Long ago, during my college days, I remember our teacher of Latin telling us that a complete text of Livy had finally come to light. But, he added, "I'm still happy that rumor proved to be untrue." At that time, although I wasn't a fervent admirer of this Roman historian, such a point of view taken by a philologist was utterly beyond my comprehension, and it took me quite some years, having in the meantime become a specialist (of Medieval Latin) myself, before I realized that I, too, had gradually become none too keen to discover everything that was lost. While preparing my edition of William of Tyre, the author of the most important Crusader Chronicle,1 I was, of course, glad to be able to use several manuscripts which had remained unknown until then; but from the moment I had finished the tiresome work of collating them all (and had even done so twice), committed my text to the printer, and started proofreading, I would have considered the discovery of yet another manuscript, even by myself and however much it might still improve my text, a most unwelcome event indeed.

    Speaking about William of Tyre, I may mention that we know for certain he wrote two more works, in particular a History of Oriental Rulers, both of which seem to be definitely lost. And when I say so, I do hope you'll believe me when I stress that, following the example of many others, I've really looked for it, and it is this very activity, the quest for manuscripts and texts, to which I would like to devote this essay. It may well be true that, to paraphrase Brillat-Savarin, the invention of a new culinary dish is a source of more happiness for mankind than the discovery of a new manuscript

    This having been said, let us go back to William of Tyre, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this essay. Until less than a quarter of a century ago, the autobiographical chapter he included among the over 600 other chapters of his Chronicle was considered irretrievably lost. William was born in Jerusalem around the year 1130, and according to

    So much luck has not presented itself (at least until now) in the case of the previously mentioned History of Oriental Rulers. However, I have been able to point out a note in the margin of Matthew Paris's bulky autographic historical compilation, in which he mentions that Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, on his return from the Holy Land in 1231 carried with him a copy of this rare work, a copy which Matthew Paris had much difficulty in acquiring from the bishop and which was since kept m the Library of St Albans. There are still numerous extant manuscripts from this famous Benedictine monastery, but unfortunately not this one or even a single medieval catalogue in which it might have been mentioned, so that without Matthew Paris's marginal note we would not even have known that a copy of the History of Oriental Rulers ever reached Europe at all. But no trace has been left of this singularly important manuscript. So what fate can it possibly have met? Alas, many, unfortunately. It may have gone the way of so many thousands of other manuscripts which were torn up, burned, cooked for glue, sent to the paper-mill or dumped into a river, just to get rid of them or because they had become illegible after having been kept in a dirty room called a Library, decayed from humidity or gnawed at by rats. Or maybe it has disappeared into a stove via a wastepaper basket, the way parts of the invaluable Codex Sinaiticus were lost, or even used in the same undignified way as a unique Leiden manuscript of a medieval poem in very early Dutch, a manuscript whose language was no longer understood by its owner and was ready for use as toilet paper when it was saved at the very last moment, only slightly over one century ago. Or maybe it was destroyed out of hatred for its Moslem subject, or because someone did not know what to make of it. Or thrown onto a public rubbish-dump like the precious fragments I witnessed coming to light from among the garbage in Vézelay, in Burgundy, after people, paid to preserve, simply threw out of a window whatever

    Now much of course has disappeared from the original libraries by theft. Be it far from me to strike up a hymn in praise of pilferers in general, but I would like to make one exception, and mention one case of theft which has rendered historians and philologists alike a very great service indeed. Over the beautiful, already mentioned abbey of Vézelay in my beloved Burgundy, once reigned (the verb is not too strong) an abbot called Ponce de Montboissier, brother of the more famous and certainly more sympathetic Peter the Venerable of

    Of course, there have been many more such cases, but war and destruction, negligence and neglect were much more frequent, and that is why anyone who is working in the broad field of Medieval Latin literature, has always to come back to the many still extant manuscripts, either in search of what is considered lost, or of unknown texts yet to be discovered, or, as a textual critic, looking for elements which will enable him to correct unsatisfactory editions. Seek, and ye shall find, and although very often one does not find what one is really looking for, being in touch with manuscripts very often bears rich fruit, because in consulting printed editions you usually restrict your inquiries to just what you are looking for, but in going over the contents of manuscripts, you often come across texts with which you would otherwise never have make acquaintance.

