Conceptualizing Medieval Book Collections

This article argues for a conceptual distinction between the practices and ideologies of institutional learning on the one hand (whose natural vehicle was Latin, the language of formal education) and those of a vernacular written culture that both challenges and models itself on the former. The garden, used as a figure for the ideal library by Richard de Fournival in the thirteenth century, creates order through the institutionalization of knowledge and the exclusion of undesirable elements. By contrast, the forest is deployed by medieval and modern thinkers to embody a wild, unsorted chaos apparently inimical to learning. And yet the forest in medieval literature functions as a margin always in contact with civilization, whose illicit danger is matched by its attractiveness as a space for unplanned encounters and reconfigurations of hierarchy and authority. As I demonstrate, an analogous concern with the potential for book collections to lead readers to unexpected discoveries is a recurrent theme of vernacular authors from Benoît de Sainte-Maure to Chaucer. This conceptual approach to the function and cultural value of medieval libraries offers a supplementary perspective to more traditional ‘book archaeology’, one which may be especially fruitful for making sense of the often fragmentary and vague records of private ownership.

本文主张在制度性学习的实践和意识形态（其天然载体是作为正规教育语言的拉丁语）与一种既对前者发起挑战又以其为榜样的本土书面文化之间进行概念上的区分。13世纪，里夏尔·德·富尔尼瓦尔将花园用作理想图书馆的象征，它通过知识的制度化以及对不良因素的排除来建立秩序。相比之下，中世纪和现代思想家将森林用作体现一种狂野、无序的混乱状态的意象，这种混乱显然不利于学习。然而，在中世纪文学中，森林作为一种始终与文明相接触的边缘地带发挥作用，其非法的危险性与其作为一个进行无计划的相遇以及等级和权威重新配置的空间的吸引力相当。正如我所论证的，从贝努瓦·德·圣莫尔到乔叟，本土作家反复出现的一个主题是对藏书引导读者获得意外发现的潜力的类似关注。这种对中世纪图书馆的功能和文化价值的概念性研究方法，为更传统的“书籍考古学”提供了一种补充视角，对于理解私人藏书往往零碎且模糊的记录可能尤其富有成效。