The Victorine Library and Scholarly Networks Behind Niðrstigningar saga

A handful of bewildering passages in the Scriptures, vaguely alluding to Christ's katabasis and anastasis, have been the subject of intense theological and exegetical controversy.1 In the early Christian era, several Eastern apocryphal and pseudoepigraphical texts drafted in Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, Syrian, and Ethiopian attempted to expand and elaborate upon the Old and New Testament verses prefiguring or hinting at Christ's descent and ascent from Hades.2 Just after the middle of the fourth century, the Fourth Council of Sirmium in Pannonia (358 CE) included for the first time new clauses describing both Christ's descent into the underworld and the terror generated by him among the gatekeepers of Hades.3 The same article appeared almost simultaneously in the Greek formulae of the Synod of Nike (359 CE) and Constantinople (360 CE) and reached the Latin west in the beginning of the fifth century, when it was incorporated into the Aquileian Creed.4 Its Latin translation, cited by Rufinus (d. 410) in his Expositio symboli, asserts that Christ descended into the underworld and specifies that after his death, he was able to conquer simultaneously the celestial, terrestrial, and infernal kingdoms.5 Through the Aquilian Creed, the descensus formula was welcomed with small variations in the Creed of Jerome (ca. 342–47) and the Creed of Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 530–607), until being eventually incorporated in a later form of the Old Roman Creed (R-text) as "He descended into hell," a variant reading originating in southwestern Gaul that became dominant throughout the Early Middle Ages.6Sometime between the fifth and eighth centuries, a Latin apocryphal narrative depicting Christ's trial, crucifixion, as well as his descent into hell was forged by the conflation of two separate texts: the Greek Acta Pilati and the later Latin Descensus Christi ad inferos.7 Throughout the Middle Ages, the apocryphon circulated with the title Evangelium Nicodemi after its pseudoepigraphical ascription to Nicodemus, the pious Pharisee, who assisted Joseph of Arimathea in the entombment of Christ. Its text nearly attained the status of a "fifth gospel" and enjoyed enormous circulation, as testified by over 400 medieval codices pertaining to four main redactions: Latin A (Majority Text), Latin B, Latin C, and Latin T.8The earliest evidence of the dissemination and knowledge of the Evangelium Nicodemi in medieval Scandinavia is represented by an Old Norse adaptation of the Latin text that came to be known as Niðrstigningar saga "The Story of the Descent," which embraces exclusively the Descensus Christi ad inferos and survives today in two distinct redactions transmitted in five Icelandic manuscripts: an older text represented today by Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 645 4to (c. 1220), AM 623 4to (c. 1325), AM 233 a fol. (c. 1350–60), and Landsbókasafn Íslands—Háskólabókasafn, JS 405 8vo (ca. 1780–1791); and a younger, revised redaction represented by Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 238 fol. V (ca. 1400–1500). In my study and critical edition of the Norse text, I have sought to prove that Niðrstigningar saga is to date the oldest known vernacular translation of Latin T, the so-called "Troyes redaction" of the apocryphon, and that its readings are best represented by its oldest witness, Troyes, Médiathèque du Grand Troyes, 1636, a late twelfth-century codex from the Abbey of Clairvaux only recently made available in a first critical edition.9 The compiler of Niðrstigningar saga was undoubtedly educated in theology, and two of the four interpolations especially point to his inquiry and use of Victorine Biblical and exegetical material that is unattested in Latin T and in any of the Latin or vernacular manuscripts of the Evangelium Nicodemi.10 A previously unnoticed interpolation borrows Seth's description of the gates of Paradise from the Historia scholastica, the widely disseminated biblical compendium and explanatory gloss completed by Peter Comestor (1110–1179) in the Abbey of Saint-Victor around the year 1170. The second and third interpolations are two nearly-verbatim quotations from Revelation depicting, respectively, Satan