DiTommaso JSP PN III-libre

Journal for the study of the Pseudepigrapha
Vol 20.1 (2010): 3-80

The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and Permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0951820710382359
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Pseudepigrapha Notes III:

4. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in the
Yale University Manuscript Collection
LORENZO DITOMMASO
Department of Religion, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West,
Montral H3G 1M8, Canada
Abstract
This is the third in a series of articles intended to present the results of manuscript
research or provide bibliographic updates relevant to the study of the Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha. This article identies and discusses the importance of manuscript
copies of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University, and in several cases provides editions of their texts.
Keywords: Pseudepigrapha, manuscripts, Sibylline Oracles, Jubilees, Testaments of the
XII Patriarchs, Historia de sancta cruce, Revelatio Esdrae, Adam, Solomon, Daniel,
Ezra, Sibyl, Yale University, Beinecke Library.
The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University,

preserves MS copies of twenty ancient and mediaeval Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha.1 This study, the third in a series of Pseudepigrapha
1. Research for this study has been funded by 20052008 and 20082011 Standard
Research Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada,
a 2009 University of Chicago Library Special Collections Research Fellowship, and a
2010 Research Fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbttel, Germany. I
thank Andrew Crislip, Virginia Commonwealth University, for information about the
texts of P.CtYBR 4995 (art. 1), Michael E. Stone, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for
data on Armenian MSS of Daniel dreambooks (art. 2), Franoise Fery-Hue, IHRTCNRS, for kindly permitting the reproduction of her edition of the Reuelatio Esdrae of
Downloaded from jsp.sagepub.com at CONCORDIA UNIV LIBRARY on September 3, 2010
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)
Notes,2 identies and discusses the importance of these copies, and in

some cases provides editions of their texts or a conspectus of the MSS.3
The following list presents an overview of the data, with the language of
each composition in parentheses:4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
P.CtYBR inv. 4995: Jubilees (Coptic)

MS 163: Lunationes Danielis (Latin)
MS 365: Abraham and Isaac (Middle English)
MS 365: XV signa ante iudicium (Middle English)
MS 395: Two copies of the Lunationes Danielis (Old French)
MS 395: Reuelatio Esdrae (Old French)
MS 404: The Origin of the Monstrous Races (Latin)
MS 404: Poenitentia Salomonis (Latin)
MS 407: Testamenta XII patriarcharum (Latin)
MS 411: Prophetia Sibyllina (French) (Latin)
MS 504: Three copies of the Reuelatio Esdrae [text three: Ezechiol de eodem]
(Latin)
MS 542: Reuelatio Esdrae (Greek)
MS 714: Historia de sancta cruce (Latin)
MS 730: Propheticum Sibyllae Erythraeae (Latin)
MS 989: Somniale Danielis (Latin)
MS Marston 225: Sibylla Tiburtina (Latin)
Yale MS 395 (art. 6), Julian Harrison, Curator of Mediaeval Manuscripts at the British
Library, and Meradith McMunn, Rhode Island College, for identifying the current
cordinates of MS Ashburnham Appendix 171 (art. 6), Luba Frastacky, Thomas Fisher
Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, for her assistance with a rare M.R. James
volume (art. 7), Steven P. Weitzman, Stanford University, for information about
Solomon apocrypha (art. 8), Michael E. Stone (bis) and Emmanouela Grypeou, Cambridge University, for data regarding a Greek Penitence of Solomon and other MSS (art.
8), and Adam Gacek, Head Librarian of the Islamic Studies Library, McGill University,
for assistance with the title of a Daniel text (art. 20). I am indebted to the staff of the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, in particular Mr.
Morgan Swan.
2. Pseudepigrapha Notes I, JSP 15 (2006), 39-64; Pseudepigrapha Notes II, JSP
18 (2008), 83-162.
3. Variant or unique orthography is neither normalised nor highlighted. Unless
specically indicated by underlining, abbreviations are expanded silently.
4. This survey is restricted to literary texts. With few exceptions, it does not cover
apocryphal stories embedded in homilies, sermons, commentaries, prayers, or chronicles, nor is it concerned with apocryphal traditions that stand behind MS illustrations.
For bibliographies, see F. Stegmller (and F. Reinhardt), Repertorium biblicum medii
aevi (11 vols.; Madrid: Instituto Francisco Surez, 195080), J.-C. Haelewyck, Clavis
apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), and L. DiTommaso, A
Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research, 18501999 (JSPSup, 39; Shefeld: Shefeld
Academic Press, 2001).
DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

17.
18.
19.
20.
MS Marston 255: Testamenta XII patriarcharum (Latin)

MS Marston 287: Prophetia Sibyllina (Barbieri) (Latin)
MS Osborn fa. 7: Book of Virtue (English)
MS Arabic 66: Kitb al-azama min kutub al-dafin min kutub Dniyl
(Arabic)
Appendix I: Additional Notes

Appendix II: New Testament Apocrypha
Plates I-VII
Abbreviations
BA
Biblioteca Ambrosiana
BAV
Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana
BL
British Library
BM
Bibliothque municipale
BnF
Bibliothque nationale de France
Bod.
Bodleian Library
BSB
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
CCAG Catalogus codicum astrologorum graecorum
CCC
Corpus Christi College
CUL
Cambridge University Library
HAB
Herzog August Bibliothek
NB
sterreichische Nationalbibliothek
OTP
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; New York:
Doubleday, 198385)
SB
Staatsbibliothek
TC
Trinity College
UB
Universittsbibliothek/Universiteitsbibliotheek
UP
University Press
The standard reference is the Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance

Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale
University [hereafter: Catalogue]. The rst three volumes, by Barbara
Shailor, describe MSS 1-500 and the Marston MSS.5 The fourth volume,
by R.G. Babcock, L.F. Davis, and P.G. Rusche, includes items listed
under the class-marks 481-485.6 A loose-leaf paper catalogue [Paper
5. B.A. Shailor, Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. I. MSS 1-250 (MRTS, 34;
Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1984), II.
MSS 251-500 (MTRS, 48; Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance
Texts and Studies, 1987), III. Marston Manuscripts (MRTS, 100; Binghamton: Center
for Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992).
6. R.G. Babcock, L.F. Davis, and P.G. Rusche, Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Catalogue], covering MSS 501-620, is available at the Library. The

Beinecke website hosts a database [Electronic Catalogue] which reproduces the data of the Catalogue and the Paper Catalogue, and provides
summary records of MSS 621-740 and the Osborn MSS (along with
other collections not relevant to the present study), as well as accesslevel entries of its uncatalogued acquisitions. Near Eastern MSS are
addressed in L. Nemoys catalogue [Arabic Catalogue].7 Two printed
catalogues of Yales papyri collection [Papyrus Catalogue] complement
a website database [Papyrus Database].8
Since only a few MSS after no. 620 are described in detail, and
because many entries in the Papyrus Database are listed only as
literary works, it is very possible that the Beinecke might preserve MS
copies of OT Pseudepigrapha in addition to those identied in this study.
1. JubileesP.CtYBR inv. 4995
A. Crislip rst identied the importance of this Coptic papyrus fragment.9 An opisthograph (both sides contain writing), it preserves
portions of three texts, one documentary and two literary. The documentary text, written on the horizontal-bre side of the papyrus,
4995(B), is a letter from an unknown person to my Father Petre.
Crislip has edited and translated both literary texts.10 The rst, written
between the lines of the letter on 4995(B), is a brief passage from a
work associated with Jubilees. The second is written in the same hand
but on the opposite, vertical-bre side of the papyrus, 4995(A). Crislip
calls this text a Christian orilegium concerning the dispensation of the
IV. MSS 481-485 (MRTS, 176; Tempe: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance
Texts and Studies, 2004).
7. L. Nemoy, Arabic Manuscripts in the Yale University Library (Transactions of the
Connecticut Academy of the Arts and Sciences, 24; New Haven; Yale UP, 1956).
8. J.F. Oates, et al., Yale Papyri in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
I (American Studies in Papyrology, 2; New Haven/Toronto: American Society of
Papyrologists, 1967), and S.A. Stephens, Yale Papyri in the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library II (American Studies in Papyrology, 24; Chico, CA; Scholars Press,
1985).
9. A. Crislip, The Book of Jubilees in Coptic (P.CtYBR inv. 4995), in R.G.
Babcock and L. Patterson, eds., Old Books, New Learning. Essays on Medieval and
Renaissance Books at Yale (Yale University Library Gazette Occasional Supplement, 4;
New Haven, 2001), 3-9.
10. A. Crislip, The Book of Jubilees in Coptic: An Early Christian Florilegium on
the Family of Noah, BASP 40 (2003), 27-44. English translations of 4995(A) and
4995(B) quoted are Crislips.
land among the sons of Noah. It consists of: i) Jub. 8.28b-30; ii) Jub.
7.14-16; iii) an unidentied passage about Abraham; iv) part of Gen.
9.27a; v) part of Jub. 15.3;11 and vi) an allusion to Jub. 4.33.12 A chief
issue concerning both literary texts is their relationship with the book of
Jubilees.
Fragments from fourteen securely identied copies of the original
Hebrew text of Jubilees were discovered in the Dead Sea caves.13 The
earliest copy dates from the late second century BCE.14 Mediaeval
authors quote Greek and Latin passages from Jubilees, a third of the
book is preserved as the undertext in a Latin palimpsest,15 and there are
two related Syriac compositions (see below). However, the complete
book is only extant in Ethiopic.16
The Qumran caves (and, in one case, nearby Masada) also preserve
fragments of Hebrew texts related to Jubilees.17 J.C. VanderKam and
J.T. Milik, who edited the Cave Four copies, observe that PseudoJubilees employs language that is familiar from and to some extent
11. Passages iv and v are transposed in Crislips roster (An Early Christian
Florilegium, 30), but are listed in the correct order elsewhere in his article.
12. Incorrectly identied as Jub. 4.30 in the marginal notes to the edition of the text
(ibid., 32).a
13. 1Q17-1Q18 (1QJubileesa-b); 2Q19-2Q20 (2QJubileesa-b); 3Q5 3, 1 (3QJubilees);
4Q176 19-21 (4QJubileesf; cf. 4Q221), 4Q216 (4QJubileesa), 4Q218-4Q222
(4QJubileesc-g), 4Q223-4Q224 (4QpapJubileesh), and 11Q12 (11QJubilees). See J.C.
VanderKam, The Manuscript Traditon of Jubilees in G. Boccaccini and G. Ibba, eds.
Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees (Grand Rapids/Cambridge:
Eerdmans, 2009), 3-21.
14. Jubilees was likely written around 160150 BCE (J.C. VanderKam, The Book of
Jubilees [Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2001], 21), although alternate dates have
been proposed; see M. Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction,
Ideology, and Theology (JSJSup, 117; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 35-40. On the textual
situation of Jubilees, see J.C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees. A Critical Text (CSCO,
510-511, Scriptores aethiopici 87-88; Louvain: Peeters, 1989), 1.ix-xvi, 2.vi-xxxi, and
the sources cited there.
15. Milano, BA C73 Inf.
16. Ethiopic Jubilees survives in multiple MSS, and is based on the mostly lost
Greek translation.
17. 4Q225-227 (4QPseudo-Jubileesa-c); Mas 1 j (Mas Pseudo-Jubilees). J.C.
VanderKam and J.T. Milik, Jubilees, Qumran Cave 4, VIII. Parabiblical Texts, Part I
(DJD, 13; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 1-185 at 141-76; Y. Yadin, Fragments of ExtraBiblical Works, Masada: Yigael Yadin Excavations 19631965, Final Reports. VI:
Hebrew Fragments from Masada (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society/Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 1999), 117-9.
characteristic of Jubilees, but the documents themselves are not actual

copies of Jubilees.18 Unlike Jubilees, nothing survives from PseudoJubilees beyond that which was found at Qumran and Masada.
The primary signicance of the literary text of P.CtYBR inv. 4995(A)
is that it contains the only witness to Jubilees in Coptic,19 in the form of
short passages embedded in a orilegium.20 But 4995(A) is neither a
Coptic copy of the book of Jubilees nor a composition of the type
exhibited by the Pseudo-Jubilees fragments. To be clear, the two major
Coptic Jubilees passages at 8.28b-30 (lines 1-17) and 7.14-16 (lines 1827) are very close to the forms of the text that are preserved in the
Ethiopic.21 But the citation of Jub. 15.3 at line 33 is only a portion of a
direct speech in Jubilees concerning the covenant between God and
Abraham,22 with the larger context removed so as to make the Coptic
passage t the theme of the names of the wives of the patriarchs.
Similarly, Ethiopic Jubilees 4.33 has been truncated in 4995(A) line 34,
although the subject in both its Coptic and Ethiopic contexts is, again,
the names of the wives. 4995(A) lines 28-29 recalls Abrahams journey
to Haran, described both in Genesis 12 and, in a greatly expanded form,
in Jubilees 12.
The subject of 4995(A) is not immediately obvious. Its rst half
concerns the dispensation of the land among the sons of Noah, its
second half the names of the wives of the patriarchs. The latter is a
18. VanderKam and Milik, 142.

19. The quotation of Gen. 9.27 in line 30 is prefaced with the words, And this is
written in Hebrew, which might indicate that our author utilised a translation of
Jubilees rather than the original Hebrew. Crislip suggests that Jubilees might have been
translated into Coptic from the Greek (An Early Christian Florilegium, 40).
20. 4995(A) also testies to the authoritative use of Jubilees. Jubilees is cited in CD
col. x, in 4Q228, where it is refered to as an authoritative work (VanderKam and Milik,
Jubilees, 177-85), and in P. Oxy. 4365 (D. Hadegorn, Die Kleine Genesis in P.Oxy.
LXIII 4365, ZPE 116 [1997], 147-8, and S.C. Franklin, A Note on a Pseudepigraphal
Allusion in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus No. 4365, VT 48 [1998], 95-6).
21. Apud VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 2.56 and 45. As with the Ethiopic Jubilees,
the Coptic Jubilees 8.28b-30 of 4995(A) is somewhat dissimilar from the quotation of
Jubilees preserved in an anonymous Syrian Chronicle; for the text, see The Versional
Evidence in VanderKam, Critical Text, 2.334-5. Jub. 7.14-16 is not preserved in the
Chronicle or any other witnesses besides the Ethiopic or Coptic.
22. Ibid., 2.88: (15.3) The Lord appeared to him, and the Lord said to Abraham: I
am the God of Shaddai. Please me and be perfect. (15.4) I will place my covenant
between you and me. I will increase you greatly.
feature of Jubilees,23 and it is possible that 4995(A) is part of a more

expansive tradition that includes a Syriac MS fragment on the Names
of the Wives of the Patriarchs according to the Hebrew Book called
Jubilees,24 a list of the wives of the patriarchs in a letter of Jacob of
Edessa,25 another list in a 1583 volume by R. Samuel Algazi,26 as well as
various Greek and Armenian sources.27 A MS in Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, conrms the ongoing interest in the tradition in Western
circles,28 and other sources undoubtedly exist.
Crislip dates P.CtYBR inv. 4995 on palaeographic and orthographic
grounds to the fourth or early fth century, but acknowledges the lack of
dated Coptic texts to serve as benchmarks. If not in fact the autograph,
4995(A) was probably composed during the same period.29
23. J. Rook, The Names of the Wives from Adam to Abraham in the Book of
Jubilees, JSP 7 (1990), 105-17.
24. London, BL Additional 12154, fol. 180. Printed by A.M. Ceriani, Nomina
uxorum patriarchum priorum iuxta librum Jobelia nuncupatum, Monumenta sacra et
profana, vol. 2.1 (Milano: Ambrosian Library, 1863), 9-10, and transcribed from
Cerianis edition by R.H. Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees
(Anecdota Oxoniensis, Semitic Series, 8; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895), 183.
VanderKam, Manuscript Tradition, 10-11.
25. S.P. Brock: Extant in Syriac we have a list of the patriarchs wives according
to the book called Jubilees among the Hebrews, an account parallel to Jubilees 11-12
quoted by Jacob of Edessa (died 708) in his letter 13, to John of Litarba, and extensive
extracts incorporated into the anonymous chronicle ad annum 1234 (Jewish Traditions
in Syriac Sources, JJS 30 [1979], 212-32 at 224). See also S. Grbaut, Noms des
femmes et des enfants des ls de Jacob, ROC 18 (1913), 417-19, E. Tisserant,
Fragments syriaques du Livre des Jubils, RB 30 (1921), 55-86 and 206-32 (= Recueil
Cardinal Eugne Tisserant Ab oriente et occidente [Louvain, 1955], 1.25-87), and
VanderKam, Manuscript Tradition, 11-12.
26. S. Schechter, Algazis Chronicle and the Names of the Patriarchs Wives, JQR
2 o.s. (1890), 190.
27. W.L. Lipscomb, A Tradition from the Book of Jubilees in Armenian, JJS 29
(1978), 149-63, idem, The Wives of the Patriarchs in the Eklog Historin, JJS 30
(1979), 91, and M.E. Stone, Armenian Apocrypha Relating to Adam and Eve (SVTP, 14;
Leiden: Brill, 1996), 89-91.
28. M.R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College. A
Descriptive Catalogue. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1904), 168, re cod. Yy.3.17 (no.
264), with the relevant portion appearing at the end of the MS: Inc. Considerans historie
sacre prolixitatem. Cains wife is given as Calmana, Abels as Delbora, Noahs is
Puarfora, Shems Parfya, Hams Cathaua, Japhets fuya.
29. Ibid., 30-1.
10
2. Lunationes DanielisMS 163 (Wagstaff Miscellany), fol. 28v

Shailor identies this Latin text as a mid-fteenth-century copy of the
Somniale Danielis, the famous alphabetical dream-manual attributed to
Daniel. It is actually a copy of a related but distinct composition, the
Lunationes Danielis. The misunderstanding likely derives from the
Prologue, which properly belongs to the Somniale but appears in some
MSS as the Prologue to the Lunationes,30 as it does here in MS 163.31
Daniel was a popular literary gure in post-biblical times. Numerous
texts are attributed to to him, including many prognostica.32 Daniel prognostica from the East are often anthological, and can be Jewish, Christian, or Islamic.33 In the West, there were two texts only, both Christian:
the Somniale Danielis and the Lunationes Danielis.34 The earliest Latin
MSS of the Somniale and Lunationes date from the ninth century, and
both are well represented in vernacular MSS and incunabula.35
30. For examples, see L. DiTommaso, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew Manuscripts of
the Somniale Danielis and the Lunationes Danielis in the Vatican Library, Manuscripta
47/48 (2003/2004), 1-42. Other examples include Milano, BA C 218 Inf., fol. 50rb-va,
BA I 18 Sup., fols. 74v-77v, and Paris, BnF fr. 1007, fols 93rb-va. N.b. Cambridge,
CCC 466 [Sub. D.11], where after the Prologue (p. 131) there is a gap lled with other
compositions until pp. 228ff., followed by the text of a lunation and a Somniale; see
M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge. Part VI (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1912), 398.
31. Shailor, Catalogue, 1.217: From the interpretation of dreams attributed to the
prophet Daniel, cf. Lyell Cat., p. 89, and Thorndike and Kibre (under Daniel). Her
reference to the Lyell Catalogue points to the copy of the Somniale at British Library
Lyell 35, fols. 19r-23v (+5r, +25v). On Thorndike and Kibre, see below, n. 36.
32. L. DiTommaso, The Book of Daniel and the Apocryphal Daniel Literature
(SVTP, 20; Leiden: Brill, 2005).
33. See the Kitb al-azama min kutub al-dafin min kutub Dniyl (art. 20, below).
34. The Somniale and Lunationes were far more popular in the West, despite their
Byzantine origins. Both are preserved in hundreds of Latin and vernacular copies. In
contrast, they are extant in only a handful of Hebrew (Citt del Vaticano, BAV Vat. heb.
285 [Somniale and Lunationes], London, BL Harley 5686 [Somniale (?)]) and Armenian
copies (Paris, BnF armen. 307, fols. 91v-102v [Somniale], Oxford, Bod. armen. f.10,
fols. 112-132 [Somniale], London, BL Or. 2624, fols. 146-150 [Lunationes], and Erevan,
Matenadaran no. 2004), all of a late date. Professor Michael E. Stone, who provided the
information on the Armenian MSS, informs us that as late as the 1970s print copies of
the Armenian text could still be purchased. There is one possible Coptic copy of the
Somniale of which I am aware (Oxford, Bod. Maresch. 31 [Copt. 2]), while the
Lunationes might be preserved in a few Syriac copies. The few Greek copies are
uniformly very late. For details, see DiTommaso, Apocryphal Daniel Literature.
35. A conspectus of extant MSS will be found in DiTommaso, Apocryphal Daniel
Literature, 402-42.
11
Lunaries forecast the future based on the moons appearance or

motion in the heavens.36 They do not appear in the Bible, but the genre is
ancient.37 The Lunationes Danielis is a specic type of lunary containing
predictions for each of the thirty days of the calendar month. Simple
lunations are brief and focus on a single theme, for example, whether it is
a good day to let blood, interpret dreams, or pursue fugitives. Complex
lunations are longer, address a series of topics, and occasionally include
almanac information like references to the births or deaths of biblical
gures. Forecasts in all lunations are expressed via a set formula that
commences on the rst day of the month and is repeated for each of the
subsequent twenty-nine days.38
The Wagstaff Miscellany is a collection of pieces ranging from astronomical forecasts and medical recipes to minor tracts on hawking and
herbs. Such miscellanies functioned as handy compendia of quotidian
36. M. Frster, Beitrge zur mittelalterlichen Volkskunde. VIII, Archiv fr das
Stadium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 129 (1912), 16-49, idem, Vom
Fortleben antiker Sammellunare im englischen und in anderen Volkssprachen, Anglia
n.F. 67/68 (1944), 1-171, E. Svenberg, Lunaria et zodiologia latina, edidit et commentario philologico instruxit (Studia graeca et latina Gothoburgensia, 16; Gteborg:
Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1963), C. Weier, Studien zum mittelalterlichen
Krankheitslunar: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte laienastrologischer Fachprosa
(Wrzburger medizinhistorische Forschungen, 21; Wrzburg: H. Willm, 1982), idem,
Lunare, in K. Ruh, ed., Verfasserlexicon. Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Band
5 (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 1985), cols. 1054-62, I. Taavitsainen, Middle English
Lunaries. A Study of the Genre (Mmoires de la socit nophilologique de Helsinki, 47;
Helsinki: Societ nophilologique, 1988), L. Means, Medieval Lunar Astrology. A
Collection of Representative Middle English Texts (Lewiston: Mellon, 1993), and L.
DiTommaso, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew Manuscripts. Most Greek MSS appear in the
volumes of the CCAG (Bruxelles: H. Lamertin): A. Martini and D. Bassi, CCAG III,
(1901), 32-9, 39-40; D. Bassi, et al., CCAG IV (1903), 142-5; P. Boudreaux, CCAG VIII
(1912), 105-7; A. Delatte, CCAG X (1924), 5, 23, 24, 29, 40, 50, 72-4, 121-6, 136-7,
196-200, 243-47; C.O. Zuretti, CCAG XI (1932), 134-44; idem, CCAG XI (1934), 150-1,
157-62. The reference works of A. Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo
presalernitano (secoli IX, X e XI) (Roma: Edizione di storia e letteratura, 1956), and L.
Thorndike and P. Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientic Writings in
Latin (rev. and augmented ed.; Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America,
1963), remain valuable for the Latin MSS.
37. S. Weinstock, Lunar Mansions and Early Calendars, JHS 69/70 (194950), 4869 at 57-60, for examples in Babylonian and Egyptian literature. See also Hesiods
Works and Days and Virgils Georgics (1.276-286).
38. The most recent study is among the most valuable: L.S. Chardonnens, AngloSaxon Prognostics, 900-1100: Study and Texts (Brills Studies in Intellectual History,
153; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2007).
12
scientic and technical knowledge, and could be tailored to the needs of

