Texts

[Texts] [Manuscripts] [Guide to transcriptions]

Texts

The corpus contains twenty-two texts. Click on the link to read the text.

1. The Sequence of Saint Eulalia. Composed 881..2, copied in the late ninth century. The first literary text in any Gallo-Romance variety, the short 29-line poem presents the martyrdom of Saint Eulalia. It is preserved in the earliest manuscript containing a Romance text.
2. Fragment of a bilingual sermon on Jonah. Composed and copied in the first half of the tenth century. Preserved by chance in the binding of a codex, this single folio contains notes in Latin and Old French for a sermon on Jonah. The recto is severely damaged and barely readable and the first words of each line of the verso were lost when the parchment was cut. Much of the text is written in shorthand (Tironian notes).
3. Bilingual Alba. Composed and copied in the tenth century at the latest. A short “dawn hymn” written primarily in Latin with an enigmatic two-line refrain in Romance, repeated three times.
4. Passion poem, Augsburg manuscript. Composed and copied in the tenth century. A short Romance song, copied in a single line before a legal document was copied on the parchment in 1067. The writing is very small and faint and can only be read from the original (see Berschin et al. 1981).
5. Clermont Blessings. Composed and copied in the mid- to late tenth century. Two short Romance blessings written upside-down in the margins of a Latin manuscript of the Breviary of Alaric. Discovered by Bischoff (1984).
6. The Strasbourg Oaths. Composed 842, copied c1000. The earliest text by date of composition in any Gallo-Romance variety, the Strasbourg Oaths consist of two short oaths sworn in both Romance and Germanic by Louis the German, Charles the Bald and their followers in 842. They are preserved within Nithard’s Latin chronicle Historiae filiorum Ludovici pii.
7. Life of Saint Leger. Composed in the tenth century, copied c1000. The 241-line poem narrates the life and martyrdom of Saint Léger. Like the Passion of Clermont in the same manuscript, the influence of southern Gallo-Romance is clear, but the text is more clearly of northern origin.
8. Passion of Clermont. Composed at the end of the tenth century, copied c1000. This 516-line poem is the earliest Romance retelling of the Passion of Christ. It is typically considered a northern Gallo-Romance text, although the language shows significant mixing of northern and southern features which makes it difficult to interpret as a coherent system. The manuscript records a line of the melody to which it was sung, and also contains the Life of Saint Leger.
9. Two stanzas of an Old French love song. Composed and copied in the final third of the eleventh century. Two stanzas of Old French love songs presumably transcribed from memory by a German-speaking scribe.
10. Sponsus. Composed before 1100, copied in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. A dramatic setting of the tale of the wise and foolish virgins in a mixture of Latin and a southern Gallo-Romance variety with many northern features, particularly at the rhyme.
11. Prayer to God in verse (Te Autem). Composed and copied in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. A short prayer in decasyllabic verse, titled Tu Autem in the manuscript.
12. Prayer to the Virgin in verse (Mei amic e mei fiel…). Composed and copied in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. A prayer to the Virgin in verse narrating the Annunciation with alternating Latin and Romance stanzas and a Latin refrain.
13. Prayer to the Virgin in verse (Versus sancte Marie). Composed and copied in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. A prayer to the Virgin in verse relating salvation to the original sin of Adam and Eve, titled Versus Sancte Marie in the manuscript.
14. Song of Saint Faith. Composed in the second third of the tenth century, copied in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The 593-line poem recounts the martyrdom of Saint Faith of Conques and the subsequent downfall of the pagan emperors. The text is from the south-west of the Gallo-Romance area and shows features similar to Catalan.
15. Boeci fragment. Composed before 1100, copied in the early twelfth century. The 258-line fragment is from a poem paraphrasing Boethius’ De Consolatione philosophiae.
16. Protocol for a trial. Composed and copied in the early twelfth century. In Latin and Old French, the text presents the protocol to be followed in a religious trial.
17. Fragment of a Romance of Alexander. Composed before 1110, copied in the first quarter of the twelfth century. A 105-line octosyllabic fragment, this is the earliest surviving version of the Romance of Alexander and shows Franco-Provençal features. Attributed by later sources to Alberic of Besançon.
18. Life of Saint Alexis. Composed c1090, copied 1120..1130. The 625-line narrative poem recounts the life of Saint Alexis and is both the longest text in the corpus and the only text to be preserved in more than one manuscript. Only the oldest manuscript transcribed here dates from the first half of the twelfth century. The manuscript was copied in England and shows Anglo-French features.
19. Prologue to the life of Saint Alexis. Composed and copied 1120..1130. A short prose prologue (or preface) to the Life of Saint Alexis, only present in this manuscript.
20. Extract from Saint Gregory’s letter on religious images. Composed and copied 1120..1130. A translation of an extract from a letter of Saint Gregory on the use of religious images. It is copied directly below the Latin original (not included in the corpus).
21. Epistle of Saint Stephen. Composed and copied c1130. A sixty-line stanzaic poem telling the story of the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, developing the text of the Vulgate which is cited in the headings of each stanza. (Acts, ch. 6-7).
22. Quant li solleiz… paraphrase of the Song of Songs. Composed and copied in the first half of the twelfth century. A 93-line poem paraphrasing the Song of Songs.

