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and in a Latin assumption sermon, a fragment of which survives in the
Danish/Latin manuscript aM 76 8vo (ca. 1470).31 While this opinion is
sometimes hinted at obliquely in the writings of earlier medieval authors,32
it comes to be asserted more vigorously and more frequently beginning in
the twelfth century, particularly by theologians who, like absalon, were
connected with the Paris schools. In his Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis,
the mid-twelfth-century Paris liturgist Jean Beleth says the following of
Christ’s conception: “Et sumendum est initium conputationis [i.e., of the
years since Christ’s incarnation] a conceptione, quando beata Maria dixit:
Ecce ancilla Domini. Statim enim fuit Christus homo et plenus Spiritu
Sancto.”33 the same opinion is found in the fourth book of the Sententiae
of scholastic theologian and Paris master Peter of Poitiers (d. 1205):
“Per verba angeli, et statim quando dixit: Ecce ancilla Domini, concepit
et non prius. unde et quod dicit angelus: Benedictus fructus ventris tui,
referendum est ad futurum.”34 the idea appears again in a miscellany of
sentences on various topics in the late twelfth-century manuscript Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de france, lat. 3239 (fol. 7v): “Ecce ancilla dom-
ini. finitis his uerbis statim christus indutus est sacco nostre mortalitatis
fol. 1r/18–21). I plan to edit this text in the near future. the idea also appears in a collection
of sermons written in Brigittine Middle norwegian, surviving in Linköping, Stifts- och
landsbibliothek, Link. t. 180 (ca. 1450): “ok sigher sanctus bernardus post prolatum
verbum Sidhan hon hafdhe thet ordhet sakth Ecce ancilla domini fiat mihi secundum verbum
tuum See iak gudz tiænista quinna wardhe mik epthir thinom ordhom Ok gensthan hon
hafdhe thet sakth tha warth sanner gudh ok sanner man j hennes lifwe” (Svenska medeltids-
postillor, delarna 6 och 7, ed. Bertil Ejder, Samlingar utgivna av Svenska fornskriftsällskapet
23, parts 6–7 [uppsala: almqvist and Wiksell, 1974], 131/7–11]). I have not been able to
identify the citation of Bernard.
31 Britta olrik frederiksen, “Qve ista que ascendit: Et fragment af en latinsk prædiken i aM
76 8vo,” Opuscula 13 (2010): 207–17. See esp. 214/33–35 (transcribed from a more complete
manuscript of the sermon): “Ecce. ancilla domini etcetera quasi dicens Hunc peregrinum
magnum et honestum libenter suscipio. Statim filius conceptus est invtero virginis despiritu
sancto verus deus et homo.”
32 e.g., Gregory’s Moralia in Iob 18.52: “et ipsa uirgo concipiens dicit: ecce ancilla domini; fiat
mihi secundum uerbum tuum” (ed. M. adriaen, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 143a
[turnhout: Brepols, 1979], 949).
33 Jean Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis: textus, indices, ed. Herbert Douteil, Corpus
Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 41a (turnhout: Brepols 1976), 200.
34 PL 211, col. 1165C. for a brief account of Peter’s life, see f. Courth, “Petrus Pictaviensis,
Kanzler,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 6 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1993), col. 1981.
AN OLD NORSE HOMILY