Gripla - 20.12.2013, Page 68

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Like the use of De sex alis cherubim by the author of the first item in the
manuscript, the fact that the last text in AM 655 XXVII 4to depends on a
late twelfth-century Latin source indicates that some of the writers of the
later old norse homilies, like those who wrote other types of religious
literature in old norse, were attuned to contemporary theological trends.
just as De sex alis cherubim was being copied and used elsewhere around
the same time it was adapted into old norse, the Annunciation sermon by
Absalon of springiersbach seems to have had a wide influence as well. Most
of a sermon included in the Middle High German “Leipziger sammlung”
(preserved in a fourteenth-century manuscript but compiled from a number
of twelfth- and thirteenth-century exemplars) derives from the Latin ser-
mon.81 Material from Absalon’s text was also incorporated into the De
laudibus beatae Mariae by french author Richard of saint-Laurent (d. after
1245).82 the first book of this large and influential compendium of Marian
devotional material borrows heavily from Absalon’s sermon in its discus-
sion of the angel’s address to Mary.83 the old norse homily certainly does
not depend on De laudibus, since it includes material from Absalon’s ser-
mon that Richard omits, nor does it show any close relation to the Middle
High German text. However, the fact that all three works draw on the same
81 Altdeutsche Predigten, ed. Anton e. schönbach, vol. 1 (Graz: styria, 1886), 78–82. the de-
pendence of this text on Absalon’s sermon begins on schönbach’s p. 79, l. 18 and has never,
to my knowledge, been noted or described. on the “Leipziger sammlung,” see Volker
Mertens, “studien zu den ‘Leipziger Predigten,’” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache
und Literatur 107 (1985): 240–66.
82 the work has often been attributed to Albertus Magnus, but Henri omont (“Richard de
saint-Laurent et le Liber de laudibus Beatae Mariae,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 42
[1881]: 503–504) proved definitively that Richard of saint-Laurent was its author.
83 Compare, for instance, the beginning of Absalon’s sermon (section a above) with the open-
ing of book 1, cap. 1 of the De laudibus: “tres salutationes celebriores cæteris in evangelio
reperimus. Prima est Gabrielis Archangeli ad Mariam, Luc. I, 28. secunda, Mariæ ad
elizabeth, Luc. I, 20. tertia Christi ad Apostolos post resurrectionem, de qua agitur, joan.
XX, 19, quæ sæpius ab ipso domino legitur repetita. Hac autem triplici salutatione triplex
concordia designatur, videlicet Angeli ad hominem per primam, hominis ad hominem per
secundam, dei ad hominem per tertiam” (Alberti Magni opera omnia, ed. Auguste and
Émile Borgnet, vol. 36 [Paris: Vives, 1898], 5). Richard seems to have known the identity
of his source, since another excerpt from the sermon is accompanied by the marginal note
“Abbas absalon” both in the incunable (Opus insigne de laudibus beate Marie virginis, alias
Mariale appellatum, ed. Martin flach [strasbourg, 1493], fol. 10r) and in at least one early
manuscript (troyes, Bibliothèque municipale 828 [s. xiii/xiv], vol. 1, fol. 12r). the latter is
described and digitized on the website of the Bibliothèque municipale of troyes, accessed
july 1, 2013, http://patrimoine.grand-troyes.fr.