the person for whom they were produced. The Lunationes and the
Somniale were part of this universe, and it is no accident that a signicant proportion of the MS copies of both texts are bound in codices
along with other astronomical and astrological prognostica, as well as
computi and diverse calendrical texts, horoscopes, and similar treatises.39
The Wagstaff copy of the Lunationes is a simple lunation whose focus
is the efcacy of the interpretation of dreams (see Plate I). Its text is
fairly standard. The copy is defective, since it omits the forecasts for the
twenty-rst and twenty-second moons.
3. Abraham and IsaacMS 365 (Book of Brome), fols. 15r-22r
Yale MS 365 is known variously as the Brome Book, the Book of Brome,
or the Brome Hall Commonplace Book after the site of its re-discovery
at Brome Hall in Suffolk. Among other things, it preserves a copy of the
Quindecim signa (see below, art. 4), and a unique, late fteenth-century
copy of the Middle English mystery play, Abraham and Isaac.40 The
plays text is well known, having been edited multiple times.41
39. On the place of prognostica in mediaeval society, see L. Thorndike, A History of
Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New
York: Columbia UP, 192358), S. Jenks, Astrometeorology in the Middle Ages, Isis
74 (1983), 185-210, R.M. Liuzza, Anglo-Saxon Prognostics in Context: A Survey and
Handlist of Manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon England 30 (2001), 181-230, I. Moreira,
Dreams and Divination in Early Medieval Canonical and Narrative Sources: The
Question of Clerical Control, CHR 89 (2003), 621-42, and Chardonnens, Anglo-Saxon
Prognostics.
40. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.211. N. Davis has determined that the portion of the MS
containing the play dates from the second half of the fteenth century; see Non-Cycle
Plays and Fragments, Edited on the Basis of the Edition of Osborn Waterhouse (EETS,
s.s. 1; London: Oxford UP, 1970), lxii.
41. The text was rst described and printed by L.T. Smith in Anglia 7 (1884), 31647, and again in the third volume of The Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany (1887) [non
vidi]. Subsequent editions include O. Waterhouse, The Non-Cycle Mystery Plays (EETS,
e.s. 104; London: Kegan Paul, 1909), xlviii-liv, 36-53, now superseded by Davis, NonCycle Plays, D. Bevington, Medieval Drama (Boston, 1975), 308-21, and P. Happ,
English Mystery Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), 152-71. Davis notes that by
1970 the play has been reprinted (sometimes with modications) at least fourteen
times (lxiii). N.b. the photographic facsimile in Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and the
Winchester Dialogues (Leeds: University of Leeds School of English, 1979), 49-65. The
Brome Book is the subject of L.T. Smiths edition, A Common-Place Book of the
Fifteenth Century, Containing a Religious Play and Poetry, Legal Forms, and Local
Accounts (London: Trbner, 1886). Abraham and Isaac appears on 46-69.
13
The binding of Isaac (Gen. 22) is the subject of several late mediaeval
English plays. It appears in all four of the extant mystery cycles:42 i)
Chester (eight MSS), as the fourth play in a collection of twenty-four in
total, assigned to the company of the Barbers;43 ii) York (London, BL
Additional 35290), as the tenth of forty-eight plays, assigned to the
Parchminers and Bookbinders; iii) Towneley (San Marino, Huntington
Library HM1), known as the Wakeeld Mysteries, as the fourth of
thirty-two plays, without assignation; and iv) N-Town (London, BL
Cotton Vespasian D.VIII), once associated with Coventry and known as
the Ludus Coventriae, as the fth of forty-two plays, also without
assignation. Over 200 of the 465 lines of the Brome Abraham and Isaac
are echoed closely in the Chester Abraham and Isaac.44 In addition to
the cycle plays, there is the Northampton Abraham (Dublin, TC D.4.18,
fols. 74v-81r), performed by the Weavers.45 The Akedah also was a
popular theme in the drama of other languages, including the French
Sacrice dAbraham, which is part of Le Mistre du Viel Testament46
and extant in several early sixteenth-century editions.47
The Brome Abraham and Isaac features four characters: God, an
angel, Abraham, and Isaac. Its plot essentially follows the Genesis story,
wherein Abraham, commanded to sacrice his son Isaac, dutifully obeys
and is only prevented in fullling his task by the timely arrival of an
angel sent by God. The play eshes out the biblical dialogue, much of it
in the interplay between Abraham and Isaac. The angel issues the
command which in the biblical narrative is given by God, while God
himself articulates the rationale for testing Abraham:
42. Mystery plays, now lost, were afliated with other locations. The lists associated
with Beverley and Newcastle each refer to a play on the binding of Isaac, performed by
the companies of the Slaters and of the Bowyers and the Fletchers, respectively (Smith,
Common-Place Book, 47-8).
43. R.M. Lumiansky and D. Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle (EETS, s.s. 3;
London: Oxford UP, 1974), ix-xliv.
44. Happ, English Mystery Plays, 17-18, surmises that they descended from a
common Vorlage.
45. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays, xlvii-lviii.
46. J. de Rothschild, Le Mistre du Viel Testament (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1879), II,
with an important introduction at i-xxvi. See, inter alia, B.M. Craig, The Evolution of a
Mystery Play (Orlando, 1983).
47. G. Runnalls, La Compilation du Mistre du Viel Testament: Le Mystre de
Daniel et Susanne, Bibliothque dhumanisme et renaissance 57 (1995), 345-67 at 349.
14

Myn angell, fast hey the thy wey,
An on to medyll-erth anon ou goo,
Abrams hart now wyll I asay,
Wether that he be stedfast or noo.
Sey I commaw[n]dyd hym for to take
Ysaac, hys yowng sonne, at he love so wyll,
And with hys blood sacryfyce he make,
Yffe ony off my freynchepe yf he wyll ffell.
Schow hym the wey on to the hylle
Wer that hys sacryffyce schall be,
I schall a-say now hys good wyll,
Whether he lovyd better hys chyld or me.
All men schall take exampyll be hym
My commawmentes how they schall kepe.48
Miracle and mystery plays are extant in nearly every language of the
late Middle Ages, and the secondary literature is immense.49 While the
extra-biblical traditions preserved in these plays have not been ignored,
a comprehensive examination of biblical apocrypha and mediaeval
drama has yet to be written.
4. XV signa ante iudiciumMS 365 (Book of Brome), fols. 23r-26v
The Quindecim signa ante iudicium (The Fifteen Signs of Doomsday) is
simple in form, being literally a list of the omens that were expected to
precede the judgment day. An edition of the Middle English copy
preserved in Yale MS 365 has been printed in L.T. Smiths Brome Hall
Commonplace Book (see above, art. 3).50
W.W. Heists excellent 1952 monograph is now dated.51 Although
ne studies have since been published, we lack a sense of the full extent
of the MS evidence of the XV signa, and thus a complete understanding
of its textual history. In my estimation it exists in at least three hundred
MS copies, principally in Latin but in many other languages besides.52
48. Smith, Common-Place Book, 50-51 (lines 33-46).
49. On the sources to 1972, see C.J. Stratman, Bibliography of Medieval Drama
(New York: F. Ungar, 21972).
50. Smith, Common-Place Book, 69-79. See Shailor, Catalogue, 2.211.
51. W.W. Heist, The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday (East Lansing: Michigan State
College Press, 1952).
52. Heist records 96 + 24 examples (not all of which are MSS, however) in two
Appendixes (204-14). D. Verhelst states that he has noted over 180 Latin MSS (Adso of
Montier-en-Der and the Fear of the Year 1000, in R. Landes, et al., eds., The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Religious Expectation and Social Change, 950-1050 [Oxford/New
York: Oxford UP], 81-92 at 88 n. 7), while C. Gerhardt and N.F. Palmer list several
15
The next installment of the present series, Pseudepigrapha Notes IV,

will discuss the textual history and literary contexts of the XV signa, and
provide an updated conspectus of its MSS.
5. Lunationes DanielisMS 395, fols. 180ra-181rb, and fols. 182ra183rb
According to the Catalogue,53 Yale MS 395 preserves a prognostic text
at fols. 180r-183v similar to the examples noted by P. Meyer and by
M. Frster.54 However, Meyer, who examined MS 395 when it was still
no. 4156 of the Phillipps collection, indicates that these folia contain
ve texts, not one.55 An inspection of the MS conrms his assessment.
All ve texts date from the late thirteenth or the fourteen century, and
are composed mainly in Old French. The rst text (180ra-181rb) is a
complex lunation. It begins: Hic incipit liber sompniorum et lunarium.
dozen German and Dutch MSS in an appendix to their edition, Das Mnchner Gedicht
von den fnfzehn Zeichen vor dem Jngsten Gericht. Nach der Handschrift der
Bayerischen Staatsibibliothek Cgm 717. Edition und Kommentar (Texte des spten
Mittelalters und der frhen Neuzeit 41; Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 2002), 159-65. Principal
editions of the text include G. Nlle, Die Legende von dem fnfzehn Zeichen vor dem
Jngsten Gerichte (Halle: Typis Karrasianis, 1879), H. Shields, Les quinze signes
descendus en Angleterre: A Medieval Legend in Decline, French Studies 18 (1964),
112-22; E. von Kraemer, Les quinze signes du jugement dernier. Pome anonyme de la
n du XIIe ou du dbut du XIIIe sicle, publi daprs tous les manuscripts connus, avec
introduction, notes et glossarie (Commentationes humanarum litterarum Societas
scientiarum Fennica, 38.2; Helsinki: Helsingfors, 1966), R. Mantou, Les quinze signes
du jugement dernier. Pome du XIIe sicle. dition critique, Mmoires et publications
de la Societ de Sciences, des Arts et des Lettres du Hainaut 80 (1966), 113-21 (n.b.
P.B. Fays review of Kraemer and Mantou in Romance Philology 21 [1968], 592-9), and
M.E. Stone, Signs of the Judgement, Onomastica Sacra and the Generations from Adam
(University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies, 3; Chico: Scholars Press,
1981), 1-57.
53. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.272-3.
54. P. Meyer, Notices sur quelques manuscrits franais de la Bibliothque Phillipps,
Cheltenham, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothque nationale et autres
bibliothques 24 (1891), 149-258 at 236-8; Frster, Vom Fortleben antiker Sammellunare, 154. For Meyer, see the following note.
55. Shailor observes that Meyer cites several manuscripts with similar texts (viz.,
London, BL Royal 16.E.VIII, Paris, BnF fr. 2039, and Oxford, Bod. Digby 86), an
observation that is based on the conclusion that Yale MS 395, fols. 180r-183r, preserves
one text, rather than ve. The other MSS cited by Meyer refer to one or another of these
ve texts, but none to either of the two copies of the Lunationes. Meyer himself
describes this section as une srie de courts pices en prose relatives des prsages et
des superstitions diverses (236).
16
luna prima Fet fu Adam. The second text (181va-182ra) is a copy of the
well-known prognostic, the Dies Aegyptiaci.56 The third text (182ra183rb) is another complex lunation. It begins: Autre songonaire ci
comence. Luna prima. A premere lune fu Adam form. The fourth text
(183rb-va) is a short prognostic commonly called the Reuelatio Esdrae
(see below, arts. 6, 11, and 12). The fth text (183va-b) outlines the
occurrence of perilous days.57
The Lunationes Danielis has been discussed in the section on the
Wagstaff Miscellany (see above, art. 2). What should be underscored
here is that the two copies of this text in MS 395 are part of a vast array
of MS evidence whose individual examples tend to vary widely in
specic content, phrase, and diction, but not in their general form.58 As
for language, other MS examples of the Lunationes exist in Old French,
and at least one in Provenal.59
6. Reuelatio EsdraeMS 395, fol. 183rb-183va
Fairly common in western mediaeval MS books are prognostics
purporting to forecast the upcoming year on the basis of the day of the
week upon which a certain day or date occurs. The basic type, sometimes called a kalendologion, is also known as the Reuelatio Esdrae, and
the special day may be Christmas Day, New Years Day, or the kalends
of January.60 In the case of New Years Day, the text is also known as
56. Incipit: Prima dies mensis. Ki le premier jor del meis en son lit chet See
Thorndike and Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits, cols. 1089-90.
57. Incipit: Ci nos conte e garnist des perillos jors de lan, que la gent ne se facent
seiner.
58. In the conspectus of MSS in my Book of Daniel, 441, I listed both Lunationes of
Yale 395 as Berlin MSS, with the Yale information in parentheses, since I discovered
the post-sale history of MS Phillipps 4156 too late to change the proof pages. Although
not all Lunationes are ascribed to Daniel, they are not normally ascribed to anyone else;
on blood-letting lunations attributed to Bede, see below, n. 183. The Lunationes Danielis
derived from the Somniale Danielis, and in MS the two texts sometime even share the
latters Prologue (above, n. 30). Many different versions of the Lunationes are extant,
but there is no distinction between the copies attributed to Daniel and the anonymous
copies. For these and other reasons, and with the exception of the Greek texts (which
unlike the Latin and vernacular copies tend to take unusual forms and exhibit various
ascriptions), I consider attributed and anonymous copies alike of the Lunationes as part
of the Daniel apocrypha.
59. DiTommaso, Apocryphal Daniel Literature, 441-2.
60. For other examples, see the conspectus of MSS, below. I do not include texts
whose prognostications are based on the Dominical Letter (Littera dominicalis); see
L.R. Mooney, Practical Didactic Works in Middle English. Edition and Analysis of the
17
the Supputatio Esdrae, although I hesitate to state that this is true in all
cases, since the text exhibits a diversity of title in MS, and sometimes
includes a brief note relating the seers situation or location.61 The late
medieval exemplars also seem to have followed several trajectories, and
a feature that appears in, for example, some of the Middle English MS
copies, such as the long Prologue of thirty-two lines,62 might not appear
in copies in other languages.
As with the Lunationes Danielis (above, arts. 2 and 5), a proportion
of the MS copies of the Reuelatio are anonymous. The text is also
sometimes attributed to Ezekiel.63 Referring to the copy in Cambridge,
CUL Gg.1.1, fol. 393r,64 Meyer explains, Dans toutes ces prdictions
lide commune est que les vnements de lanne qui va souvrir sont
dtermins par la concidence dune date xe avec tel ou tel jour de la
semaine; dans les prdictions de la premire srie cette date est le
premier janvier, dans la seconde srie cest le jour de Nol. Les unes et
les autres sont souvent places dans les mss. sous le nom dEzechiel, ou
sous celui dEsdras.65 In her ne paper E.A. Matter adds that in the case
of the French versions of the text, both Christmas Day and New Years
Day versions are normally attributed to Ezechiel, and never to Esdras.66
Class of Short Middle English Works Containing Useful Information (Diss: Toronto,
1981), 351-6, and the sources cited there.
61. E.g., Subputatio quam subputavit Esdras in templo Hierusalem (alternately:
Esdras propheta in templo Salomonis in Jerusalem, with variations), or Signum quod
ostendit dominus Hesdre prophete. On the title Supputatio Esdrae et argumentum
Josephi, see E.A. Matter, The Revelatio Esdrae in Latin and English Traditions,
Revue Benedictine 92 (1982), 376-92 at 382.
62. C. Brown, A Register of Middle English Religious & Didactic Verse (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 191620), no. 1420.
63. Ezekiel prognostics are not discussed in M.E. Stone, B.G. Wright, and D. Satran,
ed., The Apocryphal Ezekiel (SBLEJL, 18; Atlanta: SBL, 2000), but the editors acknowledge that some texts were excluded. The title and explicit of the copy at BL Harley
2252, fol. 141r-142r, attribute the text to Ezechyall. In his catalogues, James lists two
copies similarly ascribed: Lambeth Palace 456, fol. 212v, and Yates Thompson MS 77,
fol. 171v (= BL Yates Thompson 21, below). Cambridge, CUL Gg.1.1., fol. 393r, is
similarly ascribed (see the following two notes), while Matter reports that MS Ff.5.48,
fol. 74v of the same library is also attributed to Ezekiel. BL Royal 20.D.II (y-leaf) is
also attributed to Ezekiel, while Hezekiah is named in BL Royal 12.C.XII, fols. 88r
64. C. Hardwick, ed., A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of
the University of Cambridge (5 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 185667).
65. P. Meyer, Les manuscrits franais de Cambridge. II. Bibliothque de luniversit, Romania 15 (1886), 236-357 at 323.
66. Matter, 381 n. 1.
18
The Reuelatio Esdrae, a translation of which is included in the OTP,67

was composed in Greek,68 or less likely Coptic.69 John of Nikion in his
Chronicle remarks that such texts already enjoyed wide circulation in
both the Eastern and Western churches in the seventh century.70 The
oldest Latin copy (Leiden, UB Voss. lat. 4 69, fol. 37va-b) dates from
the end of the eighth century.71 Whether, as Matter speculates, the
Reuelatio derives from an earlier, possibly Second-Temple Jewish antecedent, subsequently adapted for Christian use, is difcult to conrm.72
Scholars have offered similar claims of antiquity for other prognostics,73
including the Syriac kalandalogion known as the Treatise of Shem,
whose type S.P. Brock correctly observes is far more typical to the postclassical period than it is to antiquity.74 Yet the fact that astrological
physiognomies (4Q186, 4Q534-536; cf. 4Q561) and zodiacal calendars
and brontologia (4Q318) were recovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls
establishes the proof of principle that prognostica presently known only
from mediaeval MS copies might have had ancient Jewish antecedents.
Esdras (Ezra) is the pious scribe who with Nehemiah is primarily
associated with the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon and the
restitution of the Law during the early Persian era. In later centuries,
Ezra lent his name to i) a small corpus of apocalypses, the most famous
of which, 4 Ezra,75 was composed between the years 95100 CE, shortly
after the destruction of the Second Temple, although at least one vision
67. D.A. Fiensy, Revelation of Ezra, OTP, 1.601-4.
68. See the conspectus of MSS, below.
69. An Ethiopic text understood by some to be a copy of the Reuelatio is in fact a
simple list of number of lucky and unlucky days in each of the months of the year. See
S. Grbaut, Les jours fastes et nfastes, ROC 18 (1913), 97-8.
70. H. Zotenberg, La Chronique de Jean de Nikiou, Notices et extraits des
manuscrits de la Bibliothque nationale et autres bibliothques 24, part 1 (1883), 408-9,
re ch. LXVIII, R.H. Charles, The Chronicle of John (c. 690 A.D.), Bishop of Nikiu,
Being a History of Egypt before and during the Arab Conquest (London: William &
Norgate, 1916), 51-2. In the early ninth century, Nicephorus condemned the use of
brontologia, selnodromia (probably lunaries as a general category, and not lunations
specically), and kalandalogia (PG 100, col. 885).
71. R.H. Bremmer, Jr., and K. Dekker, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microche
Facsimile. XIII. Manuscripts in the Low Countries (Tempe: Center for Medieval and
Early Renaissance Texts and Studies, 2006), 91, 100.
72. Matter, Revelatio Esdrae, 379-80.
73. Greeneld and Sokoloff, Astrological and Related Omen Texts. See the
discussion in art. 2, above.
74. S.P. Brock, review of OTP 1, in JJS 35 (1984), 200-9.
75. M.E. Stone, Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
19
was updated in later centuries,76 and ii) a series of other writings from
late antiquity through the mediaeval period,77 including the Reuelatio
and other prognostica.78
The Reuelatio Esdrae of Yale MS 395 is the fourth in series of small
forecasting treatises which are composed in Old French and occupy fols.
180r to 183v of the MS (see above, art. 5). This copy is particularly
important in that it is the oldest French version of the Reuelatio. It has
been edited by F. Fery-Hue, who kindly granted permission to reproduce
her text:79
Ci comencent les espermenz par tot lan del jor de Noel. Davoir tens u bon.
[1] Si le jor de Noel est par dimange, si aurez soef yver e chaud; ver est
moiste e ventos, est sec e ventos. Berbiz crestront. Bons blez seront. Vins
habonderont. Fruiz de cortilz aparront. Ver e genz moront. Mel habondera.
Batailles e larcins seront. Noveles choses vendront de rei e de prince.
Encore de jor de Noel par lundi.
[2] Se il avent par lundi, yver ert mols, est tempr e ventos et pluios. Vios
leals genz morront. Batailles seront. Princes si changeront. Mult entre chan
gabletez avera cel an. Dames seront en plors. Granz pestilences seront. Li roi
moront. Grant morine ert e granz enfermetez seront.
[fol. 183va] Encore del jor de Noel par mardi.
[3] Si par mardi, yver ert freit e pluios, ver moiste e ventos, est moill, aust
sec. Poi de forment. Femmes moront de sodeine mort. Avendra peril en mer.
Vins fauderont. Mel habundra. Romanie ert en trubins. Marchandises erent
dures.
76. L. DiTommaso, Dating the Eagle Vision of 4 Ezra: A New Look at an Old
Theory, JSP 10 (1999), 3-38.
77. R. Kraft, Ezra Materials in Judaism and Christianity,ANRW 2.19.1
(Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 1979), 119-36 at 131-3.
78. F. Nau, Analyse de deux opuscules astrologiques attribus au prophte Esdras et
dun calendrier lunaire de lAncien Testament attribu Esdras, aux gyptiens et mme
Aristote, ROC 12 (1907), 14-21. In addition to the Greek text of the Reuelatio Esdrae
of Paris, BnF gr. 2286, Nau discusses i) a text attributed to Esdras on the propitious days
of each of the months of the year, witnessed in BnF gr. 22, fol. 277, gr. 2149, fol. 165v,
gr. 2494, fol. 63v, and sup. gr. 636, fol. 135; and ii) another text, attributed variously to
Esdras, Aristotle, or the priest-sages of Heliopolis in Egypt, on forecasts for each day of
the month, from copies at BnF gr. 2149, fol. 166v, sup. gr. 1148, fols. 189-195, and sup.
gr. 1191, fols. 59v-64v. The latter text is a lunation, but one organised by the days of the
month rather than its moons.
79. F. Fery-Hue, Revelatio Esdrae ou Prophties dzchiel. lments nouveaux
pour le corpus latin et franais des prophties daprs le jour de Nol, in M. Columbo
Timelli and C. Galderisi, eds., Pour acquerir honneur et pris: mlanges de moyen
franais offerts Giuseppe di Stefano (Montral: CERES, 2004), 237-51 at 248.
20

Encore del jor de Noel par mescredi.
[4] Si par mescredi, yver tempr, est bon, aust bon. Princes e reis e pussanz
genz periront. Pomes averont assez. Vin ert cher. Peis e feves seront assez.
Encore del jor de Noel par jusdi.
[5] Si par jusdi, yver ert tempr, ver moiste, est bon, aust tempr. Perilz en
mer. Vesce e forment assez. Femmes empreigneront. Homes morront.
Encore del jor de noel par vendredi.
[6] Si par vendredi, yver ert tempr e granz nerfs seront. Vins habunderont.
Est mal, aust mal. Forment vil. Mal des oilz avendra. Enfanz moront e
periront. Batailles seront. Terre moete sera. Clamors erent entre les princes e
morront.
Encore del jor de Noel par samadi.
[7] Si par samadi, yver ventos, ver dur, est cher, aust sec. Dolors avendront.
Forment faudra. Tempestes avendront. Homes seront travaillez de diverses
langors. Vielz genz morront. Arsons avendront. Bons feins seront.
[pas dexplicit]
Although there are several lists of the Western MSS of the Reuelatio
Esdrae, their overlap is less than might be anticipated. Matters lists are
among the most comprehensive; in them she records a total of 53 Latin
and Middle English copies, and her footnotes mention an additional
three dozen MSS in other languages. Fery-Hues lists are the most
current, although her paper is restricted to the Latin and French versions
of forecasts based on Christmas Day.
I have collated the lists and supplemented the result with my own
research, including data obtained from the examination of MS copies
held in European and North American libraries, to produce a conspectus
of 287 Western MSS of the Reuelatio Esdrae.80 The conspectus is
intended to be prospective rather than denitive. Not every copy has
been been examined by autopsy, and it is assumed that new copies and
versions of the text remain to be discovered. For this reason I have not
distinguished among forecasts based on Christmas Day, New Years
Day, or the kalends of January. Contradictions between the data in the
conspectus and information in prior lists are resolved silently, although
the more signicant discrepancies are indicated.
80. I have not included the information in MS catalogues unless necessary.
21
ed. = edited by; tr. = translated by; cit. = cited by, even if I have edited the MS data.
Greek
1. Athnai, Bibliothecae Publicae cod. 11, fol. 24 (cit. A. Delatte, CCAG X: Codices
Athenienses [Bruxelles: M. Lamertin, 1924], 151-2, 153-4).
2. Cambridge, TC R.15.35 [James 946], fol. 132v (cit. M.R. James, The Western
Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. A Descriptive Catalogue.
Volume II, Containing an Account of the Manuscripts Standing in Class R
[Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1901], 366; H. Craig, The Works of John Metham,
Including the Romance of Amoryus and Cleopes, Edited from the Unique Ms. in the
Garrett Collection in the Library of Princeton University [EETS o.s. 132; London:
Kegan Paul, 1916], xxxiii)
3. Mnchen, BSB gr. 287, fol. 132v (ed. F. Boll, CCAG VII: Codices Germanicos
[Bruxelles: H. Lamertin, 1908], 126)
4. Leiden, UB Voss. gr. 1 59, fols. 281v-282r
5. Leiden, UB Voss. gr. 4 54, fol. 109r-v
6. Monte Casino, Cason. 431, fol. 78v (cit. F. Halkin, Auctarium. Bibliothecae
hagiographicae graece [Subsidia hagiographica, 47; Bruxelles: Socit des
Bollandistes, 1969], 63)
7. New Haven, Yale University 542 (see below, art. 12)
8. Paris, BnF gr. 22, fol. 277r-v (cit. F. Halkin, Manuscrits grecs du Paris. Inventaire
hagiographique [Subsidia hagiographica, 44; Bruxelles: Socit des Bollandistes,
1968])
9. Paris, BnF gr. 854, fol. 120v
10. Paris, BnF gr. 2149, fols. 165r-166v
11. Paris, BnF gr. 2286, fols. 110-111 (ed. M. Boissonade, Trait alimentaire de
mdecin hirophile, extrait de deux manuscrits de la Bibliothque du Roi, Notices
et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothque du roi 11, part 2 [1827], 178-273 at
186-7; ed. [in part] K. von Tischendorf, Apocalypses apocryphae Mosis, Esdrae,
Pauli, Iohannis, item Mariae dormitio, additis Evangelorum et actuum Apocryphorum supplementis [Leipzig, 1866], xiii-xiv; tr. Nau, 15; cit. Matter [see above,
n. 61], 377 n. 1)
12. Paris, BnF gr. 2315, fols. 296v-303r
13. Paris, BnF gr. 2494, fols. 63r-64r
14. Paris, BnF gr. 2992, fols. 372r-374v
15. Paris, BnF gr. 3028, fol. 163v (cit. R. Wnsch, Zu Lydus de ostentis, ByzZ 5
[1896], 410-21 at 419)
16. Paris, BnF sup. gr. 636, fols. 134r-142v
17. Paris, BnF sup. gr. 1148, fols. 189r-195v
18. Paris, BnF sup. gr. 1191, fols. 59v-62v
19. Sankt Petersburg, Bibl. Acad. scient. gr. 161, fol. 29r (cit. M.A.F. angin, CCAG
XII: Codices Rossicos [Bruxelles: M. Lamertin, 1936], 48)
20. Vatican, BAV Reg. gr. 945 (ed. C. du Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores medi &
inm grcitatis [Lyons, 1785], 1, col. 548 [q.v.
]; cit. Matter, 377
n. 1)
21. Vatican, BAV Vat. gr. 1823, fol. 103v (ed. Wnsch, 419-20)
22
22. Venezia, BM gr. 309, fol. 70v

