Clavis Monumentorum Litterarum
(Regnum Bohemiae) 3, Fontes 2.
KLP - Koniasch Latin Press, Prague 1997
XXVII + 90 pp., ISBN 80-85917-21-1
Contents:
Preface...VII-XXVII
Paulerinus (Pavel Zidek), Liber viginti arcium (ff. 185ra-190rb)...1-57
Latin-Czech index of headings...59-62
Czech-Latin index of headings...63-65
Latin-Czech index of glosses...66-75
Czech-Latin index of glosses...76-85
Illustrations...86-90
The manuscript of the extensive Latin encyclopaedia of Pavel Zidek (also known as Paulus, Paulus de Praga, Paulerinus, Paulirinus, c. 1413-1471), "Liber viginti arcium" ("The Book of Twenty Arts"), was written in the sixties of the fifteenth century and is located in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow (Poland) under the signature BJ 257.
The first complete edition of the folios 185ra-190rb, which comprise a complete whole, is presented here: the folios provide a Latin exposition of artisans. Paulerinus describes altogether 223 different occupations in independent sections. (The arrangement of this part of Paulerinus' encyclopaedia is set out in the part "mechanice artes", where there are enumerated "septem sciencie manuales: coquinaria, lanificium, agricultura, mercatura, milicia, fabrilis, cirurgia".) Old Czech glosses (both in the margins, and between the lines) and translations of the explicated Latin terms are very important and useful from the point of view of Latin and Old Czech lexicography and lexicology.
If one compares the lexical richness of Paulerinus' text with the material in the "Latinitatis medii aevi lexicon Bohemorum" ("Dictionary of medieval Latin in Czech countries", Prague, 1977- ), of particular interest is the fact that Paulerinus' text includes both a number of hapax legomena and many expressions familiar only because they occur in the Claret dictionaries "Bohemarius" (before 1360) and "Glossarium" (about 1365). Paulerinus thus appears as decidedly representative of the Claret tradition.
The bilingual passages of Paulerinus' encyclopaedia can serve as a truly rich source both for medieval Latin and Old Czech terminology. The similarity of his encyclopaedia to a lexicographical study offers the possibility of seeing in Paulerinus' work a subject of lexicographical and lexicological research and consequently, of course, a subject of the search for wider meanings, continuities and contexts, to which the encyclopaedia belongs as a part of the contemporary literary production.
The work was published with the support of the grant E9-062-601 (Grant Agency of ASCR).