Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
One of the many interesting stories current in the Middle Ages is that of a young man who puts his marriage ring on the finger of a statue of Venus and is surprised to find that the image, taking the matter au sérieux, jealously forbids him the embraces of his earthly bride. Its relation to a large group of miracles of the Virgin has been frequently noticed (for example, by Mussafia and by Ward and Herbert ); it has received some attention from students of Mérimée as the source of his Vénus d'Ille; and Massmann, in his edition of the Kaiserchronik (1849-1854) collected a large number of variants (together with an almost equal number of faulty references). But Graf is the only scholar who has studied it in any detail, and his treatment is far from complete. I propose here to bring together the scattered materials of previous students, both of the story of the ring-betrothal to the Venus statue and of the Virgin miracle. I shall add no new versions of either story, but I shall discuss the former from a point of view radically different from Graf's, and shall endeavour to follow the tale from its obscure beginnings before William of Malmesbury, through its adaptation as a miracle of the Virgin, down to some of its present literary forms.
page 523 note 1 Studien zu den mittelalterlichen Marienlegenden in Wiener Sitzungsberichte, i (cxiii, 1886, Heft 2, pp. 917 ff.; ii (cxv, 1887, Heft 1, pp. 5ff.; iii (cxix, 1889, Abh. 9); iv (cxxiii, 1890, Abh. 8); v (cxxxix, 1896, Abh. 8); reprinted separately, Heft i, 1887, ii, 1888, etc. My references below are to the Sitzungsberichte.
page 523 note 2 Catalogue of Romances, London, ii, 1893, iii, 1910.
page 523 note 3 Arturo Graf, Roma nella memoria del medio evo, Torino, 1883, vol. n.
page 523 note 4 A. P. Villemain, Histoire de Grégoire VII, Paris, 1873, i, pp. 273-5, relates the story and assigns it to Ekkehard of the tenth century—presumably, therefore, Ekkehard I of St. Gall. Villemain cites Hermanni Corneri, Chronicon III apud Ekkardum [Johann Georg von Eckhart, Corpus Historicum Medii Ævi, Leipzig, 1723, ii, col. 587-8]. Aug. Filon, Mérimée et ses amis, Paris, 1894, pp. 97 ff., follows Villemain, and pp. 358-60 reprints, with slight omissions, Korner's version. Now Korner, a Lübeck chronicler who died about 1437-8, does assign the story to Ekkehard; but Korner was notoriously reckless about citing authorities; “sehr unzuverlässiger Compilator,” says Potthast, “besonders in Rücksicht seiner Quellenangaben.” The principal books that he actually followed were Henry of Herford's Liber de rebus memorabilioribus, Vincent de Beauvais' Speculum Historiale, and the Chronicon pontificum of Martin von Troppau. From the first of these he largely acquired the habit of loose citation, and (what interests us chiefly here) derived his practice of ascribing this and that to a vague “Egghardus.” His references to Vincent de Beauvais, however, are usually correct; and since he names Vincent in his sentences preliminary to the Venus story, it is more than likely that he took his version from the Speculum Historiale xxvi, 29, and threw in the “secundum Egghardum” a couple of times perhaps as make-weight, perhaps merely for variety's sake. At all events, nothing can be gained by using his phrase as warrant for a literary version of the Venus story before William of Malmesbury. It does not occur, of course, in the Waltharius of Ekkehard I; nor in the Gasuum S. Galli continuati I of Ekkehard IV; nor in the chronicles of Eccehardus Uraugiensis. (On Korner cf. especially Die Chronica Novella des Hermann Korner, ed. J. Schwalm, Göttingen, 1895, pp. xviii ff.)
page 523 note 5 De Gestis Regum Anglorum, Rolls Edition (ed. Wm. Stubbs), London, 1887, i, pp. 256-8 (Book ii, §205); Pertz, Mon. Hist. Ger. Scriptores, x, p. 471.
page 523 note 6 One of the manuscripts has glosses giving the youth's name as Lucianus, and his wife's as Eugenia, which were incorporated in later manuscripts. “These glosses,” says the editor, “would seem to show that the story existed in another shape as late as the thirteenth century.” But this is not a certain inference.
page 523 note 7 Abbreviationes Chronicorum, in Twysden, Hist. Anglicanœ Scriptores X, vol. i, col. 471; Rolls ed., i, pp. 178-80.
page 523 note 8 Matthew Paris, Rolls Series, vol. i, p. 527; Flores Hist., Rolls Series, vol. i, p. 577. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii, sec. 2, mem. 1, subs. 1, in telling the story cites as his source “Florilegus ad a. 1058,” probably meaning the Flores Historiarum.
page 523 note 9 Polychronicon, Rolls Series, vol. vii, pp. 200 ff. Trevisa's translation does not alter the story.
