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 commentators, or even pagan authors. The
lost Breviarium morale was perhaps a general introduction to the Reductorium 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 significant moralist and polemicist, who frequently castigated abuses of
ecclesiastical and political offices. 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.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: OVIDE MORALISÉ; PREACHING; PREMIERFAIT, LAURENT DE;
TRANSLATION]
Bersuire, Pierre. Opera omnia. Cologne: Friessem and Fromart, 1712.
——. Reductorium morale: Liber XV, cap. II—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.
BERTHA OF HOLLAND
(fl. late 11th c.). Queen of France. As part of the peace agreement of 1072 between King
Philip I (r. 1060–1108) and Robert the Frisian, Robert married his stepdaughter Bertha to
the king. She was daughter of Florence, count of Holland. Although she became the
mother of Philip’s heir, Louis VI, Philip repudiated her in 1092 for Bertrade de Montfort,
saying Bertha was too fat.
Constance B.Bouchard
Dhondt, Jean. “Sept femmes et un trio de rois.” Contributions a l’histoire économique et sociale
3(1964–65):35–70.
Duby, Georges. The Knight, the Lady, and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in
Medieval France, trans. Barbara Bray. New York: Pantheon, 1983, Chap. 1.
Facinger, Marion F. “A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France, 987–1237.” Studies in
Medieval and Renaissance History 5(1968):3–47.
The Encyclopedia 221