1

“An Early Humanist Edition of Nithard, De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii:

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203”1

•

Courtney M. Booker

(University of British Columbia)

It is often noted that the first textual record of the French language dates from the middle of the

ninth century, appearing within the famous vernacular oaths of allegiance sworn between two of

Charlemagne’s grandsons, Louis the German and Charles the Bald, and their armies at

Strasbourg in February, 842. Recorded by another of Charlemagne’s grandsons, the lay warrior

Nithard, the Strasbourg Oaths themselves appear within that literate nobleman’s detailed

contemporary account of the civil war in western Francia during the early 840s between the allied

forces of Louis and Charles and those of their elder brother Lothar.2 Written in Latin (except for

the parallel Oaths, which are in Romance and Rhenish Franconian German) and undertaken

explicitly on behalf of his royal cousin and lord, the eighteen-year-old King Charles the Bald,

Nithard’s remarkable text has long been known to be extant in only two manuscripts, one from

the tenth century (Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768), and another, incomplete copy (lacking the Oaths) from

the fifteenth (Paris, B.N.F. lat. 14663).3 In modern discussions of the Strasbourg Oaths, this

1 Research for this article was supported by a Franklin Grant from the American Philosophical Society and

multiple grants from the Hampton Humanities and Social Sciences Research Program at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Preliminary versions were presented at the 38th annual meeting of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, Portland, Oregon, 28 March 2003; the 52nd annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, San Francisco, California, 25 March 2006; and the 42nd annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 11

May 2007. I wish to thank Paul Dutton, Patrick Geary, Jason Glenn, Bengt (†) and Leena Löfstedt, Clementine Oliver, June Zeppa, and the anonymous reader/s of Revue d’histoire des textes.

2 Nithard, Historiarum Libri IIII, 3.5, ed. Philippe Lauer, Nithard: Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux (Paris, 1926), 104–9. On Nithard, his Historiae, and the Strasbourg Oaths, see Cécile Treffort, “Nithard, petit-fils de Charlemagne: Note sur une biographie controversée,” Société des antiquaires de Picardie 632 (1994): 427–34; Janet L. Nelson, “Public Histories and Private History in the Work of Nithard,” Speculum 60 (1985): 251–93; Wendy Ayres-Bennett, “The Strasbourg Oaths (842): The Earliest Vernacular Text,” in eadem, A History of the French Language through Texts (London, 1996), 16–30; Francesco Lo Monaco, “Nithardus,” in Paolo Chiesa, Lucia Castaldi, eds., La Trasmissione dei Testi Latini del Medioevo / Mediaeval Latin Texts and Their Transmission (Florence, 2004), 1:299–305.

3 For detailed descriptions of these manuscripts, see David N. Dumville, ed., The Historia Brittonum, vol. 3, The “Vatican Recension” (Cambridge, 1985), 24–29; Gilbert Ouy, Les manuscrits de l’Abbaye de Saint-Victor: Catalogue établi sur la

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paucity of textual witnesses is nearly always mentioned in order to underscore the extremely

slender manuscript transmission by which they survived, a “near-death experience” that is often

recalled to enhance their established, prodigious value as a foundational linguistic national

monument.4

In a footnote to an article published in 1929—just three years after the last criticial edition

of Nithard’s text—Louis de Rosanbo called attention to the existence of another Nithard

manuscript.5 This otherwise unknown copy of Nithard’s text, which contains the Strasbourg

Oaths, explains De Rosanbo, was made by the hand of the great sixteenth-century French jurist

and humanist (and ancestor of De Rosanbo) Pierre Pithou (1539–1596).6 At the time of De

Rosanbo’s note, the Pithou copy was in the private possession of the archivist and curator of the

municipal library of Troyes, Louis Morin (1866–1942), who, according to De Rosanbo, planned to

donate it to the municipal library’s collection.7 As a 1984 supplement to the Troyes library’s

manuscript catalog makes clear, the Pithou copy was eventually bequeathed by Morin’s son base du répertoire de Claude de Grandrue (1514) (Turnhout, 1999), 439–41; Léopold Delisle, Inventaire des manuscrits de l’Abbaye de Saint-Victor (Paris, 1869), 36–37; Camille Couderc, “Essai de classement des manuscrits des Annales de Flodoard,” in Mélanges Julien Havet: Recueil de travaux d’érudition dédiés a la mémoire de Julien Havet (1853–1893) (Paris, 1895), 721–24; Lo Monaco, “Nithardus,” 299–305.

4 On this point, see above all R. Howard Bloch, “The First Document and the Birth of Medieval Studies,” in Denis Hollier, ed., A New History of French Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 6–13. Good comparable cases for the appreciation in value of particular manuscripts due to the role played by their contents in the formation of national identity are documented by Opritsa D. Popa, Bibliophiles and Bibliothieves: The Search for the Hildebrandslied and the Willehalm Codex (New York, 2003), on the manuscript containing the Hildebrandslied; Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York, 1995), 75–81, on the manuscript containing the Germania of Tacitus; and Alan Riding, “A Stolen Relic Is a Problem for Mexicans,” The New York Times, 29 August 1982, section 1, part 1, p. 9, on the Tonalamatl Aubin Aztec codex.

5 Louis de Rosanbo, “Pierre Pithou,” Revue du seizième siècle 16 (1929): 308 n. 4, “Il existe une copie autographe de P. Pithou d’un ms. intitulé: Wittardi, nobilissimi viri, de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor, — Ad Carolum calvum imperatorem. Le ms. est la propriété de M. Morin, à Troyes, qui a l’intention de le léguer à la bibliothèque de la ville, don’t il est l’éminent conservateur. — Un seul autre ms. du Xe siècle existe actuellement.” For the critical edition, which does not take Pithou’s copy into account, see Philippe Lauer, ed., Nithard: Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux (Paris, 1926). It remains the standard edition of Nithard’s text, though it should be consulted in tandem with Ernst Müller, ed., Nithardi historiarum libri IIII, MGH, SSrG in usum scholarum (Hannover, 1907).

6 On Pithou, the best study remains Pierre-Jean Grosley, Vie de Pierre Pithou avec quelques memoires sur son pere et ses freres (Paris, 1756). Modern biographies begin with Louis de Rosanbo, “Pierre Pithou,” Revue du seizième siècle 15 (1928): 279–305; 16 (1929): 301–30; Donald R. Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance (New York, 1970), 241–70; Rosamond McKitterick, “The Study of Frankish History in France and Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Francia 8 (1980): 559–61; Klaus Malettke, “Pierre Pithou als Historiker,” in August Buck, ed., Humanismus und Historiographie (Weinheim, 1991), 89–103; Marie-Madeleine Fragonard, Pierre-Etienne Leroy, eds., Les Pithou: Les lettres et la paix du royaume: Actes du colloque de Troyes, 13–15 avril 1998 (Paris, 2003).

7 De Rosanbo, “Pierre Pithou,” 308 n. 4.

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Alfred (1908–1993), who was also an archivist in Troyes, to the city’s library, where it has since

remained unnoticed and unexamined (Troyes, M.A.T. 3203).8

In the pages that follow, I shall trace the history of Pithou’s Nithard copy, make an

examination of its text, and note some of its salient characteristics. While its version of the

Strasbourg Oaths, although being the only other copy in manuscript, does not differ in any

significant way from the extant tenth-century witness in Paris (see APPENDIX I)—indeed, a

comparison shows that Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 is ultimately, but not directly, descended from Paris,

B.N.F. lat. 9768—certain peculiarities in the text of the Troyes manuscript demonstrate the

previous existence of at least two additional (but now lost) manuscripts of Nithard, and thus

reveal a greater medieval interest in his work than has previously been thought.

HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Apart from the brief remarks by De Rosanbo and the short note in the modern Troyes

manuscript catalog, the only other record of the Pithou Nithard copy appears in a nineteenth-

century manuscript auction catalog.9 Shortly after the death of the French bibliophile and homme

de lettres Jean-Pierre Agnès Parison (1771–1855), his impressive collection of manuscripts, letters,

prints, and sundry historical documents was put up for auction between 25 and 29 March 1856.10

Listed as first among the many items for sale on March 27th is lot 726, “Witardi, nobilissimi viri,

de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor. Ad Carolum Calvum Imperatorem. Ms. de

158 p. régl. in-4, rel. vél.”11 While it remains unknown who bought the manuscript on that day, it

is clear that the astute collector also purchased at the same auction a letter from the pen of the

eighteenth-century savant Jean Lebeuf that records Lebeuf’s quest for a Nithard manuscript in

8 Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 63, Suppléments Dijon, Pau, Troyes (Paris, 1984), 134. Although the note “Don d’Alfred Morin” appears in the catalog record, a bookplate glued to the front pastedown of the manuscript states “Ex dono Louis Morin.” Françoise Bibolet suggests that Louis Morin intended to donate the manuscript, but died before he had the chance to do so, and that it was his son Alfred, who, following his release in 1945 as a prisoner of war, ultimately executed his father’s wish. Françoise Bibolet, Personal communication, 31 August 2007.

9 However, there is a curious parallel between Pithou’s address to the reader on fol. 59r of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 and the prefatory remarks made by André Duchesne to his edition of Nithard’s text in 1636, which suggests that Duchesne may have seen Pithou’s Nithard copy. See n. 37 below.

10 Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, documents historiques, estampes anciennes, etc. du cabinet de feu M. Parison . . . (Paris, 1856).

11 Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, 93, no. 726.

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1731 (the Lebeuf letter is folded and pasted within the back of the Pithou Nithard manuscript,

presumably put there by the documents’ new owner following their sale at the 1856 auction12).