page 523 note 10 Twysden, vol. ii, col. 2335; Rolls Series, vol. i, p. 44.
page 523 note 11 Twysden, vol. i, col. 950.
page 523 note 12 Ed. Goodall, Edinburgh, 1759, i, pp. 407-8.
page 523 note 13 So in ms. Addit. 11284 of the British Museum (Herbert, Catalogue of Romances, iii, p. 403, No. 538). In the Thesaurus Exemplorum, Fascicule V. Le Speculum Laicorum, ed. J. Th. Welther, Paris, 1914, it is chap. lxxx: ‘De Sortilegio.‘ It is printed entire by J. K. Ingram in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. ii, ser. ii (1883), p. 140.
page 523 note 14 Heribert, Catalogue, iii, p. 437, No. 90; on the authorship and date of the Alphabetum cf. ibid., pp. 424 ff., and the articles by Toldo in Archiv. f. Stud. d. neu. Sprachen, 1906-7. In the fifteenth century English translation it is No. dccxxx (ed. Mrs. M. M. Banks, EETS, pp. 488-9). In the Catalan translation (Barcelona, ?1888) it is No. dcxxxxviii, vol. ii, p. 255.
page 523 note 15 Ed. Brussels, 1864, iii, p. 259; quoted by Toldo, Archiv, cxviii (1907), pp. 79-80.
page 523 note 16 P. 524, note 4, above.
page 523 note 17 Printed in Klapper, Exempla aus Handschriften des Mittelalters, Heidelberg, 1911, No. 51, pp. 40-1; cf. Klapper's notes, p. 85. Cf. also Klapper's article in Mitteilungen der schlesischen Gesell. für Volkskunde, xi (1909), pp. 119 ff. (on this story, pp. 132 ff.).
page 523 note 18 Nuremberg, 1484, Pars ii, tit. xvi, cap. vii, §iiii.
page 523 note 19 Second ed. 1604, Lib. iii, P. I, Q. iiii, Sec. vidi.
page 523 note 20 Ed. 1672, p. 41.
page 523 note 21 Third ed. 1614, Colloq. iii, ‘De Sagis,’ p. 618.—P. J. Begbie, Supernatural Illusions, London, 1851, ii, pp. 76 ff., gives a translation, from ‘Dr. Antonius’ and Hildebrand, Natural Magic, p. 33.
page 523 note 22 Magiologia, 1675. I take this from Massmann (l. c., p. 926, n. 1), who adds: “Nach Paulini, Philosophischen Luststunden (1709), ii, 1707, sei die Begebenheit unter König Eduard geschehen.” I am unable to trace Paulinus.
page 523 note 23 Balthassaris Bonifacii Rhodigini Historia Ludicra, Editio nova et tersior (Brussels, 1656). The conclusion will illustrate the author's manner. “Palumbus , quem Venus aliàs amorum suorum conciliatorem & paranymphum habuerat, veluti desertor ac proditor, & Veneris volucris lasciviente vocabulo indignus, à Veneris administris Dæmonibus dilaniatus ac discerptus interiit. Adderent fortasse ingeniosi fabulatores, inde factum, ut cùm antè Palumbi caro acriter ad Venerem cieret esitantes hujusmodi posteà facultate destitueretur.”
page 523 note 21 Vol. iii, p. 470, Hamburg, 1687. Cf. Koch's edition of Eichendorff in Kürschner's Deutsche National Litteratur (146, ii, 2), Stuttgart [1893], pp. 157 ff. I have not seen Happel's version; Klapper (Mitteilungen, etc., p. 133) describes it as a “fast wörtliche Übersetzung” of William of Malmesbury.
page 523 note 23 H. F. Massmann, Der Keiser und der Kunige buoeh, oder die sogenannte Kaiserchronik, Quedlinburg und Leipzig, ii, pp. 264 ff., vv. 13102 ff.; also in Monum. Germ. Hist., Deutsche Chroniken, i, pp. 319-23.
page 523 note 26 Vv. 13103 ff.; Massmann, l. c., p. 928.
page 523 note 27 Cf. Sébillot, Superstitions iconographiques, in Revue des Traditions Populaires, ii (1887), p. 17; and Wm. Crooke, The Binding of a God, in Folk-Lore, viii (1897), p. 336, who cites Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, i, p. 114, n.; iv, p. 1320. For talking statues cf. L. J. B. Béranger-Féraud, Superstitions et survivances, Paris, 1896, ii, pp. 431-88.
page 523 note 28 Cf. Sébillot, l. c., p. 19, for several references. The newspapers in the spring of 1917, reported a case in Italy, which the peasants interpreted as a favorable omen of an early peace.
page 523 note 29 The idea is still a living one in fiction. In The National Sunday Magazine (of the Chicago Sunday Tribune) for June 25, 1916, there was a tale of an active statue encountered by an American soldier at Aden.