taking the shape of a terrifying red dragon and Christ arriving in hell upon a white horse in the guise of the first horseman of the Apocalypse. The fourth and most forceful interpolation, describing the cross of Christ entrapping Satan on a "fishhook," a "snare," or a "mousetrap," has caused much debate among scholars, who have searched for echoes in both secular and sacred literature.11 However, the most plausible sources for the latter passage appear to be Peter Lombard's (ca. 1096–1160) twelfth-century Biblical glosses and commentaries, which must have been readily available in Iceland between 1199 and 1211, when the first redaction of Niðrstigningar saga was in all probability composed at the Skálholt cathedral school.12In the present essay, I wish to advance the research on the Norse text by surveying the fertile subsoil that favored the composition of Niðrstigningar saga, a text that as shall be seen is highly indebted to the intellectual and theological concerns of the Victorine schools of late twelfth-century Paris. Accordingly, I will first sketch a history of the "mousetrap" simile for the cross, tracing its routes from Roman Africa to twelfth-century Paris, and then outline a partial reconstruction of the Victorine libraries of Norway and Iceland from the evidence provided by Latin manuscript fragments dating to the second half of the twelfth century, which include items and analogues that may have been consulted for the composition of the vernacular text. Finally, I will offer a fresh and more in-depth reading of the Victorine archival sources which testify to the factual or possible arrival of Norwegian and Icelandic clerics at the Abbeys of Saint-Victor and Sainte-Geneviève throughout the second half of the twelfth century. While most of these sources were mentioned in previous studies, it is my intent to reassess them here through a more exhaustive analysis within their material and historical contexts. Among these, three Latin and French excerpts from previously unpublished or dispersed manuscript and archival material are made available here for the first time in diplomatic transcriptions and English translations (Appendices 1–3).The Latin compound muscipula ("mousetrap") is a distinctive reading of the Vetus Latina, where it consistently renders Septuagint παγίς ("trap, snare"), while the Vulgate generally prefers laqueus ("noose, snare, trap").13 The Vetus Latina term is especially prevalent in the works of Augustine, with 140 instances acknowledged by the Augustinus-Lexikon.14 In about 98% of the attested cases, Augustine closely associates the word with the devil, most evidently in the collocation muscipula diaboli, a well-established trope for the means by which the devil entraps the souls of men in order to doom them to perdition. However, in four rare instances, that is Sermones 130 (a), 134 (a), 263, and 265D, Augustine radically subverts the aforementioned image in which the muscipula diaboli, in place of being an infernal device "of" the devil, becomes a divine trap "for" the devil.15 Despite its sharpness and efficacy, after the fifth century the mousetrap simile for the cross of Christ nearly fell into oblivion. Indeed, none of the prolific Carolingian authorities makes use of it except for one important instance found in Florus of Lyon (ca. 810–859), who quotes Augustine's Sermo 130 in his Expositio epistulae Pauli apostoli ad Hebraeos.16 Silence falls again for three more centuries until the metaphor surfaces in the writings of Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris and one of the greatest intellectuals and masters of the Sacred Page in twelfth-century Europe. Along with other scholastic theologians of the day, Lombard often made use of the catenae or "chains" of patristic citations assembled by earlier writers, such as the Augustinian catena on Paul's letters prepared by Florus.17 It is indeed from Florus's Expositio that Peter excerpts and comments on Augustine's Sermo 130 (a) in his highly influential Sententiae in quattuor libris distinctae,18 a comprehensive collection of exegetical and theological texts extracted from the Bible and from the relevant patristic commentaries, composed at the Abbey of Saint-Victor between 1157 and 1158.19 From Lombard's Sententiae the mousetrap simile even entered