough piece of work and showed con siderable ingenuity in working the new matter into the text of the original work. The new material did not always perfectly harmonize with the old, and the last two chapters (191, 192) taken from the Vita
Anselmi could have had no place in the original plan of the work. But the undoubted aims of the reviser were to make the work more usable by breaking it up into smaller sections, and to complete it by extensive use of the records of Anselm's words left by Alexander and Eadmer.
W hatever his shortcomings, he succeeded in producing a work which had a vast success. From the early thirteenth century it took its place in the recognized body of Anselm's works, and it was frequently quoted as an expression of Anselm's thought, as indeed it deserved to be.
DATE AND PLACE OF ORIGIN OF THE DE SIMILITUDINIBUS
The revision which produced the De similitudinibus must have taken place before about 1130, when it was known to Robert de Braci, prior of Llanthony (1130-7), who corrected and enlarged his text of the De moribus to bring it into line with the enlarged text.
The only other piece of evidence on the date of revision is in the text of the De similitudinibus itself. The reviser used a text of the Dicta which is very much closer to the first recension than to the second. The second recension of the Dicta probably existed by 1115 (see below, p. 26), and if the revision of the De moribus was made at Canterbury, the home of the Dicta, we could be sure that it was made before 1115. It is natural to suspect a Canterbury origin for a revision which had as one of its main objects the inclusion of passages from the two Canterbury writers,
Eadmer and Alexander. But since neither Eadmer nor Alexander made any use of the work in revising their own writings (though they bor rowed from each other), any connexion with Canterbury must remain extremely doubtful. Consequently no conclusion as to the date of revision can be drawn from the fact that an early recension of the Dicta was used.
THE APPENDIX
In the best manuscripts of De moribus (F, F2, D), the text of this work is followed without a break by four pieces which are only loosely connected with what has gone before. Of the other manuscripts, P has two of these items and HO one. The pieces are: r. (without title) A discussion of the question utrum bono bonum sive malo malum possit esse contrarium. FD
INTRODUCTION
2. De similitudine temporalis et spiritualis militis (= Desim, c. 193).1 FDPHO 3. De cellarario domini (= De sim. c. 194). FDP
4. Hic ostendit archiepiscopus quid vere appetendum sit vel quid respuendum.
FD — Dicta, c. 5 (first recension with additional rubrics) At the end of this whole collection in FD there is a rubric explicit liber ANSELMI, which evidently refers to everything that has gone before, including the De moribus. This formula is an echo of the title at the beginning of the De moribus in these manuscripts: Incipit liber anselmi ARCHIEPISCOPI de morum qualitate per exemplorum coaptationem.2
It is clear, therefore, that in the eyes of the compiler this whole body of texts, including the De moribus, formed a single unit. Nevertheless, the texts which have been listed above cannot be looked on as an integral part of the De moribus. This work has its obvious ending on p. 93 below, and no addition would be appropriate after the concluding words.
Moreover the texts which follow this ending have various characteristics which distinguish them from the main body of the De moribus.These characteristics can be briefly described:
1. The discussion 'utrum bono bonum sive malo malum possit esse contrarium' is thoroughly Anselmian in method and outlook. It starts from the traditional moral doctrine popularized by Gregory the Great that he who has one virtue has all, and that he who lacks one virtue lacks all; and it draws out the logical consequences and demonstrates the logical cohesion of this, superficially at least, improbable doctrine.
The habit of logical refinement of a received opinion is a main feature of Anselm's thought. Equally Anselmian is the way in wdiich the prob lem is tackled at its most difficult point, and solved by a rapid argu ment enforced with a characteristic simile. In both subject-matter and method, the piece is closely related to the De moribus, though it is of more purely logical interest than most of this work.