page 523 note 30 Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Athens, p. 517 (Crooke).
page 523 note 31 Sébillot, l. c., p. 18.
page 523 note 32 Amores 14, 17; so also Pliny, Valerius Maximus, and Clement of Alexandria (Graf, ii, p. 394).
page 523 note 33 Graf, ii, p. 388, n. 45, who also quotes from a manuscript of the Escuriale :
“Die alte Minne nämlich,” says Eichendorff in the introduction to his Geschichte des Romans des 18. Jahrhunderts, “verwandelt sich fast unmerklich in die Frau Venus, die indes noch immer auf Zucht und Treue hält; bald aber wird diese Frau Venus eine Heidin, dann gar schon eine Teufelin, wie im ‘treuen Eckart’.” On the jealousy of immortals, cf. also the scholion to Theocritus, iii, 13.
page 523 note 34 Cf. also the tale of Ameil-à-l'œil in Henricourt et Bovy, Promenades historiques, ii, p. 223; and Wolf, Niederl. Sagen, p. 287. These references I take from Massmann, op. cit., iii, p. 923, n. 7. Cæsarius, Dist. v, cap. iv (Ed. Jos. Strange, 1851, i, pp. 279-81) has still another pertinent story. A great magician named Philippus was asked by some Suabian and Bavarian students to make a display of evil spirits. He drew with his sword a magic circle around the young men, warning them on pain of death not to move outside of it. The spirits attacked them and tried to drive them beyond it, then changed to beautiful maidens, one of whom, by holding out a gold ring and by her passionate gestures, enticed a youth to extend his finger across the line. Then the whole crowd of spirits immediately vanished, taking the student with them. His friends demanded him back, however, and moved by their threats Philippus called the Princeps Dæmonum, reminded him of his fidelity, and after some altercation obtained the release of the student; who appeared thin and worn as if from the grave, and told his friends that their studies were displeasing to God.—There is some similarity here also to the relation of Palumbus and the Devil.
page 523 note 35 Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ed. T. F. Henderson, 1902, vol. ii, pp. 304-6.
page 523 note 36 The conjecture of Massmann, iii, p. 923, that the story was of Greek origin because of the name Astrolabius in one of the versions is too slight to be of importance.
page 523 note 37 Apology, i, vi.
page 523 note 38 Germ., 43.
page 523 note 39 On the Wild Hunt cf. E. H. Meyer, Germanische Mythologie, Berlin, 1891, §§319 ff.
page 523 note 40 I, e., der ewige Fuhrmann, Meyer, op. cit., p. 239.
page 523 note 41 Meyer, op. cit., p. 241. I doubt, however, if in the Venus story any Christian symbolism of the cross (of the roads) as harmful to demons is to be understood.
page 523 note 42 Cf. Wolf, quoted below, p. 544.
page 523 note 43 Graf, op. cit., ii, p. 396, and n. 57, citing De doctrina Christiana, i, 23. I am unable, however, to find this belief mentioned in Augustine's works.
page 523 note 44 With this procession one may compare the company which the knight witnesses in the thirteenth-century Lai du Trot (ed. Monmerqué et Michel, Paris, 1832); and the vision of Helinandus, De Cognitione Sui, cap. xi, xii, xiii (Migne S. L. 212, 731 ff. H.
Günter, Die christliche Legende des Abendlandes, Heidelberg, 1910, p. 86, suggests a comparison with the Irish witch in the twelfth-century legend of St. Coemgenus of Glendalough.
page 523 note 45 ASS v, 224 [xx Feb.] (Scheible, Kloster, v, pp. 122-3).
page 523 note 46 ASS xxi, 949 f. [xiv Jun.] (Scheible's reference, l. c., to vol. xx is wrong).
page 523 note 47 ASS xviii, 55 [xxix Maii] (Scheible, l. c.).
page 523 note 48 Burton, Supplemental Nights, vol. iv, pp. 44-5. In a note (vi, p. 506) Burton compares the Venus story and also the “Lithuanian (or rather Samoghitian)” story of the King of the Rats (Edm. Veckenstedt, Mythen, Sagen und Legenden der Zamaiten, Heidelberg, 1883, ii, pp. 160 ff.).
page 523 note 49 The Story of the Wise Minister Jnánagarbha in The Kathakoça, translated by C. H. Tawney, London, 1895, pp. 148 ff.
page 523 note 49a In the Kathá Sarit Ságara (translated by Tawney, ii, p. 600) “Vikramáditya falls in love with a statue, which turns out to be that of Kalingasená, the daughter of the King of Kalinga.”
page 523 note 50 Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, ed. 1869, p. 226. This story is from Fornmanna Sögur, Copenhagen, 1852, ii, p. 103 (Faereyingasaga, c. xxiii). On a statue that pursues a man who had stolen gold from it cf. Mitteilungen der schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde 13-14, p. 52, which refers to Rohde, Psyche, 3rd ed., i, p. 194, and Radermacher in Gomperz Festschrift, 1902, pp. 197 ff.