23. Venezia, BM gr. 335, fol. 16v
24. Wien, NB gr. 3, fol. 64 (ed. Boll, 127-8)
25. Wien, NB medicus gr. 25, fol. 119 (cit. Matter, 376 n. 2)
Latin
26. Angers, BM 283, p. 22 (cit. Matter, 387)
27. Bamberg, SB misc. lit. 84, fol. 1ra-va (ed. G. Sandner, Sptmittelhochdeutsche
Christtagsprognosen [Diss: Erlangen, 1948], 111-12; G. Eis, Wahrsagetexte des
Sptmittelalters aus Handschriften und Inkunabeln [Texte des spten Mittelalters, 1;
Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1956], 66-8)
28. Bamberg, SB misc. lit. 90 (ed. Sandner, 111-12; cit. Eis, 25)
29. Bamberg, SB misc. theol. 223, fol. 230va-b (ed. Sandner, 114-15)
30. Basel, UB A.IX.2, fol. 108r
31. Basel, UB A.VIII.32, fol. 5v
32. Berlin, SB lat. 2 186 (cit. Sandner)
33. Budapest, Schchnyi Knyvtr 59, fol. 21r (ed. P. Spunar, Drobn texty a zprvy z
rukopis, Sbornik nrodnho muzea v Praze [Rada C] 12 [1967], 101-7 at 104; cit.
Thorndike/Kibre, col. 427; Matter, 388)
34. Cambridge, CCC 468, fol. 7 (cit. Matter, 388)
35. Cambridge, CUL Ff.5.48, fol. 66v (ed. Spunar, 107; cit. Matter, 390; Fery-Hue [see
above, n. 79], 239)
36. Cambridge, CUL Hh.6.11, fol. 67r (cit. M. Frster, Die Kleinliteratur des
Aberglaubens im Altenglischen, Archiv fr das Stadium der neueren Sprachen und
Literaturen 110 [1903], 346-58 at 349; Thorndike/Kibre, col. 1506; Matter, 388)
37. Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 235, fol. 164 (cit. Matter, 388)
38. Cambridge, Jesus College 86, fol. 183 (cit. M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of
the Manuscripts in the Library of Jesus College, Cambridge [London: C.J. Clay and
Sons, 1895])
39. Cambridge, St. Johns College 17, fol. 159rb (ed. Chardonnens [see above, n. 38].
499-500)
40. Cambridge, St. Johns College 135, yleaves
41. Cambridge, TC O.2.5 [James 1109], p. 74 (cit. Matter, 390 [citing fol. 148]; FeryHue, 239)
42. Chartres, BM 178, fol. 54v (cit. Matter, 388)
43. Dijon, BM 447 (268), fols. 99-100 (ed. Fery-Hue, 250; cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col.
1451; Matter, 390)
44. Einsiedeln, 72, fol. 60v (cit. D. Harmening, Superstitio. berlieferungs- und theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur kirchlich-theologischen Aberglaubensliteratur
des Mittelalters [Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1979], 134)
45. Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek Amplonian O.62b, fol. 182v (cit.
Sandner; Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349; Fery-Hue, 239)
46. Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Allgemeinbibliothek Amplonian O.62b, fol. 185v (cit.
H. Hellmann, Die Bauern-Praktik 1508 [Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten ber
Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus, 5; Berlin, 1896], 58; Fery-Hue, 239)
47. Erlangen, UB 1r-2r (ed. Sandner, 113-14)
23
48. Firenze, Biblioteca Medicae Laurenziana, Ashburnham 130, fol. 32ra-va (cit.
Thorndike/Kibre, col. 653; Harmening, 134)
49. Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana O.III, no. 11
50. Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana R.I, no. 27
51. Frankfurt am Main, Stadt- und UB Bartholomaeus 67, fol. 132v
52. Frankfurt am Main, Stadt- und UB Bartholomaeus 160, fol. 8v
53. Gttingen, UB App. dipl. 10.E.III, No. 4 (cit. Jenks no. 130)
54. Gttingen, UB App. dipl. 16.E (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1)
55. Gttingen, Jurid. 391, fol. 143
56. Graz, UB 1016, fols. 45v-46r
57. Graz, UB 1016, fol. 46r
58. Leiden, UB Voss. lat. 4 69, fol. 37va-b
59. Lilienfeld, Stiftsbibliothek Campililiensis 137, fol. 175v
60. London, BL Cotton Cleopatra B IX, fol. 25v (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1;
Craig, xxxiv; Matter, 389; Fery-Hue, 239)
61. London, BL Cotton Tiberius A III, fol. 36r-v (ed. Chardonnens, 496-7; cit. Frster,
Kleinliteratur, 349; Matter, 387 [citing fol. 34])81
62. London, BL Cotton Tiberius D XXVI, fols. 10v-11v (cit. Matter, 387)
63. London, BL Cotton Titus D XXVI, fols. 10v-11v (ed. B. Gnzel, lfwines
Prayerbook (London, British Library, Cotton Titus D.xxvi + xxvii) [Woodbridge,
1993], 151; ed. Chardonnens, 497-8; cit. Liuzza [see above, n. 39], 221)
64. London, BL Cotton Titus D XXVII, fol. 25r-v (ed. Gnzel, 115; ed. Chardonnens,
498; cit. Liuzza, 219)
65. London, BL Egerton 821, fol. 1 (cit. Matter, 387)
66. London, BL Egerton 2852, fols. 108v-109r (cit. Craig, xxxiv; Matter, 389; FeryHue, 239)
67. London, BL Harley 206, fol. 9v-10r (cit. Craig, xxxiii, citing only fol. 9v)
68. London, BL Harley 1811, fol. 36v-37r (cit. Craig, xxxiv)
69. London, BL Harley 2391, fol. 1 (cit. Craig, xxxiii)
70. London, BL Harley 2558, fol. 191ra-b (cit. Craig, xxxiv; Thorndike/Kibre, col. 427)
71. London, BL Harley 3017, fols. 63r-64v (ed. Spunar, 102-3; cit. Harmening, 134;
Matter, 387; Liuzza, 224)
72. London, BL Harley 3902, fols. 26vb-27vb (cit. Craig, xxxiv [citing fol. 26v])
73. London, BL Royal 12.C.XII, fols. 86v-87r (ed. Spunar, 107 [citing fol. 87r]; cit.
Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349 [citing fol. 86v]; Craig, xxxiv [citing fol. 86v]; Matter,
388)
74. London, BL Royal 12.C.XII, fols. 87r-v (cit. Craig, xxxiv [citing fol. 87r]; Fery-Hue,
239)
75. London, BL Sloane 122, fol. 125r (ed. Spunar, 106; cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 805;
Harmening, 134; Matter, 389)
76. London, BL Sloane 282, fol. 86r-v (ed. [in part] Craig, xxxiii; ed. Spunar, 105; cit.
Thorndike/Kibre, col. 1453; Harmening, 134; Matter, 388)
77. London, BL Sloane 282, fol. 86v (ed. [in part] Craig, xxxiii; ed. Spunar, 107; cit.
Matter, 390; Fery-Hue, 239)
81. In Latin and Old English. The foliation of Cotton Tiberius A.III varies in the
scholarship.
24
78. London, BL Sloane 475, fol. 217r-v (ed. Fery-Hue, 249-50; ed. Chardonnens, 449;
cit. Craig, xxxiv; Matter, 389; Liuzza, 226; Fery-Hue, 239)
79. London, BL Sloane 1620, fol. 45r (ed. Spunar, 105-6; cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col.
1451 [citing fols. 45-55]; Harmening, 134; Jenks no. 129; Matter, 389)
80. London, BL Sloane 3469, fol. 37r (ed. Spunar, 104-5; cit. Craig, xxxiii; Thorndike/
Kibre, col. 1453; Harmening, 134; Matter, 388)
81. Madrid, Real biblioteca de San Lorenzo (Escorial) Q.II.22, fol. 1r (cit. W. von
Hartel, Biblioteca patrum latinorum Hispanensis, SAW, philosophen-historischen
Classe, 111 [Wien, 1886], 415-568 at 525)
82. Montpellier, Bibliothque de la Facult de medicine 301, fol. 1r, 105r (ed. and tr. A.
Boucherie, Un almanach au xme sicle, Revue des langues romanes 3 [1872], 13345 at 133-8; cit. Matter, 387)
83. Montpellier, Bibliothque de la Facult de medicine 384, fols. 109r-110 (cit.
Thorndike/Kibre, col. 806; Harmening, 134)
84. Mnchen, BSB clm 677, fols. 18v-19r (ed. Spunar, 103-4; cit. Thorndike/Kibre,
cols. 603, 1444; Harmening, 134; Matter, 388)
85. Mnchen, BSB clm 6382, fol. 42v (ed. Spunar, 103; cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 805;
Harmening, 134; Matter, 387)
86. Mnchen, BSB clm 14456, fol. 75v (cit. E. Zinner, Verzeichnis der astronomischen
Handschriften des deutschen Kulturgebietes [Mnchen: C. Beck, 1925], no. 11680;
Chardonnens, 493 n. 19)
87. Mnchen, BSB clm 21412, fol. 1 (cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 1453; Harmening, 134)
88. Mnchen, BSB clm 22053, fol. 21v (cit. Zinner, no. 11681; Thorndike/Kibre, col.
1449; Jenks no. 126)
89. Mnchen, BSB clm 26666, fol. 159r (cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 1449; Harmening,
134; Jenks no. 125)
93. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 345, fol. 68r (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig,
xxxiv; Matter, 388)
94. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 345, fol. 69r (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig,
xxxiv; Matter, 390; Fery-Hue, 239)
95. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 1393 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1)
96. Oxford, Bod. Bodley 88, fol. 79 (cit. Matter, 390; Fery-Hue, 239)82
97. Oxford, Bod. Bodley 103, fol. 40 (cit. Matter, 388)
98. Oxford, Bod. Bodley 196, fol. 110 (cit. Matter, 389)
99. Oxford, Bod. Digby 75 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig, xxxiv)
100. Oxford, Bod. Digby 88, fol. 40r (cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 1451)
101. Oxford, Bod. Digby 103 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig, xxxiv)
102. Oxford, Bod. Rawlinson B.196 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig, xxxiv)
103. Oxford, Bod. Rawlinson C.486 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig, xxxiv)
104. Oxford, Bod. Rawlinson C.814 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 1; Craig, xxxiv)
105. Oxford, St. Johns College 17, fol. 159r (cit. Liuzza, 230)
106. Paris, Bibliothque de lArsenal 282, fol. K r
82. Digby 88, fol. 79, apud Craig, xxxiv?
25
107. Paris, BnF lat. 4968, fol. 33v (cit. A. Lngfors, Les incipit des pomes franais
antrieurs au XVIe sicle [Paris: E. Champion, 1917], 135-6)
108. Paris, BnF lat. 6584, fols. 35va-36ra (cit. Hellmann, 58; Thorndike/Kibre, col.
1453; Harmening, 134; Matter, 388)
109. Paris, BnF n.a. lat. 497, fol. 78 (cit. Hellmann, 56; Eis, 25; Matter, 389)
110. Pisa, Biblioteca Cathariniana 185, fol. 18va-b
111. Rein, Stiftsbibliothek Runensis 22, fol. 149r
112. Rouen, BM A 454, fols. 261v-262r (ed. P. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454 de la
Bibliothque de Rouen, Bulletin de la Socit des anciens textes franais 8 [1883],
76-111 at 88 n. 1; cit. Matter, 389; Fery-Hue, 239)
113. Schlierbach, Stiftsbibliothek 24, fol. 129va-b
114. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliothek C 19, 320v
115. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliothek C 36, fol. 224v
116. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliothek C 223, fols. 68r-71r
117. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliothek C 654, fol. 106v
118. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliothek C 664, fols. 111-113
119. Valenciennes, BM 543, fol. 37 (ed., in part, Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 86; cit.
Matter, 388)
120. Vatican, BAV Pal. lat. 235, fol. 39r (ed. Spunar, 103; cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col.
1451; Harmening, 134; Matter, 387)
121. Vatican, BAV Pal. lat. 1188, fol. 125r
122. Vatican, BAV Pal. lat. 1226, fols. 227v-228r (ed. Spunar, 106-7; cit. Thorndike/
Kibre, col. 1403; Harmening, 134; Matter, 389)
123. Vatican, BAV Pal. lat. 1449, fols. 119v-120r (ed. G. Mercati, Anecdota apocrypha
latina. Una Visio ed una Revelatio dEsdra con un decreto di Clemente Romano.
B. Una Revelatio Esdrae de qualitatibus anni, Note di letteratura biblica e
cristiana antica [Studi e testi, 5; Roma: Tipograa Vaticana, 1901], 61-81 at 77-9;
tr. Matter, 378-9; tr. Fiensy, 604; cit. Matter, 387)
124. Vatican, BAV Reg. lat. 567, fols. 20v-21r (margins) (cit. Hellmann, 58-9)83
125. Vatican, BAV Vat. lat. 248, fol. IIv (ed. Mercati, 77-9; cit. Matter, 387-8)
126. Vatican, BAV Vat. lat. 4825, fol. 156r (ed. Mercati, 77-9; cit. Matter, 389)
127. Vatican, BAV Vat. lat. 4439, fol. 9v (cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 806)
83. For a full description of the contents of this MS, and of its prognostic marginalia,
see L. Delisle, Mmoire sur danciens sacramentaires, Memoires de lAcademie des
inscriptions et belles-lettres 32, part 1 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1886), 57-423.
Delisle records the following incipit at fol. 21r: Kalende januarii si fuerint sabbato,
arbores hoc anno inserere debes; hiems turbinosus, et ver ventuosus This is the text to
which Hellmann, 58-9, refers. Yet MS Reg. lat. 567 is not easy to read, and many of its
marginal prognostica are missing sections through the trimming of its folia margins.
Having examined a digital copy of this MS, my initial impression is that its copy of the
Reuelatio actually begins on fol. 20v, in the top margin. Note, too, the words written in
the top margin of fol. 29v: SOMNIA AD [?] ESDRE PROPHETE Reuelatio fuit, which
cannot refer to the copies of the Somniale Danielis and Lunationes Danielis that follow,
which also are written in the margins. On the marginal prognostica of this codex, see
DiTommaso, Pseudepigrapha Notes IV, mentioned above in art. 4.
26
128. Wien, NB 2532, fols. 130v-132v (cit. Thorndike/Kibre, col. 653; Harmening,
134)
129. Zrich, Zentralbibliothek Car. C. 56, fol. 134v (cit. Harmening, 134)
130. Zrich, Zentralbibliothek Car. C. 176, fol. 161 (cit. Matter, 387)
Anglo-Saxon
131. London, BL Cotton Tiberius A III, fol. 36r-v [gloss to Latin copy, above] (ed. [in
part] Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349; ed. M. Frster, Beitrge zur mittelalterlichen
Volkskunde II, Archiv fr das Stadium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 120
[1908], 296-305 at 296-7; ed. Chardonnens, 496-7; cit. Craig, xxxv; Matter, 390
[citing fol. 34]; Liuzza, 217)
132. London, BL Cotton Tiberius A III, fols. 41v-42 (ed. Frster, Beitrge II, 297-8;
ed. Chardonnens, 494-5; cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349 [citing fol. 39v]; Craig,
xxxv; Matter, 390 [citing fol. 39v]; Liuzza, 218)
133. London, BL Cotton Vespasian D XIV, fol. 75v (ed. B. Assmann, Prophezeiung
aus dem 1. Januar fr das Jahr, Anglia 11, 369; ed. [in part] Frster, Kleinliteratur,
349; ed. R.D.-N. Warner, Early English Homilies, from the Twelfth-Century MS.
Vesp. D.XIV [EETS, o.s. 152; London: Kegan Paul, 1917], 66; ed. Chardonnens,
495; cit. Craig, xxxv; Matter, 391; Liuzza, 221)
134. Oxford, Bod. Hatton 115 [olim Junius 23], fol. 149r-v (ed. O. Cockayne,
Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England. Being a Collection of
Documents, for the Most Part Never Before Printed, Illustrating the History of
Science in This Country before the Norman Conquest [Rerum Britannicarum medii
aevi scriptores; London, 1866], 3.162-4; ed. Chardonnens, 496; cit. Hellmann, 58;
Craig, xxxv; Matter, 391; Liuzza, 228)
Middle English
135. Cambridge, Caius and Gonville College 457, fol. 74r (cit. R.H. Robbins, English
Almanacks of the Fifteenth Century, Philological Quarterly 18 (1939), 321-31 at
324 n. 18)
136. Cambridge, CUL Ee.1.1, fol. 73a (ed. Mooney, 320-1)
137. Cambridge, CUL Ff.5.48, fols. 9v-10v (ed. J.Y. Downing, An Unpublished
Weather Prognostic in Cambridge University MS Ff.5.48, English Language Notes
8 [1970], 87-9)
138. Cambridge, CUL Ff.5.48, fol. 75v (ed. C. Hardwick, Prognostications Drawn from
the Day of the Week on which New Year Commences, Notes and Queries 14
second ser. (5 April, 1856), 273-5; ed. J.Y. Downing, A Critical Edition of
Cambridge University MS Ff.5.48 (Diss.: University of Washington, 1969), 20814; cit. Brown, no. 47; Craig, xxxvi; Mooney, 321 [citing fols. 75v-78v]; Matter,
390)
139. Cambridge, CUL Ff.5.48, fol. 114r (ed. Downing, 291-2)
140. Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys Library 1047, fol. 23r-v (cit. Mooney, 319)
141. Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys Library 2125, yleaf at end (ed. Mooney,
348-51; cit. Brown, no. 720)84
84. Prognostication based upon the day of the week on which the nal day of the
year occurs.
27
142. Cambridge, St. Johns College 135, fols. 1r-2r (ed. Robbins, English Almanacks,
324-8; cit. Brown, no. 2088; Mooney, 321 [citing fols. iiir-ivr]; Matter, 391)
143. Cambridge, St. Johns College 237, fols. 39-41 (ed. Mooney, 338-42; cit. Brown,
no. 2088; Robbins, English Almanacks, 324 n. 19)
144. Cambridge, St. Johns College 269, fols. 58r (cit. Matter, 390)
145. Cambridge, TC R.3.20 [James 600], pp. 257-261 (cit. Brown, no. 1420; Mooney,
297)
146. London, BL Harley 671, fol. 25r (cit. Robbins, English Almanacks, 324 n. 19)
147. London, BL Harley 1735, fols. 13v-16v (ed. Mooney, 305-16)
148. London, BL Harley 2252, fols. 141r-142r (ed. L.L. Besserman, G. Gilman, and V.
Weinblatt, Three Unpublished Middle English Poems from the CommonplaceBook of John Colyns (B.M. MS Harley 2252), Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71
[1970], 212-38 at 228-36; ed. Mooney, 322-38; cit. Brown, no. 2703; cf. U. Frost,
Das Commonplace Book von John Colyns. Untersuchung und Teiledition der
Handschrift Harley 2252 der British Library in London [Europische Hochschulschriften 14.186; Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1988]).
149. London, BL Harley 2252, fols. 153v-154r (ed. T. Wright, Christmas Carols [Percy
Society, 4; London, 1841], 18-19; ed. H. Jenner, in M.A. Denham, ed., A Collection
of Proverbs and Popular Sayings Relating to the Seasons, the Weather, and
Agricultural Pursuits [Percy Society, 20; London, 1846], 69-70; ed. [in part]
Cheshire Notes and Queries 1 [1882], 230; ed. Mooney, 316-19; cit. Hellmann, 567; Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349; Brown, no. 850; Craig, xxxv; Matter, 391; see also
Frost, 295-7)
150. London, BL Harley 2252, fol. 154r-v (ed. Wright, 20-3; ed. Jenner in Denham, 702; ed. J. Brand and H. Jenner, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great
Britain [London, 1853-1855], 1.478; ed. C. Swainson, A Handbook of Weather
Folklore [Edinburgh, 1871], 163-5; cit. Brown, no. 1237; Craig, xxxv; Mooney,
297; Matter, 391)
151. London, BL Harley 2252, fol. 159v (ed. Besserman, et al., 236-8; ed. Mooney,
356-7; see also Frost, 310-12)85
152. London, BL Harley 2390, fol. 112r-v
153. London, BL Royal 12.E.XVI, fols. 3r-4v (cit. Brown, no. 1237; Mooney, 297)
154. London, BL Sloane 213, fol. 111r-v (ed. Mooney, 342-7; cit. Craig, xxxiii, xxxv)
155. London, BL Sloane 340, fol. 74 (ed. [in part] Craig, xxxiv)
156. London, BL Sloane 393, fols. 73v-74v (cit. Craig, xxxiii [citing Sloane 292] and
xxxv; Mooney, 342)
157. London, BL Sloane 1315, fols. 65r-67v (cit. Brown, no. 1420; Mooney, 297)
158. London, BL Sloane 1609, fols. 47-48 (cit. Craig, xxxv; Matter, 390 [citing fol. 47])
159. London, Wellcome Library 401, fols 1r-2r (cit. Mooney, 297)
160. Manchester, Chethams Library Mun. A.4.66, fol. 114r (cit. Frost, 285)
85. Prognostication based upon the day of the week on which Prime (the New
Moon) occurs. A simple version of the text, whose MS tradition I have not examined
(see Frost, 310-11, for examples). Versions also exist for texts based on the Feast of the
Conversion of St. Paul and on St. Swithins Day; for texts and editions, see Mooney,
357-61.
28
161. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 189, fol. 36r (cit. Craig, xxxv)
162. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 189, fol. 102v (cit. Craig, xxxv)
163. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 189, fol. 210r-v (cit. Craig, xxxv; Mooney, 297; Matter,
391)
164. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 392 or 393 II, fol. 36rv (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349;
Craig, xxxv [citing Ashmole 392]; Matter, 390)
165. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 392 or 393 II, fol. 37rv (cit. Craig, xxxv [citing Ashmole
392]; Matter, 390)
166. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 1447, fol. 39r (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349; Craig,
xxxv)
167. Oxford, Bod. Bodley 1689, fol. 75r (cit. Brown, no. 1420; Robbins, English
Almanacks, 324 n. 16)
168. Oxford, Bod. Bodley 3880, fol. 1r (cit. Robbins, English Almanacks, 324 n. 16)
169. Oxford, Bod. Bodley 6777, fol. 210r (cit. Brown, no. 2088; Robbins, English
Almanacks, 324 n. 16)
170. Oxford, Bod. Digby 88, fol. 12v (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 347 n. 3; Craig,
xxxv)
171. Oxford, Bod. Digby 88, fol. 25r (cit. Craig, xxxv)
172. Oxford, Bod. Digby 88, fol. 33 (cit. Craig, xxxv)
173. Oxford, Bod. Digby 88, fol. 75r (ed. [in part] Craig, xxxvi; ed. R.H. Robbins,
Secular Lyrics of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries [Oxford: Clarendon,
2
1955], 63-7; cit. Mooney, 297)
174. Oxford, Bod. Digby 88, fol. 77 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 349; Craig, xxxv;
Matter, 391)
175. Oxford, Bod. James 43, fol. 1r-v (cit. Mooney, 297)
176. Oxford, Bod. Tanner 407, fol. 53r (cit. Frost, 285)
177. Oxford, Bod. Wood D.8, fols. 21r-22r (cit. Mooney, 342)
178. Princeton, Garrett Library fol. 78r-v (ed. Craig, 146-7)
179. Princeton, Garrett Library fol. 87r-v (ed. Craig, 157-8)
180. San Marino, Huntington HM 64 [olim Phillipps 6883], fols. 94r-95r (cit. Robbins,
English Almanacks, 324 n. 16; Mooney)
181. San Marino, Huntington HM 1336, fol. 35r (cit. Robbins, English Almanacks,
324 n. 19)
French86
182. Bruxelles, Bibliothque royale de Belgique 10574-10585, fol. 112v (cit. Meyer,
Notice du MS. A 454, 87)
86. London, BL Harley 4043, fol. 1, which Craig describes as a French rhymed
version, has some similarities to but is different from the Reuelatio. See A. Jubinal,
Nouveau recueil de contes, dits, fabliaux et autres pices indites des XIIIe, XIVe et XVe
sicles (Paris: Challamel, 1839-1842), 2.374-5, and note also idem, Jongleurs et
trouvres; ou, Choix de saluts, ptres, rveries et autres pices lgres des XIIIe et XIVe
sicles (Paris: J.A. Merklein, 1835), 124-7. My examination of the BnF MSS could not
verify that a copy exists at fr. 1555, fol. 113 (cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 87;
Matter, 381 n. 1).
29
183. Cambridge, CUL Ee.1.1, fol. 1 (cit. Meyer, Les manuscrits franais II, 323; FeryHue, 239)
184. Cambridge, CUL Gg.1.1, fol. 393r-v (ed. Meyer, Les manuscrits franais II, 3235; cit. Matter, 381 n. 1; Fery-Hue, 240)
185. Cambridge, TC 323-324, fol. 57r (ed. P. Meyer, Les manuscrits franais de
Cambridge. III. Trinity College, Romania 32 [1903], 18-120 at 28; cit. Lngfors,
135-6)
186. Chartres, BM 334, fol. 1v (cit. Lngfors, 135-6; Matter, 381 n. 1)
187. Dijon, BM 447, fols. 99-100 (cit. Matter, 381 n. 1)
188. Falaise, BM 37, p. 405 (cit. Matter, 381 n. 1)
189. Innsbruck, Statthalterei-Archivs n 478, fols. 31v-33 (cit. W.V. Zingerle, ber
eine altfranzsische Handschrift zu Innsbruck, Romanische Forschungen 11 [18991901], 286-309 at 304-9; Fery-Hue, 240)
190. Heidelberg, MS private (cit. Lngfors, 135-6)
191. Lille, BM 130, fol. 84 (cit. Lngfors, 135-6)
192. London, BL Additional 24459, fols. 20r-v (cit. Matter, 388)
193. London, BL Additional 24459, fols. 20v-21r87
194. London, BL Royal 12.C.XII, fols. 88r-89v (cit. Craig, xxxv [citing fol. 88])
195. London, BL Royal 20.D.II, yleaf
196. London, BL Sloane 2806, fol. 43v (cit. Fery-Hue, 240)
197. London, BL Sloane 3281, fols. 83r-84v (cit. Fery-Hue, 240)
198. London, BL Sloane 3469, fol. 37v (cit. Craig, xxxv)
199. London, BL Yates Thompson 21, fol. 171v [olim Yates Thompson MS 77 and
Ashburnham Appendix 171] (cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 87; W.H.J. Weale,
et al., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Manuscripts (nos. 51 to 100)
in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson [Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1902], 186
[S.C. Cockerell])88
200. London, Lambeth Palace 456 [E..4], fol. 212v (cit. M.R. James and C. Jenkins, A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace. Part
IV: Nos. 358-459 [Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1932])
201. London, National Archives [olim Public Records Ofce] E 164/1, fol. 13v
202. Lyons, BM 506, fol. 67 (cit. Matter, 381 n. 1)
203. Modena, Biblioteca Estense Etr. 32 (XII.C.7), fols. 24va-25ra (ed. J. Camus,
Notices et extraits des manuscrits franais de Modne antrieurs au XVIe sicle,
Revue des langues romanes 35 [1891], 169-262 at 206-7; (cit. Lngfors, 135-6; cit.
Fery-Hue, 239)
87. Followed by a notation in a different hand: The above is written in a y leaf in
the Exchequer Domesday A.D. 1300.
88. The Reuelatio, in this case is attributed to Herechiel (Ezekiel), is unmentioned
in the BLs online catalogue, but is listed the description of this MS in the Catalogue
of the Manuscripts at Ashburnham Place. Appendix (London: C.F. Hodgson, 1861), no.
CLXXI. Although the Ashburnham MSS were later dispersed to various sites, the
Appendix was purchased by Henry Yates Thompson (18381929), who was an interesting bird, to say the least. He amassed a superb collection of precisely one hundred
MSS, which he would periodically augment by replacing one volume with another, so
that the total number always remained the same.
30
204. Montpellier, Bibliothque de la Facult de medicine 435 (cit. Meyer, Notice du

