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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral The poem: author and content Imperial comparisons Dialogue The triumph of the trivium and the power of speech Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Poésie et politique dans les mondes nordiques et normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle)

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    Poetry, dialogue, and the trivium in Norman Sicily

    Poésie, dialogue et trivium dans la Sicile normande

    Philippa Byrne

    p. 247-262

    Résumés

    Peter of Eboli’s epic poem, the Liber ad honorem Augusti, describes the conquest of the Norman kingdom of Sicily by the Staufen ruler Henry VI in the early 1190s. In praising the conquest, the Liber participates in a panegyric imperial rhetoric, lauding Henry as a bringer of peace. It can also be seen to break with earlier traditions of Norman poetry in southern Italy. But this pro-imperial stance is not the only striking aspect of the Liber. As this contribution argues, the poem also engages in an argument about the nature of good and bad speech and the role of the trivium in politics. As such, the poem presents a much more complicated political landscape than other kinds of praise poetry. It also reveals something about Peter’s own intellectual background, and learning in later Norman Sicily. Peter was the product of a strong tradition of the liberal arts, and embeds that tradition throughout his poem.

    Le Liber ad honorem Augusti, poème épique de Pierre d’Eboli, décrit la conquête du royaume normand de Sicile par le souverain Staufen Henri VI au début des années 1190. En faisant l’éloge de cette conquête, le Liber contribue à une rhétorique panégyrique impériale, louant Henri VI qui a apporté la paix. On peut également y voir une rupture avec des traditions antérieures de poésie normande en Italie du Sud. Mais ce positionnement pro-impérial n’est pas le seul élément frappant du Liber. Cette contribution vise à montrer que le poème développe aussi une argumentation sur la nature du bon et du mauvais discours, ainsi que sur le rôle du trivium dans le champ politique. De cette manière, le poème présente un paysage politique beaucoup plus complexe que dans d’autres types de poésie encomiastique. Il nous informe aussi sur la formation intellectuelle de son auteur et sur l’enseignement dans la Sicile normande tardive. Pierre d’Eboli était le produit d’une forte tradition d’arts libéraux, une tradition qu’il incorpore à l’ensemble de son poème.

    Texte intégral The poem: author and content Imperial comparisons Dialogue The triumph of the trivium and the power of speech Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Texte intégral

    1The subject of my contribution begins just as Norman rule was ending in one part of the medieval Norman diaspora: Sicily and southern Italy. Epic poetry bookends the story of the Norman kingdom. The establishment of Norman domination in the region had been celebrated in the late eleventh century in the writings of Amatus of Montecassino and William of Apulia. Our most detailed narrative of the kingdom’s end is also a verse narrative, in the esoteric Liber ad honorem Augusti of Peter of Eboli.

    2Peter’s poem opens in 1189 with the death of the last Norman ruler of Sicily, William II. William was the grandson of Roger II (d. 1154), the founder of the kingdom. After describing William’s death, Peter recounts the conquest of the kingdom by the German emperor Henry VI, son of Frederick Barbarossa. Henry VI is presented as the rightful successor to William, but his claim to the crown is contested by Count Tancred of Lecce, who is supported by the influential Sicilian courtier Matthew of Ajello. For Peter, Henry’s legitimacy derived from multiple sources. The poem willingly accepts the idea that Sicily was naturally an imperial possession and thus part of the German empire, and it also emphasises the claim through Henry’s wife Constance. She was the aunt of the deceased William II, and the daughter of Roger II. The poem is a long one, epic in extent as well as in ambition. In the single surviving manuscript, it runs to 1674 lines and survives in a largely complete form, although a few verses and illustrations are missing.

    3The Liber ad honorem Augusti has received less attention from historians than the works of Amatus of Montecassino and William of Apulia, though the single surviving manuscript of the text has been closely studied by palaeographers and art historians.1 This comparative neglect by Normanists may be a consequence of classification; one could argue that it is not really a “Norman” work at all, as it describes the arrival of the Staufen in Sicily. Only the first two verses (particulae) describing first William II’s death and then lamentation in Palermo for the deceased king. The rest of the text (fifty surviving particulae) describes the struggle over who will succeed him, providing a commentary on Henry VI’s claim and an excoriation of Tancred, the other contender. Because it passes through William II’s death and public mourning with relative speed, it does not appear to offer much information about the later Norman kingdom. William II’s rule (and that of his predecessors) is useful to Peter as a convenient device, a “golden age” which Tancred cannot hope to replicate, and which Henry VI is destined to renew and extend. One might, then, consider it more a work about German imperial ambitions than Norman Sicily and southern Italy. Indeed, the work falls into a strange interstice; it is the product (as I argue below) of a set of literary skills and techniques learned and refined in the Norman kingdom, but fitted to the service of a Staufen regime.

    4My purpose in this contribution is to examine how we might read the Liber as something more than a work of imperial praise-poetry. As alluded to above, even if the work was fitted for a Staufen ruler, the Liber retains some elements which are grounded in the intellectual traditions of the twelfth-century Norman kingdom. One of the points I seek to emphasise is that the Liber ad honorem Augusti – unlike several works it might be compared to – is particularly interested in “dialogue” and argument. That is to say, our poet, Peter, carves out space within the poem for different (sometimes errant, even aberrant) views to be aired, even if the poem concludes with all differences resolved and put to rest under Henry VI’s benevolent rulership. The wise Henry VI presides over the kingdom but, before we reach the end of the poem, Peter has recognised that ideas of kingship, royal and imperial claims, as well as the idea of the role of fortune may be open to discussion. This makes the poem look and feel different to comparable works from the later twelfth century, not least the confident imperial verses of Godfrey of Viterbo. Finally, I suggest that this willingness to “stage” debate within the poem is a product of Peter’s engagement with the liberal arts, and, in particular the trivium.

    The poem: author and content

    5The Liber ad honorem Augusti was written to celebrate the triumph of Henry VI in Sicily.2 The death of William II occurred in 1189; Henry did not secure the Sicilian crown until 1194. The conflict was expensive and prolonged; at one point an ailing Henry was obliged to withdraw from southern Italy and return to Germany. In a serious blow to Henry’s campaign, his wife Constance was taken prisoner by supporters of Tancred in 1191. The poem narrates the different stages of the military struggle. It concludes in a mood of triumph: not only has Henry VI captured Palermo, but a son (the future Frederick II) has been born to Constance. Sicily, it is implied, will serve as a staging post for future German crusading ambitions in the Holy Land. Peter’s glowing report on Staufen Sicily may have been composed in the hope of patronage from Henry’s chancellor (who features in the poem), Conrad of Querfurt.

