© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 4 | doi 10.1163/9789004277052_011 “With That

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 4 | doi 10.1163/9789004277052_011 “With That, You Can Grasp All the Hebrew Language”: Hebrew Sources of an Anonymous Hebrew-Latin Grammar from Thirteenth-Century England Judith Olszowy-Schlanger This paper contains a preliminary study of the Hebrew sources of a hitherto unpublished Hebrew-Latin grammar book preserved in the private collection of the Marques of Bath as a part of MS Longleat House 21 (henceforth LH 21).1 This short grammar (only twelve parchment folios measuring 255 × 180 mm, out of a composite volume of 204 folios) is the most accomplished work of this genre known to us authored by medieval Christian scholars. It was probably written in the Benedictine Abbey of Ramsey in East Anglia in the 13th century.2 Composed of four self-contained and short units, the grammar provides suffi- cient tools for mastering the basics of the Hebrew language. This pedagogical ambition is best conveyed through the sentence ְ רִ י ִ ֿב ְ שוֺן ע ִ ין ּכֺל ל ַ ֿב ְ ה ַ ל ל ֿ ּוֿכ ְ זֵה ּת ,ּב “with that, you can grasp all the Hebrew language”, which figures on fol. 200v. This grammar is indeed the most accomplished aid for the study of Hebrew elaborated by medieval Christian scholars that we know today. Far from being an isolated accomplishment, it actually belongs to a distinct tradition of Christian Hebraism in medieval England, probably related to the Benedictine Abbey of Ramsey, tradition which elaborated other linguistic works, such as a trilingual Hebrew-Latin-Old French biblical dictionary3 and a detailed philo- logical gloss on the Hebrew Psalter, both kept today bound in the same volume as the grammar. The Hebrew grammar in MS LH 21 together with the other works of Christian Hebraists contained in this bound volume is an expression of the growing interest in Hebrew studies in the 13th century. Most impor- tantly, it is the evidence of interest of these scholars in Jewish grammatical and lexicographical works in particular and of their ability to consult them. 1 The full critical edition and study of this text is in print. 2 The manuscript does not mention a date or place where it was written. Its possible origins are proposed on the basis of paleographical and historical comparison with other Hebrew- Latin works held with the grammar. The origins of these other works were discussed in Olszowy- Schlanger et al. (2008: xvi–xxiii). 3 Ed. Olszowy-Schlanger et al. (2008). 180 Olszowy-Schlanger The Grammar LH 21 and 13th-Century Christian Hebraism in England “The knowledge of languages is the first doorway to wisdom . . .”—as banal as they may seem today, these words of Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1292) in his Opus Tertium herald a relatively new approach which makes the study of languages a necessary condition for the advancement of learning and sciences, both sec- ular and religious.4 Linguistic ignorance on the other hand is explicitly vilified as a major impediment for all. Roger Bacon devoted a great deal of attention to the question of the knowledge of languages, especially in his later works such as Opus Maius (1268), Opus Tertium (1268), Compendium Studii Philosophiae (1272), Grammatica Graeca (c. 1268 ?) and a short note on Hebrew (one folio in MS Cambridge, UL Ff. 6. 13).5 He advocated the study of Greek, Aramaic, Arabic and above all Hebrew. The reasons advanced by Bacon of why Latin scholars should turn to the study of these languages are manifold, and echo intellectual preoccupations of his time.6 Hebrew was essential because of its theological role as one of the three “languages of the Cross”, as a practical and pacific way of converting Jews through the power of their own mother-tongue, or as a tribute to the Christian forefathers, ancient and more contemporary, who mastered Hebrew and other languages. Hebrew had to be studied because it was the first and the most ancient step of the translatio philosophiae, the chain of transmission of knowledge first from God to his saints in Hebrew, and subsequently renewed in Greek by Aristotle and in Arabic mostly by Avicenna. Most importantly, however, Hebrew had to be mastered because the found- ing texts of Christianity were written in this language, and the proper under- standing of these texts involved the comprehension of the proprietas or inner 4 Ed. Brewer (1859, XXVII: 102): Notitia linguarum est prima porta sapientiae, et maxime apud Latinos, qui non habent textum theologiae nec philosophiae, nisi a linguis alienis; et ideo omnis homo deberet scire linguas, et indiget studio et doctrina harum, eo quod non potest ea cogno- scere naturaliter, quia fiunt ad placitum hominis et variantur secundum hominum voluntatem. 