MS. A 454, 87-8)
205. New Haven, Yale University 395, fol. 183rb-va (ed. Fery-Hue, 248 [reproduced in
the text above]; cit. Meyer, Notices sur quelques manuscrits franais, 236-8)
206. Paris, Bibliothque de lArsenal (BnF) 3516, fol. 180 (ed. Camus, 206-7, cit. FeryHue, 240)
207. Paris, BnF fr. 837, fol. 207 (cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 87)
208. Paris, BnF fr. 2039, fol. 7r (cit. Fery-Hue, 239)
209. Paris, BnF fr. 2043, fols. 101v-103r (cit. Fery-Hue, 240)
210. Paris, BnF fr. 11252, fols. 174r-175v (cit. Fery-Hue, 240)
211. Paris, BnF fr. 12786, fols. 82va-83ra (cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 88, n. 1;
Craig, xxxiv, n. 3; Lngfors, 135-6; Matter, 381 n. 1; Fery-Hue, 239)
212. Paris, BnF fr. 15210, fols. 77-79 (cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 87; Lngfors,
135-6; Matter, 381 n. 1)
213. Paris, BnF fr. 25408, fol. 121 (cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 86; Craig, xxxiv,
n. 3; Matter, 381 n. 1)
214. Paris, BnF fr. 25516, fol. 139 (cit. Matter, 381 n. 1; likely identical to Paris, BnF
fr. 25546, fol. 139, cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 87)
215. Paris, Bibliothque Sainte-Genevive 2255, fols. 9-13
216. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 342, fols. 28-29 (ed. Fery-Hue, 248-9; cit. Frster,
Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 2; Craig, xxxiv, n. 3; Matter, 381 n. 1; Fery-Hue, 240)
217. Oxford, Bod. Ashmole 342, fol. 29 (cit. Craig, xxxiv, n. 3; Matter, 381 n. 1)
218. Oxford, CCC 59, fol. 116 (cit. Meyer, Les manuscrits franais II, 323)
219. Oxford, Digby 86, fols. 40-41 (cit. Frster, Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 2; Matter, 381 n.
1; Fery-Hue, 239)
220. Oxford, St. Johns College 178 (cit. Craig, xxxiv, n. 3)
221. Rouen, BM A 454, fol. 247v (ed. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 89-91; cit.
Matter, 381 n. 1)
222. Turin, Biblioteca nazionale universitaria M.IV.11 (cit. Lngfors, 135-6)
223. MS, present location unknown, but formerly in the private library of the Baron
Dauphin de Verna, fols. 17v-21r (ed. F.E. Schneegans, Notice sur un calendrier
franais du XIIIe sicle, Mlanges de philologie romane et dhistorire littraire
offerts M. Maurice Wilmotte [Paris: H. Champion, 1910], 619-52 at 642-6; cit.
Lngfors, 135-6)
Provenal
224. Paris, BnF fr. 1745, fol. 151c-d (ed. K. Bartsch, Denkmler der provenzalischen
Litteratur [Stuttgart: Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins, 1856], 315-6; ed. H.
Suchier, Denkmler provenzalischer Literatur und Sprache [Halle: Max Niemeyer,
1883], 1.123-4; cit. Meyer, Notice du MS. A 454, 86)
Italian
225. Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolo (ed. Mercati, 79; cit. Matter, 381 n. 2)
226. Paris, BnF n.a. lat. 299, fol. 25 (cit. Hellmann, 57-8; Matter, 381 n. 2 [Frster,
Kleinliteratur, 348 n. 5, identies this as a Spanish copy])
31
Romanian
227. MS Acad. Rom. misc., pp. 124-127 (ed. [variants] M. Gaster, Chrestomatie
Romn [Leipzig/Bucures: F.A. Brockhaus/Socec & Co., 1891], 2.58-9)
228. MS Gaster, misc., fols. 39v-41a (ed. Gaster, 2.58-9)
German
229. Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek, 2 25, fol. 71ra-vb
230. Bamberg, SB misc. astr. ma 9 (ed. Sandner, 122-3)
231. Bamberg, SB astr. q. 29a (cit. Sandner)
232. Bamberg, SB astr. q. 121 p. 82-83 (ed. Sandner 131)
233. Bamberg, SB misc. med. 22, fols. 67r-68r (ed. Sandner, 103-105; cit. C. Weier,
Neujahrsprognosen, Verfasserlexicon. Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters.
Band 6 [ed. K. Ruh; Berlin/New York, 1987], cols. 915-17 at 916)
234. Berlin, SB germ. 2 214, fols. 201r-202r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col.
916)
235. Berlin, SB germ. 8 121, fols. 170r-173r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col.
916)
236. Berlin, SB germ 4 1335, fol. 152r (cit. Zinner, no. 11685)
237. Berlin, SB germ. 8 379, 230v (cit. Zinner, no. 11684)
238. Berlin, SB germ. 8 477, fol. 166r-v (cit. Zinner, no. 11683; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
239. Budapest, UB germ. 5, fols. 158r-159r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
240. Erlangen, UB, sammlung Trew F *718, p. 11-15 (ed. Sandner, 123-8)
241. Frankfurt am Main, Stadt- und UB germ. 8 1, fol. 4r-v
242. Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek chart. B 1238, fols. 23r-24v (ed. M. Mitscherling,
Medizinisch-astrologisher Volkskalender. Einfhrung, Transkription und Glossar
[Leipzig: Edition Leipzig, 1981], 66-8; cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
243. Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek chart. B 1504, fol. 1r-v
244. Gotha, Landesbibliothek chart. in folio 980, fol. 168r-v (cit. Lindgren, Das
Utrechter Arzneibuch (Ms. 1335, 16, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht)
[Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen 21;
Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1977], 32-4)
245. Hamburg SB und UB germ. 1, fol. 64r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
246. Hannover, Staatsarchiv Arnoldus Doneldey Liber medicinalis A.A.16 [Bremer
Arzneibuch], fol. 41r-v (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
247. Hannover, Staatsarchiv Arnoldus Doneldey Liber medicinalis A.A.16 [Bremer
Arzneibuch], fol. 71r-v (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
248. Heidelberg, UB cpg 54, fols 9r-10r (ed. Eis, 66-8 [apparatus])
249. Heidelberg, UB cpg 214, fol. 58va-b (ed. Sandner, 97-98; cit. Eis, 25; J. Telle,
Beitrge zur mantischen Fachliteratur des Mittelalters, Studia neophilologia 42
[1970], 180-206 at 204 n. 4; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
250. Heidelberg, UB cpg 226, fols. 98v-99v (ed. Sandner, 97-99; cit. Eis, 25; F.B.
Brvart, The German Volkskalender of the Fifteenth Century, Speculum 63 [1988],
312-42 at 340 n. 110; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
251. Heidelberg, UB cpg 298, fol. 150rb-vb (ed. Sandner, 99-100; cit. Weier,
Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
32
252. Heidelberg, UB cpg 398, fols. 29r-30r (cit. Telle, 204 n. 4)

253. Heidelberg, UB cpg 575, fols. 34r-35v (cit. Telle, 204 n. 4; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
254. Heidelberg, UB cpg 577, fols. 13r-14r (ed. Sandner, 101-3; Eis, 66-8; cit. Telle,
204 n. 4; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916)
255. Heidelberg, UB Salem VII.98, fols. 27r-30r (ed. Sandner, 105-9; cit. Weier,
256. Heidelberg-Schriesheim, Privatsammlung Eis 54, fols. 9r-10r (cit. Weier,
257. Karlsruhe, Landesbibliothek K 2790, fols. 127v-128r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 916 [corrected in Verfasserlexikon Band 11 (2004), col. 1049])
258. Kbenhavn, Kongelige Bibliothek GKS 1664, fol. 28r-v (cit. Weier,
Neujahrsprognosen, cols. 916-17)
259. London, Wellcome Institute 438, pp. 345-350 (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen,
col. 917)
260. Manchester, John Rylands University Library 95, fols. 1-2 (cit. Matter, 381 n. 3)
261. Mnchen, BSB cgm 216, fol. 16r-v (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 917)
262. Mnchen, BSB cgm 223, fols. 18r-19v (cit. Brvart, 340 n. 110; Weier,
263. Mnchen, BSB cgm 317, fol. 124 (cit. Harmening, 134)
263. Mnchen, BSB cgm 328, fols. 157v-158v (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col.
917)
265. Mnchen, BSB cgm 398, fols. 29r-30r (cit. Hellmann, 57; Frster, Kleinliteratur,
348 n. 6; Harmening, 134; Matter, 381 n. 3; Brvart, 340 n. 110; Weier,
266. Mnchen, BSB cgm 430, fols. 9v-10v (cit. Brvart, 340 n. 110; Weier,
267. Mnchen, BSB cgm 725, fols. 105v-107v (ed. Telle, 205-6; cit. Brvart, 340 n.
110; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 917)
268. Mnchen, BSB cgm 728, fols. 45r-46v
269. Mnchen, BSB cgm 17188, fols. 107v-108r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col.
917)
270. Mnchen, BSB cgm 17296, fols. 85r-86r (cit. Brvart, 340 n. 110 [listing clm])
271. Mnchen, BSB cgm 26713, fols. 311v-312v (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen,
col. 917)
272. Mnchen, BSB clm 3776, fols. 118vb-119rb
273. Mnchen, UB 2 595, fol. 19r-v (cit. Brvart, 340 n. 110)
274. Nrnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum 198354, fols. 28v-30v
275. Salzburg, Stiftsbibliothek St. Peter b IV 8, fol. 154r (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 917)
276. Solothurn, Zentralbibliothek S 386, fol. 188r-v
277. Stockholm, Kgl. Bibliothek X 113 [Stockholmer Arzneibuch], fols. 4r-5r (ed. A.
Lindgren, Ein stockholmer mittelniederdeutsches Arzneibuch aus der zweiten Hlfte
des 15. Jahrhunderts [Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen, 5; Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1967], 57, 94; cit. Weier,
33
278. Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit 1355 16 [Utrechter Arzneibuch], fols.

91r-93v (ed. Lindgren, 78-9 [191-197]; cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 917)
279. Wien, NB cod. 2817 [med. 92], fols. 69r-70r (cit. Telle; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 917)
280. Wien, NB cod. 2967 [med. 92], fols. 50r-51v (cit. Telle; Weier, Neujahrsprognosen, col. 917)
281. Wolfenbttel, HAB Guelf. 23.3 Aug. 4, fols. 135v-137v (cit. Weier,
282. Zrich, Zentralbibliothek C. 102b, fols. 79r-80v (cit. Weier, Neujahrsprognosen,
col. 917)
283. Sammlung Prof. Eis HS 54, p. 88-89 (ed. Sandner, 119-22)
Dutch
284. Gelderland, Archief (cit. G.D.J. Schotel, Vaderlandsche Volksboeken, 1.168;
Hellmann, 57)
285. unknown (cit. Schotel, 1.4; Hellman, 56)
Czech
286. Wien, NB 3282, fol. 36r-v (ed. Spunar, 102)
Georgian
287. unknown (cit. M. Tarchnisvili, Geschichte der kirchlicher georgischen Literatur
[Studi e testi, 185; Roma: Vatican, 1955], 355, apud M.E. Stone, Fourth Ezra: A
Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990],
47 n. 315)
For printed editions of the English (Erra pater) tradition of the Reuelatio Esdrae, see
Matter, 391-2.
7. The Origin of the Monstrous RacesMS 404 (Rothschild

Canticles), fol. 113r-114v
MS 404 is one of the most famous and most beautifully illustrated of
all the Yale MSS. Produced in France around the beginning of the
fourteenth century, it is presently bound in two 16 volumes. A
orilegium comprised of a series of meditations and prayers,89 the
Canticles proper extend from fols. 12v-105v. The rest of the MS
contains other texts and excerpts, which its editor, J.F. Hamburger,
89. J.F. Hamburger, in Shailor, Catalogue, 2.287. The MS is described in M.R.

James, Description of an Illuminated Manuscript of the XIIIth Century in the Possession
of Bernard Quaritch (London, 1904), and in W. Cahn and J. Marrow, Medieval and
Renaissance Manuscripts at Yale: A Selection, Yale University Library Gazette 52
(1978), 173-284 at 202-3.
34
describes but does not edit.90 Included among these are two Latin OT
Pseudepigrapha: The Origin of the Monstrous Races, associated with
Adam, and the Poenitentia Salomonis (see below, art. 8), which involves
King Solomon.
The Origin of the Monstrous Races occupies fols. 113r-114v.91 It is
accompanied by nine small, splendid illustrations (see Plates II and III),
each corresponding to a portion of the short narrative, and labelled [A]
through [I] in the transcription below. M.R. James, who described the
text before its acquisition by the Beinecke, introduces its apocryphal tale
on Adam and his daughters by stating that he has not met it elsewhere.92
Friedman observes that its basic story is found in the collection of
Middle High German poems of c. 1060-1070 known as the Vienna
Genesis or Altdeutsche Genesis.93 W. Scheepsma provides a detailed list
of the texts other connexions with German and Dutch traditions of the
time.94
The text of the Monstrous Races of Yale MS 404 describes how
Adam, in Damascus, warns his daughters not to eat certain herbs, lest
they conceive monsters. His daughters ignore his advice. The story ends
with a retrospective note on how the post-lapsarian Adam, once the
wisest, fairest, and strongest of men, has become the poorest of them.
[A] [113r] In damasco erant diuerse herbe de natura speciali Adam dixit ad lias suas
[B] Si commederitis de illa herba fructum concipietis qui inferius erit similis homini et
superius habebit collum gruis et caput gruis [C] Si comederitis ab illa herba fructum
concipietis qui inferius erit similis homini et superius habebit caput canis [D] [113v] Si
comederitis ab illa herba fructum concipietis superius homini simulari et inferius
habebat duos pedes similes ii vannis [E] Si comederitis ab illa herba fructum
concipietis qui superius erit similis homini inferius habebit duos pedes pedibus equi
similes [F] Si comederitis ab illa herba fructum concipietis qui currit cum uno crure
90. J.F. Hamburger, The Rothschild Canticles. Art and Mysticism in Flanders and
the Rhineland circa 1300 (Yale Publications in the History of Art; New Haven/London:
Yale UP, 1992).
91. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 211, concludes that these folia are not
interpolated, contra the assertions of H.W. Janson, Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance (Studies of the Warburg Institute 20; London: Warburg
Institute, 1952), 105 n. 72, and J.B. Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and
Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1981), 94.
92. James, Description of an Illuminated Manuscript, 15-16; his partial transcription
is not free from error.
93. Friedman, Monstrous Races, 93.
94. W. Scheepsma, Filling the Blanks: A Middle Dutch Dionysius Quotation and
the Origins of the Rothschild Canticles, Medium Aevum 70 (2001), 278-303 at 291-3.
35
monoculus erit et uocabitur ciclops [114r] [G] Si comederitis ab illa herba fructum
concipietis qui similis erit homini et habebit aures longas usque ad pedes [H] Si
comederitis ab illa herba fructum concipietis qui erit animal et habebit menbra hominis
et erit symea parui sunt homines qui uocantur picmeier95 qui sunt longi ad modum
quatuor pedum cum sint quatuor annorum non crescunt ulterius cum sint trium annorum
habent pueros cum sint octo annorum mori [114v] untur Adam prohibuit omnibus
liabus suis ne commederent ab illa herba ac tamen comederunt hinc processerunt semi
homines qui concipiebantur ab herbis ego habent animas quasi bestie Adam scientiam
omnium herbarum et omnium rerum [I] Adam erat septies sapientor salomone et
septies pulcrior absolone et septies fortior samsone Adam fuit ditissimus hominem
quos deus fecit quia deus dederat ei potestatem de paradyso et super omnis creaturas
Adam erat pauperimus homini quia mandatum dei transgressus est et promeruit mortem.
Illuminations:96
[A] Adam, in red, on left, instructing his two daughters, in pale mauve and red
[B] A man with a head and neck of a crane
[C] A pair of men with the heads of dogs (Cynocephali), facing each other
[D] A man with a pair of giant feet, seated
[E] A man with the feet of a horse, standing near a tree
[F] A man with a single giant foot (Sciopod), standing
[G] A pair of men with giant ears (Panotii), facing each other
[H] A pygmy, wearing a long skirt, with a nude hairy upper body and a simian face
[I] Adam, in red, standing on left, and facing Solomon, in white and blue, kneeling with
crown, on right
The Origin of the Monstrous Races reects a widespread fascination

with monsters and marvels that the mediaeval world inherited from
antiquity.97 Teratological literature was common in mediaeval Judiasm,
Christianity, and Islam,98 and could serve various purposes, not least of
which was the demonisation of ones enemies by physically de-anthropomorphising them.99 There is the famous Liber monstrorum,100 along
95. So James, Illuminated Manuscript of the XIIIth Century, 15, but Hamburger,
Rothschild Canticles, 212, reads pitmeier. In either case, the word seems to mean
pygmies.
96. Hamburger (Rothschild Canticles, 211) observes that a similar set of illustrations
is found in Malibu, Getty Museum MS Ludwig XV 4.
97. See A. de Waal Malet, Homo Monstrosis, Scientic American 219, no. 4
(Oct. 1968), 112-8.
98. A. Samarrai, Beyond Belief and Reverence: Mediaeval Mythological
Ethnography in the Near East and Europe, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance
Studies 23 (1993), 19-42.
99. See D.H. Stricklands excellent study, Saracens, Demons & Jews: Making
Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton UP, 2003).
36
with bestiaries and related writings such as the Ps-Ovidian De mirabilibus mundi,101 plus compositions centered on the theme of exotica,
including the spurious letter of Alexander to Aristotle,102 which contains
an account of the Macedonian kings Indian expedition,103 as well as the
Wonders of the East.104 The description of monstrous races is also part of
100. Extant in ve MS copies: Leiden, UB Voss. lat. 8 60, fol. 1v-12v; London,
BL Royal 15.B.XIX, fols. 103v-105v; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M.906 (the
Rosanbo MS), fols. 40-56; St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 237, pp. 2-6; and Wolfenbttel,
HAB Guelf. 148 Gud. lat., fols. 108v-123v. Two other MSS have been lost; so P.
Lendinara, The Liber monstrorum and Its Anglo-Saxon Glossaries, Anglo-Saxon
Glosses and Glossaries (Variorum CS622; Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 113-38 at 114 n.
8. The literature on the text is extensive; see Lendinara, op. cit., and E. Dekkers and A.
Gaar, Clavis patrum latinorum (Steenbrugge: Abbatia sancti Petri, 31995), no. 1124. On
the MS tradition and editions, see D.R. Butturff, The Monsters and the Scholar: An
Edition and Critical Study of the Liber monstrorum (Diss: University of Illinois, 1968),
1-5, C. Bologna, La tradizione manoscritta del Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus
(Appunti per ledizione critica), Cultura neolatina 34 (1974), 337-46, F. Porsia, Liber
monstrorum. Introduzione, edizione, versione e commento (Bari: Dedalo, 1976), 47-62,
and A. Knock, The Liber monstrorum: An Unpublished Manuscript and Some
Reconsiderations, Scriptorium 32 (1978), 19-28, and the sources cited there.
101. M.R. James, Ovidius De Mirabilibus Mundi, Essays and Studies Presented
to William Ridgeway on His Sixtieth Birthday, 6 August 1913 (ed. E.C. Quiggan;
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1913), 286-98, J.G. Praux, Thierry de Saint-Trond, auteur
du pome pseudo-ovidien De Mirabilibus Mundi, Latomus 6 (1947), 353-66.
102. A. Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the BeowulfManuscript (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995), 204-23, after BL Royal 13.A.i, fols. 51v78r. The Latin text is provided by W. Walther Boer, Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem
de miraculis Indiae (BkPh, 50; Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1973).
103. Note De monstris Indie, ed. C. Hnemrder, Rheinisches Museum fr
Philologie 119 (1976), 267-84; see T. Grtner, Zum Indien-Abschnitt der mittelalterlichen Solin-Paraphrase des Theodericus, Acta antiqua (Hungary) 44 (2004), 123-32.
104. Preserved in Old English in three MSSLondon, BL Cotton Tiberius B.V,
fols. 78v-87v; BL Cotton Vitellius A.XV, fols. 98v-106v; and Oxford, Bod. Bodley 614,
fols. 36-51the last two copies also in Latin (De rebus in oriente mirabilis). See M.R.
James, Marvels of the East: A Full Reproduction of the Three Known Copies, with
Introduction and Notes (Roxburghe Club Publications, 191; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1929),
and J.D. Pickles, Studies in the Prose Text of the Beowulf Manuscript (Diss:
Cambridge, 1971), 34-87. Other editions: P. McGurk, et al., An Eleventh-Century
Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany (Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 21;
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1985) [Cotton Tiberius], K. Malone, The Nowell Codex
(British Museum Cotton Vitellius A.xv, Second MS) (Early English Manuscripts in
Facsimile, 12; Kbenhavn: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1983), and Orchard, Pride and
Prodigies, 224-47 [Cotton Vitellius]. See also G. Austin, Marvelous Peoples or
Marvelous Races? Race and the Anglo-Saxon Wonders of the East, in T.S. Jones and
37
the mediaeval Irish cosmological treatise, In Tenga Bithnua, or The

