Corpus Cluniacense
(The 'Cluny' collection)

-----------------------------

Summary Quality of 
the text
Manuscripts - alpha & beta Stemma Texts in the collection Other notes References

 

SUMMARY

This collection consists of a large group of either 27 or 28 treatises, gathered into two sections or even volumes2.  Most copies of this are late.  

This collection is so-called because all of its known early witnesses, extant or otherwise, are associated with Cluniac monasteries. Most of the MSS dateable before 1400 belong to this collection. All manuscripts after that date are copies of this collection.

The collection contains more texts than any other collection. Even the Apologeticum was added to some of the MSS during the middle ages. When Tertullian was printed for the first time in 1521, the text was printed from members of this collection.

Exemplars are known from Cluny (mentioned in the 11th century catalogue of Cluny), Payerne (part), Montepellier (part now lost), Gorze (lost), Hirsau (lost but part printed), Lorsch (lost). Complete examples are only extant among the Italici, of which two Florence MSS (N and F) and the Luxemburg MS are the key witnesses.

Philological analysis has revealed that the transmission of this collection split into two branches at some point before the earliest extant witnesses. These are known as the 'alpha' (or 'Montpellier') and 'beta' (or 'Hirsau') branches.

At one time it was thought that the Cluny manuscript was the parent of all the rest, perhaps since so many of the exemplars are from monasteries accepting the Cluniac reform.  However there is in fact no other evidence of this.

Many of Tertullian's works which appear in this collection were known to Isidore of Seville. It has therefore often been suggested that the collection may have been formed in that milieu. There is no other evidence for this.

The works of Tertullian all flow over the Alps to Italy at the renaissance, are gathered in Florence, and from there are disseminated across Italy and back across the Alps to Hungary, Austria, France, and Britain.

THE ORDER OF THE TEXTS IN THE TWO BRANCHES OF THE TRADITION

The order of the treatises seems very different in the alpha and beta branches.  If we ignore the later addition of the Apologeticum to copies of the alpha branch, and from it indeed to some later copies of the beta branch, the order of the 27 treatises is as follows:

Beta Alpha      Beta Alpha      Beta Alpha
Carn 1 = 2 Fug 10 = 7 Pat 15 = 1
Res 2 = 3 Scap 11 = 8 Prax 16 = 4
Cor 3 = 9 Cast 12 = 15 Val 17 = 5
Mart 4 = 10 Mon 13 = 17 Marc 18 = 6
Paen 5 = 11 Pal 14 = 18 Iud 19 = 19
Virg 6 = 12 Haer 20 = 20
Hab 7 = 13 Prae 21 = 21
Cult 8 = 14 Herm 22 = 22
Ux 9 = 16

However Pierre Nautin pointed out that the beta order can be produced by splitting it into three parts.  While the contents of each part are different, the order of the treatises contained within that part is the same in both branches.  This suggests that the beta order was produced by selection from an exemplar in the alpha order, in three steps over a period of time:

  1. The first copyist selected from the collection two dogmatic treatises (on the incarnation and resurrection) and filled up the volume with a selection of moral treatises.
  2. A second volume was then created from the remaining moral treatises.
  3. Finally all that remained were copied into a third volume.

The 9th century catalogue of Lorsch records a manuscript in two volumes, the first containing the same five treatises as the alpha branch, and in the same order except that Carn has slipped from 2nd to last.  It is thus suggested that this is evidence that the Carolingian exemplar which probably lies at the base of the tree was in the alpha (Cluny-Montpellier) order.11

Further reorderings take place in the renaissance in the beta branch manuscripts, to which the Apologeticum is sometimes added from the alpha branch.  Petitmengin (2004, p.78) drew up this table of some interesting synchronicities, among extant and lost mss associated with Florence:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

F (Hirsau) 
1426

Vat. lat. 189 
= 1460's

Vat. lat. 193 
= 1460's

Vat. lat. 192 
= 1460's

Hungary, 
ca. 1458

Tröster 
1462

Cuspin 
1506

Politian
1490

Trithemius
1494

carn i
res
cor
mart
paen
virg
hab
cult
ux
fug
scap
cast
carn 
res
cor
mart
paen
virg
hab
cult
ux
fug
scap
cast
      carn 
res
cor
mart
paen
virg
hab
cult
ux
fug
scap
cast
carn 
res
cor
mart
paen
virg
hab
cult
ux
fug
scap
cast
apol
pal
φ (carn?)
res
cor
mart
φ (paen?)
virg
hab
cult
ux
scap
fug
cast
pat
mon
prae
herm
prax
val
marc
iud
haer
pat
prax
marc
iud
haer
prae
herm
val
carn
res
cor
mart
paen
virg
hab
cult
ux
fug
scap
cast
mon
pal
mon
pal
pat ii
prax
val
marc
  pat
prax
val
mon
pal
apol
apol
mon
pal
pat
prax
val
apol
mon
pal
pat
prax
val
apol
mon
pal
pat
prax
val
iud   marc
iud
haer
prae
herm
marc    
haer
prae
herm
 