    By the way, when speaking about "printed editions'' one should not foster all too great illusions, because, in contrast to the vast number of excellent studies about almost all imaginable aspects of the Middle Ages, the editions of Latin texts, which form the basis of all serious research, are still very often most unsatisfactory: nearly all editions up to well into the nineteenth century have to be done over again, and, unfortunately, even in our own times, one observes that the added sum of palaeographical knowledge and Latin does not yet make a real editor, and while previous centuries very often made ill-considered conjectures, I do consider as not less harmful the reaction to this habit, i.e., printing just plain nonsense from lack of professional experience (usually disguised as respect for the manuscripts). The textual critic will try to remedy this sorry state of affairs to the best of his abilities, knowing, but not deterred by the knowledge, that perfect reconstruction of a lost original will remain an unattainable goal. And in trying to come as near as possible, well aware of his manifold limitations, he will look for assist-

    Everybody can give examples from his own experience. From mine I recall your attention to the Latin translation of the Reynard the Fox, which offers invaluable help for the constitution of the Flemish original, which, although about contemporary with its thirteenth century Latin version, is transmitted in much younger manuscripts; in the eleventh century my compatriot, Bernard of Utrecht, wrote a Latin commentary on the Ecloga of Theodulus,6 for which he used the now almost lost, but at that time considerable riches of the library of the local chapter school, and in this commentary students of the history of medicine will find the earliest mention of autopsy, philosophers the oldest quotation from the "Florentina," the Latin version of Aristotle's "Analytica Priora" (for which until recently Abé1ard and John of Salisbury were the oldest references), and historians the oldest version of the malicious story of the pact between the devil and pope Sylvester II. And when during their excavations of the Carolingian church of Nevers, in Burgundy, archeologists found layers of ashes under the present cathedral, a specialist of Medieval Latin might have helped them to date it, because in one of his sermons, a source unknown to the archeologists, the local canon Teterius deplores the fact that in the catastrophic fire of 953 so many books were lost and after many years had still not been replaced.7

    I said "a source unknown to them," and by saying so I come to a difficult problem. When a specialist considers a text to be unknown, or unpublished, that does not mean more than that he does not remember having ever seen the text before, either in manuscript or in print, or mentioned in the available repertories. Such a thing happens quite often, because the field the specialist is presumed to master is immense, and not infrequently he will consider such a text worth being published. But before doing so, he must make a careful check to

    Fortunately one is never completely on one's own, and there always are helpful colleagues. To mention just one case of preliminary inquiries of this kind, I'll single out my edition of the Letters in the "Speculum duorum," the "Mirror of Two Persons," by the ever quarrelsome Gerald of Wales.8 This important treatise was mentioned by its author, but it was considered lost, and so I was very glad, and not a little proud, when I discovered it in a Vatican manuscript. Unfortunately--but actually fortunately--I found out in time that the Speculum, though still unpublished, had already been stumbled upon much earlier by a French colleague and that's

    Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes, who is going to guard the guardians themselves? Even the most renowned and helpful colleague is not omniscient, and the best proof of this sad admission is the recent publication by Bischoff, in his Anecdota novissima, of an incomplete commentary on the Lord's Prayer, which the heading gives as expositiones Berengarii, and Bischoff as an ineditum of Berengar of Tours; in my opinion, however, the second part of the text has nothing to do with Berengar, whereas the first part (f. 1-2v) is nothing but the introduction to the Confessio of Berengar's contemporary and opponent Guitmund of Aversa, and printed in PL (149,1495-7A).9 Also, shortly before World War II Dom Alban Dold, an important Benedictine scholar, discovered, and prepared for printing, some fragments he wanted to publish in the still equally important Revue Bénédictine; but before doing so, he very wisely tried to ascertain if they were really unknown to the learned world. There was no better way of doing so than to ask Dom Germain Morin, one of the most brilliant patristic scholars of recent times. Dom Morin answered the request, and the answer, which was published in the introduction to the texts in question, is worth quoting (my translation): "I'm satisfied I can assure you that nowhere have I found the slightest trace of these texts, not even where they should have been mentioned almost necessarily, and so you may safely assume they are still unpublished. These fragments really deserve to be made known...." Who would be in any doubt, seeing his own conviction confirmed in such a way by such a famous scholar? Unfortunately, both Dold and Morin overlooked the fact that seventeen years earlier Dom Morin himself had already published the very same texts in the same Revue Bénédictine, from the same Vienna manuscript in which his fellow-Benedictine Alban Dold had just rediscovered them!10 It is only human to make mistakes, and in the words of the author of the biblical Proverbs the just may

fall no less than seven times and rise again: but that is cold comfort when one discovers too late that what one has published was not at all the precious addition to our treasury of Medieval Latin texts one had thought it was, but merely a reimpression of a work one ought to have known and for the discovery of which the credit is someone else's.