Equally clear is the fact that the two documents came into the possession of Louis Morin no later

than 1929, as the note in De Rosanbo’s article from that year attests.13

Thanks to the scrupulous work of the auction’s directors—together with information

gleaned from the letter of Lebeuf (see APPENDIX II and Fig. 1)—a history of the manuscript’s

wanderings prior to its possession by Parison can be reconstructed with considerable detail.14

According to Lebeuf, the Jesuit scholar Jacques Sirmond (1559–1651) picked through the

manuscripts of Pithou’s estate and acquired a number of them for his own collection (likely

sometime after his return from Rome in 1608). Lebeuf believed that Sirmond eventually left some

of these Pithou manuscripts to the library of the Collège de Clermont in Paris, where he was

rector and “scriptor librorum” for a number of years following his return to France.15 It appears

that Lebeuf’s claims regarding Sirmond and his manuscript acquisitions were indeed correct, for

12 However, it is possible, perhaps even probable, that the two documents had already been grouped together

prior to the Parison auction (conceivably during their time at the Collège de Clermont, on which see below), but were listed as separate lots to increase the number of items for sale and thereby maximize returns. On the letter by Lebeuf, see the Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, 51–52, no. 380; and Lettres de L’Abbé Lebeuf (Auxerre, 1867), 2:115, no. 186. According to its record in the auction catalog, the letter also contained an appended note on the identity of a saint. To my knowledge, this note has not been preserved. On Lebeuf, see Claude Gauchet, “Notice sur l’Abbé Le Beuf,” in Abbé (Jean) Le Beuf, Recueil de dissertations sur différens sujets d’histoire et de littérature (Paris, 1843), 1:I–XXIII.

13 De Rosanbo, “Pierre Pithou,” 308 n. 4. 14 The auctioneers commissioned a close friend of Parison, the savant Jacques-Charles Brunet, to write a brief

biography of Parison and give a history of his library; it appears at the front of the Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de feu M. Parison, Homme de lettres, dont la vent aura lieu le lundi 25 février et jours suivants à sept heures du soir (Paris, 1856), I–XIV, under the title “Notice sur M. Parison, Homme de lettres.”

15 On Sirmond, his practice of acquiring manuscripts, and his relationship with the Collège de Clermont, see Alfred Franklin, Les anciennes bibliothèques de Paris (Paris, 1870), 2:252; and Gustave Dupont-Ferrier, La vie quotidienne d’un collège Parisien pendant plus de trois cent cinquante ans: Du Collège de Clermont au Lycée Louis-le-Grande (1563–1920) (Paris, 1921–1925), 1:122–30; 3:4–5, 31–32. Lebeuf wrote his letter of inquiry (regarding Nithard manuscripts and the fate of Pithou’s library) to Étienne Souciet, librarian of the Collège (known since 1682 as the Collège de Louis-le-Grand), on 26 October 1731. A note in the upper margin of the first page of the letter (“Repondue le 14e. Novembre [1731]”) attests that Souciet soon replied to Lebeuf’s query (about whether a Nithard manuscript—perhaps from Pithou’s library—presently formed part of the Collège’s collection), but what his answer was remains unknown. However, given Lebeuf’s comments just a few years later, it appears that Lebeuf either never learned of the Pithou Nithard copy (within which Lebeuf’s letter now resides) or else he found Pithou’s copy to be of little worth. For by 1735, Lebeuf would concede that the old manuscript of Nithard’s text known to be in the Vatican at the time (now Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768) was, in his opinion, “unique in the world”; see Lebeuf, Recueil de dissertations, 1:12–14, reprinting an article from the Mercure, February 1735, p. 268; and his earlier remarks to Jean Bouhier and Jean Basile Pascal Fenel, Lettres de L’Abbé Lebeuf, 2:113, 140–41. For the relevant section of Lebeuf’s letter to Souciet, see APPENDIX II and Fig. 1 below.

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Jacques-Charles Brunet, in his history of Parison’s collection, observed that many of its

manuscripts at one time formed part of the Jesuit library of the Collège de Clermont.16 Upon the

suppression of the Jesuit order in France in 1762, and his subsequent exile in 1764, the last Jesuit

librarian of the Collège, abbé Gabriel Brotier (1722–1789), took many items from its shelves and

added them to his personal collection17; as a note by Brotier pasted within the Pithou Nithard

copy suggests, the manuscript was among those volumes he annexed from the school’s library.18

This fact is confirmed by an abbreviated inscription scrawled across the top of folio 1r (Fig. 2) in

badly blotted ink by a hand other than that of Pithou, which states “Domus profess(ae)

Paris(iensis) societ(atis) Jesu.” After the abbé Brotier’s death in 1789, his rich manuscript

collection passed into the hands of his nephew, André-Charles Brotier (1751–1798).19 In 1797

Brotier was discovered to be a royalist conspirator and was sentenced to exile in French Guiana

for his sympathies (he died there in September of the following year).20 At his trial, the destitute

Brotier had hired a defense lawyer named Lebon, to whom in lieu of cash he offered the various

manuscripts and documents of his uncle’s collection as a pledge of future payment.21 The Pithou

Nithard copy was a part of this surety. Not long after the death of his client, Lebon attempted to

sell Brotier’s pledge (which he now legally owned) to some book dealers, who, being allegedly

ignorant of its value, offered him next to nothing for it (according to Brunet, they appraised the

16 Brunet, “Notice sur M. Parison, Homme de lettres,” XII. 17 Léopold Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale (Paris, 1868), 1:437. The library of the

Collège was sold in 1764; see Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits, 1:435–36; and the Catalogue des Livres de la Bibliotheque des ci-devant soi-disans Jésuites du Collège de Clermont, dont la Vente commencera le Lundi 19 Mars 1764 (Paris, 1764).

18 On a small slip of paper pasted in the middle of Lebeuf’s letter found in the rear of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 is the following note: “Ce manuscrit est une copie de celui de Rome, le seul qui existe. Quoique moderne, il n’en est pas moins precieux à cause des notes et corrections sur le texte de Nithard en general, et principalement sur les fameux Sermens de Charles le Chauve et de Louis le Germanique, en langues francique et romane.” Below this note, in another hand, is the gloss, “Note de l’abbé Brottier, dernier bibliothècaire des Jésuites.” The Parison auction catalog erroneously ascribes the note to Parison; see Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, 93, no. 726.

19 The sketch that follows is largely paraphrased from Brunet, “Notice sur M. Parison, Homme de lettres,” XII–XIII.

20 See André-Charles Brotier, Exposé de la conduite et des principes d’A. C. Brotier (Paris, 1797); Lebon, Plaidoyer prononcé le 16 germinal, par le Cen Lebon, défenseur officieux du Cen Brottier, devant le conseil de guerre de la dix-septième division militaire (Paris, 1797); and Journal d’un déporté non jugé, ou Déportation en violation des lois décrétee le 18 fructidor an V (4 Septembre 1797) (Paris, 1834), 2:310.

21 This was not the first time Brotier had relied on his uncle’s library as a source of revenue; see Brotier, Exposé de la conduite et des principes d’A. C. Brotier, 5, for his own remarks regarding his penury and his sale of a portion of the library in 1793 for six thousand livres.

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pile of dusty old books to be worth a pittance, meriting little more than the material value of their

paper). A friend of Lebon suggested that he hire the erudite and well-connected Jean-Pierre

Agnès Parison to sort, classify, and make an inventory of the miscellaneous documents and

manuscripts in order to identify those that were valuable. Contacted by Lebon, Parison agreed to

the lawyer’s terms (which also gave him carte blanche to arrange for the manuscripts’ sale) and

applied himself fervently to his task, with the result that most of the newly organized collection

was soon purchased (at amounts far higher than Lebon had hoped) in 1811 both by the

Bibliothèque impériale and by several renowned bibliophiles for their private libraries.22 Parison

himself acquired the remainder of the lot (which—Brunet stresses for the wary reader of the

Parison auction catalog and potential buyer of its contents—was obtained legitimately), and

consequently it was this surplus, which included the Pithou Nithard copy, that was up for

auction in 1856 following Parison’s death.23

CODICOLOGY OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 has a rather plain, yellowed parchment binding measuring a modest

155 x 120 mm. At the top of the binding’s spine are visible, in Pithou’s neat hand, the words

“Withar. dus.” written in brown ink, followed by additional text (presumably the title of the

work) that has faded and been rubbed to the point of illegibility. The bottom of the spine bears a

small pasted plate, on which has been written the book’s format “12º” and shelfmark number

“3203.” The front pastedown has a note at the top, stating “Manuscrit autographe de P. Pithou,”

22 Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits, 1:437; 2:283. As Delisle points out, the Bibliothèque impériale purchased

forty items, which largely consisted of manuscripts of Sirmond, Petau, Souciet, Brotier, Bussy-Rabutin, and Bouhours. Brunet, “Notice sur M. Parison, Homme de lettres,” XIII, notes that the other buyers of Lebon’s collection were the distinguished orientalists Louis-Mathieu Langlès (1763–1824), Silvestre de Sacy (sc., Antoine Isaac) (1758–1838) and Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832). For the items purchased by Langlès, see the Catalogue des Livres, Imprimés et Manuscrits, composant la Bibliothèque de feu M. Louis-Mathieu Langlès (Paris, 1825), 532–38.

23 Brunet, “Notice sur M. Parison, Homme de lettres,” XIII–XIV, “C’est ainsi que M. Parison est devenu possesseur, et disons-le bien, possesseur légitime, de plusieurs pièces du plus haut intérêt, des papiers curieux qui figurent dans sa collection, et aussi du Recueil de pièces relatives aux Jésuites. . . .” For the additional items acquired by the Bibliothèque impériale at this auction, see Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits, 1:437, 2:304. A number of volumes in Parison’s collection also came from the library of Simon Chardon de La Rochette; see Luciano Canfora, “Simon Chardon de La Rochette (1754–1814): Le destin de ses livres,” Bulletin du bibliophile (2004): no. 2, 311–12; together with a letter of Chardon de La Rochette, Paris, B.N.F., nouv. acq. franc. 501, fols. 82r–83r.

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and below it a pasted typeset bookplate that reads “Ex dono Louis Morin.”24 At the top of the first

flyleaf is written “Ph 7855.”25

The manuscript itself is comprised of 88 small paper leaves (152 x 115 mm) that have

been numbered as folios.26 The leaves have been assembled, as one might expect, into 11

gatherings (1r–8v, 9r–16v, 17r–24v, 25r–32v, 33r–40v, 41r–48v, 49r–56v, 57r–64v, 65r–72v, 73r–80v, 81r–88v),

with corresponding quire signatures (a i – l v) appearing systematically in the bottom right

margin of each gathering’s first five rectos. On the leaves containing Nithard’s text, catchwords

appear in the bottom right margin of each verso. A calligraphic title page, including the

dedication “Ad Carolum Calvum Imperatorem” and a fleuron, opens the volume (fol. 1r) (Fig. 2),

followed by Nithard’s text (fols. 2r–58v) (Fig. 3), Pithou’s brief address to the reader (fol. 59r) (Fig.

