About

The Elucidarium is a text of basic practical theology, initially intended for priests but rapidly becoming a manual of introductory Christianity used by the laity. The text achieved swift, widespread and lasting popularity, both in Latin and in translations and adaptations into numerous European vernaculars (including English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Welsh and Italian) almost from the moment of composition until the close of the Middle Ages. There are several hundred extant manuscripts in libraries and collections across Europe and the United States.

Much previous work on the Elucidarium has focused on the Latin text. The work of the late Valerie Flint in particular has provided some significant and largely convincing hypotheses about Honorius, his profession and possible origins, as well as placing the Latin Elucidarium within the larger context of his extensive theological writings. The importance of Anselmian and other theological influences on Honorius’s work has also been explored, both by Flint and by Yves Lefèvre in his critical edition of the Latin text.

Previous work on the vernacular Elucidarium has often focused on specific manuscripts or versions; for example, William Marx has produced an edition of a unique manuscript witness to one fifteenth-century English version, while Glynn Hesketh has edited the Insular French Lumiere as lais. Ernstpeter Ruhe has edited a collection of German-language essays exploring the history of the Latin and some vernacular versions, and Anna Lewis has written on a late-medieval English version of the text, rejecting its traditional attribution to a Lollard author. John J. Thompson, in his study of the Cursor Mundi, provides manuscript descriptions and also a section of commentary on connections between that text and the Latin Elucidarium.

Prior to this project, scholars had not attempted to undertake a comparative study of the English, Insular French and Continental French versions and their manuscript contexts.
This project does just that, uniting consideration of the textual content with the physical circumstances of  manuscript production and use. It is founded on the belief that a study of the manuscripts in which the texts appear can tell us a great deal about the production and uses of the text in its various forms. The identification of particular scribal hands can pinpoint date and location of production, the quality of the manuscript gives a clear indication of the wealth of the patron, and an examination of companion texts in a volume is often suggestive of the circumstances in which it is intended to be used (e.g. communal reading or private devotions).

We have sought to bring questions of content and information on production and dissemination into fruitful dialogue, in order to gain a better understanding of the text’s circulation in medieval England, and offers new insights into the dynamics governing the adaptation of an important Latin theological text for England’s mixed vernacular readerships, an activity which was critical to the success of the late-medieval pastoral care initiative. It is hoped that our findings will be of interest to a broad range of literary, historical, theological and linguistic scholars working on the later Middle Ages.