There is a text preserved in a Coptic manuscript which is thought by some to be the work, or partly the work, of the Egyptian monastic leader Pachomius. Dr Anthony Alcock has kindly prepared a new translation of the work, from the text printed by E. A. Budge in Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (1913), p.146-176. He has made this available to us online, under the title of: Instructing an angry monk at Tabennêse. It’s here:
The text was printed from a single parchment manuscript, discovered at the monastery of S. Mercurius at Edfu. It is now British Library Oriental 7024. The text is on folios 18r-49v. The colophon dates it to AD 985.[1] The work was edited again by L. T. Lefort, Œuvres de S. Pachôme et de ses disciples, CSCO 159, (with French translation CSCO 160) (1956), p.1-24. But this I have not seen. The original work was certainly in Coptic, but at least two manuscripts of an Arabic translation are known. Lefort made use of one, and the other was discovered recently by Khalil Samir. Other Arabic manuscripts probably exist, or so I learn from A. Veilleux &c, Pachomian Koinonia: Instructions, Letters and other writings of Salnt Pachomius and his disciples, vol. 3 (1982) which also includes an English translation (online at Alin Suciu’s site here).
The manuscript attributes the work to Pachomius, but there is some disagreement among scholars, or so I learn from Ulla Tervahauta &c, Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity, p.255 n.18 (preview here). There is more discussion at Carolyn Schneider, The Text of a Coptic Monastic Discourse On Love and Self-Control (2017), p.79 f. (preview here). No doubt any Coptic monastic text might drift into being attributed to Pachomius, whoever the original author. Lefort was the first to note that the work includes a long section from Athanasius’ On Charity and Continence, quoted without attribution.
Last week, on Ash Wednesday, I happened to read some crazy claim by a neopagan that Ash Wednesday derived in some weird way from Woden (!). Since then I have been working on a post about the origins of Ash Wednesday, and specifically the imposition of ashes. It’s been a long and weary haul, as I have to work with Dark Ages sacramentaries, but I’m gradually getting there. Yesterday I discovered the old DACL encyclopedia article on Cendres, which is proving very useful. It is interesting to see that modern scholarly literature is often unaware of it. I hope my own article will be done by the end of the week.
March 5 was St Piran’s Day, and I wrote something about that yesterday. But doing so caused me to retrieve the Latin text of the Vita of St Piran. This was published by Capgrave in Nova Legenda Anglie, at some remote date, and this in turn was nicely reprinted and edited by Horstman in 1901. Looking at it, I felt that old urge, and fired up Abbyy Finereader 15, and scanned the 9 pages. Today I finished correcting this to produce a Latin text. The orthography is dreadful, and a real barrier to the non-specialist. I’ve corrected some of it in the Word document.
On a whim I pasted it into Google Translate. I was astonished – but delighted – to find that I got back something very readable indeed:
Google Translate on the Life of St Piran
The translation engine for Latin is clearly going great guns. There are a few mistakes, but not many at all. If this is now the standard for medieval Latin, then we all need to get out there and start using it and start producing cleaned-up translations of medieval saints’ lives. My own hitherto faint urge to translate the Life of St Piran has just received a boost. On Thursday I might well take a look at doing this.
March 5th is St Piran’s Day. St Piran was a celtic saint who probably lived around 500 AD. In recent years there has been increased media interest in St Piran, as the symbol of Cornwall. The Cornish flag is called “St Piran’s flag.” I suspect most of this stuff is from incomers, and that it leaves the native Cornish feeling rather bemused. But celebrations were reported by the BBC here, but with a curious claim included:
According to the legend St Piran lived for 200 years, meeting his death when he fell down a well drunk.
This remarkable claim can be found in a number of places around the web. But it is not to be found in the medieval Life of St Piran,[1] which merely tells us that he came from Ireland and founded a monastery in North Cornwall, at Perranzabuloe, where he died.
The story instead relates to a “saint” Pir (or Piro, Pyr, or Byr, or Pyrrus), although I have found no evidence that anybody ever considered him a saint. Instead he was the abbot of a Celtic monastery. He lived on Caldey Island in the Bristol Channel at some point during the 5th century. We learn from Gerald of Wales that he owned the island, which was known as Yns Pir (= “Pir’s Island”), and also a “castle” on the coast in Wales. From the Itinerary through Wales, book 1, chapter 12 (here):
The castle called Maenor Pyrr, that is, the mansion of Pyrrus, who also possessed the island of Chaldey, which the Welsh call Inys Pyrr, or the island of Pyrrus, is distant about three miles from Penbroch.
What we know of the man comes from the Life of St Samson (here), who had the misfortune to be one of Pir’s monks.
20. … Now there was, not far from this monastery, a certain island I recently inhabited by one, an eminent man and holy priest, Piro by name. In this island I too have been, and it was with him, I say, that St. Samson wished to sojourn, but he greatly feared, as I have already said, lest he should offend his chief.
