Table Of ContentROMANCE MONOGRAPHS, INC.
Number 36
THE PENITENCE OF ADAM
A STUDY OF THE ANDRIUS MS.
(Biblioth~que Nationale Fr. 95 Folios 380r-394v)
BY
ESTHER C. QUINN
With a transcription of the Old French and English translation
by
MICHELINE DUFAU
UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI
ROMANCE MONOGRAPHS, INC.
1 9 8 0
CoPYRIGHT © 1980
BY
ESTHER C. QUINN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ROMANCE MONOGRAPHS, INC.
UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI 38677
PRINTED IN SPAIN
IMPRESO EN ESPANA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER
I.S.B.N. 84-499-3367-6
DEP6SITO LEGAL: V. 95 - 1980
ARTES GRAFICAS SOLER, S. A. - 0LIVERETA, 28 - VALENCIA (18) - 1980
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Penitence d'Adam. English & French (Old French) The penitence of Adam.
(Romance monographs; 36)
Old French, folios 38or-394v of Bibliotheque nationale Ms. French 95,
with English translation and commentary.
Bibliography : p.
Includes index.
I. Quinn, Esther Casier. II. Dufau, Micheline. III. Paris. Bibliotheque
nationale.
MSS. (Fr. 95) IV. Title.
PQ1501.P28E5 1980 843'.1
CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE ..... . 7
INTRODUCTION
I. Description of the MS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 9
II. Title ............................. . II
III. Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...· .. . . . . . . . . . . .. 14
IV. Sources ............................. . 32
V. Structure . . . . . . ·... . . . . . . . .. 37
VI. Relationship to Other Works .. : . . . . . . . .. 47
NOTE ON THE TRANSCRIPTIO~ ,.lN~ THE. TRANSLATION ... 71
TEXT .......................... . 73
........
TRANSLATION 105
CoMMENTARY 137
APPENDIX ON THE PLACE, DATE, AND LANGUAGE OF THE TEXT 169
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 179
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " . . . 187
PREFACE
THE ANDRIUS MS. first came to my attention when I was investigating
the legends of Seth and the wood of the cross. At the time, I assumed
that it was only one of numerous versions of the rood-tree legend.
Later, in connection with a study of the Queste del Saint Graal,
the Andrius MS. again came to my attention; this time, published
summaries of the MS. suggested that it might be the source of the
Solomon's Ship episode in the Queste. The only portions of the
Andrius MS. in print, however, did not correspond to the summaries.
It was apparent that the inconsistencies could only be resolved by an
examination of the MS. itself.
Actual work on the MS. has made clear that neither of these
assumptions is valid. Further study, however, has led to a more im
portant conclusion: the Andrius MS. is a work of considerable in
herent interest.
It is a compilation of narratives which provides a rich store of
illustrations and parallels to several important movements in the
thirteenth century: the development of vernacular literature, especially
the vernacular biblical drama; the trend toward combining narratives
into larger units; the incorporation of apocryphal and legendary
materials into a biblical framework; and a concern with the theme
of penitence.
In preparing the present study, I have been guided by several
considerations : first, the need for an accurate text of a MS. which
has never been edited in its entirety and which has been the subject
of inaccurate and misleading statements; second, the advantage of
having a translation as well as a text in order to make the work
available to a wider group of readers; and third, the value of an
8 THE PENITENCE OF ADAM
Introduction which would place the work in a literary and cultural
context.
In these labors I have been joined by Micheline Dufau, who has
transcribed and translated the MS. The Appendix on the place, date,
and language of the text has been prepared by Ursula Chen.
I wish also to acknowledge my indebtedness to three scholars, now
deceased, who were important to me at different stages in my career :
Eleanor Grace Clarke, Roger Sherman Loomis, and Frances Lee
Utley.
I wish also to thank the many people who have encouraged me
through their interest in The Quest of Seth, especially my friends and
fellow medievalists - George Economou, Joan Ferrante, Frederick
Goldin, and Robert Hanning.
Finally, to my husband Vincent, my deepest appreciation for his
support and counsel.
ESTHER C. QUINN
INTRODUCTION
I. DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUSCRIPT
THE TEXT PRINTED HERE for the first time occupies the last fifteen
folios (38or-394v) of MS. Bibliotheque Nationale French 95 (formerly
6769). 1 It is a large folio MS. measuring 43 X 34 cm, consisting of
394 vellum leaves, written in double columns of forty lines each, and
is dated about 1280. 2 The contents of the MS. are as follows :
i. ff. 1-n3 a prose redaction of Robert de Boron's L'His-
toire du Graal
ii. ff. n3-355 L'Histoire de Merlin
iii. ff. 355-380 Le Roman des sept sages de Rome
iv. ff. 38or-394v La Penitence d' Adam
The predominantly Arthurian contents of the MS. has brought
it to the notice of Arthurian scholars, who have commented on its
superb artistry and near-perfect state of preservation. According to
the late R. S. Loomis, "On the great vellum pages the finely written
text is as clear, the colors of the miniatures ... almost as undimmed,
as unmarred, as when they first issued from the atelier." Biblio. Nat. 95
represents the apex of North French Arthurian illumination in the
thirteenth century. 3
I The manuscript is described in a number of printed works including
Paulin Paris, Les manuscrits frani;ois de la bibliotheque du roi (Paris: Teche
ner, 1836), I, 120-25; Roger S. Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art
(London: Oxford University Press, 1938), pp. 95-97; Jean Porcher, Les
a
manuscrits peintures en France de XIII• au XVI• siecle (Paris: Bibliotheque
Nationale, 1955), p. 32.