2 and 3. The two similitudes which follow have an obvious affinity with the allegories in the De moribus, yet curiously enough they are more difficult to associate with Anselm than any of the other texts in this volume. The best authenticated of Anselm's allegories have some fairly well-defined characteristics: they are short, and they are designed to elucidate a problem or to explain a precise point of behaviour. By contrast these two similitudes are long, and they are less concerned with a problem or a human situation than with the extraction of the last
1 This is also found associated with much miscellaneous Anselmian material in MS.
Bodley 561.
2 The words in capitals are the sole title in MS. D, and this was probably the original title in the exemplar from which this group of manuscripts derives.
INTRODUCTION
ounce of allegorical significance from something in the external world— in the one case the arms and office of a knight, and in the other the arrangement of a wine-cellar. This wide difference from the normal
Anselmian allegory makes us hesitate to attribute these two sections to Anselm, but it would be a mistake to suppose that he never indulged in this kind of allegorizing. There are some passages in the long sermon
{Dicta, c. 20) which come near to this relentless allegorical manner. If the form in which this sermon is preserved in MS. Bodley 561 could be attributed to Anselm, there would be no doubt that he was capable of detailed allegorizations of the type which we have in these two similitudes (see below, pp. 310-19). But for the present the matter must be left in doubt.
4. This chapter from Alexander's Dicta duplicates material already found in the De moribus (cc. 47-71). It is worth noting that, when these chapters of De moribus were revised for the De similitudinibus, the reviser did not use this chapter, but Eadmer's De beatitudine.
F. British Museum Royal 5 F ix, c. 1110-30, from Llanthony Priory (= no. 154 Anselmus de qualitate morum, mediocre volumen in the medieval catalogue, ed. T. W. Williams, Trans. Bristol and Glouc. Arch.
Soc. xxxi, 1908, p. 147). This manuscript is now bound up with another volume of Anselm's works also from Llanthony. Originally it contained only the De moribus with the appendix of documents described above.
MANUSCRIPTS
F2. Cambridge University Library Ff. 4. 45, thirteenth century, from the abbey of Premonstratensian Canons at Titchfield (Hampshire).
This is a manuscript made up of two distinct parts. The first part has exactly the same contents as F (i.e. De moribus with the appendix of documents). The title is as in F: f. 2 Incipit liber Anselmi archiepiscopi
Cantuariensis de morum qualitate per exemplorum coaptationem-, the divisions of the text, the rubrics, and the errors of F are also reproduced.
In a word, it is a copy of F, and from the close resemblance probably an immediate copy.
D. British Museum Royal 8 D viii, c. 1130, from Llanthony Priory (= no. 225 Exceptiones Roberti de Bracii, mediocris liber in medieval cata logue, loc. cit., p. 150), a miscellaneous volume of theological extracts, etc., presumably made by Robert de Braci, third prior of Llanthony
1131-7. There is a calendar at the beginning in which 'Dedicatio ecclesiae de Lant.' appears at 4 July, but this is crossed out and 'Dedi catio ecclesiae nostrae' is added by another hand at 10 September. This
i6 INTRODUCTION
no doubt refers to the dedication of the church at Llanthony secunda in 1136. The volume must therefore have existed before this date. It con tains (ff. 6T-8iv) the whole text of De moribus with the same appendix of documents as in F. There are many additions and corrections to bring the original text into line with De similitudinibus. Since these belong to a later stage in the development of the text they are not recorded in our apparatus. For the same reason the chapter headings have been ignored, except in the few cases where they clearly belong to the original text. The additions for which there was no room in the text of De mori bus were added, with few exceptions, on later pages of the manuscript.
There are also a number of other passages ascribed to Anselm in various parts of the manuscript. The majority of these are extracts from wellknown texts, but a few are otherwise unknown and they are printed below (pp. 296-303).
F and D present almost identical texts and they are very closely related to each other, but numerous small differences show that neither of them wasc opied from the other (D not a copy of F: 61. 15; 62. 27; 63. 9;
64. 10; 66. 10; 70. 17. F not a copy of D: 61. 16; 63. 9; 63. 14; 65. 3, and many other places).