the Glossa ordinaria, the standard glossed Bible, whose work is believed to be traditionally initiated by Anselm of Laon (ca. 1050–1117) in the early twelfth century and was later completed in Paris and Auxerre. Lombard was one of the Parisian exegetes who edited the Glossa in the middle of the twelfth century.20 Finally, Lombard again quotes Augustine's Sermo 130 (a) in one of his sermons on the Nativity of the Lord, which was for a long time mistakenly attributed to Hildebert of Lavardin (1055–1133),21 and most importantly in his highly influential commentary on the Pauline Epistles, the Collectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas,22 better known as the Magna glossatura, a collection that soon outpaced the Glossa ordinaria and the Media glossatura by Gilbert of Poitiers (1070–1154), as well as contemporary and immediately subsequent Pauline glosses.23 While the Sententiae have been served with an excellent critical edition,24 regrettably, we do not possess reliable editions of the Glossa ordinaria or the Magna glossatura, and scholars approaching these texts still need to rely on the fifteenth-century editio princeps by Adolph Rusch25 and on the text printed by Jacques Paul Migne in the Patrologia Latina.26 Such scholarly negligence should come as no surprise, given the enormous effort the preparation of such editions would entail: an updated census of the Glossa ordinaria counts today over 2500 manuscripts27 and a nonconclusive list compiled by Friedrich Stegmüller reckons over 200 manuscripts of the Magna glossatura on the Pauline Epistles.28 As recently noted by Marcia Colish, in comparison with his contemporaries, Lombard's recourse to authorities relies less on indirect research and is instead based more thoroughly on his own independent reading of the fathers, whom he cites more fully and accurately and whom he considers more thoroughly and analytically. Colish demonstrates how Lombard imports into his discussion authors fully ignored by other scholastics, as for instance John of Damascus (ca. 675–749), and shows how he exhibits a much more careful and thorough grasp of Augustine by drawing on works by him, such as De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus,29 not cited by any other theologian of his time.30Taking such conclusions into consideration, I have drawn attention to Augustine's Sermo 265D, De Quadragesima Ascensionis Domini, one of the four instances in which the mousetrap metaphor is evoked to symbolize the cross, a sermon originally delivered against the Manicheans and their heresies, which contemplated Christ as a pure emanation of the deity and neglected his human substance.31 A section of the text commenting upon 1 Corinthians 15:54 that reads "Death is swallowed up in victory" displays important verbal and thematic affinities to the fourth interpolation of Niðrstigningar saga: Augustine Sermo 265DNiðrstigningar sagaquid ergo miraris? certe uita est christus : quare mortua est uita? nec anima mortua est, nec uerbum mortuum est: caro mortua est, ut in ea mors moreretur. mortem passus, mortem occidit: ad leonem escam in laqueo posuit. piscis si nihil uellet deuorare, in hamo non caperetur. mortis auidus diabolus fuit, mortis auarus diabolus fuit. crux christi muscipula fuit: mors christi, immo caro mortalis christi t amquam esca in muscipula fuit. uenit, hausit et captus est .32Þa bra hann ser i drecalike oc gørdiz þa sva mikill at hann þottesc liggia mundo umb heimenn allan utan. Hann sa þau tiþende ⟨er gørdoz⟩ at Iorsolom at Iesus Christus var þa i andlati oc for ⟨hann⟩ þangat þegar oc ætlaþi at slita ondina þegar fra honom. Enn er hann com þar oc hugþez gløpa mundo hann oc hafa meþ ser þa beit øngullinn goddomens hann enn crossmarkit fell a hann ovann oc varþ hann þa sva veiddr se⟨m⟩ fiscr a øngle eþa mus under treketti eþa sem melracki i gilldro eptir þvi sem fyrer var spat. Þa for til Dominus Noster oc bat hann.33In the Norse text, the narrative elements are presented in a different order due to the necessary reformulation and adaptation of the sermon to the plot of the pseudo-gospel. Nevertheless, the Norse compiler seems to be conscientious in partly translating and partly accommodating the three similes. Upon the death of Christ in Jerusalem—that is before his cross at Golgotha, right above