An encyclopaedia circa 1100

A medieval encyclopedia has little in common with the modern form of encyclopedia that we know, originating from Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Instead of an alphabetical order and rational classification, a medieval encyclopedia has an organic structure. Knowledge is embedded in the images showing the world – a so-called ‘world view’. To distinguish it from the modern perception of an encyclopedia, terms such as Weltbuch or Imagines Mundi-Text are used in German Literature. For Lambert the encyclopedia is a heavenly meadow where the “flowers of literature” flourish together to attract faithful readers by their sweetness. In Lambert’s time, the leading encyclopedias were those by Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede (672/3-735/6) and Rabanus Maurus (780-856). Lambert quotes from these three encyclopedists, and also refers to almost a hundred other sources, mostly late classical and early medieval writers.

Many of these encyclopedias were intended to be used as didactic tools in convent and cathedral schools and, later, in universities. The Liber Floridus was probably used for teaching at the chapter school. The few entries in the Liber Floridus which Lambert did not write himself are assumed to have been done by his pupils. Some additions, such as the references to the Battle of the Spurs, were probably not written before the Liber Floridus arrived in Ghent.

Bibliography:

Ghent University Library, Ms. Ms. 92, f. 3v.

De Bouard, M., Encyclopédies médiévales. Sur la connaissance de la nature et du monde au moyen âge, Revue des questions historiques 58(1930), 112/2, p. 258-304.

Meier, C., Die Enzyklopädie im Wandel vom Hochmittelalter bis zur frühen Neuzeit , Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften Vol. 78, München, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2002.

Meyer, H., Die Enzyklopädie des Bartholomäus Anglicus. Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von ‘De Proprietatibus rerum’, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften Vol. 77, München, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2000.

Ribémont, B., L'encyclopédisme médiéval: de la définition d'un genre à son évolution sur la pertinence des notions d'apogée et de décadence, in Apogée et déclin: Actes du Colloque de l'URA 411, Provins, 1991, eds. Claude Thomasset en Michel Zink, Cultures et civilisations médiévales 8, Paris, Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1993, p. 27.