21. … And there he (Samson) was in such wise received by the same abovementioned priest Piro. an old man already advanced in years, as if he had the appearance of an angel of God sent down from heaven.
23. … However, while they were lamenting and mistrusting the one the other, St. Piro delighted now spoke as follows : “ Behold Samson whom you have sought with so much fatigue of travel ; now , what you have to tell , tell me.”…
36. Indeed not long afterwards an unexpected thing happened. One dark night the same Piro took a solitary stroll into the grounds of the monastery, and what is more serious, so it is said, owing to stupid intoxication. fell headlong into a deep pit. Uttering one piercing cry for help, he was dragged out of the hole by the brothers in a dying condition, and died in the night from his adventure. And it came to pass when the bishop heard of it, he made all the brothers to remain just where they were and spend the night together; and then, having assembled a council, after Mattins, all the men of this monastery, with one accord, chose St. Samson to be abbot. And when he submitted (to be abbot), though not willingly, he trained the brothers gently to the proper rule. And while he held the primacy in this place, which was not more than a year and a half, the brothers regarded him as a hermit rather than as a member of an order of monks. And consequently, amidst feasts of plenty and flowing bowls, he made a point of fasting always from food and drink. Of vigils there is no need to say anything, inasmuch, as I have already stated, he never at any time allowed his body to rest in bed.
The bishop was a certain Dubricius, or Dyfrig in Welsh. He seems to have been one of those decent, hard-working men who, in the middle of an immense disaster to society, too vast to be prevented, try somehow to keep things going by whatever means possible. If Pir owned the island, then it is no wonder that he became “abbot” of the Celtic monastery. No doubt Dubricius felt that the drunkeness of Pir and his monks was secondary to establishing a secure base in bad times.
There is an amusing modern version of this story on a blog here by Jay King which I think deserves wider circulation:
Abbott Pyr of Ynys Byr,
In his cups fell in the well.
By the time they fished him out
He was dead and gone to hell.
His brother monks without complaint
Canonized their peer a saint.
And so to heaven he arose
At least that’s how the story goes.
But in truth there is no evidence of any canonisation.
The medieval Life of St Piran itself is of no value, or so I learn from Gilbert Doble’s account in part 4 of his collected The Saints of Cornwall. In fact it is an arrant fraud, in that it is identical to the Irish Life of St Ciaran of Saighir, but with the names changed. Indeed St Ciaran was unlucky enough to be pirated, not once, but twice: the Life of the Breton saint Sezni is also a copy of the Life of St Ciaran which has undergone the same process. This sort of thing was a natural consequence of the medieval church services, which expected that a portion of the life of a saint should be read out during the commemoration on his saint’s day. The abbey of Exeter came to own St Piran’s oratory, and therefore must commemorate the saint. No doubt some canon of Exeter was instructed to produce one.
The Life of St Piran had more adventures to undergo. It was collected in the late middle ages by a certain John of Tynmouth, who wrote down somewhat abbreviated versions of a good many saints’ lives in the west country. These in turn were published in Capgrave’s Nova Legenda Angliae. A 1901 reprint edition of this, edited by Carl Horstman, is online. But there is a Gotha manuscript of the Life of St Piran, containing a longer ending not found in the Capgrave text. This ending is the only part of the Life to have historical value, and records that at the time the sands were encroaching upon the oratory at Peranzabuloe.
St Piran’s flag.
I don’t know if the modern interest in St Piran will extend so far as to translate his Life into English. But let us hope so. In the meantime, we can reject this legend of his death.
[1]Horstmann, Carl. “De Sancto Pirano Episcopo Et Confessore.” In: Nova Legenda Anglie. Vol. II. Re-edited from the 1516 Edition of Wynkyn de Worde. Oxford: The Clarendon Press (1901), pp. 320-328. Download here.↩
Here’s a story that you can find in many places on the internet. The season of Lent is 40 days of fasting. This is why it is called Quadragesima, in the West. So Lent must start on the Sunday which is forty days before Easter. But it is also the rule that fasting is not allowed on Sundays, so there are only 36 actual days of fasting in Lent. To resolve this, we are told, Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604 AD) added 4 days to the start of Lent, which means that it begins on what is today known as Ash Wednesday.
Is it true? What are the sources for this?
The only source that I have found that addresses it is a footnote in a very old 1774 text by Alban Butler. This gives three sources which are relevant,[1]:
Gregory (d.604), Homilies on the Gospels, homily 16, cap. 5. (See here for information about text and translation.)
Ratramnus of Corbie (d.868), Contra Graecorum opposita Romanam ecclesiam infamantium, libri quattuor (Against the slanders of the Greeks opposing the Roman church. text: PL 121:223-346, here; an original French translation by JesusMarie.com, 2016, is here.)
