Neophilologus DOI 10.1007/s11061-014-9404-6

The Medieval French Lexicon of Translation Jessica Stoll

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract This article examines the medieval French vocabulary for translation. Only translater has been previously widely thought to designate translation explicitly. It is accepted that other words, such as trover/controver, traire/retraire, and metre en escrit/romanz, signify processes of textual production, but this research investigates how medieval usage indicates that in addition to these recognised meanings, they may also connote translation. The article subsequently brings into focus three Latin writers whose understanding of translatio was influential upon vernacular writers, thus placing old French concepts of translation within their wider linguistic and literary context. Keywords Translater

Translation
Vocabulary
Vernacular
Creativity
Translatio


Investigation of the medieval vocabulary of translation is essential to our understanding of medieval attitudes to the act of writing and specifically to that of translation, because it suggests how writers might have understood the terms they chose to designate their writing processes, both in French and in Latin. This article therefore investigates four French terms, translater, trover/controver, retraire/traire and metre en escrit/romanz. All these are accepted as terms to designate acts related to translation, which can therefore encompass that process, such as writing down, storytelling, retelling and inventing, but the literary evidence assembled here for the first time indicates that they might further designate translation. Dictionary attestations and existing translations of medieval French texts—into English and J. Stoll (&) Department of French, King’s College London, Virginia Woolf Building, 22, Kingsway, London WC2B 6NR, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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modern French—indicate how scholars have understood these words to date, and how examining the full semantic range of the terms under discussion here might enrich our understanding of how medieval writers conceived of translation. In order to situate this usage historically, this study concludes by examining translatio in three influential Latin texts, which have not been studied together before. These indicate the debates to which medieval French translators were responding, either directly or indirectly, though as Pratt (1991, pp. 1–2) cautions, the gap between theory and practice can be wide. These texts are: the Rhetorica ad Herennium, the ‘primary text’ for teaching rhetoric in the Middle Ages (Russell 2001, p. 22); Jerome’s letter 53 ad Paulinum, which preceded the Vulgate Bible in most manuscripts from the ninth century onwards (Berger 1902, p. 33; Froehlich 2009, p. 20); and Otto of Freising’s Two Cities (modern English translation 1928), which introduced translatio imperii et studii, a twelfth-century theorisation of movement of empire and learning—and thus of texts—as the dominant historical narrative. These texts connect translation with imaginative writing: translatio is used in the two earlier texts to signify metaphor, and in Otto’s work, it unites physical movement and learning. They indicate that the conceptual link between translation and metaphor, discussed recently by commentators such as Lewis (2004, p. 271), has a long history.

The Lexicon: translater, retraire/traire, trouver/controver and metre en escrit/romans Translater and its substantive cognate, translacı¨on, enjoy a wealth of examples in the Old French dictionary Tobler–Lommatzsch (TL) (X: 1976, col. 530, l. 8-col. 53, l. 25; col. 529, ll. 31–46). It offers three definitions—one linguistic and two physical—for translater. First, in the usage closest to translation’s principal current meaning, translater denotes the transposition of material from a source into a target language, so that at least the translation takes written form. It can refer to translation into and out of Latin, and between vernaculars. The following quotation, which describes an originally Greek text put into Arabic and then Latin, is an example of the first instance: Ceste marguerite de Philosophie [Aristotle’s book] Secretum Secretorum fut transcrite et translatee de la langue arabique an la langue latine. (TL X: 1976, col. 531, ll. 2–6) [This pearl of Philosophy, The Secret of Secrets, was transcribed and translated from the Arabic language into the French language.] This translation cannot take place without transcription, and so they are noted together. Second, translater describes translation from Latin into French, as in these examples from Gautier de Coinci’s hagiographical text, La vie de Sainte Cristine (early thirteenth century) and the chanson de geste, Baudouin de Sebourc (1360–70): De latin en romanz la translat se je puis. (de Coinci 1999, p. 4, l. 29)

