Jeff Doolittle writes…
In this post, we are going to look at a tenth-century manuscript fragment in the Beneventan script, which is among the many previously uncatalogued medical manuscripts highlighted in the CEMLM Handlist: Barcelona, Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Cod. Frag. 33 (CEMLM Handlist #6, hereafter Barcelona ACA Frag. 33).[1] Despite the manuscript’s fragmentary nature, the contents are nonetheless valuable to help us further understand the variety and richness of medical texts circulating in the early middle ages.
[IMAGE 1: Close-up of Beneventan script in Barcelona ACA Frag. 33, f. 2r.]
Today, Barcelona ACA Frag. 33 is only a single bifolium, and it was not included by Augusto Beccaria in his 1956 catalogue of early medieval medical manuscripts. It was, however, catalogued in Virginia Brown’s 1980 update of E. A. Lowe’s handlist of Beneventan manuscripts, but was only described there as “Medica”.[2] The Barcelona fragment, which has since been more fully described by Jesús Alturo i Perucho, was likely part of a now-lost medical compendium produced in southern Italy during the last quarter of the tenth century.[3] In the sixteenth century, it was repurposed as a cover for a collection of notarial records at the Hospitaller foundation at Sant Lorenç de les Arenes (in Foixà, Baix Empordà), and the fragment retains signs of this reuse. Stains and weathering, as well as a simple decoration of a large eight-pointed cross of Malta, all reflect this fragment’s second life as a book cover. How it got to Catalunya, however, remains a mystery, though Alturo i Perucho suggests it may have first come to the cathedral school in Girona, where another Beneventan medical fragment can be found today.[4]
[IMAGE 2: The first folio of Barcelona ACA Frag. 33 (f. 1r), showing the eight-pointed cross of Malta and signs of wear and tear as a book cover.]
Since its identification and “rescue,” Alturo i Perucho observed that this fragment contains a section of the Old Latin Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a widely-copied medical text of the early middle ages, specifically an excerpt containing the conclusion of Part III and the beginning of Part IV.[5] The contiguous nature of the leaves of this bifolium and the coherence of the corresponding text from leaf to leaf suggest that this was likely a central bifolium of a standard gathering of eight leaves or else a standalone binion. The surviving fragment shows a careful arrangement of the original text; it was completed by one scribe and features neat, clear lines with modest hollow initials to delineate chapter and section changes. It also features a few additions in Beneventan and caroline minuscule (though with some Beneventan characteristics), which led Alturo i Perucho to suggest that the additions were all nearly coeval with the original text [6].
[IMAGE 3: Close-up of Barcelona ACA Frag. 33 (f. 2r); the text shows a simple hollow capital].
The Barcelona fragment offers clues about the complex transmission history of both the Latin translation of the Aphorisms and the late antique Latin commentary on the Hippocratic text. Scholars have identified five manuscripts that transmit the Aphorisms alone, and then over a dozen additional manuscripts that contain more or less complete copies of the Old Latin Commentary on the Aphorisms; many fragments have also been found that contain parts of the text, like this Barcelona example.[7] Two main early medieval versions of the Old Latin Commentary text developed, including a longer Lat. A version which circulated more widely, and a shorter Lat. B version that had a much more limited distribution, mainly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.[8] These early medieval versions were then ultimately supplanted by new Latin translations made in the high middle ages directly from Greek.[9]
Studies of the Old Latin Commentary stress not only the relative abundance of extant copies (especially for an early medieval medical text), but also the relative consistency of the text [10]. We have two other early medieval Beneventan manuscripts that contain much fuller versions of the Commentary in Montecassino Archivio dell’Abbazia, cod. 97 (s. Xin) and Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 404 (s. Xmed), as well as a third Beneventan example from the eleventh century in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Lat. 160.[11] These Beneventan witnesses are all part of the Lat. A tradition. A quick comparison of excerpts from each of these manuscripts shows that the Barcelona text is very close to that of the other fuller copies of commentary from the tenth and eleventh centuries, and so clearly is part of the same Lat. A tradition, as well.
[IMAGE 4: Comparison of Opening Lines of Part IV of the Old Latin Commentary on the Aphorisms showing tables of numbered capitula in Montecassino, Arch. dell’Abb., Cod. 97, p. 235a; Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 404, f. 88v; and Vatican City, BAV, Barb. 160, f. 166v.]
In most copies of the Lat. A version of the commentary, including all three of the fuller Beneventan witnesses shown in Image 4, shortened versions of the Hippocratic Aphorisms are integrated at the start of each of the seven sections of the commentary as tables of numbered capitula. These help give an order and structure to each of the seven parts of the commentary.
[IMAGE 5: Opening Lines of Part IV of the Old Latin Commentary in Barcelona ACA Frag. 33, f. 1v.]