the entrance to Hell—Satan wanted to tear away the soul of Christ, which, as Augustine asserts, would never die. He craved to swallow it, but being unable to recognize the true nature of Christ—that is, his hidden divinity—he was instead captured on the cross like a fish on a fishhook, like a mouse in a mousetrap, or even caught in a snare like an arctic fox—a necessary adaptation of an African lion into a suitable Nordic equivalent—the prey most commonly caught in traps in medieval Iceland.34 Much like Augustine's Sermo 130 (a) expanding on Hebrew 2:14 in the Sentences, the Magna glossatura (or Collectanea on Paul), as well as the Glossa ordinaria, Lombard may have evoked Augustine's Sermo 265D to elucidate Paul's eschatological description of Christ abolishing death in 1 Corinthians 15:54. Naturally, the difficulty in locating a specific manuscript containing such a gloss lies both in the overwhelming amount of unedited material that still survives and in the progressive and irreversible loss of medieval codices throughout history. We know from coeval sources that at his death, Lombard's personal library contained innumerable "glossed books of the entire New Testament and many of the books of the Old Testament," which were very likely Lombard's own glosses representative of his teaching in Paris.35The Latin fragments of medieval Norway and Iceland are representative—if on a small scale—of the theological texts and Biblical commentaries that circulated during the time of composition of Niðrstigningar saga and may offer some insights into the matrix of sources consulted for its composition. Eighteen parchment leaves preserved today at the National Archives of Norway in Oslo, pertaining to eight original codices, appear to correspond with such material.36 Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica is represented by three fragments: NRA, lat. fragmenter 87, 1–2, two leaves from Norway (ca. 1166–1200) and NRA; lat. fragmenter 7, 1–2 + NRA; and lat. fragmenter 16, 1–2, four leaves that made up part of a single codex from England or Norway (ca. 1190–1210).37 Peter Lombard's Collectanea on Paul (or Magna glossatura) survives in three fragments: NRA, lat. fragmenter 49, 1–2, two leaves from France (ca. 1190–1210); NRA, lat. fragmenter 36, 1–2, two leaves from Norway or England (ca. 1190–1210); and NRA, lat. fragmenter 40, 1–2, two leaves from England. Peter Lombard's Sententiae are extant in a single fragment: NRA lat. fragmenter 33, 1–2, two leaves from Paris (ca. 1150–1200). Along with the latter, two Commentarii in Psalmos, one by Peter Lombard: NRA. lat. fragmenter 47, 1–2, two leaves from France (ca. 1215–1230); and one by Gilbert of Poitiers: NRA, lat. fragmenter 50, 1–2, two leaves from France (ca. 1133–1166) should also be mentioned. Latin codices from medieval Iceland have suffered an even greater loss. Yet, the survival at the Arnamagnæan Collection in Copenhagen of some seventy-three leaves, once part of three original volumes of Victorine literature, is highly significant. A Glossa ordinaria, AM, Acc 7c, Hs 122, seventy leaves from Paris (ca. 1200–1300), covers the entire Old and New Testament and contains Peter Lombard's Prologue to 1 Corinthians Corinthii sunt Achaei and Gilbert of Poitiers's prologue to Revelation Omnes qui pie.38 John of Cornwall's Eulogium ad Alexandrum papam tertium, AM, Acc 7c, Hs 103, survives in two leaves possibly from France (ca. 1200).39 A student of Peter Lombard, John composed his treatise in Paris between 1177 and 1178, and in it he accuses his master of Christological nihilism—a view that somehow derogated Christ's humanity interpreted as a mere covering of the Word, of which Peter Abelard (1079–1142) and Peter of Poitiers (ca. 1130–1215) were also accused—for asserting that Christ had assumed a human nature only accidentally. This view clashed with the classical Boethian view, which traditionally contemplated two distinct natures united in a single person in Christ. This antinihilistic position that spread rapidly throughout Europe after the Third Lateran Council in 1179, and especially via John's Eulogium, might well underlie the theological conception and interpretation of Niðrstigningar saga, where Satan's failure to perceive the one hypostasis behind Christ's dual nature would eventually cause his