4), his lengthy set of enumerated endnotes (fols. 59r–72v) (Fig. 5), an extensive alphabetical,

enumerated index of the many people and places mentioned within the text (fols. 73r–87v), and a

list of addenda to the endnotes (fol. 88r). The letter from Jean Lebeuf to Étienne Souciet (of 2

folios, with text on fols. 1r–2r, and the recipient’s name and address on 2v) is folded and pasted in

between folios 87 and 88.27 A note of attribution by Gabriel Brotier has been placed between the

two folios of Lebeuf’s letter.28 The rear pastedown has a note at the top in pencil, which states “Vte

Parison.” Several folios of the manuscript bear the circular library stamp of the Bibilothèque de

Troyes (e.g., Fig. 2).

Written in a fine humanistic cursive hand by Pithou, Nithard’s text appears in a single

column (115 x 78 mm) of 19 to 21 lines per page. Worthy of special mention is the fact that on

folio 43r–v Pithou altered his hand for the Strasbourg Oaths, adopting a rather exaggerated cursive

script with numerous ligatures and distended ascenders and descenders in order to offset the

vernacular text from the Latin that surrounds it (Figs. 6.1–2). Similarly, for easy reference, Pithou

numbered the lines of Nithard’s text in multiples of five along the inner margins of each folio. As

still another aide de référence, Pithou used (now faded) red ink for the folio numbers at the upper

24 On this bookplate, see n. 8 above. 25 I am uncertain to what this note refers. 26 In his endnotes, Pithou designates the recto and verso of each folio with the lowercase letters “a” and “b” (or

occasionally “1” and “2”) respectively. 27 On Lebeuf’s letter, see nn. 12 and 15 above, and APPENDIX II and Fig. 1 below. 28 See n. 18 above.

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right margin of each recto, for all endnote numbers, and for all folio numbers mentioned within

the endnotes themselves. Pithou even keyed the addenda on the last folio of the manuscript to

their corresponding text by placing an asterisk in the margin beside each sentence or word of the

work meriting the belated commentary.29

Littered throughout the entire manuscript—including the endnotes and index—are a

number of marginalia, which are written in a darker ink than the main text. These marginalia are

also in Pithou’s hand and chiefly reflect his careful comparison and collation of the Troyes

manuscript with the text of Nithard he printed in 1588 (he provides the different reading of the

latter in each instance, followed by the abbreviation “Pith.”).30 Hence, it seems that Pithou

produced the Troyes manuscript prior to the publication of his editio princeps of Nithard’s text in

1588, and added the marginalia sometime later between 1588 and the publication of the second

edition of the work in 1594.31 As his collation makes clear, Pithou did not use the text of the

Troyes manuscript for his printed edition. This is made certain by the fact that in the Troyes

manuscript (on fols. 1r, 2r; Figs. 2 & 3) Pithou gives the name of the author as “Wittardus,”32 and

overlooks the author’s self-identification in Book Four (fol. 56v), erroneously reading “et me

29 Namely, on fols. 3v l. 14; 5r ll. 10–11; 8r l. 12; 10v l. 17; 20r l. 5; 22r l. 1; 22v l. 11; 25v l. 18; 34r l. 20; 46v l. 10; 58v l. 9.

There are a few other final addenda noted on fol. 88r that are not keyed to the text by a corresponding asterisk (fol. 5v l. 20; 9v l. 1; 12r l. 8).

30 The edition is Pierre Pithou, Annalium et historiae Francorum ab anno Christi DCCVIII. ad ann. DCCCCXC. scriptores coaetanei XII. Nunc primum in lucem editi ex bibliotheca P. Pithoei . . . (Paris 1588), pt. 2, pp. 297–375. For his collation, Pithou used the 1588 Paris edition of the text and not the 1594 Frankfurt edition, for only the former has the misprint (on p. 317) “exomibus” (for “ex omnibus”), which Pithou notes among his marginalia on fol. 17r, “omibus, Pith.”

31 On the marginalia’s terminus ante quem of 1594, see n. 41 below. 32 In an endnote (fol. 59r–v, n. 1) to the name Wittardus, Pithou makes the following comment: “Quod ad

authoris verum nomen attinet, non satis sane mihi constat. Nitardi quidem, libro 2, folio 17, meminit, sed an is fuerit, dubito: de sc. etenim in prima persona ubique fere loquitur, ut suis locis notavi. Originem item suam dum describit, fol. 56, libro 4 nomen suum retinet. Dum vero strenuam fuisse virum, magnique consilii apparet, cum fol. 32 in fine libri tertii [secundi : corr. in marg.], in praelio adversus Lotharium, pars magna ipse fuerit, et lib. 4, fol. 48, unus e delegatis 12 Caroli extiterit. Quo denique tempore hac historia exarata fuerit, liquet ex praefatione libri primi, fine secundi, et quarti, ubi de mors Caroli magni disserit, fol. 2b, 32a, et 58a.” Later, in another endnote (fol. 62v, n. 14), this time on the name Nithard mentioned in the text (lib. 2, fol. 17r), Pithou remarks, “L. 11. forte, Vithardum, aut Witthardum, ut de se autor intelligat: quamvis aliis locis, ut supra dixi, in prima persona de se, tacito nomine loquatur: ut fol. 32. in fine huius libri 2. l. ultima, et lib. 4. f. 48. 12. et ubi et huius historia exaratione loquitur, fol. 32.2. et de sua origine, fol. 56. b. 7.” On the variety of names given to Nithard over the centuries (including Vitaldus, Guitard, Guittald, and Virardus, among others), see Carl W. Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide vom Jahre 842,” in Bausteine zur romanischen Philologie: Festgabe für Adolfo Mussafia zum 15. Februar 1905 (Halle, 1905), 12 n. 1.

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Nithardum” as “et Mentchardum.”33 In the 1588 edition of the text, however, Pithou ascribed the

work to Nithard and printed “et me Nithardum” in Book Four without comment. Evidently he

had recognized his error by that time.34 This recognition is also reflected in the margin of folio 56v

of the Troyes manuscript, where Pithou subsequently noted the correct reading: “me

Nithardum.”35

When the various characteristics of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 described above are taken

together with a number of its other features, such as quotation marks in the margins of folios to

denote the presence of direct speech, all capitals in the first line of each book to mark its

beginning (fols. 2r, 15v, 33r, 46v), running titles at the top of each folio to designate the number of

the current book (LIBER PRIMUS, LIBER SECUNDUS, etc.), and inverted-pyramid indentation to

conclude the first three books36 (fols. 15r, 32v, 46r), it quickly becomes apparent that this highly

detailed, orderly manuscript by Pithou was made as an elegant presentation copy, one that for

some reason was never given to its intended recipient, but kept by Pithou and updated for his

own purposes.

In fact, as Jean Lebeuf had correctly surmised, Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 never left Pithou’s

library until sometime shortly after his death in 1596. An announcement that Pithou makes to the

reader at the beginning of his endnotes (fol. 59r; see Fig. 4) suggests one possible reason why his

elaborate presentation copy of Nithard’s text was withheld:

33 See also Pithou’s remarks in his endnote to this passage (fol. 71v, n. 79): “Originem suam hic describit author,

quam a Berchta, Caroli magni filia, et Angilberto traxisse ait fratres autem suos, Harnidum et Mentchardum nominat: Angilberti autem fratres, Mahelgaudum et Rihardum, qui magni apud eundem Carolum habebantur.” Pithou was not the first to misread the text in this way; Jean-Papire Masson, in his work Annalium libri quatuor, quibus res gestae Francorum explicantur (Paris, 1577), 128–29, also explained that “Angilbertus ex Berta Caroli Magni filia Haruuidum et Mentehardum filios suscepit, Vitaldi fratres, cui propter eruditionem, et libros quatuor de bello fratrum servata historiae lege scriptos, profecto multum debemus.”

34 As Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 12 n. 1, observed, Pithou, in his personal copy or Handexemplar of his volume of collected Frankish sources printed in 1588 (Paris, B.N.F., Réserve des Livres rares, Res. L45.1: Pierre Pithou, Annalium et historiae Francorum ab anno Christi DCCVIII ad annum DCCCCXC scriptores coaetanei XII . . . [Paris, 1588]), added the marginal note “sive Witardi” beside the entry for Nithard’s text in the table of contents.

35 Cf. also the marginalia that Pithou added to his endnote on fol. 62v, n. 14 (see n. 32 above): “si id nomen eius sit.”

36 That Pithou did not indent the final lines of Book Four in this fashion underscores his belief that the conclusion of Nithard’s text had been lost at some point during its transmission. See n. 39 below.

10

Lectori: Cum in hoc libello (cuius exemplar manuscriptum, quod sciam, unicum extat)

multa sint imperfecta et corrupta, partim ex ipsius libri accurata lectione, partim

coniecturis a sensu historiae desumptis, emendanda, non abs re, duximus. Quibus

quoque Mottae, viri doctissimi, notulas adscripsimus. De quibus omnibus tuum esto

iudicium.

[To the Reader: Since in this little book (the exemplar of which exists in only one

manuscript, which I know) there are many incomplete and corrupted things that ought

to be emended, I did this, not without success, partly from a painstaking reading of the

book itself, partly from conjectures made from an understanding of the history. To these I

have also added the notes of Motta, a most learned man. On all this let your judgment

fall.]37

In this address, Pithou remarks parenthetically that his edition is based on a single manuscript

witness, and that this is the case only because he knows of no other manuscripts in existence that

might be used to assist in the reconstruction of the text.38 Following his final endnote on folio 72v,

Pithou makes another, related request of the reader:

Sunt qui huic [add. : 4.] libro finem deesse putent. Si quae lacunae fuit, ex alio codice

quando reperietur, replendae erunt, et omnia emendanda. Finis.