The Barcelona fragment includes a passage from the end of Part III to the beginning of Part IV, so we would expect to see the same pattern here, too. But as Image 5 shows, the Barcelona text only contains the Commentary, and there is no table of the Aphorisms of Part IV after the end of Part III. This could mean that Barcelona ACA Frag. 33 may have just contained the commentary alone. Or perhaps the original manuscript had the fuller text of the Aphorisms separately at the beginning of the entire commentary, more like the arrangement in Paris, Bibliothèque National de France, Lat. 7021 (s. IXin) or Vendôme, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 172 (s. XIex). Both manuscripts transmit a fuller copy of the Hippocratic Aphorisms separately from the commentary which follows. As shown in Image 6, in these manuscripts, as in the Barcelona fragment, the Commentary text runs directly from the end of Part III into the beginning of Part IV [12]
[IMAGE 6: Comparison of Opening Lines of Part IV of the Old Latin Commentary on the Aphorisms in Paris, BnF, Lat. 7021, f. 60v and Vendôme, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 172, f. 42r]
Manuscript fragments by their nature are very brief, but they can provide a great deal of information. As another witness of a popular medical text, the Barcelona fragment shows evidence that the Aphorisms and its Commentary in Latin enjoyed an even wider circulation than previously understood, and that multiple formats of the same text could be found in medical books produced around the same time and in the same region, which opens even more questions about the readership and use of these medical manuscripts. We look forward to more work on this and other fragments as we seek a deeper understanding of the place of medicine in the intellectual centers of Southern Italy before the arrival of Constantinus Africanus in the eleventh century.
[1] See the CEMLM Handlist (https://cemlm.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/handlist/), no. 6.
[2] Beneventan manuscript catalogues are still a bit daunting to use for beginners. Though the online version is currently undergoing maintenance, the Bibliografia dei Manoscritti in scrittura beneventana by the University of Cassino is a good start for updated research on Beneventan manuscripts and fragments. For Barcelona, Arxiu General de la Corona d’Aragó, Cod. Frag. 33 (BMB code BCA-33), see also The Beneventan Script II: Hand List of Beneventan MSS, originally by E. A. Lowe, but edited and enlarged by Virginia Brown for a second edition printing in 1980 (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura), p. 15.
[3] Jesús Alturo i Perucho, “Manuscrits i documents en escriptura beneventana conservats a Catalunya,” Studia in codicum fragmenta (Bellaterra, 1999), 59–101, at 62–71. Reprint of article in Studi Medievali 28:1 (1987): 349-80. Alturo i Perucho suggests an origin in Campania or Salerno.
[4] Alturo i Perucho, “Manuscrits i documents,” 66-7. For the Girona fragment (Girona, Arxiu de la Catedral Medica, sine numero), see the CEMLM Handlist, no. 53.
[5] Alturo i Perucho, “Manuscrits i documents,” p. 67.
[6] Alturo i Perucho, “Manuscrits i documents,” pp. 62-3.
[7] Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, “Neues Zur Überlieferung Der Lateinischen ‘Aphorismen’ Im Frühmittelalter,” Latomus 62, no. 1 (2003): 156–64; Manuel E. Vázquez Buján, “About the Sources of the Lat A Commentary to the Hippocratic Aphorisms: the Conception Doctrine”, Pallas (2020): 137-51, https://doi.org/10.4000/PALLAS.23873.
[8] Manuel E. Vázquez Buján, “Aspectos Léxicos de Los Textos Médicos Tardolatinos: La Traducción de Los Aforismos Hipocráticos y Su Comentario Altomedieval,” Voces: Revista de Estudios de Lexicología Latina y Antigüedad Tardía 4 (1993): 9.
[9] Faith Wallis, “Why Was the Aphorisms of Hippocrates Retranslated in the Eleventh Century?”, in Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture, ed. Robert Wisnovsky, Faith Wallis, Jamie C. Fumo, and Carlos Fraenkel (Brepols, 2011).
[10] See Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (secoli IX, X e XI), (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956), no. 95, pp. 297-303 for description of Montecassino, Arch. dell’Abb. Cod. 97; no. 73, pp. 243-6 for Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 404; and no. 108, pp. 324-31 for Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Lat. 160.
[11] For Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 404, see the catalogue and a few digitized leaves: https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=296774&catType=C&gdcEvent=hierarchy_item_view; for Vatican, BAV Barb. Lat. 160, see the digitized manuscript at: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Barb.lat.160.
[12] See Beccaria, I Codici, no. 27, p. 150 for a description of Paris, Bibliothèque National de France, Lat. 7021; and no. 46, pp. 188-9 for Vendôme, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 172. See also Ernest Wickersheimer, Manuscrits Latins de Médicine du Haut Moyen Age dans les Bibliothèques de France (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1966), no. 64, pp. 74-7 and no. 117, pp. 182-4, respectively.