page 523 note 51 Graf, op. cit., ii, p. 396, says there is no need to seek “such remote origins.” Baring-Gould affirms with emphasis, however, that the Venus of the ring story is “unquestionably” the ancient goddess Holda, or Thorgerda.
page 523 note 52 Pliny, xxxiii, 6 (Bohn, trans. Bostock-Riley, vi, p. 80).
page 523 note 53 Koch's Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte, i (1886), pp. 13-36.
page 523 note 54 Related first by Callimachus; then by Ovid, Her. xx and xxi; cf. ‘The Golden Apple’ in Charles Kent's Aletheia, and ‘Cydippe and the Apple’ in Bulwer-Lytton's Lost Tales of Miletos. Cf. also the story of Hermochares and Ktesylla by Antoninus Liberalis (E. Martini, Mythographi Graeci, ii (1896), pp. 67 ff.); and that of the weasel and the fountain from the Talmud commentary (H. Günter, Die christliche Legende des Abendlandes, p. 85).
page 523 note 55 Ed. Massmann, vv. 10649 ff.
page 523 note 56 On heathen images cast into rivers and lakes cf. Massmann, l. c., p. 928.
page 523 note 57 Johann Wilhelm Wolf, Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie, Gött. und Leipzig, 1852, ii, p. 257.
page 523 note 58 “Hoc omnia Romana regis usque hodie praedicat, matresque docent liberos suos ad memoriam posteris transmittendam,” (Mon. Germ. Hist., Scriptores, x, p. 472). These words are not in the Rolls edition.
page 523 note 59 Polychronicon, i, 24.
page 523 note 60 Graf, op. cit., ii, pp. 392 ff. Graf notices also the motifs of the Wild Hunt and the letter to the Devil. As analogous tales he mentions that of a young man persecuted by a demon (Hector Boece, Hist. Scot. Book viii) and Cæsarius of Heisterbach's account of the necromancer Philippus. The miracle of the Virgin (see below) he treats briefly.
page 548 note 1 Ed. Poquet, Paris, 1857, pp. 355 ff.; Barabzan-Méon, Fabliaux et contes, Paris, 1808, ii, pp. 420 ff. There is a separate text of Gautier's version in ms. Harley 4401, of about the middle of the thirteenth century. (Ward, ii, p. 720.) There is an English translation of this miracle in Of the Tumbler of Our Lady and other Miracles, by Alice Kemp-Welch, London, 1908, pp. 59 ff.
This miracle (or one of its parallels) has been recently translated into German by S. Rüttgers; cf. Jahresberichte für neuere deutsche Literaturgeschichte, xxv (1914; Berlin, 1918), p. 422.
page 548 note 2 Über die von Gautier de Coincy benützten Quellen, Wien, 1894, (Denkschrift der K. Akad. der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Cl. xlix), pp. 35-7. See also Mussafia's Studien in Wiener Sitzungsberichte, Heft i (Sitzungsberichte, cxiii (1886), p. 986, no. 49). The same text, says Mussafia, is found also in lat. 2333A, fol. 66.
page 548 note 3 Reprinted by Massmann, iii, pp. 924-5.
page 548 note 4 Cf. Histoire littéraire, xviii, p. 321, and G. F. Warner in the Introduction to his edition of the Miracles of Mielot (Roxburghe Club, 1885).
page 548 note 5 Among these may be mentioned Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 12593 (olim St. Germain, lat. 486) no. 29 (Mussafia, Heft i, p. 962); Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 17491, no. 67 (Mussafia, i, p. 979); Charleville 168, no. 2 (Mussafia, ii, p. 49); Vatican, Reg. 33 (=Vinc. de Beauvais; Mussafia, ii, p. 53); British Museum Addit. 15723, no. 7 (Ward, ii, p. 626); British Museum Addit. 17920, no. 9, published by J. Ulrich, Miracles de Notre Dame en Provencal (Romania, viii (1879), pp. 12 ff.). Mussafia (Romania, ix (1880), p. 300) showed that the source of this Provençal collection was identical with Vincent de Beauvais vii, 81-95. Ulrich cites mss. Arundel 346, fol. 64v and Addit. 11579, fol. 11a as the original of Addit. 17920, no. 9; but incorrectly, for these two contain the Clerk of Pisa story; see below, p. 552.
The following variant is of interest: Bibliothèque Nationale fr. 1805, fol. 36v, Du clerc qui donna l'anel a une femme, laquelle espousa, which contains the peculiarity, says Graf (op. cit., p. 401, n. 66) that “il giovane chierico, destandosi, trova la Vergine coricata fra sè e la sposa, come il giovane romano trova Venere.”