In #1. i and ii correspond to the start of the two tomes of the Hirsaugensis.
3 is London BL Addit. 16901 + Budapest Univ. Ms. Cod. Lat. 10.
4. is the list given by Johannes Tröster, preserved in the St. Petersburg Ms. Lat. F.I.N.312, on f.35v.  The manuscript, given to Johannes Mendel and then to the Augustinian friars of Rebdorf, should be added to those signalled by Paul Lehmann, Dr Johannes TrösterL ein humanistisch gesinnter Wohläter bayerischer Büchersammlungen, Erforschung des Mittelalters IV, Stuttgart (1961), pp.349-350.
5. is the list given by Johannes Cuspinianus.  It is to be found on f.32r of Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 3256.
Note that #7, the list of Trithemius, is the same as #1 except that the two volumes are reversed, and in vol. 1, Val. was moved to the end.

Note how in 1, 2, 4, 5 and the bottom part of 7, the same order from carn-cast is preserved.

Note also the sequence of Apol plus 5 works is characteristic of a little Austrian transmission.

QUALITY OF THE TEXT

The quality of the text is not as good as that in the Agobardine manuscript. In general they seem to be good copies of an inferior exemplar.  

Studies of the text carried out for the Sources Chrétiennes edition of De exhortatione castitatis reveal that the text has been slightly but systematically modified for this work wherever the text could be suspected of Encratism or Montanism.  Nicholas Rigault, the first editor to have access to a text not so modified, the Codex Agobardinus, expressed his surprise: "our edition of this book is complete, revised and corrected in so many places as to pass for new".8 

Kroymann had already noted that someone must have tampered with the text of the Cluny collection.9  The whole collection has not yet been examined, but Moreschini lists the deviations for Ex

For instance, in Ex. 10: 5, the Cluny text omits all mention of the Montanist prophetess Prisca and her oracle (although, according to the apparatus of the SC text, so does Rigault!).  This must have been part of the original text, since it can hardly have been added by a medieval scribe.  On the other hand, it is easy to imagine a medieval scribe omitting the mention of the heretic and her fake oracle.

In ch. 9 there were passages capable of an encratite interpretation, to a medieval eye.  Other passages capable of implying that laymen could be priests were also 'clarified' by the editor.  (A list is given on p.54 of SC).10.

MANUSCRIPTS

Alpha branch (Cluny-Montpellier)

This includes the Apologeticum so consists of 28 works.

The family consists of:

The first contains only part of the collection - the last, which seems to be a direct or indirect copy of the Montpellier MS, contains the whole collection.

Readings also exist from some now lost manuscripts, which have been classified by Fredouille as belonging to this branch:

The following manuscript may or may not be an alpha-branch Ms.  It was used for the first edition of Rhenanus and is still with his papers, and covered with his marginal annotations:

Beta branch (Cluny-Hirsau)

This does not include the Apologeticum so consists of 27 works.  The order of the texts is different to that in the alpha branch.

The family depends on late manuscripts and the editio princeps. All the Italici apart from 'N' also belong to this family. The exact relationships of the senior members is a matter of dispute.

Two further MSS have sometimes also been considered independent witnesses, although it has usually been recognised that they may be merely derived from F.

There are also a significant number of Italici.  In a classic study7, Emil Kroymann showed that all were copies direct or via others from F. There are also manuscripts which have come to light since then which remain to be placed in the stemma. In some cases only a selection of the whole collection has been copied.  In some, the Apologeticum has been added -- from the alpha branch Ms. N., by this time also in Florence.

There are also some lost members of the group:

Others not yet classified

Some manuscripts are listed in the literature, but without enough detail to assign them in the stemma.  These are the ones I have come across.

Lost MSS

A number of manuscripts belonging to this family are listed in medieval library inventories, or known from early editions.  In addition to the Gorze and Dijon MSS mentioned above for the alpha branch and the Hirsau MS mentioned for the beta branch, we know of the following.

STEMMAS

A stemma for these MSS can be seen here.  However the exact position of V and L is debateable.

