THE MANUSCRIPT TRADITION OF THE
GLOSSA ORDINARIA FOR DANIEL, AND HINTS AT A METHOD FOR A CRITICAL EDITION
When Beryl Smalley first wrote over fifty years ago about the standard medieval commentary for the Bible, she helped to give shape and coherence to our understanding of the development of one of the key theological texts of the Middle Ages, the Glossa Ordinaria : of how a handful of scholar/teachers at a crucial time and place, early twelfth century Laon and Auxerre, comprehensively digested and made accessible to their contemporaries the essence of the patristic interpretation of the Bible, by the efforts of their medieval predecessors (2). In 1961 she sketched out the complexity of the development of the Glossa Ordinaria, and the « gloses périmées » that did not enjoy the popularity and distribution of the « ordinaria », and suggested a for preparing a critical edition of the Gloss (3). Until recently, only a relatively few scholars addressed the matter of the Gloss, among them : Wasselynck, who has drawn our attention to the contribution of Gregory the Great (and, almost more importantly, to his 'indexers,' like Paterius and Bruno) (4) ; Bertola, who argued for a textual in a plurality of recensions, that was complicated by his analysis of early printed editions that sometimes have a confusing, if not arbitrary relationship to the (5) ; and Wielockx, who has handily summarized the status quaestionis (6). The
(1) I have discussed some aspects of the text of the Gloss as found in St. Orner, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 220 (MS C, below) in « The Medieval Latin Interpretation of Daniel : Antecedents to Andrew of St. Victor», Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale ( = RTAM) 58 (1991), 62-69.
(2) Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages ( = SBMA) (Oxford3, 1983), p. 46-66, esp. 60 ; eadem, « La Glossa Ordinaria : Quelques prédécesseurs d'Anselme de Laon », RTAM 9 (1937), 365-400.
(3) Eadem, «Les commentaires bibliques de l'époque romane : glose ordinaire et gloses périmées», Cahiers de Civilisation médiévale 4 (1961), 15-22.
(4) R. Wasselynck, « L'influence de l'exégèse de S. Grégoire le Grand sur les commentaires médiévaux (7e-12es.)», RTAM 32 (1965), 157-204.
(5) E. Bertola, «La Glossa ordinaria biblica ed i suoi problemi», RTAM 45 (1978), 34-78.
(6) R. Wielockx, «Autour de la Glossa Ordinaria», RTAM 49 (1982), 222-228. H. de Lubac (Exégèse médiévale (Aubier, 1959-1964) has woven the Gloss into the fabric of his argument, without discussing it directly. Smalley (« Some Gospel Commentaries of the Early Twelfth Century », RTAM 45 (1978), 147-180 ; « Peter Comestor on the Gospels and His Sources », RTAM 46 (1979), 84- 129), Gilbert Dahan (« L'exégèse de l'histoire de Cain et Abel du xne au xive siècle en Occident » RTAM 49 (1982), 21-89 and 50 (1983), 5-68), and Adrian Ballentyne (« A Reassessment of the Exposition of the Gospel according to St Matthew in Manuscript Alençon 26 », RTAM 56 (1989), 19- 57) have made significant contributions to the history of other biblical commentaries and but without a sustained focus on the Glossa Ordinaria. Implicit in all of their work is the call