37 The diction of Pithou’s address bears a rather close resemblance to the prefatory remarks made by André

Duchesne for his edition of Nithard’s text in 1636, a parallel which suggests that Duchesne may have seen Troyes, M.A.T. 3203; cf. Pithou’s address above with André Duchesne, Historiae Francorum scriptores coaetani (Paris, 1636), 2:359 (my emphasis): “Recens a mendis et corruptionibus innumeris expurgati, partim ope vetustissimi ms. codicis, qui exstat in bibliotheca D. Alexandri Petavii S. P., partim conjecturis a sensu historiae desumptis.” Note also that in lib. 2, cap. 7 of Nithard’s text, Duchesne (2:367 C) supplies the reading “supra modo” without comment; in fact, this reading was an emendation, one that, to my knowledge, had only been offered by Pithou in Troyes, M.A.T. 3203, fol. 25r. For more details on this emendation, see n. 41 below.

38 Though Pithou does refer once to Aimon of Fleury and twice to a “Historia Dionysiaca” ( = chps. 52–53 of the Vita Hludowici imperatoris, composed ca. 840/1 by the “Astronomer,” ed. Ernst Tremp, Thegan: Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs; Astronomus: Das Leben Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH, SSrG, separatim editi, 64 [Hannover, 1995]) for a comparative account of the events recorded by Nithard: (fol. 60v n. 44) “pag. 2, l. 9. In Dionysiaca historia hac describuntur. Sed de Senila loquens, ait, idemque Salina Comes. Aimoinus, Samila, deest.” (fol. 61r n. 48) “l. 8. Calviacus. Et de his historia Dionysiaca: quae accidisse iuxta Blesense castrum ad Ligerem situm dicit. forte hoc loco etiam nomen fluvii deest. Calviacus villa, quod sit, vide.”

11

[I believe that there are things missing from the end of Book Four. If that which is lacking

is discovered in another manuscript, it should be added to make the text complete and

then everything should be corrected. The End.]39

Given that he published the editio princeps of Nithard’s text in 1588, and for this edition used the

tenth-century manuscript now at the Bibliothèque nationale (B.N.F. lat. 9768),40 it appears that

Pithou abandoned his edition preserved in Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 because he had finally found

another, better manuscript witness on which to base his reading of Nithard’s text. In other words,

the “unique manuscript” used by Pithou as the basis for his presentation copy was something

other than (and which Pithou later felt was inferior to) Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768.41 What was this

allegedly unique manuscript? And what was its relationship to Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768?

TEXT OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Perhaps the most striking thing that one learns from Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 is that Pithou

was not the first to provide a scholarly commentary on Nithard’s text. In an endnote, Pithou

39 Later, at the time he was entering his marginalia, Pithou appended to this postscript one last request: “Quod

si quibusdam hae notulae improbentur, quasi futiles et vanae, id de industria fecisse me fateor, ut ex huiusmodi variis testimonibus, si quid aptius coniici, deficientur exemplari, liceat, cuique sit liberum.”

40 In the margins of his editio princeps, Annalium et historiae Francorum . . . scriptores, pt. 2, 344, 361, Pithou explains that for Nithard’s text he used a “vetus exemplar.” Unfortunately he does not provide any additional information about this source, other than that it had several lacunae, which were emended by a later hand. However, a comparison of the text of his 1588 edition with the text of Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768 clearly reveals that Pithou must have used this manuscript; this is particularly evident from a comparison of Pithou’s description (on 344 and 361) of the later emendations in his vetus exemplar with those present in Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768 (fols. 11r, 14v). On Pithou’s use of Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768, see Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 20–21; Couderc, “Essai de classement des manuscrits,” 723; and Philippe Lauer, ed., Les annales de Flodoard (Paris, 1905), XXXVII, but with important reservations in n. 1.

41 A series of emendations of one word by Pithou reveals something of the sequence of his editorial interventions. In Troyes, M.A.T. 3203, fol. 25r l. 11 (lib. 2, cap. 7), Pithou supplied the emendation “supra modo,” and noted on fol. 64r n. 64 that his manuscript exemplar read “supra montem.” However, in his editio princeps of the text, published in 1588, he printed “supra *montem* ” (p. 328), evidently choosing to retain the reading of his new, more authoritative exemplar (B.N.F. lat. 9768, fol. 8r col. 1, l. 9), but providing asterisks to denote its problematic nature. Sometime shortly thereafter, in the margins of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203, he supplied a better emendation (fols. 25r, 64r), suggesting “comitem” in the place of “modo” or “montem.” Similarly, in his Handexemplar to his 1588 published edition (see n. 34 above), Pithou noted in the margin the same emendation, “comitem.” In the second edition of his source collection, published in Frankfurt in 1594, the text was corrected to suit this new reading, now giving “supra comitem” without comment (p. 455). Cf. the remarks of Lauer, ed., Nithard, 60 n. c; Müller, ed., Nithardi, 21 n. f; and Hans Prümm, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Nithardi Historiarum Libri Quattuor (Greifswald, 1910), 65.

12

explains that Pierre Daniel offered an emendation for the Latin name of the Loing river, reading

“Lupa” rather than “Luva” (Pithou preferred “Luva”).42 Unfortunately, Pithou neglected to

mention the context in which Daniel had ventured this emendation; perhaps it was made simply

in conversation over Nithard’s text, for Pithou never cites Daniel again in his commentary.

Pithou’s friend Pierre Daniel (1531–1604) was an avocat of the Parlement of Paris, bailiff

of the monastery of St. Benoît-sur-Loire (Fleury) in Orléans, and prominent collector and editor of

ancient texts in his spare time.43 Like Pithou, Daniel amassed a large library of manuscripts,

which appears to have included a copy of Nithard’s work.44 Thanks to a letter written by the

Dutch jurist and scholar Hubert van Giffen (“Giphanius”; 1534–1604) to Daniel in January 1578, it

is evident not only that Daniel was familiar with Nithard’s text and the Strasbourg Oaths, but

also that he possessed a manuscript preserving them (of which Van Giffen avidly desired a copy).

Moreover, in his letter, Van Giffen recalls that Daniel’s Nithard manuscript had come from the

library of the learned antiquary Jean du Tillet (d. 1570).45 Unfortunately, the fact that Daniel

42 On folio 63v, Pithou states the following in note 54: “fol. 24. l. 5. Lupa, suspicatur legendum Petrus Daniel, ut

sit feminus, Loin, cognominatus.” 43 Daniel produced acclaimed editions of the late antique comedy Querolus (1564) and the commentary on Virgil

by Servius (1600), and published scholarly notes on the Satyricon of Petronius (1585). On Daniel and his close relationship with Pithou, see Françoise Bibolet, “Les Pithou et l’amour des livres,” in Marie-Madeleine Fragonard, Pierre-Etienne Leroy, eds., Les Pithou: Les lettres et la paix du royaume: Actes du colloque de Troyes, 13–15 avril 1998 (Paris, 2003), 298; Louis Jarry, Une correspondance littéraire au XVIe siècle: Pierre Daniel . . . (Orléans, 1876), 84; and Georges Grente, ed., Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le XVIe siècle, rev. ed. Michel Simonin (Paris, 2001), col. 321A.

44 Daniel refers to a “Witardus” in his marginalia on fol. 69r of Paris, B.N.F. lat. 2858; see Denise Bloch, et al., eds., Bibliothèque Nationale, Catalogue général des manuscrits latins, Tables des tomes III à VI (Nos. 2693 à 3775B) (Paris, 1981), pl. IV, 2. While the majority of Daniel’s collection came from the monastery of Fleury, via its depredation by the Huguenots in 1562 (see Jarry, Une correspondance littéraire, 21–22, 25–34), Daniel’s Nithard manuscript evidently did not derive from this rich source. See the following note.

45 See Hermann Hagen, Der Jurist und Philolog Peter Daniel aus Orleans: Eine litterarhistorische Skizze (Bern, 1873), 29–30, printing a letter (Burgerbibliothek Bern 141, no. 161) from Van Giffen to Daniel in January 1578, in which Van Giffen notes Daniel’s familiarity with Nithard’s text and the Strasbourg Oaths: “S. D. Saepe diuque te rogavi, vir doctissime, ut Chronicam illam de rebus gestis nepotum Caroli Magni, in qua et foedus est inter eos sermone Germanico et Gallico conscriptum, ab D. Tilii heredibus commodato sumptam, describendam mihi curares. Idem et nunc te vehementissime rogo, ut mea causa id cures. Scio, te gratia tua et auctoritate facile id consecuturum, quod Bodinus iam est consecutus. Nam in libris suis de rep. foederis verba quaedam commemorat.” This letter (whose importance was overlooked by both Hagen and Cuthbert Hamilton Turner, “The Bibliography of Jean du Tillet,” Journal of Theological Studies 12 [1910]: 132–33) reveals that the library of Jean du Tillet was the source of Daniel’s knowledge of Nithard’s text. On Du Tillet, see Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “Jean du Tillet et les Archives de France,” Histoire et Archives 2 (1997): 29–63; and Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship, 215–38. At the close of his letter, Van Giffen refers to Jean Bodin, who in 1576 was the first to print the Strasbourg Oaths; see Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 9–13; and Janet Girvan Espiner-Scott, Claude Fauchet: Sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1938), 65. Bodin learned of the Oaths from his

13

possessed a manuscript of Nithard does not help to resolve for whom Pithou’s elegant, scholarly

copy was intended or what manuscript served as its source. It is certain that Troyes, M.A.T. 3203

was not made to fulfill Van Giffen’s importunate request, for Van Giffen later thanked Daniel

profusely for supplying him with the detailed copy he so desired.46 To be sure, Van Giffen,

Daniel, and Pithou were not the only ones with an interest in Nithard’s text, for their

contemporaries Jean Bodin47 (1530–1596), Claude Fauchet48 (1530–1601), Antoine Matharel49

(1537–1586), and Jean-Papire Masson50 (1544–1611) all frequently referred to or quoted from

Nithard in their patriotic treatises on the antiquity of the French nation, people, language, and

law.51 If Van Giffen’s copy is any indication, Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 was likely intended for some

friend Claude Fauchet, who himself may have known them from either Daniel or Du Tillet; see Espiner-Scott, Claude Fauchet, 290.

