6 - Petrus Alfonsi, the Disciplina clericalis and Le Romaunz Peres Aunfour of MS Digby 86

Summary

LE Romaunz Peres Aunfour coment il aprist et chaustia sun cher fiz belement is by far the longest item in Oxford, BodL, MS Digby 86. Filling 23½ doublecolumned folios (art. 27; fols. 74va–97vb), its French verse couplets occupy about twice as much space as any of the volume's three other substantial items: a medical treatise in French prose (13 folios: The Letter of Hippocrates, art. 7; fols. 8v–15v, 17r–21r), a treatise on falconry in French prose (13½ folios: Le Medicinal des oiseaus, art. 19; fols. 49r–62r) and a saint's life in French verse (11½ folios: Wace's Miracles de seint Nicholas, art. 54; fols. 150ra–161ra). The volume's remaining items are mostly quite short, although a few occupy from five to eight folios. The decision to include this lengthy text in the manuscript reflects the considerable interest the writings of Petrus Alfonsi held for a late medieval Anglo-French audience. Its placement may also reflect the compiler's particular interest in linking the diverse texts included in the manuscript, which range from religious, scientific and instructive texts, to secular material that includes comic tales, narratives of adventure and risqué verse.

It is not surprising that the compiler of a miscellaneous manuscript would have been pleased to include some version of Petrus Alfonsi's Disciplina clericalis in his book. Derived from Arabic, Hebrew and other Eastern sources, the early twelfthcentury Disciplina clericalis is the first framed story collection known to have been composed in Western Europe. As an assemblage of maxims, proverbs, moralisations and tales, it was both tremendously influential and widely circulated: at least seventy-six complete and partial copies of the Latin text survive, alongside two French verse translations (surviving in fourteen manuscripts), portions in French prose (surviving in seven manuscripts dated thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) and versions in other languages. At least twenty-five Latin copies survive from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and eight French copies (including Digby) survive from the last third of the thirteenth century.

Judging from the contents of Digby 86, it seems possible that the more widely disseminated Latin Disciplina clericalis would not have suited the compiler's linguistic preferences, and that he actively sought a French verse version.