Liber Floridus

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World map from Liber Floridus
Page from Liber Floridus depicting a dragon (copy from the 15th century)

The Liber Floridus ( Latin for Blooming Book or Book of Flowers ) is a work by Canon Lambert of Saint-Omer, which was written around 1120. It is an encyclopedia that deals with various theological, natural-philosophical and historical topics.

Origin and authorship

As the author of the true Franco-Flemish Benedictine - canon of the cathedral in Saint-Omer , Pas-de-Calais , Lambert de Saint-Omer (also Lambertus Audomarensis called). At the time of its creation, Saint-Omer was in the county of Flanders , a cultural and economic center of what was then Western and Northern Europe.
The Liber Floridus is a compilation of various extracts from around 192 other works. The original text was written in Latin and later translated into French ( Le Livre fleurissant en fleurs ).

The original Lambert manuscript is now in the University Library in Ghent . There are also two contemporary copies, both from around 1150, one in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and one in the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel . The Wolfenbüttler copy made of 105 parchment sheets was acquired in 1710 on the initiative of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , then head of the library. Both copies differ in details from the original (e.g. in the world map it contains). Further copies exist from later centuries.
The naming of the manuscript as "Book of Flowers" is to be understood as a metaphor . Lambert wanted to see the diversity and beauty of divine creation as a blooming garden in his work and saw his task as an author in picking some particularly beautiful or interesting flowers from it and explaining them to the reader.

content

The work contains a quasi-chronological report of world events up to the year 1119. Biblical, astronomical, geographical and natural-philosophical topics are dealt with. Lambert shows himself in the work as an extraordinarily educated and well-read cleric. He used a wide variety of sources, including a. the etymologies of Isidore of Seville , the Historia Brittonum and the Chronicle of the Crusades by Bartolf von Nangis. He makes several references to the reports of crusaders from Saint-Omer, with whom he was apparently in contact after their return from the Holy Land. The Liber Floridus is considered to be the first encyclopedia of the Middle Ages since the works of Isidore of Seville.

  • The labyrinth of the Minotaur in Liber Floridus (copy from the 15th century)

  • The seven-headed dragon from the Apocalypse ( Rev 12: 3b – 4) in Liber Floridus

  • Various plants in Liber Floridus (copy from the 15th century)

  • The end of the world, explained in Liber Floridus

  • A map of Europe in Liber Floridus : Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ms. 92, fol. 241r (period 1112/1115)

  • Depiction of the cosmos in Liber floridus in the handwriting Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 1 Gud. lat., fol. 64v (12th century)

  • Alexander the Great in a manuscript by Liber floridus from 1112/1121: Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ms. 92, fol. 153v

literature

  • Karen De Coene, Martine De Reuet, Philippe De Maeyer (Eds.): Liber floridus, 1121. The World in a Book. Lannoo, Warnsveld 2011, ISBN 978-90-209-5927-7 .
  • Albert Derolez: The autograph manuscript of the Liber Floridus; a key to the encyclopedia of Lambert of Saint-Omer (= Corpus Christianorum; Autographa medii aevi , vol. 4). Brepols, Turnhout 1998, ISBN 2-503-50792-1 .
  • Hanna Vorholt: The illustrated manuscripts of the “Liber Floridus”. Tradition and transformations of the encyclopedia of Lambert of Saint-Omer (dissertation).
  • Albert Derolez: The Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus. A Study of the Original Manuscript, Ghent, University Library, MS 92. London 2015 (Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History 76).

Web links

Commons : Liber Floridus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ corresponds to p. 86 of the Wolfenbüttler copy, digitized version
  2. ↑ According to recent research, Lambert von Saint-Omer is not identical with Abbot Lambert de Saint-Bertin of the Abbey of Saint-Bertin , which is also located in Saint-Omer.
  3. ^ A b Index of Cartographic Images Illustrating Maps of the Early Medieval Period 400-1300 AD
  4. ↑ Ghent University Library, MS 92 (Liber Floridus)
  5. ^ Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. Lat. 8865 (Suppl. 10-2), Paris
  6. ↑ Herzog August Library, Codex Guelf. 1 Gud. Lat. (cat. 4305), fols. 69v – 70r, Wolfenbüttel
  7. ^ All valuables at once (pdf) ( Memento of August 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), press releases from the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel, accessed May 29, 2009.
  8. ↑ corresponds to p. 44 of the Wolfenbüttler copy, digitized version
  9. ↑ corresponds to p. 34 of the Wolfenbüttler copy, digitized version
  10. ↑ corresponds to p. 157/158 of the Wolfenbüttler copy, digitized
  11. ↑ corresponds to p. 67 of the Wolfenbüttler copy, digitized version