46 See Burgerbibliothek Bern 141, no. 163, a letter from Van Giffen to Daniel in July 1578, “O mi Daniel, mi amantissime D. Daniel, quanto me gaudio perfudisti, cum foedus illud utraque lingua, Germanica et provinciali ad me perscripsisti.” See also Jarry, Une correspondance littéraire, 68, 85 (note that the citation given by Jarry in 85 n. 2 is erroneous). On Van Giffen, see Jarry, Une correspondance littéraire, 58, 65–70, 84. The fate of Daniel’s and Van Giffen’s copies of Nithard is unknown.

47 See Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République (Paris, 1576), 117–18; together with Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 9–13; and Espiner-Scott, Claude Fauchet, 65.

48 See Claude Fauchet, Recueil de l’Origine de la langue et poesie françoise (Paris, 1581), 28; idem, Antiquitez Gauloises et Françoises (Paris, 1602), fol. 23r; together with Janet G. Espiner-Scott, ed., Claude Fauchet: Recueil de l’origine de la langue et poesie françoise, Rymes et Romans. Livre Ier (Paris, 1938), 54 n. 2; eadem, “Claude Fauchet and Romance Study,” Modern Language Review 35 (1940): 179.

49 According to information he gained from a personal communication with Matharel’s descendant, Carl Wahlund claimed that in the late sixteenth century Matharel “to all appearances” had a Nithard manuscript in his library; see Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 21 and n. 1, “Nach gütiger Mitteilung des Herrn Vicomte de Matharel, in einem Briefe datiert ‘La Grangefort (Puy-de-Dôme), le 25 octobre 1903.’” He also claimed that Jean-Papire Masson noted in his Annales that he had used a “Vitaldus ex biblioteca Antonii Matharelli advocati Parisiensis, manuscriptus,” but unfortunately Wahlund provided no citation. Cf. Pierre Ronzy, Un humaniste italianisant, Papire Masson (1544–1611) (Paris, 1924), 249.

50 See Jean-Papire Masson, Annalium libri quatuor: Quibus res gestae Francorum explicantur. Ad Henricum tertium (Paris, 1577), 98, 109, 111, 112, 117, 127, 128, 129; idem, De episcopis urbis, qui Romanam ecclesiam rexerunt, rebusque gestis eorum (Paris, 1586), fol. 135b, noting “Vitaldus” as his source for the events under the pontificate of Gregory IV. See also Ronzy, Un humaniste italianisant, 236 and nn. 1, 4; 249 n. 4; Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 12 n. 1.

51 For brief biographical notices on these figures, see Grente, ed., Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le XVIe siècle; Wade Richardson, Reading and Variant in Petronius: Studies in the French Humanists and Their Manuscript Sources (Toronto, 1993), 137–41; McKitterick, “The Study of Frankish History,” 556–72. See also Daniel Droixhe, “Les Serments de Strasbourg et les débuts de l’histoire du français (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles),” in Hans-Josef Niederehe, Brigitte Schlieben-Lange, eds., Die Frühgeschichte der romanischen Philologie: Von Dante bis Diez (Tübingen, 1987), 135–49.

14

member of this close circle of savants—what Donald R. Kelley aptly described as a “scholarly

Pléiade.”52

In addition to Daniel’s reading of Nithard’s text, Pithou supplied the critical remarks

made by another erudite contemporary interlocutor. As he explains in his address to the reader,

for his edition he made use of the “notulas” of the “vir doctissimus Motta.” True to his word,

throughout his endnotes Pithou repeatedly gives the many variant readings and observations of

“Motta,” his close friend Charles de La Mothe (d. 1584).53 While the fate of de La Mothe’s

otherwise unattested Nithard study remains a mystery (although he elsewhere reveals an early

interest in Nithard’s work54), his many comments have been preserved by Pithou within the

latter’s own set of copious notes on the text.55 A representative endnote with reference to de La

Mothe’s work runs as follows; referring to the passage “et in Palatio” from Book One on folio 4r,

line 5, Pithou remarks in note 15 on folio 60r: “l. 5. in, delet. Motta. sic et multa alia, quae quia

forte imprudenter omissa sunt, hic adnotanda non duxi, cum in cod. manus. extent, et ad

sententiam omnino faciant.” This observation by Pithou neatly sums up his opinion regarding

the whole of de La Mothe’s commentary, for he nearly always disagrees with the readings

supplied by his friend; Pithou consistently gives his own emendation in the body of the text and

meticulously renders the alternative readings of both his manuscript exemplar and de La Mothe

52 Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship, 245. 53 I thank Jérôme Delatour for his assistance with this identification. On de La Mothe, who helped Pithou

convert to Catholicism in 1573, see Grente, ed., Dictionnaire des lettres françaises, 669A; Paris et Ile-de-France: Mémoires (Paris, 1991), 42:164; and Louis de Rosanbo, “Pierre Pithou,” Revue du seizième siècle 15 (1928): 288. He was buried in the church of Saint-Paul de Paris; see Hélène Verlet, Epitaphier du vieux Paris (Paris, 1998), 11:91–92, no. 4916.

54 See Charles de La Mothe, “De la poesie francoise, et des oeuvres d’Estienne Iodelle, Sieur du Lymodin,” in Estienne Iodelle, Les Oeuvres et meslanges poetiques d’Estienne Iodelle, Sieur du Lymodin (Paris, 1574), n.p.; repr. Étienne Jodelle, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Enea Balmas (Paris, 1965), 1:71, “. . . ce Loys fust d’un naturel tres cruel, quelque tiltre de Debonnaire ou de Pieteux, que faulsement Guetard, historien de son fils Charles, et son cousin germain, luy aye le premier donné.” See also the remarks about de La Mothe by Bernard de Girard du Haillan, “Preface aux lecteurs,” in idem, L’histoire de France (Paris, 1576), n.p., “Si Iean de Saint André Chanoine de nostre Dame de Paris, Claude Fauchet President aux Monnayes, Charles de la Mothe Conseiller du Roy en son grand Conseil qui ont plusieurs beaux monuments de l’Histoire de France et qui ont en main les outils d’escrire . . . .”

55 The way that Pithou speaks of de La Mothe suggests that the latter was still alive when Pithou employed his notes; in other words, it appears that Pithou produced Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 sometime prior to de La Mothe’s death in 1584.

15

in the endnotes.56 For example, on fol. 28v Pithou writes “offerant” and provides a note (n. 93, fol.

65r) that states “l. 18. offerrent, Motta. offerent, manuscr.”57

A comparison of the various readings provided by de La Mothe and the manuscript used

by Pithou with the text of Nithard as it is known through its two other witnesses, the tenth-

century manuscript, Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768, fols. 1r–18v ( = A ), and the fifteenth-century

manuscript, Paris, B.N.F. lat. 14663, fols. 278v–289r ( = B ), reveals an interesting pattern. While it

is clear, from their reproduction of a number of errors, lacunae, and medieval emendations, that

Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 ( = T ), de La Mothe ( = M ), and B all are descendants of A,58 a collation of

their texts demonstrates that they were not direct copies of it, but rather copies of now-lost

intermediaries. More specifically, while de La Mothe’s and Pithou’s manuscript source was

neither B nor a copy of it (as both de La Mothe and Pithou knew the Strasbourg Oaths, which are

lacking in B), all three—M, T, and B—share the same lacunae of text that are manifestly not

missing from A.59 In other words, these manuscripts all descend from a common ancestor ( = α )

56 On Pithou’s attention to detail as an editor of texts, see Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History

of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1993), 2:532. 57 For a just few other examples (of many), on fol. 17v Pithou writes “aliter” and gives a note (n. 18, fol. 62v) that

states “l. 10. alter, manuscr. et Motta.” On fol. 28r Pithou writes “quid vero” and gives a note (n. 88, fol. 65r) that states “l. 20. quid’ve, manuscr. et Motta.” On fol. 29v Pithou writes “castrametantes” and gives a note (n. 99, fol. 65r) that states “l. 7. castrametentes, manuscr. et Motta.” On fol. 39v Pithou writes “vel cum paucis, vel etiam cum” and gives a note (n. 54, fol. 68r) that states “l. 13. vellent cum paucis, vellent cum, manuscr. Motta, vel etiam, legit utique.” On fol. 40r Pithou writes “urbemque” and gives a note (n. 62, fol. 68r) that states “l. 19. urbem quae, in manuscr. et Motta.” On fol. 40v (n. 67, fol. 68v) Pithou writes “suo iuri” and gives a note that states “l. 16. sui iuris, manuscr. sororis, vel urbis, suspicatur Motta legendum.” On fol. 45r Pithou writes “Saxonorum, Wasconorum, Austrasiorum, Brittannorum” and gives a note (n. 88, fol. 69r) that states “fol. 45 l. 4. Saxonum, Motta. Saxonarum, manuscr. Item, Brittonum, Motta. Brittonorum, manuscr.” On fol. 51r Pithou writes “Aiebant” and gives a note (n. 33, fol. 70v) that states “l. 7. Agebant, manuscr. Agebat, Motta. Vide f. 22. b. 3.”

58 Cf. the lacunae and emendations found in A (fols. 11r, 14v, 15r–v, ed. Lauer, 88, 120, 122, 128) with their reproduction in B (fols. 285r ll. 16–18, 287r, 287v ll. 16–17, 48) and T (fols. 36v and n. 26, 48r, 49v, 51v). Moreover, nearly every error in A is present in Pithou’s “unique” manuscript exemplar. The number of manuscript iterations at which A stands from the lost mid ninth-century autograph is uncertain, though given its relatively incorrupt text, scholars such as Lauer, Ganshof, and others posit that there cannot have been many—indeed, if any—intermediaries between the two manuscripts. See Lauer, ed., Nithard, XVIII; François L. Ganshof, “Une nouvelle théorie sur les Serments de Strasbourg,” Studi Medievali, second series, 2 (1929): 10; Guy De Poerck, “Le ms. B. N. lat. 9768 et les Serments de Strasbourg,” Vox Romanica 15 (1956): 193–202; and Lo Monaco, “Nithardus,” 302–5.

