Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Blaðsíða 100

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It is explicitly stated in the second paragraph that the text is compil-
ed from two sources, viz. the ‘book of Papias’ and the chronicles of
the Dominican friar Nicholas Trivet. Papias was an Italian author of
the mid-eleventh century whose Elementarium doctrinæ rudimentum,
otherwise known as Vocabularium, enjoyed great popularity in the
later Middle Ages; it was printed at Milan as early as 1476 (a copy of
this rare edition is in the Royal Library, Copenhagen), and its circula-
tion in England in the late fifteenth century is attested for example by
the will of John Hamundson, master of the grammar school at York
Minster, who on 31 July 1472 bequeathed a copy of the “librum qui
dicitur Papias in Elementar(io)” to his wife’s son (cf. Testamenta Ebo-
racensia: A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York III, Surtees
Society 45 [Durham, 1865], pp. 198-99, no. LVI). The material ex-
cerpted in the Dalhousie manuscript is to be found in Papias’ book
under the headings “Dardanus,” “Dii” and “Troia.” As to the chroni-
cles of Nicholas Trivet (better: Trevet), the reference must presumably
be to the Historia ab orbe condito, which was composed in the 1320s
and dedicated to Hugh, archdeacon of Canterbury. The Historia has
not been published, but a comparison of a manuscript copy in the
British Library (MS Roy. 13 B. xvi) with the text printed above shows
that the exposition of the Trojan legend and of the Roman conquest of
Britain follows the same order in both cases, though the Dalhousie
text is little more than a genealogical summary. As far as I know, this is
the first evidence to have emerged that Papias and Trevet’s Historia
were read in medieval Scotland.
Papias is discussed by Georg Goetz, “Papias und seine Quellen,”
Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und der historischen
Klasse der K.B. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Miinchen, Jahrg.
1903 (Miinchen, 1904), pp. 267-86, and in Max Manitius, Geschichte
der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters II = Handbuch der Alter-
tumswissenschaft2 IX, 2:2 (Miinchen, 1923), pp. 717-24. For Trevet’s
historical writings see Ruth J. Dean, “Nicholas Trevet, Historian,” in
J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (eds.), Medieval Learning and
Literature: Essays presented to Richard William Hunt (Oxford, 1976),
pp. 328-52.