Reading the Translations
Although the intended audience for Oresme's translations of the Ethics and Politics is easily identified, it is less clear how these books were read and used. If definitive answers are lacking, some suggestions can be made by piecing together different types of evidence. As for the primary audience, Charles V himself, several miniatures in vernacular works show him as a solitary, silent reader in his study (Figs. 4 and 5).[10] The frontispieces of manuscripts in the king's library represent him immersed in the perusal of Oresme's Traitié de l'espere and the Foulechat translation of John of Salisbury's Policraticus .[11] Furthermore, the dedication frontispiece of A shows in the lower left quadrilobe a king and his associates with books in front of them listening to a lecture (Fig. 7).[12] Here the point is that the king and his companion read individually from their own copies of the text discussed by the lecturer. The miniature of the frontispiece also illustrates the following passage from Oresme's Ethiques prologue: "Et en puet l'en bien dire ce mot de l'Escripture : 'Audiens sapiens sapientior erit'—'le sage sera plus sage de oÿr ceste science'" (And in this regard one can well cite this phrase of Scripture [Prov. 1:5]: 'Audiens sapiens sapientior erit'—the wise man will become even wiser from hearing this knowledge).[13] Both the text and the image suggest that individual reading was supplemented by oral explication of the text.[14]
In addition, the contemporary political treatise Le songe du vergier , a translation commissioned by Charles V and completed in 1378, notes that daily the king "lit ou fait lire devant luy de Ethyques, de Pollitiques ou de Yconomiques, ou d'autres moralités, pour savoir que appartient au gouvernement de tout seigneur naturel" (reads or has read to him [parts of] the Ethics and the Politics , and the Economics , or other moral treatises, to know what is important for the task of anyone who is born to rule).[15] Christine de Pizan relates that especially in winter the king "se occupoit souvent à ouir lire de diverses belles hystoires de la Sainte Escripture, ou des Fais des Romains , ou Moralités de philosophes et d'autres sciences jusques à heure de soupper" (often spent his time listening to readings from various stories drawn from Holy Scripture, or the Deeds of the Romans , or the Moral Reflections of Philosophers and other books of knowledge until the supper hour).[16] Readings from the Ethics , a source of both earlier and contemporary Mirror of Princes texts, belong to the category of moral teachings mentioned in the passage cited above and this one: "Item , et lui, comme circonspect en toutes choses, pour l'aournement de sa conscience, maistres en theologie et divinité et touz ordrez d'Eglise lui plot souvent ouir en ses collacions, leurs sermons escouter, avoir entour soy" (Item, and he, ever attentive to whatever might further improve his mind, liked to surround himself with masters in theology and divinity, and all clerical orders of the Church, to hear their conversation at table, and to listen to their sermons).[17] Christine repeats in her Livre de la paix that Charles V was in the habit of "souvent ouir, et à certaines heures et jours leccons de sapience" (often listening on specific days and hours to readings from books of wisdom).[18]
Charles V's enjoyment of intellectual interaction with members of his entourage described by Christine is confirmed in two prologues of translations commissioned by him. A passage in the prologue to the Songe du vergier refers to a past controversy: "Et, mon tres redoubté Seigneur, en la presance de Vostre Majesté ceste doubte a esté aultre foiz disputée, par maniere d'esbatement et de collacion" (And, my most revered lord, in the presence of your majesty this question was debated once before at table and in a lighter vein).[19] Oral discussion is mentioned by Raoul de Presles in the dedicatory epistle of his City of God translation. At the end of his narrative on the origins of the oriflamme, he interjects the phrase "comme vous m'avez oy raconter" (as you have heard me tell).[20]
It is known, too, that there were officially designated lecteurs du roi , who read and explained texts to the king. Vincent of Beauvais fulfilled this function for St. Louis.[21] Christine de Pizan tells us that Gilles Malet, Charles V's librarian and valet de chambre , was a favorite reader of the king.[22] Thus, the custom of public oral reading and explication at the French court had a considerable tradition.
Charles V may have particularly requested oral explication from Oresme on certain passages or questions relating to difficult or intriguing matters. For example, a Quaestio added by Oresme to his commentary on a passage from Book IX of the Ethics is one of the few lengthy interpolations he inserted into the text.[23] The discussion, choosing one of three worthy persons to be saved from execution, is a topic Oresme may have included for his patron's benefit, as it lends itself to oral argument and debate.[24] In this case, Oresme could have used as points for
discussion the elaborate inscriptions that form a kind of internal dialogue within the miniature.
Indeed, the inscriptions that are a distinctive feature of the miniature cycles in A and C can furnish important clues on how the books were read. Embedded within the pictorial field and emphasized by a banderole, the inscriptions act as a reference, locating or summarizing a key concept, unfamiliar term, or neologism (Fig. 12). Guided by the inscriptions, the reader can consult the explanation furnished by the translator in the chapter titles preceding the miniature, the glossary of difficult words, or the index of noteworthy subjects placed at the end of the text.
The inscriptions also allow the reader to connect verbal information with the concrete imagery of the miniatures. An analogue to the vernacular language, in many cases the pictorial representation translates abstract ideas or terms borrowed from Latin into familiar visual modes. Such visual language includes personification and allegorical figures arranged in a coherent structure and clothed in contemporary dress. A preference for concrete visual imagery may correspond to the mental habits of readers accustomed to similar use of language in the vernacular.[25] The inscriptions may also have played a crucial role in forming associations between the verbal and the visual by singling out words as memory devices, perhaps for oral repetition by the reader. The persistence of aural habits of reading, or lectio , may have encouraged sounding out a word featured in the inscription to locate, associate, and assimilate the verbal concept with visual imagery.[26]
As was discussed in the previous chapter, scholars have recently recognized the cognitive and affective powers assigned to images in medieval faculty psychology and scholastic memory treatises. V. A. Kolve stresses the role of memory in making mental images the road to understanding and retaining verbal concepts.[27] Sight and hearing are separate pathways to the castle of Lady Memory, a metaphor used by Richard de Fournivall and illustrated in an early fourteenth-century French manuscript of Li bestiaires d'amour (Fig. 18).[28] Referring in part to Frances Yates's seminal work, The Art of Memory , Kolve emphasizes that Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas assign to visual images the ability to fix general concepts in the mind by attaching them to specific details and places located within an imagined geographical or architectural structure.[29] Moreover, the great scholastics find in visual images affective powers that can move the soul to positive ethical action.
The inscriptions and images of Charles V's illustrated copies of the Ethiques unite through their functions as memory aids the verbal concept and its visual realization within a clearly defined pictorial field. In fact, an architectural memory gateway, similar to that of the Fournivall miniature, is a distinctive feature of the cycle in MS A .
In short, reading Oresme's translations may have combined individual study and oral explication. In view of the long intellectual relationship between Charles V and Oresme, as well as of the limited time available for the king and his counsellors to make their way through the lengthy and weighty translations, oral explications of crucial sections of the text by Oresme seem plausible. In both processes, the illustrations—particularly the inscriptions—had important didactic and mnemonic functions.