9th century manuscripts of the so-called Gregorian family of “sacramentaries”, service books.
Ca. 700, the “Old Gelasian Sacramentary”, i.e. the manuscript Vatican reg. lat. 316.
There may well be other sources from the 9th century that verify that by that time Lent began on Ash Wednesday, but these are not known to me.
Gregory, Forty Gospel Homilies, Homily 16, is luckily online here. From chapter 5:
5. Since there is harmony between the reading of the day and the liturgical time – we have indeed heard that our Redeemer practiced abstinence for forty days, and at the same time we begin the holy quarantine – we must examine carefully why this abstinence is observed for forty days. Moses, to receive the Law a second time, fasted forty days. Elijah in the desert abstained from eating forty days. The Creator of men himself, coming among men, did not take food for forty days. Let us also try, as far as we can, 3 to afflict our flesh by abstinence in this annual time of the Holy Quarantine.
Why is the number forty set for abstinence, if not because the Decalogue finds its perfection in the four books of the Holy Gospel? Likewise, in fact, that ten multiplied by four gives forty, we observe the commandments of the Decalogue to perfection by the practice of the four books of the Holy Gospel.
We can also give another interpretation to this number: our mortal body subsists by four elements, and it is by the pleasures of this body that we oppose the precepts of the Lord. But these are prescribed to us by the Decalogue. Therefore, since the desires of the flesh make us despise the commandments of the Decalogue, we should mortify this flesh forty times.
Here is yet another possible explanation of this holy quarantine: from today until the joys of the solemnity of Easter, it will pass six weeks, which is forty-two days. Since six Sundays are withdrawn from abstinence, there are only thirty-six days of abstinence left.To mortify thirty-six days in a year which counts three hundred and sixty-five, it is a little to give to God the tithe: having lived for ourselves during the year he granted us, we mortified ourselves in abstinence for our Creator during the tenth of this year.
So, dear brothers, since the law commands you to offer [to God] the tithe of all things (see Lev 27:30), try to offer him also the tithe of your days. May each one macerate himself in his flesh to the measure of his strength, mortify his desires and annihilate his shameful concupiscences, in order to become, in the words of Paul, a living host (Rm 12: 1). Man is a host at once living and immolated when, without leaving this life, he causes the carnal desires to die in him. Satisfied flesh has dragged us into sin; that mortified flesh brings us back to forgiveness. The author of our death [Adam] transgressed the precepts of life by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree. It is therefore necessary that, having lost the joys of paradise by the fact of food, we should endeavor to reconquer them, as far as we can, by abstinence.
That does indicate that the church in his day was observing 36 days of actual fasting.
Yet Ratramnus testifies that in his day the Roman church did not fast on the Sundays, leaving 36 fast days, which they corrected by adding 4 days. This meant starting Lent on the Wednesday. This from Book 4, chapter 4, via Google Translate:
IV. Let’s move on to what they blame us for about Lent. We abstain neither from meat like them, for eight weeks, nor from cheese and eggs for seven weeks, as is their custom. They speak as if, apart from that of the Romans, all the Eastern and Western churches followed their custom. It’s the opposite that is true. In both Eastern and Western churches, diversity is the rule, as we have already demonstrated. Some fast for seven weeks before Passover, except Sunday. Other six. Others started fasting before the seven weeks. So there are some who fast six weeks before Easter, others seven, others eight and even nine.
Let these censors name those who follow or imitate them! Certainly not the Romans who fast every day of the week, except Sundays, for six weeks before Passover! …
The gospel and the law teach us that the duration of Lent is forty days. For we read in the Gospel that the Savior fasted continually for forty days and forty nights. It is written in the Old Testament that Moses fasted twice for the same number of days and nights. Once before receiving from God the decalogue of the law; another time, after the transgression of the people had induced them to smash the tables of the law. When Elijah was fleeing the wrath of Jezebel, he walked in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, until he came to the mountain of God, Oreb. From this comes the custom of the Church to fast for forty days. All the churches of Christ apply to celebrate the quadragesimal fast with this number. But since not everyone agrees on the number of weeks, inevitably there is a disparity in the days. It is a fact that, for the duration of Lent, all keep to the number forty; but not everyone fasts every day of the week. For there are some who only eat on Sunday; others do not fast on Saturday or Sunday. There are even some who do not fast on Fridays. By not fasting on Sunday, even if they fast every other day of the week, they do not reach the number forty. They are four days away. Hence it is that, wanting to fast for forty days, they do not fast, before Easter, for six weeks, but seven weeks, although in six weeks there are forty-two days and not forty. If we subtract the six Sundays from the forty days, there remain thirty-six days of fasting. To reach the number forty, four days must be added in the seventh week. It therefore follows that Lent lasts seven weeks and not six weeks. But, in the seventh week, only four days are fasted, which are added to the thirty-six to complete the number forty. …
The reproaches of the Easterns are therefore completely unfounded, because what they do in eight[2] weeks – fasting only five days a week – Westerners do in six, adding four days from a seventh week.
