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PREFACE.

§ 1. MANUSCRIPT OF THE LINCOLN TREATISES.

IN this seventh and last volume of the works of Giraldus Cambrensis, are contained his two Lincoln treatises, the Life of St. Remigius with its additions, and the Life of St. Hugh of Burgundy; the latter of which appears now for the first time in print.

MS. of the Lincoln

These treatises are preserved to us in Treatises; No. 425, one manuscript only; viz. MS. 425 in C.C.C. Cambridge. the library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, a small 8vo. volume of vellum. They occupy about the first half of the volume; and are in double columns, in a hand of the early part of the thirteenth century, written, it would seem, and added to in the margin or otherwise, at different times, but always, it would seem, by the same hand. They have little ornamentation, but the hand is a beautifully clear and legible one, and remarkably free from scribal blunders. An editor, generally, will find himself often at fault, and think himself unhappy, if he has but one manuscript of an old writer before him: but in the case of these Lincoln treatises, I doubt whether any number of manuscripts, however early and good, would have enabled me to give a much more correct text than is here supplied by this one manuscript. Of all the early manuscripts of Giraldus's different works which I have had to study, this C.C.C. 425 seems to me to have the best claim to be looked upon, if not as his own autograph copy, yet as

Infra, p. xiii.

written and revised and added to under his own eye. At any rate it was, in all likelihood, written before Giraldus's death; it certainly gives us a most correct text; and the text, probably, of Giraldus's last revision.

In the case of the Life of Remigius, however, we have to regret that this manuscript gives us the second edition only, as presented to archbishop Langton in 1213 or 1214, and that we have no copy of the first edition, issued some fifteen years before, during the life-time of St. Hugh.

Bound up with these Lincoln treatises, and occupying the latter half of the volume, are letters of Peter of Blois,1 seventy-eight in number, in a hand of the middle or latter part of the fourteenth century.

The Life of Re

lume.

§ 2. LIFE OF ST. REMIGIUS; ITS TWO EDITIONS, ETC. The first of the treatises of Giraldus migius of this vo- in this volume he sometimes calls the "Vita," sometimes the "Legenda" of Vol. i. 416. St. Remigius. In his De libris a se scriptis, he calls it "Vita S. Remigii; and so again, in his Catalogus Ibid. 421. brevior librorum suorum. In the De Jure, &c., he calls this Life, and the Life of St. Hugh, "Legendæ de duobus "episcopis Lincolniensibus." In the dedication to archInfra, 3, bishop Langton of the two treatises, he calls them "Vitæ." The Life of Remigius is called " Vita S. Remigii,” in the preface to the first edition; but "Legenda beati Remigii," in the heading of the table of chapters of the second edition as in this volume, which heading, however, was probably in the first edition also.

Vol. iii. 373.

&c.

Infra, 8.

Infra, 9.

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This a second edition.

For it is quite clear, from internal evidence, that the Life of Remigius of

this volume, as given us by the one C. C. C. manuscript,

1 These are not included in the long list of manuscripts of Peter of

Blois's Letters, in Mr. Hardy's catalogue.

The first edition

lifetime.

is a second edition of this treatise, altered and added to, but perhaps very smally, before Giraldus presented it, in union with the Life of St. Hugh, to archbishop Langton. Thus, for instance, the conclusion of what he tells us about St. Hugh in this treatise was written in Hugh's written during Hugh's lifetime, and therefore before the autumn of 1200; for, after extolling Hugh's excellencies, Giraldus places him, next to St. Remigius, as deservedly the most eminent amongst the, as yet, bishops of Lincoln, if the end Infra, 42. shall agree with the beginning; and hopes that so laudable a beginning may have a happy end, in a closer and closer access to Christ as the end draws nearer. again, at the beginning of the De episcopis Angliæ tergeminis, which occupies the three last chapters of this Life of Remigius, he says that he has now described in Infra, 43. order the prelates of Lincoln, without omitting one. This must have been written before the accession of Hugh's successor, William de Blois, in 1203. In the after pre- Infra, 5. face to archbishop Langton, he speaks of having described all the bishops before Hugh de Wells, except only the last bishop, William de Blois.

So

There can be little doubt, I think, but And about 1198. that the first edition of this treatise was written during Giraldus's three years residence at Lincoln, 1196-1199.1 But it was not written before 1197, because he speaks of the suit about Eynsham abbey Infra, 40. being settled in Hugh's favour, which was done in that year. We may pretty safely conclude that it was written about the year 1198, during Giraldus's quiet studious sojourn at Lincoln, when he would have ready access to the early Lincoln records, from which, no doubt,

1 See vol. v., Preface, liii, n. 2. 2 Magna Vita S. Hugonis, 192, n. 1. It is possible, however, though

perhaps not probable, that this about
Eynsham may have been added in
the second edition of the treatise.

this Life of St. Remigius is in large measure little more than a mere transcript.

A marginal addition to the twelfth century catalogue Infra, 168, of books in the Lincoln library records the gift by 1 3, &c. Giraldus, with other works, of his own Irish Topography, his Life of St. Remigius, and his Gemma Ecclesiastica. This Life of St. Remigius, in all probability, would be a copy of this first edition written at Lincoln, and would be presented to the library before his departure from Lincoln in the summer of 1199. The Gemma Ecclesiastica was also written during his stay at Lincoln. The Irish Topography, in its earliest form appeared some ten years before; but Giraldus was continually improving upon it; and the copy given to the library was very likely a copy of one of his later editions of this treatise, as revised and added to at Lincoln. These treatises of Giraldus must have been lost at Lincoln before the end of the fifteenth century. In a catalogue of the books in the library, written probably somewhere in the latter half of that century, which exists in a volume in the record room of the dean and chapter, there is no mention of them.

This first edition may have contained some few passages, which were afterwards omitted in the second edition. At all events this is the case with a very short, and sensible, and un-Giraldic preface, which happens to be preserved in the Trin. Coll. Camb. manuscript of the Symbolum Electorum of Giraldus, and which I have given at p. 8, infra.

The second edi

tion presented to
archbishop Lang-
ton in 1213 or 14.

The second edition, as given in this volume, was presented to archbishop Langton, certainly not before 1210, and not later than the autumn of 1214. In the dedicatory

preface to Langton, Hugh de Wells, who was consecrated Infra, 5, Dec. 20, 1209, is now bishop of Lincoln; and moreand n. 2. over, he is the only bishop who has as yet been con

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