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Veluti ansam quandam : The Nithard MS. Troyes 3203 as a Historical Guidebook from Claude de Marteau to Pierre de L’Estoile (1588)

Veluti ansam quandam: le manuscrit MS. Troyes 3203 de Nithard, un Guide historique offert par Claude de Marteau à Pierre de L’Estoile (1588)
Courtney M. Booker

Résumés

English Français

Dans une précédente publication consacrée au manuscrit 3203 de l’histoire de Nithard, conservé à la Médiathèque de Troyes Champagne Métropole, sur la foi des données dont nous disposions, j’avais supposé que le manuscrit émanait de Pierre Pithou. Dans cette présente contribution, je reviens sur cette présupposition pour montrer que cette attribution est incorrecte. Sur la base de ma récente découverte d’une lettre adressée par Claude de Marteau (d. 1595), poète, avocat au Parlement et collectionneur de manuscrits, à son beau-frère Pierre de L’Estoile, je propose de réattribuer le manuscrit MTCM 3203 à Claude Marteau. Ce manuscrit soigné aurait été offert à L’Estoile en 1588, en guise de présent et de consolation dans un contexte de troubles. L’histoire de Nithard, témoin du passé carolingien et des dissensions entre les fils de Louis le Pieux, entrerait ainsi en résonance avec le contexte national contemporain [trad. SL]

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Texte intégral

  • 1 Courtney M. Booker, « Writing a Wrong : The Divestiture of Louis the Pious (833) and the Decline of (...)
  • 2 Pierre Pithou, ed., Annalium et historiae Francorum ab anno Christi DCCVIII. ad ann. DCCCCXC. scrip (...)
  • 3 Paris, BnF, Réserve des Livres rares, [Res. L45.1]. The volume has been digitized: https://gallica. (...)
  • 4 See Booker, « A New Prologue of Walafrid Strabo », op. cit. ; idem, « The Public Penance of Louis t (...)
  • 5 For Pithou’s editio princeps of the text, see Pithou, ed., Annalium et historiae Francorum, op. cit (...)

1Thirty years ago, I first encountered the work of the great sixteenth-century jurist, historian, and proto-philologist Pierre Pithou (1539-1596) when I was investigating the episcopal relatio of the controversial public penance in 833 of Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious1. At that time, no manuscript witness of the bishops’ text was known to survive, and all printed versions of it derived from Pithou’s editio princeps published in 1588 within his pathbreaking source collection Annalium et historiae Francorum ab anno Christi DCCVIII. ad ann. DCCCCXC. scriptores coaetanei XII.2 Consequently, this reliance on Pithou quickly led me to the Handexemplar, or Pithou’s personal copy, of his printed source book, which is extant in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and is filled with addenda, delenda, and corrigenda in Pithou’s hand3. There I found many clues that would lead to the solution of various textual problems4. It was precisely in this context that I also encountered another rare Carolingian text published for the first time by Pithou, the Historiae of Nithard5.

  • 6 See the excellent article by Sophie Glansdorff and Sabine Lardon, « Les Serments de Strasbourg dans (...)
  • 7 Booker, « A New Prologue of Walafrid Strabo », op. cit., p. 93 ; idem, « An Early Humanist Edition (...)
  • 8 Glansdorff and Lardon, « Les Serments de Strasbourg », op. cit. ; Marco Conti, ed. and trans., Nith (...)

2A lay nobleman, warrior, chronicler, and grandson of Charlemagne, Nithard was commissioned by his young royal cousin Charles the Bald to write a history documenting the evils committed by Lothar during the Carolingian civil war. It is a fascinating, highly unusual Latin chronicle of current events written partially in serial fashion over the years 840 to 843, and, as most scholars of medieval Europe know, contains the vernacular Strasbourg Oaths, which include the first appearance of the French language6. During my investigation of Pithou’s work on Nithard’s text, I discovered that Pithou had allegedly made an autograph copy of it, and that this copy was preserved in the municipal library of Troyes but was largely unknown7. This was an exciting discovery, since Nithard’s text was otherwise believed to survive in only three medieval manuscripts, one from the late tenth century (Paris, BnF, Latin 9768, which until the late eighteenth century was the front half of a larger manuscript that included Vatican City, B.A.V., Reg. lat. 1964), a second from the twelfth century containing some brief extracts (Vatican City, B.A.V., Reg. lat. 235), and a third from the early fifteenth century (Paris, BnF, Latin 14663), and only the first includes the Strasbourg Oaths8.

  • 9 Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit.

3In what follows, I shall discuss this Nithard manuscript in Troyes and revise my initial conclusions about it, which I published in 20109. For I have since discovered new evidence that suggests the Troyes Nithard manuscript was in fact made not by Pithou, but by his contemporary Claude de Marteau, and for rather different reasons than I had first imagined.

Médiathèque de Troyes Champagne Métropole (MTCM), 3203

  • 10 Much of the manuscript description that follows is taken from Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition » (...)

4The manuscript Médiathèque de Troyes Champagne Métropole, 3203 has a plain, yellowed parchment binding measuring a modest 155 x 120 mm10. At the top of the binding’s spine is visible the word « Withardus » written in brown ink, followed by additional text (presumably the title of the work) that has faded and been rubbed to the point of illegibility. The manuscript itself is comprised of 88 small paper leaves that have been numbered as folios. A calligraphic title page, stating « Wittardi, nobilissimi viri, De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor », followed by the dedication « Ad Carolum Calvum Imperatorem » and a fleuron, opens the volume (fol. 1r).

Figure 1

Figure 1
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MTCM, 3203, fols. Iv-1r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

5The author and title are repeated on the next folio, where the text begins (fol. 2r).

Figure 2

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MTCM, 3203, fols. 1v-2r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

After Nithard’s text (fols. 2r-58v) there appears a brief address to the reader by the copyist (fol. 59r).

Figure 3

Figure 3
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MTCM, 3203, fols. 58v-59r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

6Then follow three technical apparatuses : First, a lengthy set of over 400 enumerated, detailed linguistic and historical endnotes (fols. 59r-72v).

Figure 4

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MTCM, 3203, fols. 59v-60r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

Second, an extensive alphabetical, enumerated index of the many people and places mentioned within the text (fols. 73r-87v).

Figure 5

Figure 5
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MTCM, 3203, fols. 72v-73r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

Third, a list of addenda to the endnotes (fol. 88r).

Figure 6

Figure 6
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MTCM, 3203, fol. 87v-88r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

7Written in an elegant humanistic cursive hand of the late sixteenth century, Nithard’s text appears in a single column of 19 to 21 lines per page. Littered throughout the entire manuscript – including the endnotes and index – is a large number of marginalia, which are written in a darker ink than the main text.

Figure 7

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MTCM, 3203, fols. 3v-4r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

8These marginalia are also in the same copyist’s hand and chiefly reflect his careful comparison and collation of the Troyes manuscript with the text of Nithard printed for the first time in 1588 by Pierre Pithou (the copyist provides the different reading of the latter in each instance, followed by the abbreviation « Pith. »).

Figure 8

Figure 8
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MTCM, 3203, fol. 27v (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 11 For his collation, the copyist used the 1588 Paris edition of the text and not the 1594 Frankfurt e (...)
  • 12 René Choppin, De domanio Franciae libri III, Paris, M. Sonnium, 1588. The first edition was publish (...)

9Hence, it appears that the copyist produced the Troyes manuscript prior to either the existence of, or his knowledge of, Pithou’s editio princeps of Nithard’s text from 1588, and subsequently added its variants in the margins upon acquiring that edition and collating it with his text11. The copyist also makes several marginal references concerning historical matters to the 1588 edition of De domanio Franciae by French jurist René Choppin (1537-1606)12.

Figure 9

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MTCM, 3203, fol. 56v (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 13 René Choppin, De sacra politia forensi, Paris, Nicolas Chesneau, 1577, p. 383, « Ast ne peregrina l (...)

It is worth noting that in an earlier book, De sacra politia (1577), Choppin himself references the rare, unpublished work of Nithard, comparing him with Jean de Joinville as a truthful, noble participant in the matters he describes13.

  • 14 De Rosanbo, « Pierre Pithou érudit », op. cit., p. 308 n. 4, « Il existe une copie autographe de P. (...)

10Since at least the early twentieth century, this sophisticated Troyes Nithard manuscript has been ascribed to the hand of Pierre Pithou. In a footnote to an article published in 1929, Louis de Rosanbo (a descendent of Pithou) first called attention to this little-known manuscript of Nithard’s text, claiming it to be an autograph by Pithou14. De Rosanbo’s claim likely derived from an inscription at the top of the book’s front pastedown that states « Manuscrit autographe de P. Pithou ».

Figure 10

Figure 10
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MTCM, 3203, front pastedown [Contreplat supérieur] and fol. Ir

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 15 Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 63, Suppléments Dijon, (...)
  • 16 Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 239-242.
  • 17 See the citations in Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 242-245.
  • 18 See Anna Maria Raugei, ed., Gian Vincenzo Pinelli et Claude Dupuy : Une correspondance entre deux h (...)

11When I first examined this manuscript in 2004, I accepted its ascription to Pithou by both Rosanbo and the modern Troyes library catalogue15, but found it odd that, although Pithou speaks in the first-person voice in his many notes, he always refers to himself in the third-person (« Pith. ») when giving the variants of his printed edition. I justified this peculiar persona-splitting by imagining that Troyes, MTCM, 3203 was some kind of preparatory study for a printed edition that Pithou must have eventually abandoned upon finding a better, less defective exemplar of Nithard’s text to use for his editio princeps16. In this scenario, the scrupulous Pithou subsequently noted the variants of his printed text in his rejected edition’s margins, labelling them « Pith. ». Yet, this explanation never felt quite right, as it was unclear why, on the one hand, Pithou would bother to update his aborted preparatory edition, and, on the other hand, he would not bother to publish his extremely erudite and laboriously crafted notes to Nithard’s text – a text that was by 1588 already considered a work of special significance by Pithou’s learned peers and correspondents, including Pierre Daniel, Jean-Papire Masson, Jean Bodin, Claude Fauchet, Antoine Matharel, and several others17. Claude Dupuy, for example, repeatedly communicated with his friend and fellow bibliophile Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, who resided in Padua, asking him to inform the great historian Carlo Sigonio in 1578 about the historical value of the chronicle by « Wittard » on the Carolingian civil war. Dupuy was certain that the text would be a useful resource for a future edition of Sigonio’s great work De regno Italiae (1574)18.

  • 19 Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 235. The note reads « Ce manuscrit est une copi (...)

12Adding to my doubts about Pithou’s alleged authorship of Troyes, MTCM, 3203 was the fact that there is no firm record of the manuscript’s provenance any earlier than its possession in the eighteenth century by the library of the Collège de Louis-le-Grand (until 1682 known as the Collège de Clermont) in Paris. Upon the suppression of the Jesuit order in France in 1762, the last Jesuit librarian of the Collège, Abbé Gabriel Brotier (1722-1789), took many items from its shelves and added them to his personal collection ; as a small note by Brotier pasted within Troyes, MTCM, 3203 suggests, it was among those volumes he annexed from the school’s library19.