own defeat.40It has been estimated that around 1200 the libraries of Norwegian churches may have owned between 2500 to 5000 volumes,41 and that about 99% of the Latin texts that circulated before the Reformation are now lost.42 Naturally, these scattered fragments should be considered only as the very tip of the iceberg of what must have been libraries well-stocked with Victorine texts both in Latin and in translation. Comestor's and Lombard's works in particular must have circulated in great numbers.The contacts between Saint-Victor and the high Norwegian clergy go back to the mediation of the Roman curia in the fall of 1152/53. Then a canon regular of English origin, the Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear (ca. 1100–1159)—who would become Pope Hadrian IV in 1154—was appointed papal legate to establish the archdiocese in Niðarós and knew personally the first two Norwegian archbishops, Jón Birgisson of Stavanger (d. 1157) and Eysteinn Erlendsson (d. 1188).43 As suggested by Arne Odd Johnsen, Hadrian IV as well as his advisor and successor to the papal throne, Alexander III, might have recommended the two Norwegian archbishops to the Abbey of Saint-Victor because of their appreciation of that order.44 The stay of Eysteinn at Saint-Victor in the years 1160–61, while on his way to Rome to receive the pallium from Alexander III, is attested by a letter from Abbot Roger of Saint-Euverte d'Orléans to Abbot Ernis of Saint-Victor (Ernisius, reg. 1162–1172), preserved in the Annales de l'abbaye de Saint-Victor, a collection of letters and documents concerning the history of Saint-Victor organized in chronological order and accompanied by commentaries produced by its seventeenth-century prior and vicar, Jean de Thoulouse (1590–1659),45 and in another collection of letters.46 Like Sainte-Geneviève, Saint-Euverte d'Orléans was reformed in 1148 by the Parisian Victorines.47 Roger asks Ernis to inform the retinue of the "Norwegian archbishop" who had been with him at Saint-Victor—namely Eysteinn—of the possibility of obtaining "beautifully produced sacred books" from the Saint-Euverte scriptorium, since his abbey found itself in very difficult economic circumstances and needed to replenish its incomes.48 Mia Münster-Swendsen has recently demonstrated that Saint-Victor was able to maintain a strong English, and especially northern, presence during the latter half of the twelfth century;49 Abbot Ernis was no exception to this general tendency, being a close relative of Lawrence of Durham, Abbot of Westminster (reg. 1158–1173).50 Favored by such northern English connections in the 1160s, the contacts between Norway and Saint-Victor further intensified. Ernis's English sister, who signs herself with the letter "G.," an abbreviation that according to Jean de Thoulouse should be expanded as "Germunda,"51 had married a Norwegian magnate named "Salomon," who has been identified by Johnsen with Sǫlmundr Sigurðarson, a royal magistrate (gjaldkeri) of Tønsberg, who around 1136 had accompanied the jarl of Orkney Rǫgnvaldr Kali Kolsson (ca. 1100–1158) on a Shetland expedition.52 The connection between Sǫlmundr, Abbot Ernis, and Germunda may in fact have been established through Viljhálmr, Bishop of Kirkjuvágr (Kirkwall) in Orkney (1110–1168), who is known to have studied in Paris and to have acted as an interpreter for Rǫgnvaldr during his travels.53 The correspondence between Ernis and Germunda testifies to frequent visits to Saint-Victor on the part of Norwegians, two of whom are mentioned by name.54 Through a certain Petrus and a Norwegian bailiff ("bajulus"), in the year 1167 Germunda sent to her brother the fur of a polar bear, a narwhal tusk, and two gilded silver knives and asked in return for clove and cinnamon from Paris.55 Interestingly, she also warned Ernis that "much like a famished dog" many Norwegians who pretended to be sent from her or her husband were making their way to Saint-Victor, and stressed that she only recommended two Norwegian men from her circle named Johannes and Salomon, the latter being in all probability another Sǫlmundr different from her husband.56 A third Norwegian who stayed at Saint-Victor is Germunda's own son, Germundus—possibly a Latinization of Geirmundr—who at some point between 1161 and 1172 wrote to his uncle Ernis that