    6We know frustratingly little about Peter. He is depicted in the manuscript as tonsured; he was almost certainly a monk. He came from Eboli in the Campania, not far from Salerno. Peter was evidently proud of this connection, for the Liber praises the citizens of Eboli for their adherence to Henry’s cause, while other cities are condemned for their inconstancy. On his own account, Peter composed two other works. One is now lost, a work in praise of Frederick Barbarossa, Henry VI’s father. The other, markedly more successful work, was a set of poems on the thermal pools and baths at Pozzuoli, Campania.3 This work circulated under several titles in the Middle Ages, was transmitted widely, often accompanied by lavish illustrations, and was ultimately translated into several European vernaculars.4

    7The fortunes of the Liber ad honorem Augusti are a mirror image to those of De balneis. The text survives today in a single manuscript, held at the Burgerbibliothek in Bern (Cod. 120.II). Each particular has been illustrated with a set of images which (largely) corresponds to the action described in the verse. The manuscript shows evidence of revisions, quite possibly done by Peter himself, from which it has been inferred that the surviving copy was not presented to Henry.5 One reason for its apparently limited influence must have been the death of Henry VI in 1197, a death which both deprived the Liber of its most obvious patron and created a new series of political tempests in southern Italy.

    Imperial comparisons

    8One productive way of getting to grips with the Liber is to try to understand what makes it distinctive. This is a task complicated by the limited and frustrating survivals of Sicilian documents for the later twelfth century. But there are analogues upon which we can call. One of those is provided by a text known as the Gesta Heinrici, which has long been associated with the imperial poet, Godfrey of Viterbo (c. 1120-c. 1196). The attribution is made on the basis of the similarities with two other texts which Godfrey wrote or contributed to: an extensive universal history, the Pantheon or Liber Universalis, and a Gesta Friderici (describing the deeds of Frederick Barbarossa). Recent research has thrown considerable doubt on the idea that Godfrey could have been the author of the Gesta Heinrici.6 Given the problems in attributing authorship, I treat the Gesta Heinrici as a work which can be associated with a Staufen imperial circle.

    9A comparison between the Gesta Henrici and the Liber is invited by the subject matter, although one should note that the Gesta Heinrici is a much shorter and less detailed work, running to only 192 lines. The Gesta begins: Guiliemus moritur, Tancredus levatur.7 It covers much of the same ground as Peter’s poem, describing the disordered state of authority in southern Italy and Sicily after William II’s death; Henry’s initial campaign in southern Italy; his coronation in Rome; the capture of Constance at Salerno and her move to Palermo. Like the Liber, it emphasises the peace achieved through Henry’s ultimate triumph.8 What has not been done, however, is to consider how Peter’s view of German imperial authority might differ from that presented in the Gesta Heinrici. Peter was, after all, observing the conquest of Norman Sicily from a “local” perspective; he must have observed first-hand the political chaos he described.

    10Regardless of whether Godfrey of Viterbo was the author of the Gesta Heinrici, his biography as a poet of Staufen may also illuminate some aspects of Peter’s career. Those with skill in poetry could ascend to positions of some prominence at the Staufen court.9 Godfrey, too, was of Italian origins. He may well have been of mixed German-Italian heritage, although this aspect of his biography is not settled.10 As a young man, he had been sent to the school at Bamberg, and then served in the imperial court under both Frederick Barbarossa and Henry VI. Peter, like his colleagues working in the north, saw the opportunity for advancement through the imperial court, and the need to adopt a particular language to discuss Staufen imperial rule and destiny. This is most evident in book three of Peter’s poem, which discusses the glory of Staufen rulers before Henry and those who will come after him, i.e. his new-born son, the future Frederick II. For Peter, the latter is “[the] sun who will reign through the ages”, one who will reform the world and the empire.11 Frederick’s birth, like his father’s conquest, means peace: “peace is born with you, because your being born causes our restoration”.12

    11Peter and Godfrey share an interest in peace (pax), and the assumption that only a Staufen empire will be able to order the world correctly in order to achieve this peace. This praise for peace that could only be achieved through the extension of empire, was, of course, not an invention of twelfth-century Staufen writers: it drew heavily on earlier medieval readings of Virgil and the idea that empire was a providentially-endorsed form of rulership. In fact, Virgil is one of the three poets (along with Lucan and Ovid) presented at the start of Peter’s manuscript as classical models for the Liber.13

    12The Gesta Friderici, the Gesta Heinrici, and the Liber make the case for imperial power by showing how emperors create the goods of peace and the miseries suffered in its absence. All three works agree that without the imprimatur of Staufen authority, intestine disorder breaks out in Italian cities. For Peter, that much is evident in the bitter civil conflict in Sicily when Tancred dares to usurp the established order of succession. In the Gesta Friderici, this is evident in the discord provoked when both Italian cities and popes refuse to accept the proper role of Frederick Barbarossa as emperor. Peace perishes and schism rules instead, when Pope Adrian IV denies Frederick his rights.14

    13Jean Dunbabin has argued that we should understand Godfrey of Viterbo’s writing, and similar texts from the twelfth-century Staufen court, as an attempt to claw back authority, dignity, prestige for German emperors; replacing the stature and esteem they had lost through the Investiture controversy and events of the eleventh century.15 If that is the case, we can see Peter engaging in a similar project: the conquest of Sicily points to the great role that these emperors must play in the world. The significant difference is that, for Peter, there is also a prestigious place for Sicily as one of the crowning achievements of imperial power. In other words, Peter did not see Sicily as merely one among the territories now subject to Henry VI, but holding a special and leading place within those territories.

    14Moreover, while Peter does much to emphasise the dignity, virtue, and authority of Staufen rulership, his language of praise is rather ambiguous on two key political practicalities. Peter does not explicitly define the new terms of the relationship between the Holy Roman Empire and Sicily. While he argues that Sicily is a central point of Henry VI’s administration of the empire, Sicily itself is conceived of in royal terms, described as a kingdom (regnum).16 The closest Peter comes to describing Sicily’s place within the territories ruled by Henry VI is to suggest that Henry’s role is to restore the ancient empire of the Romans, and his reign heralds the return of Roman law across those territories.17 That ancient empire would, of course, include Sicily. Peter also cultivates a careful ambiguity in describing Henry VI’s relationship with the papacy. He praises Henry’s personal piety and moral rectitude, and his servants’ love of the Gospels.18 But Peter shies away from describing precisely how power is to be divided between emperor and pope. The closest he comes to addressing this point of great sensitivity is in the depiction of Henry’s imperial coronation, where he explains that Henry’s triple diadem “signifies that you participate in the Apostolic role”.19 One might infer from this phrase that Peter is willing to grant a considerable degree of religious authority and autonomy to the emperor. But the extent or limits of such power are not tested: the poem presents emperor and pope working in harmony, and in unison. Peter carefully omits mention of the fact that Celestine III had initially endorsed Tancred’s claim over that of Henry and Constance; instead, he chooses to focus on the Pope’s role in pressing Tancred for Constance’s release from captivity.20

    Dialogue

    15The Liber, moreover, further diverges from other poetry in praise of the Staufen through its interest in dialogue, speech, and argument. By this I mean that Peter’s poem plays close attention to the way in which claims to power or right are established, tested, and proven in Sicily. Peter can undoubtedly be taken as a Staufen “propagandist”, but he wishes to demonstrate the process by which Henry VI’s cause is proved to be just. Godfrey of Viterbo, by contrast, takes the justness of the Staufen cause as implicit from the start. In the Liber, the claims being made by Henry VI are tested. The most striking example of this is when Peter himself enters the narrative, in order to examine Tancred of Lecce’s unfitness to rule.

