The Manipulus florum is an alphabetically-arranged
florilegium designed for use in writing sermons - a
seemingly ordinary handbook which enjoyed extraordinary and
long-lasting popularity, extending from its publicationn in 1306
through its most recent appearance in print in 1877.
This study explores the Manipulus florum against a
background of the activities and preoccupations of
thirteenth-century scholars and preachers, including the creation
and development of alphabetical reference tools, a new and urgent
emphasis upon the preaching ministry, and the evolution in the
form and content of the sermon. It also considers significant
topics in the scholarly literature on the Manipulus: the
problem of the work's disputed authorship, the purposes and methods
of its compilation, and the principal sources, many of them
previously unstudied, upon which the collection drew. But the
Manipulus florum is also used as a point of departure for
a wide-ranging study of the development and use of
florilegia, preacher's manuals, and other alphabetical
aids, from the thirteenth-century monastic centers to the
Renaissance.
Among the appendixes which conclude the book are Thomas of
Ireland's introduction and the bibliography that he appended to the
Manipulus florum, edited here for the first time; author
and title index of the 6000 extracts in the Manipulus
florum; and a detailed catalog of the more than 180 surviving
manuscripts.