Manuscripts

The texts are preserved in sixteen manuscripts (probably) copied before 1130. Click on the links (if available) to see the manuscript images.

1. Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, 150 (Eulalie)
2. Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, 521 (Jonas)
3. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reginae lat. 1462 (Alba)
4. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Urkundensammlung no. 5 (PassAugs)
5. Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, 201 (BenClerm) Image also available here.
6. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 9768 (Serments)
7. Clermont-Ferrand, Bibliothèque municipale, 240 (Passion, SLeger) Images also available here (Passion) and here (SLeger).
8. London, British Library, Harley 2750 (ChansLas)
9. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 1139 (PrDieu, PrVierge2, PrVierge3, Spons)
10. Leiden, University Library, Vossiani lartini in-octavo 60 (SFoi)
11. Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale, no. 444 (Boeci)
12. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 2403 (EpreuveJudic)
13. Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, plut. LXIV, Cod. 35 (AlexAlb)
14. Hildesheim, Sankt-Godehardi (Alexis, AlexisProl, SGregPaint)
15. Tours, Bibliothèque du Petit Séminaire, Missel sans cote (EpStEt)
16. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 2297 (CantQuSol)

Guide to transcriptions

The transcriptions are presented in two formats:

• a uniform transcription, without diacritics or punctuation and with word division standardized across the corpus;
• a diplomatic transcription, representing the manuscript reading but with abbreviations resolved.

Uniform transcription

The uniform transcription deliberately doesn’t conform to standard editorial practice for Old French or Old Occitan, in part because the modern norms for these two languages are different. Its purpose is to present the text in the manuscript in a consistent, readable, but very basic form. It shows:

• all characters present in the manuscript once abbreviations have been resolved;
• standardized word division with all words, including clitics, separated by whitespace;
• no diacritics;
• no punctuation in verse texts and a single slash ("/") at the end of sentences in prose texts;
• modern layout (verse lines, paragraphs, bulleted lists, etc.).

In addition, colours and font styles are used to enhance readability:

• Dark blue text: direct speech
• Grey background: section of text not in Old Gallo-Romance (usually in Latin)
• Italicized text: word not in the matrix language of the sentence (usually a Latin form in a Romance sentence)
• Maroon text in square brackets: text not present in the manuscript

Diplomatic transcription

The diplomatic transcription represents the manuscript text with original punctuation and diacritics. In the TXM and ANNIS editions, the diplomatic transcription follows the layout of the manuscript page¹. In the online edition, a modern layout is used to so that the transcriptions can be presented side-by-side. Original line divisions are shown by a pipe ("|"). Colours are font styles are used to indicate the following:

• italicized text: characters represented by a manuscript abbreviation
• text in small caps: Latin word written using Tironian shorthand (Jonas)
• maroon text: editorial intervention:
  • in square brackets: an addition or a correction
  • with strikethrough: a deletion.
• blank space with grey highlighting: gap in the manuscript text.