    16Peter initially approaches the topic of Tancred of Lecce’s legitimacy in the very first particula of the poem by emphasising the greater claim of Constance, and her descent from Roger II through a legitimate line. Here he draws an implicit contrast with Tancred’s weaker claim: Tancred was the illegitimate son of Roger, Duke of Apulia, the eldest son of Roger II. Peter’s secondary strategy is to demonstrate that Tancred’s monstrous physical appearance also throws his descent and genealogy (and thus claim) into doubt.21 Tancred is described in various disparaging ways by Peter: he is dimidiatus, a half-man; he is “a boy in back, an old man in […] face”.22 But Peter sought to diminish that claim further, through an appeal to medical reasoning. He arrives at the argument that Tancred was the son of only one parent: Tancred did not share in the blood/descent of his father, but was a product only of his mother.

    17Early in the first book of the Liber, Peter explains that he wanted to know why Tancred was so physically deformed.23 He sought out the physician Urso to explain this to him. Urso is almost certainly to be identified with the celebrated Salernitan master, Urso of Calabria.24 Urso’s explanation, provided in the text, is that Tancred is a result of a failed conception. His father (Roger of Apulia) was of noble descent, and for this reason Roger’s seed was incapable of combination with the seed of a low-born woman, Tancred’s mother. Tancred, therefore, was generated only from the seed of the mother, with no contribution from the father. In other words, Nature attempted to prevent Tancred’s conception, as if “aborting” him, but was not successful, and a child was conceived from base material. Not only does this “medically” explain Tancred’s appearance to Peter’s satisfaction, but, of course, it also cuts off Tancred from claiming a connection to the Norman royal line.

    18What I am interested in here is not Peter’s command of medical learning, though that has been a topic of some speculation among historians, especially given the proximity of the schools of Salerno to the court in Palermo.25 Rather, what is striking is how Peter’s conversation with Urso inserts the poet into the frame, as a way of testing the claims being made about Tancred:

    When I was contemplating the profound mystery with a doubtful mind (dubia mente)
    wondering what operation of nature had halved this work,
    Urso, a famous doctor and friend of piety
    explained it to me in this way.26

    The illustration accompanying these verses shows, in the centre of the page, the figure of Urso, seated, explaining the medical principles to a standing feature, almost certainly Peter (fig. 1).

    Fig. 1 –Petrus de Ebulo, Liber ad honorem Augusti, lat.

    In the central image, Peter of Eboli, right, consults the seated Master Urso on the question of Tancred’s conception. The image above shows Tancred’s features, and that below his birth.

    Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 120.II, fol. 103r, https://www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/bbb/0120-2

    19It is labelled with the heading: “when I inquire (querenti mihi) about the cause for the smallness of Tancred’s body, Master Urso brings up the example of a miscarrying ewe to explain how his body was aborted”.27 Above and below this illustration are smaller images of Tancred (above) and the infant being displayed to a horrified onlooker, soon after this birth (below).

    20Here Peter is offering the reader not just “proof”, but an opportunity to examine doubts over Tancred’s lineage and to have them endorsed by an auctoritas. Rather than simply appealing to a logic that external deformity equals inward vice, Peter’s explanation extends beyond this. The invocation of a figure of Urso’s stature is particularly significant. Urso could claim renown in the schools, an authority readily borrowed and adopted by Peter. Moreover, it seems that Urso had a particularly distinguished reputation as a master of the quaestio form; he was known as a magister who would never leave a question unanswered.28 Urso was also the author (or at least compiler) of a significant part of the text known today as the Prose Salernitan Questions.

    21The images accompanying this part of the Liber also allude to a “scholastic” form and setting. Urso is seated, as a master in the schools would be, while his student (Peter) presents the question to him for resolution. If we read this part of the poem as an imitation of the scholastic quaestio form (a form prominent across scholastic teaching, not only in medicine, but in theology and law too), we can appreciate the implications for our understanding of dialogue and debate in the Liber.29 The purpose of the quaestio exercise was to confront a master with a difficult question, typically one which might bring up seemingly irreconcilable principles. In this case, Peter wanted to know how Tancred could be so small and pitiful in stature when of royal descent; how he could be described as an “aborted” embryo (abortivum) although he was a living man. The challenge for the master was to explain how a difficult or unusual case could be fitted into a wider theoretical framework of established knowledge. The point was not to pose a straightforward inquiry, but a challenging one. The quaestio form itself was dependent on principles derived from the liberal arts (of which more later), and most particularly dialectic. It relied on the principle that the master would be able to resolve a difficult question, or two ideas which appeared to point in two different directions.30

    22In other words, a poem of civil war was now expanding into the world of the liberal arts and scholastic teaching. Peter uses it to prove his (highly polemical, highly politicised) point. But what is significant is the recognition that it does require proof. The introduction of Urso suggests a distinctively scholastic aspect to the poem. But Peter’s engagement with scholastic learning, and, in particular, the trivium, runs far deeper than this.

    The triumph of the trivium and the power of speech

    23I now turn to the final book of the Liber, in which Peter celebrates the triumph of Henry over Tancred.31 The Staufen victory is presented as one for the right ordering of the world. Tancred, the poem explains, was elevated only temporarily, through the machinations of Fortuna. But just as she once lifted him up, she now brings him down, crushing him under her wheel. Indeed, this action is illustrated in one of the accompanying images in the manuscript.32 But instead of having Fortuna then lift Henry to the top, which would place the emperor in an impermanent position, Peter presents her being subdued by Wisdom (Sapientia). It is Wisdom that ultimately triumphs over Fortune: Henry’s triumph is the triumph of Wisdom and the Virtues, also depicted in a later illustration. Indeed, it shows Fortuna seeking to join the Virtues, but they reject her. This is, presumably, because Fortune is too inconstant or unpredictable, or simply not made of the same orderly stuff as the Virtues are.33

    24Henry’s rule, Peter explains, is fortified by the “gifts” of Wisdom. Those gifts are the seven liberal arts. He then describes how each of them reinforces and magnifies Henry’s personal qualities. Each of the seven is discussed in turn. Our attention here might be drawn to the description of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric: “the first teaches him just speech, a second the language of contention; a third puts pleasant sounds in his mouth”.34 Henry VI is fitted for rulership because he understands how to construct and deconstruct language; his virtues depend on the liberal arts. These are necessary foundations for any prince.