There are some errors in the last paragraph of the French, which I have notified to the translator, so let’s give the Migne text (col. 320 A):
Hac de causa Graeci non habeat quid Romanis objiciant super septimanarum disparilitate, quoniam quod illi in octo hebdomadibus faciunt, per singulas hebdomadas quinis non amplius diebus jejunantes, hoc tam Romana, quam Occidentalis Ecclesia, sex hebdomadibus perficere noscuntur; superadditis quatuor diebus hebdomadis septimae.
There are the Gregorian sacramentaries. I don’t really know very much about these, but I have seen statements to the effect that these include material for the dies cinerum, the day of ashes, i.e. Ash Wednesday, and therefore testify to the four-day extension.
Finally we have another old service book, the so-called “old Gelasian” sacramentary, which is preserved in a Vatican manuscript with the shelfmark Vat. reg. Lat. 316. This dates to around 700 AD. Wilson’s edition is here. On p.15, we find, at the foot of the page, in section XVII, prayers for “Quinquagesima usque ad quadragesimam” – the week in which lent now starts. At the bottom we find:
In Ieiunio. Prima Statione. Feria iv. Inchoata ieiunia, quaesumus, Domine, …
On the (Lenten) Fast. First Station. Wednesday. The fast having being begun, we seek, O Lord,…
The manuscript is here. The relevant material is at the foot of folio 16r (there seems no way to link directly to the page):
Ms. Vatican reg. lat. 316, f.16r (bottom)
The day of the week is clearly part of the original text.
I was not aware of this custom of labelling the days of the week in this way – Monday = feria secunda, Tuesday = feria tertia, etc – but this image shows that in 700 AD the fast began on the Wednesday of Quinquagesima.
Unless there is evidence to the contrary – and surely there has been work on this since 1774? – then we have no evidence of action by Gregory to add extra days during the 6th century. A century later the Gelasian sacramentary witnesses to the addition of four days. Another hundred years later, in the 9th century we find that the Greeks are sneering at the wimpy Latins for not fasting as long as themselves, and a retort demonstrating that the latter had a longer Lent than in the days of Gregory.
Update (12 March 2022) : Twitter user @Albertojr555 kindly drew my attention to the witness of the Gelasian sacramentary, noted by Joseph Abrahamson on his blog διαθηκη here. I have updated the post accordingly.
[1]Alban Butler, The Moveable Feast, Fasts, and Other Annual Observances of the Catholic Church, (1774) p.197, n. Here.: “For though six weeks make forty-two days, yet the Western churches excepted out of the fast all the Sundays, which make six days; and the Eastern Churches, both the Sundays and Saturdays. (Cassian. Collat. xxi. c. 14.) Hence it is clear that Lent consisted of thirty-fix days of fast, and of forty or more of abstinence. Those who made it less, or fasted the weeks alternately, were either hereticks or loose livers, unless the weakness of their health required such a dispensation. S. Gregory the Great defines the fast of Lent to have only comprised thirty-six days, the six Sundays being excepted as to the fast (Hom. 16. in Evang. n. 5. T. i. p. 1494.) To make the fast of forty days, four were added soon after, of which Ratramnus (l. 4. contra Graecor. Opin. c. iv. T. 2. Spicileg. p. 121.) and others are vouchers. From this time, not the first Sunday, but the foregoing Wednesday, is in the West the Head of the Fast. The Greeks, to make up for the Saturdays and Sundays which they do not fast, make their Abstinence from flesh of eight weeks; that from eggs and cheese of seven weeks. (Ratramn. ib. p. 123.) For the Greeks never fast on any Saturday in Lent except on Easter Eve.”↩
[2]There is an error in the French translation here, but the PL col. 320 A says “in octo hebdomadibus”.↩
Yesterday I needed to look up something in the works of counter-Reformation writer Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (a.k.a. Roberto Bellarmino), about whom I know nothing very much. I found it very difficult to do so using a Google search.
It turns out that there is an Opera Omnia, which was reprinted in Paris by Louis Vivès in 1870-4, and the volumes are on Google Books. So I thought that I would give some links here. The description of contents comes from Worldcat.
Note that the Controversies volumes are divided up into sections covering individual topics, which are sometimes referred to without indicating that they form part of De Controversiis. So I have linked the table of contents for these volumes.
I believe that there are also some old 17th century English translations of some of his works. I don’t have information on what these might be, however.
I see, on the other hand, that an amazing gentleman named Ryan Grant is publishing a translation of the entirety of De Controversiis through Mediatrix Press. Information about this is here. I suggest that Catholic readers may wish to donate as he suggests on that page, in return for volumes, to help the project along. Very worthwhile.