H. Hereford Cathedral P. 1. i, a miscellaneous volume with several works of Anselm and Anselmiana, including a draft of the Epistola de
Incarnatione Verbi (see Schmitt, ii. 1-20), and De custodia interioris hominis. The De moribus is followed by De spirituali milite (below, pp. 97-102). There is a large gap in the text (pp. 48. 25-50. 25) in which the twenty-eight genera curiositatis are omitted quia tempus non patitur.
There are many traces in this manuscript and its copy O of the hand of a stylistic reviser: the evidence of these manuscripts is therefore suspect when they offer a smoother text than FDP.
O. Hereford Cathedral O. 1. ii, early thirteenth century, from Gloucester Abbey (f. ii Liber Thomae de Bredon abbatis Gloucestere
(1224-8)), a miscellaneous theological collection containing De moribus followed by De spirituali milite et eius armis. The many errors and peculiarities which this text shares with H, some of which clearly have their origin in H, are sufficient to show that this manuscript is a descendant, and probably a direct copy, of H. It does, however, intro duce subtitles more or less conforming to those in De similitudinibus, which are not found in H. They belong to a later stage in the develop ment of the text and are not recorded in our apparatus.
P. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, latin 12311, second half of twelfth century, from Saint-Germain-des-Pres, written perhaps in England;
INTRODUCTION
a miscellaneous volume. The contents of the volume have some simi larities in contents to D, but the text is generally closer to F (see
PP59i5_i6; 61. 23; 62. 26; 63. 24; 68. 22; 71. 31; 73. 33; 87. 11; 89. 11; but cf. 62. 27; 7525)- The De moribus is followed by De spirituali milite and De cellarario domini (below, pp. 97-104). There are some large omissions in the text.
Fragments Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Digby 158, twelfth century, from Reading Abbey, contains the fragments of De moribus which are listed below (p. 321).
The text of these fragments is too eccentric to be of any help in establishing the original readings.
De similitudinibus We have not attempted to collate the very numerous manuscripts of the enlarged version of the De moribus, but the two earliest manuscripts of this version have been examined for the light they throw on the origin of the work. Of these manuscripts D has already been described. The other is:
Par. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, latin 392, early twelfth century.
A fragmentary manuscript having remarkable illuminated capitals. It contains a more primitive text of De similitudinibus than any other manu script, with no divisions into chapters and no rubrics, except at the beginning. The fragments which concern us, rearranged in their correct order, are: ff. 59—59v Anselmus Cantuariensis. Voluntas tripliciter . . . Ipsa quoque omnis = De sim., cc. 1-7 (below, pp. 39-40). ff. 6o-6ov, 51—58v . . . orto sole in plaga orientali . . . nec securitatem per fectam hic habent = De sim., cc. 51-69 (P.L. 159, 629D-642B). ff. 61-64 . . . tamen fur diabolus intelligitur ... ad amorem caelestis patriae se transferre = De custodia interioris hominis, below, pp. 336-41.
The concluding words of this piece have been erased, and a marginal rubric, which reads ... Anselmi archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, is crossed out.
Over the erasure there is a new (contemporary) rubric, explicit, incipit expositio secundum Lucam, followed by ff. 64~66v Intravit Iesus in castellum = Homilia IX (P.L. 158, 644-9), attributed to Anselm in Gerberon's edition but restored to Ralph, arch bishop of Canterbury, by Dom Wilmart (Archives d'hist. doct. et. litt. du moyen age, ii, 1927, 16-23). The important words unde quid ego sentirem . . . scribere aggrediar (P.L. 158, 644c), however, are missing in this manuscript.
