Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo and other works, and Quintus Serenus Sammonicus, Liber Medicinalis, in Latin with single Greek words, decorated manuscript on vellum [northern France, mid twelfth century]

provenance

1. Written in a scriptorium in northern France in the mid-twelfth century, probably before 1163.

2. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872); his MS.290; bought by him in Paris; his sale in our rooms, 15 June 1908, lot 18.

3. Sir Norman Moore (1847–1922), the physician, antiquarian and linguist; acquired by him in the Phillipps sale; by descent to his sale in our rooms, 25 June, 1985, lot 53.

4. Bergendal MS.75 (once bound with its sister codex, Bergendal MS.107, see following lot): Bergendal catalogue no.75; Stoneman, 'Guide', pp.195-96.

text

This manuscript is an early and important philosophical and medical compendium, drawing together three of the most important and influential works of Anselm of Canterbury (c.1033-1109; abbot of Bec from 1079, then archbishop of Canterbury from 1093), with one of the most popular practical medical texts of the ancient world and the early Middle Ages, the Liber Medicinalis of Quintus Serenus Sammonicus (d. 212 AD.). 

The volume opens on fol.2r with the celebrated Cur deus homo (why God became man) by Anselm of Canterbury, the "founder of Christian scholasticism". He was a central figure in English political history in the last years of the eleventh century and the earliest years of the twelfth, and was deeply involved in the church and state struggles under William Rufus and Henry I. He died in 1109 and was canonised in 1163 (this being the last probable date for the present volume which calls him "venerabilis vir" not "sanctus"). The text is by far the most important work on Atonement: the theology of the Crucifixion as the means of restoring man's lost relationship with God. Manuscripts are rare: according to de Ricci (Census and Supplement), there is only copy in North America, a fifteenth-century paper copy at Vassar College, NY. 

This is followed on fol.30v by an interesting encyclopaedic text on astrology, astronomy, definitions of Greek words, natural history (including an account of the crocodile), music (with accounts of various instruments), classical gods and other matters, opening "Tribus autem modis fiebat ...". Other works by Anselm follow on fol.57v: the Dialogus de Libero Arbitrio (dialogue on free will); on fol.64r: the Dialogus de Veritate (on truth), followed on fol.72r by a long quotation from Cassiodorus; and on fol.73v: the De Conceptu Virginali et Originali Peccato, followed by two sermons. 

Sandwiched between two of these texts is the didactic medical poem, the Liber Medicinalis of Quintus Serenus Sammonicus, opening on fol.45, "Balsama si geminis ...". He was a Roman scholar, and tutor to the Roman co-emperors, Publius Septimius Geta (189-211) and Caracalla (188-217; both held the office of emperor 209-17), and was called by Macrobius "the learned man of his age". The Liber Medicinalis is the only one of his works to survive in anything but a few short quotations, and contains a number of remedies, taken in part from Pliny and Dioscorides, including the magic formula 'Abracadabra' as a cure for fever. The text was extremely popular in the Middle Ages, and it is no surprise that this section of the volume has more marginalia than any other.