59 While A clearly provides the words “Dei” and “illum” on fols. 11v, col. 2, l. 1, and 12v, col. 1, l. 13, respectively, B lacks both (fols. 285r, l. 39, and 285v, l. 39), as do de La Mothe’s and Pithou’s exemplars. In fact, in T, Pithou emended the text in both cases, supplying the words “Dei” and “illum” in brackets (fols. 38r, 40v) and offering the following endnotes in each case: (n. 40, fol. 67v) “l. 8. Dei, deest in manuscr. quod et addendum censet, Motta”; (n. 68, fol. 68v), “l. 18. illum, deest in manuscr. quod etiam addit Motta.”

16

that was itself a corrupt descendant of A. This common ancestor was perhaps the “unique

manuscript” used by Pithou for his copy T.60 However, de La Mothe and B also share a large

number of readings that set them apart from T and the exemplar on which it was based61; since it

is certain that de La Mothe did not copy B (again, de La Mothe knew the Strasbourg Oaths,62

which are lacking in B), it appears that de La Mothe and B derive from still another common

source ( = α2 ). A stemma of these interrelationships can be depicted as follows:

A

(α)

(α2)

B

M T

60 Note the observation Pithou made regarding the particular marginalia found in his manuscript exemplar:

(72v n. 99) “Mallem in margine additum a scriba, aut semper de eodem anno intelligendum.” No such marginal strokes are present in B.N.F. lat. 9768 or B.N.F. lat. 14663. Cf. also his remarks on fol. 63r n. 28.

61 For the sake of example, I only note here the parallel readings exclusive to de La Mothe (as recorded in T) and B in Books One and Two of Nithard: “vestrisque q” (T 59v n. 3; B 279r l. 10); “relinquit” (T 59v n. 6; B 279r l. 18); “et regitur” (T 60r n. 25; B 279v l. 14); “conventumque Condeto al. condicto” (T 60r n. 26; B 279v l. 19); “ad ecclesiam deliberaturi” (T 60v n. 38; B 280r l. 9); “Marcham” (T 60v n. 43; B 280r l. 20); “consueverat” (T 61r n. 46; B 280r l. 37); “ut” (T 61v n. 59; B 280v l. 30); “Claromontem” (T 61v n. 66; B 281r l. 15); “franconenfurch” (T 62v n. 9; B 281v l. 5); “vero quoniam” (T 62v n. 11; B 281v l. 7); “in” (T 62v n. 12; B 281v l. 10); “interveniant” (T 62v n. 12; B 281v l. 10); “dederunt. Interea Lotharius” (T 62v n. 21; B 281v ll. 48–49); “delinquere” (T 63r n. 25; B 282r l. 10); “sibique suis” (T 63v n. 40; B 282v l. 6); “induciis” (T 63v n. 45; B 282v l. 14); “modicum” (T 63v n. 49; B 282v l. 28); “idem” (T 63v n. 50; B 282v l. 32); “ab eo sibi” (T 63v n. 51; B 282v l. 33); “coiissent” (T 63v n. 53; B 282v l. 38); “adeunt” (T 64r n. 56; B 282v l. 42); “statutum” (T 64r n. 70; B 283r l. 29); “congrue” (T 64v n. 76; B 283r l. 44); “Quod” (T 64v n. 85; B 283v l. 8); “offerrent” (T 65r n. 93; B 283v l. 26).

62 Cf. Pithou’s remark (fol. 68v n. 77) regarding an alternate reading offered by de La Mothe, which demonstrates that the latter knew the Oaths: “fol. 43. pag. 2. l. 10. luit, Motta. Linea eadem, neneuls, manuscr.” See also Pithou’s comments in n. 73, fol. 68v, and n. 17, fol. 70r.

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CONCLUSIONS

From this brief overview and analysis of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203, new light has been cast on

a number of old assumptions. First, and contrary to what is often stated, Paris, B.N.F. lat. 14663

(B) is not a direct copy of Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768 (A), but a copy of at least two intermediary

manuscripts, which were created sometime between the tenth and the fifteenth centuries.63 This

discovery carries broader implications with respect to the history of Nithard’s text, for it reveals

that there was a greater interest in his work during the Middle Ages than has generally been

allowed. To be sure, even with the two additional witnesses suggested by the evidence of T,

medieval interest in Nithard’s text was still not great; but a sum total of four manuscript copies

(A, α, α2, B) nevertheless serves to double our previously held knowledge of its slim survival and

transmission in a mere two.

With its wealth of textual commentary and evidence of scholarly precision, Troyes,

M.A.T. 3203 also serves as a vivid reminder of the great technical and philological skills of Pithou

and other early modern humanists. This was the generation, after all, that set the bar for the likes

of Mabillon and Du Cange in the seventeenth century.64 It is therefore rather unfortunate that

Pithou chose never to publish the many notes from his aborted Nithard edition, for even today

they remain of value for a better understanding of the text.65 Only over the course of the last

century has there been any kind of serious, detailed linguistic commentary on Nithard’s

Latinity66; the publication of Pithou’s notes, with all their insight and care, doubtless would have

63 Thus, the stemma provided by Lo Monaco, “Nithardus,” 302, needs revison in order to incorporate this more

complex relationship between B.N.F. lat. 9768 and 14663. On the direct link frequently posited between these two manuscripts, see, for example, Couderc, “Essai de classement des manuscrits,” 723–24; Lauer, ed., Flodoard, XXXVI and n. 2, XLIV; Lauer, ed., Nithard, XV; François L. Ganshof, review of Philippe Lauer, Nithard: Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux (Paris, 1926), in Revue Belge de philologie et d’histoire 8 (1929): 1277 n. 2; Bernard W. Scholz, Barbara Rogers, Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories (Ann Arbor, 1970), 29; and Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), 237, to name but a few. Martin Bouquet was the first (and only) editor of Nithard’s text to make use of Paris, B.N.F. lat. 14663; see Martin Bouquet, Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. Léopold Delisle (1749; Paris, 1870), 7:10 n. a.

64 James Westfall Thompson, “The Age of Mabillon and Montfaucon,” American Historical Review 47 (1942): 225–44; Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship.

65 A fact that Gabriel Brotier already recognized in the eighteenth century; see n. 18 above. 66 See Prümm, Sprachliche Untersuchungen; Max Manitius, Geschichte der Lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters

(Munich, 1911), 1:657–60; Lauer, ed., Nithard, XIII–XIV; Scholz, Rogers, Carolingian Chronicles, 28–29; Alf Önnerfors, “In Nithardi Historiarum Libros Annotatiunculae,” in Günter Bernt, Fidel Rädle, Gabriel Silagi, eds., Tradition und Wertung: Festschrift für Franz Brunhölzl zum 65. Geburtstag (Sigmaringen, 1989), 75–84; and Francesco Lo Monaco, “Nithard e i suoi

18

advanced this scholarship much earlier. An emendation by Philippe Lauer, editor of the now-

standard critical edition of Nithard’s text, is suggestive in this regard. In his review of Lauer’s

edition, François L. Ganshof praised the editor for his emendation of the nonsensical passage

“Igitur Adhelbertum ducem, quem supra montem memoravimus” to read instead “supra

comitem” (since Nithard had referred to Adhelbertus earlier as “comes”).67 Yet, as Lauer

observed in the footnote to his emendation—an observation that curiously was ignored by

Ganshof—Pithou had already made this very emendation to the text several centuries earlier.68

And it was Pithou, we should recall, who, by seeing “me Nithardum” in “Mentchardum,”

ultimately discerned Nithard’s name within a medieval scribe’s careless misreading and

conflation of two words that were probably written originally in scripta continua.69 These are two

important emendations by Pithou that actually did make it into print, but there remain many

others in Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 that still await their recognition and due acknowledgment. A brief

selection of these emendations is provided in APPENDIX III.

Finally, Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 and its history provide a useful example of the truism

“Habent sua fata libelli.” Rendered obsolete by the discovery of a better manuscript, Pithou’s

meticulous presentation-copy-turned-reference-book exchanged many hands over the last four

centuries, and for as many reasons—as a sage addition to a Jesuit library, as a furtive supplement

to an expelled abbé’s personal collection, as part of a surety in exchange for legal representation,

as a token of thanks for expediting a lucrative sale, and as a generous gift to the archive of the city

Pithou called home. In every instance, the aborted presentation copy was perceived as something

special; withheld from its intended recipient, it later served its original purpose all the same,

being exchanged again and again as an object symbolic of learning, taste, and gentilesse. In other

words, the history of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 reveals the truth of that proverb by the otherwise

obscure Terentianus Maurus of the late second century only partially cited above, “pro captu

pubblici: Alcuni preliminari per un’ edizione e una traduzione della Storia dei figli di Ludovico il Pio,” in Maria Grazia Cammarota, Maria Vittoria Molinari, eds., Tradurre testi medievali: Obiettivi, pubblico, strategie (Bergamo, 2002), 215–28; idem, “Nithardus,” 299–305.

67 François L. Ganshof, review of Philippe Lauer, Nithard: Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux (Paris, 1926), in Revue Belge de philologie et d’histoire 8 (1929): 1280, “Lauer corrige très heureusement—le tout premier—montem en comitem : le duc A., que nous avons mentionné plus haut comme comte (même chapitre, p. 58); la conjecture nous paraît palmaire.”

