Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia
The Medieval Review
Resañas
Speculum
Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia (2022)
No cabe duda de que el documento más importante sobre los orígenes e historia del Camino de Santiago es el Codex Calixtinus, manuscrito que contiene el texto del Liber Sancti Jacobi y que se custodia en la catedral compostelana. Se trata de un texto extensamente comentado por especialistas de muchas disciplinas: historia, lingüística, paleografía, teología, arte, hagiografía y literatura de las peregrinaciones. El volumen que ahora reseñamos, el primero de los cinco volúmenes de la colección «The Compostela Project», se dirige a un público especializado que quiera adentrarse en el Codex y en la materia jacobea. Sus editores son el filólogo románico Thomas F. Coffey y la hispanista Maryjane Dunn, que colaboraron previamente con la fallecida Linda Kay Davidson en The Miracles of Saint James: Translations from the Liber Sancti Jacobi (1996).
Los autores han organizado el libro sistemáticamente, de modo que puedan comprenderse los diversos aspectos de los sermones y la liturgia del Liber Sancti Jacobi. La introducción, aunque breve de extensión, presenta magníficamente el contexto histórico y litúrgico, ocupándose de la figura de Santiago en el Nuevo Testamento, en los primeros escritos cristianos y en España, así como las características tanto del Codex compostelano como del Liber Sancti Jacobi. Se echan en falta, no obstante, en el capítulo sobre Santiago en España, algunos comentarios breves acerca de Prisciliano y su vinculación con el emergente culto de Santiago. Se ofrecen a continuación los sermones y la carta del papa Calixto. La traducción de los mismos son de primera calidad y sus copiosas notas permiten profundizar en su contenido. Se incluyen tres láminas en blanco y negro de alta calidad del Codex Calixtinus. La sección final se titula «Addenda al Codex Calixtinus» y su contenido es el material de los folios 185–196, que consiste en poemas de varios autores, cartas, relatos de milagros y otros documentos. Aunque algunos títulos están ausentes, la bibliografía recoge a los autores modernos más relevantes para esta obra. El índice bíblico es extenso y de mucha importancia debido a que la Biblia es un cimiento importante para el Liber Sancti Jacobi. El índice general de materias facilita su consulta, algo que los lectores apreciarán.
Los profesores Coffey y Dunn nos han regalado, en definitiva, un libro de gran valor, que merece ser celebrado. Los lectores van encontrar mucho de gran valor en esta edición y en los otros volúmenes del «Compostela Project», publicados por Italica Press. Toda biblioteca universitaria o de institución investigadora interesada en la religión, la historia, la liturgia, la hagiografía, las peregrinaciones o la literatura religiosa deberían incluir estas ediciones entre sus colecciones.
— Alberto Ferreiro
University of the Pacific, Seattle
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The Medieval Review (February 2023)
When it was stolen in 2011 from the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the Codex Calixtinus became international news. At that time, the dean of the cathedral noted that “Whoever took it knew what it was, knew its incalculable value and knew how to get to it, or at least find out how to get to it.” Yet while its importance for scholars and pilgrims of the Camino de Santiago has remained equally incalculable for centuries, only the fifth book’s famous “Pilgrim’s Guide” was regularly translated, with the so-called Historia Turpini that documented Charlemagne and Roland’s Iberian sojourns coming in second to the material so often assigned to introductory medieval studies courses. In this 2021 contribution — serendipitously offered a decade after the manuscript was stolen from the cathedral — Thomas Coffey and Maryjane Dunn have provided a useful and competent translation of what amounts to more than half of the folios of the original manuscript, making available for students and scholars alike what would have been one of the more regularly consulted sections of the manuscript to medieval audiences.
In reviewing a translation for TMR, I think the most useful elements to observe are whether the translation presents a readable text and whether, for the non-specialist, the notes are substantive enough to be helpful without being burdensome. Having considered those elements, then, we might also reflect on whether such a translation was necessary for scholars, or if it sits as a happy luxury of scholarship that too often lives a Spartan existence. These issues deserve some foregrounding, here, especially since the content of the manuscript itself is not under debate and the need for more sermons and liturgical documents in translation for teaching and research is still considerable.
