An otherwise unknown figure, André le Moine (“Andrius li Moines”), claims in the prologue of his work to have found in Latin the text which has come to be known as the Penitance Adam, and to have translated it into French. Depicted in the opening miniature of Penitance in BnF fr. 95 (MS P), André, tonsured and robed in a grey habit, is seated at his desk in the act of translating his Latin model, open before him on a lectern, into French in the book in which he writes. Below stand Adam and Eve between three trees, clothed, Adam holding a spade and Eve a spindle, the tools of their work outside Paradise. Unlike the other texts in BnF fr. 95, La Penitance Adam did not enjoy widespread popularity. Only two copies are extant, both transmitting the text as part of a miscellany: in BnF fr. 95 it occupies the last 15 folios (ff. 380-394v) of a compendium containing the Estoire del saint Graal, Merlin, Suite vulgate, and the Roman des Sept Sages de Rome. The Penitance follows the Sept Sages directly without a break, filling out the text column on which theSept Sages ends. Thematically there are links to the Estoire del saint Graal and particularly to the story of the branch of the tree that Eve took with her from Paradise, planted, and from which the spindles on Solomon's enchanted ship were crafted in three colours, white, green, and red. Perhaps the trees between which stand Adam and Eve in the opening miniature are meant to allude back to these trees in Estoire, and the colours of their trunks in white and red are right, but the third tree is blue not green so the analogy, if one was intended, does not quite work. Moreover, the Penitance text leaves aside precise references back to Estoire and the spindles. The rest of the decoration in the Penitance section consists of champie initials, distributed, as Messerli observes, in a regular pattern of two to four per page, in a layout that owes more to decorative effect than to textual sense. BnF fr. 95 was produced for an unknown patron, perhaps a member of the house of Flanders, in the region of Thérouanne in the 1290s, and its scripta is Franco-Picard with some Francien traits. The other copy of the Penitance, discovered by Messerli in the Bodleian Library Oxford, MS Douce 79 (MS O), is now acephalous. It belongs to a different milieu altogether, one that is English, probably based in royal circles in London, in the 1320s. Its text is in Anglo-Norman and is part of a devotional miscellany to which Paris, BnF fr. 13342 also belongs, and it is illustrated with miniatures by the artist of the Queen Mary Psalter (BL, Royal 2 B.VII) and his assistant, the Ancient 6 Master, named after his work in the eponymous manuscript in Dr Williams’ Library, London. MS O’s (unillustrated) Penitance text is incomplete at beginning and end, and there are internal lacunae resulting from eye-skip from like to like. MS P also has eye-skip lacunae, different from those in MS O, showing that neither copy depends on the other.
Messerli's edition is based on MS P. She pays particular attention to André le Moine's use of sources: first the Vie d'Adam et Ève, citing particularly Synopsis Vitae Adae et Evae latine, graece, armeniace et iberice. [1] Messerli herself has written elsewhere on André le Moine and the two fifteenth-century versions of the story by Jean d'Outremeuse and Colard Mansion. A second source is the Legends of the Holy Cross (citing sources from Mussafia, 1869 to Falon, 2009); thirdly the Legend of Judas about the cock that came back to life; fourthly the Gospel of Nicodemus (references from Thilo, 1832, to Izydorczyk, 2012), followed by the “Letter of Pilate,” consisting of a series of passages from the Gospel of Matthew and the Acts of the Apostles, ending with (highly inaccurate) notes on the Roman emperors. Each paragraph ofthe Penitance edition is conveniently cross-referenced to its Latin source. The French text is highly defective--a problem that also characterizes the Estoire and Merlin texts in MS P. Messerli's commentary takes three forms: the notes to the text, which suggest appropriate emendations, presented at the foot of the page; secondly, under the heading Apparat, are listed variants from Douce 79; thirdly, and most interestingly, a section entitled Commentary where extensive notes on the content are presented. A Glossary, an Index of Proper Names, and an Index of Biblical Citations follow. There are some coquilles among the references, Kumbler for Kumler, Madane for Madan, A. Stone for A. Stones. Overall, however, this is a highly serviceable edition and study which broadens our knowledge of the reception of Penitance among the aristocracy on both sides of the Channel in the years on either side of 1300.
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Note:
1. Synopsis Vitae Adae et Evae latine, graece, armeniace et iberice, eds. J.-P. Pettorelli et al., Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum, 18 and 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012).