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[I will translate this life, if I can, from Latin into French.] Ceste canchon, signour, doit bien estre prisı¨e Car translatez fu en divine clergı¨e Du Latin en Romans, nel tenez a folie. (TL X: 1976, col. 531, ll. 18–20.) [This song, signour, should be valued highly, for it was translated through divine book-learning from Latin into the vernacular; do not think it is frivolous.] Both examples note that the translator is divinely inspired, something discussed later in this article in relation to Jerome’s prefatory epistle.1 Third, translater signifies translation from one vernacular to another throughout the period, as in Geffrei Gaimar’s Estoire des Engleis (1136–37): Robert li quens de Glo¨ucestre Fist translater ce geste Solum les liveres as Waleis K’il aveient des bretons reis. (TL X: 1976, col. 530, ll. 45–48) [Robert, the Count of Gloucester, had this story translated according to the books belonging to the Welsh, which they had from the Breton kings.] Three hundred years later, Cle´ment de Fauquembergue uses it in the same way in his journal for Saturday, 16th July 1436: Ce jour, la Court, oye la relacion dez commissaires de ceans, a tauxe´ a` la somme de XXJ livres XVIIJ sols VIIJ deniers parisis le salaire de maistre Gervaise Le Wuke, notaire du Roy, pour avoir translate´ et escript de flameng en franc¸ois le proce`s. (Fauquembergue 1915, III, p. 161) [That day, the Court, having heard the local commissaires’ statement, fixed the salary of the King’s chancery clerk, Gervase Le Wuke, for having translated and written the proceedings from Flemish into French, at the amount of 21 Paris pounds, 18 sols and 8 deniers.] He doubles ‘translater’ with ‘escrire’: it is both distinguished from and connected with the act of writing. However, translater does not only refer to a technical act of putting words from one language into another. Writers include it with—and delineate it from—other creative acts.2 Two twelfth-century texts, Wace’s Roman de Rou (1160–80) and Marie de France’s Fables (1189–1208), demonstrate this: Livres escrire e translater, faire rumanz e serventeis. (TL, X: 1976, col. 530, ll. 39–40.) [To write books and translate, make romances [or books in the vernacular] and sirventes.] Esope escrist a sun mestre, Ki bien conut lui et son estre, 1

On divine translatio, see Campbell (2012, pp. 112–19).

2

See Damian-Grint (1999, pp. 26–31) for discussion of translater using mainly historiographical sources; as such, his conclusions—that meanings of physical translation predominate—differ from mine.

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Unes fables, qu’il ot trovees De Griu en Latin translatees. (Marie de France 1987, ll. 17–20) [Aesop addressed some fables, which he had found/created and translated from Greek into Latin, to his master, who knew him well.] In the first list, translation is one of several forms of vernacular textual production. As in the Fauquembergue quotation, translation is separate but associated with the act of writing, and here, with that of writing romances and sirventes, an Occitan form of satirical song. The quotation from Marie de France’s Fables introduces trouver, whose double meaning indicates the close relationship between reading, translating and creative production in this period. It means to find, discover or invent: it can refer to both the act of ‘ausgesagt, geschrieben finden’, finding knowledge through reading, and ‘dichten (auch musik. komponieren)’, or the creative act of composition, its more frequent usage (TL X: 1976, col. 697, ll. 2–9, col. 694, l. 42-col. 695, l. 32). Since no-one read Greek in Western Europe in this period, Marie might have ascribed the Latin translations to Aesop, as well as his Greek writings. Kinoshita and McCracken (2012, p. 40) interpret these lines in this way, suggesting that this passage posits Aesop as the ‘original translator of the Fables from Greek into Latin’. The Latin translations, which Marie works from, therefore share the authorial status of the Greek; on the other hand, Bloch (2003, p. 114) understands these lines as identifying the ‘ultimate source in Aesop who transmitted them in written form to ‘‘his master’’, who translated them from Greek to Latin’.3 In this passage, Aesop thus creates or finds the fables (trouver), and then either he or his master translates them into Latin (translater). A reading which acknowledges Aesop’s writing in Greek might even suggest that he both wrote the fables and then translated them into Latin: Charles Brucker’s translation permits this reading: ‘compose´es et traduites du grec en latin’ (1998, p. 47, ll. 19–20). The difficulty of interpreting these lines highlights the slippage between translation and other literary acts, including composition, reading and discovery. This example highlights translater’s potential to bridge literary cultures; it can also signify physical movement. Peter Damian-Grint indicates that this meaning is uppermost during the Middle Ages, but his study focuses on historiographical texts (1999, p. 23). Linguistic translater has the most attestations in both TL and the Dictionnaire du moyen franc¸ais (DMF). In the Franzo¨sisches Etymologisches Wo¨rterbuch (FEW), Paul Zumthor notes the use of the noun translation to mean ‘action de de´placer un objet d’un lieu a` l’autre’ as ‘rare’ in middle French, but there are examples for translater (under transferre) with this meaning (von Wartburg XIII: 1967, pp. 201, 209). Most recently, Zrinka Stahuljak emphasises that translation was understood broadly (2012, p. 148). Some dictionary examples— frequently taken from fourteenth and fifteenth centuriey texts—refer to simple physical movement, for example, Froissart’s Chroniques: Si fu en celle saison translates et menes en Cambresis. (Godefroy VIII: 1895, p. 18) [He was moved at that time and taken to the Cambresis.] 3

On the understanding of Greek in the later Middle Ages, see Desmond (2012).

