In Laudem Hierosolymitani

Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honour of Benjamin Z. Kedar

Ronnie Ellenblum, Iris Shagrir

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754661405
• eBook ISBN: 9781351928243
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In the thirty-five years since B.Z. Kedar published the first of his many studies on the crusades, he has become a leading historian of this field, and of medieval and Middle Eastern history more broadly. His work has been groundbreaking, uncovering new evidence and developing new research tools and methods of analysis with which to study the life of Latins and non-Latins in both the medieval West and the Frankish East. From the Israeli perspective, Kedar's work forms a important part of the historical and cultural heritage of the country. This volume presents 31 essays written by eminent medievalists in his honour. They reflect his methods and diversity of interest. The collection, outstanding in both quality and range of topics, covers the Latin East and relations between West and East in the time of the crusades. The individual essays deal with the history, archaeology and art of the Holy Land, the crusades and the military orders, Islam, historiography, Mediterranean commerce, medieval ideas and literature, and the Jews Given Benjamin Kedar's close involvement with the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East and his years as its President, and his work to establish the journal Crusades, it is fitting that this volume should appear as the first in a series of Subsidia to the journal. For information about the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, see the society's website: www.sscle.org.

THE HOLY LAND, ARCHAEOLOGY AND ICONOGRAPHY

De Plaga que facta est in Hierusalem eo quod Dominicum diem non Custodiebant: History into Fable?

Amnon Linder

A Introduction

The De plaga que facta est in Hierusalem eo quod dominicum diem non custodiebant chronicles a series of afflictions that struck the inhabitants of Jerusalem – Christians, Jews and Muslims – and their attempts to propitiate God. The Jewish and Muslim rites of atonement resulted in further, even harsher calamities, while the Christians’ three-day fast earned a respite and a revelation to a “servant of God” that these afflictions were imposed because Sunday was not correctly observed. The patriarch of Jerusalem decreed, consequently, that Sunday was to be correctly observed, and a great prosperity descended upon the land. The text of De plaga was published twice, by P. Jaffé and by R. Priebsch, but each of these editions represented a version transmitted in a single manuscript rather than a critical edition. The first part of this study consists of such a critical edition (based on ten manuscripts), a necessary condition for tackling the problems of De plaga’s authorship, literary genre, goals and meanings. These issues are discussed in the second part of the present study.

B Manuscripts

1 Göttweig, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 211, olim XIV. 164 (HMML 3481), fourteenth-century (G). Its main component is Postilla de tempore (fols. 1r–148r); a later copyist added on the final pages several historical-liturgical short pieces, among them De plaga.¹

Fols. 159r–159v: no title. This text derives directly from archetype α. Fairly accurate, it introduces, nevertheless, several errors typical to family γ, mainly the inane corruption of “ambonem” to “arborem”.

2 Graz, Universitätbibliothek, Cod. 302 (HMML 26,220), Chorherrenstift Seckau, 1384–85 (S), a compilation of sermons and hagiographic-liturgical pieces. Our text is included in the manuscript’s portion copied in 1385, and as in manuscript H and possibly M it is copied after the sermon De die dominica (Inc. “Veneranda est nobis dies sancta”).²

Fol. 233r: De eodem (it follows De die dominica); De plaga que facta fuit in Iherusalem eo quod diem dominicam non servaverunt. This is a γ¹ copy: it shares with H against all the other manuscripts the inflated number 86,000 (emended by a second hand to 86) and the variant “postquam.” It is not an apograph of H, however, for it contains an important passage omitted in H (“et predaverunt – igne cremaverunt”) as well as the word “multitudo,” another omission in H. Nor was it the exemplar of H, for several of its readings differ from the correct readings transmitted in H and it omits “triduanum,” present in H. The passage “deinde servus dei – fuit revelatum” in S, finally, differs from the parallel passage in H to such an extent that S could not possibly be the source of H. S and H relate to each other, consequently, as congeners rather than as exemplar and apograph. The fact that both G and H associate De plaga with the Sunday sermon Veneranda est nobis is another indication of the close relationship between these two manuscripts, and – possibly – of the constitution of the archetype α.

3 Herzogenburg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 35 (HMML 3269), Austria, fourteenth-century, a miscellany of theological, homiletic and liturgical works (H).³

Fols 138r–138v: De plaga que facta fuit in Hierusalem eo quod dominicum diem non servaverunt, with a second title in the margin – De septem plagis. A γ¹ copy, congener of S (see above, no. 2), produced by a German-speaking copyist: he corrupted “per villas” to “per filias.”