In the first of the mss. listed above (Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 12593) the story is entitled In antiquis temporibus factum de imagine genitricis Dei miraculum. It begins “Erat quaedam ecclesia in qua imago …” Mussafia calls this version SG 29; the others in the above list are probably not identical, but are indicated by Mussafia as “=SG29.”
page 548 note 6 Ed. Clignett and Steenwinkel, Leyden, 1785, ii, p. 213; extract in Massmann, iii, pp. 925-6.
page 548 note 7 Cf. Ward-Herbert, iii, p. 424, and (for the contents of the Alphabetum Narrationum) Toldo's articles cited p. 528, n. 14 above; also Mussafia, iii, p. 45, no. 15. In the fifteenth-century English translation of the Alphabetum this miracle is no. 656 (ed. Mrs. M. M. Banks, E. E. T. S., p. 438).
page 548 note 8 Bibliothèque Nationale ms. éthiopien 2, fol. 101, of the sixteenth century. A French translation is printed in the Revue bleue, 23 octobre 1875, pp. 399 ff., by Maurice Vernes.
page 548 note 9 Op. cit., p. 20.
page 548 note 10 Studien, iii, pp. 53 ff. Mussafia calls it HM; cf. also Studien, i. HM comprises the first seventeen of a collection of forty-four miracles wrongly attributed by Bernhard Pez, who edited it from a thirteenth century manuscript, to a certain Potho, a monk of Priefling. Cf. Ward, Catalogue, ii, pp. 590 ff. The title of Pez's book is Ven. Agnetis Blannbekin … Vita et Revelationes, … Accessit Pothonis … Liber de Miraculis Sanctæ Dei Genetricis Mariœ … edidit R. P. Bernardus Pez, … Viennœ … 1731.
page 548 note 11 British Museum MS. Cleopatra C. x. fol. 124; Arundel 346, fol. 64; Royal 20 B xiv, fol. 138; printed by Carl Neuhaus, Lateinische Vorlagen zu den. Altfranzösischen Adgar'schen Marien-Legenden, Aschersleben [1886-7]. This text is practically identical with Pez.
page 548 note 12 Twelfth century:—Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 5268, no. 12 (Muss., ii, p. 6); Bern 137, no. 14 (Muss., ii, p. 16); Arsenal 903, no. 24 (Muss., ii, p. 76), Pisa not mentioned; British Museum Cleopatra C. x. no. 24 (Ward, ii, p. 609); B. N. lat. 18168, no. 16 (Muss., ii, p. 12); B. M. Arundel 346, no. 16 (Muss., ii, p. 12); Admont 638 (Muss., i, p. 947); Reun 16, no. 40 (Muss., i, p. 950).
Twelfth-thirteenth cent.:—Montpellier 146, no. 16 (Muss., ii, p. 12); Oxford, Balliol 240, Book ii, no. 16 (Muss., ii, p. 31); Ghent 245, no. 16 (cf. Leipzig 821) (Muss., iii, p. 21).
Thirteenth cent. :—B. M. Addit. 32248, no. 6, twenty leonine hexameters; cf. B. N. lat. 14857 below (Ward, ii, p. 698; cf. Muss., iii, pp. 7-13, iv, p. 11); B. N. lat. 17491, no. 77 (Muss., i, p. 979); B. N. lat. 18134, no. 10 (Muss., i, p. 983; B. N. lat. 5267, no. 16 (Muss., i, p. 990); Salisbury 97, Book ii, no. 41 (Muss., iv, p. 22); Charleville 28, no. 16 = B. N. 5268 (Muss., ii, p. 10); B. M. Harley 3244, no. 100 (Herbert, iii, p. 462); B. N. lat. 818, no. 45 (Muss., v, p. 6), this ms. contains also the Marriage of Mary from Gautier de Coincy, the Bacheler of Rome from the Vie des anciens pères, and Love won by Black Arts; B. M. Arundel 406, no. 9 (Ward, ii, p. 662); Copenhagen Thott 128, no. 15 (Muss., ii, p. 17); B. N. lat. 5562, no. 7, greatly abbreviated (Muss., ii, p. 45); Kremsmünster 114, no. 16 (Muss., i, p. 946); Ambrosiana C. 150, no. 16 (Muss., i, p. 951).
Fourteenth cent.:—B. M. Addit. 33956, no. 27 (Ward, ii, p. 674); B. M. Harl. 495, no. 1 (Herbert, iii, p. 534); B. M. Arund. 506, no. 30 (Herbert, iii, p. 543); id. no. 75 (Herbert, iii, p. 546); id. no. 118 (Herbert, iii, p. 549); id. no. 194 (Herbert, iii, p. 555); id. no. 230 (Herbert, iii, p. 558) (Note: the last four are slightly different from the type); B. N. lat. 2333A, no. 80 = lat. 17491 (Muss., i, p. 981); Toulouse 478, no. 10 (Muss., ii, p. 18); B. N. lat. 10770, no. 11 (Muss., iii, p. 25); Madrid Bb 150 contains Liber Mariae by Gil de Zamora, a friend of Alfonsus X,—Clerk of Pisa, chap, v, no. 9; B. N. lat. 14857, no. 6 (Muss., iii, p. 9); Salzburg. St. Peters a, v 3 (Muss., i, p. 950).