    25Although it is most explicit in this third book, Peter has emphasised the political importance of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic throughout the Liber. Rightly applied, they can ensure the triumph of virtue; wrongly abused, they can mislead and create public division. As discussed above, in the medical questions posed to Master Urso, Peter demonstrates that a dialectical-logical examination can reveal important knowledge, necessary to political action and decision-making. However, that Peter does not always think the ability to question and argue is a uniformly positive feature of politics. Applied in the wrong way, it only works to fuel greater discord. When, for example, Constance is captured and surrounded by the people of Salerno, some assail her with angry speech, forgetting both her status and her nobility: “at the lady they throw the darts of their furious tongues”.35

    26This sense of language enhancing uncertainty and political debate that undermines good order is most evident in the first book of the Liber. William II’s death brings with it great lamentation, which is soon followed by a debate about who should follow him as king, as he has left no heirs. Peter describes the scene on the streets of Palermo, as every individual put forward a different candidate: “each one sought a king for himself, this man or that man; […] What one seeks another denies, and what one denies another seeks”.36 Peter does not present the crowds of Palermo as clamouring for the rule of Henry VI. Rather they might be said to debate the issue. Indeed, the title given to this section is “The different and conflicting will of those seeking a king”.37

    27That said, the “debate”, Peter is keen to emphasise, is not well informed. The people of Palermo have some unwise assumptions about the sort of men they want. They are, also, ultimately, subject to manipulation by the second villain of the poem, Matthew of Ajello, a leading figure in the Sicilian court. In the Liber, Tancred is weak and easily manipulated by Matthew, whom Peter decries as a bigamist who bathes his feet in the blood of children as a treatment for his gout. Matthew is presented as the power behind the throne, the puppet master who controls Tancred. He is able to use deceit to persuade the people to ultimately fall behind Tancred.

    28Matthew of Ajello is also presented as a master (and abuser) of rhetoric. Classical antiquity had bequeathed to the Middle Ages a view of rhetoric as a potentially dangerous pursuit: without a proper moral anchoring, the techniques of argumentation could be utilised for insidious purposes. These concerns echoed across the twelfth-century approach to the trivium. In the Liber, it is Matthew of Ajello’s ability to tell his audience what they want to hear that allows him – and thus Tancred – to gain a foothold. Peter notes:

    he [Matthew] draws rebels into his choices by power, prayers, and promises, casting nets full of many kinds of deceit. With promises he wins over the humble (humiles), with prayers the great (magnos), with gifts the prosperous (faustos).38

    If the wicked Matthew of Ajello is able to abuse speech, the more admirable figures of the Liber also attempt to use their command of language to restore order to the world. This is most apparent in the figure of Constance during her captivity in Book II.39 She is presented as a fitting partner for Henry because she too knows how to speak to an audience, and the importance of using language to create order. When captured by the Salernitans, she speaks to them, announcing: “I will speak few words, but they have great weight”.40 The speech is intended to show not only Constance’s dignity under conditions of privation, but her greater virtue in comparison to the machinations of Tancred and his wife.

    29In the same speech, Constance advises the Salernitans not to be seduced by the wrong kind of speech, just as has happened earlier in the narrative, when Matthew of Ajello convinced the people of Palermo to show support for Tancred’s claim. She warns them: “do not be seduced by letters, words, noises”.41 The phrasing reads like a deliberate appeal to an understanding of language and the concept of grammatica as taught in the medieval schools: sounds put together make words, words strung together make a chain of meaning.42 Constance is suggesting that the Salernitans have made a fundamental mistake in evaluating Matthew of Ajello’s speech. She also attacks those who manipulate language to gain advancement. She criticises Matthew of Ajello, informing the Salernitans that he has used speech and writing to fool his followers: “even if the archbishop wrote, I expect that he wrote nonsense (irrita scripsit)… Whatever his father’s mouth spews out, the son drinks it all in”.43 In short, Constance is well enough versed in the Liberal arts to recognise and denounce the tricks which Matthew of Ajello tries to play with language.

    30It is worth noting that this praise for Constance’s learning is echoed in another, near-contemporary text from Norman Sicily. The Epistola ad Petrum (addressed to another Peter, not the author of the Liber) is an anonymous work lamenting the German conquest of the kingdom. It speaks of the education Constance enjoyed in Sicily, and the moral values she took from her education, although it does not specify what she learned. Given its staunchly anti-Staufen perspective, the Epistola complains that Constance, having been “nourished” in Sicily, should return to destroy its traditions of learning with a German army.44 Nonetheless, both the Letter and the Liber allude to an idea that basic scholastic instruction instils moral value. That idea was, of course, common to much of the medieval Latin world, not particular to Sicily.45 Yet, it was expressed forcefully at a time of Sicilian political crisis.

    31It would be an overstatement to call the Liber a poem about language. It is, first and foremost, an epic commemorating conquest and imperial expansion. In any case, it demonstrates a persistent interest in speech, its consequences, and the skills of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic. The trivium is consequential in Henry VI’s fight for Sicily; it is also a way of proving the righteousness of his cause. This means that Peter’s poem pays much greater attention to argument and spoken conflict than the Gesta Heinrici. In that text peace is restored by superior Staufen power and authority, rather than argument. Indeed, both the Gesta Friderici and Gesta Heinrici contain few speeches, whereas the Liber is packed with orations, sometimes in the mouths of fairly minor players. When Godfrey does record a speech in his poems, they are speeches given by elite figures, proposing courses of action rather than capturing disagreement.46 In general, the action is rather more distant: the Gesta Heinrici pays much less attention to the inner motivations and wrangling of protagonists and antagonists.

    32The Liber and the two gestae are usefully compared as a means of measuring the similarities in their vision of Staufen imperial authority. But to find an analogue for Peter’s engagement with the liberal arts, we need to look elsewhere. The difficulty for the historian lies in how little we know about the teaching of the Latin trivium within the kingdom of Sicily. In part, this is because historical attention has typically concentrated on the more “advanced” programmes of learning attached to the Norman court. Since Charles Homer Haskins, historians have made painstaking efforts to reconstruct the movement of philosophical texts between Constantinople and Palermo, and to understand the motivations that drove translation by an intellectual and political elite.47 These were the most rarefied works of any Norman Sicilian intellectual project. Though connected to the court, Peter of Eboli does not represent this world. Instead, he provides some insight into a more foundational level of education.