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Further examples of physical translater describe divinely ordained physical movement, which includes moving saints’ bodies and, as in this translation of Psalm 46: 2, transformation by God: Deus a nus esperance e force […]; Pur ceo crendrums cum serat translatee la terre et dequasse´ le munt el quer de la mer. (TL X: 1976, col. 530, ll. 13–16) [God is our refuge and strength […]; therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.] Translater is used specifically here for physical movement of a spiritual nature. Nonetheless, translater is not the only word used for linguistic and physical translation in this period. Even if these patterns of use are not reflected in dictionary entries, attestations of trover, retraire/traire and metre en romanz/escrit indicate that that they too can describe this process.4 As noted earlier in relation to the quotation from Marie de France’s Fables, trover refers to both the act of finding knowledge through reading, and the creative act of composition, its more frequently attested usage (TL X: 1976, col. 697, ll. 2–9; col. 694, l. 42-col. 695, l. 32). The FEW gives two meanings for its hypothetical Latin root tropare, the first of which, ‘erfinden, erdichten’ [to invent’ or ‘to make up], preceded its second, ‘finden’ [to find] (von Wartburg XIII: 1967, p. 322). When writers of French described translation in this way, they were thinking along similar, spatialised lines to users of Latin. Serge Lusignan notes that writers of French would have by definition been bilingual (1986, p. 9). Mary Carruthers describes the Latin understanding of memory as a thesaurus, a ‘storage room, ‘‘treasury’’ or ‘‘strongbox’’’, which also provides a comparable spatial image for the transmission of information, like trouver (2008, p. 39) She evokes Cassiodorus’s topica memoriae, and suggests that the emphasis in the Latin is on the places of memory which ‘like bins in a storehouse, have both contents and structure’, and through which thoughts and memories are structured (Carruthers 2008, p. 40). However, within the metaphor of the French trouver, the information found already has a shape, and thus it is often used for translation. Both draw on a spatial understanding of how speech and writing are produced. They imply that the user must physically go and look for something to produce or reproduce it. However, in the examples discussed throughout this article, the writer is equally an important figure within the descriptions of the process of translation: an embodied rather than a spatialised understanding seems sometimes to characterise medieval French conceptions of translation. Controver appears to be the compound of trover although the FEW also remarks ‘ob tropare und contropare wirklich zugleich entstanden sind, muss dahingestellt bleiben. Tropare ko¨nnte sehr wohl auch sekunda¨r nach contropare gebildet worden sein’ (von Wartburg XIII: 1967, p. 322). Controver has three definitions in TL (II: 1936, col. 812, l. 17-col. 813, l. 6): ‘ausdenken, erfinden’ [to dream up, to invent]; ‘dichterisch erfinden’ [to invent in a literary sense]; ‘lu¨gnerisch aussinnen,

4

See Griffin (2012, p. 42) on traire.

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fa¨lschlich erfinden’ [to invent mendaciously]. Indeed, the FEW’s leading definition for tropare is ‘allegorisch auslegen’, the explication of allegory (von Wartburg XIII: 1967, p. 318).5 Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet suggests that controver gains negative connotations ‘au fil des sie`cles’, and quotes Brunetto Latini to this effect: ‘le mal fut trove´s par le diauble non pas crie´s’ [evil was found by the devil, not created] (1993, p. 107). She suggests that, more than trover, controver ‘porte plus nettement cette marque diabolique’: it ‘s’inscrit toujours contre, c’est-a`-dire en regard d’un mode`le, l’ultime mode`le e´tant celui de la cre´ation divine’. However, it appears in examples from the twelfth to the fourteenth century in both negative and positive moral contexts. Whereas controver is used to describe both the translation or creation of a story or song, and lies or false gods, trover does not occur with negative implications. In Jourdain de Blaye (late twelfth/early thirteenth century), controver is doubled with the neutral ‘dit’ to describe the invention of a lie: Lors ont ensamble et dit et controuve´ Que il diront a Jordain le menbre´ Que sa fille est morte par verite´ (Dembowski 1991, ll. 3217–19). [Then together, they said and came up with the idea that they will tell Jourdain the big man that his daughter is truly dead.] Bernard Ribe´mont translates this as ‘convenu et fomente´ de dire’, emphasising their plotting to deceive Jourdain (2007, p. 122). Controuver can describe the process of inventing a lie, but it does not always provide the diabolical flipside of trouver. For example, in the Roman de Troie, it is unlikely to have negative connotations, because Benoıˆt uses it of his own work: Mais Beneeiz de Sainte More L’a controve´ e fait e dit. (Constans I: 1904, ll. 132–33) Rollo (2000, p. 117) translates this line as ‘Benoıˆt de Sainte-Maure has adapted it’, which indicates Rollo understands controver as a form of rewriting. Birge Vitz (1999, p. 56) renders it as ‘invented’; this translation decision emphasises literary creation, common to both controver and trover. If these two approaches are taken together within the context of Benoıˆt’s amplification of Dares Phrygius, then translation is a viable meaning for controver. It captures both processes of adaptation and creative writing, while also distinguishing ‘controve´’ from the more general ‘fait’, which covers both invention and adaptation from the same language. In the early fourteenth-century Dame a la lycorne, controver is used in a situation of textual transmission—if not necessarily of translation—without negative connotations. The DMF offers both meanings as possibilities. Lors tost la dame les desploie Et vit que fu unne canchon. Tost unne autre en la fachon En present elle controuva Qu’amours tost aprise li a. (Gennrich 1908, p. 235, ll. 3746–50) 5

