De universo

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Early print by De Universo with handwritten marginalia .

De Universo or De rerum naturis is an encyclopedia by Rabanus Maurus (approx. 780 - 856 ).

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Rabanus Maurus (also known as Hrabanus Maurus ), the Praeceptor Germaniae (“Teacher of Germany”) and student of Alcuins , published a 22-volume encyclopedia in 847 , which he dedicated to Bishop Haimo von Halberstadt , “with the express intention of giving him and his clergymen To give a book-poor area an aid in the fulfillment of their pastoral tasks, especially in the preaching of the faith. "

In contrast to Isidore's encyclopedia , the Etymologiae , which was an important, but by no means the only source for the work of Rabanus Maurus and with which he shared the goal of "representing the whole of reality, the visible and the invisible world" Rabanus Maurus not only explains the meaning of the words and properties of things ( de rerum naturis et verborum proprietatibus ), but also their mystical meaning ( de mystica earundem rerum significatione ) in the context of the allegorical exegesis of the Bible , which is based on the principle of multiple senses of writing . This made the work a handbook of biblical hermeneutics, in that it excerpted the allegorical interpretations from the commentaries of the authoritative late antique authorities such as Jerome , Augustine , and Gregory the Great and made them readily available under the respective keyword.

Accordingly, the structure of the work is not based on the system of the septem artes liberales , like the Isidors , but starts from the highest good, the Creator God, and treats things in descending order according to their position within the hierarchy of the cosmic order. The division into 22 books corresponds to the number of 22 books of the Old Testament (according to Isidore, etym. 6, 1, 3), whereby the function of the whole as a guide to the New Testament, a kind of New Testament propaedeutic , became evident.

The encyclopedia, the title of which varies widely in tradition, has been handed down in numerous manuscripts from the 9th to the 15th century, including several illustrated ones (the oldest is Montecassino , Biblioteca dell'Abbazia, cod. 132, approx. 1022/23) was first printed by Adolf Rusch in Strasbourg before 1467 under the title De rerum naturis seu de universo .

Like Isidore, Rabanus tried to compile the knowledge of the time from the works of ancient and early medieval authors. What is remarkable, however, is a reassessment of medicine at the time of Charlemagne ; In his list of clerical educational goals, Rabanus Maurus also calls for basic medical knowledge for the first time, which was previously unthinkable when medicine was still considered an intervention in the divine plan of salvation and only prayer and the turning to God and the saints were regarded as permissible measures against illness .

See also

literature

  • Elisabeth Heyse: Hrabanus Maurus encyclopedia “De rerum naturis”. Studies on the sources and the method of compilation (Munich contributions to Medieval Studies and Renaissance Research 4). Arbeo Society, Munich 1969.
  • Diane O. Le Berrurier: The Pictoral Sources of Mythological and Scientific Illustrations in Hrabanus Maurus' De Rerum Naturis . Garland Publishing Inc., New York and London 1978.
  • Marianne Reuter: Text and image in Codex 132 of the Montecassino library “Liber Rabani de originibus rerum” . Investigations into medieval illustration practice, Munich 1984.
  • Guglielmo Cavallo (Ed.): Rabano Mauro. De rerum naturis. Cod. Casin 132 Archivio dell'Abbazia di Montecassino, Vol. 1–3 (facsimile and commentary and supplement). Priuli & Verlucca, Pavone Cavese 1994.
  • Guglielmo Cavallo: L'universo medievale. Il manoscritto cassinese del De rerum naturis di Rabano Mauro . Priuli & Verlucca, Scarmagno (TO) 1996.
  • William Schipper: Montecassino 132 and the Early Transmission of Hrabanus Maurus' De Rerum naturis. In: Archa Verbi 4, 2007, pp. 103-126
  • Mechthild Dreyer: Encyclopedia and knowledge space: De rerum naturis des Hrabanus Maurus . In: Archa Verbi 4, 2007, pp. 127-141.
  • Priscilla Throop: Hrabanus Maurus. De Universo. The peculiar properties of words and thei mystical significance. The complete translation, Vol. 1-2. MedievalMS, Charlotte, Vt 2009.

Web links

  • De rerum naturis : (lat.) A copy of the Karlsruhe manuscript Augiensis 96 and 98 by William Schipper with many errors
  • De rerum naturis : (lat.) In the Bibliotheca Augustana, after W. Schipper

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Brunhölzl: History of Latin Literature in the Middle Ages. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 1975, Volume 1, pp. 331–333, the citations p. 331.
  2. ↑ "The person who came up with the claim to want to cure illness was actually guilty of the presumptuous original sin of superbia by trying to intervene correctively in God's plan of salvation" (Adelheid Platte and Dr. Hermann Schefers in Archivlink ( Memento vom April 6, 2004 in the Internet Archive ))