Ever-New Tongue.105
There is no rm evidence to indicate that the mediaeval texts are a
translation or version of an ancient exemplar. Rather, their worldview
appears to have been drawn from an aggregate of classical and late
antique sources, including the writings of Ctesias and Megasthenes in
the fourth and third centuries BCE; annalistic accounts of progenies and
marvels like those which salt the surviving books of the Roman
historian Livy; Virgils Aeneid; Plinys Historia naturalis;106 a lost poem
of Lucan;107 and the third-century CE Collecanea rerum memorabilia of
Julius Solinius, who based his work in part on Pliny.
On the other hand, two cases suggest that this aggregate of ancient
teratological sources might have included early Jewish sources. We
know that two MS copies of the Wonders of the East utilised the extrabiblical story of Jannes and Jambres.108 More specically, some scholars
link the story of Cains monstrous offspring in Beowulf, of which
Grendel and his mother were descendents, with the Noachic traditions
D.A. Sprunger, ed., Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles. Studies in the Medieval and Early
Modern Imaginations (Studies in Medieval Culture, 42; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute
Publications, 2002), 25-51. It is also preserved in an Old French version (Pickles,
Beowulf Manuscript).
105. J. Carey, King of Mysteries: Early Irish Religious Writings (Dublin: Four
Courts Press, 1998), 75-96.
106. R. Wittkower, Marvels of the East: A Study in the History of Monsters,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), 159-68; Friedman, Monstrous
Races, 5-25, 34-5. Butturff, though, argues that the author of the Liber monstrorum was
unfamiliar with Pliny (The Monsters and the Scholar, 5-7).
107. Lendinara, Liber monstrorum, 119-23 (Virgil) and 117 (Lucan).
108. On the Anglo-Saxon traditions associated with Jannes and Mambres, see T.O.
Cockayne, Mambres magicus, Narratiunculae Anglice conscriptae (London: J.R.
Smith, 1861), 50-67, 87, M.R. James, A Fragment of the Penitence of Jannes and
Jambres , JTS o.s. 2 (19001901), 572-77, M. Frster, Das lateinisch-altenglische
Fragment der Apokryphe von Jamnes und Mambres, Archiv fr das Stadium der
neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 108 (1902), 15-28, 110 (1903), 427, F.M. Biggs and
T.N. Hall, Traditions Concerning Jamnes and Mambres in Anglo-Saxon England,
Anglo-Saxon England 25 (1996), 69-89, and Austin, Marvelous Peoples, 44-6. On the
Jannes and Mambres texts and traditions, cf. A. Pietersma and R.T. Lutz, Jannes and
Jambres, OTP, 2.427-42, A. Pietersma, The Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres the
Magicians. P. Chester Beatty XVI (with New Editions of Papyrus Vindobonensis Greek
inv. 29456 + 29828 verso and British Library Cotton Tiberius B.v. f. 87) (RGRW, 119;
Leiden: Brill, 1994), and DiTommaso, Bibliography, 559-63.
38
that stand behind some of the oldest portions of 1 Enoch.109 A constellation of apocryphal texts and traditions accumulated around the gure of
Adam,110 and Augustine himself debated whether the monstrous races
descended from the family of Adam or the sons of Noah (Civ. Dei 18.8).
Cain, it seems, was a popular choice for the role of the Patriarch of the
Monsters.111
The question, then, is whether the Monstrous Races of Yale MS 404
transmits one or more Adam traditions whose original provenance is an
early Jewish or Christian apocryphon. A similar account of the origin of
the monstrous races appears in several old German sources, among them
Wolframs Parzival and the Wiener Genesis. None of them, though,
mentions Adams journey to Damascus or compares him to other gures
from Scripture, as is the case with our text. H.W. Janson, who considers
the Monstrous Races an interpolation in MS 404, highlights the gnostic
identication of Adam as thaumaturgos and suggests that the origin of
at least this portion of the tale might be sought in the context of early
Christianity.112 R.A. Wisbey also posits an early date, but disagrees with
Jansons nod towards gnostic antecedents and on threadbare evidence
points to an early Jewish provenance.113 But Wisbey overlooks the
Jansons exposition of additional points of contact between the
Monstrous Races and Talmudic-era Jewish traditions concerning biblical gures as agents of physiological change.114 Friedman does not
109. The case, made rst by K. Bouterwek, Das Beowulied: Eine Vorlesung,
Germania 1 (1856), 385-418, has been picked up intermittently since, most recently in a
two-part study by R. Mellinkoff, Cains Monstrous Progeny in Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon
England 8 (1979), 143-62, and 9 (1981), 183-97.
110. DiTommaso, Bibliography, 163-220, and M.E. Stone, A History of the
Literature of Adam and Eve (SBLEJL, 3; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992).
111. O.F. Emmerson, Legends of Cain, Especially in Old and Middle English,
Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 21 (1906), 831-929, Orchard, Pride
and Prodigies, 58-85.
112. Janson, Apes and Ape Lore, 94-5. He wrote before the discovery of the Nag
Hammadi texts.
113. R.A. Wisbey, Marvels of the East in the Weiner Genesis and in Wolframs
Parzival, in W.D. Robson-Scott, ed., Essays in German and Dutch Literature
(Publications of the Institute of Germanic Studies, 15; London: University of London,
Institute of Germanic Studies, 1973), 1-41 at 10: the nature of the comparison with
other Old Testament gures suggests a Jewish origin. See also the following note.
114. Janson, Apes and Ape Lore, 95-7. In the endnote to his statement about the
early Jewish origin of some of the pertinent Adam traditions, Wisbey comments that
39
specically argue that aspects of the Monstrous Races are based on an

ancient Jewish or Christian apocryphon,115 but identies both Augustine
and examples of early mediaeval rabbinic literature as providing the
context from which later teratological literature evolved.
The Achilles heel of every argument for an early date is that despite
the plethora of Adam apocrypha, there is no extant Jewish or Christian
source that could have served as an antecedent for the apocryphal
traditions of the Origin of the Monstrous Races of Yale MS 404. One of
the most idiosyncratic aspects of the text is the association of the birth of
the monsters of the world with Adams daughters, which seems to have
no parallel in the ancient traditions.116 As Hamburger concludes, no
source has been identied, and a close look at the context suggests that it
is unnecessary.117
All prior arguments on the issue of origins have been conducted in the
context of research on another theme, and proceed from the standpoint
of one or more of its mediaeval literary derivatives. It is my sense that
the issue of the antiquity of the tradition connecting Adam with the
origin of the monstrous races would make an excellent topic for a
dedicated study whose starting-point is the ancient and late antique
biblical pseudepigrapha.
8. Poenitentia SalomonisMS 404 (Rothschild Canticles), fol. 188r-v
The Poenitentia Salomonis is the second of two OT Pseudepigrapha
which are included in the miscellany appended to the Rothschild
Canticles of Yale 404 (see above, art. 7).118 King Solomon was another
biblical gure who enjoyed a robust afterlife in post-biblical traditions.
A useful recent work on the subject is P.A. Torijanos 2002 volume,
Solomon the Esoteric King.119 He devotes particular attention to the
Karl Bartsch in his Parzival editionassumes eine talmudische Quelle for the story.
To my knowledge, this has never been corroborated (Marvels of the East, 34 n. 39).
115. Contra the assertion of Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 212. See Friedman,
Monstrous Races, 92-7.
116. The so-called Livre des Filles dAdam, the identity of which J.-B. Frey
discusses in his article on the Adam apocrypha, does not seem to be related to this
tradition (Adam [Livres apocryphes sous son nom], Dictionnaire de la Bible
Supplment [ed. L. Pirot; Paris: Letouzey et An, 1928], 1, cols. 101-34 at 132-3).
117. Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 212.
118. Hamburger in Shailor, Catalogue, 2.289.
119. P.A. Torijano, Solomon the Esoteric King: From King to Magus, Development
of a Tradition (JSJSup, 73; Leiden: Brill, 2002).
40
manner in which, from the late biblical period through the Middle Ages,
the gure of Solomon the wise came to be associated with treatises on
exorcism, magic, and astrology.120 The volume, though, leaves certain
Solomon pseudepigrapha or legenda unaddressed, including the one
under discussion here.121 Steven P. Weitzman is completing a volume on
King Solomon, in which he also discusses the gures long literary
afterlife.122
The question whether the Poenitentia Salomonis qualies as a
pseudepigraphon is less one of categories and denitions (collections of
Pseudepigrapha from Fabricius to Charlesworth include texts that are
not pseudonymous) than of the texts constitution. As it is preserved, the
Poenitentia is, in the words of R.W. Hunt, a catena of short passages,
from patristic writers on Solomon, ending with two non-patristic pieces
described as the opinion of the Jews on the public penance performed
by him.123 In MS it is occasionally encountered as the second of two
compositions, the rst being an exegesis of Eccl. 1.12, attributed to
Gamaliel. Both parts are usually known in MS as De preuaricatione et
poenitentia Salomonis. This binary form marks two of the twelve extant
MSS of Alexander Neckhams Commentary on Ecclestiastes: Cambridge, TC R.16.3, fol. 88a (a discrete leaf attached to the other folia),
and London, BL Royal 12.F.XIV, fol. 134.
The circumstances under which passages associated with the penitence of King Solomon were assembled remain obscure. Based on the
120. In addition to the Greek Hygromanteia of Solomon, Torijano discusses a few

other pseudonymous magical treatises attribute to Solomon, most notably the Testament
of Solomon and much lesser-known Greek Selenodromion (i.e., a lunation). Yet the latter
text is attributed to David or Solomon in only a few MSS from over 200 examples, of
which at least a dozen are in Greek. Given the persistent and numerous MS attribution of
the Lunationes to Daniel, and its origins in the Somniale Danielis tradition, I cannot
agree with Torijanos proposal that the text should be called the Selenodromion of David
and Solomon.
121. On the Solomon apocrypha, see, amoing others, K. Bondar, ! "#!$ #$%#!$ '<# >@!,
Tirosh 4 (2000), 154-60, M. Naldini, Un frammento esorcistico e il Testamento di
Salomone, Studia Florentina. Alexandro Roncini sexagenario oblata (Roma: Edizioni
dellAteneo, 1970), 281-87, and C.S.F. Burnett, A Note on Two Astrological FortuneTelling Tables, Revue dhistoire des textes 18 (1988), 257-62.
122. Forthcoming from Yale University Press (private communication).
123. R.W. Hunt, Appendix (29-34) to R. Loewe, Alexander Neckhams
Knowledge of Hebrew, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1958), 19-34 at 32.
41
MS evidence, the text as we know it almost seems to have materialized

ex nihilo in the twelfth century. Hunt lists nine additional English MS
copies, in order of their dates, the earliest of which is from the early
twelfth century:
Oxford, Bod. Bodley 333, fol. ii
Taunton Castle Museum MS 3, fol. 103v
Aberdeen University Library MS 9, fol. 1
London, BL, Royal 5.A.VII, fol. 160v124
Cambridge, CCC 316, fol. 189
Cambridge, St. Johns College 111, fol. 34v
Oxford, Bod. Rawlinson C.531, fol. 32
Shrewsbury School Library, MS XXXI, fol. 103v
Cambridge, Caius College 437, fol. 95v125
Also during the rst decades of the twelfth century, Lambert of St. Omer
gradually compiled his Liber Floridus (c. 1112-1121), which, in the
eighty-seventh chapter (fols. 96r-v) of its autograph, Gent, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek 92126 (cf. Paris, BnF lat. 8865, lat. 9675, etc.),127
includes a version of the Poenitentia. In the second half of the same
century, Philippe de Harveng, Abbot of Bonne Esprance, composed a
Responsio de damnatione Salomonis containing a catena that is quite
similar to the Poentitentia passages in Neckhams Commentary and the
Liber Floridus. Harvengs tractate is preserved in several MSS,
including Bruxelles, Bibliothque royale II.1156, fols. 12r-28r, and
Paris, BnF n.a. lat. 1429, fols. 92-110.128 Some Solomon passages
124. Actually, fols. 160v-161r.
125. But note M.R. James: fol. 95v: De preuaricacione et penitencia Salomonis
regis quid senserint sancti patres nostri Augustinus Iheronimus Ambrosius Bacarus et
Beda and fol. 96v: De preuaricacione regis Salomonis quid S. Augustinus senserinta
seipso est depositus a regno (A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library
of Gonville and Caius College. II. Nos. 335-721 [Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1908],
508).
126. A. Derolez, ed., Lamberti S. Audomari Liber Floridus. Codex autographus
bibliothecae Gandavensis (Gent, 1968), 195-6; cf. idem, Lambertus qui librum fecit. Een
codicologische studie van de Liber Floridus-autograaf (Verhandelingen van de
Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en schone Kunsten van Belgi,
Klasse der Letteren, Jahrgang 90, nr. 89; Bruxelles: Paleis de Academin, 1978), 180.
127. Described in L. Deslisle, Notice sur les manuscrits du Liber Floridus,
compos en 1120 par Lambert, chanoine de Saint-Omer, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothque nationale et autres bibliothques 38 (1903), 577-791.
128. PL 203, cols. 621-66; G.P. Sijen, Les oeuvres de Philippe de Harveng, abb
de Bonne Esprance, Analecta praemonstratensia 15 (1939), 129-66 at 149-50.
42
quoted in Neckhams Commentary and Harvengs Responsio are also

embedded in the letters of Fulbert of Chartres129 and of Peter Damian.130
The evidence suggests the work of an unknown compiler, continental
rather than insular, who assembled this collection of passages on
Solomon sometime before their appearance, in whole or in part, in
multiple sources in the twelfth century.131 One such source is the
anonymous De paenitentia regum, possibly composed in 1077 as a
response to King Henry IVs famous penitence in the snow before Pope
Gregory VII,132 and rst edited by H. Bhmer from a single MS,
Bamburg, Can. 9 [P.I.9], fol. 106.133
A greater antiquity of the tradition of Solomons penitence is more
difcult to establish. As we have seen, parts of the Preuaricatione are
accredited to Gamaliel, while the portions of the Poenitentia that
describe how Solomon was dragged through the streets of Jerusalem and
went to Temple to be ogged for his sins are attributed to unnamed
Hebrew writingsthe quaedam foliola that Philippe de Harveng
mentions. There is an old tale among the Church Fathers that speaks of
lost, concealed, or rejected Hebrew works associated with Solomon (cf.
Jerome, Commentary to Eccl. 12.13). These traditions have been
collected in learned paper by D.J. Halperin and evaluated in light of a
general rabbinic unease about Ecclesiastes and other presumptive
129. Ep. 65, apud PL 141, cols. 232-4; see F.O. Behrends, Two Spurious Letters in
the Fulbert Collection, Revue Bndictine 80 (1970), 253-75. The tradition of
Solomons being ogged and dragged through the city, attributed to Hebrew books
(see text below) is repeated in the fourteenth-century Historien der Alden , lines 264054, apud W. Gerhard, Historien der Alden (Leipzig: K.W. Hiersemann, 1927), 74-5.
130. A. Mund, Una lettera di S. Pier Damiani sulla salvezza di Salomone,
Benedicta 5 (1951), 19-26. The inuence of the tradition of Solomons penitence on
Dantes Commedia is discussed in G.R. Sarolli, Prologomena alla Divina Commedia
(Biblioteca dell Archivum romanicum, I.112; Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1971), 210-15,
and O. Lieberknecht, Allegorese und Philologie: berlegungen zum Problem des
mehrfachen Schriftsinns in Dantes Commedia (Text und Kontext, 14; Stuttgart: F.
Steiner, 1999), 92-7.
131. Hunt, Appendix, 34.
132. U.-R. Blumenthal, Canossa and Royal Ideology in 1077: Two Unknown
Manuscripts of De penitentia regis Salomonis, Manuscripta 22 (1978), 91-6 at 91. But
see C. Mrtl, Ein angeblicher Text zum Bugang von Canossa: De paenitentia
regum, Deutsches Archiv fr Erforschung des Mittelalters 38 (1982), 555-63.
133. H. Bhmer, ed., De paenitentia regum et de investitura regali collectanea,
Libelli de lite imperatorum et ponticum saeculis XI. et XII. conscripti (Monumenta
Germaniae historica; Hannover: Impensis bibliopolii Hahniani, 1891-1897), 3.609-14.
43
Solomonic writings.134 Evidence for a tradition of Solomons penitence

may be circumstantially derived from rabbinic sources that discuss the
life and times of the king,135 although exact points of contact with the
contents of the Poenitentia are tenuous. There is also a Greek text that
discusses Solomons sin,136 and an Armenian text, which, according to
Stone, deals with King Solomon, his sins, and his repentance and is
preserved in two forms, neither of which parallels the Poenitentia.137
However, as it now stands, nothing will come of nothingif ever
there were an ancient or late antique Jewish text on the penitence of
Solomon that served as the original source of the medieval passages, it
has been lost.138
As for the copy of the Poentitentia Salomonis in Yale MS 404, both
the Catalogue and M.R. James139 mark its existence without further
comment. But it is hardly an exact copy. Hence I have transcribed its
text below, alongside columns containing the relevant sections from
Neckhams Commentary and the Liber Floridus for comparison. I
employ Hunts numerical divisions of the Commentary to cordinate the
parallel sections in the two other MSS. Note how both the contents of
the text and the sequence of its sections differ in all three versions. To
one degree or another, this is a characteristic of every other copy I have
examined.
134. The Book of Remedies, the Canonization of the Solomonic Writings, and the
Riddle of Pseudo-Eusebius, JQR 72 (1982), 269-92.
135. L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society, 190138), 4.168-72; cf. Hunt, Appendix, 31 n. 1, and Halperin, Solomonic
Writings.
136. Paris, BnF gr. 1021, fols. 184v-185v (F. Halkin, Auctarium. Bibliothecae
hagiographicae graece [SubH, 47; Bruxelles: Socit des Bollandistes, 1969], 229, no.
2392c), and other copies. An edition is being published by Michael E. Stone and
Emmanouela Grypeou. N.b. Cambridge, TC 179 [B.7.2], fol. 469v, cited by M.R. James,
The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. A Descriptive
Catalogue. I. Containing an Account of the Manuscripts Standing in Class B
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1900).
137. Concerning the Penitence of Solomon, JTS 29 (1978), 1-19.
138. Halperin proposes the possible existence of an ancient story of Hezekiahs
dragging the bones of the (long-dead) corpse of Solomon through the streets of
Jerusalem, but admits that this theory is highly speculative.
139. James, Illuminated Manuscript of the XIIIth Century, 25-6.
44
Cambridge, TC R.16.3, and

London, BL Royal 12.F.XIV
(ed. Hunt)
DE PREVARICATIONE
SALOMONIS ET EIUS
PENITENTIA
Gent, Rijksuniversiteit 92
(Liber Floridus)
(ed. Derolez)
Yale 404
PENITENCIA SALOMONIS
[1] In expositione autem

Genesis in libro xvo dicit
beatus Augustinus, loquens
de Salomone: Numquid de
Salomone credendum est, qui
uir tante sapientie fuit, quod
in cultu simulacrorum
mutorum aliquid utilitatus
existimauerit? Non, sed,
muliercule seductus
illecebris, dum ipsam noluit
contristare executus est quod
minime faciendum erat.
[2] Ieronimus uero in libro
explanationum super
Ezechielem xiiimo de extrema
uisione eius que facta est ei
de edifactione in monte
constituto facit mentionem
dicens: Quamis pecasset
Salomon, tamen egit
penitentiam, scribens
Prouerbia, ut dicit:
Nouissime egi penitentiam et
respexi ut eligerem
disciplinam.
[2] HIERONIMVS in XVII

libro super Iezechielem de
extrema uisione eius, qu\
facta est ei de \dicio in
monte constitutio, de
Salomone facit mentionem
dicens:
Quamuis peccasset Salomon,
tamen \git penitentiam
scribens Prouerbia ubi dicet:
respexi ut eligerem
disciplinam.
[3] Item Ieronimus super

Ecclesiasten: Aiunt Hebrei
hunc librum esse Salomonis
penitentiam agentis.
[3] Aiunt Hebrei Ecclesiasten [7] Auint item hebrei cum

librum esse Salomonis
quinquies tractum fuisse
penitentiam agentis.
Iherosolimis per plateas
causa penitentie
[4] Ambrosius item in

Apologia Dauid: Quid de
Dauid dicam? Quid de sancto
Salomone, qui quoniam eum
Iudaicum uulgus estimabat
uenisse pro Christo, ne
uideretur esse supra
hominem, nutu corruit
diuino. Et attende quia beatus
[4] Ambrosius in Apollogia

. Dauid ait:
Quid de Dauid dicam et quid
de sancto Salomone?
Quoniam Iudaicum uulgus
\stimabat eum uenisse pro
Christo, ne uideretur esse
super hominem nutu diuino
corruit. Dauid non dicitur
excusatio uel purgatio
[2] Iheronimus in octauo

libro super libro super
ezechielem de extrema
uisione eius qui facta est et
editio in monte constituto
mentionem facit dicens.
Quamius peccasset Salomone
tamen egit penitentiam
scribens prouerbia ubi ait.
respexi ut eligerem
disciplinam.
[8] et uenisse in templum

quod ipse edicauerat cum
quinque uirgis [188v] ut ut ab
illis uerberaretur Quid
communi reppeurunt consilio
quod in domini manus non
mitterent frustratus ab illis a
seipso depositus est a regno
afrmabant

Ambrosius non uocat Dauid
sanctum, quia ab omnibus
sanctus esse dinoscitur, sed
Salomonem nominat sanctum
ut nobis de penitentia eius
dubitationem tollat.
sanctus, qui ab omnibus

sanctus esse scitur, et
Salomonem sanctum
nominat, ut nobis de
penetentia eius dubietatem
tollat.
[5] Item Ambrosius de Satiro

fratre suo scribens inter
cetera ait: Hoc ait sanctus
Salomon.
[7] Aiunt etiam Iud\i

Salomonem quinquies
tractum fuisse per plateas
Hierusalem causa p\nititenti\
[6] Item Ambrosius in libro