See Kelly (1978, pp. 299–301) for a similar suggestion that allegory is a form of translation.

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[Then the lady unfolded [the letters] at once, and saw that it was a song. Soon she created/translated another in the way that love has soon taught her.] This process may refer to the creation of a contrafactum. Thus from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, controver is used for the process of creating lies, but it also describes inventing in other ways throughout medieval French: it signifies processes of translation or textual transmission. Traire and retraire equally describe processes of literary production, and in particular, I would suggest, of translation. David Rollo (1995, p. 209) describes traire’s usage as follows: Alongside the more straightforwardmeaning of ‘to draw’, ‘to drag’, the verb traire carries literary implications, and is employed to designate the action of producing one instance of writing from another. In the example he quotes, that of Cornelius looking in a book-cupboard or library ‘por traire livres de gramaire’ (l. 88) in the Roman de Troie prologue, Rollo proposes that Cornelius is actively engaged in bibliographical research, that is, looking through the aumaire in order to produce—that is write—‘grammar books’ of his own. (1995, p. 209). Given that Cornelius eventually finds Dares’s text and ‘de greu le torna en latin’ [from Greek turned it into Latin] (Constans I: 1904, l. 121), I suggest that ‘traire’ here might alternatively signify translation; ‘retraire’ occurs later in the Prologue with a similar meaning. Just as Benoıˆt claims this text is new in French, the Greek text lay undiscovered at Athens until Cornelius found it and translated it into Latin (ll. 117–20). He uses retraire to explain that he has translated his text from the Latin: Ceste estoire n’est pas usee N’en guaires lieus nen est trovee: Ja retraite ne fust ancore Mais Beneeiz de Sainte More L’a controve´ e fait e dit E o sa main les moz escrit. (ll. 129–34). [This story is not worn out, nor is it hardly found anywhere; it was never yet related, but Benoit de Sainte-Maure has created, made and told it, and written the words with his own hand.] Birge Vitz (1999, p. 56) translates ‘retraite’ in this passage as ‘narrated’, and Rollo (2000, p. 117) translates ‘retraite’ as ‘related’, which is etymologically suggestive in relation to translation. ‘Relate’ derives from middle French relater, which may be traced back to the Latin referre (OED): the etymology of the second phoneme is the same as that of the modern English ‘late’ in translate, and the Old French ‘later’ in translater, from the Latin past participle latum, from ferre: to carry over. However, the prefix ‘re-’ has been substituted. It is drawn from Latin and French, and has ‘various shades of meaning’ including ‘back’ or ‘backwards’ (the original Latin

