Textual Differences from the Ethiques Manuscripts

Beyond these and related similarities to Charles V's Ethiques manuscripts, those of the Politiques show important differences regarding both texts and images. First, the fact that the Politics was the favored text had various implications. Documents reveal that Oresme received generous payments from Charles V for this translation and that the king intervened with the canons of Rouen cathedral to excuse Oresme's absence from his post as dean there. Oresme worked on the translation from 1370 to 1374 and made three redactions of the text, compared to only one of the Ethics .^[5] Delisle was the first to recognize the original copy of Oresme's text in MS 223 of the Bibliothèque Municipale in Avranches.^[6] This manuscript contains all three redactions, the fragments of a fourth one, the author's corrections and modifications, and the ex libris of Henri Oresme, Nicole's nephew, who inherited the volume.^[7] The Avranches manuscript must have been accessible to the scribes who copied the text during its various stages of corrections and emendations.

Oresme worked from the translation of the Politics from Greek into Latin made by William of Moerbeke in 1269. Unlike the Ethics , the Politics was not known in earlier medieval translations.^[8] Oresme drew heavily on the influential commentaries that had been produced in the century since Moerbeke's Latin text appeared. The first of these commentaries was by Albert the Great and was the one most frequently cited by Oresme. Although he sometimes disagreed with his predecessor, Oresme shared his adventurous attempts to provide etymologies and identification of historical personalities and places.^[9] In his efforts to apply the Politics to medieval institutions, Oresme appreciated Albert's attempt to do the same, as well as his more colorful style. While undoubtedly well acquainted with the commentaries of Thomas Aquinas, completed by Peter of Auvergne, Oresme used them

sparingly.^[10] Oresme's attempt to present the Politics to a lay audience in a vernacular language led him to prefer the gloss/ commentary form rather than the paraphrases or analyses of Aristotle's arguments. He was thus able to provide step-by-step guidance for his readers. It is worth mentioning again Babbitt's classifications of the types of glosses Oresme used. These include references to, and locations in, the text, "identifications and definitions," "etymologies," "explanatory examples," and his own judgments or "critical observations." In addition, Oresme provided extensive commentaries, some several folios in length, that Babbitt terms "small treatises or essays." Such expositions frequently reveal Oresme's opinions on crucial contemporary social or religious issues, such as reform of the church or voluntary poverty of the clergy. Other subjects deal with political institutions, such as forms of kingship and universal monarchy.^[11] As is noted in Chapter 3 above, the translator also expanded the number of terms included in the glossary of difficult words to almost three times the number in the analogous feature of the Ethiques . To facilitate the reader's understanding of key terms, Oresme added a new verbal aid to the vernacular version of the Politiques : an index of noteworthy subjects organized in alphabetical order and placed at the end of the volume. So concerned was Oresme about the intelligibility of the neologisms and other unfamiliar terminology that in the first redaction he included a separate glossary and index of subjects after several books of the Politiques .

Oresme gives precise directions to the reader in the first instruction that follows the prologue. He begins by stating that the contents of the work are clear from the chapter titles and the index of noteworthy subjects at the end of the book. Next he mentions the glossary of difficult words as a source for learning the meaning of unfamiliar terms. He then names four specific terms that are essential for understanding the treatise.^[12] He ends the instruction by explaining the different methods of citing a chapter in an individual book in which a reference is made, as well as in other books of the text. In short, Oresme employs the techniques of academic translation and commentary to make intelligible to his lay audience the difficult Latin version of William of Moerbeke. As noted above in Chapter 3, Oresme thus appropriates for the vernacular the prestige of the Latin translation and commentaries.

As Babbitt points out, Oresme's efforts to apply this version of Aristotle's text to contemporary problems and institutions give his translation its particular value and interest. Oresme uses Aristotle's text in one area vital to his primary readers: confirmation of the public sovereignty of the territorial nation-state, viewed as an instrument of the common good. In discrediting universal monarchy, linked with the Holy Roman Empire, Oresme exploits Aristotle's arguments for a geographically and linguistically surveyable territory. Like other medieval commentators, Oresme elevates kingship to the apex of the hierarchy of political communities. But he also emphasizes the special claims of the French monarchy by virtue of its quasi-religious character, its distinguished ancestry, and its distinctive national symbol, the fleur-de-lis. Oresme's treatment of the church as a political community not only leads him to define its rights but also allows him to treat it as a subject open to criticism and reform. The Aristotelian concept of the mean permits him

to urge the church to avoid the extremes of too great wealth or absolute poverty. Oresme also takes a middle position in affirming the temporal independence of the king from the church while recognizing the political and judicial rights of the church over the clergy.^[13]