Anglo-Norman Bible’s Books of Samuel
A Critical Edition (BL Royal 1 C III)
By (author) Brent A. Pitts By (author) Maureen Boulton
Tales of treachery and friendship, adultery and murder, and rape and revenge, as well as prophecy, repentance, forgiveness and thanksgiving – such is the stuff of the Anglo-Norman Bible’s Books of Samuel.
Tales of treachery and friendship, adultery and murder, rape and revenge, as well as prophecy, repentance, forgiveness and thanksgiving – such is the stuff of the Anglo-Norman Bible’s Books of Samuel. They recount the life of the last of Israel’s judges but include some of the world’s best-known characters – Saul, David and Jonathan, Goliath, Bathsheba, and Absalom. The first book traces the life of Samuel, and the initial success of King Saul, chosen to satisfy the Israelites’ demand for a king. After Saul loses God’s favour, David enters his court to console him, but Saul envies David’s success. When Saul dies in battle, David succeeds him. In book two, David consolidates control over his kingdom, but his adultery with Bathsheba precipitates the reverses of the final chapters. Historically, the Books of Samuel trace the creation of Israel’s monarchy and explain its ultimate failure. Religiously, they relate Israel’s continuing relationship with God and the establishment of Jerusalem as the religious and political capital of the new kingdom. Two mid-fourteenth-century manuscripts preserve the text of the Anglo-Norman Bible’s Samuel. The base manuscript (L), British Library Royal 1 C III, notable for its inclusion of multi-lingual glosses, was acquired by Henry VIII from the Benedictine Abbey of Reading in 1530. The lavishly illustrated Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, MS francais 1 (P), produced in England for the baronial de Welles family, later belonged to King Louis XII of France. Brent A. Pitts has prepared the critical edition and Maureen Boulton’s introduction and notes elucidate the text and its interpretation by medieval commentators.
- By (author) Brent A. Pitts
- By (author) Maureen Boulton
Other Titles in this Series
Un inquisiteur non sanguinaire
les vies inedites de saint Pierre Martyr en francais medieval
Volume 21
The Anglo-Norman Bible’s Books of Kings, a Critical Edition
(BL Royal 1 C III, fols 234r-274v)
Volume 37
Le Brut moyen-anglais en prose (version commune des origines a 1333)
Traduction francaise de Marie-Francoise Alamichel
Volume 16
The Old English Life of Saint Pantaleon
Old English text with introduction, translation and Latin version
Volume 33
A Late Fifteenth-Century Commonplace Book
Edited from Cambridge University Library MS Gg.6.16
Volume 23
Similar Books
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
Shame in the Worlds of the Hebrew Bible and Akkadian Texts
A Linguistic Study and Its Implications
Volume 33
The Body
Lived, Cultured, Adorned: Essays on Dress and the Body in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Nili S. Fox
The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life
A Contextual Reading of Philo of Alexandria's De Vita Contemplativa
Tradition, Interpretation, and Change
Developments in the Liturgy of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenaz
