Remember the Hand: Bodies and Bookmaking in Early Medieval ...

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In fact, they do, and to the letter: that note written with a bad pen records
the copying process of this particular manuscript of De civitate Dei, which is in
fact copiously annotated with milestones that track the construction of the
text, column by column, and page by page. Alongside Augustine’s titanic
theological chronology, Real Academia de la Historia MS. 29 offers the
marginal story of its own production (table 1).
The same hand that does not like its pen makes other entries, occasionally
reassuring readers about the text’s reliability (f. 128v.: ‘‘I checked it, trust me,
nothing’s missing’’ [‘‘Perexi, non dubites, nil minus habet’’]), sometimes
commenting learnedly upon it (or transcribing someone else’s learned comments),
often simply noting a date and even a time (f. 134v: ‘‘Vespera sanctarum
Iuste et Rufine’’ = Eve of Saints Justa and Rufina, July 16).
One writer who so marks his time is named Moterrafe, though to figure this
out we have to crack the little puzzle he leaves in the margin of f. 170v
(figure 2): two columns of tiny letters. Rotate figure 2 90 degrees counterclockwise.
Begin with the capital E, bottom row, far left. Above it, F.
Diagonally down to the right, bottom row: A. Above it, R. And so on:
‘‘EFARRTOM MUNOCAID AIROMEM.’’
Read it backwards, and you will never forget him: MEMORIA DIACONUM
MOTERRAFE: ‘‘Remember Moterrafe the deacon.’’ On f. 196r, the hand
changes; 80 folios later, we get a name for the new hand and another
reminder, this time laid out as a monogram (f. 273v): ALOITII PRESBITERI
MEMORIA: ‘‘Remember Aloysius the presbyter’’ figure 3.
And on f. 276v, we are told ‘‘Here Aloysius the presbyter stopped writing’’
[‘‘Hic cessavit Aloitius presbiter de scribere’’] (figure 4) and Moterrafe’s hand
returns.
In sum: sixteen dates and three scribes – one unnamed, one named twice
and one three times. 16 So as we follow Augustine’s argument in City of God,we
also follow the growth of the book that contains it. 17 We track the work that
makes the Work. Read for the meaning, but remember the pen, the manuscripts
tell us.
Appropriately enough, the most spectacular invitation to ignore Gregory’s
advice against reading the text but asking about the pen comes from the hand
of a scribe who really, one would think, ought to know better. I say ‘‘ought to
know better’’ because there is no doubt that the scribe in question had read
Gregory’s warning. Not only did he read it, but he incorporated it in the most
intimate medieval way possible: he copied it carefully on the recto of f. 18 of a
spectacular manuscript of the Moralia---which, the scribe will also tell us on f.
499r, he completed around 6 AM on April 11 th , 945.
Florentius’s Hand (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 80)
He who does not write the earth with the plow must paint the page with his
finger. (Ferreolus of Uzès, d. 581 CE)
The sumptuously decorated copy of the Moralia that now resides in the
Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid as MS 80 was executed at the Castilian
monastery of Valeránica by one hand, text and image alike---no mean feat,
since the codex runs to 501 folios and measures a massive 490 x 350 mm (19¼"
x13 3 /4"). Making it must have taken him a very long time indeed. The scribe’s
name was Florentius, and he is nothing if not engaged with his work. 18
266 CATHERINE BROWN
Figure 1. Madrid, Real Academia de la
Historia, MS 29, f. 106r (detail). ‘‘I wrote here
on the Sunday after Ascension, and the pen was
bad’’ [Hic scripsi in dominico post ascensio et
fuit illa pinna mala].
16 – The record of scribes and dates is only
part of the copious annotation left in the
manuscript by its copyists---also included are
interpretive and critical notes. For a more
detailed discussion, see Díaz y Díaz, Libros y
librerías, pp. 147-54 and Díaz y Díaz, ‘‘El cultivo
del latín en el siglo X,’’ Anuario de estudios
filológicos 4 (1981), pp. 71-81.
17 – The practice of multiple scribes noting their
parts in the production of a single manuscript in
this period is rare, but not undocumented---the
most striking examples from the early period are
the Augustine codices made by the nuns of
Chelles in the tenth and eleventh centuries. On
this and similar cases, see Jean Vezin, ‘‘La
repartition du travail dans les scriptoria carolingiens,’’
Journal des Savants 3 (1973), pp. 212-37.
Christopher De Hamel offers a late twelfthcentury
English glossed Exodus (Lambeth
Palace Library, MS 110) with notes by the scribe
tracking a copying work week, beginning on
‘‘lundi’’ and ending twelve leaves later on
‘‘samadi’’ (A History Of Illuminated Manuscripts
[London: Phaidon Press, 1997], p. 92). Closest to
our Iberian case is a manuscript from St Vaast
which bears names of nine scribes working in
twelve stints; see Richard Gameson, ‘‘‘Signed’
Manuscripts From Early Romanesque
Flanders: Saint-Bertin and Saint-Vaast,’’ in Pen
in Hand: Medieval Scribal Portraits, Colophons and
Tools, ed. Michael Gullick (Walkern, Herts.:
Red Gull Press, 2006), pp. 31-73.
18 – Key works on Valeránica in the period
and Florentius in particular: Manuel C. Díaz
yDíaz, ‘‘El escriptorio de Valeránica,’’ in
Codex Biblicus Legionensis: Veinte estudios (León:
Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, 1999), pp. 53-
72; Barbara A. Shailor, ‘‘The Scriptorium of
San Pedro de Berlangas’’ (PhD thesis,
University of Cincinnati, 1975); X. Huidobro
y Serna, ‘‘El monasterio de San Pedro de
Berlangas en Tordómar y su celebre calígrafo
el monje Florencio,’’ Boletín de la Comisión de
Monumentos de Burgos 14 (1935), pp. 45-47; John
Williams, ‘‘A Contribution to the History of
the Castilian Monastery of Valeranica and
the Scribe Florentius,’’ Madrider Mitteilungen
11(1970), pp. 231-48.