C 3501 c
INTRODUCTION
Stemma Codicum The relationship between the manuscripts can be expressed thus De moribus
ALEXANDRI MONACHI CANTUARIENSIS
DICTA ANSELMI ET QUAEDAM MIRACULA
THE WORK Nearly all our information about the work is contained in the preface printed on p. 107. We learn here that it is a record of the words spoken by St. Anselm in commune, which may mean either in the monastic chapter or in formal sermons. It does not appear to include the tabletalk of which Eadmer gives several examples in his Vita Anselmi. The discourses are of the more formal type, of which Eadmer gives two examples.1 The present work is a collection of such discourses, arranged
(according to the author) not in any special order, but each preserving as well as possible the thread of the archbishop's talk. We are further told that these chapters represent only part of the record kept by the author, the remainder having been borrowed or stolen without his knowledge, and so lost.
The preface concludes by saying that a collection of miracle stories has been added to Anselm's Dicta. These miracles duly follow in our main manuscript, where they are numbered consecutively with the Dicta. They throw a vivid light on the talk and interests of Anselm and his circle, but they are scarcely an integral part of the main work, and they are omitted in two of our manuscripts. Four of the stories testify to Anselm's miraculous powers and five others are reminiscences of Anselm himself, but the only connexion that most of the thirty-two stories have with Anselm arises from the fact that the author heard them in Anselm's company.
THE TITLE
In most of the medieval references to the work—and they are not many—it is known as the De monte humilitatis, which is simply the title of the first chapter. Other titles are Liber ex dictis beati Anselmi, or Quaedam de dictis Anselmi, or (in some fragments) simply Dicta Anselmi.
These phrases probably derive from the phrase used by the author in his preface 'quaedam de dictis magnifici viri Anselmi . . . excepi', and we must conclude that the author did not give his work a formal title, any more than he provided it with the name of an author.
1 V.A. i. 29; ii. 21.
INTRODUCTION
THE AUTHOR
The work is anonymous in all the manuscripts which have come down to us, but the identity of the author can nevertheless be established. The preface makes it clear that the same author was responsible for the Dicta and for the collection of miracles which follows. In the Miracula it is fur ther made clear (p. 238) that the writer was one of the four monks,Bald win, Eustace, Eadmer, and Alexander, who accompanied Anselm on his second exile. It is also evident that he was not Baldwin (p. 234), nor Eus tace (p. 227). He must therefore have been either Eadmer or Alexander.
The claims of Alexander are established by a comparison between the first and second recensions of two of the miracle stories (cc. 44 and 45). In each of these stories the second recension names Alexander as Anselm's sole companion, but in the first recension the story is told by Anselm's companion in the first person. The writer of these stories therefore was
Alexander, and his authorship for the whole work may safely be accepted.
As an author Alexander is unknown except for this single work, and even for this work his authorship has become firmly established only by a series of inferences. Yet one medieval author knew that he was the author of the Miracula: the compiler of a thirteenth-century collection of miracle stories (British Museum Add. MS. 11284 f78b) gives a sum mary of the story told in chapter 29, and prefaces it with the words
Refert Alexander discipulus sancti Anselmi. It is probable that he had some information of a less recondite kind than that which now provides the proof of Alexander's authorship.
Although unknown as an author, Alexander is well known from Eadmer and from Anselm's letters as one of the archbishop's com panions. He was a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, who appears to have joined Anselm's household after his return from exile in 1100.
He was one of Anselm's messengers to Rome in 1102,1 when he was the subject of the miracle described in chapter 39, and he accompanied the archbishop throughout his exile from 1103 to 1106 when most of the incidents described in the collection of miracles came to his notice.2
The discourses reported in the Dicta must also belong to the last years of Anselm's life from 1100 to 1109, when Alexander was high in Anselm's confidence, and when he seems to some extent at least to have taken the place of Eadmer as Anselm's secretary.
THE RECENSIONS
There are two main recensions preserved in MSS. A and B respec tively. As we shall see, the gap separating these recensions is only about 1 H.N., p. 132; Epp. 223 [iii. 45], 284, 325 [iv. 37],
2 Ep. 311 [iii. 90], and Miracula passim.