Figure 11

Figure 11
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MTCM, 3203, f° [87terv°-87-4r°] (detail), recto of insertion between fols. 87v-88r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

The manuscript’s connection with the library of the Collège de Louis-le-Grand is confirmed by an abbreviated ex libris scrawled across the top of folio 1r in badly blotted ink, which states « Domus profess[ae] Paris[iensis] societ[atis] Jesu ».

Figure 12

Figure 12
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MTCM, 3203, fol. 1r (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 20 Though see n. 24 below.

Nothing more is known with certainty regarding the whereabouts of the manuscript before its presence in the Collège de Louis-le-Grand library in Brotier’s time20.

  • 21 References for the information in this paragraph are supplied in Booker, « An Early Humanist Editio (...)
  • 22 Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, documents historiques, estampes anci (...)
  • 23 Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, op. cit., p. 74-75, n° 542-545.

13After the Abbé Brotier’s death in 1789, his manuscript collection passed into the hands of his nephew, André-Charles Brotier (1751-1798). In 1797, Brotier was discovered to be a royalist conspirator and was sentenced to exile in French Guiana for his sympathies (he died there in September of the following year). At his trial, the destitute Brotier hired a defense lawyer named Lebon, to whom in lieu of cash he offered the various manuscripts and documents of his uncle’s collection as a pledge of future payment. The Nithard manuscript was a part of this surety. Not long after the death of his client, Lebon attempted to sell Brotier’s pledge (which he now legally owned) to some book dealers, who, being allegedly ignorant of its value, offered him next to nothing for it (they appraised the pile of dusty old books to be worth a pittance, meriting little more than the material value of their paper). A friend of Lebon suggested that he hire the erudite and well-connected Jean-Pierre Agnès Parison (1771-1855) to sort, classify, and make an inventory of the miscellaneous documents and manuscripts in order to identify those that were valuable. Contacted by Lebon, Parison agreed to the lawyer’s terms and applied himself fervently to his task, with the result that most of the newly organized collection was soon purchased (at amounts far higher than Lebon had hoped) in 1811 both by the Bibliothèque impériale and by several renowned bibliophiles for their private libraries. Parison himself acquired the remainder of the lot, a surplus of manuscripts, letters, prints, and sundry historical documents, including the Nithard manuscript21. Upon Parison’s death in 1855, his library was broken up and soon sold at auction ; listed as first among the many items for sale on March 27th, 1856, is lot 726, « Witardi, nobilissimi viri, de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor. Ad Carolum Calvum Imperatorem. Ms. de 158 p. régl. in-4, rel. vél. »22. Noteworthy is the fact that the auction catalogue makes no mention of the manuscript being associated with the famous Pithou, even though several letters of Pithou (all to Jacques Sirmond) were listed separately as individual lots for sale23. Thus, it is likely that the manuscript did not yet bear the inscription identifying it as Pithou’s autograph, for this detail would doubtless have been noted in the catalogue’s description as a valuable feature of the book.

Figure 13

Figure 13
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MTCM, 3203, front pastedown [Contreplat supérieur] (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

Rather, the inscription appears to have been made by the manuscript’s new owner, for the same hand noted in pencil on the rear pastedown « Vte [Vicomte] Parison ».

Figure 14

Figure 14
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MTCM, 3203, rear pastedown [Contreplat inférieur] (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 24 The hand appears to have made an additional annotation on fol. Ir, giving an unidentified reference (...)

14The hand also made the annotation « Note de l’abbé Brottier » on the back of the slip containing the remarks of Abbé Gabriel Brotier24.

Figure 15

Figure 15
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MTCM, 3203, f° [87-4v°-87-5r°] (detail), verso of insertion between fols. 87v-88r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 25 On Parison, along with another sample of his hand, see « Parison, le roi des bouquineurs » : http:/ (...)

15This hand differs considerably from Parison’s, as one can see in this document copied by the latter25.

Figure 16

Figure 16
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Nantes, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 649, « Testament de Monseigneur des Barres », fol. 7v (detail)

Credits : Ville de Nantes, Bibliothèque municipale

  • 26 On Morin, see André Seure-Hanot, Louis Morin (Troyes, 1866-1942), Sa vie, son œuvre, Troyes, Les Im (...)

It also conspicuously differs from the hand of the manuscript’s owner since at least 1929, the Troyes librarian and archivist Louis Morin (1866-1942)26. Morin inserted a small sheet of handwritten biographical and bibliographical notes concerning Nithard and his text directly within MTCM, 3203.

Figure 17

Figure 17
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MTCM, 3203, loose sheet insertion in the front of the manuscript

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 27 If Morin wrote the sheet of notes on Nithard shortly after he came into possession of the manuscrip (...)

Unfortunately, it is still unknown precisely when and from whom Morin acquired the Nithard manuscript27.

  • 28 On such preparatory texts, see Anthony Grafton, Inky Fingers : The Making of Books in Early Modern (...)
  • 29 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. M.906 (saec. IX), with the first 32 folios being a transcript (...)

16Most troubling of all with respect to its alleged connection to Pithou, Troyes, MTCM, 3203 is a beautifully written manuscript produced with great care, looking very much like a special presentation copy and nothing at all like a pragmatic, preparatory text for use by a printing house28. This assessment can actually be verified by comparing Troyes, MTCM, 3203 with a different copy of a medieval manuscript made by Pithou in preparation for another printed edition – namely, his transcription of the text of the Fabulae by Phaedrus29.

Figure 18

Figure 18
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New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. M.906, fol. 1r

Credits : Image courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.

Figure 19

Figure 19
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Pierre Pithou, ed., Phaedri Aug. Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri V, Troyes, Jean Oudot, 1596, fol. 7.

Credits : gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France

Apart from the obvious difference in its handwriting from Troyes, MTCM, 3203, Pithou’s spare, utilitarian copy of Phaedrus’s text, with its marginal typesetting instructions meant for the printer’s eyes, bears none of the Troyes manuscript’s many refined features, such as quotation marks in the margins of folios to denote the presence of direct speech, all capitals in the first line of each book to mark its beginning (fols. 2r, 15v, 33r, 46v), running titles at the top of each folio to designate the number of the current book (liber primus, liber secundus, etc.), or inverted-pyramid indentation to conclude the first three books (fols. 15r, 32v, 46r).

Figure 20

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MTCM, 3203, fols. 32v-33r

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 30 Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger : A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols., Oxford (...)
  • 31 See Leiden, Leiden University Library, MS. Scal. 61, fols. 4-44. The manuscript is digitized : http (...)

17As Anthony Grafton has noted, the great humanist Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), a contemporary of Pithou, once remarked that he preferred his own handwritten transcript of Petronius’s Satyricon to its appearance in print30 ; happily, Scaliger’s transcript is extant, and it is indeed beautifully copied31.

Figure 21

Figure 21
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Leiden University Library, MS. Scal. 61, fols. 7v-8r
https://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/​view/​item/​360510

Credits : Leiden University Library

But even this manuscript – in the estimation of its learned creator having such surpassing clarity – is still nowhere as refined as Troyes, MTCM, 3203, which, far beyond a simple copy, is a fully realized critical edition complete with linguistic and historical notes, indices, and other apparatuses, all done in an exquisite hand and with scrupulous attention to the mise-en-page.

  • 32 Cf. the index in Troyes, MTCM, 3203 on fols. 73r-87v with the unpaginated index in Pithou, Annalium (...)
  • 33 Unfortunately, the arguments of Marco Conti, « Variants and Their Traps : Pierre Pithou’s Philologi (...)

18As a final strike against its connection with Pithou, the many detailed index entries in the Troyes manuscript rarely coincide with the few found in Pithou’s editio princeps of Nithard’s text, and even when they do, their diction is different32. In sum, Troyes, MTCM, 3203 should not be associated with Pithou33.

From Pithou to Claude de Marteau : a reattribution

  • 34 A portion of the following remarks on Marteau and L’Estoile was published in Courtney M. Booker, «  (...)
  • 35 For a copy of the letter made by a secretary of L’Estoile, see Paris, BnF, ms. Français 10303, p. 4 (...)

19An alternate, more fitting context for the origin of Troyes, MTCM, 3203 has recently come to light34. On 1 January 1588, in the midst of seemingly endless civil war, the accomplished poet, avocat in Parliament, and collector of manuscripts Claude de Marteau (d. 1595) wrote a despondent letter in Latin to his brother-in-law and frequent correspondent, the Parisian courtier, scholar, and memorialist Pierre de L’Estoile (1546-1611)35 [for the text of the letter, see the Appendix below].

Figure 22

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Paris, BnF, ms. Français 10303, p.  415-416.

Credits : gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France

  • 36 On the custom of a New Year’s gift (an « étrenne »), see Natalie Zemon Davis, « Beyond the Market : (...)
  • 37 On L’Estoile’s indignation for Machiavelli, which Marteau here seems to share, see Myriam Yardeni, (...)
  • 38 Marteau reports with approval the unnamed author’s use of the classical expression « blind cupidity (...)

20Accompanying the letter as a traditional New Year’s gift was a small book that Marteau had copied from a very old manuscript, whose text had struck him as precociously revelatory of the realm’s current troubles36. In his letter, Marteau explained specifically why he thought the old text to be valuable, and thus why he was sending a copy of it to L’Estoile. The author of the text in the little book provides us with a special opportunity, observes Marteau, since he offers us « another type » (« alterum typum ») of our conflicts to compare with those of our own time – namely, the bloody struggle of Lothar with his father and brothers beginning in 817. As then, so now, people set private concerns ahead of the public good. No one values oaths that are sworn and confirmed publicly between brothers and friends – « nay, rather », laments Marteau, such oaths « are treacherously broken by a Machiavellian rule » (« quin potius Machiavellitico praecepto perfide violantur »)37. He concludes the letter by recognizing that some might mistrust this « brief report written at the command of Charles the Bald » (« hoc commentariolum Caroli Calvi iussu videlicet exaratum ») due to its author’s obvious partiality, but that they would be wrong to do so, since the author had been present at and a participant in many of the events he describes and recorded them with diligent accuracy. Although Marteau never identifies the work or its author, it is clear that it was the Historiae of Nithard on the Carolingian civil war of the early 840s38.

  • 39 See Booker, « An Alleged Oratio of Boniface », op. cit.