    33The importance Peter places on grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, as well as their role in the good life of a community, means that one rewarding parallel to consider is the late twelfth-century scholastic poetry of Alan of Lille (d. c. 1202). Alan, better known than Peter, frequently utilised poetic forms as ways of exploring theological and moral teachings.48 Across his works, Alan addresses the same set of (characteristically twelfth-century) themes: how humans can use the tools at their disposal to understand Nature and the created world; how we learn to distinguish between moral and immoral conduct; and how we might use the tools of the liberal arts to guide us. This latter theme is most in evidence in his Anticlaudianus and De Planctu Naturae. Both poems offer the conclusion that a right ordering of learning will produce a right ordering of the universe. Only a proper application of the trivium will allow humankind to escape sin. Alan laments a world in which “the subtlety of Dialectic is stilled, the role of deliberative Rhetoric is in a decline”.49 As in the Liber, Wisdom plays a commanding, ordering, even imperial role: “she changes the earthly into the heavenly, the perishable into the immortal, man into God”.50 The ruler who, like Henry VI, possesses Wisdom, is well-prepared to rule. These works are, in a certain sense, the epic poetry of the liberal arts.

    34I am not here seeking to suggest any kind of direct connection between Peter and Alan, although many leading figures in the later twelfth-century kingdom had connections to the schools of northern Europe; rather, and more simply, that we must recognise that Peter’s poem reveals something about how the Norman kingdom had participated in a wider Latin tradition of the trivium. Coming from Eboli, Peter had lived in close proximity to the medical schools of Salerno. The higher discipline of medicine depended upon the more foundational skills of the trivium, as a means of accomplishing its teaching.51 If, as is commonly assumed, Peter was a Benedictine monk, that too must have reinforced the importance and centrality of a liberal arts tradition as a way of navigating earthly life. This was a common enough view among his contemporaries in the church. One need only look at Alexander Neckham’s early thirteenth-century prescription for what a student ought to read to provide a full guide to human life, found in his Sacerdos ad altare.52 Neckham’s list runs from preliminary texts for the learner to the hardest works, as the student progresses from the rudiments of grammar all the way to the reverent study of scripture itself. Classical authors provide an introduction to the trivium before higher arts like medicine and law can be approached. Indeed, Neckham describes how the student should move from Virgil then to Lucan and to Ovid in ascending order of difficulty, the same order in which these authors are presented in the illustration at the start of Peter’s Liber (fig. 2).53

    Fig. 2 – Petrus de Ebulo, Liber ad honorem Augusti, lat.

    From top to bottom: Virgil, Lucan, and Ovid (three core authorities of the medieval trivium) on the opening page of Peter’s poem.

    Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 120.II, fol. 95r, https://www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/bbb/0120-2

    35In other words, Peter shares a common twelfth-century assumption that certain classical auctores must form the basis of any programme of learning. Only after the formative study of these texts is one intellectually and morally prepared to advance to more complex kinds of knowledge. What is distinctive about the Liber is the attempt to integrate these familiar ideas about grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic into an epic of civil war and political conquest.

    36Moreover, the Liber sees the seven liberal arts as fundamentally in agreement, building towards a single consensus. This is a view that Peter shared with many of his Latinate contemporaries in the late twelfth century. In the Anticlaudianus, Alan of Lille explained that the seven liberal arts ultimately combined to form one whole; there was no discord between them: “there are seven maidens, cautious, prudent, beautiful, resembling one another: under seven countenances they reflect one countenance: one faith and one will guide those whom one face, one family, one age, one form, one power encompass”.54 In Alan’s extended metaphor, Prudence divided herself equally between those seven maidens, and would eventually be reconstituted when all seven were joined together once more, through learning. By contrast, the thirteenth-century future was a world in which those liberal arts would look increasingly fragmented, as specialised study made them independent areas of knowledge. That difference, and competition between the different arts, is embodied in Henri d’Andeli’s Bataille des VII ars, composed c. 1230.55 This poem depicts a world in which grammar, represented by the schools of Orleans, is at odds with Paris, where love of Aristotelian logic and dialectic rules:

    Do you know the reason for the discord?
    It is because they differ about learning
    For Logic, who is always wrangling,
    Calls the authors authorlings
    And the students of Orleans mere grammar-boys.56

    Peter’s holistic and unified vision of seven liberal arts – mutually supporting, and supportive of medicine and wisdom too – was rapidly falling out of fashion further north.

    37The Liber ad honorem Augusti celebrates imperial triumph, but in describing that triumph recognises space for the exercise of argument. We must read the poem as a demonstration on the strong and enduring influence of the liberal arts in shaping Peter’s view of the world. Staufen good order is not good merely because it is imperial, but because it accords with the premise that Wisdom is achieved by following a particular framework of learning. Even while Peter is engaging with ideas of world empire, the fundamental importance of the liberal arts is not dislodged. In fact, it enhances Henry’s claim: the liberal arts help discern the truth, and the truth is the rightfulness of Henry’s rule. At the very least, Peter’s poem urges us to appreciate the importance of the liberal arts, and in particular the traditions of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, in his vision of the late Norman monarchy.

    Notes de bas de page

    1For example, it merits only one line in E. Albu, The Normans in their Histories. Propaganda, Myth and Subversion, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2001, p. 221. For commentary on the poem, see “Liber ad honorem Augusti sive De rebus Siculis”: Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, T. Kölzer, M. Stähli and G. Becht-Jördens (ed.), Sigmaringen, Thorbecke, 1994.

    2Latin quotes and their English translation are taken from Book in Honor of Augustus (Liber ad Honorem Augusti), G. Hood (trans.), Tempe, Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012 [hereafter LHA]. The Latin text can also be found in Liber ad Honorem Augusti di Pietro da Eboli secondo il codice 120 della Biblioteca civica di Berna, G. B. Siragusa (ed.), Rome, Forzani (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Scrittori, sec. XII; 39), 1906.

    3Pietro da Eboli, De Euboicis aquis, T. de Angelis (ed.), Florence, SISMEL-Galluzzo, 2018.

    4See, for example, M. Hanly, “An Edition of Richart Eudes's French Translation of Pietro Da Eboli's De Balneis Puteolanis”, Traditio, vol. 51, 1996, p. 225-255.

    5See the overview in LHA, p. XXI-XXII.

    6L. J. Weber, “The Historical Importance of Godfrey of Viterbo”, Viator, vol. 25, 1994, p. 153-196 (esp. 165-166, n. 74); M. E. Dorninger, Gottfried Von Viterbo: Ein Autor in der Umgebung der frühen Staufer, Stuttgart, H.-D. Heinz, 1997. More generally on German imperial historical writing: T. Reuter, “Past, Present and No Future in the Twelfth-Century Regnum Teutonicum”, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, P. Magdalino (ed.), London, Hambledon Press, 1992, p. 15-36.