Dunn and Coffey’s organization of the text follows the content of the first book of the Calixtinus carefully. The prefatory letter, authored supposedly by Pope Calixtus II, retains much of the papally specific verbiage and has the qualities that a specialist in papal diplomatics would prefer in a translation, while still remaining readable enough to note (with a more expert eye than general students) the places where the cleverness of forgery is present. In their translations of the sermons, Coffey and Dunn provide the reader with an easy and clear style of translation, but retain, throughout, the differences in word choice (for their translated text) that betray stylistic and rhetorical differences in the original Latin. Because the collection of sermons is drawn from many late antique and early medieval authors, these stylistic choices are neither contrived nor unhelpful, since they provide the reader with differences that are noticeable but not intrusive. Where extended quotations or Biblical echoes are present, the translators include them as such, with parenthetical notes or block quotations used for those necessary instances.
After the twenty or so capituli of sermons, the more difficult — because often more abbreviated, precise, and visually distinct — fashion of translating a medieval liturgy book commands Dunn and Coffey’s attention. For the liturgies, the translators offer a sensible solution to the different presentation schemata of the text, using differing fonts to set the text apart and deploying the appropriate abbreviations to preserve the “feel” of a liturgy book without rendering the text too alien to the modern reader. While the original abbreviations are preserved from the liturgy of the Santiago cult, Coffey and Dunn have done a quite impressive job of labelling the appropriate excerpts to facilitate cross-referencing in a fashion that would have been second nature to medieval clergy. Throughout, the reader is presented with a very useful and usable text that, to a specialist on the medieval clergy, appears a quite admirable substitute for the codex itself.
The supporting material for the translation that Dunn and Coffey offer here consists mostly of footnotes. While some introduction to the volume is necessary (and, to be fair to the translators, a repetition and cross-reference to their other translated volumes in the same [Compostela] Project), the introduction to this volume offers first a brief history of Saint James and his cult, with extra attention devoted to its development in Iberia and the role played by the Codex Calixtinus in the same. It then pays special attention to the Codex’s contents and the composition of book one, the subject of the translation, with respect to both the contents and how they functioned in the medieval world.
Extensive explanation about the composition of a medieval mass, how offices were sung, and how the organization of these elements comprised a liturgical year make the contents of the volume intelligible for the novice, while still providing a good refresher course for all but the most expert specialists. The notes to each page are rarely intrusive or burdensome, and are rarely of the kind of metacommentary that would be found in a specialized research volume. Instead, the notes help to explain or link ideas for readers, lending greater utility for the text in teaching or for the consultation of non-specialists. Perhaps the only obvious need, in this respect, that the volume leaves unfilled is a glossary for liturgical terms that are often unfamiliar to even professional scholars.
Although myself an Iberian scholar of the secular clergy, I found myself — perhaps as a byproduct of being on a search committee while reading the translation — in need of short flips back to the introduction to find reminders of whether “lauds” came before “vespers” or after “matins.” In some respects, then, I think this experience might mirror the way that modern students approach the volume. Given that most university students might not have any familiarity with the organization of daily masses in medieval Catholicism, it seems likely that a more robust glossary for technical terms that would have been obvious to a medieval cleric but are opaque in the twenty-first century would have been useful. This, however, is a small quibble in the face of what is a very useful support apparatus for the translation.
Overall, the translation offered here by Thomas Coffey and Maryjane Dunn is a solid contribution to both teaching and scholarship. It is reasonably priced and should find its way into library holdings, and, in my view, would be a quite appropriate required text for seminars on the cult of the saints, medieval Iberia, or religious life in the central Middle Ages. The volume is pleasantly readable and is well-supported by both scholarship and the scholarly apparatus of the text. It would serve all of scholarship and especially those of us at teaching institutions were a greater number of these kinds of translation projects made available, but that is a qualm to take up with other scholars. Dunn and Coffey have done good work here, deserve our thanks, and should be congratulated for a helpful addition to the corpus of medieval works translated into readable, modern prose.