21Like others of his day, Marteau readily projected his era’s political philosophy back onto the Carolingian past in order to make it serve his need for a historical comparandum that could offer hope for the wretched present39. Signing off his letter, he implored that, just as peace among the royal Carolingian brothers had finally been established by the consent of the people after three years of conflicts and catastrophes, he and L’Estoile should pray that God will also spare their present people, as they now entered their fourth year of calamities, and bring them peace and everlasting concord. Marteau then added a few final details about the « little book » (« libellum ») he was sending :

With your indulgence I offer this little book for inclusion in your library of incalculable size and most replete with books of every kind by the most select writers. (The little work, [copied] from, as far as I know, a unique ancient manuscript codex of Saint-André, which I formerly had at hand, and that was filled with errors, is now made a little more correct by my small labor of whatever quality.) If you accept this book with a grateful heart, then I will have received a great benefit from my respect for you.

  • 40 Paris, BnF, ms. Français 10303, p. 416.

[Hunc autem libellum, (qui ex unico, quod sciam, manuscripto veteri codice Sanct andreano, eoque mendosissimo, quem prae manibus quondam habui, nunc opella qualicunque mea paulo em[enda]tior prodit) Bibliothecae tuae numerosissimae, et omne genus scriptorum selectissimorum libris refertissimae, cum tua venia condendum dono : quem si grato exceperis animo, meae in te observantiae magnum emolumentum nactus esse videbor.]40

  • 41 Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no sample of Marteau’s handwriting exists with which one might make (...)

Troyes, MTCM, 3203, both in its form and function, matches very closely the description of the « little book » of Nithard’s text that Marteau created as an exceptional, urbane gift he believed would be suitable for inclusion in the great library of his distinguished friend and relative L’Estoile41. Indeed, a comparison of the remarks above by Marteau regarding the source of his Nithard text with the remarks in the copyist of Troyes, MTCM, 3203’s preface to his many endnotes strongly suggests that Marteau’s presentation copy to L’Estoile and the Troyes manuscript are one and the same book.

Figure 23

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MTCM, 3203, fol. 59r (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

To the Reader : Since in this little book (the exemplar of which exists in only one manuscript, which I know) there are many incomplete and corrupted things that ought to be emended, I did this, not without success, partly from a painstaking reading of the book itself, partly from conjectures made from an understanding of the history. To these I have also added the notes of Motta, a most learned man. On all this let your judgment fall.

  • 42 Following his final endnote on fol. 72v, the copyist makes another, related request of the reader : (...)

[Lectori : Cum in hoc libello (cuius exemplar manuscriptum, quod sciam, unicum extat) multa sint imperfecta et corrupta, partim ex ipsius libri accurata lectione, partim coniecturis a sensu historiae desumptis, emendanda, non abs re, duximus. Quibus quoque Mottae, viri doctissimi, notulas adscripsimus. De quibus omnibus tuum esto iudicium.]42

  • 43 On Jean de Saint-André and his library, see Karel A. De Meyier, Paul en Alexandre Petau en de Gesch (...)
  • 44 Manuscript Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 63r, n. 28, « fol. 20.l.3 contemptus, manuscr. fortè, ex antiqu (...)
  • 45 For instance, in addition to his hundreds of philological notes on the text’s Latinity, the copyist (...)
  • 46 I thank Jérôme Delatour for his assistance with this identification. On La Mothe, see Dictionnaire (...)
  • 47 See Charles de La Mothe, « De la poesie francoise, et des œuvres d’Estienne Iodelle, Sieur du Lymod (...)
  • 48 I have not been able to find any evidence of friendship between Claude de Marteau and La Mothe.
  • 49 For example, on fol. 17v the editor writes « aliter » and gives a note (n. 18, fol. 62v) that state (...)

In both statements, each writer notes that he knows of the text’s existence only through a single manuscript (which Marteau states was « ancient » [« veteri »] and belonged to Jean de Saint-André, councilor at Parliament and canon of Notre-Dame de Paris43 ; the copyist details in an endnote that his exemplar possessed archaic orthography44). Each notes that the unique manuscript he used was quite defective, and that in his own « little book » he has labored to emend the text (in Marteau’s letter, this is expressed generally and with humility ; in Troyes, MTCM, 3203, the method of emendation is described as the copyist’s having employed linguistic and historical reasoning45). However, in the Troyes manuscript, the copyist adds one final striking bit of information not mentioned in Marteau’s letter – that while producing his little work on Nithard he had access to the many variant readings and helpful observations « Mottae viri doctissimi » [« of the most learned man Motta »], i.e., Charles de La Mothe (d. 1584)46. While the fate of La Mothe’s otherwise unattested Nithard study remains a mystery (though he elsewhere reveals an early interest in Nithard’s work, in 1574 naming him as a historian but condemning his falsehoods and partiality47), his many comments are preserved within the copyist’s own set of copious notes on the text in Troyes, MTCM, 320348 (it now seems more appropriate to call the person who produced the manuscript an editor rather than just its copyist). The editor invokes La Mothe whenever he comes to a section of Nithard’s text that is in some sense problematic ; he presents his own emendation in the body of the text and meticulously renders the alternative readings of both his manuscript exemplar and La Mothe in the endnotes (and later also supplied the variants of Pithou’s 1588 edition, as we have seen)49.

Figure 24

Figure 24
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MTCM, 3203, fol. 60r (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

  • 50 See fol. 63v, n. 54 : « f. 24. l. 5. Lupa, suspicatur legendum Petrus Daniel, ut sit feminus, Loin, (...)

He also refers once to a textual emendation suggested by another contemporary, Pierre Daniel (1531-1604)50.

  • 51 See fol. 59r, n. 1 ; fol. 62v, n. 14 ; Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 239 n. 3 (...)
  • 52 See fol. 66r, n. 2 : « l. 11. fortè delendum, in : ut antè Motta. ubi notavi, f. 24.b.14. vide ibi. (...)
  • 53 See fol. 65v, n. 119 : « Hinc videre est, ut suprà dixi, authorem huius historiae, strenum fuisse v (...)
  • 54 See fol. 69r, n. 80 : « l. 9. stella. Hinc authorem astrologiae studiosum et peritum fuisse liquet, (...)
  • 55 See fol. 1r : « Wittardi, nobilissimi viri, de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor. (...)
  • 56 See above, n. 47. Cf. also the remarks about Nithard’s commendable « sincerity » by René Choppin, n (...)

22While the editor of Troyes, MTCM, 3203 was uncertain whether the author’s name was Wittardus, Vithardus, or Nitardus51, this information appears to have been less important than what could be gleaned about him from the form and content of his text. The editor notes several times that the early medieval author possessed a distinctive « manner of speech » (« modus loquendi »)52, that he had been present at several of the events he described53, and that he displayed a special interest in the stars and heavenly bodies54. But above all, one has the sense that the editor believed the work to be worthy of such critical scrutiny and care because it came from the pen of a « nobilissimus vir »55, a man of royal stock, whose words were especially dignified, insightful, and deserving of elegant presentation and laborious restoration to their original, correct state. Recall that while La Mothe had accused Nithard of being a liar in the service of the king, Claude de Marteau in his letter felt the need to defend Nithard against any such charges of inaccuracy or partiality56.

  • 57 Francesco Lo Monaco, « Nithard e i suoi pubblici : Alcuni preliminari per un’ edizione e una traduz (...)

23If we risk taking a step further and identify Claude de Marteau as the creator of Troyes, MTCM, 3203, then much more can be said about the manuscript and its origin. First, in explicitly adopting the text as something with which to compare his time’s present woes, Marteau formed part of an unknown « remote public » imagined and anticipated by Nithard as he wrote the work – a future readership who might find themselves in conditions analogous to those described in the text and take heed of its observations and recommendations57. Such a sophisticated reading of the text had not occurred, as far as we know, since the time of Nithard himself. But there is more.

  • 58 The metaphor of a tiller was used frequently by Desiderius Erasmus, e.g., in Ex Plutarcho versa, ed (...)
  • 59 Note that Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 58v has a marginal annotation identifying the quotation as « Sap (...)
  • 60 On the fame acquired by L’Estoile’s library in Paris and the curiosity it aroused among ambassadors (...)
  • 61 On the social function of the New Year’s gift, see Buettner, « Past Presents », op. cit.

24The very choice of Nithard’s text by Marteau for his learned friend and brother-in-law Pierre L’Estoile, and its idiosyncratic presentation – well into the era of print – in the form of a manuscript, one distinguished by both its formal elegance and its impressive technical erudition, were decisions made to strengthen the two men’s bond of friendship and articulate the mutual respect for each other’s taste and learning. Again and again, Marteau stresses in his letter that L’Estoile is a « vir eruditissime » (« most enlightened man »), one who like himself will no doubt greatly value the text he has sent. For he knows that L’Estoile, unlike most people who make unfounded pronouncements about the past, will scrutinize the little book’s ancient text more deeply, will consider it more attentively, and see that it can serve as a « tiller » (« veluti ansam quandam ») by which to navigate successfully through the perils of their own age58. Indeed, here was a « most noble » author with whom the two men could identify, one who had experienced at first hand many of the dangers he wrote about, recorded them with greater diligence, detail, and accuracy than his peers, and many centuries earlier had astutely come to the same conclusions as Marteau and L’Estoile of their own time’s calamities : namely, that private concerns are placed before public ones, that oaths are both sworn and broken by guile, explains both Nithard and Marteau, and that divine judgment then, as now, sets nature itself at war with the realm’s wretched people (here pointing to Nithard’s concluding quotation of the Old Testament Book of Wisdom 5 : 2159). Such a prescient work, Marteau believed, was fit for inclusion in L’Estoile’s library, which despite its great size consisted of only the choicest books and authors, a happy incongruity reflecting its collector’s superb erudition, perspicacity, and taste60. That Marteau thought Nithard’s little work should find a place on L’Estoile’s library’s grand shelves thus flattered not only the work’s author and the library’s collector, but also himself for suggesting such a refined book61.

  • 62 See Giles Constable, « A Living Past : The Historical Environment of the Middle Ages », Harvard Lib (...)
  • 63 On this point, see in general Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship, op. cit.

25While Marteau was unusual as a close reader and exegete of Nithard’s text, he was exemplary of his own era’s humanistic perspective with respect to why he read it. Much like a medieval reader would use the books of sacred scripture to make sense of their own time, collapsing past and present into a set of analogous moral and spiritual conditions from which to draw timeless lessons62, Marteau used Nithard’s work to discern and chart a salutary way through analogous moral and terrestrial conditions (indeed, this was how Nithard himself had hoped his work would be used). However, to sharpen the results of employing Nithard in this fashion meant first having a reliable text free of errors. To this end, Marteau sought to emend the text using a method that again reflects not just his own learning but his era’s emerging belief in a philological, historicist understanding of the world63. It was a method he felt was necessary to defend in his final endnote to the text, added as a postscript.

Figure 25

Figure 25
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MTCM, 3203, fol. 72v (detail)

Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole

But if these notes are rejected by some as futile and vain, I confess that I have done it intentionally, so that if anything is wanting from the exemplar, it may be more fittingly conjectured by various witnesses of this kind, to each as it may please.