    7Gotifredi Viterbiensis Gesta Friderici I. et Heinrici VI. Imperatorum Metrice Scripta, G. Pertz (ed.), Hanover, Hahn (MGH, SS rer. Germ.; 30), 1870, p. 46 [hereafter GF and GH].

    8GH, l. 129-132, p. 50: Proditores pessimos cunctos estirpare. / Balbanensem comitem proiecit in mare, / Quosdam fecit cesar vivos decortare, / Pacem cum concordia omnibus prestare.

    9However, Loren J. Weber cautions that this prominence should not be overstated: L. J. Weber, “The Historical Importance…”.

    10Ibid., p. 177, n. 153.

    11LHA, § 44, l. 1409; 1412, p. 309: sol regnaturus in evum; reformator orbis et inperii.

    12Ibid., § 43, l. 1381, p. 303: Pax oritur tecum, quia te nascente creamur.

    13Ibid., p. 74-75. For a more detailed consideration of this image, see A. Brescia, “Di propria mano: annotazioni autografe nel De rebus Siculis carmen di Pietro da Eboli”, in In presenza dell’autore. L’autorappresentazione come evoluzione della stroriografia professionale tra basso Medioevo e Umanesimo, F. Delle Donne (ed.), Naples, Federico II University Press, 2018, p. 35-54 (42).

    14For example, GF, p. 11: Cesar ut in patriam vexilla retorsit ab urbe / Grandis et orribilis discordia crevit in orbe / Pax perit aecclesiae; scismatis error adest. Here Godfrey is describing the events of 1155.

    15J. Dunbabin, “The Distinctive Elements Among Godfrey of Viterbo’s Political Ideas”, in Godfrey of Viterbo and his Readers: Imperial Tradition and Universal History in Late Medieval Europe, T. Foerster (ed.), Farnham, Ashgate, 2015, p. 37-46.

    16For example, LHA, p. 319.

    17Ibid., § 46, l. 1463-1469, p. 320.

    18Ibid., § 49, l. 1556-1560, p. 336.

    19Ibid., § 10, l. 289, p. 122: signat te apostolicas participare vices.

    20Ibid., § 33, l. 1009-1046, p. 246.

    21Peter’s presentation of Tancred and his appearance is discussed at greater length in I. Wolsing, “‘Look, there comes the half-man!’ Delegitimising Tancred of Lecce in Peter of Eboli’s Liber ad honorem Augusti”, Al-Masāq, vol. 31, no. 3, 2019, p. 323-337.

    22LHA, § 8, l. 211, p. 113: puer a tergo […] ab ore senex.

    23Ibid.

    24For Urso’s significance in the history of medicine, see M. Van Der Lugt, “The Learned Physician as a Charismatic Healer”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine vol. 87, no. 3, 2013, p. 307-46.

    25Peter’s medical interests are even more apparent in De balneis, which describes the healing properties of the different pools at Pozzuoli, and the specific sicknesses they can cure.

    26LHA, § 8, l. 212-214, p. 113.

    27Ibid., p. 117.

    28On this point see B. Lawn, The Salernitan Questions. An Introduction to the History of Medieval and Renaissance Problem Literature, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963.

    29See J. Ziegler, “Ut dicunt medici: Medical Knowledge and Theological Debates in the Second Half of the thirteenth century”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 73, no. 2, 1999, p. 208-237 (208-210).

    30Among other works, see B. Lawn, The Rise and Decline of the Scholastic “Quaestio Disputata”. With Special Emphasis on Its Use in the Teaching of Medicine and Science, Leiden, Brill, 1993.

    31LHA, § 51, p. 349.

    32Ibid., p. 354.

    33Ibid.

    34Ibid., § 51, l. 1610-1611, p. 349: Prima loqui recta docet; altera iurgia lingue; tertia conditos reddit in ore sonos.

    35Ibid., § 20, l. 569, p. 172: In dominam iaciunt furibunde spicula lingue.

    36Ibid., § 4, l. 94 ; 97, p. 95: Quisque sibi regem petit hunc, legit hunc, petit illum […] Quod petit hic negat hic; quod negat hic petat hic.

    37Ibid.: Adversa et diversa petentium voluntas.

    38Ibid., l. 106-109: Vi, prece, promissis trahit in sua vota rebelles, / Tendens multimodis retia plena dollis. / Pollicitis humiles, prece magnos, munere faustos / Vincit […]

    39As has been noted by others, while Constance is given a prominent role in Book II, she is almost entirely absent from the third book, a fact that may reflect her declining position at the imperial court.

    40LHA, § 21, l. 588, p. 179: pauca loquar, multo pondere verba tamen.

    41Ibid., l. 594: nec vos seducant littera, verba, sonus.

    42For an overview, see Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae, esp. Book I, on the sounds that constitute language: Priscian, Institutionum Grammaticarum Libri XVIII, M. Hertz (ed.), Leipzig, Teubner, 1855.

    43LHA, § 21, l. 597; 600, p. 179. Si presul scripsit, tamen, ut reor, irrita scripsit […] Quod patris ora vomunt, filius haurit idem.

    44La Historia o Liber de regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium di Ugo Falcando, G. B. Siragusa (ed.), Rome, Forzani (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Scrittori, sec. XII; 22), 1897. See also The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154-69, G. Loud and T. Wiedemann (ed. and trans.), Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998.

    45For a discussion of this moral content of history writing, see M. Kempshall, Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400-1500, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011.

    46See, for example, Adrian IV’s speech: GF, 7, p. 8. Even the section of the GF entitled “De colloquio inter imperatorem Fridericum et Lodoicum regem”, 24, p. 20, includes only a small section of speech, the rest being Godfrey’s description of the event.

    47For a recent example, see M. Angold, “The Norman Sicilian Court as a Centre for the Translation of Classical Texts”, Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 2020, p. 147-167.

    48The best guide to Alan’s life and works remains G. R. Evans, Alan of Lille. The Frontiers of Theology in the Later Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

    49“Alain de Lille: De planctu Naturae”, N. M. Häring (ed.), Studi Medievali, vol. 19, 1978, p. 797-879: Haec in coeleste terrenum, in immortale caducum, in deum hominem [...] convertit. The translation is taken from The Plaint of Nature, J. J Sheridan (trans.), Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980: see Prose 6, p. 175.

    50Ibid., Prose 6, p. 179.

    51See R. French, “A Note on the Anatomical Accessus of the Middle Ages”, Medical History, vol. 23, no. 4, 1979, p. 461-468; see also D. Jacquart, “Medical Education in the 12th century”, in A Companion to the Twelfth-Century Schools, C. Giraud (ed.), Leiden, Brill, 2020, p. 203-25.

