complete or in an autograph manuscript. Of his Latin
works, the Reductorium morale and Repertorium morale
have survived fairly intact, while the Breviarium morale
and Cosmographia (or Descriptio mundi) have not been
positively identifi ed. The encyclopedic Reductorium
and Repertorium are extensive biblical commentaries
designed to organize and locate material for preaching.
The Reductorium is so named because its purpose was
to “reduce” to its moral interpretation all that was known
or could be known about God, nature, and the world,
both visible and invisible. The fi rst-thirteen books (ca.
1340), which survive in only one complete exemplar,
were based largely on Bartholomew the Englishman’s
Liber de proprietatibus and cite hundreds of classical
and medieval auctores. The fi nal three books were com-
posed later and circulated independently: De natura mi-
rabilibus (1343–45) is a moralization of the marvels of
the natural world, drawing especially upon the legends
of the Poitou region and the Otia imperalia of Gervais
of Tilbury; Ovidius moralizatus (or De fabulis poetarum)
is a moralizing commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
for which Bersuire drew upon, among other sources, the
French Ovide moralisé; and Super totam Bibliam offers
moral interpretations of the best-known Old and New
Testament episodes.
The Repertorium morale is an alphabetical listing of
several thousand biblical words of all sorts (proper and
common nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc.), each of which
is accorded a moralizing interpretation. This work, if
printed today, would run to over twenty octavo volumes.
Bersuire’s usual procedure is to list all the different
meanings the word has in Scripture, which are followed
by a series of short rhymed statements, each expounded
by reference to the Bible, the fathers, theological com-
mentators, or even pagan authors. The lost Breviarium
morale was perhaps a general introduction to the Re-
ductorium and Repertorium.
Between 1354 and 1356, Bersuire undertook at
the behest of King John a translation into French of
the three decades (1, 3, 4) of Livy’s Ab urbe condita
then known. The principal source for late-medieval
knowledge of Roman history, the translation survives
in some eighty manuscripts and was possibly reworked
by Laurent de Premierfait. An important glossary of
technical words, many forged by Bersuire, precedes the
translation proper.
An important compiler of received knowledge rather
than an original thinker, Bersuire was a signifi cant mor-
alist and polemicist, who frequently castigated abuses of
ecclesiastical and political offi ces. With his translation
of Livy, his friendship with Petrarch, and his frequent
citations of classical authorities, he can be seen as a
precursor of humanistic thinking in France.
See also Machaut, Guillaume de
Further Reading
Bersuire, Pierre. Opera omnia. Cologne: Friessem and Fromart,
1712.
——. Reductorium morale: Liber XV, cap. 11–XV, “Ovidius
moralizatus,” ed. Joseph Engels. Utrecht, 1962. [Based on
the Paris printed edition of 1509.]
Samaran, Charles. “Pierre Bersuire.” Histoire littéraire de la
France 39 (1962): 259–450.
Grover A. ZinnBERTHOLD VON REGENSBURG
(ca. 1210–1272)
The most well-known and effectual preacher in the ver-
nacular in the German Middle Ages was the Franciscan
priest Berthold von Regensburg. Neither Berthold’s
birthdate nor birthplace has been established, but he
is identifi ed with the Minorite order in Regensburg, of
which he became a member, possibly after years of study
in Magdeburg. While Berthold acted as confessor to
the women of nearby Obermünster and Niedermünster,
his fellow Franciscan David von Augsburg probably
served as his assistant. Beginning in 1240 and continu-
ing until his death, Berthold preached to religious and
lay audiences fi rst in southern Germany, then Bohemia,
Switzerland, Styria, and France. In 1263 Pope Urban
IV requested that Berthold assist Albertus Magnus in
preaching the Crusades. Berthold’s preaching to the
masses took place outside the church and in the ver-
nacular; embellished descriptions of his sermonizing
assert that the lay crowds sometimes numbered forty
thousand to two hundred thousand. Such exaggerated
estimates substantiate Berthold’s popularity and the
respect in which he was held. Because of his notoriety
he also was called upon to settle disputes in the political
and religious spheres.
The only extant works by and attributed to Berthold
are Latin and German sermons. Five collections of
sermons comprise the Latin corpus. Of these only the
fi rst three collections—Rusticanus de Dominicis (Rural
Sunday Sermons), Rusticanus de Sanctis (Holy Day),
and Commune Sanctorum Rusticani (Rural Saints’ Day
Sermons)—numbering 254 works, are indisputably by
Berthold; they were prepared between 1250 and 1255
for his fellow preachers. The authenticity of the remain-
ing 135 Latin sermons is uncertain. In the preface to the
sermons Berthold states that he undertook the editing
of the works to counter the error-ridden versions being
produced by enthusiastic but unskilled clerics.
The authorship of the German sermons cannot be
ascertained with any degree of certainty. More than
two hundred pieces have at one time or another been
attributed to Berthold, but today fewer than one hun-
dred are identifi ed as works based on the sermons
of the Franciscan. It is presumed that the vernacularBERTHOLD VON REGENSBURG