  • 64 See fol. 72v, bottom margin.

[Quod si quibusdam hae notulae improbentur, quasi futiles et vanae, id de industria fecisse me fateor, ut ex huiusmodi variis testimonibus, si quid aptius coniici, deficientur exemplari, liceat, cuique sit liberum.]64

  • 65 It is difficult to understand when Marteau added the marginalia to MTCM, 3203, since, on the one ha (...)
  • 66 See fol. 64r, n. 56. Also, fol. 68v, n. 77, « Sed hae linguae barbarae maximè sunt, praesertim Teud (...)

26Poring over Nithard’s text, and then doing so once again after Pithou’s edition appeared, Marteau called attention to its errors, and offered or rejected emendations to it in his many notes based on a deep knowledge of Latin grammar and syntax and the forms of the language one might expect as it had changed over time65. Marteau also noted such changes as they applied to the vernacular, offering the French equivalents of his day for Latin place names mentioned in the text. (e.g., fol. 64r, n. 56, « Sic et Uttam, nunc Gallicè Otthe, appellari dicit, sylvam inter Trecas et Senones, in qua multae urbes numerantur. »66)

  • 67 Nithard, Historiae 3.5, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. 112.
  • 68 See fol. 68v, n. 73, « fol. 42. l. 2. Romana. Motta ait, Gallicè reddi deberet. En son Romant » [la (...)
  • 69 On this passage, Nithard, Historiae 4.2, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. 130, « sunt etenim inte (...)
  • 70 See Marc Van Uytfanghe, « La diachronie latino-romane : Le conflit des chronologies et la diglossie (...)

27Similarly, when he came to the vernacular Strasbourg Oaths, Marteau puzzled over what language Nithard meant by « lingua Romana » in the passage « et sacramenta quae subter notata sunt, Lodhuvicus romana, Karolus vero teudisca lingua, juraverunt. »67 Here, he decided to follow the suggestion of La Mothe that, for Nithard, « lingua Romana » was not Latin, but rather synonymous with « lingua Gallica »68. Indeed, for Marteau this distinction was clearly proven when later in the text Nithard provided various Saxon vernacular terms for social status and their equivalents in what he here called « lingua Latina »69. In other words, when Nithard meant to designate Latin in contradistinction to a vernacular language, he said so in plain, unambiguous terms. This may have settled the issue for Marteau, but the question of « lingua Romana »’s meaning would have a very long afterlife, which continues to our own time70.

  • 71 On this point, see above all R. Howard Bloch, « The First Document and the Birth of Medieval Studie (...)
  • 72 Note the rhetorical function of the repeated description of Nithard as a « prince du sang » by Jean (...)
  • 73 The exceptions being Hans Prümm, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Nithardi Historiarum Libri Quattuor, (...)
  • 74 Cf. Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, « ‘Studied for Action’ : How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy », (...)
  • 75 Pierre de L’Estoile, Journal du règne de Henri IV, ed. Gilbert Schrenck, t. 3, 1595-1598, ed. Marie (...)

28Despite his interest in the expression « lingua Romana », Marteau was generally dismissive of the Oaths themselves, remarking in a note that « these languages are very barbarous, especially Teudisca, which is not in use today. » (fol. 68v, n. 77, « Sed hae linguae barbarae maximè sunt, praesertim Teudisca, quae hodie in usu non est. ») In this respect, Marteau was similar in his outlook to the few medieval readers of Nithard’s text, who were indifferent to the vernacular Oaths (in BnF, Latin 9768, fol. 13rv, the Oaths drew no medieval annotations or markings ; in BnF, Latin 14663, fol. 286rv, the copyist left them entirely out of the text, but preserved space for them on the page). As is well known, this outlook would soon change. Because it contains the earliest extant appearance of the French language, Nithard’s text appreciated in value after Marteau’s time, becoming a foundational « linguistic monument » of a French nation whose identity was increasingly understood to be intimately connected to its vernacular71. Over the next four centuries, the work’s value continued to rise among scholars for still other reasons, revealing the changing relationships of noble blood and lay status to the relative value of historical truth claims72. Yet, few have considered the Latinity of Nithard’s text with the care of La Mothe and Marteau73, and none but Marteau and perhaps L’Estoile has read it for guidance in political crisis and statecraft74. It is a pity that we know so little of the man whom L’Estoile once described as « un des beaux esprits du siècle et des plus doctes » [« one of the most excellent minds of this century and among its most learned »]75. I think that Troyes, MTCM, 3203 provides ample evidence of Marteau’s learning.

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Annexe

Appendix 1

Doctissimo viro domino D. P. Stellae

Etsi ore plurimorum illud iactitetur, vir eruditissime, prisca tempora, si cum nostris conferantur, beata, omnique miseria vacua fuisse, ac Rempublicam, cultumque divinum tanto tunc in pretio habita, ut à plerisque omnibus, summa cum religione, devotioneque ea tractarentur : illud tamen ex hoc libello (ante annos 744 scripto) minime verum palam fit : immo eundem, alterum quasi typum nostrarum altercationum affirmare ausim, nostrique seculi bellis (quod absit) veluti ansam quandam praebuisse. In eo enim si quis Lotharii erga patrem fratresque animum penitius paulo scrutetur, primorumque (ut Authoris verbis utar) caecam cupiditatem attentius consideret, nil nisi quod a 27 annis ipse vidimus, sensimus, se legere testabitur. Gallias quippe nostras miserando hoc tempore calamitates infandas tulisse, sed et ecclesiam dei, cauta primatum nostrae aetatis virorum industria, singularique ambitione, rapinas, incendia, homicidia, adulteria, et alia huiusmodi infinita scelera perpessam esse nemo non agnoscit. Privatorum namque utilitati, ut et illis diebus, respublica postponitur : iuramenta inter fratres et propinquos, multis viribus, palamque sacramento firmata, nihili aestimantur : quin potius Machiavellitico praecepto perfide violantur : ob idque (si mihi /fol./ coniicere fas est) tremendo numinis iudicio, elementa quasi ad bellum nobis indicendum undiquaque provocantur : quandoquidem pro abundantia et laetitia (ut ipse ait) penuria et moestitia vigent : pro pace, dissensiones et dissidia a cunctis ubique terrarum proponuntur. Verum, ne hoc Commentariolum, Caroli Calvi iussu videlicet exaratum, quispiam suspectum, et fide indignum putet, quasi ipsius partibus magis favere videatur, ex aliis eiusdem argumenti historiis facile videre est : a quibus si vel in tantillo dissentit pro annorum et locorum ratione id forte accidit : quippe cum libelli huius scriptor ea quae alios latuere, aut de industria ipsi tacuere, particulatim, et cum accuratiori diligentia, ut qui illis interfuerit, eorumque pars magna fuerit, literis mandet. At istud summopere a deo opt[imo] max[imo] supplex optarim, ut, quemadmodum tertio anno evoluto, post tot tantasque clades praeliaque confecta, pax inter Reges fratres populi totius consensu, firmata est : etiam horre anno, qui quartus (in deus omen avertat) recentiorum Gallicarum aerumnarum imminet, bellorum finis indicatur : concordiaque inter nostrates, illorum exemplo, deique supremi beneficio, talis renascatur, ut in aeternum unanimes omnes efficiantur. Hunc autem libellum, (qui ex unico, quod sciam, manuscripto veteri codice Sanct andreano, eoque mendosissimo, quem prae manibus quondam habui, nunc opella qualicunque mea paulo em[enda]tior prodit) Bibliothecae tuae numerosissimae, et omne genus scriptorum selectissimorum libris refertissimae, cum tua venia condendum dono : quem si grato exceperis animo, meae in te observantiae magnum emolumentum nactus esse videbor.

Vale Cal. Januarii an. 1588.

Tuus, tibique devinctissimus

M. C.

Appendix 2

To the most learned man, lord D. P. L’Éstoile

Although it is boasted by most people, [my] most enlightened man, that the old times were great and free of misery when compared to ours, and that the republic and divine cult were then held in such great esteem that they were treated by almost everyone with the highest piety and devotion - yet from this little book (written 744 years ago) it is made clear that this is hardly true. On the contrary, I venture to assert that [the content of] this [book could be understood] as if it were another type of our struggles, and might serve as a certain tiller with respect to the wars (God forbid) of our own age. For within it, if one scrutinizes a little more deeply the heart of Lothar towards his father and brother, and considers more attentively the blind cupidity (to use the author’s words) of the leading men, we see and sense nothing but that [very kind of avarice] for 27 years, as the reading of the text itself testifies. Indeed, our [own] Gallia has suffered unspeakable calamities in this wretched time, but no one does not perceive that the church of God – by the careful industry of the foremost men of our age, and by a singular desire – has also endured rape, arson, murder, adultery, and innumerable other kinds of sins. For the republic is [now] placed second to things [considered] useful to private concerns, just as in those [old] days. Nobody values oaths sworn between brothers and friends and confirmed publicly with many men ; nay, rather they are violated treacherously by a Machiavellian rule. And for that reason (if it is right for me to prophecy), by a frightful divine judgment the elements on every side are stirred as though for declaring war on us, since (just as [the author of the text] says) want and sadness prevail over abundance and joy; in the place of peace are set forth conflicts and strife everywhere by all. Yet, lest someone deem this little commentary, written at the command of Charles the Bald, suspect and unworthy of faith, as though it may seem to be more favorable to the author’s party, it may be easily seen from other histories having the same argument that, if [his work] disagrees with them in minor ways, it only does so perhaps with respect to years and places. Indeed, the writer of this little book commits to writing in detail and with the diligence of greater accuracy things that others conceal, or that they pass over in silence due to industry, since he took part in the [events] and was among the majority party. But I would most of all desire this from God, most good, most great – that, just as in the third year, after such and so many catastrophes and battles, peace was established between [the Carolingian] kings and brothers by the agreement of all the people, likewise in this frightful year [of ours], in which looms (may God turn away the omen) the fourth [year] of new sufferings of the Gauls, let the wars’ end be revealed. And may such concord be renewed between our fellow-countrymen by the example of those [past] matters and the assistance of almighty God, that all may be brought into accord for eternity. With your indulgence I offer this little book for inclusion in your library of incalculable size and most replete with books of every kind by the most select writers. (The little work, [copied] from, as far as I know, a lone ancient manuscript codex of Saint-André that was filled with errors, which I formerly had at hand, is now made a little more correct by my small labor of whatever quality.) If you accept this book with a grateful heart, then I will have received a great benefit from my respect for you.