Fourteenth-fifteenth cent.:—Metz 612 =B. N. lat. 14857 (Muss., iii, p. 9).
Fourteenth-fifteenth cent.:—Metz 612 = B. N. lat. 14857 (Muss., ii, p. 76); Florence Laurentiana, Conventi soppressi 747, D. 3 = Arsenal 903 (Muss., ii, p. 76); Vatican 4318 = Metz 612 (Muss., iii, p. 9 = Munich Lat. 4350 = Erfurt (Muss., iii, p. 15).
Cf. also Erfurt 44 (according to Kritz), Munich 4350, Munich 4146 (Muss., iii, p. 15); Cambrai 739, no. 13 (Muss., i, p. 976); B. M. Royal 20 B 14 and Addit. 18364 (Warner, Mielot, pp. xi-xii;
B. N. fr. 819; id. fr. 820; Toldo, op. cit. p. 81, n. 1; Poncelet, Miraculorum b. v. Mariae … index in Anal. Boll., xxi (1902), 301, no. 866.
page 548 note 13 Ed. Graesse, p. 592.
page 548 note 14 Ed. Poquet, Paris, 1857, p. 627, Du clerc qui fame espousa et puis la lessa.
page 548 note 15 Ed. M. M. Banks, (EETS, London, 1904-5), no. ccclxv, p. 317.
page 548 note 16 Vol. iii, 1878, pp. 137 ff.
page 548 note 17 E. g., Harl. 2851, fol. 87b, no. 11, ca. 1300 (Ward, ii, p. 671); Addit. 11579, fol. 11, no. 19, early fourteenth century (Herbert, iii, p. 529); Royal 8 F vi, fol. 22b, no. 55, toward the middle of the fifteenth century (Herbert, iii, p. 680).
page 548 note 18 “Beatus Zepherus” (St. Zephirinus, 202-218) in Harl. 2851 (Ward, ii, p. 671).
page 548 note 19 Warner, op. cit., p. xii.
page 548 note 20 Jos. Klapper, Exempla aus Handschriften des Mittelalters, Heidelberg, 1911 (Hilka's Sammlung Mittellateinischer Texte, no. 2), no. 50, p. 40.
page 548 note 21 Franz Pfeiffer, Marienlegenden, Stuttgart, 1846, no. vii, p. 53. Pfeiffer says the source of the collection was largely the Liber de Miraculis [= Pez]. The same poem is printed by von der Hagen in Gesammtabenteuer, iii, no. lxxxi, p. 508. Cf. ibid., p. cxxv.
page 548 note 22 Warner, op. cit., p. 10.
page 548 note 23 C. G. N. de Vooys, Middelnederlandsche Legenden en Exempelen, Gravenhage, 1900, pp. 90-1.
page 548 note 24 Migne, Patrologia Latina clix, col. 320; Legenda Aurea, cap. clxxxix (p. 870). Cf. Mussafia, i, p. 931; Ward, ii, p. 609. In the Middle Netherlandish Legenda Aurea, Winterstue, fol. 121, Van een diaken, the clerk is “des conincs broeder van Zacharien”; cf. C. G. N. DeVooys, Middelnederlandsche Legenden en Exempelen, p. 90. In the Devoet boexken (ms. Haag L. 50, fol. 82), a Dutch translation of the Scala Celi, the same story occurs, says De Vooys (ibid., n. 1), but the bridegroom is “des conincs soen van ungherien.”
page 548 note 25 Twelfth century:—B. N. lat. 14463, no. 13 (Muss., i, p. 954).
Twelfth-thirteenth cent.:—Copenhagen Thott 26, no. 27 (Muss., i, p. 971).
Thirteenth cent.:— B. N. lat. 12593, no. 61 (Muss., i, p. 966); Leipzig 819, no. 22 (Muss., i, p. 974); Leipzig 821, no. 27 (Muss., i, p. 971); B. N. lat. 17491, no. 18 (Muss., i, p. 977); B. N. lat. 18134, no. 8 (Muss., i, p. 982); Charleville 168, no. 24 (Muss., ii, p. 51).
Fourteenth cent.: Arund. 506, no. 20 (with variations,—Herbert, iii, p. 543).