    Now texts found in manuscripts either bear an author's name, or are anonymous. In the first case one will have to check if the attribution is correct or may be correct. There are many authors, such as Jerome, Bede, Hrabanus Maurus, Remi d'Auxerre, or Bernard of Clairvaux, whose names inspired such confidence that lots of texts, which they would never even have thought of composing, were attributed to them, because many a scribe could not, or would not, resist the temptation to cover anonymous--or his own--writings under more famous names and thus try to enhance their credibility or assure their survival. In this respect such scribes were not fundamentally different from many philologists of more recent times, who likewise do not give up before they have added an anonymous text they've found to the list of writings of well-known authors. Consciously or unconsciously vanity plays its role here: it's nicer to have one's name associated with famous than with obscure writers, and if one has to lend, then better to the rich. Other criteria lacking, I think one may assume that the manuscript attribution to a certain author becomes more plausible if this author was less well known at the time, or at the place, where the manuscript was written, and certainly there is little ground not to accept what you cannot really prove to be wrong. I am also inclined to lend more credence to long and explicit headings and attributions.11 But really objective criteria are usually lacking, and I myself have suggested a few more attributions than I am now prepared to put my hand into the fire for.

    One particular case is worth mentioning here, a case in which morals and textual criticism are confused and in which the author is named and clearly

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visible throughout his work, but nevertheless remained unaccepted as such by quite a few philologists. One of the most curious works of the first half of the twelfth century is the so-called Codex Calixtinus or Liber Sancti Iacobi, a work in honor of the apostle James. In spite of its importance and the prestige of its name, there is still no satisfactory edition because immediately after the appearance of the first comprehensive one, in 1944, nearly all copies were deliberately destroyed by the publisher himself because of its all too apparent shortcomings. The work as a whole consists of five parts, of which IV and V, the Pseudo-Turpin and the Guide for pilgrims to Compostella,12 are the best known; Book I is purely liturgical, II contains the miracles, and III is an account of the translation of the relics to their final resting place. In the preface, the real author has Pope Calixtus II, at that time already twenty some years dead, endorse the authorship, and at the end of the work this pope's second successor, Innocent II, in a letter as clumsily forged as only few papal letters have ever been, gives safe-conduct for two persons to bring the manuscript to Santiago. These two persons are Aimeri Picaud, also called Olivier of Asquins, who, like the already mentioned author of the Chronicle of Vézelay, was a native of Poitou, and his Flemish lady-companion Gerberga. Now if you visit my dear Vézelay, you see the village of Asquins just below you in the plain: it once belonged to the abbey of Vézelay, and it is important to note not only that its church was dedicated to the two James's (Major and Minor), but also that in the already mentioned pilgrim's Guide to Santiago, Vézelay itself is one of the starting points for the long journey. In that same Guide, inhabitants of the Poitou, compatriots of Aimeri Picaud alias Olivier of Asquins, are showered with praise: theirs is a land flowing over with milk and honey, they are not only powerful heroes, courageous warriors, skilful in handling bow and arrows and lances, full of self-confidence, swift as lightning in running, but also elegant in

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dressing, of noble features, witty, generous and most hospitable--all this in marked opposition to the savage inhabitants of Gascogne and, even worse, of Navarre, who, although themselves both tough warriors and hospitable, are at the same time frivolous in talk, garrulous and in love of mockery, Voluptuous and debauched, shabbily dressed and continually broke.

    All this combined cannot leave any doubt that the compiler of the codex Calixtinus really is Aimeri Picaud himself, also called Olivier of Asquins but formerly from the Poitou.13 His authorship is also mentioned in connection with a single piece at the end of the Codex, a pilgrims' song, which glorifies twenty-two miracles in exactly the same order as they were described earlier in book II. Apart from the author's name, one more detail is revealed, namely that he was a priest, a fact which is understandably passed over in Pope Innocent's safe-conduct for him and his Flemish lady-companion Gerberga. A priest with two names traveling in the company of one woman has been found unacceptable to many over the centuries as if for these reasons the man could not have forged a work like the Codex Calixtinus, as if in twelfth century Burgundy no surnames could have been given to people who came in from other parts of France, and as if celibacy was observed "con amore," so to speak, by the entire clergy. But long ago one of my philological predecessors, one in whose footsteps I would not wish to tread, the Jesuit Juan de Mariana, had already come to the rescue of morally fastidious scholars. He did so by making a resolute conjecture, which has maintained itself until well into our century, and which, in one bold stroke, managed to rob our priest of both his surname and his concubine.14 He did this by making Aimeri Picaud, also called Oliver of Asquins, from one into two persons, of whom the first remained a priest and the second, while quietly carrying on the journey to Santiago, could continue to enjoy the company of the Flemish woman Gerberga without arousing any philologist's anger.