Farewell! 1 January 1588

Yours, and most devoted to you,

M. C.

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Notes

1 Courtney M. Booker, « Writing a Wrong : The Divestiture of Louis the Pious (833) and the Decline of the Carolingians », Ph.D. diss, University of California, Los Angeles, 2002. On Pithou, the best study remains Pierre-Jean Grosley, Vie de Pierre Pithou avec quelques memoires sur son pere et ses freres, Paris, G. Cavelier, 1756. Modern biographies begin with Louis de Rosanbo, « Pierre Pithou biographie », Revue du seizième siècle, n° 15, 1928, p. 279-305 ; idem, « Pierre Pithou érudit », Revue du seizième siècle, n° 16, 1929, p. 301-330 ; Donald R. Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship : Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance, New York, Columbia University Press, 1970, p. 241-270 ; Rosamond McKitterick, « The Study of Frankish History in France and Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries », Francia, n° 8, 1980, p. 556-572, in particular p. 559-561, https://doi.org/10.11588/fr.1980.0.49946 ; Klaus Malettke, « Pierre Pithou als Historiker », in August Buck, ed., Humanismus und Historiographie, Weinheim, VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1991, p. 89-104 ; Marie-Madeleine Fragonard and Pierre-Eugène Leroy, eds., Les Pithou : Les lettres et la paix du royaume, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2003.

2 Pierre Pithou, ed., Annalium et historiae Francorum ab anno Christi DCCVIII. ad ann. DCCCCXC. scriptores coaetanei XII., Paris, Claude Chappelet, 1588, pt. 2, p. 136-148, under the title « Acta impiae et nefandae exauctorationis Ludovicii Pii imperatoris ». I subsequently learned of several little-known manuscript copies of the text; see Courtney M. Booker, « A New Prologue of Walafrid Strabo », Viator, n° 36, 2005, p. 83-105. https://doi.org/10.1484/j.viator.2.300005 

3 Paris, BnF, Réserve des Livres rares, [Res. L45.1]. The volume has been digitized: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k118653b. On the practice of printers of the time giving to authors complimentary copies of their work, see Roger Chartier, « Figures of the Author », in idem, The Order of Books : Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, trans. by Lydia G. Cochrane, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1994, p. 47.

4 See Booker, « A New Prologue of Walafrid Strabo », op. cit. ; idem, « The Public Penance of Louis the Pious : A New Edition of the Episcoporum de poenitentia, quam Hludowicus imperator professus est, relatio Compendiensis (833) », Viator, 39, n° 2, 2008, p. 1-19, https://doi.org/10.1484/j.viator.1.100203 ; idem, Past Convictions : The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians [The Middle Ages Series], Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812201383 

5 For Pithou’s editio princeps of the text, see Pithou, ed., Annalium et historiae Francorum, op. cit., pt. 2, p. 297-375, supplying the title « Nithardi Angilberti fili Karoli Magni Imp. ex Bertha filia nepotis de dissensionibus filiorum Lodhuuici Pii ad annum usque DCCCXLIII. Libri quatuor. » The modern standard edition is Nithard, Historiarum libri IIII, ed. Philippe Lauer, rev. Sophie Glansdorff, Nithard : Histoire des fils de Louis le Pieux, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2012. For an overview of the work and the scholarship on it, see Courtney M. Booker, « The Two Sorrows of Nithard », in Courtney M. Booker and Anne A. Latowsky, eds., In This Modern Age : Medieval Studies in Honor of Paul Edward Dutton, Budapest, Trivent, 2023, p. 97-142. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.18377023.7 

6 See the excellent article by Sophie Glansdorff and Sabine Lardon, « Les Serments de Strasbourg dans la chronique de Nithard d’après le manuscrit BnF Latin 9768 : Histoire et enjeux de cette première citation », Corpus Eve [Online], 3, 2018, mis en ligne le 29 décembre 2022 https://doi.org/10.4000/eve.2029.

7 Booker, « A New Prologue of Walafrid Strabo », op. cit., p. 93 ; idem, « An Early Humanist Edition of Nithard, De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii », Revue d’histoire des textes, new series, n° 5, 2010, p. 231-258, https://doi.org/10.1484/J.RHT.5.101255.

8 Glansdorff and Lardon, « Les Serments de Strasbourg », op. cit. ; Marco Conti, ed. and trans., Nithard, Histories [Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations, 28], Leuven, Peeters, 2022, p. 13-23. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2zx9q5g 

9 Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit.

10 Much of the manuscript description that follows is taken from Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit. The manuscript has now been digitized : https://portail.mediatheque-jacques-chirac.fr/iguana/www.main.cls?surl=search&p=*#recordId=2.2764.

11 For his collation, the copyist used the 1588 Paris edition of the text and not the 1594 Frankfurt edition, for only the former has the misprint (on p. 317) « exomibus » (for « ex omnibus »), which the copyist notes among his marginalia on fol. 17r, « omibus, Pith. »

12 René Choppin, De domanio Franciae libri III, Paris, M. Sonnium, 1588. The first edition was published in 1574. See Sophie Nicholls, « Ideas on Royal Power in the French Wars of Religion : The Influence of René Choppin’s De domanio Franciae (1574) », French History, n° 34.2, 2020, p. 141-160. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa022  For the annotations, see Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 3v, citing Choppin, op. cit., bk. 3, tit. 4, sec. 3, p. 372-373 ; fol. 36v, citing Choppin, op  cit., bk. 2, tit. 9, sec. 4, p. 259 ; fol. 56v, citing Choppin, op. cit., bk. 2, tit. 1, sec. 5, p. 177.

13 René Choppin, De sacra politia forensi, Paris, Nicolas Chesneau, 1577, p. 383, « Ast ne peregrina longius exquiramus, nobis praesto sunt domestica Francicorum Auctorum exempla, Iani Ioynuillae, qui militarium consiliorum Ludovici 9. particeps simul ac scriptor inclaruit. Quo etiam aetate superior Vitardus nepos Karoli Calvi Fraternum bellum liberorum Ludovici Pii eo descripsit syncerius, quod Regia editus stirpe circa ea tempora floreret summo in Republ. loco, et ab agnatis Galliae Regulis de tota belli ratione fuisset edoctus. Hunc Vitardi seu Guystardi Historicum Codicem, qui necdum typis commissus est, aliquando evolvimus. Quorsum haec omnia? Ut intelligatur, sicuti castrensis, ita togatae forensisque militiae scriptorem debere tractare, quae ipsemet, manu rebus admota, longaque fori exercitatione perceperit ». [« And so that we do not seek foreign examples at greater length, we have at hand domestic examples from French authors, such as Jean de Joinville, who became famous both as a participant in and writer about the military councils of Louis IX. Even earlier than him, Vitardus, a cousin of Charles the Bald, described the fraternal war of Louis the Pious’s children all the more sincerely because, being born of royal stock, he flourished in the highest position in the republic during those times, and had been informed about the whole conduct of the war by his kinsmen, the rulers of Gaul. We have at one time examined this historical manuscript of Vitardus or Guystardus, which has not yet been committed to print. What is the point of all this? So that it may be understood that, just as with military service, so too should a writer of civil and legal service deal with those things which he himself has grasped through hands-on experience and long practice in the court ».]

14 De Rosanbo, « Pierre Pithou érudit », op. cit., p. 308 n. 4, « Il existe une copie autographe de P. Pithou d’un ms. Intitulé : Wittardi, nobilissimi viri, de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor, – Ad Carolum calvum imperatorem. Le ms. est la propriété de M. Morin, à Troyes, qui a l’intention de le léguer à la bibliothèque de la ville, dont il est l’éminent conservateur. – Un seul autre ms. du Xe siècle existe actuellement ».

15 Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, vol. 63, Suppléments Dijon, Pau, Troyes, Paris, Éditions du CNRS, 1984, p. 134.

16 Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 239-242.

17 See the citations in Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 242-245.

18 See Anna Maria Raugei, ed., Gian Vincenzo Pinelli et Claude Dupuy : Une correspondance entre deux humanistes, 2 vols., Florence, L. S. Olschki, 2001, vol. 1, p. xliv, 236, 243, 252, 277, 291. On Sigonio, see William McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio : The Changing World of the Late Renaissance, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989 https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400860357 . Despite Dupuy’s repeated recommendations – and even his sending a copy of Nithard’s text to Pinelli for Sigonio’s consideration (the fate of which is unknown; see Raugei, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 277) – there is no sign that Sigonio used the text in the later edition of his work in 1580, nor is there any trace of it in the posthumous edition of 1591. See Alfred Hessel, « De regno Italiae libri viginti » von Carlo Sigonio : Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung, Berlin, Ebering, 1900.

19 Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 235. The note reads « Ce manuscrit est une copie de celui de Rome, le seul qui existe. Quoique moderne, il n’en est pas moins précieux à cause des notes et corrections sur le texte de Nithard en général, et principalement sur les fameux Serments de Charles le Chauve et de Louis le Germanique, en langues francique et romane. » While it is unclear who wrote the attribution below the note, its claim linking the note’s hand to Brotier appears to be correct ; cf. Brotier’s hand in Paris, BnF, NAF 6248, fol. 1r : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52514297n.

20 Though see n. 24 below.

21 References for the information in this paragraph are supplied in Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 236-237.

22 Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, documents historiques, estampes anciennes, etc. du cabinet de feu M. Parison […], Paris, Laverdet, 1856, p. 93, n° 726.

23 Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes manuscrits, op. cit., p. 74-75, n° 542-545.

24 The hand appears to have made an additional annotation on fol. Ir, giving an unidentified reference, « Ph 7855 » (the two letters are unclear ; the first could rather be D or O, the second n). While it remains unknown who bought the Nithard manuscript at the auction, the buyer also purchased a letter by the savant Jean Lebeuf (1687-1760) that records Lebeuf’s quest for a Nithard manuscript. Folded and pasted within Troyes, MTCM, 3203, between fols. 87v and 88r, this letter (dated 26 October 1731) was listed as a separate lot (n° 380) amid seven of Lebeuf’s letters for sale at the Parison auction (Catalogue de la collection des lettres autographes, manuscrits, op. cit., p. 51-52, n° 379-385). However, the Nithard manuscript and Lebeuf letter may have already been grouped together before the Parison auction (conceivably during their time at the Collège), but were listed as separate lots to increase the number of items for sale and thereby maximize returns. Perhaps Étienne Souciet, librarian of the Collège and recipient of Lebeuf’s letter (regarding whether a Nithard manuscript – possibly from Pithou’s library – presently formed part of the Collège’s collection), had originally placed it in the Nithard volume ; if so, the manuscript would already have been in the Collège de Louis-le-Grand library by 1731. On the letter by Lebeuf, see Lettres de L’Abbè Lebeuf, Auxerre, G. Perriquet, 1867, t. II, p. 115, n° 186 ; and for a partial transcription, Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 253-254. According to its record in the auction catalogue, the letter also contained an appended note on the identity of a saint. To my knowledge, this note has not been preserved. An annotation in the upper margin of the first page of the letter (« Repondue le 14e. Novembre [1731] ») attests that Souciet soon replied to Lebeuf’s inquiry, but what his answer was remains unknown. However, given Lebeuf’s comments just a few years later, it appears that he either never learned of the Troyes Nithard copy (because it was not yet in the Collège’s collection?), or else he found it to be of little worth. For by 1735, Lebeuf would concede that the old manuscript of Nithard’s text known to be in the Vatican at the time (now Paris, BnF, Latin 9768) was, in his opinion, « unique dans le monde » [« unique in the world »] ; see Le Beuf, Recueil de dissertations sur diffèrens sujets d’histoire et de literature, Paris, J. Techener, 1843, t. I, p. 12-14, reprinting an article from the Mercure, February 1735, p. 268 ; and his earlier remarks to Jean Bouhier and Jean Basile Pascal Fenel, in Lettres de L'Abbè Lebeuf, op. cit., t. II, p. 113, 140-141. In Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 234-235, I hypothesized that the Troyes manuscript had come to the Collège de Clermont by way of Jacques Sirmond (due to the contents of the Lebeuf letter pointing to Pithou and Sirmond). I now believe this hypothesis is incorrect.

