Arnoldus Leodiensis

Arnoldus Leodiensis (Arnold de Liège, Arnold of Liège, born around 1276; died around 1309), was a monk of the Dominican Order and a Latin author who is believed to have lived in the vicinity of Liège, then a city of the Episcopal Principality of Liège, in present-day Belgium.[1]

Biography

Arnoldus is known from his Alphabetum narrationum (formerly attributed to Stephen of Besançon): the initials of the sentences of its prologue form the acrostic "Arnuldus de Serain", Seraing being a commune near Liège. This way of encoding intellectual responsibility was well established in medieval tradition, and Arnoldus's identity as author was established through the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century work of Barthélemy Hauréau and John Alexander Herbert.[1]

Works

Arnoldus created the Alphabetum narrationum (Alphabet of Narratives), a working tool for preachers composed between 1297 and 1308. The text listed exempla (stories that preachers might wish to use in their sermons), giving each story a number of thematic keywords and listing them alphabetically with a sophisticated system of cross-references.[1]

A fourteenth-century copy of the Alphabetum narrationum is held in the collection of the Royal Library of Belgium, Manuscripts Department, under the reference number KBR ms. IV 14.[1]

The work was translated into a number of European languages, including English.[2]

Editions

  • Arnold de Liège; Ribaucourt, Colette; Brilli, Elisa; Berlioz, Jacques; Polo de Beaulieu, Marie-Anne (2015). Arnoldi Leodiensis "Alphabetum narrationum". Exempla Medii Aevi. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 978-2-503-53200-4. (which should be read alongside Brilli, Elisa (2019). "Retour sur l'Alphabetum narrationum d'Arnold de Liège". The Journal of Medieval Latin. 29: 163–198. ISSN 0778-9750.)
  • BANKS, Mary Macleod (1904). An Alphabet of Tales: an English 15th Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besançon, from Additional MS. 25719 of the British Museum. for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Arnold de Liège; Ribaucourt, Colette; Brilli, Elisa; Berlioz, Jacques; Polo de Beaulieu, Marie-Anne (2015). Arnoldi Leodiensis "Alphabetum narrationum". Exempla Medii Aevi. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 978-2-503-53200-4.
  2. ^ BANKS, Mary Macleod (1904). An Alphabet of Tales: an English 15th Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum of Etienne de Besançon, from Additional MS. 25719 of the British Museum. for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.