4 Hessische Landes-und-Hochschulbibliothek Darmstadt, Cod. 768, copied in the middle of the fifteenth century in the Augustinian Chorherrenstift Ewich (D). This is a predominantly historical and hagiographic compilation: it comprises Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica, Ado’s Martyrologium, apocryphal historiae and three hagiographic Passiones. It derives from an eleventh or twelfth-century exemplar, for its latest texts date from the mid-eleventh century (Petrus Damiani’s De exitu animae and De duobus ducibus altercantibus by Maiolus Scotus [1042–61]), while the bulk of the manuscript is taken by much earlier works – Eusebius’s Historia Ecclesiastica and at least two ninth-century texts (Ado’s Martyrologium and Heito’s Visio Wettini).⁴

Fols. 128v–129r: De pena eorum qui dominicum diem celebrare non curaverunt. D and K share a considerable number of omissions, peculiar variants and one significant error against all the other manuscripts: both give the number of the cremated martyrs as 24. As D omits a passage found in K (“fuerunt interfecti circa Hierusalem”) – producing a mutilated, verbless phrase – it follows that K was the exemplar and D the apograph. A common variant (“plaga magna”) and a common omission (“[misit] illis”) shared with R suggest an ultimate source – hyparchetype β – common to DKR. Manuscript R, however, is a maverick (see below); it could not mediate, therefore, between α – or β – and K. This conclusion is supported by the following hypothetical reconstruction of the process in which the number of the cremated martyrs was corrupted from 27 (as in R) to 24 in K (and its apograph D): the copyist of K overlooked the baseline stroke of the Caroline Minuscule U in “XXUII” and counted its two minims together with the following two minims, thus arriving at the number “XXIIII”. The considerable deviation of K (and even more so D) from archetype α – and most probably from hyparchetype β as well – render both D and K largely useless for the establishment of the original text.

5 Cologne, Dombibliothek, Cod. 70 (Darmst. 2062) (HMML 35,087), Germany, tenth/eleventh century (K). A collection of sermons and two works bearing on the origins of liturgical observances – an extract from Gregory of Tours on the origins of the Great Litany and De plaga.⁵

Fol. 209r: De plaga quae facta est in Hierusalem eo quod dominicum diem non observaverunt. See above, no. 4. Jaffé published this text in Appendix VIII to his above-mentioned catalogue, pp. 109–10.

6 Melk, Benedictine Abbey’s Library, Cod. 531 (olim 588 L. 7, HMML 1447), fifteenth century (L). A miscellany of theological, hagiographic, canonical and homiletic texts, the latest of which were composed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.⁶

Fol. 88r: Dicta plaga que facta fuit in Iherusalem eo quod diem dominicam non servaverunt. A typical γ copy, identifiable by this hyparchetype’s errors (“Gregorius” replacing “Georgius” and the number of 70 casualties instead of 80 during the Watermelon War) as well as the characteristic errors of G. Its own peculiar errors consist in the corruption of “Sancti Sabae” to “Sancte Sabine” and “monachos” to “monacahas.” These idiosyncratic errors and L’s divergence from GHS in variants and omissions prove that it did not mediate between G and HS, nor between γ and HS.

7 Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Clm 12,515, Cistercian Abbey of Reitenhaslach, first half of the thirteenth century (R). It carries Isidore’s Sententiae, and on its last two pages – fols. 77v–78r – three texts copied by three early thirteenth-century hands. Our text, untitled, is the first of the three.⁷

Copy R derives from hyparchetype β: it shares with it the number of St. Sabas martyrs as 27, and – together with DK – a variant and an omission. A highly maverick copy, it exhibits peculiar variants and rephrases entire passages. It has no progeny, and its independent testimony is practically useless for the reconstitution of α.

8 Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Clm 15,122, Augustinerchorherrenstift Rebdorf, completed in 1390 (M). The bulk of this manuscript is given to the nearly contemporary collection of sermons by Johannes Militsch, preceded by four theological works, among them one by Matthew of Cracow (another contemporary, and, like Johannes Militsch, connected with Prague). Three pieces were later copied on the last two pages, among them a sermon for Sunday followed by De plaga. They are, therefore, later than 1390, the date on which the copying of the preceding works was completed.⁸

Fol. 247v: De plaga dei quae facta est in Ierusalem eo quod dominicum diem non custodiebant. This copy derives directly from α: it does not exhibit the distinctive errors of lines β and γ. Though generally reliable, it presents some singular omissions, errors and variants, as well as one rephrased passage (“brucus quorum – folia earum”).

9 Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Clm 21,557, Benedictine Abbey of Weihenstephan (W). The greater part of this manuscript (fols. 13r–133r) was produced in the eleventh century and contains a rich selection – mainly from Bede – of historical works (Bede’s Martyrologium, Generationes ab Adam usque ad Christum and De plaga), computistical and cosmological treatises. Arno Borst assigns it to Freising after 1006.⁹

Fol. 103r: no title. This is another reliable copy, a direct descendent of archetype α, though not entirely free from idiosyncratic readings. Particularly noteworthy are the omission of the passage “et predaverunt – alia monasteria,” due to a “leap from the same to the same” – from “monasteria et” to “monasteria et” –and the awkward designation of the number of the dead during the plague in Jerusalem; it misled the German translator in Diu vrôe Botschaft (no. 10, below). Priebsch published this text in Diu vrôe Botschaft … (see below), pp. 67–70.

10 Diu vrôe Botschaft zu der Christenheit, ed. Robert Priebsch (Graz, 1895), pp. 66–70 (V). This German poem, preserved in a single thirteenth-century manuscript, comprises two components: the “Letter from Heaven” legend in its “Jerusalem version” (vv. 43–776), and a rhymed translation of De plaga (vv. 778–878). Priebsch dated the complete poem to the late twelfth/early thirteenth century, located its composition...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Benjamin Z. Kedar: List of Publications
• The Holy Land, Archaeology and Iconography
• Mentality, Law, Jews and World History
• The Crusades the Military Orders and Commerce