25 On Parison, along with another sample of his hand, see « Parison, le roi des bouquineurs » : http://histoire-bibliophilie.blogspot.com/2013/10/parison-le-roi-des-bouquineurs.html [accessed 28 July 2024].

26 On Morin, see André Seure-Hanot, Louis Morin (Troyes, 1866-1942), Sa vie, son œuvre, Troyes, Les Imprimeries Paton, 1946, in particular p. 55 for another sample of his hand, and p. 70-71 for remarks on Morin’s library and his engraved ex dono bookplate (which is present in Troyes, MTCM, 3203). See also Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 233 n. 7.

27 If Morin wrote the sheet of notes on Nithard shortly after he came into possession of the manuscript, then he would have obtained it after 1901, for in the notes he cites the first volume of Auguste Molinier, Les sources de l’histoire de France, Paris, Alphonse Picard et fils, 1901. It is certain that he owned the manuscript by the time of Louis de Rosanbo’s footnote in 1929 ; see n. 14 above.

28 On such preparatory texts, see Anthony Grafton, Inky Fingers : The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674245679 

29 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. M.906 (saec. IX), with the first 32 folios being a transcription of the text in Pithou’s hand. See Chauncey E. Finch, « The Morgan Manuscript of Phaedrus », American Journal of Philology, n° 92, 1971, p. 301-307, https://doi.org/10.2307/293340 ; and Boris Donné, « La redécouverte des fables de Phèdre et la ‘connexion champenoise’, des Pithou à La Fontaine », Le Fablier. Revue des Amis de Jean de La Fontaine, n° 28, 2017, p. 107-119, https://doi.org/10.3406/lefab.2017.1300 . Pithou would publish the editio princeps of the text from this manuscript : Phaedri Aug. Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri V, Troyes, Jean Oudot, 1596. See https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8532008. At the time of writing « An Early Humanist Edition », I was unaware of the Pithou Phaedrus manuscript. It was in the private possession of a descendent of Pithou, Louis de Rosanbo, for much of the twentieth century.

30 Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger : A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, vol. 1, p. 286 n. 130. I thank Prof. Grafton for bringing Scaliger’s remark and his manuscript to my attention.

31 See Leiden, Leiden University Library, MS. Scal. 61, fols. 4-44. The manuscript is digitized : https://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/view/item/360510.

32 Cf. the index in Troyes, MTCM, 3203 on fols. 73r-87v with the unpaginated index in Pithou, Annalium et historiae Francorum, op. cit., following pt. 2, p. 487. I thank Prof. Sabine Lardon for noting the index as a useful criterion for comparison.

33 Unfortunately, the arguments of Marco Conti, « Variants and Their Traps : Pierre Pithou’s Philological Policy and His Editions of Nithard’s Historiae », Revue d’histoire des textes, new series, n° 14, 2019, p. 209-223, https://doi.org/10.1484/j.rht.5.116782 , that Pithou’s exemplar for his editio princeps was not Paris, BnF, Latin 9768, but a different, now-lost manuscript, are vitiated due to their being partially based on my earlier claim that Pithou had created Troyes, MTCM, 3203.

34 A portion of the following remarks on Marteau and L’Estoile was published in Courtney M. Booker, « An Alleged Oratio of Boniface to Pippin in 751 », in Courtney M. Booker, Hans Hummer, and Dana M. Polanichka, eds., Visions of Medieval Studies in North America and Europe : Studies on Cultural Identity and Power, Turnhout, Brepols, 2022, p. 410-411, https://doi.org/10.1484/m.cursor-eb.5.127589 . The connection between Marteau’s letter and Nithard’s text was first made by Tom Hamilton, Pierre de L’Estoile and His World during the Wars of Religion, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, p. 118-123, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198800095.001.0001 ; discussed in greater detail in idem, « Pierre de L’Estoile and His World in the Wars of Religion, 1546-1611 », Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford, 2014, p. 157-163. I wish to thank Prof. Hamilton for his generous assistance with Marteau’s letter.

35 For a copy of the letter made by a secretary of L’Estoile, see Paris, BnF, ms. Français 10303, p. 415-416. The manuscript has been digitized : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9007245r/f221.item. The fate of the original letter is unknown. On Marteau, see Hamilton, Pierre de L’Estoile and His World, op. cit., p. 118-123. On L’Estoile, see Hamilton, Pierre de L’Estoile and His World, op. cit. ; and Florence Greffe and José Lothe, La vie, les livres et les lectures de Pierre de L’Estoile : Nouvelles recherches, Paris, H. Champion, 2004. On L’Estoile’s amanuenses, see Gilbert Schrenck, « Pierre de L’Estoile devant ses manuscrits : La fadaise et la sagesse », Travaux de literature, n° 11, 1998, p. 100-101 ; and Hamilton, Pierre de L’Estoile and His World, op. cit., p. 170-174.

36 On the custom of a New Year’s gift (an « étrenne »), see Natalie Zemon Davis, « Beyond the Market : Books as Gifts in Sixteenth-Century France », Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, n° 33, 1983, p. 69-88, in particular p. 83 n. 30. https://doi.org/10.2307/3678990 ; and Brigitte Buettner, « Past Presents : New Year’s Gifts at the Valois Courts, ca. 1400 », The Art Bulletin, n° 83.4, 2001, p. 598‑625. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2001.10787000.

37 On L’Estoile’s indignation for Machiavelli, which Marteau here seems to share, see Myriam Yardeni, « Histoire et petite histoire chez Pierre de L’Estoile », in Danielle Régnier-Bohler and Catherine Magnien-Simonin, eds., Écritures de l’histoire (XIVe-XVIe siècle) : Actes du Colloque du Centre Montaigne, Bordeaux, 19-21 septembre 2002, Geneva, Droz, 2005, p. 197-198.

38 Marteau reports with approval the unnamed author’s use of the classical expression « blind cupidity » (« caeca cupiditas ») to describe the root of the troubles in the 840s. Cf. its use by Nithard, Historiae 4.5, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. 148. The expression was common among ancient Roman authors, especially Cicero, Dom. 60, Pis. 58, Quinct. 83, S. Rosc. 101, Sul. 91, Inv. 1.1 ; and Seneca, Phaed. 528, Ep. 15.9, 16.9, Dial. 2.2.1, 11.9.5. More generally, see Jonathan Patterson, Representing Avarice in Late Renaissance France, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716518.001.0001 

39 See Booker, « An Alleged Oratio of Boniface », op. cit.

40 Paris, BnF, ms. Français 10303, p. 416.

41 Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no sample of Marteau’s handwriting exists with which one might make a comparison of the hand of Troyes, MTCM, 3203. On L’Estoile’s library, see n. 60 below.

42 Following his final endnote on fol. 72v, the copyist makes another, related request of the reader : « I believe that there are things missing from the end of Book Four. If that which is lacking is discovered in another manuscript, it should be added to make the text complete and then everything should be corrected. The End ». [« Sunt qui huic (add. : 4.) libro finem deesse putent. Si quae lacunae fuit, ex alio codice quando reperietur, replendae erunt, et omnia emendanda. Finis. »] Later, at the time he was entering his marginalia, the copyist appended as a postscript one final request : « But if these notes are rejected by some as futile and vain, I confess that I have done it intentionally, so that if anything is wanting from the exemplar, it may be more fittingly conjectured by various witnesses of this kind, to each as it may please. » [« Quod si quibusdam hae notulae improbentur, quasi futiles et vanae, id de industria fecisse me fateor, ut ex huiusmodi variis testimonibus, si quid aptius coniici, deficientur exemplari, liceat, cuique sit liberum. »]

43 On Jean de Saint-André and his library, see Karel A. De Meyier, Paul en Alexandre Petau en de Geschiedenis van hun Handschriften, Leiden, Brill, 1947, p. 188-189 ; John Warwick Montgomery, « The Libraries of France at the Ascendancy of Mazarin Louis Jacob’s Traicté des plus belles bibliotheques, Part Two in English Translation, with Introduction and Notes », Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1962, p. 191-192 ; and La Croix du Maine, La Bibliothèque, Paris, Chez Abel l’Angelier, 1584, p. 263-264. A contemporary of Marteau, Claude Fauchet (1530-1602), also claimed to have borrowed a Nithard manuscript from Jean de Saint-André ; see Stéphane Lecouteux, « Les Annales de Flodoard de Reims (919-966) dans la tradition historiographique du Moyen Âge : Travail de l’annaliste et de l’historien, perception et maîtrise du temps (VIIe–XIe siècles) », Mémoire de Master, Université de Paris, 2011, p. 207-208, who dates Fauchet’s remarks between 1564 and 1570 ; also, Janet G. Espiner-Scott, Claude Fauchet : Sa vie, son oeuvre, Paris, Librairie E. Droz, 1938, p. 290. It is believed that the Nithard manuscript Paris, BnF, Latin 9768 came into the possession of Paul Petau from Jean de Saint-André ; see Nithard, Historiae, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. XXIII ; Lecouteux, « Les Annales de Flodoard de Reims (919-966) », op. cit., p. 207-208 ; De Meyier, Paul en Alexandre Petau, op. cit., p. 5-6 n. 21 ; Léopold Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale, Paris, Imprimerie impériale, 1868, vol. 1, p. 287-288 and n. 1. See also n. 60 below. In his journal, L’Estoile mentions the close connection of Marteau and Jean de Saint-André, who exchanged gossip ; see Pierre de L’Estoile, Journal du règne de Henri IV, ed. Gilbert Schrenck, t. 1, 1589-1591, ed. Xavier Le Person, Geneva, Librairie Droz, 2011, p. 148 (April, 1591).