— Kyle C. Lincoln
Southeastern Oklahoma State University
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Resañas 23 (March 2023)
No cabe duda de que el documento más importante sobre los orígenes e historia del Camino de Santiago es el Codex Calixtinus, manuscrito que contiene el texto del Liber Sancti Jacobi y que se custodia en la catedral compostelana. Se trata de un texto extensamente comentado por especialistas de muchas disciplinas: historia, lingüística, paleografía, teología, arte, hagiografía y literatura de las peregrinaciones. El volumen que ahora reseñamos, el primero de los cinco volúmenes de la colección «The Compostela Project», se dirige a un público especializado que quiera adentrarse en el Codex y en la materia jacobea. Sus editores son el filólogo románico Thomas
F. Coffey y la hispanista Maryjane Dunn, que colaboraron previamente con la fallecida Linda Kay Davidson en The Miracles of Saint James: Translations from the Liber Sancti Jacobi (1996).
Los autores han organizado el libro sistemáticamente, de modo que puedan comprenderse los diversos aspectos de los sermones y la liturgia del Liber Sancti Jacobi. La introducción, aunque breve de extensión, presenta magníficamente el contexto histórico y litúrgico, ocupándose de la figura de Santiago en el Nuevo Testamento, en los primeros escritos cristianos y en España, así como las características tanto del Codex compostelano como del Liber Sancti Jacobi. Se echan en falta, no obstante, en el capítulo sobre Santiago en España, algunos comentarios breves acerca de Prisciliano y su vinculación con el emergente culto de Santiago. Se ofrecen a continuación los sermones y la carta del papa Calixto. La traducción de los mismos es de primera calidad y sus copiosas notas permiten profundizar en su contenido. Se incluyen tres láminas en blanco y negro de alta calidad del Codex Calixtinus. La sección final se titula «Addenda al Codex Calixtinus» y su contenido es el material de los folios 185–196, que consiste en poemas de varios autores, cartas, relatos de milagros y otros documentos. Aunque algunos títulos están ausentes, la bibliografía recoge a los autores modernos más relevantes para esta obra. El índice bíblico es extenso y de mucha importancia debido a que la Biblia es un cimiento importante para el Liber Sancti Jacobi. El índice general de materias facilita su consulta, algo que los lectores apreciarán.
Los profesores Coffey y Dunnnos han regalado, en definitiva, un libro de gran valor, que merece ser celebrado. Los lectores van encontrar mucho de gran valor en esta edición y en los otros volúmenes del «Compostela Project», publicados por Italica Press. Toda biblioteca universitaria o de institución investigadora interesada en la religión, la historia, la liturgia, la hagiografía, las peregrinaciones o la literatura religiosa deberían incluir estas ediciones entre sus colecciones.
— Alberto Ferreiro
Universidad Seattle Pacific (Estados Unidos)
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Speculum 98.3 (July 2023)
In 1993, Italica Press published the first of what would become a four-volume English translation of the twelfth-century Liber Sancti Jacobi and its addenda found in the Codex Calixtinus of the archives of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. The Compostelan codex is comprised of 225 folios containing illustrations and marginalia, and a second, copied, edition of the first quarter of the fourteenth century is currently housed in the archives of the University of Salamanca. The first translated volume, book 5 of the Liber — the earliest extant pilgrim’s guide to Santiago de Compostela — inspired new interest in the Codex Calixtinus among students of medieval pilgrimage at a time when the Camino de Santiago itself was experiencing a rebirth following decades of dictatorship, transition to democracy, and the ensuing cultural changes that took place in Spain during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Over the next three decades, other scholars translated the first four books of the Liber; with the publication of Thomas Coffey and Maryjane Dunn’s 2021 translation of book 1, the longest of the five, the entirety of the Liber is now available in English from Italica Press. They are: book 1: Thomas F. Coffey and Maryjane Dunn, eds., The Sermons and Liturgy of Saint James (2021); books 2 and 3: Thomas F. Coffey and Maryjane Dunn, eds., The Miracles and Translatio of Saint James (2019); book 4: Kevin R. Poole, ed., The Chronicle of Pseudo-Turpin (2014); book 5: William Melczer, ed., The Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela (1993). As Coffey and Dunn explain in their introduction, the five books of the Liber were written by a variety of hands over a period of several decades, each likely independently of the others, and most likely by monks associated with the abbey of Cluny in Southern France and Northern Iberia.