Note: I find in Wikipedia here a list of the “controversies” covered in De Controversiis:
A number of manuscripts contain an image for March. But here again it is the Vatican Barberini manuscript that gives us the 4-line poem, the tetrastich:
Cinctum pelle lupae promptum est cognoscere mensem Mars olli nomen, Mars dedit exuvias. Tempus vernum haedus petulans et garrula hirundo indicat et sinus lactis et herba virens.
Know the month clothed with the wolf’s pelt;
Its name is Mars, and Mars gave us the skins.
The springtime brings the unruly kid, and the chattering swallow,
And the pail of milk, and the greening grass.
These items are depicted in the image, as we shall see.
The 2-line poem (= distich) is also present, one line under the left-hand page, one under the right:
Condita Mavortis magno sub nomine Roma non habet errorem: Romulus auctor erit.
Rome was founded under the great name of Mars
There is no mistake. Romulus will be the founder.
The images show a consistency for once: a figure dressed in skins, holding a goat, standing on greenery, with pails of milk and a swallow, with characteristic forked tail. A butter churn is to the left, and above it metal tools that perhaps relate to cheese-making (or so I am told!)
The 16th century Vienna manuscript 3416 (online here) gives us this, clearly redrawn, image:
Vienna 3146, f. 4v – March
The 17th century R1 manuscript, Vat. Barb.lat.2154B (online here) gives us this, with the tetrastich and the first line of the distich:
Vatican, Barberini lat. 2154B, f.18 – March
As before, the offline Brussels MS. , f.201, gives us an image mid-way between the two:
The month of February has a number of illustrations. In the Vatican Barberini manuscript, the 4-line poem (tetrastich) appears written down the side. Here it is:
At quem caeruleus nodo constringit amictus, quique paludicolam prendere gaudet avem, daedala quem iactu pluvio circumvenit Iris: Romuleo ritu februa mensis habet.
And he whom the cerulean cloak wraps (ties up) with a knot,
And who delights to chase the marsh-dwelling fowl,
He whom the skilful Iris/Rainbow pelts with a rain shower;
This month by the Romulean ritual has the feast of purification.
The 2-line poem (= distich) is also present. Each distich consists of a hexameter at the foot of the left-hand page, and a pentameter at the foot of the right-hand page. Here it is:
Umbrarum est alter quo mense putatur honore
pervia terra dato manibus esse vagis.
The second is of the ghosts, in which month it is believed,
That, after sacrifice has been made, earth is accessible to wandering spirits
The images show a figure, hunting with an eagle, while a vessel pours down water onto an Ibis.
The 16th century Vienna manuscript 3416 (online here) gives us this, evidently redrawn, image:
Vienna 3146, f. 3v – February
The 17th century R1 manuscript, Vat. Barb.lat.2154B (online here) gives us this, with the tetrastich and the first line of the distich, so I’ve made the picture somewhat larger:
Vatican, Barberini lat. 2154B, f.17 – February
Divjak and Wischmeyer give us an image from the important (but offline) Brussels manuscript 7543-49:
Brussels MS 7543-7549, f.201 – February
The gender of the figure must have been somewhat hard to determine in the original – Vienna has treated it as female, Rome as male, while the Brussels manuscript shows one that could be either. The kantharos vessel pours down upon the crane, or possibly an ibis. A fish and some squids appear to the right. The figure holds an eagle.
Each month in the Chronography of 354 consists of a two-page spread. On the left there is an illustration of the month, on the right a calendar of days and festivals and anniversaries.
For the month of January the 4-line poem (= tetrastich) is preserved only in manuscripts of the Anthologia Latina. Here it is:
Hic Iani mensis sacer est, en aspice ut aris Tura micent, sumant ut pia tura Lares. Annorum saeclique caput, natalis honorum Purpureis fastis qui numerat proceres.
This month is sacred to Janus; Lo! See on the altars
How the incense glitters, how the Lares accept the pious incense.
It is the start of years and time, the birthday of the offices
Which the nobles enumerate in their purpled calendars.
The 2-line poem (= distich) is present, thankfully. Each distich consists of a hexameter at the foot of the left-hand page, and a pentameter at the foot of the right-hand page. Here it is:
Primus, Iane, tibi sacratur ut omnia mensis Undique cui semper cuncta videre licet.
The first month is sacred to you, Janus, like everything;
From both sides it is possible for him always to see everything.
But there is a twist here: the first line is different in two of the manuscripts, R1 and R2. Instead the first line reads:
Ianus adest bifrons primusque ingreditur annum…
Two-faced Janus is here, and first begins the year…
It seems to be taken for granted in the literature that the illustration and the hexameter in R1 and R2 are not genuine; but renaissance compositions.
