Giles of Rome’s "De regimine principum": Reading and Writing Politics at Court and University, c. 1275–c. 1525

✍ Scribed by Charles F. Briggs

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 228
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology, 5
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From the time of its composition (c. 1280) for Philip the Fair of France until the early sixteenth century, Giles of Rome’s mirror of princes, the "De regimine principum", was read by both lay and clerical readers in the original Latin and in several vernacular translations, and served as model or source for several works of princely advice. This study examines the relationship between the didactic political text and its audience by focusing on the textual and material aspects of the surviving manuscript copies, as well as on the evidence of ownership and use found in them and in documentary and literary sources. Briggs argues that lay readers used De regimine for several purposes, including as an educational treatise and military manual, whereas clerics, who often came first into contact with it at university, glossed, constructed apparatus for, and modified the text to suit their needs in their later professional lives.

✦ Table of Contents

List of plates x
Acknowledgments xii
List of abbreviations xiv
Introduction 1
1. Giles of Rome and "De regimine principum" 9
2. Books, contents, uses 20
3. A book of kings and knighthood 53
4. From Latin into English 74
5. A university textbook 91
6. Improving access and removing the chaff 108
Conclusion 146
APPENDICES
A. Descriptive list of manuscripts of medieval English origin/provenance 152
B. Latin "De regimine" manuscripts of French origin 172
C. Manuscripts containing French translations of "De regimine" 174
D. Cambridge, Jesus College, MS Q.B.9 175
E. Comparison of subject designators in the "Abstinencia" and "Abhominacio" long recension indexes 180
Bibliography 188
Index of manuscripts 201
General index 204