The Verbal Definitions

The summary paragraph directly below Figures 67 and 68 immediately alerts the astute reader to the dramatic content of Book V: "Ci commence le quint livre ouquel il determine des transmutations et salvations et corruptions des policies. Et contient .xxxiiii. chapitres" (Here begins the fifth book in which he ascertains the changes and corruptions and salvations of governments; it contains thirty-four chapters).^[4] Oresme emphasizes two important themes: the transformation of the forms of government and their corruption. To understand Aristotle's discussion of the processes by which such changes take place, Oresme offers the reader a detailed series of verbal aids. The first clue is the inscription found just below the top of the upper register. Figure 67 gives a double definition, "Sedition ou conspiracion occulte" (sedition or hidden conspiracy), while Figure 68 uses the second phrase only. The neologism sedition appears immediately below the miniatures in the headings for Chapters 2, 3, and 4. In a gloss on the first chapter of Book V Oresme defines the term by a series of synonyms: "Sedition, si comme il me semble, est conspiration ou conjuration ou commotion ou division ou dissention ou rebellion occulte ou manifeste d'un membre ou partie de la cité ou de la communité politique contre une autre partie" (Sedition, as it appears to me, is a conspiracy or plot or disturbance or division or dissension or rebellion—hidden or open—by a member or part of the city or political community against another part).^[5] Oresme includes definitions of sedition in both the index of noteworthy

subjects and the glossary of difficult words.^[6] Indeed, the latter uses the exact words such as conspiration occulte and sedition aperte (open sedition) that appear in the inscriptions of the upper and lower registers respectively.

The inscription on the lower right of Figure 67 reads: "Le demagogue qui presche au peuple contre le prince" (The demagogue who rails against the prince). In Figure 68 the phrase is shorter: "Demagogue preschant contre le prince." The neologism demagogue does not appear in the chapter headings, but it does figure in the index of noteworthy subjects and the glossary. Oresme defines it in the latter place: "Demagogue est qui par adulation ou flaterie demeine le menu peuple a sa volenté et qui les esmeut a rebellion contre les princes ou le prince" (A demagogue is one who by false praise or flattery excites the populace to rebellion against princes or the prince).^[7]