2 Porcher, p. 32; on the date, see also Appendix.
3 Biblio. Nat. 95 has a companion volume, Phillipps 130 (presently at
the Beinecke Library of Yale University), which contains part of Le Livre
IO THE PENITENCE OF ADAM
The last portion of the MS., folios 38or-394v, referred to both
as La Penitence d' Adam and the Andrius MS., has never been
printed as a whole. Accounts of its contents are contradictory, and
the parts which have appeared in print fail to give an adequate im
pression of the entire work. Albert Pauphilet published a slightly
abridged modern French version of the first part, the life of Adam
and Eve. The second part can be found in the Appendix of Arthur
S. Napier's History of the Holy Rood-Tree. 4 The third part has been
virtually ignored.
The work bears no title in the manuscript, but is often referred
to as the Andrius MS., after the monk who in the first lines refers
to himself as the translator. As far as we know, he has not otherwise
been identified.
The Andrius MS. begins at the bottom of the first column with
two miniatures. The first shows a scribe copying a manuscript : on
the left side is a tree against a red background; on the right, a
manuscript stand against a blue background. The second miniature,
immediately beneath the first, shows Adam with a spade, Eve with a
spindle and three trees against a gold background. 5 Although standard
iconographical motifs, they are unusually fine representatives of the
type. These are the only miniatures in the MS. and do not specifically
illustrate the text but bear only a general relationship to the subject
matter. The miniatures are the width of one column, each measuring
9% x4% cm. The text begins with an illuminated capital which ex
tends over three lines. There are four of these illuminated capitals on
each page with the exception of folios 385r, 393r, 393v, and 394r,
which have three. The capitals are gold on red and blue backgrounds.
de Lancelot del Lac, La Queste del Saint Graal and La Mort du Roy Artus;
on Biblio. Nat. 95 and Phillipps 130, see Loomis, pp. 95-97 and on Phillipps
130, Yale University Library Gazette, 29, no. 3 (1955), 99-II2.
4 See Esther C. Quinn, "The Quest of Seth, Solomon's Ship, and the
Grail," Traditio, 21 (1965), 193-94, n. 33·
5 By the 13th c. the post-lapsarian life of Adam and Eve was usually
represented by Adam with a shovel and Eve with a spindle; see Mary
D. Anderson, Drama and Imagery in English Medieval Churches (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1963), p. 35; Lilian Randall, Images in the
Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1966), pp. 20, 32, Pl. II, figs. 5, 6, XXX, fig. 140; Anna Jameson, History
of Our Lord (London: Longman, 1865), I, III-12. On a 13th c. German
MS. which contains a series of illustrations specifically relating to episodes
in the Andrius MS., see below, p. 51.
INTRODUCTION II
For the most part they seem to be placed for decorative effect rather
than to indicate a point in the text at which the sense calls for a
pause.
An analysis of the linguistic forms of the MS. points to its having
been written in the old province of Picardy. 6 There seem to be no
important differences between the language of Andrius and that of
the scribe.
II. TITLE: La Penitence d' Adam
The title La Penitence d' Adam does not appear in the MS. There
is, however, at the beginning of the volume a list of contents, written
in a later hand, which refers to our text as La chronique fa bulante
depuis Adam jusqu'a Tibere translatee par le moine Andrius. In
printed works it is referred to both as the Andrius MS., and as far
back as Paulin Paris (1836), as La Penitence d' Adam. 7
The episode which has given the work this title appeared first
in a Hebrew Adambook. Although no Hebrew version has survived,
it has been reconstructed from extant materials by Louis Ginzberg,
who includes a section entitled "The Repentance of Adam." 8
According to M. R. James, there were originally two Jewish Adam
books: the Penitence, which has been lost, except for a few frag
ments; the other, which has survived as the Latin Vita Adae et Evae
and the Greek Apocalypse of Moses. 9 An examination of the Vitae
and the Apocalypse reveals, however, that although in the extant
Greek Apocalypse there is no trace of the penitence of Adam, the
Latin Vita preserves the episode in considerable detail. 10
The story of Adam and Eve's repentance has also survived in a
Slavonic and in an Ethiopian version entitled the Book of Adam and
Eve or the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan. The Ethiopian
6 On the provenance of the MS., see Appendix.
7 Paris, I, 120-25.
8 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the 1ews, trans. Henrietta Szold
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909), I, 86-89; see
also V, II4-15, n. 106 for rabbinic sources.
9 Montague Rhodes James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament
(New York: Macmillan, 1920), p. 8; see n. 12 below.
10 R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), II, 134-36, Vita Adae et Bvae
1-9; Apocalypsis Mosis begins 138, corresponds to Vita 22.