44 Manuscript Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 63r, n. 28, « fol. 20.l.3 contemptus, manuscr. fortè, ex antiqua scriptura, ut ex hoc codice liquit videre, ubi temptaret, pedetemptim, insolempnat, contempnere, hyemps, semper est: quemadmodum et obmittere, ammirabile, iuncxit, ancxius, cotidie, relligio, poenes, poene, exspectant, exsui, inlaesos, adquiescens, renueret, haut, actenus, penitudo, et alia pleraque quanquam aliquando corruptè, it, pro, id : ac, pro, hac, scriptio deperiatur. »

45 For instance, in addition to his hundreds of philological notes on the text’s Latinity, the copyist refers once to Aimoin of Fleury and twice to a « Historia Dionysiaca » (= chps. 52-53 of the Vita Hludowici imperatoris, composed by the « Astronomer ») for a comparative account of events : (fol. 60v, n. 44) « pag. 2, l. 9. In Dionysiaca historia hac describuntur. Sed de Senila loquens, ait, idemque Salina Comes. Aimoinus, Samila, deest. » (fol. 61r, n. 48) « l. 8. Calviacus. Et de his historia Dionysiaca : quae accidisse iuxta Blesense castrum ad Ligerem situm dicit. forte hoc loco etiam nomen fluvii deest. Calviacus villa, quod sit, vide. »

46 I thank Jérôme Delatour for his assistance with this identification. On La Mothe, see Dictionnaire des lettres françaises : Le XVIe siècle, ed. Georges Grente, rev. by Michel Simonin, Paris, Fayard, 2001, p. 669A ; and Camille Trani, « Les magistrats du Grand Conseil au XVIe siècle (1547-1610) », Paris et Ile-de-France : Mémoires, n° 42, 1991, p. 164. He was buried in the church of Saint-Paul de Paris ; see Hélène Verlet, Epitaphier du vieux Paris, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1998, vol. 11, p. 91-92, n° 4916. See also the remarks about La Mothe by Bernard de Girard du Haillan, « Preface aux lecteurs », in idem, L’histoire de France, Paris, Pierre L’Huillier, 1576, n. p., « Si Iean de Saint André Chanoine de nostre Dame de Paris, Claude Fauchet President aux Monnayes, Charles de la Mothe Conseiller du Roy en son grand Conseil qui ont plusieurs beaux monuments de l’Histoire de France et qui ont en main les outils d’escrire […] »

47 See Charles de La Mothe, « De la poesie francoise, et des œuvres d’Estienne Iodelle, Sieur du Lymodin », in Estienne Iodelle, Les Oeuvres et meslanges poetiques d’Estienne Iodelle, Sieur du Lymodin, Paris, Nicolas Chesneau et Mamert Patisson, 1574, n. p. ; repr. Étienne Jodelle, Œuvres complètes, ed. Enea Balmas, Paris, Gallimard, 1965, vol. 1, p. 71, «  […] ce Loys fust d’un naturel tres cruel, quelque tiltre de Debonnaire ou de Pieteux, que faulsement Guetard, historien de son fils Charles, et son cousin germain, luy aye le premier donné ».

48 I have not been able to find any evidence of friendship between Claude de Marteau and La Mothe.

49 For example, on fol. 17v the editor writes « aliter » and gives a note (n. 18, fol. 62v) that states « l. 10. alter, manuscr. et Motta. » On fol. 28r he writes « quid vero » and gives a note (n. 88, fol. 65r) that states « l. 20. quid’ve, manuscr. et Motta. » On fol. 28v he writes « offerant » and provides a note (n. 93, fol. 65r) that states « l. 18. offerrent, Motta. offerent, manuscr. » On fol. 29v he writes « castrametantes » and gives a note (n. 99, fol. 65r) that states « l. 7. castrametentes, manuscr. et Motta. » On fol. 39v he writes « vel cum paucis, vel etiam cum » and gives a note (n. 54, fol. 68r) that states « l. 13. vellent cum paucis, vellent cum, manuscr. Motta, vel etiam, legit utique. » On fol. 40r he writes « urbemque » and gives a note (n. 62, fol. 68r) that states « l. 19. urbem quae, in manuscr. et Motta. » On fol. 40v (n. 67, fol. 68v) he writes « suo iuri » and gives a note that states « l. 16. sui iuris, manuscr. sororis, vel urbis, suspicatur Motta legendum. » On fol. 45r he writes « Saxonorum, Wasconorum, Austrasiorum, Brittannorum » and gives a note (n. 88, fol. 69r) that states « fol. 45 l. 4. Saxonum, Motta. Saxonarum, manuscr. Item, Brittonum, Motta. Brittonorum, manuscr. » On fol. 51r he writes « Aiebant » and gives a note (n. 33, fol. 70v) that states « l. 7. Agebant, manuscr. Agebat, Motta. Vide f. 22. b. 3. » Additional examples published in Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 254-258.

50 See fol. 63v, n. 54 : « f. 24. l. 5. Lupa, suspicatur legendum Petrus Daniel, ut sit feminus, Loin, cognominatus. » On Daniel and his knowledge of Nithard’s text, see Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 242-245.

51 See fol. 59r, n. 1 ; fol. 62v, n. 14 ; Booker, « An Early Humanist Edition », op. cit., p. 239 n. 31. On the variety of names given to Nithard over the centuries (including Vitaldus, Guitard, Guittald, and Virardus, among others), see Carl W. Wahlund, « Bibliographie der französischen Strassburger Eide vom Jahre 842 », in Bausteine zur romanischen Philologie. Festgabe für Adolfo Mussafia zum 15. Februar 1905, Halle, M. Niemeyer, 1905, p. 12 n. 1.

52 See fol. 66r, n. 2 : « l. 11. fortè delendum, in : ut antè Motta. ubi notavi, f. 24.b.14. vide ibi. qui loquendi modus huius authoris proprius est » ; fol. 67r, n. 31 : « Hoc tamen loquendi modo utitur etiam infrà, fol. 40. l. 8. his in partibus sestinus perrexit. et fol. 45.b.16. illis in partibus viam dirigunt » ; fol. 68r, n. 59 : « fol. 40. lin. 7. decendente, manuscr. fortè, descedente. Linea seq. his in partibus. Hoc loquendi modo saepè utitur, ut et suprà notavi, fol. 37. l. 8. et p. 2. l. 15. Isset : cùm tamen, esset, reponendum censerem. Item pòst, fol. 45.b.16. »

53 See fol. 65v, n. 119 : « Hinc videre est, ut suprà dixi, authorem huius historiae, strenum fuisse virum, cum in hoc praelio strenuè conflixerit : et infrà f. 48. l. 11. magni consilii, cùm unus è 12. delegatis extiterit, ut ipse loquitur. In praefatione autem lib. 3. se ea, quibus interfuit, narrare dicit. »

54 See fol. 69r, n. 80 : « l. 9. stella. Hinc authorem astrologiae studiosum et peritum fuisse liquet, qui quidem Eclipses, et alia huiusmodi, non praetermittit ut et heus Cometae orte, situ, undefortasse ligenter notarit, ut in fine lib. 2. et 4. »

55 See fol. 1r : « Wittardi, nobilissimi viri, de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, libri quatuor. »

56 See above, n. 47. Cf. also the remarks about Nithard’s commendable « sincerity » by René Choppin, n. 13 above. The editor of Troyes, MTCM, 3203 was a reader of Choppin, citing him in his marginalia ; see n. 12 above. L’Estoile also owned several books by Choppin ; see Greffe and Lothe, La vie, les livres et les lectures de Pierre de L’Estoile, op. cit., p. 479-480.

57 Francesco Lo Monaco, « Nithard e i suoi pubblici : Alcuni preliminari per un’ edizione e una traduzione della Storia dei figli di Ludovico il Pio », in Maria Grazia Cammarota and Maria Vittoria Molinari, eds., Tradurre testi medievali : Obiettivi, pubblico, strategie, Bergamo, Bergamo University Press, 2002, p. 215-228, has carefully parsed Nithard’s authorial assumption of three publics : an « internal public » that Nithard describes within his narrative (groups he represents as listening to and/or participating in various speech acts) ; a contemporary « external public » of readers/hearers of his text whom Nithard believed would understand themselves as and identify with his textual « internal public » ; and a « remote public », who were not part of the internal/external public, but who might find themselves in analogous conditions. On the general concept of a writer’s imagined audience, see Walter J. Ong, « The Writer’s Audience Is always a Fiction », PMLA, vol. 90, n° 1, 1975, p. 9-21, https://doi.org/10.2307/461344.

58 The metaphor of a tiller was used frequently by Desiderius Erasmus, e.g., in Ex Plutarcho versa, ed. A. J. Koster, Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi, Amsterdam and Oxford, North-Holland Publishing Company, 1977, t. IV, 2, p. 154 : « Nonnullis enim vel narratio quaepiam vel similium rerum in aliis reprehensio seu laus velut ansam praebuit libere monendi » ; p. 160 : « Porro quoties amicus quibuslibet in rebus erit morosior et quiduis calumniabitur, tum alter velut ansam habebit eum in maioribus erratis admonendi ».

59 Note that Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 58v has a marginal annotation identifying the quotation as « Sap. 5 ». The passage is not identified in the editio princeps by Pithou in 1588. See Nithard, Historiae 4.7, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. 156.