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meaning) but also ‘again’ (OED). ‘Relate’, therefore, indicates an act closely linked with that of translation, in which meaning is not etymologically carried over but carried again. The emphasis may differ, but the structure of these acts is identical. Given the context that Benoıˆt is translating from Latin into French, although ‘relate’ does not explicitly refer to Benoıˆt’s act of translation, it does designate that process. Benoıˆt’s retraire acts as both the final stage in the transmission of this text and in the translatio studii of the story of Troy. This history of translation—both linguistic and physical—confirms the linguistic element in translatio studii. Retraire further occurs in the most famous French expression of translatio imperii et studii: Chre´tien de Troyes’s prologue to Clige´s. Ceste estoire trovons escrite, Que conter vos vuel e retreire An un des livres de l’aumeire Monseignor saint Pere a Biauveiz. (TL, VIII: 1971, col. 1163, ll. 6–9) [We find this story written down, which I want to tell and translate for you from one of the books in the library of Monseigneur Saint Peter at Beauvais.] The doubling with conter suggests that retreire occupies a function distinct from storytelling, but this meaning remains implicit in current translations. The Lettres Gothiques translation (Mela and Collet 1994, p. 45) has ‘retracer’, which evokes a process of retransmission. Leslie Topsfield’s translation of ‘retreire’ as ‘relate’ also indicates that retraire represents transmission, which, again in this context, implies translation (1981, p. 12). Whether it refers to a real book or not, at this point, most of the books in a monastic library, or aumeire, would be in Latin, which suggests that Chre´tien wants the reader to think that he has translated the text, and thus retreire may imply translation.6 These two examples from Benoıˆt and Chre´tien certainly indicate retelling of a tale in another language, and thus that these writers are translating their texts. I therefore suggest that retraire can implicitly signify the act of composing a translation. Like translater, retraire implies a spatial concept of translation, as meaning is brought from one language to another (Damian-Grint 1999, p. 31). It occurs at the opening of vernacular hagiographical texts such as Gautier de Coinci’s Vie de Sainte Cristine and Rutebeuf’s Vie de Sainte Elysabel (late twelfth century), within the context of the praise of translation as a good work to spread knowledge. Le sage Salemon qui fluns fu de savoir En divine Escripture a pluseurs fait savoir, Qui set nul bon essample ne s’en doit ja retraire Volentiers ne le doie enseigner et retraire. (de Coinci 1999, p. 3, ll. 1–4) [The wise Salemon who was a fount of knowledge, made many learn in the divine Scriptures; whoever knows a good example must certainly translate it himself, willingly I must teach and translate it.] Que je puisse en tel lieu semeir Ma parole et mon dit retraire 6

See Buridant (2011, pp. 372–377) for an overview of Latin as a language of translation.

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(Car autre labour ne sai faire). (Rutebeuf 1990, p. 638, ll. 12–14) [That I may sow my word and translate my words in such a place (because I don’t know how to do any other work)]. Retraire is the most important act within teaching and learning here; the narrator envisages translating rather than prophecy, because he already knows the examples he will soon tell. Retraire remains in use for acts of intralingual textual transmission in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but it is unattested in the DMF with a specific meaning of translation. Traire is only attested with this meaning in Christine de Pizan’s Chemin de Longue Estude of 1402-3 (2000, l. 5023): en franc¸ois du latin traire [to translate from Latin into French] She is glossing ‘mainte noble translation’ (l. 5020), so it does signify translation; Tarnowski (2000, p. 385) accordingly translates as ‘traduire’. Metre en escrit and metre en romanz give a further image for the movement of translation. Peter Damian-Grint (1999, p. 31) suggests these two terms ‘present translation in static terms’, but when placed alongside retraire/traire and translater, these show a similarly dynamic image of meaning being put into a text, rather than pulled out of it.7 Romanz and escrit signify both the vernacular language and the book or tale itself, as the opening lines of Wace’s Vie de Sainte Marguerite (midtwelfth century) demonstrate: Qui de latin en romans mist Ce que Theodimus escrist. (Wace 1932, p. 56, ll. 741–2.) [Who put Theodimus’s writing from Latin into French] In E. R. Curtius’s verse translation (1973, p. 90), ‘en romans mist’ becomes ‘in Romance […] put’ and Franc¸oise le Saux (2005, p. 25) puts it into English as ‘translated […] into Romance [i. e., French]’. Both suggest that this is an act of translation. Romans is well attested during the fourteenth and fifteenth century but metre en romans appears to fall out of use. It is unattested in the DMF, although in the fourteenth-century chanson de geste Hugues Capet, ‘en romans’ is used with estraire, which has traire as its root word: qui dou latin est en droit romans estrais. (Laborderie 1997, p. 238, l. 4766). [which is translated out of Latin into good French.] However, metre en escrit lasts into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, perhaps because of its use for dictating vernacular speech into written Latin, as here in Lancelot do Lac: Et furent mande´ li clerc qui metoient an escrit les proeces as conpaignons de la maison lo roi. Si estoient quatre, si avoit non li uns Arodiens de Coloigne, et li secons Tontamidez de Vernax, et li tierz Thomas de Tolete, et li quarz Sapiens de Baudas. (Kennedy 1980, p. 571, ll. 20–6) 7

See Clanchy (2013, pp. 218–19).