68 See n. 41 above. 69 See nn. 32–35 above.

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lectoris habent sua fata libelli”—books do not simply have their own fates; rather, their unique

fortunes “depend on the discernment of [their] reader.”70

Such interest in Nithard’s text and the few manuscripts that preserve it reveals a

reception history that has much to say about shifts in historical consciousness over the course of a

millennium. Given the growing importance during the sixteenth century of language and law as

criteria for the establishment of national identity,71 patriotic philologists and jurists were certainly

interested in the Strasbourg Oaths, but their attention more often extended to Nithard’s text as a

whole—hence the creation of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203, the notes of de La Mothe, and the copy made

for Van Giffen. Scholars like Pithou, Daniel, and Van Giffen repeatedly expressed an acute and

rather urgent enthusiasm for Nithard’s work, frequently extolling the “trustworthy” narrator’s

noble aplomb and rare gift of discernment. Yet, for the majority of its existence, Nithard’s text

was in fact the object of disinterest and neglect. Between the ninth and the fifteenth centuries,

medieval readers saw little that could be considered edifying in the work (being interested

primarily, when at all, in the monastery and saints which are mentioned briefly in the text 72), for

its author apparently made few attempts to understand and explicate by means of scripture any

timeless truths in the chaotic events he described.73 In short, Nithard’s brusque and spare lay

70 Terentianus Maurus, De syllabis, v. 1286, ed. Jan-Wilhelm Beck (Göttingen, 1993), 122–23, 516–20. See also the

remarks by Colin H. Roberts, Buried Books in Antiquity: Habent Sua Fata Libelli (London, 1963), 3–4, 16. 71 On the ties among language, law, and national identity during the sixteenth century, see Kelley, Foundations

of Modern Historical Scholarship; Bloch, “The First Document,” 6–13; idem, “New Philology and Old French,” Speculum 65 (1990): 38–58; idem, “‘Mieux vaut jamais que tard’: Romance, Philology, and Old French Letters,” Representations 36 (1991): 64–86; and Patrick J. Geary, Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton, 2002). For a detailed bibliography of sixteenth-century scholarship on the Strasbourg Oaths, see Wahlund, “Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide,” 9–26; idem, “Trois siècles (1576–1875) de littérature relative au plus ancien monument de la langue française: Les serments de Strasbourg de l’an 842,” in Mélanges offerts a M. Émile Picot, Membre de l’Institut, par ses amis et ses éléves (Paris, 1913), 1:225–38; together with Droixhe, “Les Serments de Strasbourg,” 135–49.

72 Marginalia on fols. 11r, 22r, and 28r of Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768 bear out this conclusion. On this marginalia and their relationship with Saint-Médard de Soissons, see Ernst Müller, “Die Nithard-Interpolation und die Urkunden- und Legendenfälschungen im St. Medardus-Kloster bei Soissons,” Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 34 (1909): 683–722; Baudouin de Gaiffier, “Les sources latines d’un miracle de Gautier de Coincy: L’apparition de Sainte Léocadie a Saint Ildephonse,” Analecta Bollandiana 71 (1953): 110–11; and idem, “Le calendrier d’Héric d’Auxerre du manuscrit de Melk 412,” Analecta Bollandiana 77 (1959): 401–3. Lo Monaco, “Nithardus,” 299–305, gives a useful, succint account of the medieval transmission and reception of Nithard’s text.

73 One of the few instances being a quotation from the Book of Wisdom (5:21) at the conclusion of the work; see Nithard, Historiarum Libri IIII, lib. 4, cap. 6, ed. Lauer, 144; cf. lib. 1, cap. 7, ed. Lauer, 30 (Luke 15:21); 31 (John 13:34). See also Nelson, “Public Histories and Private History,” 283; and Mayke de Jong, “The Empire as Ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus

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perspective on the deeds of the 830s–840s is likely the very reason his text went long unread. That

today Nithard is considered a source of paramount importance for the history of the ninth

century, and generally characterized with admiration as “a hard-faced historian with a down-to-

earth secular intelligence,” demonstrates the degree to which notions about history and its

sources have changed.74 Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 and its fate are eloquent examples of this

consequential shift.

and Biblical Historia for Rulers,” in Yitzhak Hen, Matthew Innes, eds., The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), 199–200.

74 For the quotation, see Karl Leyser, “Three Historians,” in idem, Communications and Power in Medieval Europe (London, 1994), 1:25. Cf. John-Michael Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983), 239; Scholz, Rogers, Carolingian Chronicles, 24, 26; and Paolo Delogu, An Introduction to Medieval History, trans. Matthew Moran (1994; London, 2002), 110. I intend to develop further the relationship between shifts in historical consciousness and the reception history of Nithard’s text in a forthcoming essay.

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APPENDIX I

What follows are the Strasbourg Oaths from lib. 3, cap. 5 of Nithard’s text, as found in Paris,

B.N.F. lat. 9768; in Troyes, M.A.T. 3203; and in the editio princeps by Pithou published in 1588.75 I

have underlined those words of the text that vary among the copies, have expanded contractions

within brackets, and have noted marginal emendations within parentheses.

A ( = Paris, B.N.F. lat. 9768, fol. 13r col. 2) T ( = Troyes, M.A.T. 3203, fol. 43r–v) Pi ( = Pierre Pithou, Annalium et historiae Francorum ab anno Christi DCCVIII ad annum DCCCCXC scriptores coaetanei XII... [Paris, 1588], 353–54) A

Pro d[e]o amur, et p[ro] xpian poblo et n[ost]ro co[m]mun salvament dist di en (en corr. in) avant

inquantd[eu]s savir et podir medunat sisalvaraieo cist meon fradre karlo et in adiudha et in cad

huna cosa sicu[m] om p[er] dreit son fradra salvar dist. In o quid il mialtre si fazet. Et abludher

nul plaid nu[m]qua[m] prindrai qui meon vol cist meon fradre karle in damno sit. T

Pro Deo (in marg.: d[e]o) amur, et pro Christian poblo, et nostro commun salvamento (in marg.:

ment) dist di in (in marg.: en) avant in quant Deus (in marg.: d[eu]s) savir et podir me dunat, si

salvareio (in marg.: rai eo) cist meon fradre Carlo, et in adiudha, et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om

per dreit son fradre (in marg.: frada) salvar dist, in o quid il mi altre si fazet. Et abludher nul plaid

nunquam prindrai qui meon vol cist (in marg.: eist) meon fradre Karle in damno sit. Pi

Pro d[e]o amur & p[ro] Xpian poblo & n[ost]ro co[m]mun salvame[n]t dist di en avant in quant

d[eu]s savir & podir me dunat si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo & in adiudha & in cadhuna

cosa si cu[m] om p[er] dreit son frada salvar dist ino quid il mi altre si fazet & abludher nul plaid

nu[m]qua[m] prindrai qui meon vol eist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.

75 Note that although Pithou’s text is the editio priceps of Nithard’s text as a whole, it is not the editio princeps of

the Strasbourg Oaths. The Oaths were first published by Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République (Paris, 1576), 117–18.

22

A Silodhuuigs sagrament que son fradre Karlo iurat conservat. Et Karlus meossendra desuo part n[on] lostanit si ioreturnar non lint pois neio neneuls cui eo returnar int pois in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuuuig nun li iuer. T Si Lodhuuigs sagrament que son fradre Karlo iurat, conservat, et Karlus meos sendra de suo part non lo stanit (in marg.: n[on] los tanit), si io returnar non *lint pois, ne io ne veuls (in marg.: neuls) cui eo returnar int pois in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuuig nunli iuer. *Here, Pithou gives the following endnote (n. 77, 68v): “fol. 43. pag. 2. l. 10. luit, Motta. Linea eadem, neneuls, manuscr.” He then provides an addendum: “Sed hae linguae barbarae maxime sunt, praesertim Teudisca, quae hodie in usu non est.” Pi Si Lodhuuigs sagrament que son fradre Karlo iurat, conservat, & Karlus meos sendra de suo part n[on] los tanit, si io returnar non lint pois ne io ne neuls cui eo returnar int pois in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuuuig nun li iuer.

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APPENDIX II

Excerpt from the letter of Jean Lebeuf to Étienne Souciet, Librarian of the Collège de Louis-le-

Grand, 26 October 1731.76 The letter (of 2 folios, with text on fols. 1r–2r, and the recipient’s name

and address on 2v) is folded and pasted in between folios 87 and 88 of Troyes, M.A.T. 3203. The

excerpt here is from fol. 1v. See Fig. 1.

[ . . . ]

J’ay fait chercher Nithard manuscrit à la Bibliothèque du Roy et ailleurs, inutilement; cependant

me serait trés utile pour juger de l’edition de cet auteur. Enfin l’on m’a ecrit de Troyes qu’aprés la

mort du dernier de Messieur Pithou, dont l’un avait publié cet historien, votre Reverend Pere

Sirmond vint voir les manuscrits provenant de leur succession et qu’il s’accomodat de quelques

uns. C’est ce qui me fait croire que Nithard ne se trouvant pas parmi ceux qui sont restéz à

Troyes il doit se retrouver dans la Bibliothèque de votre Collège. Si donc, mon Reverend Pere,

vous vouliez bien jetter la vue sur le catalogue de vos manuscrits, vous me feriez un sensible

plaisir de me marquer si vous l’avez et de quel age peut être le caractere d’ecriture de ce volume.

[ . . . ]

76 On this letter, see the Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, documents historiques, estampes anciennes, etc. du cabinet de feu M. Parison . . . (Paris, 1856), 51–52, no. 380; Lettres de L’Abbé Lebeuf (Auxerre, 1867), 2:115, no. 186; and nn. 12 and 15 above.

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APPENDIX III

To provide a sense of Pithou’s editorial skill and sensibility, I have made a comparison of

Pithou’s emendations in Troyes, M.A.T. 3203 with those offered by Philippe Lauer in his critical

edition of the text, Nithard: Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux (Paris, 1926). Of Lauer’s numerous

emendations, the great majority had already been made by Pithou.77 They will not be listed here.

In several other instances, Pithou, like Lauer, recognized a problem with the text, but offered a

different emendation. These are given below, together with Pithou’s later marginalia in

parentheses. Note that, even where his emendations differ, Pithou often anticipated Lauer’s

readings and provided them as possible alternatives.

Lauer, 6 : qui, ut pro certo patrem obisse comperit, Aquis ab Aquitania protinus venit; quo undique

ad se venientem populum absque quolibet impedimento suae ditioni addixit, de ceteris, qui sibi

[minus] creduli videbantur, deliberaturus

T, fol. 3v : sibi [non]

T comm., fol. 88r : f. 3. p. 2. l. 14. forte sibi non creduli videb. quia de populo ad se veniente primum

dicit et statim de caeteris qui non veniebant. Vide.

Lauer, 6 : Initio quidem imperii suscepti pecuniam ingenti numero a patre relictam trifariam dividere

iussit et unam partem causa funeris expendit

T, fol. 3v : [in] causam

T comm., fol. 60r n. 13 : l. 18. in addidi. sic et Motta. (Quae autem addo his notulis includo [ ].

Pith.)