The 16th century Vienna manuscript 3416 (online here) is the only one that has twelve images in it. But these have clearly been redrawn by someone who fancied himself as an artist. Here is the one for January (f.2v, image 15):
Vienna (Vindobonensis 3416, f.2v) – January
The 17th century R1 manuscript, Vat. Barb.lat.2154B (online here) image, f.16, seems more authentic in style, and is within the original border.
R1 (Vat. Barb. lat. 2154B, f.16r) – January
The only month illustration in R2 (available online in a scanned microfilm here) is as follows:
R2 (Vat. lat. 9135, f.224r, p.288 in the viewer) – January
R1 and R2 are the same image, copied at the same time.
The figures in V and R1 are both making a sacrifice with incense, but there the similarity ends.
I’m going to do a little series of twelve posts, one per month, on the poems in an ancient text, the Chronography of 354. Let me first say something about that book.
In 354 AD, perhaps as a gift for New Year’s Day, an otherwise unknown Roman nobleman named Valentinus received a very splendid present. It was a luxury book, containing a series of useful official-type documents: lists of consuls, months, a calendar, lists of church festivals and much more. It is known today as the Chronography of 354.
These were all useful, but what made it special was the full-page illustrations that filled it. These were made by a famous artist named Furius Dionysius Filocalus. They included portraits of “our emperors” – a sour-looking Constantius dropping coins from his hand, and his nephew, the luckless Gallus, executed later that year. Each month of the calendar had a facing picture depicting some aspect of the month or the seasonal activities.
The book itself seems to have survived to around 800 AD, when copies were made. A mass of partial copies of these copies have reached us, all more or less unsatisfactory. Some contain some of the images. Some are text only. Modern editions are all rather unsatisfactory too. It is a hard text to edit, in fairness. It is curious that, even today, the only publication that gives the newcomer an idea of the work as a whole, in order, is the version that I compiled for my own website (here) in 2006.
Part VI of the work, the calendar, may be found here. For each month, on facing pages, there is an illustration, within an ornate frame – and then opposite, the various days and events of the month. Here is the picture for February, from a renaissance manuscript, printed in the 19th century:
Chronography of 354 – illustration of February
There are two elements to this picture that I did not engage with back in 2006, since they are most likely not original. To the right, drawn clumsily down the side, is a four-line poem, a tetrastich. Underneath, in majuscule, is half of a two line poem or distich – the second line appears underneath the facing page.
I intend to do a short series of posts here, dealing with the tetrastichs and distichs. It would be nice to deal with them month by month, just as they appear in the manuscripts of the Chronography.
Now for a bit of bibliography.
Since 2006 an excellent study has appeared by Richard Burgess, “The Chronograph of 354: Its manuscripts, contents and history”, Journal of Late Antiquity 5 (2013), 345-396. This includes a convincing discussion of the tetrastichs and distichs.
The following year there appeared a mighty two-volume attempt at a modern edition and commentary: J. Divjak & W. Wischmeyer, Das Kalenderhandbuch von 354: Der Chronograph des Filocalus, Vienna: Holzhausen (2014). Generously, the publishers have since made it available for free download: vol.1, and vol. 2. This is no small blessing.
The new book was reviewed harshly by Burgess, and it seems as if the task of handling so much data perhaps overwhelmed the editors, as much as it overwhelms the reader. But they edit the tetrastichs and distichs and even – very wisely – provide them with German translations. So I intend to make use of their efforts.
Since 2006 a bunch of the manuscripts have come online and are accessible, particularly at the Vatican. This also is a blessing, and I hope to use some of this material.
There is a mass of scholarly literature on every aspect of the Chronography, but most of it I have not read. My purpose here is to make these texts better known.
Let’s talk a bit about how these texts actually come to us.
The distichs were edited by A. E. Housman, as a poem of twenty-four lines, who pronounced it to be pure “Augustan” in style. The verses are perhaps 1st century.
The tetrastichs are said to be fifth-century, but I’m not sure on what basis. But, although they are transmitted to us with the Chronography, they also circulated independently and have reached us in that way also, as part of the Latin Anthology. The content of the poems seems to describe pictures in a calendar, but not always the pictures that we have.
The manuscript tradition of all this material is rather tangled, but a few details (from Burgess) may explain why the tetrastichs and distichs are thought to be later.
All but one of the extant manuscripts of the Chronography derive from a now lost Luxemburg manuscript of the 9-10th century which comes to light in 1560. This is given the siglum “L”. It was copied from Valentinus’ original book (siglum “O”). The Luxemberg manuscript clearly had the tetrastichs and distichs, at least by the time that renaissance copies were made from it.
But the Luxemburg manuscript was not the only copy made from “O”. It seems that St Gall 878 (= “S”), which contains only text from various parts of the work, was also copied directly from “O” in the 830s. The copyist of “S” included the distichs, but he did not copy the tetrastichs. This suggests that the tetrastichs were not present in “O”.