he regretted having left the abbey and informed him that his parents would not allow him to travel back to Paris since in those years many Norwegians returning home from the Continent were robbed, imprisoned, and even beheaded.57It should however be noted that all Victorine sources date the first important contacts between Norway and Saint-Victor to before the arrival of Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear in Niðarós, and they describe some highly significant events that have been somehow overlooked. The Abrégé de la fondation de l'abbaye de S. Victor, an historical compendium on the abbey published in 1640 by Jean de Thoulouse, lists among the relics of Saint-Victor the shirt of St. Olaf, donated to its Church by "our Brother Henry Archbishop of Hydrunte Eiríkr of Niðarós in the said Kingdom of Norway . . . around the year 1150."58 As a young student in Paris, Eiríkr may have made this donation in imitation of Hugh of Saint-Victor (ca. 1096–1141), who at the beginning of the century had obtained the relics of the Roman martyr Victor at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseille and had deposited them at Saint-Victor in Paris when he entered the abbey around 1115.59 Moreover, in the same text Jean de Thoulouse lists sixty-seven portraits of "the men and fathers of this house who were most illustrious in dignities, knowledge, and piety" that graced the walls of the library at Saint-Victor in 1639. Two of these portraits depicted Eiríkr of Niðarós, who is said to have entered the abbey again around 1150, and Þórir, Bishop of Hamar.60 Finally, volume 7 of Gallia Christiana61 lists Eiríkr among the twelve canons regular of Saint-Victor who were installed by Suger of Saint-Denis (ca. 1080/81–1151) at Sainte-Geneviève to reform the abbey in 1148 along with the highly esteemed exegete Andrew of Saint-Victor (d. 1175), and mentions him bringing the relics of St. Olaf to Saint-Victor, adding that the cult of the Norwegian king flourished in the Parisian abbey for more than five hundred years.62The death of Eiríkr is commemorated in the Obituary of Saint-Victor, where he is mentioned as "our professed canon." The text records his pious donation of 200 Paris pounds,63 which must have been an impressively high sum, considering that his eminent contemporary, Peter of Poitiers (ca. 1130–1215), who took over the chair of theology of Peter Comestor and was chancellor of Notre-Dame, left 40 Paris pounds to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame,64 and that two well-stocked libraries donated for the use of scholars at Saint-Victor by two Parisian masters, Johannes Aurelianus (b. and d. unknown) and Johannes Daim (b. and d. unknown), are said in the Obituary to be worth 13 and 20 Paris pounds respectively.65 Eiríkr's successor at Niðarós, Archbishop Þórir Guðmundsson (Latin Theodoricus, 1206–1214), as well as the aforementioned Þórir, Bishop of Hamar (Latin Theodoricus, 1189/90–1196) are also mentioned in the Obituary respectively as "our brother" and "our canon."66The presence of Icelandic clerics at the Parisian Victorine schools between 1150 and 1200 is harder to assess. Þorláks saga helga A and B famously mention that the sixth bishop of Skálholt and patron saint of Iceland, Þorlákr Þórhallsson (1133–1193), studied abroad for six years, first in Paris and then in Lincoln. It has been estimated that his study trip must have occurred between 1153 and 1159,67 that is, well before becoming the first prior of the first house of canons regular in Iceland, that of Þykkvibær in 1168, and before his consecration in Niðarós by Archbishop Eysteinn in 1178.68 While the sagas remain silent on the specific school or the subjects studied, they describe a young Þorlákr being able to travel abroad for education thanks to the financial gains of his very successful ministry in "small but profitable parishes." He is then said to have "remained at school in Paris as long as he deemed necessary for the study of what he wanted to learn," while in Lincoln he "undertook much further study, profitable both to himself and to others": Ok tók sér þá inn fyrstu misseri lítil þing, fésǫm, ok hafði þau nǫkkura stund, ok varð honum bæði gott til fjár ok vinsælda, af því at náliga unni honum hugástum hvert barn er hjá honum var . . . En er því hafði nǫkkura stund fram farit ok honum var þá ok gott til fjár orðit, þá fýstisk hann útanferðar ok vildi þá kanna siðu annarra góðra manna . Ok fór hann af Íslandi, ok er ekki sagt af hans ferðum unz hann kom í París ok var þar í skóla svá lengi sem hann þóttisk þurfa til þess náms sem hann vildi þar nema . Þaðan fór hann til Englands ok var í Lincolni ok nam þar enn mikit nám ok þarfsælligt, bæði sér ok ǫðrum, ok hafði þá enn mikit gott þat af sér at miðla í kenningum sínum er hann var áðr trautt jafn vel við búinn sem nú. En er hann hafði sex ár af Íslandi verit þá vitjaði hann aptr til frænda sínna ok fóstrjarðar.