Medieval France. An Encyclopedia

(Darren Dugan) #1

new, more detailed way. It should be noted, also, that in the 14th century the library of
the Sorbonne had lists of books in other libraries in Paris, apparently for the use of
members of the college who might want to consult books not in the Sorbonne library.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: ABÉLARD, PETER; CANON LAW; CHARLES V THE WISE; CLUNY;
GERBERT OF AURILLAC; JOHN, DUKE OF BERRY; JOHN OF SALISBURY;
MANUSCRIPTS, PRODUCTION AND ILLUMINATION; PALEOGRAPHY AND
MANUSCRIPTS; PETER LOMBARD; PHILIP THE BOLD; PHILIP THE GOOD;
SAINT-VICTOR, ABBEY AND SCHOOL OF; SCHOOLS, CATHEDRAL;
SCHOOLS, MONASTIC; THIERRY OF CHARTRES; UNIVERSITIES]
Christ, Karl. The Handbook of Medieval Library History, trans. Theophil M.Otto. Metuchen:
Scarecrow, 1984.
Reynolds, L.D., and N.G.Wilson. Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and
Latin Literature. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
Rouse, Mary A., and Richard H.Rouse. Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and
Manuscripts. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991.
Stahl, Harvey. “The Problem of Manuscript Painting at Saint-Denis During the Abbacy of Suger.”
In Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis: A Symposium, ed. Paula L.Gerson. New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1986, pp. 163–81.
Thompson, James Westfall. The Medieval Library. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939.


LIBRI CAROLINI


. The official Carolingian rebuttal to the iconodulist Second Nicene Council (787).
Completed in 793 by Theodulf of Orléans, the treatise is divided into four books of
chapters attacking acta by the eastern council, based on a Latin translation of the
council’s Greek decrees that had been prepared earlier in Rome. Despite the care taken
over the contents and wording of the Carolingian response, evident from the erasures and
rewriting still visible on the extant, original manuscript of the Libri, the document was
never promulgated. The decision not to do so resulted probably from the Carolingians’
realization, only after Theodulf had begun his work, that Pope Hadrian I approved of the
Second Nicene decrees. The pope’s views were made evident in his reply to the
Carolingian Capitulare adversus synodum, a list of chapter headings to be included in the
Libri Carolini that was sent to Rome most likely in 792. Once the response to the
Capitulare had been received, the Libri were more or less finished, but under the
circumstances Charlemagne did not wish to set himself against Hadrian by presenting
him with the treatise.
The Latin rendering of the council’s decrees available to Theodulf was flawed at
numerous points. Above all, it consistently used the word adoratio, which implies the
type of worship owed to God alone, to translate references in the Greek to an inferior
kind of reverence that the Byzantine iconodules believed was justifiably bestowed on
works of art. But although such errors led Theodulf to misunderstand aspects of the
eastern position, his teachings in the Libri Carolini merit attention in their own right and
reveal in their author a carefully developed, highly Augustinian conception of the role


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