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[And the clerks, who put the deeds of the companions of the king’s house into writing, were sent for. There were four of them; the first was called Arodiens of Cologne, the second Tontamidez of Vernax, the third Thomas of Toledo, and the fourth Sapiens of Baghdad.] This metaphor shows the reverse image from retraire: the content of oral tales is put into writing, rather than extricated from it. I suggest at least one of the processes described here is translation, because it represents the linguistic process at hand most accurately. The scribes come from all over Europe and the Middle East. If court scribes’ activities offer a parallel for this passage, then these four implicitly write in a common language, most likely Latin, but they are transcribing from the knights’ oral accounts, retold in an unspecified vernacular. This process might usefully—and specifically—be thought of as one of translation. Metre en escrit could refer here to an act of translation, because it most likely describes dictation from a vernacular into Latin. The instances quoted above describe a process of textual transmission, whether from Latin into French, from one form of Latin text to another, or from an unspecified oral language of the text into Latin. Metre en escrit forms part of this history of translation of dictation, transmission and adaptation. Unlike metre en romans, it is attested at the turn of the fifteenth century, but it appears to lose its particular significance for translation, perhaps as records were increasingly kept in French rather than Latin. en paı¨ant […] IIII d. au clerc du verdier pour les mettre en escript. (de Chartres 1984, p. 295) [by paying […] 4d. to the keeper of the forest’s clerk to write [the contracts] down.] Metre en escrit often refers to the transmission of implicitly oral transactions into writing, and it can thus refer to translation, and especially transmission from a spoken language into Latin.

Latin Antecedents The usage of all these terms was shaped in relation to Latin, which had been the dominant written language in Western Europe for centuries, and would remain so in certain milieux for years to come. The vernaculars were heirs to long traditions of reflection on translation into Latin: Franc¸ois Be´rier (1988, p. 246) notes that the practice of prefacing a translation ‘remonte au moins a` Ciceron’.8 Such medieval French examples may be placed usefully in relation to three texts which were widely read during the Middle Ages: the Rhetorica ad Herennium; Jerome’s Epistle 53, that provided part of the preface to his Vulgate Bible; and Otto of Freising’s Two Cities (1146). The Rhetorica ad Herennium, formerly attributed to Cicero, discusses two relevant rhetorical tropes. Interpretatio refers to putting words from one language 8

See Copeland (1991, pp. 37–62) for a classic account of the movement from Roman to medieval concepts of translation.

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into another, and translatio is a literal translation of the Greek le9sa9uoq, or carrying over: the intralingual substitution of one word for another. In his De Oratore, Cicero uses ‘transferendi verbi’ to describe this process (Cicero 1942, pp. 120–2, para. 155); translatio is drawn from the past participle of transfero, translatum. The Latin translatio therefore signifies a form of figurative reading. As John Alford (1982, p. 752) observes, tropes ‘all involve some kind of translatio or transference of meaning’, and the Rhetorica ad Herennium defines the trope of translatio as taking place: cum uerbum in quandam rem transferetur ex alia re, quod propter similitudinem recte uidebitur posse transferri. (Achard 1989, IV: 45). [when a word is transferred from one thing to another, because the resemblance between the two seems to allow the transfer to be made.] This rhetorical treatise with classical origins, which enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the eleventh century (Achard 1989, p. v), identifies translation with metaphor, or the processes of carrying over meaning from one sign to another. It is theorised as an encompassing—and creative—process that combines reading and writing. This related trope of intralingual translation informs the development of the concept, as it increasingly refers to interlingual processes. Translation is therefore a form of reading and a topos of substitution: a turning of language that carries meaning from one place to another, whether within a language or between them. Donatus, who was among the ‘standard texts’ (Coleman 1981, p. 27) for grammar schools, describes it thus: ‘metaphora est rerum verborumque translatio’ [A metaphor is a transfer among things and words] (Donatus 1864, p. 399, l. 17, III: 6). Isidore of Seville (I: 1993, 1, 37: 2) and Matthieu de Vendoˆme in his twelfth-century Ars Versificatoria (1924, 3: 19) both draw upon this definition. They state ‘metaphora est verbi alicuius usurpata translatio’ [metaphor is a word used for transfer]. Geoffroi de Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova, written just after 1200, uses transfero in his definition of metaphor: ‘Si sit homo de quo fit sermo, transferor ad rem | Expressae similem’ [If a man is to be depicted by a word, then I transfer that expression to a similar thing] (1924, ll. 766–7). This link between translation and metaphor shows that translation was understood within larger processes that work both intra- and interlingually, and that it was connected with allegory and commentary.9 Four centuries after the Rhetorica ad Herennium appeared, a seminal work of translation transformed Christianity: Jerome’s Vulgate Bible ‘iuxta Hebraeos’ [from the Hebrew]. His Bible ‘went against 300 years of tradition’ (Kamesar 1993, p. 193), because he translated directly into Latin from Hebrew, rather than from Greek translations. He considers translation at length in Epistle 53, the text I shall consider here. Alongside his preface to Genesis, it was included as a preface to the Vulgate in most manuscripts from the ninth century on (Froehlich 2009, pp. 20, 30–6), and so it also formed part of the preface to the Wycliffite Bible (Lindberg 9