Exameron mentionem ipsius
faciens inquit: Quoniam et
elephantos uides tibi sibditos
et leones subiectos, nosce
teipsum, o homo, quia non
Fitii Apollinis sed sancti
Salomonis est quod legitur:
Nisi scias te formosam inter
mulieres etc. Super quem
locum ait sepe iam dictus
Ambrosius: Salomon ille
mirabilis qui meruit assistrici
dei, hoc est sapientie
copulari, alienigenarum
mulierum incurrit amplexus
et uinculo libidinis
illaqueatus, etiam se
sacrilegii polluit errore,
quoniam simulacrum
Chamos, Moabitarum
ydolum fabricauit, ipsum
adorans; sed quia culpam
erroris agnouit, numquid
medicine celestis permansit
extorris? Aut fortisan dicas
numquam eum in canone
lego penituisse nec ueniam
consecutum. Audi ergo frater,
penitentiam eius, que non
scribitur publicis libris, et
fortasse ideo acceptabilior
iudicatur, quia non ad faciem
populi, sed in secreto
conscientie, deo teste,
penituit. Veniam autem ex
hoc consecutus esse
dinoscitur, quia cum solutus
[8] et uenisse in templum

quod \dicauerat cum
quinque uirgis, de quibus
dedit IIIIor legis peritus ut
uerberaretur ab illis. Qui
communi consilio accepto
dixerunt quod in unctum
Domini non manum
mitterent. Inde fustratus ab
illus seipso depositus est
regno.
45
[3] aiunt hebrei ecclesiasten

esse librum salomonis
penitentiam agentis
[4] Ambrosius ait in

appollogia dauid Dauid qui
ab omnibus sanctus esse
dinoscitur sanctum non
nominat sed salomonem ut
de penetentia eius dubietatem
nobis tollat
[5] Item ambrosius de satyro
fratre suo scribens inter
cetera ait hic est sanctus
salomon qui dicam de sancto
Salomone in domini in est in
illum pro quem signicatus
deus qui est sapientia et
monitorus tocius philosophie
in libro Salomonis.
[9] Verba [Ihesu l Syrach

in libro Ecclesiastico de
Dauid et Salomone]. Christus
purgauit peccat ipsius Dauid et
exaltauit in \ternum cornu
ipsius et dedit illi
testamentum regum et sedem
glori\ in Israhel. Post ipsum
surrexit lius [sensatus
Salomon
], et propter illum
deiecit omnem potentiam
inimicorum. Salomon
imperauit in diebus quibus
Deus subiecit omnes hostes
ut conderet domum in
nomine suo et peraret
sanctitatem in sempiternum,
quaemadmodum eruditus est
in uirtute sua et repletus est
quasi umen sapientia et
terram retextuit anima sua et
repleuit in comparationibus
engmata. Ad insulas longe
diuulgatum est nomen eius et
dilectus est in pace sua. In
cantilenis et prouerbs et
46
fuisset a corpore sepultum

illum inter regum
Israelitarum corpora scriptura
commemorat; quod tamen
peccatoribus in sua
peruersitate naliter
persistentibus abnegatum
esse cognoscimus. Et
quoniam inter reges iustos
sepultus est, non fuit alienus
a uenia. Veniam autem sine
penitentia non potuit
promereri.
[7] Item aiunt Hebrei
Salomonem quinquies
tractum fuisse per plateas
Ierusalem cause penitentie.
[8] Aiunt etiam eum uenisse
in templum quod ipse
edicauerat cum quinque
uirgis, de quibus quatuor
dedit legisperitus, ut
uerberaretur ab illis, qui
communi dixerunt consilio
quod in unctum domini
manum non mitterent. Unde
frustratus ab illis a semetipso
depositus est a regno.
comparationibus et
interpretationibus suis mirat\
sunt terr\ et in nomine
Domini, cui est cognomen
Deus Israhel.
ITEM DE SALOMONE
ALIBI.
[6] Forsitan aliquid
acceptabile dicam, quia non
ad fauorem populi sed in
secreto conscienti\ Deo teste
p\nituit. Veniam autem ex
hoc consecutus est, quia, cum
solutus esset corpore,
sepultum eum inter regum
corpora Scriptura Sancta
commemorat. Quod tamen
alibi peccatoribus regibus
abnegatum fuisse
cognouimus, qui usque ad
mortem in turpissima
peruersitate adorantes idola
permanserunt. Et ideo, quia
inter iustos reges meruit
sepeliri, alienus uenia non
fuit. Veniam autem ipsam
nisi p\nitentia promeri non
potuit.
The Poenitentia exists in very many more copies and versions than
suspected. Several copies I have examined are versions hitherto
unknown to me. At this preliminary stage, and without endeavouring to
provide a full conspectus, Hunts roster of MSS may be augmented with
data, subject to verication, from fty-nine additional copies/versions I
have encountered through the examination of MSS, or have seen listed
in catalogues or other studies:140
140. See, esp. Mrtl, Ein angeblicher Text, 558 n. 13. Cf. nn. 21, 24, 25 of the
same study regarding over a dozen MSS bearing titles and/or incipits that would indicate
their overlap with the content or theme of the Poenitentia Salomonis. Don Mund states,
Ma la maggioranza rimane inedita; consoco pi di trenta mss. divisi in vari tipi, e con
un numero variabile di testi citati (Una lettera, 21 n. 13).
47
Aberdeen, UL 9, fol. 1v (?)141

Avignon, BM 283 (a.f. 179), fol. 102142
Basel, UB A.X.130, fol. 33v (? and 57r)143
Basel, UB B.III.1, fol. 104rb-vb144
Basel, UB B.V.24, fol. Avb
Basel, UB B.VI.13, fol. 140va
Basel, UB B.IX.12, fol. 246rb
Basel, UB B.X.35, fol. 61v
Berlin, SPBK Electorales 351, fol. 44
Bruxelles, Bibliothque royale 2772-89, fols. 49v-52
Bruxelles, Bibliothque royale 10611-14, fols. 83-85
Bruxelles, Bibliothque royale II.954, fol. 94
Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 437, fol. 95v
Cambridge, Pembroke College 42
Cambridge, St. Johns 111, fol. 34
Chartres, BM 85 (132), fol. 43v
Chicago, University of Chicago Library 147, fols. 69rb-69vb
Cortona, Biblioteca communale 42145
Firenze, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, Panciatich. 43, fol. 111r
Fulda, Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek Aa 36 4 [E.43], fols. 74v-75v146
Kbenhavn, Kongelige Bibliothek Kall 1 fol., fol. 92v
Kbenhavn, Kongelige Bibliothek Thott 158 fol., fols 142r-144v
Leiden, UB Voss. lat. O.91, fol. 87v
Leipzig, UB 828, fols. 120r-121r
Leipzig, UB 1642, fols. 45v-46147
141. M.R. James, A Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in the University
Library Aberdeen (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1932), 13, with the description Extracts
on the salvation of Solomon.
142. On this copy, as well as Chartres, BL Additional 33518 (but: fol. 116v), and
BAV Pal. lat. 317, see B. Lambert, Bibliotheca Hieronymiana manuscripta: la tradition
manuscrite des oeuvres de saint Jrme, tome III B (Instrumenta patristica, 4; Steenbrugis: In abbatia s. Petri, 1970), 488.
143. In Latin, despite the catalogue reference: G. Binz, Die deutschen Handschriften der Oeffentlichen Bibliothek der Universitt Basel (Basel: Gasser et Cie.,
1907).
144. G. Morin, A travers les manuscrits de Ble. Notices et extraits des plus
anciens manuscrits latins, Basler Zeitschrift fr Geschichte und Altertumskunde 26
(1927), 175-249 at 179. On this copy as well as the other Basel copies bearing the classmark B, see G. Meyer and M. Burckhardt, Die mittelalterlichen Handschriften der
Universittsbibliothek Basel (3 vols.; Basel: Univeristtsbibliothek Verlag, 196075).
145. Ed., with Urb. lat. 65, by don Mund, Una lettera.
146. On this MS and the San Daniele del Friuli MS, see Blumenthal, Canossa and
Royal Ideology.
147. H. Weisweiler, Das Schrifttum der Schule Anselms von Laon und Wilhelms
von Champeaux in deutschen Bibliotheken. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Verbreitung
48

Lincoln, Cathedral Library 98, fol. 169v
London, BL Add. 33518, fol. 166v
London, BL Cotton Claudius A.X, fol. 205v (old 201v)
London, BL Harley, 3773, fols. 103v-104r
Melk, Stiftsbibliothek 918, fol. 118r
Madrid, Real biblioteca de San Lorenzo (Escorial) ohne Nummer, fols.
133v-134v148
Mnchen, BSB clm 536, fols. 63v-64r
Mnchen, BSB clm 13036, fol. 111v
Oxford, Bod. 2254, fol. ii (?)149
Paris, BnF n.a. fr. 1098, fol. 59r-v150
Paris, BnF lat. 2335, fol. 26v
Paris, BnF lat. 3522A, fols. 89v-90v
Paris, Bibliothque Ste-Genevive 208, fol. 20
Paris, Bibliothque Ste-Genevive 1447, fol. 245
San Daniele del Friuli, Guarnerius 203, fols. 6v-7v
Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek HB III 34, fol. 27rb-va
Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek Hist. 8 26, fol. 84v
Roma, Biblioteca Casanatense 59, fol. 203r
Vatican, BAV Barb. lat. 484, fol. 187rv
Vatican, BAV Pal. lat. 242, fol. 73r
Vatican, BAV Pal. lat. 317
Vatican, BAV Reg. lat. 486, fol. 64r
Vatican, Urb. lat. 65
Vatican, BAV Vat. lat. 1027, fol. 105r
Vatican, BAV Vat. lat. 1054, fol. 39r151
Wien, NB Pal. 797, fol. 67v
Wien, NB 1640, fols. 137r-138r
Wien, NB 2221
Wien, NB n.s. 3608, fol. 1r
Wien, Schottenkloster 88
Wilhering, Stiftsbibliothek 158
Wolfenbttel, HAB Guelf. 18.3 Aug. 4, fols. 42vb-43ra
Wrzburg, UB ch. q. 157, fol. 192
der ltesten scholastischen Schule in deutschen Landen (Beitrge zur Geschichte der
Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Texte und Untersuchungen, 33.1/2;
Mnster: Aschendorffschen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1936).
148. W. von Hartel, Biblioteca patrum latinorum Hispanensis, Sitzungsbericht der
kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophen-historischen Classe, 112 (Wien,
1886), 161-266, 689-737 at 737.
149. F. Madan and H.H. Craster, A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in
the Bodleiean Library at Oxford. II. Part I. Nos. 1-3490 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922), 280:
a Latin note on the praevaricatio Salomonis.
150. In Latin, despite the shelf mark.
151. Stegmller, Repertorium, 7.394 (no. 11465, 1).
49
MSS of the Liber Floridus containing the Poentitentia:152

Chantilly, Muse Cond 1596, fol. 66v
Douai, BM 796, fols. 12r
Genova, Archivio Durazzo 113 (A IX 9), fol. 63v153
La Haye, BM Y.392, fol. 77r
La Haye, BM Y.407, fol. 161v
Leiden, UB 8, no. VI
Wolfenbttel, HAB Guelf. 1 Gud. lat., no. LXXXVIII
Given the relatively unknown state of the text in MS and the

obscurity surrounding the origin and history of the penitence of King
Solomon, a fresh study and critical edition of the Preuaricatione et
Poenitentia Salomonis is warranted. This will be the subject of a future
installment of Pseudepigrapha Notes.
9. Testamenta XII patriarcharumMS 407 [Albergati Bible], fols.
681r-682r
The story of how the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs reached the
West is one of the rst milestones of Pseudepigrapha research.154 John of
Basingstoke, Archdeacon of Leicester, chanced upon the original Greek
text of the Testaments while in Athens. John reported his nd to Robert
Grosseteste, quondam Oxford scholar and Bishop of Lincoln, who
commissioned John to procure a copy. Grosseteste then translated the
text into Latin with the assistance of magister Nicholaus Graecus,
around the year 1242.155
152. Apud Delisle, Notice sur les manuscrits du Liber Floridus . Excluding
Gent, Rijksuniversiteit 92.
153. Now privately held. See D. Puncuh, I manoscritti della reccolta Durazzo
(Genova: SAGEP, 1979), 162.
154. According to various sources, including Matthew Paris (Chronica maiora,
4.232-3) and a colophon in some of the earliest MSS of the Latin translation.
155. M. de Jonge, Robert Grosseteste and the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs, JTS 42 (1991), 115-25. The Greek MS in all probability now exists as
Cambridge, CUL Ff.1.24. See Migne, PG 2, cols. 1025-1150, and Stegmller, 87.7.
Edited in R. Sinker, Testamenta XII patriarcharum (Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, 1869),
and M. de Jonge, Testamenta XII patriarcharum, Edited According to Cambridge
University Library MS Ff.I.24, fol. 203a-262b, with Short Notes (PVTG 1; Leiden: Brill,
1964, 21970). See also H.J. de Jonge, Die Textberlieerung des Testamente den zwlf
Patriarchen and Additional Notes on the History of Mss. Venice Bibl. Marc. Gr. 494(k)
50
The Albergati Bible of 1428, named for Cardinal Niccol Albergati,

for whom it was written, preserves Chapters 25-29 of a portion of the
Latin Testaments.156 However, this does not appear to be what is
preserved in MS 407. Although it covers all twelve patriarchs, the text
of MS 407 is too short, and clearly is not a Latin translation of what we
know as the Testaments. S.H. Thomson does not list the Albergati Bible
in his roster of the MSS of Grossetestes translation, but indicates that
the Latin Testaments were sometimes abbreviated, citing three examples: Breslau, Staats- und UB, 1.F.277, fols. 257v-264v, London, BL
Harley 4725, fols. 10a-19d, and Wolfenbttel, HAB Guelf. 629 Helmst.,
fols. 120r-163v.157 Thomson further notes that two other HAB MSS,
Guelf. 630B Helmst., fols. 244r-245v, and Guelf. 76.25 Aug. 2, fols.
258a-263d, have so-called testamenta patrum, butno connection with
Grossetestes translation.158 I intend to discuss these texts in a future
paper on the biblical apocrypha in the HAB.
10. Prophetia Sibyllina (French)MS 411, fols. 51v-61v
There is no end to the number of ancient and mediaeval texts that relate
the prophecies of the ancient Sibyls.159 Numerous oracles composed in
Greek hexametric verse circulated under the Sibylline marque in classical antiquity.160 The most celebrated of these were the Roman libri
sibyllini, which were purchased from the Cumaean Sibyl (Lactantius,
Div. Inst., 1.6.1), either by Tarquinius Priscus (SibOr Prol., 50-52) or
Tarquinius Superbus (Gell., N.A., 1.19, etc.), kings of Rome during its
archaic period. However, the Sibyl destroyed rst three and then six of
and Cambridge Univ. Libr. Ff.1.24(b), in M. de Jonge, ed., Studies in the Testaments of
the Twelve Patriarchs. Text and Interpretation (SVTP, 3; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 45-62,
107-15.
156. Catalogue, 2.299.
157. S.H. Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 12351253 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1940), 42-4.
158. Thomson, Robert Grosseteste, 44, n. ||.
159. The best overview of the Sibylline phenomenon remains that of B. McGinn,
Teste David cum Sibylla: The Signicance of the Sibylline Tradition in the Middle
Ages, Women of the Medieval World: Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy (ed. J.
Kirschner and S.F. Wemple; London: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 7-35.
160. An Asian provenance of the Sibylline phenomenon is not impossible, although
Greece, with an old tradition of female oracles, is the probable source. Rome had a
similarly ancient tradition, but Livy (1.7.8) writes of a time, in the days of Romulus,
when the Sibyl had yet to arrive in Italy, and it is likely that she did so by way of the
Greeks who colonised Magna Graecia.
51
the nine books after Tarquin rejected her price (Pliny, N.H., 13.88;
Dionysius Halicarnassus, 4.62). Tarquin then bought the three remaining
books, which foretold the history of the city and were thereafter kept in
the temple of Iuppiter Capitolinus at Rome161 until it burned down in 83
BCE. During the Principate the libri sibyllini were reconstituted by
gathering oracles from other collections (Tac., Ann. 6.12). These survived until the rst decade of the fth century, when they were nally
destroyed by Flavius Stilicho (Rut. Namat., De reditu suo 2.51-52).
The libri sibyllini were consulted upon the manifestation of calamities
or prodigies, or whenever the state required insight pursuant to an urgent
policy decision, as during a religious or military crisis. Suetonius (Aug.
31.1) and other Roman historians record that Augustus collected and
destroyed thousands of copies of prophecies in his effort to rid Rome of
soothsayers and fortune-telling, which he felt undermined traditional
Republican virtues. Such numbers testify to the immense popularity of
such texts. It also suggests the potentially subversive use of Sibylline
texts in general, since their uncomplicated, adaptable form permitted
them to serve a variety of purposes, including political propaganda.162
The Sibylline Oracles familiar to biblical and classical scholars are
related to the Roman libri sibyllini only by their shared heritage. They
consist of twelve books of Greek oracles whose dates range from the
late Hellenistic through the early Byzantine periods.163 The earliest Jewish oracles, the core of the collection, are the products of the Egyptian
Diaspora and date from early Ptolemaic times to the initial decades of
the second century CE. Most of the books are composite, their present
161. Lactantius, loc. cit., says that the prophecies of the Tiburtine Sibyl were also
kept in the Capitol.
162. Sibylline literature initially took root in Ptolemaic Egypt in a political role;
texts such as the Oracle of the Lamb and the Potters Oracle anticipated the downfall of
the Greek overlords and the restoration of Egyptian rule.
163. The standard collection of Oracles is constituted from two collations of books.
The rst collation, containing books 1-8, is preserved in two groups of MSS. Group ^
includes an anonymous prologue and begins with the present book 1; group _ commences with book 8, which displays a marked Christological interest. (Their texts also
differ in minor respects, for example, _ SibOr 2.56-148 reproduces, with additions, lines
5-79 from Pseudo-Phocylides) The second collation, containing books 9-14, is preserved
in MS group `. Since books 9 and 10 reiterate material from the rst collation, they are
omitted from the standard collection, although the numbering of books 11-14 is retained.
Signicantly, passages from the Sibylline Oracles also appear in the Church Fathers,
who in some cases cite material from oracles no longer extant.
52
forms representing the end of a long process of updating and redaction.

Some exhibit only a small measure of Christian interpolation. Others
have been more extensively reworked or are altogether Christian compositions, the latest of which date from the early mediaeval period.164
Beginning in late antiquity and extending past the age of incunabula,
a new corpus of Sibylline textsmostly Christian, many Latin
emerged alongside the ongoing production and editing of the Sibylline
Oracles.165 These texts were often anonymous.166 Others were ascribed
to different Sibyls of classical antiquity, like the inuential Sibylla
Tiburtina (see below, art. 16). The Sibylla Samia was another popular
text.167 There was the Cumaean Sibyl, who had been the subject of
Virgils classic text (Aeneid, 6.1-155; cf. Ecl. 4), and the Erythraean
Sibyl, from which an acrostic prophecy derives, whom Augustine quotes
(Civ. Dei, 18.23) by way of the older Greek acrostic of SibOr 8.217-250.
Other Sibylline acrostics circulated in mediaeval times (see below, art.
14),168 while the Erythraean Sibyl furthermore lent her name to a popular
late mediaeval set of prophecies.169
In the rst book of his Divinae Institutiones Lactantius cites Varros
list170 of the ten Sibyls of antiquity: i) the Persian; ii) the Libyan; iii) the
164. Major editions: C. Alexandre, Oracula Sibyllina I, II (Paris: F. Didot, 184156), A. Rzach, Oracula Sibyllina (Wien: F. Tempsky, 1891), J. Geffcken, Die Oracula
Sibyllina (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1902), and A. Kurfess, Sibyllinische Weissagungen
(Mnchen: Heimeren, 1951). Recent translations with bibliographies and introductions:
J.J. Collins, Sibylline Oracles, OTP, 1.317-472, and H. Merkel, Sibyllinen (JSHRZ,
5.8, Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlag, 1998), 1043-1140.
165. On the Greek texts, see Kurfess, Sibyllinische Weissagungen.
166. McGinn, Teste David cum Sibylla, 22-4.
167. O. Holder-Egger, Italienische Prophetieen des 13. Jahrhunderts. I, Neues
Archiv der Gesellschaft fr ltere deutsche Geschichtskunde 15 (1890), 143-78 at 177-8,
from Paris, BnF lat. 3319 and other MSS; cf. B. McGinn, Joachim and the Sibyl,
Cteaux 24 (1973), 107-22.
168. There was also a Hebrew Sibyl, whose identication in the sources overlaps
with that of the Persian and the Babylonian (Chaldaean) Sibyls, and who sometimes is
called Sambethe (SibOr Prol., 34) or Sabbe. In SibOr 3.809-810 the Sibyl claims a
Babylonian origin.
169. Holder-Egger, Italienische Prophetieen I, 151-3, idem, Italienische
Prophetieen des 13. Jahrhunderts. II, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fr ltere deutsche
Geschichtskunde 30 (1903), 321-86 at 321-35, and esp. C. Jostmann, Sibilla Erithea
Babilonica: Papsttum und Prophetie im 13. Jahrhundert (MGH, Schriften 54;
Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2006), and the sources cited therein.
170. Part of Varros lost work from the rst century BCE, the Antiquitatum rerum
humanarum et diuinarum.
53
Delphic; iv) the Cimmerian in Italy (also Cumaea, Emeria, or

Chimica); v) the Erythraean; vi) the Samian; vii) the Cumaean, named
Amalthaea (or Demophile); viii) the Hellespontian; ix) the Phrygian;
and x) the Tiburtine, sometimes named Albunea (1.6). This list, coupled
with the brief prophecies that Lactantius reproduces (and whose relationship with the texts of the aforesaid Sibylline corpus remains unclear),
formed the basis for several groups of late mediaeval Christian Sibylline
prophecies, described in E. Mles magisterial LArt religieux de la n
du Moyen ge en France.171
One group, which I will term Lactantius for convenience, was
derived from short prophecies lifted directly from Lactantius, or occasionally Augustine. A second group, Orsini, had added to it the oracles
of two more Sibyls, the European (Europhile) and the Agrippan. It is
known from multiple sources from fteenth and sixteenth centuries,
including a few MSS,172 and a painted decoration located in the Palazzo
Orsini in Rome, now lost. A third group, closely related to the Orisini
Sibyls, correlates their prophecies with the prophets of the Hebrew
Bible. This is the Barbieri group, named because the correlation is
the product of Filippo Barbieri, and appears in his widely read Discordantiae sanctorum doctorum Hieronymi et Augustini of 1481 and
multiple editions thereafter.
To return to the Sibyls of Yale MS 411, Shailor gives a detailed
description of the text, and we only need to repeat the most salient
data.173 They occur as part of the Hours of the Virgin (fols. 18r-72v), use
of Rome, and are accompanied by occasionally beautiful illustrations of
each Sibyl, each appearing on the verso side of a folio sheet: fol. 51v the
Persian Sibyl; fol. 52v the Libyan Sibyl; fol. 53v the Erythraean Sibyl;
fol. 54v the Cumaean Sibyl; fol. 55v the Samian Sibyl; fol. 56v n/a; fol.
57v the Tiburtine Sibyl; fol. 58v the Agrippan Sibyl; fol. 59v the
Delphic Sibyl; fol. 60v the Hellesponian Sibyl; and fol. 61v the
Phrygian Sibyl (see Plates IV-V, corresponding to the Persian and the
Agrippan Sibyls). On the recto side of each sheet, facing each Sibyl, are
a series of episodes from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
171. . Mle, LArt religieux de la n du Moyen ge en France: tude sur
liconographie du Moyen ge et sur ses sources dinspiration (Paris: Armand Colin,
5
1949) [orig. 1925], 253-77.
172. M. Hlin, Un texte indit sur liconographie des Sibylles, Revue Belge de
philologie et dhistoire 15 (1936), 349-66.
173. Catalogue, 3.311.
54
Shailor remarks that the prophecies which accompany the image of

the Sibyls, normally in colophon, generally accord to those of the
Orsini type. However, Shailor also observes that they are far shorter,
and are also frequently garbled and misspelled. While such changes
might be the result of an idiosyncratic editor, one cannot help but notice
the absence of the Cimmerian and European Sibyls, i.e., there are only
ten Sibyls in the sequence preserved in MS 411, not the usual twelve. So
what do we really have?
As it turns out, the illustrations that accompany the Sibylline prophecies of MS 411 shed light on its true nature. In addition to the three
groups previously mentioned, Mle isolates a fourth group of prophecies, dun aspect si nouveau, whose earliest example is to be found in a
book of woodcuts, circa 1475, in the library of St. Gall, and, most
importantly, in the exquisite Hours of Louis de Laval (Paris, BnF lat.
920).174 This group, which Mle associates with France (rather than
Italy, as in the case with the Orsini and Barbieri Sibyls), coincides with
the Orsini group in the number of the Sibyls and their stated ages. But
the French group is set apart from the Orsini by two features.
The rst feature is the presence of objects associated with each Sibyl.
The Persian Sibyl holds a lantern in her hand, the Libyan Sibyl a lighted
candle, the Erythaean Sibyl a ower, the Cumaean Sibyl a golden basin,
the Samian Sibyl a crche, the Cimmerian Sibyl a drinking-horn as
babys bottle, the European Sibyl an unsheathed sword, the Tiburtine
Sibyl an amputated hand, the Agrippan Sibyl a whip, the Delphic Sibyl a
crown of thorns, the Hellespontic Sibyl a large cross, and the Phrygian
Sibyl the cross of the resurrection. These objects appear in Yale MS
411, each object appropriate to its Sibyl. The second distinguishing
feature of the French group is that rather than being paired with the
Hebrew prophets, the prophecies of their Sibyls now adumbrate the
story of Jesus. A new orientation is thus exressed by the link among
objects, prophecies, and the life of Jesus, which is clear from the
transcription of MS 411:
51v
52v
53v
Sibilla persica XXX annorum de futuro saluatore.

