Summary
Biblical commentaries written in the Carolingian period were mainly aimed at explaining the entirety of a biblical book, from a more or less anthological perspective – which is extremely the case with Hrabanus Maurus, for example. However, Carolingian manuscripts preserve many much briefer exegetical elements: abridged commentaries, extracts inserted into florilegia and vademecum, and also ‘minitexts’.
The use of the latter is not purely opportunistic: they do not simply serve to optimise the use of parchment and are not mere pen trials. On the contrary, the examples taken from nine manuscripts show that these exegetical extracts were used for theological, homiletical or devotional purposes as much as for scholarly ones: they remind us of the unity of the ‘scriptural sciences’ which, over and above specific techniques and more specialised functions, intertwine in the literary practice of clerics and monks. They also show the argumentative power of the written word, and the need for its precision to convince and teach, in a context where scholarly reminiscence was commonplace: the written word surpassed in effectiveness, authority and precision the impressive capacities of the memory of Carolingian scholars.
Biography
Sumi Shimahara is a lecturer in Medieval History at Sorbonne Université (Paris). Her research focuses on the exegesis of the Bible in the Carolingian period as a source of cultural, social and political history. She recently co-edited, with Johannes Heil, From Theodulf to Rashi and Beyond: Texts, Techniques, and Transfer in Western European Exegesis (2022) and, with Marielle Lamy, Le pouvoir au féminin. Modèles et anti-modèles bibliques, du IIIe au XVIIe siècle (2023). She is preparing a critical edition of a Carolingian commentary on Jeremiah, which will be published with the critical edition of Haymon d'Auxerre's Adnotatio brevis in Danielem.