See Copeland (1991, pp. 168–178) for a detailed exposition of Matthieu of Vendoˆme and Geoffroi of Vinsauf’s positions in relation to Horace, classical ideas of translation and exegesis; on glossing between vernacular and Latin, see Reynolds (1996, pp. 61–72).

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1991, p. 143). Jerome introduced phrases that would have great significance for later medieval ideas of translation, including imperio translato (Goez 1958, p. 30). Jerome’s importance as a theorist of translation is acknowledged in Translation Studies today: Lawrence Venuti includes his Letter to Pammachius as the first piece in his Translation Studies Reader (2004, pp. 21–30). Amongst medievalists, Rita Copeland (1991, pp. 45–55) situates him in relation to Augustine, Cicero, the Wycliffite Bible and Boethius.10 Jerome’s text was widely disseminated, and its influence regularly appears in medieval French texts. Scenarios of linguistic and physical translation intertwine in this preface to introduce Jerome’s own rationale for translating. Hence, he begins Epistle 53 with an anecdote about men who travel in order to hold conversations to share and gain knowledge: Legimus in veteribus historiis quosdam lustrasse provincias, novos adisse populos, mare transisse, ut eos quos ex libris noverant coram quoque viderent. (Jerome 1953, 8: 1) [We have read in old stories that some men have travelled about provinces, and that they have gone to new peoples and that they have crossed the sea, so that they could see those who they knew from books.] These men move to find the sources of the books they know. He then lists classical philosophers who have become ‘peregrinus atque discipulus, malens aliena verecunde discere quam sua impudenter ingerere’ [a pilgrim and a disciple, preferring to learn humbly from others’ studies than to preach his own immodestly] (Jerome 1953, 8: 1). Jerome therefore begins his Epistle with an implicit reference to reading and learning in another language.11 He lists Pythagoras and Plato going to find other philosophers; the disciples of Titus Livius coming to Rome from the furthest coasts of France and Spain (Jerome 1953, 9: 1); Apollonius going to India to seek out Hiarch and drink from Tantalus’s well, before continuing to Ethiopia to see the Gymnosophists. He concludes this section by noting Philostratus’s eight volumes, which contain Apollonius’s adventures. Jerome would have most likely read this story in another language, Greek. The veteres historiae relate stories of Greek philosophers; they thus locate the passage immediately within a context of multilingual transmission. This setting mirrors those books’ stories of philosophers and students seeking out foreign scholars to discuss with them. Such stories suggest translation’s importance for exchange of knowledge, both because the resulting conversations would have required at least one party to speak in a second language and because translation would have been necessary for dissemination of their texts. This preface connects physical movement and linguistic translation: sources of knowledge are static whilst the learner is mobile. Only a few might have the means to embark on such quests for knowledge, but their act also spreads knowledge more

10 See Deen Schildgen (1997, pp. 151–9) on Jerome’s attitudes to interpretation and translation more broadly. 11

On the invisibility of translation in this period, see Mills (2012, pp. 125–46).