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The problem of the attribution of the texts has of course also a palaeographical aspect. Not only do I take the view, as I have already stated, that many an anonymous text has been attributed on quite insufficient grounds, but also that not seldom is there room for scepticism when we are told, even by professional palaeographers, that in this or that manuscript a text has been written by its author himself. Of course, on the one hand no philologically trained editor can do without sound palaeographical knowledge and thorough experience of handwriting, but on the other, the palaeographer should never lose sight of the fact that to pronounce a manuscript an autograph is ultimately not his but a philologist's responsibility.

    Both elements, the philological and the palaeographical, are eminently united in one manuscript in the Library of Wolfenbüttel in West Germany, a manuscript of which I am currently preparing the first critical edition. I am speaking about the main source of our knowledge of the Eucharistic doctrine of Berengar of Tours. This work, of which unfortunately the first folios are missing, may originally have borne the title "Rescriptum contra Lanfrannum" (or even "contra Lanfranni vecordiam) de corpore et sanguine domini," but it has until now been known under the fanciful title "De sacra Coena." Here there can be no doubt at all that the treatise has come down to us without any intermediaries. The small size of the manuscript already makes it plausible that we have a copy for the author's personal use, a copy with the philological value of an original. It is true that a timid suggestion to this effect had already been made by the first editors in 1834, but their words, hidden in the preface of a completely unreliable edition, had hardly met any echo, least of all in the no less useless second edition of 1941 which was produced by a compatriot of mine. Other characteristics of the manuscript are the date, of course, the numerous erasures and the equally numerous additions, whose length varies from one word to half a page in print, written

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either between the lines, in the margins or on attached strips of parchment, all intend to add weight to the argumentation and venom to its wording. So there can be no doubt that we have here Berengar's own copy, which after his death in 1088 in Saint-Cosme near Tours, miraculously survived and after largely unknown peripeties, finally landed in the splendid H.A. Library in Wolfenbüttel where it was discovered in 1770 by the poet Lessing three days after his appointment as a librarian. Lessing almost jubilantly recognized the text's eminent potential for hurting Catholics and Protestants alike, but he died before he could do so, and it took another 64 years before the first edition became available. The work is invaluable for our knowledge of sacramental doctrine in the eleventh century, although its uncouth Latin does nothing to make up for the sloppy composition and endless repetitions, and the task of editing it is one of real abnegation; but it provides, both in manuscript and in the forthcoming edition I promise an intimate view of the author Berengar and the way he tried to convey his oft condemned convictions. What we see here is the original draft of his reply to his loathed opponent, the unsympathetic Lanfranc, and how his restless hand adds one new argument or invective after the other, erasing passages time and again to rewrite or to displace them to where they might lend additional emphasis in a debate ... which was officially closed, and lost by our author. This manuscript brings nearer to us the dramatic personality of the obstinate cleric, who, silenced in public, till his very last, never ceased to proclaim his truth.

    Such contact between author and reader is rare, and remains the privilege of those who seek it. And those who do seek it will always have to go back to the manuscripts. As I said before, this remains an often quite laborious task. But if one realizes how many and various resources the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have put at our disposal, and which were completely unheard of before, one cannot but feel maybe

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grudging, but still very real admiration for many of the old-time philologists. To them we may safely apply the word in Genesis that "there were Giants on earth in those days," giants for whom there was much more opportunity to make discoveries than there is left for us, but who had to work under much, much harder circumstances. Should we wish to be able to take their place? Or could they conceivably have wished to take ours? At least one of them certainly not: no less a scholar than Etienne (Stephen) Baluze, who died in 1718, has left us, apart from the rich philological output of a well-spent life, four short lines by way of an epitaph, four short lines but which say a lot about his experiences: "Here lies Mr. Stephen--he has finished his job.--In this world he met so much trouble--that nobody expects him ever to come back."15 It is a bitter conclusion, inspired not only by professional experience. Had it been, Baluze would have been even more disgusted today. In this respect, as a Dutch philologist, I cannot but look with envy at the numerous centers of excellence and learned associations in the United States: I'm glad to be here again, honoured by your invitation, and very pleased to have been able to give this talk in your highly valued presence.