Ecce bestia conculcaberis et gignetur in orbem terrarum et cet.
Sibilla libica XXIV annorum de aduentum. Ecce
veniet deus [et] illuminabit condensa tenebrarum et cet.
[Sibilla eri]thea annorum quindecim de annunciatione.
De exceslo coelorum habitaculo prospexit deus humiles et c.
174.
Mle, LArt religieux, 266-7.

54v
55v
57v
58v
59v
60v
61v
55
[Sibilla] cumana XVIII annorum de natiuitate. Ultima

cumei venit nunc carminis etas et cet.
[Sibilla] samne annorum XXIIII de reclinatione Christi in praesepio.
Ecce veniet dies et nascetur puer de paupercula.
[Sibilla] tiburtina XX annorum vaticinatur de Christi alapatione.
Flagellabit dominus potentes in annuntiabitur [?].
[Sibilla agrippa] XXX annorum de agelatione Christi. Inuisibile
uerbum palpabitur et germinabit ut radix et cet.
[Sibilla del]phica annorum XX de coronacione Christi. Nascatur propheta
absque maris coitu nomine Ihesus.
[Sibilla helspont]ica annorum L de futura Christi crucixione. Ihesus
Christus nascetur de casta. felix ille deus.
Sibilla frigea vetula de resurrectione suspendent
illum et in lingo occident sed tertia die resurget.
As Mle concludes, On voit maintenant en quoi les Sibylles franaises

diffrent des Sibylles italiennes. Les Sibylles du palais Orsini et celles
de Filippo Barbieri nannoncent quune chose: lavnement dun
Sauveur qui doit natre miraculeusement dune Vierge. Les Sibylles
nouvelles en savent davantage: elles ne parlent pas seulement de la
naissance surnaturelle du Fils de Dieu, elles parlent encore de son
enfance, de ses souffrances, de sa mort, de sa rsurrection. Lactance
complte le palais Orsini. Les attributs que portent nos Sibylles ont un
sens: ils racontent en abrg la vie de Jsus-Christ.175
It appears, then, that the Sibylline prophecies of Yale MS 411 reect
the French group of brief oracles that derive from Lactantius. Still
unclear is its relationship to the other examples of the group, since its
prophecies are not identical to those of the Hours of Louis de Laval,
and, as mentioned, its sequence lacks the Cimmerian and European
Sibyls. What follows is an overview of the order of the names between
the Sibyls in i) the Lactantius group, ii) the Barbieri group, iii) the
French group (apud BnF lat. 920), iv) Yale MS 411, and v) Yale MS
Marston 287 (see below, art. 18). The copy in Marston 287 does not
record the names of the Sibyls, but it is simple enough to match its
prophecies to those described elsewhere.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Lactantius
Persian
Libyan
Delphic
Cimmerian
Erythraean
175.
Barbieri
Persian
Libyan
Delphic
Emeria
Erythraean
French
Persian
Libyan
Erythraean
Cumaean
Samian
Yale 411
Persian
Libyan
Erythraean
Cumaean
Samnia
Yale M 287
(Persian)
(Libyan)
(Delphic)
(Hellespontic)
(Cimmerian)
Ibid., 272, but n.b. 267-73 passim.
56
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Samian
Cumana
Hellespontic
Phrygian
Tiburtine
n/a
n/a
Samian
Cumana
Hellespontic
Phyrigian
European
Tiburtina
Agrippan
Cimmerian
European
Tiburtine
Agrippan
Delphic
Hellespontic
Phrygian
Tiburtine
Agrippa
Delphica
Hellespontic
Phyrgian
n/a
n/a
(Samian)
(Erythraean)176
(?)
(Tiburtine)
(Phrygian)177
(European)
(Agrippan)
Additional examples of the French group of Sibylline prophecies will be

found in Paris, BnF lat. 10491, fol. 7r (six Sibyls), Arsenal 438, fols.
142r-152v, etc. Given the frequency with which each group displays
variations in prophecy, sequence, and Sibyl, more MSS must be
identied and consulted before a reasoned evaluation of their textual and
iconographic relationships may be proposed.178
The uncertainty regarding the place of Yale MS 411 among the
French group of prophecies and the other groups of this type of Sibylline
text is one aspect of a larger problem. Similarly complicated situations
exist for the other Sibylline writings, not excepting the Sibylline Oracles
themselves, whose late antique augments and redactions have been
incompletely studied. While recent work has shed new light on the
Sibilla Erithrea Babilonica and the Sibylla Tiburtina,179 many other
minor Sibylline texts remain unknown or understudied. This is not an
overstatement: I have encountered numerous texts, many uncatalogued,
in libraries across Europe and North America. The root obstacle is an
incomplete knowledge of the MS evidence: Greek, oriental, and especially Latin and the vernacular tongues of the West. As Peter Dronke
recently observed, we still lack a comprehensive picture of the textual
and literary relationships among the full range of Sibylline prophecies
from antiquity into the early modern period (including the incunabula, I
would add).180 I intend to address these issues in a future volume, the
model for which is M.E. Stones superb panorama of the MSS and texts
176. Additional Erythraean prophecies were included in Barbieris second edition.
177. But the Phrygian of the French group.
178. See Mle, LArt religieux, and E.G. Dotson, An Augustinian Interpretation of
Michaelangelos Sistine Ceiling, Part II, Art Bulletin 61 (1979), 405-29.
179. On the Sibilla Erithrea Bibilonica, see Jostmann. The textual situation of the
Latin versions of the Sibylla Tiburtina have been claried through the recent work of A.
Holdenried, especially The Sibyl and Her Scribes: Manuscripts and Interpretation of the
Latin Sibylla Tiburtina c. 1050-1500 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).
180. P. Dronke, Medieval Sibyls: Their Character and Their Auctoritas, Forms
and Imaginings from Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century (Storia e letteratura: raccolta di
studi e testi, 243; Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007), 13-46 at 13-14.
57
associated with Adam and Eve.181 The volumes chief purposes will be
to describe the contours of the Sibylline literature, clarify the full extent
of the versional evidence for every text or complex of texts, and
describe the literary and textual relationships among each, as well as
their versions and redactions.
11. Reuelatio EsdraeMS 504
Yale MS 504 is a roll, fashioned from two pieces of skin that have been
sewn together (see Plate VI).182 It contains three thirteenth-century Latin
versions of the Reuelatio Esdrae (on which see art. 5, above). The rst
version is anonymous. Its forecasts are based on the day of the week
upon which Christmas falls. The second, attributed to Bede,183 is a
version of the Supputatio Esdrae, whose forecasts are determined by the
day of the week upon which the kalends of January falls. The third text
is another version of the Supputatio but bears the attribution, common in
French copies, Ezechiol de eodem.184
It is often thought that the codex entirely replaced scrolls (horizontal
orientation) and rolls (vertical orientation), but the fact is that rolls were
used for charters, maps, genealogies, and so on throughout the Middle
Ages. Although another example of a roll containing prognostics is
unknown to me, the three brief texts of MS 504 in such a handy format
would have provided its owner with a readily accessible and highly
transportable compendium of useful data. There is always the danger
that a modern-day scholar can read too much into ancient or mediaeval
texts, but to my mind the texts would have been as practical to the
original owner of MS 504 as a roster of favourable days to set sail would
have been to a mariner, or a forecast of the weather would have been to
a farmer (n.b. the charms, incantations, and prayers in the merchants
commonplace book of Yale MS 327). It is my convinction that for a
certain segment of the population, the same holds true today with
respect to horoscopes and other such personal forecasts.
181. See above, n. 110.
182. Paper Catalogue, q.v. MS 504: Prognostica temporum. Predictions for the
ensuing year according to the day of the week upon which Christmas and January rst
fall.
183. C.W. Jones, Bedae Pseudepigrapha: Scientic Writings Falsely Attributed to
Bede (Ithaca/London: Cornell UP/Oxford UP, 1939). Bede was also associated with
blood-letting lunations; see J.-P. Migne, PL 90, cols. 961-962, and DiTommaso, Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew Manuscripts, 22 n. 55.
184. Not Exechyel de eodem, as the title is recorded in the Paper Catalogue.
58
12. Reuelatio EsdraeMS 542, fols. 155v-156v

Among the items contained in this abbreviated, fourteenth-century
Greek MS is an anthology of weather prognostica, attributed to
Esdras.185 As noted (see above, arts. 6 and 11), the gure of Ezra/Esdras
was one intimately related to forecast-literature.
13. Historia de sancta cruceMS 714, fols. 229r-233v
Listed in the Electronic Catalogue as the anonymous History of the
Cross, this strange composition is known by various titles, including the
Legend or the Story of the Cross, the Wood of the Cross, De arbore vitae
in paradiso, and the Lignum crucis. As with many other biblical apocrypha whose origins reside in the early post-biblical era,186 the Historia
de sancta cruce is manifested in numerous versions and languages (e.g.,
the English Rood Tree version)187 and preserved in multiple MSS.188 It is
sometimes encountered in MS after the Gospel of Nicodemus, and
forms of it are included in several of the groups of the Latin Vita Adae et
Euae and in most recensions of the Slavonic version.189 Moreover, the
Historia is part of a much larger complex of traditions whose examples
185. Paper Catalogue, q.v. MS 542.
186. B. Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and
Image (trans. L. Preedy; CBT, 22; Leiden: Brill, 2004).
187. A.S. Napier, History of the Holy Rood-Tree: A Twelfth-Century Version of the
Cross-Legend with Notes on the Orthograph of the Ormulum and a Middle English
Compassio Mariae (EETS, o.s. 103; London: Kegan Paul, 1894).
188. A. Mussaa, Sulla leggenda del legno della Croce, Sitzungsberichte der
kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophen-historischen Classe, 63 (Wien,
1869), 165-216, W. Meyer, Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor Christus (AAW,
philos.-philolog. Classe 16.2; Mnchen, 1882), 101-66, H. Suchier, Denkmler
provenzalischer Literatur und Sprache I (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1883), 165-200, 525-8,
and 620-6, B. Hill, The Fifteenth-Century Prose Legend of the Cross before Christ,
Medium Aevum 34 (1965), 203-22, M. Lazar, La Lgende de lArbre de Paradis ou
bois de la croix: pome anglo-normand du XIIIe sicle et sa source latine, dapres le
Ms. 66, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (indit), Zeitschrift fr romanische
Philologie 76 (1980), 34-63, A.R. Miller, German and Dutch Versions of the Legend of
the Wood of the Cross (Diss: Oxford, 1992), A.M.L. Prangsma-Hajenius, La Lgende
de la bois de la Croix dans la littrature franaise mdivale (Assen: Van Gorcum,
1995), M. Taguchi, The Legend of the Cross before Christ: Another Prose Treatment in
English and Anglo-Norman, Poetica 45 (1996), 15-61, and Baert, Heritage of Holy
Wood, 289-349. On the MSS, see esp. Prangsma-Hajenius, 23-58, plus Hill, FifteenthCentury Prose Legend, 204-5, Taguchi, Legend of the Cross, 16 n. 5, and
DiTommaso, Pseudepigrapha Notes II, re CUL, CCC 66.
189. Stone, Literature of Adam and Eve, 36.
59
consist of the Inuentio crucis,190 the Exaltatio crucis,191 and other stories
and episodes involving Adam, Seth, and the quest for the Holy Oil, the
Three Trees, or accounts of the Holy Cross.
The Historia de sancta cruce begins with Adam, who upon his
deathbed reveals to Seth his son the directions to Paradise, where the
healing oil of life is located. Upon reaching the gates of Paradise, Seth
meets the archangel Michael, who tells him that the oil may be obtained
only after Adam is redeemed by Christ, 5,228 years in the future.
Michael grants Seth three visions and three seedscedar, cypress, and
pinewith instructions to plant them in Adams mouth upon the latters
death. The visions correspond with the future history of the seeds.
Events transpire as disclosed: the seeds sprout and their saplings grow
upon Adams grave in the Hebron Valley.
Moses later uproots the saplings and moves them to Mount Tabor,
where they are found by King David, who replants them in Jerusalem.
Bound together, the saplings grow together into a single tree,192 under
whose branches which David composes his psalms. After Davids death,
his son Solomon completes the Temple. His craftsmen, requiring the
wood from one nal tree to nish their task, fell the sacred arbour, but
upon discovering that the beam hewn from its wood cannot be tted to
the Temple, afx it over its doorposts. The garments of a certain
Maximilla (!) then burst into ame after she sits on the beam, and she
cries out the name of Jesus. The Jews stone the woman to death and cast
the beam into a pond, prompting the appearance of an angel and more
events. Recovered from the pond and the object of the Queen of Shebas
prophecy about Christs death, the holy wood is left forgotten on the
ground until, centuries later, it is fashioned into the Holy Cross.
I have included the Historia in the present study despite the fact that
it is an entirely Christian text and part of the NT Apocrypha. While its
190. See, inter alia, M. Bodden, The Old English Finding of the True Cross
(Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987), S. Borgehammar, How the Holy Cross Was Found:
From Event to Medieval Legend (Bibliotheca theologiae practicae 47; Stockholm:
Almquist & Wiksell, 1991), H.J.W. Drijvers and J.W. Drijvers, The Finding of the True
Cross: The Judas Kyriakos Legend in Syriac. Introduction, Text and Translation (CSCO
565, subsidio 93; Louvain: Peeters, 1997), and Baert, Heritage of Holy Wood, 15-132,
193-288.
191. Baert, Heritage of Holy Wood, 133-288.
192. Al-Tabari relates a story where Abraham, not Seth, plants saplings of cedar,
cypress, and pine, which after three months grew together into one trunk and in this state
remained until felled and hewn in the days of King Solomon.
60
story is oriented towards the crucixion, and the gure of Jesus is never
far from the authors mind, the Historia exhibits a sustained narrative
and all its characters are drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures; as noted, it
is closely associated in MS with the Vita Adae. Given the tendency of
editors of the OT Pseudepigrapha to include in their volumes obvious
crits apocryphes chrtiens from late antiquity or the early mediaeval
era on the basis of the gures with which they are associated (cf. the
Martyrdom of Isaiah and the Diegesis Danielis), I see no reason why
this text should be excluded.
MS 714 dates from the second half of the fteenth century. Its copy
of the Historia begins, as most of the Latin copies do, Post peccatum
ade expulso The copy is not recorded in any study of which I am
aware. Heavily abbreviated, it demonstrates multiple minor differences
in diction and word order from the Latin versions published by B. Hill
and M. Taguchi (see Plate VII).193
14. Propheticum Sibyllae ErithraeaeMS 730, fols. 44v-45v
The yleaf to this sixteenth-century volume lists its contents in a
modern hand: 1. Epistle of Saint Jerome, 2. Another Epistle, and 3.
A version of the famous but spurious oracle of the Erythraean Sibyl. It is
not the Latin version given in St. Augustine De Civ. Dei. It may be the
one referred to in its same place, Bk XVIII, c. 23 as being in Lactantius
Inst. iv.18.
The Electronic Catalogue provides additional data on this text:
Lange, Johanneswith Langes Sibyllae Erythreaevaticinium. This
is in step with the stated title of the text in the MS and indicates,
correctly, that it is the Propheticum Sibyllae Erythraeae of Johannes
Lang (Langus). The text is preserved also in Milano, BM O.129 sup, fol.
136 bis, and incunabula (non vidi). It is a Latin translation of the famous
Greek acrostic of SibOr 8.217-250, one of several that are independent
of Augustines version (see above, art. 10).194 The initial letters of the
193. Hill, Fifteenth-Century Prose Legend, and Taguchi, Legend of the Cross.
194. Cf. another version of the acrostic, but in prose, from Karlsruhe, Badische
Landesbibliothek Aug. 172, fols. 33v-36v; so B. Bischoff, Die lateinische bersetzungen und Bearbeitengen aus den Oracula Sibyllina, Mlanges Joseph De
Ghellinck, S.J. (Museum Lessianum, Section historique 13; Gembloux: J. Duculot,
1951), 1.121-47, rep. Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewhlte Aufstze zur Schriftkunde
und Literaturgeschichte, Band I (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1966), 150-71.
61
lines of the composition spell I(H)ESVS CHRISTVS DEI FILIVS

SERVATOR CRVCS.
The leaves of Yale MS 730 are unnumbered; a hand-count indicates
the position of the Propheticum Sibyllae Erythraeae within. Its
orthography differs slightly from the text which has been published by
R. Weijenborg.195
[44v] Sibill Erytre de extremo in terris Domini ac
Seruatoris nostri Iesu Christi iudicio vaticinium,
Greco latin a Ioanne Lango
versum.
Acrostichis, hoc est, prim carminum liter:
I
I
E
S
V
S
C
H
R
I
S
T
V
S
D
E
I
F
I
L
I
V
S
S
E
R
V
esus Christus Dei Filus Seruator, Crux.

udicii metuet sudans prsagia tellus,
t Rex ternus magno descendet Olmpo,
ublimus carnem mundamque ut iudicet omnem.
num suspicient numen prauique, bonique
ummum, supremo cum Sanctis tmpore mundi.
arnifer ille homines iudex inquiret in omnes.
orrida terra vias coeli spineque tenebunt
eijcient simulacra uir: gazamque repostam.
lle domus ccas et Ditis claustra refringet. [45r]
anctior a mortuis iam nexu libera lucem
urba hominum cernet, scelerosos amma piabit
ltrix perpetuum: mala qu quiscunque patrauit
ontica, suppressitque diu, producet in auras:
eteget et furuis Deus obsita corda tenebris.
rumn et stridor dentis regnabit ubique,
psum deciet Solis decus, astra colore
usco obducentur, argentea Luna perebit,
nsurgent valles, considient ardua montis,
uxus sublimis mortales deseret oras,
mensos colles aequabant marmora campi,
eliuago nulli cernentur in quore naut,
uccendet terram fulmen, uaga lmpha vapore
olis arescet ripis, fontesque dehiscent: [45v]
t tuba de coelo tristis clangore sonabit
aucisono, mundi clades pereuntis acerbas.
astum terra chaos Stygio monstrabit hiatu,
195. R. Weijenborg, Das bisher unbekannte Propheticum Sibyllae Erythreae als

Gedicht des Erfurter humanisten Johannes Lang O.E.S.A. und als Faktor der
Reformationsgeschichte. Erstausgabe, bersetzung und Kommentar, Antonianum 58
(1983), 358-447.
62
A
T
O
R
C
R
V
C
S

tque Dei folio sistetur iudicis omnis
urba Ducum, Regumque: pluett} sulphure et igni,
mnibus extabunt ligni vexilla verendi,
obur et auxilium popula ex optata deli:
ertapio generi vita. ast offensa malignis,
ore bonos lustrans bisseni ntis ab unda:
irgaque qua pecoridat ferrea iura magister,
arminus auspicijs qui crimina morte piabit
eruator Rex ternus Deus ipse patescit.
~
15. Somniale DanielisMS 989, fols. 60v-61v

MS 989 (thirteenth century) once belonged to the monastery of St.
Benignus at Dijon, whereafter it came to be part of the Phillipps collection, shelf-number 730. It was included in the private collection of B.S.
Cron, who edited, translated, and published its copy of the Somniale
Danielis.196 The copy is part of a group of several brief texts that are
composed in a later hand (59v-61v, 149v). A relatively short version of
the text, it contains only 196 dreams. In his critical edition of the
Somniale, S.R. Fischer describes it as a unique copy.197
The book came into the possession of Yale University in 2002 and
was assigned the shelf-number 998. Its Somniale was recently re-edited
by E.P. Archibald and R.G. Babcock in 2003.198 As such, I merely reproduce the Prologue as it appears in Archibald and Babcocks edition:
[61v] In diebus Nabocodonosor regis Babilonis quoniam rogabatur principibus civitatis et ab omni populo ut eis sompnia indicaret Daniel propheta
septimus de liis Israhel qui captivi ducti sunt Iehrusalem civitate sancta
haec conscripsit et ea ad legendum tradidit. Nihil enim a semetipso tulit vel
didicit sed ita adeo accepit secundum translacionem sancti Ieronimi de
Caldeo in Latinum.
196. B.S. Cron, A Mediaeval Dream Book (London: Gogmagog Press, 1963).
197. S.R. Fischer, The Complete Medieval Dreambook. A Multilingual,
Alphabetical Somnia Danielis Collation. (Bern/Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1982), 14.
198. E.P. Archibald and R.G. Babcock, Interpretaciones Sompniorum: A Medieval
Dream Book, Printed from Beinecke MS 998, Yale University (New Haven, privately
printed, 2003).
63
16. Sibylla TiburtinaMS Marston 225, fols 2r-14v

MS Marston 225 is an important anthology of Latin prophecies, divided
into three principal sections.199 The rst section contains a copy of the
Latin version of the Tiburtine Sibyl which, according to Shailor, is
especially concerned with the history of Sicily and exhibits extensive
differences with the critical edition published by E. Sackur.200 My
examination conrms this assessment and also reveals nineteen marginal
references to various historical persons whom two scribes201 believed
matched the predictions of the Sibyl.
The best evidence suggests that the Tiburtine Sibyl was written in
Greek by a Christian towards the end of the fourth century (see above,
art. 10). The original text is no longer extant. The Tiburtine Sibyl was
among the rst historical apocalypses composed after the long hiatus in
the production of this type, which lasted from the middle of the second
century until the last decades of the fourth. It was translated into Latin
before the eleventh century, and perhaps many centuries earlier. The
Latin text exists in four versions: Version I (the Ottonian Sibyl), Version
II (Sackurs text), Version III (the Cumaean Sibyl), and Version IV (the
reworked Ottonian text, known from Chicago, Newberry Library f6,
fols. 198r-202v).202
The scholars most associated with the Tiburtine Sibyl over the past
two generations are P.J. Alexander, B. McGinn,203 and, most recently, A.
Holdenried, who through a series of articles and a monograph has
identied the fullest conspectus of the extant MSS and greatly claried
the textual traditions.204 According to Holdenried, the MS Marston 225
199. The MS is described in M.H. Fleming, The Late Medieval Pope Prophecies.
The Genus nequam Group (MRTS, 204; Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies, 1999), 70-7.
200. Shailor, Catalogue, 3.425, citing fols. 1r-14v; cf. E. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte
und Forschungen. Pseudomethodius, Adso und die tiburtinische Sibylle (Halle a.S.: Max
Niemeyer, 1898), 177-87.
201. The marginalia are clearly in two hands, with the change occurring at fol. 11r,
line 1.
202. B. McGinn, Oracular Transformations: The Sibylla Tiburtina in the Middle
Ages (with Particular Reference to the Newberry Library Version), in I. Chirassi
Colombo and T. Seppilli, eds., Sibille e linguaggi oraculari: mitostoriatradizione.
Atti del convegno Macerata-Norciasettembre 1994 (Pisa/Roma: Istituti editoriali e
poligraci internazionali, 1998), 603-44.
203. See McGinn, Teste David cum Sibylla, and Oracular Transformations.
204. See above, n. 179, and eadem, The Bedan Recension of the Sibylla Tiburtina:
New Manuscript Evidence and Its Implications, in M.W. Herren, et al., ed., Latin
64
copy of the text contains a revision of Sackurs regnal list II, and has
been substantially revisedby the insertion of new material concerning
ancient and medieval emperors, as well as popes. This new material
includes a rex parvulus de sicilia per F nomine, a clear reference to
Frederick II (12121250), as well as a reference to Manfred, Frederick
IIs illegitimate son and king of Sicily (12581266), who is described
negatively as rex per M nomine crudelis et indelis.205
The second section of MS Marston 225 preserves the so-called Genus
nequam pope prophecies (fols. 15r-22r),206 while the third section
contains a series of twenty-six prophecies (fols. 23r-43r). M.H. Fleming
records that the rst prophecy of the last section represents the earliest
copy of the Latin translation of the Cento of the True Emperor.207
Although it falls beyond the scope of the present study, the Cento is
important to the study of the OT Pseudepigrapha inasmuch as it makes
use of several earlier apocalyptic oracles of a historical-political bent,
including the Oracles of Leo the Wise, and there is much thematic
overlap between the Oracles and the post-biblical Daniel apocalyptica.208 The signicance of this and the other prophecies in the third
section of the MS to our understanding of later mediaeval oracles and
historical forecasts has yet to be explored.209 The so-called 1347 revision
of the Tripoli Prophecy, written in later hand, is appended to MS
Marston 225, at fols. 43v-44v.210
Culture in the Eleventh Century. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on

Medieval Latin Studies, Cambridge, September 9-12, 1998 (Publications of the Journal
of Medieval Latin, 5.1; Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 410-43, and Aspects of the English
Reception of the Sibylla Tiburtina: Prophecy and Devotion, in N. Morgan, ed.,
Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom. Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton
Symposium (Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 12; Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2004), 118-38.
205. Holdenried, Sibyl and Her Scribes, 41.
206. Fleming, Late Medieval Pope Prophecies.
207. Ibid., 70-1. On the Cento, see P.J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic
Tradition (ed. D. DeF. Abrahamse; Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1985), 130-6.
208. See DiTommaso, The Book of Daniel, Chapter 3.
209. Besides the Cento, one oracle on fol. 40r has been edited: O. Holder-Egger,
Italienische Prophetieen des 13. Jahrhunderts III, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fr
ltere deutsche Geschichtskunde 33 (1907), 95-187 at 125-6.
210. R.E. Lerner, The Powers of Prophecy. The Cedar of Lebanon Vision from the
Mongol Onslaught to the Dawn of the Enlightenment (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1983), esp. 226-7.
65
17. Testamenta XII patriarcharumMS Marston 255, fols. 63r-73v