Neither the tetrastichs nor the distichs fit into the ornate graphic design of the framework of the ancient original. They are tacked on the side and the bottom of the page. This suggests again that neither is original. The distichs are present in a clear rustic capitals, and were probably added in antiquity. They do not relate to the text in any way, however. The tetrastichs were added in a sloppy way, which might even be as late as the renaissance. But they do relate in some ways to the illustrations.
I think that’s more than enough detail for now. One problem with writing about the Chronography is that you always feel the urge to add more detail. And then more. Almost nobody who has written about this has resisted this temptation, with the result that the publications are very dense and unreadable. Divjak and Wischmeyer almost drowned in the mass of data! I shall try to do better, but those wanting more information must refer to the sources above.
I will post this and the first two months, since we’re a bit late with starting this. I hope to post the other months at the start of each month. For each month I will give the tetrastich and the distich. Since the tetrastich often refers to the ancient image for the month, I will include this also.
Anyone searching the web for information about Saint Valentine is going to come across a story where Valentine heals his jailer’s daughter, the two fall in love, and, on the morning of his execution he sends her a message signed “Your Valentine”. There seems to be no canonical version of the story, so no two versions are quite alike. One version referenced by Wikipedia – ah those “reliable sources” – is by Rosemary Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Saints, (2001) p.341 (preview). This reads:
Little is known about the real Valentine. In fact, many early martyrologies listed two and sometimes three Valentines: a priest in Rome, a bishop in lnteramna (now Terni) and a third in Africa. Most scholars now presume that all three Valentines are the same man.
Most probably, Valentine either lived in Rome or was called from Terni to Rome as a consequence of his giving comfort to the martyrs under Emperor Claudius II, known as the Cruel. Imprisoned, Valentine, also a physician, reportedly converted his jailer to Christianity by restoring the eyesight of the jailer’s daughter. Brought before the Roman prefect, Valentine refused to renounce his faith and was beaten and beheaded on February 14. On the morning of his execution, he supposedly sent a farewell message to the jailer’s daughter, signed “from your Valentine.” His body was buried on the Flaminian Way in Rome, and his relics were taken to the church of St. Praxedes.
Another legend about Valentine has the priest surreptitiously marrying Roman couples when Claudius II, frustrated at his difficulty in taking men from their homes to be soldiers, outlawed marriage. In this version, Valentine languishes and dies in prison on the emperor’s orders but is not executed.
This unreferenced narrative is not a good account of the two sources, the passiones of St Valentine of Rome and St Valentine of Terni. But anybody looking further will encounter a genuine scholarly work. In Henry Ansgar Kelly, Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine, Brill (1986), p.59 (preview), we read:
There is nothing in the foregoing accounts of the Valentines of February to suggest a connection between any of them and the rites of spring, whether of birds or men, before Chaucer’s time. It was only centuries later that there was invented the story that St. Valentine of Rome wrote a farewell letter to Asterius’s daughter, which he signed, “Your Valentine.”[43]
Note 43 reads:
43. Frank Staff, The Valentine and its Origins (London. 1969). p. 122, says that “this little story is quoted from Kemmish’s Annual for 1797, and is reputed to come from ‘a very old book.'” A. Kemmish or Kemmisch was a publisher in Southwark; the British Museum catalogue lists Kemmisch’s Annual and Universal Valentine Writer. . . for 1805, but I have not been able to find a listing for a 1797 edition.
Kelly’s bafflement is understandable. Kemmish’s Annual for 1805 is online here. But a look at it reveals that it is just verses to be written to one’s sweetheart. It can never have contained the material in question. There does not seem to be any such Almanack for 1797.
I have found this bibliographical problem repeated in other places also – just where did Staff get his story from?
Staff’s book is not online, but fortunately a copy was available quite cheaply and arrived yesterday. (On opening the volume my nostrils were assailed by the foul odour of a book left in a damp room. Booksellers must be the only trade to habitually sell unclean goods.) The book itself is about the custom of “valentines”, the paper items sent at this time of year. Only page 122 contains any background on St Valentine, and it deserves to be quoted in full. There are no footnotes.
APPENDIX I – SAINT VALENTINE
It is not known for certain which Saint Valentine is being honoured as the Patron Saint of Lovers on the 14th of February, because history records two saints of this name, both martyred at about the same time and both buried on the Flaminian Way, outside the Porta del Popolo of Rome.
During the Victorian era, when the giving of valentines was so popular, the story of the saint was often written-up in the form of articles which appeared fairly regularly as the Saint’s Day came round. Many of the writers more or less copied what had already been written before, but some, more serious, such as Professor John W. Hales, endeavoured to trace the origins and to give a more studious account. Professor Hales wrote an extremely interesting and learned article in the February 1882 number of The Antiquary. But it is thanks to Alban Butler, an eighteenth-century historian, who wrote an account of the lives of the saints, that the description and manner of the saint’s martyrdom has been recorded in the way we know. Some writers refer to Valentine as a Roman priest, and others to Bishop Valentine.