Lauer, 14 : Walanam, Elisachar, Mathfridum ceterosque, qui in exilium retrusi fuerant, custodi

emittunt

T, fol. 7r : custodia emittunt

77 Only the following interventions by Lauer do not find a precursor in Pithou’s text: 14 g; 20 a, b, c; 28 d; 38 a;

46 b, d; 48 a, d; 50 e, g; 52 i; 54 d; 62 d; 64 a; 76 b, f; 78 a; 82 d; 84 c; 90c, d; 110 b, c; 116 e; 126 b; 136 e; 140 e; 144 a, e. However, Pithou himself made a large number of emendations to Nithard’s text that have no parallel in Lauer. Due to their quantity (Pithou made over 400 endnotes to the text), they cannot be printed here; certainly they are deserving of a study all their own.

25

T comm., fol. 60v n. 30 : fol. 7, l. 4. custodiae mittunt, manuscr.

Lauer, 18 : Aquis hiematum petit

T, fol. 8v : Gematum

T comm., fol. 60v n. 41 : l. 13. forte Aquisgranum petit. vel Aquis hyematum petit, ut lib. 4, f. 57. l. 11.

et fere ex sequentibus apparet.

Lauer, 22 : confluunt supraque fluvium iuxta villa[m] quae Calciacus dicitur castra ponunt

T, fol. 10r : Calviacus

T comm., fol. 61r n. 48 : l. 8. Calviacus. Et de his historia Dionysiaca: quae accidisse iuxta Blesense

castrum ad Ligerem situm dicit. forte hoc loco etiam nomen fluvii deest. Calviacus villa, quod sit,

vide. (urbe, Cluriacus. Cler., Gall.).

Lauer, 24 : et per fines Ribuariorum comitatus Moilla, Haettra, Hammolant, Masagouwi

T, fol. 10v : Halt Trahammolant

T comm., fol. 61r n. 50 : l. 12. Haec traham Molant Masa Gouuium, manuscr. corrupte fortasse.

Mottam sequutus sum.

Lauer, 28 : Quod pater eius audiens, indicto conventu, Magonciacum venit

T, fol. 12r : Maguntiam convenit

T comm., fol. 61r n. 55 : f. 12, l. 5. Magonciam, manuscr. et fere ubique alias. aliquando,

Magonciacum: aliquando, Mogunciae forte, Moguntiacum venit.

Lauer, 38 : Quo insperate hinc Lodharius, inde Lodhuwicus confluunt

T, fol. 16v : insperato

T comm., fol. 62v n. 10 : l. 15. inspirate, manuscr. Sic et infra, f. 29. b. 5. et fol. 40. 12. ubi notavi.

(insperati, Pith.)

Lauer, 40 : Dudum quidem ex omnibus nuntio recepto

26

T, fol. 17r : Qui

T comm., fol. 62v n. 13 : l. 10. Quod, manuscr. forte, Quo.

Lauer, 46 : Carnutenam civitatem tendebat

T, fol. 19r : Caremtenam

T comm., fol. 62v n. 22 : fol. 19. l. 6. Carnotenam, leg. suspicatur Motta. (forte etiam ad, add.)

Lauer, 46 : et quoniam matrem ubi tuto relinqueret non habebat, pariter ad Franciae partes properabat

T, fol. 19r : properabant

T comm., fol. 62v n. 23 : l. 15. forte, properabat.

Lauer, 48 : ac interim super Lodhuvicum hostiliter ire desiisset

T, fol. 20r : dedisset

T comm., fol. 63r n. 30 : l. 19. desisset, forte melius: ut respondent illis, fol. 26. b. 7. (mutavi).

Lauer, 52 : quemammodum a tanta calamitate congruentius se suosque exui posse existimarent

T, fol. 22r : exsui

T comm., fol. 63v n. 42 : l. 11. ex suis, Motta. forte, pro, exui.

Lauer, 60 : igitur Adhelbertum ducem, quem supra comitem memoravimus

T, fol. 25r : supra modo

T comm., fol. 64r n. 64 : l. 11 quam supra montem, manuscr. (Pith. *montem* f. morientem. vel,

comitem. ut s. p. 24. l. 9. et melius.)

Lauer, 62 : donec illi mandaretur si ad statutum locum an alio, ubi congruentius illi videretur, venire

deberet

T, fol. 26r : statum

T comm., fol. 64r n. 70 : l. 16. statutum, Motta (Pith.) et forte, melius.

27

Lauer, 64 : ad praefatum locum pridie quam convenerat praevenit

T, fol. 26v : quam venerat

T comm., fol. 64v n. 74 : l. 20, forte, quam convenerat.

Lauer, 66 : Nam, quamquam difficile, praevaluit tamen sententia priorum

T, fol. 27v : Nam quam

T comm., fol. 64v n. 80 : l. 8. forte, quamvis diff.

Lauer, 68 : cederet cuique quod patris fratrisque consensu iuste debebatur

T, fol. 28v : patris fratrumque

T comm., fol. 65r n. 92 : l. 15. pater, fratresque, manuscr. quod aliter ex Motta reposui. forte,

fratrisque.

Lauer, 76 : ecclipsis solis hora prima, feria tertia, XV kal. novembris, in Scorpione contigit

T, fol. 32r : prima prima feria

T comm., fol. 65v n. 113 : l. 3. prima, addit Motta. quod et adscripsi.

Lauer, 76 : verticem montis castrae Lodharii contigui cum tertia, ut videtur, exercitus parte occupant

T, fol. 32r : castris

T. comm., fol. 65v n. 115 : l. 7. castrae Lothari, manuscr.

Lauer, 84 : monens ut de Pippino et suis quod promiserat

T, fol. 35r : promiserant

T comm., fol. 66v n. 16 : l. 13. promiserat, Motta.

Lauer, 86 : Iactaverant enim hi qui partis Lodharii sentiebant in proelio Karolum cecidisse

T, fol. 35v : parti

T comm., fol. 66v n. 19 : l. 19. partes Lotharii sentiebant, manuscr.

28

Lauer, 86 : Ipsi vero Parisiacam civitatem adeunt, adventum Karoli praestolaturi

T, fol. 36r : praestolari

T comm., fol. 66v n. 22 : l. 14. forte, praestolaturi. Ut infra fol. 38. lin. 20. et fol. 52. l. 1. (mutavi).

Lauer, 86 : Quod ut Karolus cognovit, praefatum iter accelerare coepit. Cumque Suessonicam peteret

urbem

T, fol. 36v : accedere

T comm., fol. 66v n. 25 : l. 12. accelere, manuscr. forte, accelerare. Mottam sequutus sum. Sic et

Suessionicam, fortasse. (mutavi) Ante dixit, fol. 27. l. 10. accelerare. et fol. 30. l. 19. iter accelerantes. et

fol. 41. b. 13. iter accelerans.

Lauer, 90 : iter arripuit et qualiter super Karolum irrueret intendit

T, fol. 37v : irruet

T comm., fol. 67r n. 34 : l. 8. forte, irrueret. aut, irruat.

Lauer, 90 : Hugonem et Adhelardum ad Gislebertum una cum ceteris quos foedere quo valerent sibi

adnecterent direxit

T, fol. 37v : [ut eum]

T comm., fol. 67r n. 35 : l. 11. forte deest, ut eum. quod addidi. et hic locus totus mancus est.

Lauer, 94 : Cumque haec ita se haberent

T, fol. 39r : ita haberent

T comm., fol. 67v n. 49 : l. 8. ita se haberent, Motta.

Lauer, 100 : a Turones redire coepit

T, fol. 41v : Turones

T comm., fol. 68v n. 71 : pag. 2. l. 5. Aturones, manuscr. A delendum censet Motta. (f. Taurinos. vel

Taruannam, sive Tarubanum) forte, ad Turones.

29

Lauer, 110 : primum pari numero Saxonum, Wasconum, Austrasiorum, Brittonum

T, fol. 45r : Wasconorum; Brittannorum

T comm., fol. 69r n. 88 : fol. 45. l. 4. Saxonum, Motta. Saxonarum, manuscr. Item, Brittonum, Motta.

Brittonorum, manuscr.

Lauer, 112 : Eratque res digna pro tanta nobilitate nec non et moderatione spectaculo

T, fol. 45r : nec

T comm., fol. 69r n. 91 : l. 17. forte, necnon. (ut fere usurpat).

Lauer, 116 : validisque procellis moerentem vehit

T, fol. 46v : merentem

T comm., fol. 88r : f. 46. b. l. 10. forte, mergentem. vel, inhaerentem, ob literarum conformitatem, me

pro ine, et sic inhae- .

Lauer, 120 : Lodhuvicus vero Saxonum causa Coloniam petiit

T, fol. 48v : Saxonorum

T comm., fol. 70r n. 14 : l. 7. Saxonum, Motta. ut ante fol. 45. 4.

Lauer, 128 : non haberet unde illis ea quae amittebant restituere posset

T, fol. 52r : nec non

T comm., fol. 70v n. 44 : fol. 52. l. 20. forte delendum, nec.

Lauer, 130 : quique illorum partem, quam quisque acciperet, cuique deinde omnibus diebus vitae

suae conservare deberet in eo, si adversus fratres suos frater suus similiter faceret

T, fol. 53r : fratri et

T comm., fol. 71r n. 49 : fol. 53. l. 6. forte, fratrem. vel potius, fratres suos frater. Sic et ante, deberent,

Motta.

Lauer, 134 : centum viginti videlicet

30

T, fol. 54v : decem

T comm., fol. 71v n. 65 : l. 12. decim, manuscr.

Lauer, 140 : et ut nequaquam quolibet modo omitteretur ne in eodem conventu, ut aequius possent,

omne regnum dividerent

T, fol. 57r : ni

T comm., fol. 72r n. 83 : l. 6. forte, ni, delendum. et videtur legendum, nequicquam.

Lauer, 144 : ipsa elementa tunc cuique rei congrua

T, fol. 58v : cuique regi

T comm., fol. 88r : f. 58 p. 2. l. 9. forte, cuique rei.

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Fig. 1

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203 (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)

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Fig. 2

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203, fol. 1r (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)

33

Fig. 3

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203, fol. 2r (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)

34

Fig. 4

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203, fol. 59r (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)

35

Fig. 5

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203, fol. 68v (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)

36

Fig. 6.1

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203, fol. 43r (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)

37

Fig. 6.2

Troyes, Médiathèque de l’Agglomération Troyenne, 3203, fol. 43v (Image courtesy of M.A.T.)