According to the Catalogue, MS Marston 255 preserves another Yale
copy of Robert Grossetestes Latin translation of the Testaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs.211 It, too, is not listed in S.H. Thomsons roster,212
and more work is required, as has been noted above (art. 9). The text is
missing two leaves between fols. 64 and 65, with the result that the
Testament of Levi is wanting and portions of the Simeon and the Judah
are defective.
18. Prophetia Sibyllina (Barbieri)MS Marston 287, fols. 64v-65r
MS Marston 287 preserves twelve short Latin oracles, their Sibyls
numbered but unidentied, dating from circa 1470.213 For a discussion
of Sibylline literature through the ages, and the prophecies of the
mediaeval period that ultimately derive from Lactantius and Augustine,
see above, art. 10. Broadly speaking, the prophecies of MS Marston 287
correspond to those of the Barbieri group. But there are numerous
variations, an idiosyncratic sequence of Sibyls, and a prophecy ascribed
to the Phrygian Sibyl that is more similar to that of the French group.
[f. 64v] Sibilla Ecce bestia conculcaberis et gignetur dominus in orbe terrarium et
gremium virginis erit salus gentium et pedes eius in valitudine hominum.
Secunda sibilla Ecce veniet dies et illuminabit dominus condensa tenebrarum et
soluentur nexus synagogue et desinent labia hominum et videbunt regem
viventium et tenebit illum in gremio virgo domina gentium: et regnabit in
misicordia et uterus matris eius erit in statera cunctorum.
Tertia sibilla. [f. 65r] Nasa (?) debent prophetam absque matris coitu de virgine pura.
Quarta sibilla. De excelso coelorum habitaculo prospexit deus humiles suos et
nascietur in diebus novissimus de virgine hebrea lius in cunabulis terrae.
Quinta sibilla. Della quaedam honesta et munda pulchra facie prolixa capilli sedens
super sedem stratam nutrit puerum dans ei ad comedendum lac proprium.
Sexta sibilla. Ecce veniet dies et nascetur de paupercula et bestiae terrarium
adorabunt eum clamabunt et dicent laudate eum in astris celorum.
Septima sibilla. Ultima vero etate veniet. Magnus celestis humiliabitur deus et
humanabitur proles divina iungetur humanitati diuinitas iacebit in feno agnus
et puellari ofcio educabitur deus et homo.
Octaua sibilla. Ihesus nascetur virgine casta.
Nona sibilla. Nascetur Christus in Bethlehem et annunciabitur in Nazareth regente
thauro pacico fundatore quietis. O felix illa mater cuius ubera illum lactabunt.
211.
87.7.
212.
213.
Shailor, Catalogue, 3.498. See Migne, PG 2, cols. 1025-1150; Stegmller,

Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, 42-4.
Shailor, Catalogue, 3.565.
66
Decima sibilla. Suspendunt eum in ligno et occidunt et nichil valebit eis quia tertia die
resurget et ostendet se discipulis et ipsis videntibus ascendet in celum et
regni eius non erit nis.
Undecima sibilla. Veniet ille et transibit colles et montes regnabit in paupertate et
dominabitur in silentio et egredietur de utero virginis.
Duodemcima sibilla. Invisible verbum palpabitur et germinabitur radix et siccabitur ut
folium et non apparebit venustas eius et circumdabit illus aluus maternus et
ebit deus leticia semperterna: et ab hominibus conculcabitur et nascetur ex
matre ut deus et conuersabitur ut peccator.
19. Book of VirtueMS Osborn fa. 7

According to the Electronic Database, this late sixteenth-century MS
contains the Book of Virtue, which the angel Raphiel gave to Adam,
with Solomons Hebrew additions. The text is English, yet difcult to
read in many places. I provide only the incipit and the end of fol. 16r.
[1r] In the name of allmyghte God livinge trew & everlasting and without all
end, wch ys said Adonay Saday and [two words unclear] I begin to write this
booke wch ys said Cephar razyell with all his portenaunce in wch be 7
treatises complete or fullled with these 7 books. Solomon said, glorie and
praise [16r] Here endythe the second [?] booke named Illumynyes. III
The Electronic Database adds that the seven treatises are: 1) Clavis,
2) virtues of stones, herbs and beasts, 3) Tractatus thimiamatum, 4)
treatise of time, 5) treatise of cleanliness, 6) Samaym, and 7) Book of
Virtue. These are the same seven treatises listed in the MS catalogues
pertaining to the Cephar Raziel of London, BL Sloane 3826, fols. 1-57,
Sloane 3846, fols. 129-157v, and Sloane 3847, fols. 161-188v, which, it
is said, was written in 1564 by one William Perry of Cliffords Inn. I am
not familiar enough with the traditions of Salomon magus to delineate
the relationship between this text and the Sepher Rezial of late
mediaeval Judaism.214
20. Kitb al-azama min kutub al-dafin min kutub DniylMS
Arabic 66, fols. 63-202
L. Nemoy labels this text as a treatise on the wonders of creation,
Paradise, and Hell, supposedly composed by the Prophet Daniel.215 A
free translation of the title might read, The Book of Greatness, [taken]
from among the collection of Hidden Treasures written by Daniel.
214. S. Savedow, Sepher Reziah Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial (York
Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 2000), from the Hebrew text printed in Amsterdam in 1701.
215. Nemoy, Arabic Catalogue, 156, no. 1469.
67
While I am unable to provide additional details about this text, we may

illuminate aspects of its literary context. As mentioned in art. 2, above,
the gure of Daniel as the author of prognostica was exclusively associated in Western Europe with the Somniale Danielis and the Lunationes
Danielis. The East, however, had an assortment of Daniel forecasting
texts, none of which ever appears to have travelled west.216 The most
important, and possibly the oldest, is the Malamat Dniyl, or the
Forecasts or Predictions of Daniel.217 Known also by the generic Kitb
Dniyl (The Book of Daniel), it is attributed to biblical and historical
gures besides Daniel, and is extant in Arabic, Persian, and Syriac
(Karshuni) copies from both the Christian and the Islamic traditions. A
prognostic anthology, it typically forecasts events based on a blend of
astronomical, astrological, calendrical, meteorological, agricultural,
and/or astrological phenomena. Several versions of the Malamat also
contain the sort of eschatological speculation more typical to the biblical
and apocryphal Daniel apocalyptica.218
It is also possible that one or more versions of the Malamat Dniyl
might represent the eastern vernacular reexes of a Greek prognosticon,
216. The evaluation of the full range of the corpus of eastern prognostica attributed
to biblical gures remains a desideratum. See N. Bland, On the Muhammedan Science
of Tbr, or Interpretation of Dreams, JRAS 16 (1856), 118-71, T. Fahd, La divination
arabe: tudes religieuses, sociologiques et folkloriques sur le milieu natif de lIslam
(Leiden: Brill, 1966), M. Ullmann, Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam
(HdO, 6.2; Leiden: Brill, 1972), F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Band
VII: AstrologieMeteorologie und Verwandtes bis ca. 430 H. (Leiden: Brill, 1979), Y.
Gouda, Dreams and Their Meanings in the Old Arab Tradition (New York: Vantage
Press, 1991), and J.C. Lamoreaux, The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream Interpretation
(Albany: SUNY Press, 2002).
217. DiTommaso, Apocryphal Daniel Literature, 285-93. On the term malim, see
T. Fahd, La divination arabe: tudes religieuses, sociologiques et folkloriques sur le
milieu natif de lIslam (Leiden: Brill, 1966), 224; and S.A. Arjomand, Islamic Apocalypticism in the Classical Period, The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. II. Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture (ed. B. McGinn; New York: Continuum, 1998),
238-83 at 244. The term also seems to have been used in the sense of woes,
particularly in a forecasting sense.
218. According to Fahd, de caractre eschatologique, elle annonait le Mahdi et
prvoyait, en fonction de sa venue, les pripties que nations, dynasties, religions et
individus traverseraient jusqu son avnement (La divination arabe, 224). For
examples, see J. den Heijer, Malamat Dniyl and Christian Arabic Literature, in K.
Samir, ed., Actes du Premier Congrs international dtudes arabes chrtiennes
(Goslar, septembre 1980) (OCA, 218; Roma: Institutum studiorum orientalium, 1982),
223-32 at 227-32.
68
the Praedictiones Danielis, which, in contrast to the Somniale and the

Lunationes, is relatively unknown to scholars.219 As with the Malamat,
the Praedictiones is an anthological prognosticon whose form and
content varies widely among the MS copies.220 In its longest examples,
the Praedictiones consists of a sequence of twenty-ve prognostica
whose referents are primarily astronomical and meteorological.221 Like
all Daniel prognostica, western or eastern, its attribution varies with the
copy consulted: in some cases the Praedictiones is associated with
Daniel,222 in other cases with gures such as Orpheus223 or Leo the
Wise.224 I am unaware of any version where the Praedictiones contains a
section that deals explicitly with the interpretation of dreams.
219. Indeed, even the name of the text is articial. The MS catalogues, which
preserve the bulk of the scant evidence associated with this text, tend to employ terms
such as Danielis prophetae apocalypsis (Boll, CCAG VII, 47, re Berlin, SBPK gr. 170
[olim Phillipps 1574], fols. 137v-184r) or Apocalypsis Danielis (angin, CCAG XII,
153, re Sankt Petersburg, Bibl. Publicae 575, fols. 46r-64v.). Yet the Praedictiones is a
prognosticon, not an apocalypse. With this in mind, the working title of Praedictiones
Danielis seems more appropriate. DiTommaso, Apocryphal Daniel Literature, 279-83.
220. Copies of the Praedictiones are extant in over a dozen Greek MSS; more
examples surely will be identied. The Praedictiones does not appear to be extant in
MSS composed in Latin or the vernacular languages of Western Europe. In this
characteristic the Praedictiones again radically differs from the Somniale and the
Lunationes. The Praedictiones Danielis is never intimately connected in MS to the
Somniale and its Prologue in the way that many copies of the Lunationes are. The text
generally stands alone, although in some codices devoted specically to astronomical or
astrological prognostica it is bound along with a copy of the Lunationes (e.g., Athnai,
BP 1350 and Milano, BA cod. E.11 sup). It is unclear whether London, BL Royal
16.C.II preserves a copy of the Lunationes plus unconnected prognostica (i.e., not a copy
of the Praedictiones), or whether all the prognostica (including the lunation) is meant to
function as the rst section of a full-blown copy of the Praedictiones Danielis. In one
case, it is bound with a copy of the apocalypse The Last Vision of the Prophet Daniel
(Citt del Vaticano, BAV Pal. gr. 363).
221. Boll, CCAG VII, 47; W. Gundel and H.G. Gundel, Astrologumena. Die
astrologische Literatur in der Antike und ihre Geschichte (Sudhoffs Archiv, 6; Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1966), 259-60; C. Pasini, Codici e frammenti greci dellAmbrosiana
(Testi e studi Bizantino-neoellenici, 9; Roma: Universit di Roma La Sapienza, 1997),
153 n. 84.
222. Athnai, Bibliothecae Publicae 1350, fols. 25v-28r.
223. CUL Ll.4.12, fols. 89r-99r.
224. S. Weinstock, CCAG IX: Codices Britannicos. Pars II: Codices Londinenses,
Cantabrigienses, bibliothecarum minorum (Bruxelles: H. Lamertin, 1953), 124.
69
The Praedictiones occasionally has a Prologue; some are brief, others

are longer and more detailed. All are unlike the Prologue of the
Somniale (and thus the Lunationes). An interesting example is the
Prologue of Paris, BnF gr. 2316, fols. 380v-381r. It explains that the
original was translated into Greek at the time of Ptolemy Philadelphos
(284246 BCE), later translated into Arabic, and nally translated again
back into the Greek by Alexios of Byzantium. The reference to Ptolemy
Philadelphos is signicant in that, according to a well-known tradition,
seventy-two elders of Israel translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek in
Egypt during this time and at the kings request. The Prologue attempts
to connect the Praedictiones Danielis with the biblical gure of Daniel
by means of a common transmission history involving the ancient Greek
text of Daniel.225
Appendix I: Additional Notes
In addition to the MSS addressed in the present study, the Beinecke Library
holds papyri and MS books containing texts which are related enough to the
topic of this study to warrant a brief note.
P.CtYBR inv. 422(B): Astrological Book
Papyrus Database: Concerning the discovery of a book of astrological
wisdom. An intriguing description, but further details are unknown.
P.CtYBR inv. 2589: Solomon and the Jews
Papyrus Database: Narrative about Solomon and the Jews. Details
unknown.
MS 327: Li amaistramenti de Sallamon
225. Despite its obviously ctional elements, this tale might provide a clue to the
real origins of the text. The Greek text that presumably stands behind these relatively
late extant MS copies of the Praedictiones Danielis might be the Vorlage of the oriental
prognosticon known as Malhamat Dniyl. But it is unclear whether the Praedictiones
and the Malhamat (if indeed they are related) are copies of the same text or versions of
related texts, or whether both texts in their present form represent later recensions of an
original Greek (or Syriac or Arabic) Vorlage. At the same time, several items suggest
that there might be some fundamental connexion between the Praedictiones and the
Malhamat: i) the information in the prologue of BnF gr. 2316 provides an explicit
connexion with the general Arabic prognostic tradition; ii) both texts are anthological
treatises, in contrast to the Somniale Danielis and Lunationes Danielis, which focus on
one sort of forecasting; iii) both are extant in MS copies whose varieties differ in their
length and contents; iv) no variety of either text seems to contain a section on the
interpretation of dreams; and v) both texts are concerned with the meaning of astronomical and meteorological phenomena.
70
Text in Italian, fols. 59v-62v. This is the Dottrino della Schiavi (da Bari), a
series of didactic four-line quatrains on a series of topics, and the subject of
several editions. This copy, here titled the Li amaistramenti de Sallamon, is
part of an edition of Yale MS 327 published in A. Stussi, ed., Zibaldone da
Canal: manoscritto mercantile del sec. XIV (Comitato per la pubblicazione
delle fonti relative alla storia di Venezia. Sezione V: fondi vari; Venezia,
1967), xxiv-xxvii, 101-8. The text is called elsewhere Detto de lo savio
Salomone. However, its attribution to Solomon is clearly secondary and the
text cannot be classied as a pseudepigraphon. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.144.
MS 380: Solomonis dicta
Text in Latin, fols. 3r-10v. According to Shailor, Catalogue, 2.240, a
collection of excerpts concerning wisdom, including quotes from Seneca,
Book of Wisdom, etc. This work is more a secondary anthology than a true
pseudepigraphon, and of a type that will be encountered in multiple
examples elsewhere.
MS 406: Gog and Magog
Text in Latin, fols. 134v-135r. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.295: Summary of
Aethicus Ister, Cosmographia III. 31-39, on the land of Gog and Magog.
MS Marston 56: Stories from the OT
Text in Italian, fols. 1r-187v. Shailor, Catalogue, 3.105-7: Lives of the
Saints, in It., preceded by accounts of events in the Bible from both the Old
and New Testaments. Shailor transcribes the books table of contents, fol.
iii v., the relevant part of which is as follows: De lo comensamento de lo
mondo; De la promera hetae; De la terssa hetae; De la seconda hetae; Como
ioxepo fo uenduo; Como moizes nasse; Como dee manda la mana in lo
dezerto; Como lo nostro segnor dee de li x comandamenti a moizes; Como
lo pouo dissrael auem ree; Como davit fo cinto per ree et amassa lo
zigante; Como davit fo electo ree e incomenssa la quarta hetae; Como
saramon regna in gerussallem; Como nabucdanazor preizu gerussallem e
incomenssa [sic] la quinta hetae
MS Hebrew 50: Tales of Hannah and Joseph
Text in Hebrew, 27 fols. Nemoy, Arabic Catalogue, 177, no. 1671. Further
details unknown, but text is followed by some other pieces.
Appendix II: NT Apocrypha
P.CtYBR inv. 1376: Acts of Paul (?)
The Papyrus Database lists simply Acts of Paul (?). This fragmentary,
fourth or fth-century folio from a papyrus codex has been transcribed and
described by Stephens, 87. Fragment of Acta Pauli? Papyrus Catalogue,
3-7.226
P.CtYBR inv. 1754: The Dialogue of the Savior (NHC III)
226. The copy in the Beinecke Library contains hand-written corrections in the
margins; those which emend the transcription of the recto seem to have been erased.
71
P.CtYBR inv. 1788: Dormitio Mariae

Papryus Database: Scenes from a narrative of the Dormition of Mary.
This text is edited and discussed in P. Sellew, An Early Coptic Witness to
the Dormitio Mariae at Yale P.CtTBR inv. 1788 Revisted, BASP 37
(2000), 37-69, pls. 2-5.
P.CtYBR inv. 4640: Christian Amulet with Prayer
Papyrus Database: Christian text, Amulet with Prayer. On Christian
amulets as NT apocrypha, see T. de Bruyn, Appeals to Jesus and the One
Who Heals Every Illness and Every Inrmity (Matt 4:23, 9:35) in Amulets
in Late Antiquity, The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late
Antiquity (eds. L. DiTommaso and L. Turcescu; BAC, 6; Leiden: Brill,
2008), 65-81.
MS 155: Epistolae Pauli et Senecae
Text in Latin, fols. 1r-2v. Shailor, Catalogue, 1.207: Fourteen letters
between Seneca and St. Paul in the same order as F. Haase [= Jerome,
Prologus beati Ieronimi presbyteri, ed. F. Haase (Teubner, 1872)]. For
editions of the letters, see C.W. Barlow, Epistolae Senecae ad Paulum et
Pauli ad Senecam quae vocantur (PMAAR, 10; Horn: F. Berger, 1938),
L. Bocciolini Palagi, Epistolario apocrifo di Seneca e san Paolo (Studia
patristica, 5; Firenze: Nardini, 1985), and M. Natali, Epistolario tra Seneca
e san Paolo (Milano: Rusconi, 1995).
MS 185: Paul/John
Text in Latin (?), fols. 144v-145v. Letter from Paul to John, details
unknown. Shailor, Catalogue, 1.251.
MS 262: Mary and the Saints
Text in Italian but written in Greek letters (the other texts in the MS are
written in either Greek or Latin), fols. 1r-3r, which, according to Shailor,
Catalogue, 2.26, is an unidentied composition referring to the Virgin
Mary and the Saints.
MS 266: Barlaam and Ioasaph
Text in Greek, fols. 1r-378v. PG 96.860-1240. Description in Shailor,
Catalogue, 2.31-2, who also presents an additional prayer on f. 379r that is
not part of the printed version.
MS 267: Disputatio de Christo in Persia
Text in Greek, fols. 386r-404v. BHG3 5. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.33.
MS 317: Vision of Mary
Text in Middle English, fols. 50v-51r. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.122: Vision in
which the Virgin Mary reveals to John the Evangelist her ve sorrows.
MS 327: Epistola Abgari regis ad dominum Ihesum
Text in Latin, fols. 52r-57r. Shailor, Catalogue, 2.144, writes, Miscellaneous texts, including[the] beginning of the spurious letter of Christ to King
Abgarus of Edessa (f. 52v; incipit: Beatus est abagare Rex qui no [sic] me
vidisti). This copy of the Letter is part of an edition of Yale MS 327 that
is edited in A. Stussi, Zibaldone da Canal, 88-97 (see above, Appendix I, re
MS 327).
72
MS 384: Passion
Text in Latin, fol. 1r-v. According to Shailor, Catalogue, 2.244, this is an
unidentied passion of lii and mater.
MS 496: Passion of St. Bartholemew
Text in Latin, fols. 1r-2v. Passion of St. Bartholemew. BHL 1002. Shailor,
Catalogue, 2.484.
MS 652: Life of the Virgin
Details unknown.
MS 668: Conception of the Virgin
Incipit: Conceptio marie, fols. 44v-45v.
MS 878: Life of John the Baptist
Details unknown.
MS 1021: Legendary
Details unknown.
MS 1033: Legendarium
Details unknown.
MS Marston 45: Epistolae Pauli et Senecae
Text in Latin, fols. 1v-2v. According to Shailor, Catalogue, 3.76, this
collation contains all 14 letters of the correspondence, reversing the order
of letters 11 and 12 as printed in Haases text but otherwise corresponding
closely to the text of the edition. See MS 155, above.
MS Marston 49: Epistola de conditione Domini nostri Iesu Christi
Text in Latin, 74v-75v. The Letter of Lentulus describing Jesus. Shailor,
Catalogue, 3.95.
MS Marston 56: Vitae sanctorum
Text in Italian, fols. 1r-187v. Shailor, Catalogue, 3.105-7: Lives of the
Saints, in It., preceded by accounts of events in the Bible from both the Old
and New Testaments. Shailor transcribes the books (long) table of
contents, which appears in the MS as fol. iii v. For the relevant OT stories,
see Appendix I, above.
MS Marston 247: Epistola de conditione Domini nostri Iesu Christi
Text in Italian, fol. 148r-v. The Letter of Lentulus describing Jesus. Shailor,
Catalogue, 3.475.
MS Marston 256: BMV
Text in Italian, fols. 1r-23v. Shailor, Catalogue, 3.500: Life and Miracles
of the Virgin Mary, with a detailed description on pp. 500-503.
MS Marston 267: Vitae sanctorum
Text in Latin. Relevant portions from Shailor, Catalogue, 3.523-5: 1. ff. 1r2r [St. Thomas Apostle:] Incipit miraculum de sancto thoma apostolo.
BHL 8145?; this text also found in Paris, Bibliothque Mazarine 624, f. 36r.
15. ff. 98v-99r. Virgin Mary, Vita. BHL 5334; ff. 99r-107r Virgin Mary,
Nativitas. BHL 5335 ; ff. 107r-112r Virgin Mary, Transitus. BHL 5351.
16. ff. 112r-120v St. Mary Magdalen. BHL 5457 and 5457a 25. ff.
177v-178v. Sts. Peter, Andrew, Paul, Dionysius. BHL 6716. 27. ff. 194r204r St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. BHL 5700
MS Marston 285: Jesus, etc.
73
Text in Italian, fols. 65r-66v. Shailor, Catalogue, 3.558: Fragment of an

account of the Passion of Christ; on f. 66r-v: concern of the Pharisees; death
proposed by Caiaphas; dinner in the house of Simon, with Martha serving
and Mary Magdalen pouring out ointment; decision of Judas to betray
Jesus; entry into Jerusalem; on f. 65r-v: Christ on the cross; Mary entrusted
to the care of John of the Evangelist; Christ ignores Marys sorrow; lament
of the Virgin with the Holy Women; deposition from the cross by Joseph of
Arimathea and Nicodemus; entombment; lament of the Virgin. The text is
partially (on f. 65r-v) in terza rima.
MS Osborn a.4: Jesus
Details unknown.
MS Osborn a.11: Titus and Vespasian
Is this an unidentied MS copy?
P late I. Yale MS 163, fol. 28v

( courtesy Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
P late II. Yale MS 404, fol. 113r

P late III. Yale MS 404, fol. 113v

P late IV. Yale MS 411, fol. 51v

P late V. Yale MS 411, fol. 58v

P late VI. Yale MS 504

P late VII. Yale MS 714, fol. 229r


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Journal for the study of the Pseudepigrapha

Vol 20.1 (2010): 3-80

Pseudepigrapha Notes III:

The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University,

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

Notes,2 identies and discusses the importance of these copies, and in

P.CtYBR inv. 4995: Jubilees (Coptic)

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DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

MS Marston 255: Testamenta XII patriarcharum (Latin)

Appendix I: Additional Notes

The standard reference is the Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

Catalogue], covering MSS 501-620, is available at the Library. The

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DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

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characteristic of Jubilees, but the documents themselves are not actual

18. VanderKam and Milik, 142.

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DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

feature of Jubilees,23 and it is possible that 4995(A) is part of a more

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

2. Lunationes DanielisMS 163 (Wagstaff Miscellany), fol. 28v

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Lunaries forecast the future based on the moons appearance or

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

scientic and technical knowledge, and could be tailored to the needs of

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DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

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DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

The next installment of the present series, Pseudepigrapha Notes IV,

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

The Reuelatio Esdrae, a translation of which is included in the OTP,67

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

80. I have not included the information in MS catalogues unless necessary.

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Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 20.1 (2010)

22. Venezia, BM gr. 309, fol. 70v

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DITOMMASO Pseudepigrapha Notes III

The Origin of the Monstrous Races reects a widespread fascination