    52On this text, see C. H. Haskins, “A List of Text-Books from the Close of the Twelfth Century”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 20, 1909, p. 75-94.

    53Neckham: “From the delightful Thebaid, let him pass to the divine Aeneid, but let him not neglect the prophet born in Cordova who described not just civil wars but internecine conflict [Lucan]”. Translation from T. Hunt, Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century England, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 1991, vol. 1, p. 269-270.

    54Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus, PL, vol. 210, book II, col. 505, l. 325-328: Pulcre similesque puelle / Septem, que uultum sub septem uultibus unum / Reddunt, quas facies, genus, etas, forma, potestas / Vna tenet, tenet una fides. Translation from Anticlaudianus or the Good and Perfect Man, J. J. Sheridan (ed. and trans.), Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973, p. 79-80.

    55On the work, see R. Copeland and I. Sluiter, “Henri d’Andeli, Bataille des VII ars, ca. 1230”, in Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric. Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300-1475 [2009], R. Copeland and I. Sluiter (ed.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 706-723.

    56Ibid., l. 4-8, p. 709: Savez por qui est la descorde? / Qu’il ne sont pas d'une science; / Quar Logique, qui toz jors tence, / Claime les autors autoriaus / Et les clers d’Orliens glomeriaus.

    Auteur

    • Philippa Byrne

      Trinity College Dublin

      ORCID : 0000-0003-2424-0693

      IdRef : 236745654

      Philippa Byrne est professeure assistante en histoire médiévale à Trinity College Dublin. Elle est détentrice d’un DPhil de l’université d’Oxford et a précédemment été post-doctorante à la British Academy et Departmental lecturer. Ses travaux examinent les rapports entre droit et théologie aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, le développement de la première pensée scolastique et les traductions entre l’arabe, le grec et le latin. Dans sa première monographie, Justice and Mercy. Moral Theology and the Exercise of Law in Twelfth-Century England, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2019, elle étudie l’univers moral des juges médiévaux. Elle travaille actuellement à deux projets : une histoire intellectuelle de la Sicile normande à la fin du XIIe siècle et une introduction à la summa des débuts de la scolastique.

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    1For example, it merits only one line in E. Albu, The Normans in their Histories. Propaganda, Myth and Subversion, Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2001, p. 221. For commentary on the poem, see “Liber ad honorem Augusti sive De rebus Siculis”: Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, T. Kölzer, M. Stähli and G. Becht-Jördens (ed.), Sigmaringen, Thorbecke, 1994.

    2Latin quotes and their English translation are taken from Book in Honor of Augustus (Liber ad Honorem Augusti), G. Hood (trans.), Tempe, Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2012 [hereafter LHA]. The Latin text can also be found in Liber ad Honorem Augusti di Pietro da Eboli secondo il codice 120 della Biblioteca civica di Berna, G. B. Siragusa (ed.), Rome, Forzani (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Scrittori, sec. XII; 39), 1906.

    3Pietro da Eboli, De Euboicis aquis, T. de Angelis (ed.), Florence, SISMEL-Galluzzo, 2018.

    4See, for example, M. Hanly, “An Edition of Richart Eudes's French Translation of Pietro Da Eboli's De Balneis Puteolanis”, Traditio, vol. 51, 1996, p. 225-255.

    5See the overview in LHA, p. XXI-XXII.

    6L. J. Weber, “The Historical Importance of Godfrey of Viterbo”, Viator, vol. 25, 1994, p. 153-196 (esp. 165-166, n. 74); M. E. Dorninger, Gottfried Von Viterbo: Ein Autor in der Umgebung der frühen Staufer, Stuttgart, H.-D. Heinz, 1997. More generally on German imperial historical writing: T. Reuter, “Past, Present and No Future in the Twelfth-Century Regnum Teutonicum”, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, P. Magdalino (ed.), London, Hambledon Press, 1992, p. 15-36.

    7Gotifredi Viterbiensis Gesta Friderici I. et Heinrici VI. Imperatorum Metrice Scripta, G. Pertz (ed.), Hanover, Hahn (MGH, SS rer. Germ.; 30), 1870, p. 46 [hereafter GF and GH].

    8GH, l. 129-132, p. 50: Proditores pessimos cunctos estirpare. / Balbanensem comitem proiecit in mare, / Quosdam fecit cesar vivos decortare, / Pacem cum concordia omnibus prestare.

    9However, Loren J. Weber cautions that this prominence should not be overstated: L. J. Weber, “The Historical Importance…”.

    10Ibid., p. 177, n. 153.

    11LHA, § 44, l. 1409; 1412, p. 309: sol regnaturus in evum; reformator orbis et inperii.

    12Ibid., § 43, l. 1381, p. 303: Pax oritur tecum, quia te nascente creamur.

    13Ibid., p. 74-75. For a more detailed consideration of this image, see A. Brescia, “Di propria mano: annotazioni autografe nel De rebus Siculis carmen di Pietro da Eboli”, in In presenza dell’autore. L’autorappresentazione come evoluzione della stroriografia professionale tra basso Medioevo e Umanesimo, F. Delle Donne (ed.), Naples, Federico II University Press, 2018, p. 35-54 (42).

    14For example, GF, p. 11: Cesar ut in patriam vexilla retorsit ab urbe / Grandis et orribilis discordia crevit in orbe / Pax perit aecclesiae; scismatis error adest. Here Godfrey is describing the events of 1155.

    15J. Dunbabin, “The Distinctive Elements Among Godfrey of Viterbo’s Political Ideas”, in Godfrey of Viterbo and his Readers: Imperial Tradition and Universal History in Late Medieval Europe, T. Foerster (ed.), Farnham, Ashgate, 2015, p. 37-46.

    16For example, LHA, p. 319.

    17Ibid., § 46, l. 1463-1469, p. 320.

    18Ibid., § 49, l. 1556-1560, p. 336.

    19Ibid., § 10, l. 289, p. 122: signat te apostolicas participare vices.

    20Ibid., § 33, l. 1009-1046, p. 246.

    21Peter’s presentation of Tancred and his appearance is discussed at greater length in I. Wolsing, “‘Look, there comes the half-man!’ Delegitimising Tancred of Lecce in Peter of Eboli’s Liber ad honorem Augusti”, Al-Masāq, vol. 31, no. 3, 2019, p. 323-337.

    22LHA, § 8, l. 211, p. 113: puer a tergo […] ab ore senex.

    23Ibid.

    24For Urso’s significance in the history of medicine, see M. Van Der Lugt, “The Learned Physician as a Charismatic Healer”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine vol. 87, no. 3, 2013, p. 307-46.