(And he accepted for himself in the first years of his priesthood small but profitable parishes and kept them for a time, and it turned out well for him in terms both of money and of popularity, for pretty much everyone who was near him loved him dearly . . . And when things had proceeded in this way for some time and he had become well off, he became eager to journey abroad, for he wanted to explore the customs of other good men. So he travelled from Iceland, but nothing is told of his travels until he came to Paris and he remained at school there as long as he deemed necessary for the study of what he wanted to learn. From there he went to England and was at Lincoln and undertook much further study there, profitable both to himself and to others, and he then had a lot of good things to share in his teachings since he was scarcely so well instructed before as he was now. And when he had been away from Iceland for six years, he went back to visit his kinsmen and native land).69Two important Latin fragments of an otherwise lost *Vita sancti Thorlaci, known as Latínubrót II and Latínubrót IV, are mysteriously silent on his education in Lincoln but concur in stating that in his childhood Þorlákr had "voluntarily learned the sacred writings," an expression which normally entails a word-for-word memorization of the Scriptures.70 In a description closely resembling Matthew Paris's (1200–1259) coeval presentation in his Chronica Majora of King Ceolwulf of Northumbria (d. 765), Archbishop Bregowine of Canterbury (d. 764), and Bishop Ælfheah of Winchester (d. 951), the fragments stress how later in his youth Þorlákr "had adorned himself with good manners" and "was decently educated to the literary knowledge," that is, to the rudiments of Latin.71 Before travelling abroad, Þorlákr is said to have deepened his knowledge of "the instruction of the divine law," a formula that elsewhere in Matthew's Chronica is reserved for the work of three prominent scholars of the Septuagint and translators of the Old Testament into Greek: Aquila of Sinope (fl. 130 AD), Theodotion of Ephesus (fl. 150 AD), and Symmachus (fl. 175 AD), and which here in all probability refers to more advanced study and interpretation of the Old Testament.72 Once in Paris, Þorlákr "did not leave thence without being sufficiently learned in all the good arts," an allusion to the "liberal arts" curriculum of the trivium and the quadrivium:73Þorlákr is never mentioned in the Obituary of Saint-Victor, while his name occurs twice in some unpublished Latin and French material collected at Sainte-Geneviève for the preparation of a proper of saints for the Congrégation de France:74 Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, 1979, some notes collected by Claude Prévost (1693–1752), who was librarian of Sainte-Geneviève between 1722 and 1752,75 entitled Vies de Chanoines Réguliers; and Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, 165, registered under the title Propre des Saints Matériaux, the latter being a reworking of the former.76 However, as mentioned by Prévost in his commentary, his notes are in fact documentary material that he extracted from volume 9 of Johannes Messenius's (1579–1636) Scondia Illustrata77—including lectiones 1–3 for the Office of St. Þorlákr as transmitted in the Breviarium Nidrosiense (namely the *Vita Sancti Thorlaci from Latínubrót IV), as well as two quick references from Arngrímur Jónas's (1568–1648) Chrymogæa78 and Thormodus Torfæus's (1636–1719) Historia rerum Norvegicarum79—and do not provide further details on Þorlákr's years of study in Paris. Consequently, this reference cannot be taken as conclusive evidence of Þorlákr's affiliation with Sainte-Gen