5 Opus Maius: ed. Bridges (1900), Opus Tertium: ed. Brewer (1859), Compendium Studii Philisophiae: ed. Brewer (1859), Grammatica Graeca: ed. Nolan (1902), short note on Hebrew: ed. Hirsch (1902). Another work attributed to Roger Bacon or to someone of his circle (such as William de Mara) consists of Hebrew notes and correspondence in MS Toulouse 402 (see Grévin (2001) who argues in favour of the attribution to Roger Bacon, already proposed by Samuel Berger). As to the Grammatica Practica in MS London, Brit. Lib. V A IV (fols 135–174), Roger Bacon’s authorship was only recently rejected by I. Rosier who has shown that the manuscript was actually copied well before Bacon’s times, in the twelfth century (see Rosier- Catach (1998: 97)). 6 See esp. Rosier-Catach (1997). 181 “With that, you can grasp all the Hebrew language” meanings of their original words. The major incentive to take up Hebrew was the corrupt state of the existing Latin translations of the Hebrew Bible. Given these theoretical premises as well as his pedagogical contribution as an author of the aforementioned grammatical notes on Hebrew, it is not surprising that Roger Bacon became somewhat of a paradigmatic Christian Hebraist of the medieval period. Bacon’s works have attracted a consider- able scholarly attention and until recently he, his master Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175–1253) and their mostly Franciscan milieu were considered the only identifiable scholars involved in the study of Hebrew in 13th-century England.7 However, as I have argued on a previous occasion, a renewed interest in the subject reveals a more complex picture.8 The grammar LH 21 is an example of a different strand in Christian Hebraism, which surpasses all the previously studied works. It seems indeed that, in parallel or even prior to the Franciscans’ interest in Hebrew, there existed other groups of Christian scholars in England who were successfully involved in the study of Hebrew and whose relationship with Roger Bacon and Robert Grosseteste requires a clarification. This scholarly milieu is closely related to the production and use of a cor- pus of bilingual Hebrew-Latin manuscripts in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries. This corpus, which includes some twenty-six items, is composed of Bible manuscripts conceived and copied as bilingual books laid out in corre- sponding columns with facing Hebrew and Latin texts, of Hebrew manuscripts annotated in Latin and often provided with an interlinear Latin translation different from the Vulgate (superscriptio) and finally of Hebrew-Latin linguis- tic works.9 When Beryl Smalley and later Raphael Loewe studied the bilin- gual Hebrew-Latin Bible manuscripts from medieval England, they argued for their relationship with Robert Grosseteste and his circle on the basis of Roger Bacon’s remarks on Hebrew and Grosseteste’s interest in it, on the mention by Henry Cossey, in 1336, of a Psalter of the Lincolniensis (Robert Grosseteste was the bishop of Lincoln) which contained a new interlinear Latin translation10 and on the basis of a textual analysis of a Latin preface to a bilingual Psalter MS 7 See Smalley (1939). Robert Grosseteste did not know any Hebrew himself, but was helped by competent scholars (see Wasserstein (1995)). See also Loewe (1957). 8 See Olszowy-Schlanger (2009). 9 Berger (1893); Smalley (1939, 1964); Loewe (1957, 1958); Beit-Arié (1993); Olszowy- Schlanger (2003); Olszowy-Schlanger et al. (2008). 10 The Franciscan Henry Cossey’s Expositio super Psalmos, written in 1336, is preserved in MS Cambridge, Christ’s College, Dd. I. 11 (see Hirsch (1911–1915: 10); Smalley (1939: 5); Loewe (1957: 212)). 182 Olszowy-Schlanger Oxford, Corpus Christi College 10.11 They further considered that all the identi- fied bilingual Hebrew-Latin manuscripts must emanate from the same milieu. However, a more detailed paleographical and textual analysis of the corpus has shown that, although sharing a similar approach and objectives—and nota- bly the task of a systematic comparison of the Latin Vulgate with its Hebrew Vorlage—these manuscripts may have different origins and dates.12 Among this corpus of bilingual manuscripts one specific group can be iden- tified that shares the same Latin and Hebrew handwritings as well as a cer- tain intellectual approach and vocabulary. The grammar LH 21 belongs to this specific group of manuscripts. The group includes also a trilingual Hebrew- Latin-Old French dictionary in the volume MS LH 21. The production of these linguistic tools—grammar and dictionary—is closely related to further five Biblical Hebrew manuscripts containing a Latin translation written as a superscriptio between the lines of the Hebrew text, uploads/Societe et culture/ judith-olszowy-schlanger-with-that-you-c.pdf

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