    25Peter’s medical interests are even more apparent in De balneis, which describes the healing properties of the different pools at Pozzuoli, and the specific sicknesses they can cure.

    26LHA, § 8, l. 212-214, p. 113.

    27Ibid., p. 117.

    28On this point see B. Lawn, The Salernitan Questions. An Introduction to the History of Medieval and Renaissance Problem Literature, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963.

    29See J. Ziegler, “Ut dicunt medici: Medical Knowledge and Theological Debates in the Second Half of the thirteenth century”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 73, no. 2, 1999, p. 208-237 (208-210).

    30Among other works, see B. Lawn, The Rise and Decline of the Scholastic “Quaestio Disputata”. With Special Emphasis on Its Use in the Teaching of Medicine and Science, Leiden, Brill, 1993.

    31LHA, § 51, p. 349.

    32Ibid., p. 354.

    33Ibid.

    34Ibid., § 51, l. 1610-1611, p. 349: Prima loqui recta docet; altera iurgia lingue; tertia conditos reddit in ore sonos.

    35Ibid., § 20, l. 569, p. 172: In dominam iaciunt furibunde spicula lingue.

    36Ibid., § 4, l. 94 ; 97, p. 95: Quisque sibi regem petit hunc, legit hunc, petit illum […] Quod petit hic negat hic; quod negat hic petat hic.

    37Ibid.: Adversa et diversa petentium voluntas.

    38Ibid., l. 106-109: Vi, prece, promissis trahit in sua vota rebelles, / Tendens multimodis retia plena dollis. / Pollicitis humiles, prece magnos, munere faustos / Vincit […]

    39As has been noted by others, while Constance is given a prominent role in Book II, she is almost entirely absent from the third book, a fact that may reflect her declining position at the imperial court.

    40LHA, § 21, l. 588, p. 179: pauca loquar, multo pondere verba tamen.

    41Ibid., l. 594: nec vos seducant littera, verba, sonus.

    42For an overview, see Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae, esp. Book I, on the sounds that constitute language: Priscian, Institutionum Grammaticarum Libri XVIII, M. Hertz (ed.), Leipzig, Teubner, 1855.

    43LHA, § 21, l. 597; 600, p. 179. Si presul scripsit, tamen, ut reor, irrita scripsit […] Quod patris ora vomunt, filius haurit idem.

    44La Historia o Liber de regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium di Ugo Falcando, G. B. Siragusa (ed.), Rome, Forzani (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Scrittori, sec. XII; 22), 1897. See also The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154-69, G. Loud and T. Wiedemann (ed. and trans.), Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998.

    45For a discussion of this moral content of history writing, see M. Kempshall, Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400-1500, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2011.

    46See, for example, Adrian IV’s speech: GF, 7, p. 8. Even the section of the GF entitled “De colloquio inter imperatorem Fridericum et Lodoicum regem”, 24, p. 20, includes only a small section of speech, the rest being Godfrey’s description of the event.

    47For a recent example, see M. Angold, “The Norman Sicilian Court as a Centre for the Translation of Classical Texts”, Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 2020, p. 147-167.

    48The best guide to Alan’s life and works remains G. R. Evans, Alan of Lille. The Frontiers of Theology in the Later Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

    49“Alain de Lille: De planctu Naturae”, N. M. Häring (ed.), Studi Medievali, vol. 19, 1978, p. 797-879: Haec in coeleste terrenum, in immortale caducum, in deum hominem [...] convertit. The translation is taken from The Plaint of Nature, J. J Sheridan (trans.), Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980: see Prose 6, p. 175.

    50Ibid., Prose 6, p. 179.

    51See R. French, “A Note on the Anatomical Accessus of the Middle Ages”, Medical History, vol. 23, no. 4, 1979, p. 461-468; see also D. Jacquart, “Medical Education in the 12th century”, in A Companion to the Twelfth-Century Schools, C. Giraud (ed.), Leiden, Brill, 2020, p. 203-25.

    52On this text, see C. H. Haskins, “A List of Text-Books from the Close of the Twelfth Century”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 20, 1909, p. 75-94.

    53Neckham: “From the delightful Thebaid, let him pass to the divine Aeneid, but let him not neglect the prophet born in Cordova who described not just civil wars but internecine conflict [Lucan]”. Translation from T. Hunt, Teaching and Learning Latin in Thirteenth-Century England, Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 1991, vol. 1, p. 269-270.

    54Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus, PL, vol. 210, book II, col. 505, l. 325-328: Pulcre similesque puelle / Septem, que uultum sub septem uultibus unum / Reddunt, quas facies, genus, etas, forma, potestas / Vna tenet, tenet una fides. Translation from Anticlaudianus or the Good and Perfect Man, J. J. Sheridan (ed. and trans.), Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973, p. 79-80.

    55On the work, see R. Copeland and I. Sluiter, “Henri d’Andeli, Bataille des VII ars, ca. 1230”, in Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric. Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300-1475 [2009], R. Copeland and I. Sluiter (ed.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 706-723.

    56Ibid., l. 4-8, p. 709: Savez por qui est la descorde? / Qu’il ne sont pas d'une science; / Quar Logique, qui toz jors tence, / Claime les autors autoriaus / Et les clers d’Orliens glomeriaus.

    Poésie et politique dans les mondes nordiques et normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle)

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    Byrne, P. (2024). Poetry, dialogue, and the trivium in Norman Sicily. In A. Gautier, M.-A. Lucas-Avenel, & L. Mathey-Maille (éds.), Poésie et politique dans les mondes nordiques et normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle) (1‑). Presses universitaires de Caen. https://doi.org/10.4000/13tz7
    Byrne, Philippa. « Poetry, Dialogue, and the Trivium in Norman Sicily ». In Poésie Et Politique Dans Les Mondes Nordiques Et Normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle), édité par Alban Gautier, Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel, et Laurence Mathey-Maille. Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/13tz7.
    Byrne, Philippa. « Poetry, Dialogue, and the Trivium in Norman Sicily ». Poésie Et Politique Dans Les Mondes Nordiques Et Normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle), édité par Alban Gautier et al., Presses universitaires de Caen, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4000/13tz7.

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    Gautier, A., Lucas-Avenel, M.-A., & Mathey-Maille, L. (éds.). (2024). Poésie et politique dans les mondes nordiques et normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle) (1‑). Presses universitaires de Caen. https://doi.org/10.4000/13tzo
    Gautier, Alban, Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel, et Laurence Mathey-Maille, éd. Poésie et politique dans les mondes nordiques et normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle). Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4000/13tzo.
    Gautier, Alban, et al., éditeurs. Poésie et politique dans les mondes nordiques et normands médiévaux (IXe-XIIIe siècle). Presses universitaires de Caen, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4000/13tzo.
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