60 On the fame acquired by L’Estoile’s library in Paris and the curiosity it aroused among ambassadors and visiting foreigners, see Christiane Lauvergnat-Gagnière, « Livres et lectures d’un mémorialiste : Pierre de L’Estoile », in Madeleine Bertaud and André Labertit, eds., De L’Estoile à Saint-Simon, recherche sur la culture des mémorialistes au temps des trois premiers rois Bourbons, Paris, Klincksieck, 1993, p. 22-23. How the Marteau Nithard volume ended up in the Collège de Clermont library in Paris is unknown. See n. 24 above. In 1589, L’Estoile’s eldest son, Louis, stole from his father’s study several (unidentified) Greek and Latin books, which he then sold. In 1718, upon the death of L’Estoile’s great-great-grandson Pierre Poussemothe de L’Estoile, most of L’Estoile’s remaining manuscripts were deposited in the library of the Abbey of Saint-Acheul in Amiens. See Hamilton, Pierre de L’Estoile and His World, op. cit., p. 130 and 201. It is possible that the royal historian André Duchesne (1584-1640) saw the Marteau Nithard manuscript (at the Collège de Clermont?), for the diction of his prefatory remarks in his printed edition of the text in 1636 bears a rather close resemblance to the prefatory remarks to the reader at the beginning of the endnotes in Troyes, MTCM, 3203 ; cf. André Duchesne, Historiae Francorum scriptores coaetani, Paris, S. Cramoisy, 1636, t. 2, p. 359 (my emphasis) : « Recens a mendis et corruptionibus innumeris expurgati, partim ope vetustissimi ms. codicis, qui exstat in bibliotheca D. Alexandri Petavii S. P., partim conjecturis a sensu historiae desumptis » ; and Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 59r : « Lectori : Cum in hoc libello (cuius exemplar manuscriptum, quod sciam, unicum extat) multa sint imperfecta et corrupta, partim ex ipsius libri accurata lectione, partim coniecturis a sensu historiae desumptis, emendanda, non abs re, duximus. » Note also that in lib. 2, cap. 7 of Nithard’s text, Duchesne (op. cit., t. 2, p. 367 C) supplies the reading « supra modo » without comment ; in fact, this reading was an emendation, one that, to my knowledge, had only been offered in Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 25r. Finally, despite stating explicitly that he was using an ancient manuscript of Nithard’s text from the library of Alexander Petau (= Paris, BnF, Latin 9768, which gives no title, but is inscribed « Petavius » on fol. 1r ; see De Meyier, Paul en Alexandre Petau, op. cit., p. 188-200), Duchesne offered a title for the work similar to that given in Troyes, MTCM, 3203 : cf. Duchesne, op. cit., t. 2, p. 359, « Nithardi Angilberti fili, Caroli Magni Imp. ex Bertha filia nepotis, de dissensionibus filiorum Lodhuuici Pij ad annum usque DCCCXLIII. libri quatuor, ad Carolum Calvum Francorum regem » ; and Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 59r, n. 1 : « Inscriptio libri in manuscripto codice deest, quam Motta sic reponit, Wittardus ad Carolum Calvum Imperatorem. Ego, cuius de altercationibus (ut ipse author in praefationibus loquitur) et passim de persecutione Lotharii disseratur, addidi : Wittardi, de dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici Pii, Libri quatuor, Ad Carolum Calvum ». That Duchesne himself did not create Troyes, MTCM, 3203 is demonstrated by a comparison of its script with his hand ; see the passage from Nithard, Historiae 4.5 (« Fuit hic eo […] in pace quievit »), as copied both in Troyes, MTCM, 3203, fol. 56v, and in Duchesne’s autograph copy of Hariulf, Chronicon Centulense 3.5 (= Paris, BnF, Latin 12893, fol. 207v, digitized : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9078179f/f210.item.r=latin%2012893).

61 On the social function of the New Year’s gift, see Buettner, « Past Presents », op. cit.

62 See Giles Constable, « A Living Past : The Historical Environment of the Middle Ages », Harvard Library Bulletin, new series, n° 1.3, 1990, p. 49-70.

63 On this point, see in general Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship, op. cit.

64 See fol. 72v, bottom margin.

65 It is difficult to understand when Marteau added the marginalia to MTCM, 3203, since, on the one hand, he notes in his letter of 1 January 1588 that he has sent a Nithard volume to L’Estoile, while, on the other hand, he must have written the marginalia in the volume sometime later, after the publication of Pithou’s and Choppin’s books (11 September ; 15 August) in 1588 but before his death on 27 September 1595 (see notes 11 and 12 above). Perhaps L’Estoile soon returned the manuscript to Marteau so that he could collate it with Pithou’s new edition. The marginalia are in the same hand as the original text and written in the same voice (see n. 64 above, where the annotator speaks in the first-person about his earlier notes), and are clearly not in the hand of L’Estoile. For an autograph manuscript of L’Estoile, see Paris, BnF, ms. Français 6678 – digitized : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000775t.

66 See fol. 64r, n. 56. Also, fol. 68v, n. 77, « Sed hae linguae barbarae maximè sunt, praesertim Teudisca, quae hodie in usu non est ».

67 Nithard, Historiae 3.5, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. 112.

68 See fol. 68v, n. 73, « fol. 42. l. 2. Romana. Motta ait, Gallicè reddi deberet. En son Romant » [later annotation : « quod verisimile est »].

69 On this passage, Nithard, Historiae 4.2, ed. Lauer/Glansdorff, op. cit., p. 130, « sunt etenim inter illos qui edhilingui, sunt qui frilingi, sunt qui lazzi illorum lingua dicuntur ; Latina vero lingua hoc sunt : nobiles, ingenuiles atque serviles. » In Troyes, MTCM, 3203, f. 70r, n. 17, Marteau states : « Latina. Ex hoc loco probari potest, illud, Romana, suprà, pro Germana dici » [later annotation : « ut Motta ait, sup. f. 42.2 »]. Here, it appears that Marteau has made a mistake and likely meant to write « Gallica », not « Germana ». I thank Prof. Glansdorff for sharing her thoughts on this problem.

70 See Marc Van Uytfanghe, « La diachronie latino-romane : Le conflit des chronologies et la diglossie », Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, n° 128, 2012, p. 405-456. https://doi.org/10.1515/zrp-2012-0040 

71 On this point, see above all R. Howard Bloch, « The First Document and the Birth of Medieval Studies », in Denis Hollier, ed., A New History of French Literature, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 6-13 ; John E. Joseph, « 842, 1871 and All That : Alsace-Lorraine and the Transformations of Linguistic Nationalism », in Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Mari C. Jones, eds., The French Language and Questions of Identity, London, Legenda, 2007, p. 44-52 ; I Giuramenti di Strasburgo : Testi e Tradizione / The Strasbourg Oaths : Texts and Transmission, ed. Francesco Lo Monaco and Claudia Villa, Florence, SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2009 ; and Patrick J. Geary, Language and Power in the Early Middle Ages, Waltham, MA, Brandeis University Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv102bfph 

72 Note the rhetorical function of the repeated description of Nithard as a « prince du sang » by Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République, Paris, Jacques du Puy, 1576, p. 117 and 158 ; Jean-Papire Masson, Annalium libri quatuor : Quibus res gestae Francorum explicantur. Ad Henricum tertium, Paris, Nicolas Chesneau, 1577, p. 109 and 127 ; Nicolas Vignier, Sommaire de l’histoire des francois, Paris, Sébastien Nivelle, 1579, p. 137 ; Bernard de Girard du Haillan, L’histoire de France, Paris, Pierre L’Huillier, 1585, fol. 336r ; Pithou, Annalium et historiae Francorum, op. cit., prefatio ; Claude Fauchet, Les Antiquitez Gauloises et Francoises, Paris, Chez David Le Clerc et chez Jean de Heuqueville, 1610, fol. 300rv, 321r, 322v, 324v, 325r, 327r, 330v, 331r, 332r-333r, 334r-337r, 338r. For the value attributed to Nithard as a lay author, see, e.g., Wilhelm Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter bis zur Mitte des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, Berlin, Hertz, 1885, t. 1, p. 203.

73 The exceptions being Hans Prümm, Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Nithardi Historiarum Libri Quattuor, Greifswald, Julius Abel, 1910 ; and Alf Önnerfors, « In Nithardi Historiarum Libros Annotatiunculae », in Günter Bernt, Fidel Rädle, and Gabriel Silagi, eds., Tradition und Wertung : Festschrift für Franz Brunhölzl zum 65. Geburtstag, Sigmaringen, Thorbecke, 1989, p. 75-84.

74 Cf. Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, « ‘Studied for Action’ : How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy », Past & Present, n° 129, 1990, p. 30-78. https://doi.org/10.1093/past/129.1.30 ; Anthony Grafton, « The Humanist as Reader », in Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, eds., A History of Reading in the West, Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1999, p. 179-212.

75 Pierre de L’Estoile, Journal du règne de Henri IV, ed. Gilbert Schrenck, t. 3, 1595-1598, ed. Marie Houllemare, Geneva, Librairie Droz, 2016, p. 40-41 (Sept., 1595). See Hamilton, Pierre de L’Estoile and His World, op. cit., p. 118-119.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. Iv-1r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-1.jpg
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Titre Figure 2
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. 1v-2r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-2.jpg
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Titre Figure 3
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. 58v-59r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-3.jpg
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Titre Figure 4
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. 59v-60r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-4.jpg
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Titre Figure 5
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. 72v-73r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-5.jpg
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Titre Figure 6
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 87v-88r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-6.jpg
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Titre Figure 7
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. 3v-4r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-7.jpg
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Titre Figure 8
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 27v (detail)
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-8.jpg
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Titre Figure 9
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 56v (detail)
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-9.jpg
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Titre Figure 10
Légende MTCM, 3203, front pastedown [Contreplat supérieur] and fol. Ir
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-10.jpg
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Titre Figure 11
Légende MTCM, 3203, f° [87terv°-87-4r°] (detail), recto of insertion between fols. 87v-88r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-11.jpg
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Titre Figure 12
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 1r (detail)
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-12.jpg
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Titre Figure 13
Légende MTCM, 3203, front pastedown [Contreplat supérieur] (detail)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-13.jpg
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Légende MTCM, 3203, rear pastedown [Contreplat inférieur] (detail)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-14.jpg
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Titre Figure 15
Légende MTCM, 3203, f° [87-4v°-87-5r°] (detail), verso of insertion between fols. 87v-88r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-15.jpg
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Titre Figure 16
Légende Nantes, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 649, « Testament de Monseigneur des Barres », fol. 7v (detail)
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Titre Figure 17
Légende MTCM, 3203, loose sheet insertion in the front of the manuscript
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-17.jpg
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Titre Figure 18
Légende New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. M.906, fol. 1r
Crédits Credits : Image courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-18.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 433k
Titre Figure 19
Légende Pierre Pithou, ed., Phaedri Aug. Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri V, Troyes, Jean Oudot, 1596, fol. 7.
Crédits Credits : gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
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Titre Figure 20
Légende MTCM, 3203, fols. 32v-33r
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
URL http://journals.openedition.org/eve/docannexe/image/2253/img-20.jpg
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Titre Figure 21
Légende Leiden University Library, MS. Scal. 61, fols. 7v-8rhttps://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/​view/​item/​360510
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Titre Figure 22
Légende Paris, BnF, ms. Français 10303, p.  415-416.
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Titre Figure 23
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 59r (detail)
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Titre Figure 24
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 60r (detail)
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Titre Figure 25
Légende MTCM, 3203, fol. 72v (detail)
Crédits Credits : Médiathèque Jacques-Chirac, Troyes Champagne Métropole
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Référence électronique

Courtney M. Booker, « Veluti ansam quandam : The Nithard MS. Troyes 3203 as a Historical Guidebook from Claude de Marteau to Pierre de L’Estoile (1588) », Corpus Eve [En ligne], 4 | 2025, mis en ligne le 01 août 2025, consulté le 06 septembre 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/eve/2253 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/14jzn

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Auteur

Courtney M. Booker

Courtney M. Booker is Professor of medieval European history at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He is the author of Past Convictions : The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians [The Middle Ages Series], Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, and co-editor, with Anne A. Latowsky, of In This Modern Age : Medieval Studies in Honor of Paul Edward Dutton [Renovatio – Studies in the Carolingian World], Budapest, Trivent, 2023, and, with Hans Hummer and Dana M. Polanichka, of Visions of Medieval Studies in North America and Europe : Studies on Cultural Identity and Power [Cursor Mundi, vol. 41], Turnhout, Brepols, 2022. He is currently writing a book on the chronicle of Nithard and the history of its reception.

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