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in a school, a light in a glass lamp, or a gemstone in a ring of pure gold.
Compare Spec. Pen. 405-407:
Gvd er j trvlyndre sal sem brvdgume j brvdhuilv sem meistari j skola. sem
lios j glerlampa og sva sem gimsteinn j gvlle skiru
and C7YI.xvii.20B, 22-30:
Deus est in anima fideli, ut sponsus in thalamo,... magister in scholis ... car-
bunculus in auro,... sicut... oleum in lampade.
The author appears to tum to C7Y once more in referring to charity as
‘the queen of all virtues’ (Spec. Pen. 410-411: ‘caritas ... sem drottning
er allra dygda og mannkosta’). The same figure appears in C7Y V.xxvii.
175B, 3-8:
Charitas excellit alias virtutes in multis ... Richardus: ‘Charitas est regina
virtutum’.47
Although it is not surprising to find such a passage included in a discus-
sion of charity, the quotation from lo 13:35 which follows a few lines
later (Spec. Pen. 412-415):
medur pessv caritas marki markar kristr alla sina saude svo segiandi. a pvi
mega allir marka og uit kenazt at hier ervt minir lærisveinar ef hier hafit ast
og elskv ydar a medal.
may conceivably also reflect a connection with Hugh Ripelin’s text,
which cites the same scriptural passage in a separate discussion of
brotherly love, in C7VV.xxxi. 178A, 18-23:
Per dilectionem proximi efficimur ... discipuli Salvatoris. Joan. xiii, 35: In
hoc cognoscent omnes, quia discipuli mei estis, etc. [cf. Io 13:35 in hoc cog-
noscent omnes quia mei discipuli estis si dilectionem habue ritis ad invicem].
47 Hugh Ripelin, in tum, paraphrases Richard of St Victor, Explicatio in Cantica Canti-
corum c. 28, PL 196 (2nd ed., Paris, 1880): 486C: Charitas enim mater est omnium virtutum.
Richard Rolle adopts the same metaphor from C7V; see Margaret Deansley, ed., The Incen-
diumAmoris of Richard Rolle ofHampole (Manchester, 1915), c. 18, p. 197: Caritas regina
uirtutum, Stella pulcherrima, decor est anime. It might be noted that ‘humility’ is commonly
identified as the ‘queen of virtues’. See, for example, Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, edd. A.
Ftihrkdtter and A. Carlevaris, CCCM 43-43A (Turnhout, 1978), I. uisio 2, line 729; III. uisio
8, line 141; 111. uisio 13, line 318; Rupert of Deutz. De sancta trinitate et operibus eius, ed.
H. Haacke, CCCM 22 (Tumhout, 1972), Lib. XIII, In Exodum IV, p. 782, line 1423; and the
anonymous Speculum uirginum, ed. J. Seyfarth, CCCM 5 (Tumhout, 1990), IV, line 523.