Coffey and Dunn’s translation of The Sermons and Liturgy of Saint James presents an extensive overview of the figure of Saint James the Greater in biblical, early Christian, and early medieval texts; a discussion of the Liber Sancti Jacobi and the various codices, including the Codex Calixtinus, in which it appears; commentary on Catholic liturgy and the place of book 1 within it; and a summary of the liturgical addenda found at the end of the Compostelan codex. Following this introduction, the translated text presents an instructional letter attributed to Pope Calixtus II that serves as an introduction to the entire Liber, though Coffey and Dunn believe that it was likely “intended primarily as an introduction to Book I” (xxviii) given that scholars generally agree that the five books of the Liber were written at different times over a period of three to four decades. The thirty-one chapters of book 1 that follow comprise two large textual groupings: sermons (chaps. 1–20) and liturgical texts (chaps. 21–31).
Various sermons included in book 1 are attributed to Pope Calixtus II, Pope Gregory I, and an unidentified Pope Leo. Others were taken directly from Jerome, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Bede. Written at a time when Archbishop Diego Gelmírez vigorously worked to establish the See of Compostela as a major pilgrimage destination, the writer or compiler of the twenty sermons attempted to employ as many references as possible from the Fathers of the Church to support the archbishop’s desire. Arguably the most captivating of the twenty sermons, “Veneranda dies” (chap. 17) recounts the passion and death of Saint James, the translatio of his corpse to Galicia, and miracles associated with him both before and after death. It also warns listeners of the dangers of pilgrimage to Compostela while also encouraging such an undertaking, and, like the Pilgrim’s Guide of book 5, it presents a variety of evil charac- ters whom pilgrims must avoid while en route. Indeed, Spaniards are depicted as blessed by the presence of Saint James but violent marauders, nonetheless. Through these depictions, this sermon presents the modern reader with a veritable treasury of ideas held by Cluniac writers related to the composition of Northern Iberian society of the twelfth century.
The second part of book 1, along with the addenda found on folios 185r–196v of the Codex, contains, as Coffey and Dunn point out, “a mix of liturgical materials for use in the Divine Office and the Mass” (xl). Although these texts are not arranged in the manner of a modern missal or breviary, and the addenda include miracle stories not found in book 2, they do allow modern researchers of medieval liturgy to better understand the norms and protocols of the various religious rites that took place in the diocese of Compostela in the twelfth century. Histo-rians of music should note folios 101v through 139v, which contain antiphons, responsorials, tropes, and processionals presented in monodic form. Although the Coffey and Dunn translation does not reproduce the musical staves seen in the original manuscript, images are available online and in facsimile editions. Use of the English translation alongside available visual images will greatly enhance educators’ ability to teach music history from both the technical and the poetic points of view.
Coffey and Dunn’s edition of book 1 of the Liber Sancti Jacobi is a welcome addition to the scholarship related to the medieval pilgrimage to Compostela. Their translation is lingu-istically precise while also maintaining the overall rhetorical style of the original Latin texts. Their introduction provides the information necessary to understand the relationship of the liturgical texts of book 1 to the other books of the Codex while also highlighting their importance to the wider religious and cultural milieu within which they were composed. The introductory tables outlining basic information about each of the thirty-one chapters allow for quick comparative analyses of the texts, a useful tool given the length of book 1 — just over half of the Liber — and the cumbersome nature of seeking out details within hundreds of pages of text.
Even more, however, this volume ends the Compostela Project of translating the Codex Calixtinus into English and making it available to a wider academic audience. Some scholars of the medieval pilgrimage to Compostela will surely find faults in this and the other volumes that make up the four-volume set. Intended as introductory scholarly studies and teaching texts, the four volumes do not offer, for example, detailed paleographic or material codicological analyses or the types of sociolinguistic studies that one would expect of sources aimed primarily at specialists. Those minor faults aside, the major work of translating the twelfth-century texts and providing rich scholarly introductions to them has been accomplished. Thomas Coffey and Maryjane Dunn have carried out the greatest portion of this work, and their scholarship is sure to benefit students and professors alike for decades to come.
— Kevin R. Poole, Independent Scholar
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