TEXTS IN THE COLLECTION

These are the works it contains:

21/22 works (27/28 books) in two volumes:

Codex 1 (10/11 books) :

De patientia
De carne Christi
De carnis resurrectione
Adversus Praxean
Adversus Valentinianos
Adversus Marcionem (5 books)
(Apologeticum: but only in alpha branch)

Codex 2 (17 books) :

De fuga
Ad scapulam
De corona
Ad martyras
De paenitentia
De virginibus velandis
De habitu muliebri 
De cultu feminarum
De exhortatione castitatis
Ad uxorem (2 books)
De monogamia
De pallio
Contra Judaeos
[Adversus omnes haereticos - spurious]
De praescriptione haereticorum
Adversus Hermogenem

OTHER NOTES

It has been thought for a long time that this collection originated in Spain in the 5th1 or end of the 6th2 century, perhaps in the circle of St. Isidore of Seville3.  Two volumes of collected works are listed in the catalogue of the library of the Benedictine monastery at Cluny in the 10th-11th century4, and the name 'Cluniacense'  was applied by Kroymann to the collection because he felt that these two volumes must be the ancestor of the collection we have in later MSS.

However the statements just made have come under attack in recent years. Tränkle in his edition of Adversus Judaeos took the view that the Cluny volumes were not as represented, and attacked the statements of Kroymann upon which the prevailing view is based 5

REFERENCES

1. René BRAUN, Tertullien : Contre Marcion, Sources Chrétiennes 365 (1990), p20ff. French critical edition, introduction, translation. Checked. Braun sensibly remarks that there is no actual evidence to verify this, but that this is the communis opinio - the consensus of informed opinion.

2. Charles MUNIER, Tertullien : A son epouse, Sources Chrétiennes 273 (1980), p64ff. French critical edition, introduction, translation. Checked Following Kroymann in the preface to CSEL 47.

3. Paul MATTEI, Tertullien : Le Mariage Unique, Sources Chrétiennes 343 (1988), p102ff. French critical edition, introduction, translation. Checked.

4. Jean-Claude FREDOUILLE, Tertullien : Contre les Valentiniens, Sources Chrétiennes 280 (1980), p48. French critical edition, introduction, translation. Checked.  Includes detailed analysis of this collection.

5. H. TRÄNKLE, Adversus Judaeos. p xciv. Checked.

6. Frédéric CHAPOT, Tertullien : Contre Hermogene, Sources Chrétiennes 439 (1999), pp.54-5.  French critical edition with Latin text, and French translation and notes.  Checked.

7. Emil KROYMANN, Die Tertullien-Ueberlieferung in Italien, Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 138 (1897 or 1898) 3rd booklet (34 pages). also in English translation  Stemma included.

8. N. RIGAULT: Observationes ad Tertulliani libros IX, Paris (1628), p. 135. Not checked.  This discussed by Pierre PETITMENGIN, De Adulteratis Patrum Editionibus: La critique des textes au service de l'orthodoxie, in: Les Pères de l'Église au XVIIe siècle, Actes du colloque de Lyon. Ed. E. BURY et B. MEUNIER, Paris: Cerf (1993), pp. 21-31, esp. p.22.  Checked.  The SC text is SC 319 (1985), by C. Moreschini, pp. 53-55. Checked.

9. E. KROYMANN, CSEL 47 (1906), p. xi.  (Details from SC 319, which wrongly quotes 'CSEL 67', sic.). Checked.

10. C. MORESCHINI, Tertullien: Exhortation a la chasteté, Sources Chrétiennes 319, Paris: Cerf (1985), pp. 53-55.  Checked.

11. Pierre PETITMENGIN, Tertullien entre la fin du XIIe et le début du XVIe siècle, in M. CORTESI (ed), Padri Greci e Latini a confronto: Atti del Convegno di studi della Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino.  Firenze: SISMEL (2004).  pp. 63-88.  Checked.

12. Umanesimo e Padri della Chiesa. Manoscritti e incunaboli di testi patristici da Francesco Petrarca al primo Cinquecento, Firenze: Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, a cura di S. Gentile, [Milano] (1997). Not checked.  Details Petitmengin 2004 n.43. Contains details of the main Florence Mss. pp.188-191=BML Laur.26,13; pp.223-225= BNC Conv. Soppr. J.VI.10 & 11; pp.236-7=BNC Conv. Soppr. J.VI.9.

13.  L. LABARDI, Niccolo Niccoli e la tradizione manoscritta di Tertulliano, 'Orpheus' New Series 2 (1981), pp. 380-396.  Not checked. (Details Petitmengin n.58)

+Add Moreschini articles, and info from them.

[Add ref. for text type, and for all statements. Add proper stemma stuff from Fredouille]

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This page has been online since 10th December 1999.


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