Book Series Textes vernaculaires du moyen âge, vol. 25

The French Works of Jofroi de Waterford

A Critical Edition

Keith Busby

  • Pages: 494 p.
  • Size:156 x 234 mm
  • Illustrations:3 b/w
  • Language(s):English, Old French
  • Publication Year:2020

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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58294-8
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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58295-5
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First modern edition of three Hiberno-French texts.

Review(s)

 “The editor's goal was a readable and comprehensible text, and in this he has succeeded admirably. This volume makes a significant contribution to the published corpus of Anglo-Norman literature and will also appeal to scholars with an interest in the intellectual life of medieval Ireland, in the transmission of classical learning, in medieval translation practices, and in the encyclopaedic tradition." (Maureen Boulton, in Sehepunkte, 21/7-8, 2021)

« (…) les trois textes traduits et adaptés par Jofroi de Waterford, qui sont d’un grand intérêt aussi bien pour l’histoire de la traduction et de la diffusion de la culture antique au Moyen Age que pour celle de la place du français dans l’Irlande médiévale, étaient demeurés jusqu’ici à peu près inédits, même s’ils sont connus depuis longtemps et ont fait l’objet de plusieurs travaux, notamment de Jacques Monfrin et Françoise Vielliard. Cette lacune est dorénavant comblée, et de belle manière, grâce à l’édition soignée que procure ici Busby ». (Silvère Menegaldo, dans Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes, 24/09/2021)

“(…) appreciating and admiring what a significant work of scholarship that Keith Busby has put at the disposal of medievalists. It is a pleasure to see this edition in print and to know that it has been done so well.” (Steven J. Williams, in The Medieval Review, 21.10.34)

“(…) as one expects from this editor’s meticulous and comprehensive scholarship, Jofroi has been exceptionally well served and the medievalist reader correspondingly rewarded.” (Tony Hunt, in Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 82, 2021, p. 72)

« Outil très précieux et très efficace, cette édition met à portée du lecteur des textes qui ouvrent de riches perspectives de recherches, tant sur la nature et les enjeux de ce triptyque antique Troie/Rome/Alexandre que sur l’usage de la prose historiographique, sur le rapport aux sources et à la traduction, sur la tradition encyclopédique ou encore sur la littérature en langue française en Irlande. » (Florence Tanniou, dans Le Moyen Âge, 3-4, 2022, p. 837)


 

 

BIO

Keith Busby is Douglas Kelly Professor of Medieval French Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.

Summary

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Jofroi, a brother of the Dominican house of St Saviour’s in Waterford, Ireland, translated into French and adapted from the Latin three texts: the De excidio Troiae of the so-called ‘Dares Phrygius’, the Breviarium historiae romanae of Eutropius, and Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum. While the first two, La gerre de Troi and Le regne des Romains are generally close translations, Le secré de secrés is much modified by omissions and interpolations of exempla and scientific material. In his enterprise, Jofroi was aided and abetted by his scribe, the Walloon merchant and custos, Servais Copale. This book is the first critical edition of Jofroi’s œuvre. The texts are accompanied by a general introduction, individual introductions to each of the three texts, extensive notes, a substantial glossary, and an index of proper names. Jofroi and Servais collaborated in Waterford, not Paris, as has long been assumed, and these texts are therefore witness to the importance of French as a literary language in southeastern Ireland.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Introduction

La gerre de Troi

Introduction

Edition

Textual and Explanatory Notes

Le regne des Romains

Introduction

 Edition

Textual and Explanatory Notes

Le secré des secrés

Introduction

Edition

Textual and Explanatory Notes

Glossary

Index of Proper Names