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widely. Reading and translating other languages can become a form of (sometimes metaphorical) travel.12 Moreover, Jerome outlines his strong belief in translation’s capacity to spread knowledge. He thinks that such progress can be made through translation that even the learning of some of the pagan wise men who travelled to find knowledge, like Plato (Jerome 1953, 13: 4), could be surpassed. He sees translation as able to achieve perfection. Hence he draws on imagery of speaking God’s wisdom, hidden before the coming of Christ. Haec sapientia in mysterio abscondita est. (Jerome 1953, 13: 4) [This wisdom is hidden in mystery.] Jerome is optimistic about the possibility of spreading knowledge through translation, an act which parallels that of the prophet and the interpreter.13 Such justification of translation through biblical and Augustinian tropes of spreading the word—rather than hiding learning—is central to medieval French understanding of the purpose of translation. This perspective draws on 1 Corinthians 2: 7 and Wisdom 6: 22–24: Sed loquimur Dei sapientiam in mysterio quae abscondita est. [But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden] Si ergo delectamini sedibus et stemmatibus reges populi diligite sapientiam ut in perpetuum regnetis quid est autem sapientia et quemadmodum facta sit referam et non abscondam a vobis sacramenta Dei sed ab initio nativitatis investigabo et ponam in lucem scientiam illius et non praeteribo veritatem. [If then your delight be in thrones, and sceptres, O ye kings of the people, love wisdom, that you may reign for ever. Love the light of wisdom, all ye that bear rule over peoples. Now what wisdom is, and what was her origin, I will declare: and I will not hide from you the mysteries of God, but will seek her out from the beginning of her birth, and bring the knowledge of her to light, and will not pass over the truth.] Here are just two examples from twelfth-century romance and hagiography, Gautier d’Arras’s Eracle and Simund de Freine’s Vie de Sainte Georges: Cil qui tant fait a connoistre, Dont je vous ai ichi conte´, Croist et vient tous jors en bonte´. (Gautier d’Arras 1976, ll. 14–16) [The one who has made known so much, whom I have told you about here, grows and arrives always in goodness] Sages est qui sen escrit Il fait a plusurs profit (Simund de Freine 1910, ll. 1–2) [Wise is he who writes wisdom; he makes many benefit.]

12

On this connection between travel and translation, see Bassnett (1998b, pp. 33–36).

13

See Deen Schildgen (1997, p. 157).

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Spreading knowledge is understood as a positive act, both for the writer and his readers. In introducing his expansive translation of Dares Phrygius’s De Excidio Troiae Historia, Benoıˆt de Sainte-Maure (I: 1904, l. 3) tells us that ‘nus ne deit son sen celer’ [no-one must hide his wisdom] and that those who do share knowledge Remembre´ seront a toz tens E coneu¨ par lor granz sens (I: 1904, ll. 17–18) [will be remembered for all time, and known by their great wisdom] Translation—one way of spreading knowledge—is a firmly positive act for these medieval French writers, and appropriately, they paraphrase Latin writers in doing so. Finally, one paradigmatic text produced in the twelfth century is Otto of Freising’s Two Cities. It first drew the existing notions of translatio imperii and studii together, and it remains important for scholarship today. Some of Otto’s contemporaries, including Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace, who gave the Britons Trojan roots, and soon after, Chre´tien de Troyes in his Clige`s, were thinking along similar lines. Otto creates a history of the movement of power within which learning resides, offering a sketch of the transfer of human science from East to West—from Babylonia and Egypt, through Greece and Rome to the France and Spain of his own day. (Lerner 2011, p. 16) Many French writers certainly used this narrative to create the history of their languages: both Athis et Prophilias and the Histoire Ancienne jusqu’a` Ce´sar explore earlier stages of a translatio studii et imperii. The growth of vernacular writing demanded explanation, and Otto’s idea combined movement of empire with that of learning. Translatio imperii et studii marks both translation’s universalising impetus and its secondariness, even if ‘a principle of steady improvement is obviously lacking’ from Otto’s account (Lerner 2011, p. 16). This doctrine, which identifies Western Europe as the current centre of learning and power, developed from Eastern civilisations, is essential to medieval Western European attitudes to translation, whether expressed in Latin or in the vernacular. The vast corpus of extant translations indicates its wider significance for the transfer of knowledge in this period.14

Conclusion The lexicon of translation in medieval French is much broader than previously thought, and translater only becomes predominant in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In distinct ways, this vocabulary conceives of linguistic translation as a form of movement. In choosing how to describe the process of translation, medieval 14

Pignatelli (2011) underlines the vast body of texts in Latin and Ducos (2011) highlights Latin’s role as an intermediary language.

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French writers drew on centuries of theorisation, which frequently connected physical movement and linguistic translation. For example, Jerome’s Epistle 53 presents translation spreading knowledge more widely, and connects it with making physical journeys, something that medieval French hagiographical texts also evoke. Equally, grammar textbooks noted metaphor as a kind of translatio: as a form of substitution of one word for another, translation is a specific kind of metaphor. These links could take many forms: Jerome’s journeys for knowledge implied linguistic translation, and he urged his students to learn other languages so that they might come to their own readings, opening up new contact zones, for example with Hebrew, more widely. His idea of finding hidden knowledge connects well with the metaphor of trouver. Roughly 1,000 years later, Otto of Freising’s concept of translatio imperii et studii, created just as textual production was burgeoning in medieval vernaculars including French, places translation as the shaping force of the dominant historical narrative.

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