According to general belief, both the priest and the Bishop, who can be identified as the Bishop of Terni, a small town about 80 miles from Rome, were martyred in the same way and on the same day, the year varying between A.D. 270 and 273. This is repeated in the Encyclopedia Britannica which adds, “that the Passion of the priest Valentine is part of the legend of SS. Marius and Martha and their companions; that of the latter has no better historical foundation; so that no argument can be drawn from either account to establish the difference of the two saints. . . .” The account concludes by saying that The Martyrologium Hieronymianum mentions only one Valentinus: Interamnae Miliario LXIIII via Flaminia natale Valentini.
In a recent enquiry of the Comissione per l’Archeologia Cristiana in Rome, reference was made to the Enciclopedia Cristiana where it is stated that Saint Valentine was born in Terni, and is called a Roman martyr because in the year 273 he was executed in Rome, and because at that time Terni, which is within 100 miles of Rome, was under Roman jurisdiction. This therefore might be the reason for the confusion, the Bishop of Terni being referred to as a Roman Bishop. The Bishop of Terni is venerated at Terni, where, within a small Basilica to his memory, is an altar containing his relics. In the small ancient church of St. Praxedes in Rome is a glass-fronted wooden box which contains some of the bones of St. Valentine, together with those of St. Zenone. There can be little doubt that the Bishop of Terni and the Roman priest are one and the same.
From an unknown source comes the story that the Emperor Claudius issued a decree forbidding people to marry, because marriage kept men at home and the Emperor wanted all men to be soldiers and to fight for Rome. The good Valentine ignored this decree and invited young lovers to come to him in secret to be united with the blessing of the Church. Their secret marriages were discovered and the Emperor commanded Valentine to be thrown into prison and later executed. Another legend connected with the saint relates that whilst in prison awaiting his execution, he attempted to restore the sight of the keeper’s blind daughter, whom he had befriended. ” . . From that time the Girl became enamoured of him, nor did he treat her Affection with Contempt. But after a long imprisonment he was ordered for Publick Execution on the 14th of February. While in Prison being deprived of Books, he used to amuse himself with cutting curious Devices in Paper, on one of which he wrote some pious Exhortations and Assurances of Love, and sent to the Keeper’s Daughter the Morning of Execution; and being concluded in the Words, ‘Your Valentine’ there is great reason for supposing that to be the origin of the present Custom.”
This little story is quoted from Kemmish’s Annual for 1797, and is reputed to come from “a very old book”, but a moment’s reflection is sufficient to suggest this pretty little anecdote to be only fiction. It is perhaps unfortunate that the story is perpetuated by being related to schoolchildren and is sometimes quoted by greetings cards manufacturers. In this way, fiction and legend can so often be represented as fact.[1]
A simple Google search on “From that time the Girl became enamoured of him” instantly produced two results, which are really the same result. It is not Kemmish’s Annual. In fact it is a predecessor of the modern academic journal, “The Ladies’ Diary: or Woman’s Almanack… being the second after bisextile, or leap-year” 91 (1794), page 25 (here). The journal was very interested in the study of mathematics, so this is by no means a trivial publication, at least in part.
The Ladies Diary, vol. 91 (1794). Cover.
The actual passage is this:
The Ladies’ Diary, vol. 91 (1794), p.25
I was unable to find the “Query II”, but plainly it asked what was the origin of “valentines”. Three answers were printed, but only the first is of interest to us:
QUERY II. answered by Mrs Diana Mason
I have by me a very old book which has the following account of Valentine being confined at Rome on account of his religion, and committed to the care of a man whose daughter was blind, whom Valentine restored to sight and from that time the girl became enamoured of him, nor did he treat her affection with contempt. But after a long imprisonment, he was ordered for public execution on the 14th of February. While in prison, being deprived of books, he used to amuse himself with cutting curious devices in paper, on one of which he wrote some pious exhortations and assurances of love, and sent to his keeper’s daughter the morning of his execution; and being concluded in the words “Your Valentine,” there is great reason for supposing that to be the origin of the present custom.
This is clearly the same story as that used by Staff, and is probably word for word identical with it.
But there is still a mystery here. For the capitalisation and spelling in the Ladies’ Diary is modern, while that given by Staff is not – “Publick Execution”, for instance. This spelling would tend to put the story back, from this witness at the end of the eighteenth century to the early part of it.
It is a blessing to have Google Books, and to be able to find material in this way. It is unfortunate that earlier books are not so available upon it. But we must be grateful for this relic of days when Google was indeed a public benison.