Cf. also B. N. lat. 16056, no. 29 (Muss., i, p. 960).
page 548 note 26 Herbert, iii, p. 337. Printed by Méon, Nouveau Recueil de Fabliaux et Contes, Paris, 1823, ii, pp. 293-313. The poem contains 662 octosyllabic lines. A fragment of this tale occurs in a fifteenth-century Swiss manuscript, cf. Tobler, Jahrb. für rom. und engl. Lit., vii (1866), p. 434.
page 548 note 27 This miracle is printed from Salisbury MS. 97 by Mussafia, iv, pp. 53 ff.
page 548 note 28 Printed by Mussafia, v, pp. 48 ff.; and in Pez, no. xxxv. My summary is based in the main on this version.
page 548 note 29 It is obvious that the rhythm is not entirely lost in the “prose” version of Pez; and doubtless many texts which are not strictly metrical preserve it better than others.
page 548 note 30 Manuscripts of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries containing the metrical version are:—B. N. lat. 14463, Brussels 7797, 7806, Phillips 336, B. N. lat. 12593 (Mussafia's text is based on the first of these, with collation of the others); B. N. lat. 2672, 16056, 17491, 3333A, 18134, 18168, 6560, Montpellier 146, Egerton 612, Arundel 346, Charleville 79, 158 (mentioned by Mussafia, v, but not examined by him); B. M. Cleop. C. x, Vespas. D. xix. (Muss., iii, p. 6; Ward, ii, p. 694); Madrid Bb 150 (Muss., iii, p. 28, greatly abbreviated); and a version in 48 distichs occurs in the same ms. of the Amplonian Collection at Erfurt as that which contains the Clerk of Pisa (cf. n. 12 above, and Muss., iii, p. 17).
William of Malmesbury's version is found in the Salisbury ms. and also in Oxford, Balliol 240 (which is practically a copy of Royal 20 B 14,—Muss., ii, p. 32), Camb. Univ. Lib. Mm 6. 15 (slightly different, Muss., ii, p. 39 and n. 4), Toulouse 478 (entirely different text, but from the extract in Muss., ii, p. 29, appears certainly to be based on William of Malmesbury). Warner (introduction to Mielot, p. xviii; Herbert iii, pp. 513, 523) mentions Sloane 2478, fol. 5b and Harl. 2385, fol. 54b, in prose, which give the title of the book of magic: Hic incipit mors animœ (not mentioned by William) and adds at the end that when the clerk died those standing by saw a dove issue from his mouth and rise into the clouds. These two manuscripts seem therefore to show a contamination of the metrical and Malmesbury's versions. Related is B. N. lat. 5562, described by Mussafia thus (ii, p. 45) : Clericus quidem cum esset in arte nigromantie, cujus titulus est hic: ‘incipit mors anime,‘ non mediocriter instructus et de quadam puella esset graviter temptatus, arte sua dyabolum alloquitur. “Wie ich auf indirectem Weg, mit ziemlicher Sicherheit vermuthe, zur Fassung von Oxf. iiib 12, Toul. iiic 19 [i. c. Balliol 240, Toulouse 478, as above] gehörig. Die Diction muss aber sehr stark abgekürzt sein.”
page 548 note 31 Printed by Mussafia, v, pp. 54-9.
page 548 note 32 De septem donis, Paris ii, Tit. vi, no. 140 (ed. Lecoy de la Marche, p. 120). Cf. Toldo, op. cit., p. 80.
page 548 note 33 Warner, p. 20.
page 548 note 34 Bartholomew of Trent (d. 1240), quoted by Graf, op. cit., ii, p. 402, n. 69. Same in Legenda Aurea, cap. xxiv (Graesse, p. 116). Graf mentions also the abbreviated form in Herman von Fritzlar, Heiligenleben, p. 69; Mirabilia (ed. Parthey, p. 61) in which the priest is named John and the Pope is Paschasius (same in British Museum ms. Addit. 18347.—Herbert, iii, p. 599, no. 2); and the chronicle of St. Egidius in which the priest's name is Leopardus, the Pope's Innocentius (same in Klapper, Exempla, no. 52, p. 41). In the English translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum, ed. M. M. Banks, EETS., it is no. xlviii, pp. 32-3. Cf. also Herbert, iii, p. 470, no. 57. There is a variant in Etienne de Bourbon, ed. cit., p. 84; cf. Herbert, iii, p. 607, no. 18. Klapper refers to Alem., xvii, 14, no. 22.
page 548 note 35 Wright, Latin Stories, no. 71 (from ms. Harley 219); Mussafia, ii, pp. 67-8; Herbert, iii, p. 52.
page 548 note 36 British Museum, ms. Addit. 11872, fol. 133 (Herbert, iii, p. 696, no. 37).
page 548 note 37 Dist. vii, cap. 32; cf. Herolt, Promptuarium, no. 27; Mussafia, ii, p. 60, and iii, p. 46.
page 548 note 38 Bonum univ. de apibus, II, cap. xxix. 6; Herolt, Promptuarium, no. 38; Mussafia, ii, p. 62, iii, p. 46. Cf. also Ward-Herbert, ii, pp. 634, 684; iii, pp. 360, 527, 541, 614.
page 548 note 39 Of remoter interest here is the following :
“How a clerk, taking shelter in a porch, found an image of the Virgin there, and placed a clasp upon its finger; how he afterwards saw in a church a second image of the Virgin with the same clasp on its finger; and how a voice from it taught him a new ‘Gaude ‘.” British Museum ms. Addit. 18929 (late thirteenth century), fol. 85; Ward, ii, p. 659, no. 26; printed in Mone, Latein. Hymnen des Mittelalters, ii, p. 169.
