At the same time, glossing provided a relatively straightforward exposition of the text’s grammatical meaning, ensuring that the students could actually read the text at more elementary levels. The first great practitioner of this method was Bernard of Chartres, whose teaching style is described, probably with some nostalgia, by John of Salisbury:
Bernard of Chartres, the greatest font of literary learning in Gaul in recent times, used to teach grammar in the following way. He would point out, in reading the authors, what was simple and according to rule. On the other hand, he would explain grammatical figures, rhetorical embellishments, and sophistical quibbling, as well as the relation of given passages to other studies. He would do so, however, without trying to teach everything at one time. On the contrary, he would dispense his instruction to his hearers gradually, in a manner commensurate with their powers of assimilation.… And since memory is strengthened and the mind sharpened by practice, Bernard would bend every effort to bring his students to imitate what they were hearing. In some cases he would rely on exhortation, in others he would resort to punishments, such as flogging. Each student was daily required to recite part of what he had heard on the previous day. Some would recite more, others less. Each succeeding day thus became the disciple of its predecessor. The evening exercise, known as the “declination,” was so replete with grammatical instruction that if anyone were to take part in it for an entire year, provided he were not a dullard, he would become thoroughly familiar with the [correct] method of speaking and writing.96
Bernard was obviously offering instruction to a class of various levels, whose more junior members needed basic grammatical and rhetorical instruction, line by line and word by word.97 This was glossing. As Jeauneau puts it, “While the commentary only shows the ideas in the text, the gloss, without losing sight of the ideas, also concerns itself with the letter of the text. To gloss a text is to follow the letter, sentence by sentence and even word by word, and it is also to show the chain of expressions and of ideas (continuatio litterae) in such a way that the analysis of the most minute details does not cause the reader to lose sight of the overall picture.”98 Jeaneau’s definition echoes that of Bernard’s famous pupil, William of Conches, whose commentary on the Timaeus dates from the 1140s.99 Glossing, in other words, was initially an oral practice, although masters preparing their lectures would write key glosses in the margins and students listening to them would copy key points down, so that there must have been a large number of informal or partially glossed texts in circulation. From this extensive classroom instruction, a master might compile a set of written glosses, first as “a kind of ‘work in progress’ on a particular text,” which would not circulate widely, and then as a more polished composition that would.100 This comprehensive gloss would still follow the pattern of the lectures, working through the text phrase by phrase, as does the gloss of Bernard on the Timaeus, identified by Dutton in 1984, which explores the mysteries of philosophical mythology but also comments on the text’s grammatical structure. As Dutton puts it, “the comprehensive gloss pioneered by Bernard wedded the best features of the soaring commentary with the chief virtues of the grounded gloss, providing a middle way of steady progress in the critical study of philosophical texts.”101 The glosses on the Timaeus normally circulated independently from the text so that a scholar who wished to use them would normally need to compare two books. A book like Digby 23(1) would provide assistance at crucial points for those who did not have access to the full glosses or did not want to carry them around.
Digby 23(1) begins with Calcidius’s introduction, its initial letter “I” set out as a greyhound whose tongue flowers out onto a field of blue speckled in red: “Isocrates in exhortationibus/ suis uirtutem laudans; cum omnium bonorum tociusque prosperita/tis consistere causam penes eam dice/ret; addidit solam eam esse que/ res inpossibiles redigeret ad possibi/lem facilitatem” (Isocrates, in his speeches, praises virtue, since he says that it is the cause of almost all good things and all fortunate conditions, and adds that it alone is what makes impossible things possible and even easy, fol. 3r, fig. 3).102 Various interlinear glosses have been added. Since the form “Isocrates” was not that familiar, one gloss clarifies that he was a certain philosopher. The first large marginal gloss is on the right-hand column and explains the identity of Calcidius, archdeacon of Cordova.103
Many of the glosses are marked by sigla. It appears that each glossator uses a different one: a diagonal line with two dots, a small triangle that suggests a harp, two parallel check marks, a wavy line with three dots, and a squiggly line rather like a pothook. In some cases these function as insertion marks or signes de renvoi, indicating where in the main text the gloss should be applied. In other cases, where there is no corresponding siglum in the text, they might be interpreted as versions of paraph signs, marking the beginning of the gloss. Since each glossator appears to uses a single distinctive mark, they also can serve to distinguish the glossators, marking each man’s individual contribution to the ongoing tradition.104 Some of the glosses have no siglum, however, and a few, bafflingly, have two.105 The earliest glosses are generally less ambitious and less heavily abbreviated. On folio 14V, for example, a glossator whose hand Dutton has identified as that of the main scribe explains the associations of Pallas Athena: “Vere bellicosa pallas dicitur Cum dea ra/tionis et etiam discret/ionis sit; que considerari oportet. et enim maxi/me necessarie sunt in / bellicis negotiis” (Truly Pallas is said to be warlike since she is the goddess of reason and discretion, which ought to be considered, and indeed are essential, in the business of war). Similarly, on folio 5V, there is a gloss marked by a harp and two check marks that provides a simple summary of a key point: “Duo ornamenta assigaui/mus militibus scilicet forti/tudinem et mansuetudinem/ fortitudinem contra aduersarios man/suetudinem contra obedientes” (We assign two distinctions to soldiers: strength and mildness: strength against enemies and mildness for those they govern). In comparison, the pothook glossator, whose hand dates from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, makes longer and more complex contributions.106
Figure 3. MS Bodleian Digby 23(1), fol. 3r (with permission of the Bodleian Library).
The dialogue proper begins on folio 4v (fig. 4), with Socrates counting the number who come together to continue the previous day’s discussion: “Vnus, duo, tres; quartum enumero/ vestro thimee requiro, qui hesterni quidem/epuli conuiue fueritis; hodierni praebi/tores inuitatoresque ex condicto residea/tis” (One, two, three, but I ask you, Timaeus, where is the fourth who had agreed yesterday to be part of our banquet? You don’t make up the agreed upon number of guests or providers).107 On this page there are two large glosses, one across the top and one on the left-hand column. The latter gloss, by the same man who on the previous folio tells us who Calcidius was, here gives a good sense of the allegoresis that could be brought to bear on the text.
Vtitur dialogo et ponit sena/rium numerum ut operis de/signet perfectionem que sicut/ille numerus est perfectus/