“ German clerk has nothing else to offer at the mass of the Virgin but a broach which he meant for his sweetheart Mariota; the Virgin appears to him that night, wearing the broach and calling herself Mariota, and claiming his allegiance henceforth.” British Museum ms. Sloane 2478 (early fourteenth century), fol. 6; Herbert, iii, p. 513, no. 11. Cf. ms. Egerton 1117, no. 3, in which the clerk's offering is a silver necklace; Ward, ii, p. 666. In ms. Addit. 32248 (which also contains the Clerk of Pisa) the clerk makes a pedestal for the image with branches of trees, and crowns it with flowers; Ward, ii, p. 698, no. 17. Cf. also Herbert, iii, p. 543, no. 20.
On the Girl of Arras cf. Ward-Herbert, ii, p. 703, iii, p. 661, etc.; Mussafia, i, pp. 28, 56.
An immoral monk is seized and thrown into a river by the Devil, but is rescued by Mary because he has been accustomed to say an Ave Maria whenever he passed her statue.—Liber Exemplorum (thirteenth century), ed. A. G. Little, Aberdeen, 1908, p. 32, no. 52.
page 548 note 40 Kern, Histoire de Bouddhisme, in Revue de l'histoire des religions, 1882, p. 164 (Toldo, l. c.).
page 548 note 41 Toldo, op. cit., p. 81, n. 1, and p. 80. In the De relationibus of Alain de la Roche (ca. 1460), chap. iv (ed. 1691, p. 120 ff.) it is related that Mary gave a betrothal ring woven of her own hair to a monk who had been severely tempted by the Devil (H. Günter, Legenden Studien, Köln, 1906, p. 184).
page 548 note 42 William Jones, Finger Ring Lore, London, 1898, p. 240.
page 548 note 43 Jones, op. cit., pp. 237-8.
page 548 note 44 Harrod, Archœologia, xl, part 2 (Jones, op. cit., p. 241).
page 548 note 45 With the Clerk of Pisa I here include its variant (or original) the Neglected Mary Image; for they represent the very same story. Whether the former is actually a more developed form of the latter I shall not pretend to say.
page 548 note 46 One recalls that William of Malmesbury was acquainted with both the Venus story and Love Obtained by the Black Arts, and yet William did not apparently regard the two as mutually related or suggestive one of the other.
page 548 note 47 Mussafia conjectured that HM, the eleventh-century collection of Mary miracles which contains the earliest occurrence of the Clerk of Pisa was compiled in England. If this is so, the story must have already been in circulation; for an Englishman would not localize it in Pisa, and name the particular church, without special reason. Perhaps the tale had a remote basis of fact, or of local tradition.
page 547 note 1 Eichendorff, in a letter to Fouqué (Dec. 2, 1817) explained that he took the hint for this story from Happel's Curiositates; see the extract in Koch's introduction to Das Marmorbild in Kürschner's Deutsche National-Litteratur, 146, ii, 2, pp. 157 ff. Koch mentions other stories and poems which involve a similar theme. The German critics find a sort of literary allegory in Eichendorff's tale. On Happel's version of Venus and the ring see above, p. 529.
page 547 note 2 G. W. H. Häring (1798-1871), who wrote under the name of Willibald Alexis, published in the Taschenbuch für Damen for 1828 a Venus in Rom (also in Gesammelte Novellen, iii, Berlin, 1831), which I believe is the story of the statue and the ring; but I have been unable to obtain a copy of it. (Cf. Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, ix, pp. 436, 466.)
page 547 note 3 Cf. Augustin Filon, Mérimée et ses amis, Paris, 1894, p. 98.
Mr. Arthur Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Literature, New York, 1919, pp. 58 ff., interprets Mérimée's story rather differently; and indeed finds a “spiritual meaning,” which Mérimée rejected, in the mediseval story:—“The ring which the bridegroom sets on the finger of Venus and which the statue's finger closes upon, accepting it, symbolizes the pact between love and sensuality, the lover's abdication of all but the physical part of love.”
Mérimée's Vénus d'Ille was translated into English by Edgar Saltus, in Tales before Supper, Brentano's, 1887; cf. C. Van Veohten, The Merry-go-round, New York, 1918, p. 58.